Heart Of The Mirage

Book 0: Mirage Makers

by Glenda Larke

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

Stolen from her people as a child and raised as a citizen of the Tyranian Empire, Ligea Gayed is the obvious choice to despatch to her homeland, occupied Kardiastan, with orders to root out a rebel conspiracy. At first, she devotes herself to her new assignment with zeal. Adopted daughter of the Empire's greatest general, and possessing a fearsome reputation within the ruthless Imperial spy network known as the Brotherhood, Ligea views herself as a loyal servant of Tyrans. But blood will out, and with each day she spends among her parents' people, her disciplined self-image crumbles a little. And there are secrets in Kardiastan, secrets that will inevitably force Ligea to choose between her upbringing and her birthright. Secrets that will shape the destiny of two nations. . .

Release date: December 8, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 480

Sample

When an emperor laughs about you behind your back, you know you are in trouble.


When the person speaking to the emperor at the time of his self-satisfied and smug amusement is the Magister Officii, your
immediate superior and a man with a cruel sense of humour, well, then you know you ought to find a way to melt into the floor
and disappear. If you can’t do that, you stride up and down the anteroom to the royal audience hall instead. The carpet, fifteen
paces long, showed signs of wear down the centre, so I knew I wasn’t the first person to pace while waiting to be called into
the august presence of Bator Korbus, Lord of Tyr, High General of Tyrans and Exaltarch of the Tyranian Empire.


If I concentrated, I could feel the Exaltarch’s presence in the next room. If I focused my concentration, I could determine
his emotions, although once I became aware of them, I wondered if I hadn’t been happier ignorant. He exuded a ruthless confidence,
like a wily feral dog delighting in its position as leader of the pack. And I knew the topic of his conversation with Magister
Rathrox Ligatan was me: why else would I have been called here to wait while the two men chatted? Rathrox headed the civil
service, everyone knew that. Not so widely known was his interest in personally directing the Exaltarch’s Brotherhood Compeers, of which I was a female agent.


Although I knew Rathrox well, his emotions were harder to divine through the walls of the audience hall. I thought I detected
a certain watchfulness, and perhaps an amused tolerance towards his emperor, stopping just short of lese-majesty. Even a civil
servant as powerful as the Magister Officii knew better than to ridicule a ruler whose power was absolute.


It was easy to imagine Rathrox, a thin grey man with yellow teeth, using his caustic wit to amuse his emperor. Easy to imagine
the sixty-year-old Exaltarch, his handsome face marred by the cynicism of his eyes, being amused by Rathrox’s brand of cruel
humour. What I couldn’t imagine was what they found so entertaining about me.


Even as I speculated, the Exaltarch gave a belly laugh loud enough to carry through to the anteroom. The two imperial guards
outside the door affected not to hear; I frowned. I was still pacing up and down, irritably because of the unfamiliar feel
of carpet beneath my bare feet, but the laugh halted me. It was the kind of guffaw a person might make if they saw a slave
spill soup in a rival’s lap. Under the circumstances it was hardly encouraging, although I couldn’t imagine what I’d ever
done to warrant the mockery of the Exaltarch.


One of the guards gave me a sympathetic look. He had been more appreciative when I’d first arrived, eyeing my bare right shoulder,
long legs and the swell of my breasts with a connoisseur’s eye, but his appreciation had died once he noticed the graceless
way I walked and sat. Not even wearing a fine silk wrap threaded through with gold could make me feminine enough to please
a man like that guard; the stylish wrap of the highborn lacked allure when it was worn as if it were a large, hastily donned
bath towel. I had no pretensions to elegance, or even moderately good looks. I’m taller than most women, long-limbed and muscular. My skin is an unfashionable brown, and my hair the burnt-sienna colour of desert earth, although
I did keep it curled and highlighted gold, more in keeping with Tyranian notions of beauty and fashion.


I felt someone approach the door and prepared myself for its opening. A slave appeared in the doorway and motioned me inside;
I obeyed wordlessly and, eyes discreetly downcast, went to kneel at the feet of my monarch, just managing to suppress my distaste
for the feel of carpet beneath my knees. The slave slipped away through a side door and I was left alone with the Exaltarch
and Magister Rathrox. ‘My service is yours,’ I said formally, and touched my hand to the hem of the Exaltarch’s robe in symbolic
submission. The gold trimming was knobbed with seed pearls and felt stiff and harsh beneath my fingers. I kept my eyes lowered.


