by Glenda Larke
'Service? To whom?' I asked.
To the Magor. To Kardiastan. To those others of this land, the non-Magor. Use it for personal gain, pursue corrupt goals, and you break the Covenant made by your forebears with those they called the Mirage Makers. Are you willing to accept this gift?
My hand tightened on the hilt. It was part of me… I could no more have refused it than I could have denied my hunger for Temellin. Yes, I whispered in my mind. Yes, I accept. The response was emotional, irrational even. It was not possible to serve Tyr and the Brotherhood at the same time as the Magor. Yet I accepted the sword and ignored the contradiction.
Inside my head, I sang my thanks for the gift and knew I was heard. I closed my eyes, strangely lulled, and felt myself drifting, bodiless.
And then came a vision. It was a message woven in music, yet it was not as sounds, but as images, that I knew it.
It was night-time and there was a Mirager. It was not Temellin, or any particular Mirager, but rather the essence of a Mirager, of all ruling Miragers and Miragerins that had ever been or ever would be, male or female. He knelt on a flagstone floor with his head. bowed, and his hands held his Magor sword. I knew he had fasted. I knew he was praying, but not to any deity. He was not praying to anything; rather, he was praying for a newborn child, praying for its wisdom and its service. He was dedicating a baby to the Magor.
He chanted words that themselves had no meaning – and yet which contained a wealth of meaning. Gradually the sword he held began to glow with a gold light. He gave no sign he'd noticed, but held it lying across his hands with the hollow in the hilt uppermost. Then, after a time that seemed endless, the hollow was no longer empty, but was filled with a gem, a cabochon. Although I had no memory of ever having seen one, I knew it for what it was.
It was shaped like half a pigeon's egg, sliced lengthways.
It was rounded, without faceting. I strained to see its colour, but sometimes it looked gold, sometimes green, sometimes red. It was the essence of all cabochons that had ever been…
Then the night ended and the Mirager rose to his feet, still carrying the sword. He went into another room where the baby slept in his mother's arms and the father stood watching his wife and child with tenderness. The mother held out the child and the Mirager knelt before her and laid the hilt of the sword, cabochon down, onto the tiny left hand. There was a flash of light, a baby's cry, and pain, the Mirager's pain as the cabochon was ripped from his sword and became part of the child for all his life. Yet when the Mirager stood his face was calm and proud.
Knowledge came to me as I watched. Just as the swords were gifts from the Mirage Makers to the Magor, so were the cabochons, only they were bestowed through the medium of a Magor sword. The Magor had no say in the gem colour.
I looked down at my own left hand. Somewhere, some time, I had lain in my mother's arms and a Magor – a Mirager? Temellin's uncle Solad? – had pressed the hilt of a Magor sword to my palm…
The vision was gone.
There was another in its place, but less defined, more blurred, as though it was something that had never happened, may never happen. I saw a figure – a Kardi who could have been man or woman – holding a soft, rounded shape cupped in his or her hands, a shape that throbbed with a regular beat. I stared at it, puzzled, and was given the knowledge to understand what it was. A woman's womb with a living embryo, a womb and its contents ripped from its mother… Appalled, I drew back, putting a protective hand to my
own abdomen as if I were denying to be identified with the woman who would supply that disembodied organ and its doomed child. I strained to see the person's face, but it was featureless. Whoever it was, he or she appeared to be offering the unborn child to the indistinct shapes inside the dancing sands, offering it to the Mirage Makers. And the Mirage Makers were accepting it, drawing it into the sands so it merged with them, so it became one with those shadowy beings who definitely weren't human. I thought, and knew it a truth: The Mirage Makers want an unborn child. And to supply it, a woman was going to have to die… Then, in shock: Why is such a vision being shown to me?
But I had no time to dwell on the horror, on the terror of that moment, or on the additional knowledge that was then slotted into my mind. Before I could assimilate all I now knew, there was another vision.
Two hands. Reaching out to one another. One was indubitably mine, the other was the personification of something that was not a person: the Mirage Makers. Then the vision split. In the first image the hands clasped and melted into one another in a symbol of unity. In the second, my hand took up my Magor sword and split the hand held out to me so its blood drained onto the sand below to become a black foulness that was death without redemption.
