The Shadow Of Tyr

Book 0: Mirage Makers

by Glenda Larke

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

Ligea Gayed has been lied to once too often. Now she has turned against her former employer, the secretive Brotherhood of the Tyrans Empire, and must evade Favonius and his Jackals while also recruiting others to fight with her. Yet, despite her best efforts, a rebellion is hard to come by. Except within her own family, of course. Ligea's son, Arrant, is prey to feelings of inadequacy, and is angry about his mother's relationship with a man who is not his father. Unable to accept what is happening to him, he becomes susceptible to the blandishments of his mother's enemies. Worse still, in the middle of a war he is a Magoroth unable to control or use his power in a constructive way. In seeking to punish Ligea for her relationship with Brand, Arrant and those around him might well lose everything . . .

Release date: December 8, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 480

Sample

Temellin stood on the seawall and watched the Platterfish manoeuvre through the moored fisher boats. In the windless waters of the harbour, four oars stroked in unison from the lower
deck, while the sail hung like a rumpled blanket from the top spar. On the upper deck, a woman leaned at the railing, looking
back at him.


Ligea Gayed, who was also his cousin Sarana Solad. She really was leaving him, taking his unborn child with her. Nothing he’d
said had persuaded her to stay, and his sense of betrayal was matched only by the intensity of his loss. She could have chosen
to rule this land alone, she could have chosen to share his rule, she could have done neither and just chosen to stay anyway.
Instead, she had put her own quest for revenge, justice – call it what you would – before their love.


He understood, yet was bitterly angered, but it made no difference anyway: he loved her and always would. Mirageless soul,
how was he going to live a life without her now that he had known what it was like to share one with her?


As the boat slipped past the arms of the narrow entrance and out of the harbour’s embrace, the shipmaster manning the stern
sweep called out something to Ligea, and indicated the limp sail. She laughed and waved at Temellin, pointing to it in turn.
He knew what they were asking, and obliged because he liked the irony of it – using his own power to send the woman he loved
away. A breeze sprang out of nowhere to fill the sail’s patchwork of flaxen squares ribbed with leather along the joins.


She raised her hand in farewell as the boat picked up speed and slid over the first of the ocean swells. Even across the distance,
he felt the emotion she let free for him to sense: that mix of love and sorrow and determination that was peculiarly hers.


As he watched, he saw Brand come and stand by her side. Damn his eyes. And yet he was grateful the Altani was there for her. Gratitude and jealousy, side by side … nothing was simple any more.


Cabochon take it, Sarana, you turn a man inside out.

A voice spoke softly from behind him, echoing his sentiments, but for a quite different reason. ‘She should not go. No Magoroth
should leave Kardiastan now. Not when those murdering blond bastards walk our streets and war is coming.’


He turned to look at the speaker: a crinkle-skinned fisherman weaving closed a tear in the side of an aging lobster pot, a
man too ancient to sail with the fleet any more.


‘She will still fight our battles, old man,’ he said. ‘She will be in a position to stop legionnaires from landing on our
shores, one day.’


The fisherman grunted, his disbelief strong in the air. ‘How much longer, Magori?’ he asked. ‘How much longer before I don’t
fear to walk me own streets again? Will these old bones last long enough for me to smell freedom on the seawind once more,
eh?’


Temellin gave a grim smile. ‘You look as tough as shleth leather. You’ll make it.’ In his heart, he wasn’t so sure. It was
one thing to start a war – they could, and would, do that soon. They’d been on the way to mount a challenge to Tyranian rule
in Kardiastan when Sarana had brought the news of the Stalwarts’ incursion across the Alps. She’d repelled them, Mirage be
thanked, but to expel all legionnaires? That was another matter.


Hostages, he thought as he walked back along the seawall towards the town. The Tyranians have a land full of ordinary Kardis to use as hostages, and they’ll do it, too. How much stomach will we have to go on fighting when they can attack the innocent in retaliation?

Sands take it, maybe Sarana was right. Maybe her help in Tyr would be crucial. Maybe without it, Kardiastan would never be free, for all their Magor power.


Power, he mused, his thoughts bleak, even Magor power – it’s not everything. It might not even be enough.

The writing over the archway said simply: APOTHECARY. Most such signs would have been followed by a symbol – in this case,
a herb leaf – for the benefit of the illiterate, but no such drawing graced this entrance.


Ligea Gayed knew why. Merriam of Istia, apothecary and herbalist, was renowned for her greed and her exorbitant charges. As
the illiterate rarely had enough money to pay for her services, Merriam did not bother to tell them of her existence.


Fortunately, the cost of a consultation was irrelevant to Ligea; all that concerned her was that the Istian woman was not
just an apothecary, but also the best midwife in Tyr. And she needed the best. She had to find out what was wrong. And, more importantly, how to fix it.