There was a long silence and then an ‘Ah’ that was little more than an expelled breath. ‘So you are Ligea, the late General
Gayed’s daughter. Look up, girl, and let me see you properly.’


I raised my head and ventured to return the gaze of the Exaltarch’s assessing eyes. I had seen him at close quarters once
before, years ago. At the time he’d been returning to the city of Tyr at the head of his victorious troops and in those days
he was lean and hard and arrogant, a politician-soldier about to wrest the last vestiges of political power from the hands
of his senile predecessor and a divided Advisory Council. The arrogance was still present, but the hardness had gone from
the body into his face. His physique was showing signs of easy living – sagging chest, raddled cheeks, a belly large enough
to move independently of the rest of him – but his face said this was a man used to being obeyed, a man who knew how to be
ruthless. No overindulgence would ever eradicate the brutal shrewdness of those cold eyes, or the harsh lines around his mouth.


He was lounging on a red velvet divan, at ease, the fingers of one hand playing idly with the gold rings on the other. His
nails were manicured and polished, and he smelled of moonflowers and musk. Suspended over his head, a long reed fan swayed
to and fro to stir the warm air. There was no sign of the slaves who operated it; doubtless some mechanism enabled them to
perform the task from an adjacent room.


When he looked away for a moment to glance at Rathrox, I risked a quick look myself. The Magister leant against the cushions
of another divan but his thin, stiff body made no indent on the upholstery, his hands were rigidly still. I was unused to
seeing him in the role of a subordinate, unused to seeing him tense. He seemed out of place, like an ugly, foul-smelling insect
that had flown into the perfumed boudoir of some highborn lady and didn’t know how to escape. Behind him, a marble fireplace
dominated the other end of the room, flanked by a clutter of gilded furniture, painted amphorae and too many exotic ornaments.
Lion skins, the glass eyes of their heads powerless to express outrage at the ignominy of their fate, were scattered here
and there on the carpet. A full-sized statue had its own wall recess, two figures entwined in grotesque embrace: a reminder
of the sibling founders of Tyr whose relationship had so repulsed the gods they’d punished the city with the plague.


I wanted to let my gaze wander around the room, to mock the luxury of it, but the one brief glance was all etiquette allowed
me. I had to give my full attention to the Exaltarch.


His shrewd eyes lingered on me, speculating. I continued to kneel, awaiting permission to rise, or to speak, but the only
sound was the murmur of running water all around us. Tiled fountains set into the walls, or so I guessed. I had them in my
own villa. They helped to regulate temperature, cooling the hot air of the desert-season or, once heated, warming the cold
air of the snow-season – but I’d heard that in the palace they were thought to perform another function as well. They made
it hard for slaves to eavesdrop.


A minute crawled by in silence while we stared at one another.

What the Vortex was so damned interesting about me?

I didn’t dare let my eyes drop.

‘You are not what I expected,’ he said finally, in the smoothaccented speech of the highborn. ‘You may stand if you wish.’

I scrambled to my feet. ‘I was only the General’s adopted daughter,’ I said. ‘If you look for signs of General Gayed in me,
you won’t find them, Exalted.’


‘No,’ he agreed. ‘And Gayed was ever a man of action. I’m told you have more of a talent for deviousness, and are well suited
to the machinations of the Brotherhood. Rathrox tells me you have an uncanny instinct for the truth – or a lie – on the tongue
of a prisoner. He says torture is almost obsolete in the Cages since you took on the important interrogations.’


‘Lies come easily to the tongues of the tortured, Exalted. They will say anything to ease their pain. My way is better.’

‘What is your way?’

‘To assess each reply and use, what? A woman’s intuition? I do not know, Exalted. It is just a knack I have. And if a man
does not tell the truth – well, a lie can sometimes be equally revealing.’


He looked at me curiously, his attention finely focused. ‘How long have you had this ability?’

‘Since I was a child.’ It had always been there, but I’d learned young to hide it. Adults didn’t take kindly to having their
untruths pointed out to them by a girl not even old enough to wear a wrap.