Then the vision was gone and I was standing under the dancing sands once more, the singing filling my ears, my eyes, my body. It was telling me the Mirage Makers knew who I was, knew I had the power to destroy both them and the Magor, that they had indeed given me that power with the bestowal of my sword, but that they'd had no choice. They were not
free to make decisions, they could merely accede to the immutable rules laid down in antiquity, when Magor and Mirage Makers had settled their differences and made their pacts.
The singing took on the sound of tragedy, of grief, of a plea asking me to respect my birth-gift. It was a song filled with such a depth of sorrow, I felt every dancing sand grain was a teardrop to be shed at the moment of my betrayal. I wept then, wept for what I was: Kardi Magor-born, but bred to know there was a better way of life, a great civilisation offering so much more…
, I turned and stumbled away, instinctively groping back to the safety of the Rake.
When I stood again in the desiccating sunlight with the hard red rock beneath my feet, I looked back at the dancing sands and knew they had become once again deadly for me. The Mirage Makers were gone from the Shiver Barrens. The song was there, still beautiful, but the melody now belonged only to the sands. And yet, I still thought that if only I could listen in the right way, I would understand. That it was important to understand.
It was hard to imagine I'd stood beneath the Shiver Barrens in the heat of the day and survived, yet I held the Magor sword in my hand as proof, its hilt fitted so comfortably into my palm… Right then, though, my thoughts were not of the sword. Nor did I think of the gift of an embryo, the bestowing of cabochons – I could think about all that later. It was something else that had me standing out there in the sun, unable to move in my shock.
There was one piece of information I had unwittingly gleaned along the way that tore me apart. No. It couldn't be true…
'LigeaF
I looked up. Brand was looking down on me from the crest of the Rake. Don't think about it.
'What the world are you doing out in the sun?' He came down to me and looked at the sword in my hand with surprise. 'Temellin's?'
I shook my head. 'No. Mine.' Concentrate.
'Where in Vortex did you get it?'
'I think – from the place that all the Magor obtain their swords. Brand, there's no way I can explain.' I refused to meet his eyes as I added, 'And please – don't mention this to the others, either; I don't want them to know I have a Magor sword. Not yet, anyhow.' I looked down at the weapon. I wanted to know what it meant; I wanted to know what this Covenant was… and I wanted to know my own mind. Only then would I know whether I should tell the Magor that these Mirager Makers had bestowed a sword on me.
Brand looked irritated. 'You expect me to take much on trust, Ligea. One of these days you will push me too far.'
I shrugged. 'You are free. You have only to tell me and I will ask nothing of you.'
'Ligea, Ligea, what are you doing?' The depth of his grief sliced into me, focusing my attention. He had deliberately bared himself. T feel I don't know you any more,' he said. 'This passion you have for Temellin, it's insane. Do you think you can bed a man one day and betray him the next? Not even you can do that and stay yourself.'
I ga
ve a bitter laugh. I wanted to say, but I have to do just that, Brand. I have to betray either Temellin or Favonius. And I have known and bedded Favonius for years. It is Temellin who is the stranger, the foreigner with foreign ways. Temellin is just a lust in my loins.
Such lust won't last, it mustn't last – if it did, it would drive me insane because I can't have him forever…
Instead, I said, searching for calm, for reason, 'What passion? It's just lust, Brand. No different to the needs I slake with Favonius. Or the others, over the years.' Dear Goddess, what about that other thing they told you?
He gave a disbelieving snort and said, still angry, still grieving, 'I don't understand you. These people – those who call themselves Magor, I mean – for all their strange customs, they are an improvement on those you served in Tyr. I don't know why, because they have terrible power. I'm not going to forget in a hurry what Garis did to me that first day! But somehow they are not corrupt, the way those of Tyrans are. And if they win here, they won't be basing the nation they build on slavery as Tyrans does. Tyrans is sick, Ligea. Don't you know that yet? And what loyalty do you owe to such as Rathrox anyway?' He gave another snort of disgust. 'Vortex take it, how could someone who can see through a lie as easily as you can, let themselves be fooled the way you were? Think, Ligea. Think. Think about Gayed, about your childhood. Think about who it was who loved you. There's no more time for self-deception, not now. Now is the time for decisions, no matter how difficult they are to make.'