For a moment she leaned against the archway, delving within for the courage to find out. Too much to ask of an unborn child, she thought, sliding a hand over the slight bulge of her abdomen. To have his essensa travel as my guide across a whole land – how could it not leave him wounded? He should have been safe
in my womb, not asked to become an insubstantial shade. Perhaps it has scarred his very soul. And yet, if he hadn’t done that, they would both have died. Gods above, why do you never give us easy choices?

She sent her senses to touch on the occupants of the rooms on the other side of the door under the archway. Two people: one
a woman seeping avarice into the air like the stink of sweat, the other a man whose lack of passion spoke of stoicism and acceptance – a slave, surely. Only slaves exuded that kind of
staid forbearance. It was what kept them alive.


Ligea took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock. She had to know, damn it. What had she done to her son by the choices
she had made?


The slave answered, his greeting rudely abrupt. ‘Yes?’

‘I wish to see Merriam of Istia.’

‘And you are—?’

She said the first name that came into her head. ‘Estella.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Estella of Corsene.’Another lie, but she had the right colouring for a Corseni.

He looked her up and down, the contempt in his glance indicating that Merriam’s clientele did not usually come clad in artisan’s
clothes and wrapped in a tattered shawl. ‘Domina Merriam charges two sestus for a consultation, potions extra.’


The amount was outrageous, and an apothecary was not usually addressed as domina, but Ligea dug in her pouch and extracted
the coins anyway. He plucked them out of her fingers, still unwelcoming, but stood back to allow her entry.


The space on the other side of the door was small and mean, curtained off at one end, the only furniture a shabby divan. The
air was redolent of alchemy, heavy with the smell of herbs and the smoky fragrance of burning incense.


‘Wait here,’ he said and disappeared through the heavy woollen curtain. She flung off the shawl she’d worn to help conceal
her identity and dropped it onto the divan, then bent to undo her sandals. No one came forward to wash her feet, so she did
it herself in the bowl provided.


She heard the murmur of voices, but resisted the temptation to enhance her hearing. A moment later, the man beckoned her through
the curtain.


Shelves laden with jars lined the walls of the inner room; a brazier and a mortar and pestle were among the items sitting
on a bench and bunches of fresh herbs hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the floor, a narrow table was covered by a thin pallet and a cloth. A stool had been placed underneath.


The woman waiting for her was tall and scrawny, with a narrow, pinched face; her demeanour had the warmth of a marble pillar.

Hells, Ligea thought, she looks more like an embalmer than a midwife. Probably scares babies into taking their first breath.


‘I am Merriam. Why are you here?’ The staccato of her Istian accent was sharply unpleasant to Ligea’s ears.

‘I wish to know if there are any problems with – with my pregnancy.’

‘How many months?’

‘Four – no, almost five.’

‘Loosen your wrap and climb onto the table. I will examine you.’

Ligea stared pointedly at the man.

‘He’s only a slave,’ Merriam said, her contempt thick in the air.


Ligea did not move.

Merriam snorted. ‘Timon, leave us.’

Once he’d disappeared into the next room and Ligea was lying on the table, the woman began her examination, her touch impersonal
and assured, her questions probing. Had there been any bleeding? Did she vomit in the mornings? How was her digestion? Her
water? Finally she listened to the child’s heartbeat, and then Ligea’s own, using a hollowed-out piece of gorclak-horn pressed
to her skin. After she had finished, she pointed to a nearby door and shoved a pot into Ligea’s hand. ‘Pass water into this,’she
ordered.


When Ligea returned, Timon took the pot into the next room. She had no idea what he was doing with it and didn’t ask.

‘My services for delivery,’ Merriam said as they waited, ‘cost eight silver sestus for a daytime birth. Extra one sestus if
I must go out after dark.’


‘That’s a lot of money.’

The midwife shrugged indifferently. ‘My patients do not die of afterbirth fever. What price do you put on your life?’


‘I won’t be in Tyr when the baby is born.’ She’d just have to hope that when the time came she would find someone as skilful as this woman apparently was, for all her coldness. ‘I do have
a question now, though.’


Merriam’s lips thinned. ‘Don’t ask if it’s a boy or girl. I don’t know. Nor do I care.’

‘It’s not that.’ She touched the scarring on her face and hesitated, at a loss. How could she describe being submerged in
the Ravage? Finally she said, ‘When this child was less than four months along, I suffered a physical attack. I was also possibly,
um, poisoned. I nearly died. For a day I hovered close to death. Will that have – have damaged the child?’


‘If it had, you would have miscarried.’

The lie was potent to Ligea’s senses. ‘I paid good money for the truth, midwife! Do me the courtesy of speaking it.’