‘A useful ability, I imagine. And we have a mission for you where your skills may be invaluable, Compeer Ligea. You are Kardiastan-born, I believe. Do you remember anything of that land?’


‘Nothing, Exalted. I was barely three when my parents were killed in the Kardiastan Uprising and General Gayed took a liking
to me and brought me here, to Tyr.’


‘Yet I’m told you speak the language.’

‘There was a Kardi slave-nurse in the General’s household when I arrived. It pleased her to have me speak her tongue.’ I thought,
without knowing why I was so certain, And you already knew that.


He gave the faintest of cynical smiles and glanced briefly at Rathrox. The exchange was worrying, and contained a meaning
from which I was deliberately excluded. Once again I sensed their shared amusement. Suspicion stiffened me. The Exaltarch
sat up, reaching over to a side table to pour himself a drink from a carafe of green onyx. The heady scent of moonflowers
and musk was overpowering, catching in the back of my throat, and I had to subdue a desire to cough. The room was cool enough,
yet sweat trickled down my neck and soaked the top edge of my wrap.


As the Exaltarch sipped his wine, I thought, Now. Now comes the whole point of this charade.


‘We wish you to go to this land of your birth, Compeer Ligea,’ he said. ‘There is trouble there neither our Governor nor his
Prefects nor our Military Commanders seem able to stem. It has its origins in rumour; we wish you to show this rumour to be
a lie, trace it to its source and eradicate it.’


‘And if it is true?’ I asked mildly.

He snorted and reverted to the rougher speech of the soldier he had once been. ‘It can hardly be true. Not unless the burned
can rise from the ashes of the fire that consumed them. A man died at the stake in the port of Sandmurram, for treason. There
is now a rebellious movement led by yet another traitorous bastard, who the superstitious say is the same man. He is known as Mir Ager. Some say that is his name, others believe it
to be a title meaning lord, or leader. Still others think it has something to do with the area of Kardiastan called the Mirage.
Perhaps he was born there.’


I inclined my head to indicate I was absorbing all this.

‘As is so often the case where Kardiastan is concerned, there is confusion,’ he added, his tone biting. ‘I want you to find
this – this sodding son of a bitch, bring him to justice, and discredit any claim that he is the same bastard as was executed
in Sandmurram.’


I risked a puzzled glance in Rathrox’s direction. All this was hardly a matter for my attention; still less something the
Exaltarch would involve himself in personally. I said, ‘But surely, our intelligence in Kardiastan—?’


There was venom in the Exaltarch’s eyes, whether for me or his incompetent underlings or the whole conquered land of Kardiastan
I couldn’t tell, but it was unmistakable. ‘If it was possible for them to find this man, or to squash these rumours, they
would have done so. This is a job needing a special person with special abilities. Magister Ligatan tells me you are that
person. I bow to his judgement, although—’ He allowed his glance to sweep over me, disparaging what he saw. ‘Are you up to
such a task, Compeer?’


His scepticism did not worry me; the thought of leaving Tyrans did, but I knew better than to allow any sign of my consternation
to show on my face. ‘I shall do my best to serve the Exaltarchy, as ever, Exalted.’


‘Rathrox will tell you the details. You are both dismissed.’

A minute later, still blinking from the abrupt end to the audience, I was tying on my sandals at the entrance to the anteroom
and wondering just what it was the Exaltarch had not told me. There was much that had been withheld, I felt sure.


I looked across at Rathrox who was just straightening from fastening his own sandal straps. In the muted light of the hall
he appeared all grey; a grey, long-limbed, mantis-thin man, waiting for me. A man of prey. I said, ‘Suppose you tell me what
all this is about, Magister?’


‘What is there to say? The Exaltarch asked me to choose someone to send to Kardiastan. When I mentioned you, he was a little
surprised at my choice, and wished to meet you before giving his approval. He found it difficult to believe a woman could
possess the – the necessary toughness for the job, even though I did tell him you have killed on Brotherhood business, just
as all Brotherhood Compeers must at one time or another.’ His face was immobile, as ever. As a mantis is without expression
while it awaits its victim. Dedicated, pitiless, patient … so very patient, waiting for the right moment to strike. I
did not like him, but he was my mentor and I admired and respected him for his commitment and cunning.