'And what's your decision to be?' I asked levelly. 'Will you leave me, to stay with these people, when I return to Madrinya?' I had deliberately emphasised the 'when'.
He winced, an expression of both pain and
exasperation. 'Why are you so blind to the things and
people that touch you closest, Ligea, when you see
other, more distant things and people so clearly? I love
' ¦…• – '"¦ -¦¦¦•'¦i "…*» -..^ ¦:.^.:‹s
you. I love you so much that I can stand here and watch your eyes hunger for another man, and listen to your cries of joy in his arms, and still take the pain rather than leave you. I make myself less than a man for you. I serve you, not Tyrans. I am so besotted, so weak, that I put you before what I know is right.'
His words cut at me, slashed me with their tragedy. Tears blurred my image of him, but were not shed. I reached out to touch his arm. 'Brand – oh Goddessdamn, Brand, this is not right. You will come to hate me. When we reach our destination, you must leave. For your own good. How can I ask any loyalty of you when I give so little; no, when I give you nothing, in return?'
His lips twisted bitterly. 'That would be my ultimate punishment. I would rather live in pain than in loss.'
He turned away, leaving me to return to my cave. I made a hole in my sleeping pallet and thrust the sword inside. I was responsible for the packing of my own things and stowing them on the padk shleth, so I had no fear anyone would find it. Then I crept back into Temellin's arms, trying not to think because thinking was painful. Because I didn't want to think about that other thing I knew.
An hour later, I knew the pain had to be faced because I couldn't sleep. Because I couldn't push away the sound of Brand's voice. Think, Ligea. Think about who it was who loved you?
Memories… the journey inside oneself can be the loneliest journey of all…
/ loved the terrace of the Gayed villa; it had the best views in all of Tyr. From there I could see the Meletian Temple on a neighbouring hill, with the Desert-Season Theatre tiered beneath it; from there I could see the river and the life of the docks and the sea beyond; from there
I could watch for visitors coming up to our house. I could be the first to know Pater was on his way home.
I loved the terrace best of all in the desertrseason when it was' heady with the smell of flowers and the warmth of the sun – as it was today, my sixteenth anniversary day.
The mellowbirds droned their somnolent call in the garden, mocking my impatience. I was waiting for Pater to come back from the city; I was waiting for his news concerning my future, and I wanted to thank him for his anniversary gift. I'd even put on my best wrap, the one with garnets sewn along the hem, just to please him, although I didn't like it much. It was too stiff and uncomfortable. Besides, it stopped me from doing what I most wanted to do right then: ride the big roan stallion stalking its proud way along the garden path just below the terrace.
I had to be content to lean against the balustrade and gaze instead. The roan coat shone in the sunlight, the muscles of his shoulders and neck and legs spoke to me of power and speed. I gave a slight shiver of excitement.
'Ah, Goddess, Brand,' I said. 'Isn't he magnificent? Can you believe he's really mine? Isn't Pater wonderful to have bought him for me?'
Brand, who was walking the horse, halted and looked up, squinting against the light. 'The General doubtless had excellent reasons for buying you such an unsuitable mount,' he said.
I pouted, trying to decide exactly what he was telling me. Brand often said things that never meant quite what I thought they did at first; it was an annoying habit of his. T hope you are not criticising Pater,' I said severely and then, not wanting anything to spoil my day, turned my attention back to the horse. 'Oh mount him, for • ¦..: •:_•¦•."'..L.-i:-. -.. v
Goddess' sake, Brand, although I shall be jealous – I just have to see how he moves'
Brand smiled, an indulgent, teasing smile of the kind that usually infuriated me into throwing something at him, but today I refused to be even mildly irritated. He swung himself up onto the animal's back, apparently unconcerned by the lack of a saddle. His strong square hands gathered up the reins and held the roan in tight as it stamped a front foot in annoyance and tried to swing its head free. It occurred to me Brand looked almost as magnificent as the horse, but I pushed that thought away. That was not the kind of thing one should think about a slave.
