The Heart of the mirage

I pulled a face. 'Almost, almost. Brand, make our camp on the other side of the gorclak lines, will you? Away from everyone else. Sorry I can't help you, but it wouldn't look right.'

He almost laughed. 'Ah, you've come a long way, haven't you, my love?'

I let him enjoy his mockery.

He added amiably, 'But don't worry about me; you go and snuggle up to Favonius. Been a while since you've had a man, hasn't it?'

I gritted my teeth. 'May you disappear into the Vortex, Brand.' I turned away to greet Favonius, who had just come out of the tent.

The Tribune grasped my hands and raised them to his lips. 'Goddess, Ligea, the sight of you is drink to a thirsting man! You've lost weight!' He touched my face with roughened fingers. 'You've been through a lot. By all that's holy, how did you get here?'

'Ah, it's a boring story. I'm sure you have much more to tell. But everything I said in there was true. Favo, you must persuade the Legate to turn back. If you proceed the Stalwarts will suffer a defeat here so devastating, there will be no Stalwarts any more.'

'Goddessdamn, Ligea, can't you think of anything else? Come to my tent and I'll take your mind off sorcery and put it on something much more interesting.'

I shook my head. 'No, Favonius; not any more. That's over.'

He was incredulous. 'Over? What do you mean, over? You ride across the Shiver Barrens, cross this place called the Mirage, all to warn me of the danger, and you say it's over?'

I nodded, wondering why his arrogant certainty that I had done all this for him surprised me. I had always known his faults, as well as his strengths, after all. 'I'm sorry. But that's the way it is.'

He gazed at me, face blank. Then he looked after Brand in disbelief. The emotion that followed the realisation was unpleasant. 'It's him, isn't it? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw he wasn't wearing his slave collar. You've taken up with your own Altani slave! Goddessdamn, Ligea, to think I never used to believe those rumours about you. Where's your pride? You're a citizen of Tyrans, a Legata! He's an Altani. barbarian – and a slave. Or he was last time I saw him.'

'Don't be tiresome, Favonius,' I said, my voice tight with warning. 'Brand is a friend, a slave no longer.

Please bear that in mind next time you refer to him. He is not – and never has been – my lover. However, you are right about one thing: there is someone else. Who it is doesn't matter. I'm sorry'

The arm he had put around my shoulders had long since slipped away. Rather than see the hurt in his eyes, I turned and walked after Brand.

That night I dined with Favonius and the other tribunes. I told them stories, mostly completely untrue, of Kardi magic powers. I exaggerated and coloured and lied; anything to have them turn back. But they had been through something close to the Vortex of Death on the mountains. They had struggled and survived; faced with a fight against mere Kardis, they felt invincible. The thought of a return across the Alps, where the enemy – nature, an avalanche, the weather – was more obvious, brought them far more dread than any prospect of meeting a Kardi army.

'We are going to wipe those bastards off the face of the earth!' one of the tribunes boasted. 'Every man and boy in the Mirage, right down to those in swaddling clothes.'

'Are those your orders?' I asked. 'Children as well?'

'That's right! If they have anything dangling between their legs, they're dead meat. Women too, if they have gemstones in their palms. Dunno what that means, m'self, but those are the orders. Direct from the Exaltarch, we heard.' He grinned at me, ignoring a furious stare from Favonius. 'You'd better hang onto Favo here, Domina, cos you're going to find it hard to meet another male in the whole of the Mirage in a month or so!'

The latter part of the evening was unbearable. The men teased both me and Favonius, making me the butt

of increasingly coarse jokes, envying him his luck, wondering aloud just what it was about Favonius that had brought his woman across a hostile land to his arms. I tried to freeze them into politeness, in vain. Here, in this remote part of the Exaltarchy, to these men who had endured so much, being the daughter of a general or a compeer of the feared Brotherhood meant nothing. I read their reckless contempt for me and fumed. And I grieved; it was clear my friendship with Favonius was not going to survive the end of our physical relationship. There had been a time when he would not have tolerated my being subjected to such jokes, but I had hurt his pride and his bitterness showed. He grew more and more sullen as the evening wore on.

I conquered my anger and left. Behind me I could hear the laughter of the officers as they asked Favonius why he didn't follow.

I didn't go to my pallet in the tent Brand had rigged away from the main camp. Instead, I sat outside the tent flap on a patch of sand and stared at my cabochon, calling up its power. Brand watched me wordlessly. I concentrated, bringing forth the wind from nothing, turning it, whirling it, calling it across the plain towards me. The gorclaks heard it and stirred uneasily. Brand rose and went to check the tethers of the two shleths where they grazed by the river.

When the wind neared me, I unsheathed my sword, brought the blade to a blaze of light and touched it to the whirlwind. The swirl became more than just movement and sound; it was visible now, a giant gyre of sparking, flaming light, brilliant beyond imagining.

I dropped the sword and concentrated on the cabochon again. Slowly the fiery spout began to move.

It spun towards the main camp, taking in the gorclak lines on the way. It didn't touch the animals: it

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was not necessary. In desperate fear they broke their tethers and thundered away, trampling their terror-crazed path through the camp.

Everyone was awake now. Those who had not heard the first whine of the wind certainly did not miss the screams of the animals or the shouts of panic from those men who saw the whirlwind or who were run down by the maddened gorclaks.

I enhanced my hearing and eyesight, my finely focused concentration steering the column of whirling air to where it would do the maximum damage to property and the least harm to people. I could not forget that I had once admired these men; that I had once considered them my allies.

Tents flared into flame, cooking fires and pots and saddlery and weapons were whirled up to join the vortex as I systematically destroyed half the camp. I was careful to make its path quite symmetrical; I didn't want anyone thinking this was some sort of natural phenomenon. It had to appear quite deliberate. Once I decided I had done enough damage, I sent the whole maelstrom vertically up into the sky above the camp. There I released my hold on it so it exploded outwards, shooting off in all directions, a vast dissipation of colour and brilliance and fury and noise.

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?'