by Glenda Larke
The quiet following the rain of debris was unnatural. Then, a minute or two later, black ash – all that remained of what had been burnt – began to drift down out of the sky in silent witness to the cataclysm.
'That was spectacular,' Brand remarked dryly. 'Is that just the opening act, or is there more to follow?'
I muffled a laugh. 'That's all for tonight.' The colour in my cabochon had dimmed, and fatigue was dragging at the corners of my mind.
Someone was running over the grass towards us. Quickly I sheathed and hid my sword and pulled my leather glove on over my left hand. It was Favonius. He stopped a little distance away, taking in my relaxed posture and the presence of Brand. 'Are you all right, Legata?' he asked stiffly. 'I saw it pass this way-'
'It didn't touch me. That was your warning, Favonius. You must turn back.'
'That – that thing came from them? From Kardis and their numina?'
I nodded.
He looked around uneasily, frowning. 'Where are they?'
'Not here. Miles away probably. But they see you. This was just the beginning. Next time it will be more than just a warning – there will be deaths.'
'There already have been,' he said savagely. 'One of the legionnaires jumped into the river in a panic. He couldn't swim. At least one person was hit by falling debris and killed, maybe more. And I saw a man trampled by a gorclak; I don't know whether he died. And there are tens injured!' He was still looking at me, his eyes flaring with suspicion. 'How do you know where these Kardis are and what they will do? And how in Vortex did you find us anyway?'
'They sent me. To warn you. They don't want unnecessary deaths.'
'They sent you? The Kardis? You, a Legata Compeer? To take a message like some slave? Vortex, Ligea, you've changed since I knew you in Tyr! There was a time when you would have sent them to a lifetime in the Cages and joked about it, not carried their messages.'
'This is not Tyrans, Fayo. This is Kardiastan. I have
no power over these people – they control numina with sorcerous power.'
Fear battled disbelief. 'They have ensorcelled you?'
'No, no. I came of my own free will. To warn you. Tyrans has no way of defeating the people of the Mirage. If you try, you will all die. A wise man shoulders his pack and takes his leave when he meets his match and here the Stalwarts have met something they cannot conquer. Persuade the Legate to turn back, Favo.'
He made a gesture of helplessness. 'Surely you can see how it is? We won't be turning back. We cant. Not when we have come so far and have so little to show for it. We haven't even met the enemy in battle, how can we justify a retreat? We have our pride!'
'You have just met the enemy. And pride won't save you. It will kill you.'
'Yes,' he said bleakly. 'Perhaps. So be it.' He glanced at Brand and then back again. 'And perhaps it won't worry you all that much, either.' He turned towards the camp, shouting orders as he went.
I entered the tent.
'Well, it doesn't seem as though your whirlwind accomplished much, does it?' Brand asked, following me. 'Except the death of a couple of legionnaires.'
I looked across at him, wondering what he was thinking. 'I find that the easier it is to kill, the more reluctant I am to do so, and the harder it is to live with when I have done it.' I pulled off my glove and looked down at my left palm. 'Life was a lot easier when I was a compeer and had no scruples.' I raised my eyes to his. 'Two dead, Brand, just like that. Maybe more. But they had orders to kill babies…'
He nodded, understanding. As I staggered with fatigue and weakness, he came to me wordlessly and
held me in his arms. I took comfort from his closeness and stood within the circle of his love, drawing courage from his friendship. Then, sensing that this time my proximity was not a torment to him, I drew back a little, in wonder. 'I thought – I thought you were the only one who hadn't changed.'
"What do you mean?'
I stepped away from him and went to sit down on my pallet, my arms resting on propped knees. 'Everyone has altered so much. Including myself. I don't think like a Brotherhood Compeer, any more -'
'Goddess be thanked!'