He moved the roan from a walk to a trot to a canter, swinging it around through the garden in a wide figure of eight and then jumping it across the fishpond as a finale.
'Well, what do you think?' I asked as he reined in beneath the terrace. 'I think he's perfect.'
He patted the roan's neck and looked up at me. 'He's edgy. You'll need wrists of steel for this one, Miss Ligea. I don't think you should ride him until he's more schooled.'
'Oh, nonsense! My wrists are strong – don't I ride nearly every day? I shall school him myself
He slid down to the grass, frowning slightly. 'Well, I don't think you ought to ride him yet a while. He ought to be, um, cut. If he gets a whiff of a mare, you'd never hold him. He's no mount for a sixteen-year-old girl -'
A voice at my elbow said coldly, 'And I don't think you should say any more, thrall. It's not your place to pass judgement on the General's gift to his… his daughter.'
Salacia, my adoptive mother. One of the most beautiful women of Tyr, or so everyone told me. I knew she was fifty years old, but she looked fifteen years
younger, mostly because her skin was white, kept from the sun and unblemished by wrinkles. She never frowned, never laughed and rarely smiled; a face so devoid of animation had no chance to develop creases. I could never look at her without thinking of a statue, perfectly polished but incapable of showing emotion. Perhaps that was why I invariably felt gauche in her presence, all arms and legs and ungainly height. I knew the emotions were there of course; I might not have seen them on that alabaster mask of hers, but I could feel them. Cold indifference usually predominated, occasionally laced with a strangely impersonal spite. I wasn't enough of an object in her life even to arouse her dislike.
'Take that animal away, Brand' she ordered, 'and get on with your work.' She turned back to me, her malice momentarily satisfied.
As a child I had been constantly bewildered by her lack of interest, but I was older now. Sixteen… Old enough to understand and pity her. She'd wanted a child of her own; instead, I'd arrived in her household to mock
her desire. Fortunately for me, she had been far too proud ever to allow herself to care overmuch, and even her verbal jibes were muted. Mostly she ignored me; only occasionally did she rouse herself enough to deprive me of something I enjoyed, such as admiring the stallion. They were the petty tyrannies of a petty woman and I was used to them.
I almost smiled. I felt very adult. What Solatia did didn't matter; Pater made up for everything…
He wasn't alone when he came back; he'd brought the Magister Officii with him. I knew Rathrox Ligatan by sight and I knew why Pater had brought him to the house: to meet me. Pater had promised to ask the Magister if I could train to be a Brotherhood Compeer.
My heart beat uncomfortably fast. The Brotherhood did not usually accept women as trainees at the compeer level, or accept non-Tyranians at any level – and I'd been born a Kardi. Gayed had never made any secret of my origins.
I performed the welcoming ablutions myself, and tried to assess the Magister Officii's thoughts. His emotions were complex; a tangle of conflicting feelings that were hard to interpret. I could sense strong amusement, a touch of contempt – but mostly he was smug. I didn't think I liked him very much.
'Well,' Pater asked me, his dark blue eyes mocking gently, 'how do you like your horse?'
'He's wonderful! But Brand says he'll be too much for me.'
'For my Ligea? You must accept the challenge, child. There's no place for weaklings among the Brotherhood, is there, eh, Rathrox? Ocrastes' balls, what does an ignorant thrall know about horseflesh anyway? That beast is not too much for you!'
'Among the Brotherhood?' I stammered, seizing on the most significant thing he'd said. The roan suddenly seemed unimportant.
I turned to Rathrox Ligatan. 'Magister Officii? The – the Brotherhood will take me?'
He inclined his head, smiling faintly. 'I don't see that being Kardi-born will be a disadvantage, do you, Gayed?'
The two men exchanged glances. 'Why should it?' Pater asked. His voice was smooth, his features relaxed, yet I caught an undercurrent of something I didn't altogether like. I could have deliberately opened my mind to his emotions – I could have listened for a lie, but I didn't. I never did with him. It would have been disloyal, dishonourable even. He was my father and I