Honesty was not, however, one of his virtues. He was skirting the truth, reluctant to utter an outright lie, knowing I would
identify it as such, but equally reluctant to be completely honest. There was something lacking in his explanation. I asked
quietly, ‘Why me? Why anyone? Why cannot those already in Kardiastan deal with this?’


He looked around. We had moved away from the imperial guards in the anteroom, but apparently not far enough for Rathrox. He
took me by the elbow and guided me through an archway into the deserted hallway beyond. Even so, he dropped his voice. ‘Ligea,
the Exaltarchy is only as solid as the soil it is built on. The situation in Kardiastan is far worse than the public here
is given to believe. There we have built on a cracked foundation and, unless something is done soon, those cracks will become
canyons large enough to swallow both the legions and the civil administration. Worse still, cracks can spread.’


It was unlike Rathrox to be so frank, and even stranger for him to be so grim about the state of the Exaltarchy. I said, carefully
picking my way through the conversational pitfalls of a chat with the Magister, who could be vicious when tetchy, ‘I would
hardly have thought Kardiastan mattered enough to arouse the personal concern of the Exaltarch. The place produces nothing
of essential commercial value to us. The only reason we ever felt the need to invade in the first place was because we feared
Assoria might beat us to it, in order to gain ports along the Sea of Iss within striking distance of Tyrans. But we’ve tamed
Assoria since then; it has been our vassal for, what? Twenty years?’


He interrupted. ‘If a desert land inhabited by shabby, ill-trained peasants can make a mockery of our legions, how long will
it be before other subject nations – such as Assoria – sharpen their spears? We must make an example of these Kardi insurgents.’


‘Make a mockery of our legions? A few peasant rebels?’ It all seemed rather unlikely. I recalled the Exaltarch’s bitterness when he had spoken
of Kardiastan. Rathrox’s reason for involving me might be valid as far as it went, but it wasn’t all; there was something
I was not being told. ‘And what about the Brotherhood?’


‘There is no Brotherhood in Kardiastan.’

I stared at him in amazement. ‘No Brotherhood?’ I’d never had much to do directly with either the vassal states or the provinces, but every Brother knew we
were responsible for security throughout the Exaltarchy, not just in Tyrans. It had never occurred to me there was any place
where Tyr ruled that was free from the mandibles of the Brotherhood. ‘Why ever not?’


‘You can’t have a Brotherhood where there are no informants, where no one will spy on his neighbour, where no one can be bought, or cowed, or blackmailed.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘A point the public elsewhere tends to overlook, Ligea. They
hate us, but it is they themselves who supply us with our power over them. Apparently the point is not overlooked in Kardiastan.
They are … different. A strange people we seem to have been unable to fathom even in twenty-five years of occupation.’
The cold, speculative look of the mantis staring at its prey. ‘Every single agent of the Brotherhood I have sent there has
been dead within a year.’


I was chilled by a depth of fear I had not felt in years. Chilled – and stirred by the enticing whisper of danger. I said,
‘You think I might have a better chance because I was born a Kardi, because I speak the language, because I could pass for
one of them. Because I once was one of them.’


‘Perhaps.’

His feelings rasped my consciousness, as tangible as grit in the eye. I thought, Goddess! How he distrusts me … Even after all the years of my service, he could still wonder about my loyalty to him.


We stood in the middle of the marbled hall, both motionless, both wary. Nearby, the life of the palace went on. An anxious-eyed
slave scurried past carrying a basket of fruit; a small contingent of imperial guards marched by, their sandals squeaking
on the highly polished floor. They escorted a royal courtesan, as thickly painted as a backstreet whore, on her way to the
Exaltarch’s quarters. She giggled when she caught sight of me, her lack of manners as blatant as the trail of perfume she
left behind. Neither Rathrox nor I took any notice.


I asked, ‘So I am to be sent to a land said to be so hellish it’s akin to the realm of the dead? Without anyone asking if
that was what I wished.’


‘It is unwise to disobey the order of the Exaltarch.’

‘It was your idea.’


‘It is only a temporary thing. You will soon be back in Tyrans.’