'Perhaps. But I was happier when a compeer was all I was. I was arrogant, cruel even, but at least I was never as uncertain and muddled and miserable as I am now.' I dropped my head down onto my arms. 'And I'm not the only one. Look at Aemid. She's changed. She's free, among her own people in her own land, yet she's racked with guilt. She'll feel even worse once she realises that I haven't betrayed Kardiastan, but Tyrans. And what about Favonius? He wanted to marry me once, and now he looks at me and I can see him thinking, "She's a Kardi, a barbarian. How could I ever have loved her?" He despises me, Brand. I felt his emotions, and I didn't know him! Faced with something he cannot fight, he has reverted to a primitive sort of hate for anyone or anything different from him.' I shuddered. 'Everyone I have touched has changed. Almost as though I contaminate. Do you remember how much Temellin used to laugh? And Garis; he was always so cheerful and resilient – so mischievous! Was that the same youth who left us to go to Temellin? Even Pinar changed. She might always have been jealous, but she wasn't mad at the beginning.' f
¦ He knelt beside me, and touched my hair gently. 'I'm not unhappy. Or despising. Or mad, either.'
'No, but you have changed nonetheless. Your passion for me has dulled. Do – do you fear me, Brand?'
He laughed, an unforced chuckle of amusement. 'No. No, I could never fear you. Not even when I was a slave, and you were that arrogant bitch, hanging on Gayed's every word. I always knew what was inside you, Ligea. I always knew there was more compassion there than cruelty or indifference. And now that compassion rather than arrogance rules you, I think I love you even more than I did then.' n: For a moment I was silent, half hearing what he had not said. 'But?' I asked finally.
He chuckled again, wryly this time. 'There's always a "but", isn't there? At least where you and I are concerned.' He gave a gesture of surrender. 'All those years of being your slave, I never once felt I was not your equal, Ligea. I knew we were equals. I knew I was anyone's equal, for all that I wore a slave collar. I thought one day it would be possible you'd come to love me as I loved you. I thought it could happen, even when you talked of mere friendship. Until these last few weeks. Then I began to realise I wasn't your equal. That I never will be. That you are not for me.' He took up my left hand. The cabochon, quiescent, was just a rounded gem in my palm. He touched it with a finger. 'Because of this. I don't fear you, Ligea, but part of me is in awe of you.'
He raised his eyes to my face. T should be devastated – all those years of loving you wasted because you are unobtainable after all.' ¦. ‹
'But?'
'But I find I'm just resigned. That desperate passion: it is part of my past. I shall always love you,
but not quite the same way. Not any more. You are Magor and you are not for me. I can go forward now. You suggested once I go to Altan, that I help free it from Tyrans, do you remember? I thought the idea ridiculous. Now I'm not so sure. I have become a soldier and find I have some talent for the life. I have found I can lead men, and do it well. So, I shall go back to Altan and try my luck.'
I grinned at him, my depression lifting. 'I'm glad. So very glad. Although I shall miss you more than I can possibly say.'
He returned the grin, but our mutual mood of complacent self-congratulation was short-lived. We had been sitting side by side on the pallet but a sudden heave underneath us sent us both sprawling.
'What the -?' Brand began, but words failed him as he struggled up. We were in the middle of a softly padded pallet the size of a small room. The tent was gone. In its place was a large hall containing a fireplace, complete with a fire, and a table cluttered with objects as diverse as a loaf of bread and a weathervane. Beyond the table, a startled bird ruffled its black feathers and tried to maintain its perch on a pump handle. There was no pump to go with it.
I began to laugh.
'Vortex take it, woman,' Brand growled. 'It's not funny – this damn land will be the death of me! One day my heart will simply not survive the arrival of one of these mirages!'
I continued to giggle helplessly.
'You'd better give some thought to what your Stalwart friends are going to think about this,' he said sourly.
I stifled my laughter. T imagine they will get a shock. Never mind, I shall- go outside and ward the
place; then they won't be able to disturb us.' I picked up my sword and, still chuckling, looked around for a door. Fortunately, there was one.
Favonius arrived before I had finished, and other legionnaires began to gather as well, just to stare at the building, until he sent them on their way with shouted orders. When they had gone, he waved an agitated hand at the structure behind me. 'What is this? Where did it come from? Why can't we enter?'