I stared at him, hearing the lie. ‘You don’t intend me ever to return,’ I said flatly. ‘You think I will be too invaluable
there.’ You wish to be rid of me …

‘Those in service to the Exaltarchy must serve where they are of greatest value.’

I interrupted. ‘And that is not the only reason which motivates you, Magister Officii. I think you have come to fear me. I
am too good at my job. It worries you that you cannot lie to me, that I know the feelings seething behind that expressionless
face of yours. So now it comes to this: a posting without hope of recall. What is it they say of Kardiastan? A land so dry the dust is in the wind instead of underfoot and the only water is in one’s tears.’ I gave a bitter smile. ‘Is that how my service to you, to the Brotherhood, to the Exaltarchy, is to be repaid? You wouldn’t
do this, Magister Rathrox, if Gayed were alive. My father would never have allowed it.’ It was five years since his death,
yet I felt the pang of loss still.


‘General Gayed put his Exaltarch and his nation before all else, as you must. The Exaltarchy has given you all that you own,
all that you are. Now you must pay the reckoning.’ He shrugged. ‘Supply the information that will quell the Exaltarch’s rebellious
subjects in Kardiastan and he will not forget you. Even now your salary is to be raised to six thousand sestus a year, while
you remain in Kardiastan, and you go as a Legata, with the equivalent status of a Legatus.’


My eyes widened. A Legatus was someone with a special mission and they carried much of the status of the official who sent
them. If my papers were signed by Rathrox, my power in Kardiastan would be extensive. It was telling that I’d never heard
of the feminine form of the word. Such power was not normally given to a woman. ‘You must be very afraid of me to have obtained those terms, Magister Officii. They are generous
indeed. If I can stay alive, of course. Nonetheless, I think I would have preferred to resign the Brotherhood, had you given me the
option.’


‘No one leaves the Brotherhood,’ he said, the words as curt as his tone. ‘Not ever. You know that. Besides, what would you
do without the intrigue, without the power, without the challenge, Legata Ligea? The Brotherhood is your drug; you cannot
survive without it. You would never make a pampered wife, and what other alternative is there for you?’ His voice softened
a little. ‘I’m twice your age, Ligea. One day I’ll no longer head the Brotherhood. Take comfort from that thought.’


I hated knowing how well he read me. I turned abruptly, leaving him, and made my way to the palace entrance. The sentries
swung open the massive carved doors, then sprang to attention and saluted as I passed. I’d identified myself as one of the
Brotherhood on the way in, and they knew it paid to be respectful to a compeer.


Out once more in the dazzling sun, I looked around in relief. I’d never liked needless luxury and the extravagance of the
Exaltarch’s palace was stifling, especially when coupled with the emotions still warring inside me even now: anger, bitterness,
pride, frustration. I thought I knew now why the Exaltarch had been amused. The idea of sending a Kardi to deal with Kardi
insurgents was not without irony, and when the Kardi in question was a woman raised as a highborn Tyranian – oh yes, the situation
was amusing. Unless you were the one being banished to a desert hell. The muscles of my stomach tightened in rebellion.


Tyr, capital and hub of Tyrans – of the whole Exaltarchy – was my home; the only home I remembered. It was the centre of the
civilised world, the place where everything began, where all decisions that counted were made, where things happened. How could I bear to leave it?


I stood at the top of the stairs leading down from the palace doors and looked out over the Forum Publicum, the heart of Tyr.
It was the hour before siesta and the Forum, a mile in length, was crowded in spite of the midday heat. The usual mixed throng:
slaves and ambling highborn, merchants and work-stained artisans, strolling scholars debating a theory. Fountains jetted spray
into the air in the centre of the marbled concourse and water channels bordered the edges. They even warmed the water when
the weather turned cold …


Damn you, Rathrox Ligatan. I am to lose all of this.

I thrust back the rising bubble of anger and made instead a conscious effort to absorb all I could see, as if by carving a
bas-relief of images into my memory, I could ensure that at some time in the future I would be able to recall them to assuage
the emptiness of loss.


On the far side of the square, the massive Hall of Justice brooded, its white columns catching the sun. White-robed lawyers
were just emerging from a morning session with their lictors, arms full of ribboned scrolls, hurrying behind. Only two days
before, I’d stood in the Praetor’s chambers there to give evidence in camera at a treason trial; the accused had led a rebellion
against tax collection in one of the outliers of Tyrans. Two hundred people had died as a result of his ill-considered revolt.
He’d been condemned, as he deserved, and I’d felt the satisfaction of a job well done. Our court system, where even a common
man could argue his case, was one of the finest achievements of the Exaltarchy.


The next building along was the Public Library, separated from the Public Baths by the tree-lined Marketwalk. If I entered
the quietness of the library reading room, doubtless I’d find Crispin the poet or Valetian the historian working on their
latest creations; if I decided to bathe in the building opposite instead, I would be bound to meet my childhood friends, most
of them now idle young matrons more inclined to eye the legionnaire officers in the massage room than to spend their time
at the baths swimming, as I did. If I wandered down the Marketwalk, I could buy fruit from Altan, or ice from the Alps, or
a talking bird from Pythia to the west. Jasper or jade, silk or sackcloth, peppercorns or pheasant livers: there was a saying
in Tyr that the stalls of Marketwalk sold everything worth buying in the known world.


On my right, across the square opposite the baths, was the arched entrance of the Advisory Council Chambers, used as gaming
rooms ever since the Exaltarch had dismissed his recalcitrant Councillors, never to recall them; and beyond that was the paveway
to the Desert-Season Theatre, where two weeks previously I’d seen Merius immortalise himself with his powerful portrayal of
the manipulative Cestuous, whose tainted love for his sister Caprice had almost doomed the fledgling Tyr, and whose name was
now synonymous with the despised perversion of incest.


I shifted my gaze to the Academy of Learning on my left, where, as a citizen of Tyrans, I had often enjoyed the privilege
of listening to the scholars’ debates. It had been an Academy scholar who’d been in charge of my education from my seventh
anniversary day until I’d turned sixteen, a privilege not often granted to girls. I sometimes wondered why my father, a man
much given to talking disparagingly of ‘a woman’s place’, had allowed – no, had encouraged – my formal education. ‘You have a mind, Ligea,’ he was fond of saying. ‘Use it. Rely on it. Your emotions are those of a
woman: foolish, unreliable and ruled from the heart. Ignore such stupidities. The heart is the foundation of ill-made decisions;
the mind is where victories are forged.’ I smiled to myself: I could hear him still, stern tones deliberately softening when he spoke to me. Others may have feared General Gayed, the man they called the Winter Leopard after
his snow-season victories quelling the fractious tribes of the Forests of Valur to the northwest, but I never did. To me he
may have been firm and intolerant of nonsense, but he was always kind.


I lingered on the steps, remembering him. The pang of grief I felt was a weakness, inappropriate for a compeer, but I didn’t
care. I decided I would head for his tomb at the other end of the Forum and pay homage to his memory. A long walk, although
one I wanted to make. Masochism, in a way, I suppose; not because of the destination, but because all I passed en route would
remind me of what I was about to miss. But I wanted those memories. I wanted to absorb the essence of these symbols of Tyr.
For they weren’t just buildings; they were also the commerce, the learning, the law, the sport, the religion, the arts: they
were all the things Tyr stood for. We were a cultured, refined people who respected both the human intellect and the human
body.


And Kardiastan? In Kardiastan, the soil was as barren as its cultural heritage.

How would I be able to bear it?

Damn you, Rathrox.

The Temple of the Forum Publicum was built to honour the deity Melete. Other public buildings were imposing, graceful even,
but the temple was surely one of the loveliest structures ever built by mankind. The roof floated above lines of graceful
caryatids, each supposedly a likeness of the Goddess in a different mood. The pediments and fascia were decorated with coloured
friezes and statuary, the work of several centuries of the Exaltarchy’s finest artists. Marbled columns glowed rosy in both
the dawn light and the last rays of dusk or, as now, gleamed white with painful intensity in the midday sun.


General Gayed’s tomb was not in the temple proper, but along the pilgrim’s way leading up to the main steps. There was nothing
ornate about it; I had insisted on that. A flat oblong of marble marked his burial spot. A life-sized statue on a plinth engraved
with his name was the