'This world doesn't work the same way as Tyrans, Favo.'
'Did you do this?'
I stared at him in unfeigned surprise. 'Come now, Favo, when have I ever been able to conjure a building out of nothing?' What had prompted him to say that? I stirred uneasily, and remembered their orders. Kill all women with gemstones in the middle of their hands. That had come from Bator Korbus and Rathrox, of course, with their memories of the early invasions and the Magoroth victories.
I put my left hand behind me and changed the subject. 'Tell me, did you inform the Legate of what I said earlier tonight?'
T did. We are not retreating.'
'That's a mistake. You had better prepare yourself for more trouble.'
'Damn it, Ligea, just whose side are you on here? Give us some help! What can we do to combat this kind of sorcery?'
'I came here to offer you the only kind of help I can give you: good advice. This is a war you can't win. Turn back.'
'There must be something we can do to – to defend ourselves. Counter-spells perhaps…' He looked as if he couldn't quite believe what he was saying.
'There is nothing.'
'I don't understand you. You're acting as if your loyalties are to Kardiastan, not Tyrans. Tell us, at least, how to cross the Shiver Barrens. Then – win or lose – we won't have to cross those Vortex-scoured Alps again.'
'Favo, I can't tell you that.' It would have opened up the Mirage to attack from Tyranian troops in Kardiastan.
'Why not? You must have done it, or you wouldn't be here.'
When I didn't reply, he shouted at me. 'What's happened to you? You're behaving like a traitor, Ligea Gayed! A traitor to your country, to the memory of your father! You help us, or there'll be a report about you on die Magister Officii's desk the minute I'm in a position to have it there.'
For a moment we stood staring at each other, both aware there had been another fundamental change in our relationship, a change that had gone too far to ever be reversed.
And he wasn't finished yet, either. 'I should have known not to get involved with a Kardi barbarian,' he said and his viciousness went straight to my inner core of uncertainties. 'You're shit, Ligea, and you're the colour of shit. You always did have the vulgarity of an ill-bred barbarian. What highborn woman of Tyr consorts with the Brotherhood? What real Domina makes friends of her slaves? You never did have any class! And you geld a man. I only ever took up with you because I thought it would do my career good to be seen with a general's daughter but, by Ocrastes' balls, it's been a hard grind to bed such an ugly, castrating whore.' _,
Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
I felt his hate, I experienced it. I dragged in breath as hurt ripped through my chest.
No, Favonius, no. Don't end it like this. We were friends…
He'd loved me once, as much as he was capable of loving. He said so often enough, and my ears knew the truth when it was spoken. Even the words he'd just used were no more than a skimming of surface validity obscured by a twist of bitter lies. Why, then, did it hurt me so much? My insides cramped.
The colour of shit. Ugly.
When I re-entered the building a few minutes later, it was to find Brand leaning elegantly against the mantelpiece to one side of the fireplace, sipping a glass of wine. 'Well,' he said, 'at least they got something right this time. This is very good wine.' He held out a glass to me. 'Bet it tastes better than that pink stuff you were drinking earlier on. Rather nice glassware, too. Beautifully cut.'
I came across to take it. 'Mmm. Just what I need. A drink, a warm fire, a soft bed -' I raised my glass in a toast, but then didn't drink. I was suddenly stilled, my own words a revelation to me. Moments passed with neither of us speaking.
'I was never meant to be celibate,' I said finally.
'Why now?' The words blurted out of him; he was caught by surprise.
'Because now we are friends. Because now you will be able to walk away afterwards.' Because Temellin's gone from my life and I need comfort. Because I need reassurance that I am not an ugly, castrating whore…
He nodded thoughtfully. 'In some things, my Magor friend, you were wiser than I. You were right -
there was a time when this would have been a disaster.' He reached out, took my wine and put the two glasses down on the table. 'But not now.' He took me into his arms and bent his head towards my lips. 'Now,' he murmured, 'this is exactly right.'
When I looked out of the door the next morning, it was to see the legionnaires trying to restore what was left of the camp to some kind of order, and herding stray gorclaks back to the tether lines. They were carefully avoiding passing near – or even looking at – a jet of water shooting up out of the grass of the plains just behind the camp. The water fell to the ground in rainbowed droplets, each a musical note singing like the plucked strings of a harp. A flock of purple ducks preened nearby, ruffling their feathers and their ribbons in obvious enjoyment of the shower.
Inside, Brand was poking around among the things on the table, looking for something to eat. The black bird had abandoned its perch on the pump handle and was now on the mantelpiece, flat on its back with its feet up in the air. Its bright red eyes regarded Brand's investigations with interest.
I pushed away my guilt and smiled at Brand fondly. I had wondered if his lovemaking would disappoint me. I had wondered, now I knew what the touch of a lover's cabochon could achieve, if I were doomed to dissatisfaction without it, but I hadn't
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
been disappointed. The lovemaking might have lacked the physical intensity of what I had found with Temellin, it might have lacked the sheen that comes with the consummation of a different kind of love, but it had been satisfying nonetheless. Especially satisfying, after I'd seen how happy it had made Brand. That had surprised me; I had not realised giving someone else so much delight could have made me so happy.
When I thought about Favonius, my emotions were darker. He'd tainted something inside me that had once been good. He'd turned a pleasant past into a bitter memory, and the sadness clung in my thoughts like rot. And he'd severed more than he'd known. He'd cut the last strand of my ties to the belief that I was truly a citizen of Tyrans. Oh, I still had the paper somewhere, but if someone like Favonius could call me a shit-skinned barbarian and mean it, then what was such citizenship worth?, I wasn't a Tyranian about to go home. I was a Kardi going to a foreign land with murder in my heart.
Brand finished his investigation of the table with a sigh. 'Pickled fish,' he said, 'stale bread and some kind of sour – very sour – fruit. I was hoping for something of a similar standard to the wine.' He held out what looked to be an orange plum to the bird. Without getting up, the bird took it in one foot and proceeded to shred it and swallow the pieces, sour or not, with evident enjoyment.
'The Mirage Makers getting it wrong again,' I said with a shrug of incomprehension. T ate our own food.' I looked back over my shoulder, out of the open door to where the legionnaires struggled to repair the camp. 'They won't leave Kardiastan. I'll have to offer some more inducements, I'm afraid.' ^
Brand looked up quickly.
'What are you planning this time?' His ambivalent tone was enough to tell me he found any talk of my power both fascinating and repellent. It interested him, but he did not like it. 'You're still drained. You'll exhaust yourself.'
I shrugged. 'Can't be helped. I won't let them ride on into the Mirage, Brand. I can't. Only the Magoroth have the kind of power that could take on the Stalwarts, and the only Magoroth left in the Maze is Gretha, and she must be within a baby's kick of birthing her eleventh child. But it's more than that, too; if the legionnaires ride on into the Mirage, in the end they will have to face Temellin and the Magor somewhere. And the Magor would defeat them. Only by sending the Stalwarts back across the Alps can I save them.' I gave a half-laugh. 'Sometimes I don't know what I want, Brand. With one hand I would tumble the Exaltarchy if I could, even while I stretch out the other hand to help the Exaltarch's finest legionnaires.'
'I'm worried about you; you are still so weak.'
'I'll wait until tonight. I might feel stronger by then. I thought of trying to destroy as many of their weapons as I can. After all, what damage can an army do if it has nothing to fight with?' I gave him a wan, joyless smile and went to lie down. At least, I thought, it was days since we'd seen any sign of the Ravage. One less thing to worry about. Or was it? Perhaps it was watching, biding its time. Mostly, though, I was just too tired to spare it a thought.
The legionnaires spent their time mending tents and replenishing supplies. The purple ducks found their way into cooking pots, minus decorative ribbons, and so did a great many rabbit-like creatures scuttling around in the grass. Only when the camp had settled