Merriam stared at her, surprised by her assertiveness, and not pleased. ‘Worry won’t do you any good. Truth is, I don’t know.
Beaten mothers can deliver healthy children. Or deformed ones. Poisoned mothers can have crippled babies. Or not. The gods
dispose such things, and who knows the mind of a god? All I can say is that this child lives; I have heard its heartbeat.’


Hells, why did I come? I might have known I wouldn’t get the assurance I want. Still she persevered, wanting answers. ‘There are times since then when I feel that all is not well with him. He weakens
and I have to—’ She groped for words to explain how her son had faltered and faded within her, not once, but four or five
times, each time to such an extent that she’d known he would die unless she intervened to heal him. The last time it had happened
was just the evening before, as she and Brand had sailed into Tyr harbour from Ordensa.


Before she could think of a way to explain, Timon came back into the room. ‘Nothing amiss,’ he said, wiping a forearm across
his mouth. ‘Clear, and unsugared.’


Merriam nodded and turned back to Ligea. ‘Your health is good.’ She sounded bored. ‘Your baby is normal. Its heart is strong.
I foresee no problems. This is your first child. First-time mothers worry needlessly. Do not listen to the arrant nonsense
other women say about such things. If you are further troubled, go to a temple and pray to the Goddess of the Unborn.’


Ligea stifled a sigh. I am a fool. How did I expect her to help anyway, even if there was something wrong?

However, as she slipped out into the street once more a few moments later, her shawl well wrapped about her head and face,
worry still chafed her mind. She knew the feelings she’d had weren’t nonsense, arrant or otherwise, and she certainly wasn’t
influenced by women’s gossip. She’d felt her son slipping away; she’d coddled his tenuous hold on life and brought him back.
Again and again. Perhaps they’d both pay for her intervention. Perhaps she should have let him go.


But he was all she had of Temellin.

Gods, if he were born alive and well, she’d call him Arrant just to remind herself of how silly she was, imagining things.


I will try and keep him safe, Temellin, I promise.

She walked on, never thinking to cast her sensing abilities behind to the apothecary’s. There were too many other things abrading
her mind. Tonight she would go to the Meletian Temple, but not quite for the reason Merriam had suggested. She wanted to take
a good look at the Oracle. And tomorrow, tomorrow she would tackle Arcadim, her moneymaster …


‘Never met her before,’ Merriam said to her slave, Timon, ‘but I do remember her from somewhere. Just can’t think where. Strange
that I’d forget someone with a face as badly scarred as that.’


She began to enumerate all that had bothered her about her visitor. ‘Dresses like an artisan, but has the accent of the highborn.
And the arrogance. Didn’t question the cost, so she has money. Yet didn’t book me for the birth. That’s odd. Wrapped herself
well in her shawl. Didn’t want to be recognised, I dare say. Maybe she will be hiding out on some country estate when the
baby is birthed. I wonder why her hand was bandaged?’


She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Secrets, Timon. And secrets are always of interest to the Brotherhood. Perhaps she’s the
highborn wife of a general who hasn’t been home for a good many months. I wish I could remember where I’ve seen her before.’


She considered for a moment, then made up her mind. ‘Not much to go on, but I have a hunch she’s important. Fetch me pen and
ink and a papyrus scroll. I shall write to Compeer Clemens. After all, you never know what information might be useful enough
to earn us some money, do you?’


‘Guards?’ Brand asked her.

‘Only two,’ Ligea whispered. ‘One at the back, circling right. The other standing still, on the other side of the temple.’

‘The priestesses?’

‘Asleep. In the building beyond the temple.’

‘How come?’ he asked. ‘Surely the Oracle should be tended day and night by a priestess in case one of the gods has something
to say!’


‘That’s what they tell the public, yes. In practice – why sit up all night when you know damn well the Oracle is a sham? There
is one young man in the temple itself. He’s awake. Probably the acolyte who tends the lamps.’


I wish Magoroth power included the ability to make myself invisible. Or even make an illusion or two. But it didn’t. She couldn’t be too reckless with her use of power, either, or she’d end up weakened and vulnerable.


She felt a pleasurable excitement, the stimulus of adventure. No one visited the Meletian Temple in the middle of the night,
yet here they were, like thieves on their way to rob a counting house, dodging among the treasury buildings that surrounded
the Pilgrim’s Way.


‘And the four-legged night watch?’ Brand persisted.

She smelled the fear he deliberately unfurled for her. The temple hounds, Pythian ridgebacks reared to hunt mountain bears,
were the reason that the temple only had two guards at night. The dogs tore intruders to pieces. She glanced at Brand but
couldn’t see him properly in the darkness. ‘They’ve got our scent. They’ll be here in a minute.’


‘Ocrastes’ damn. I didn’t need to hear that.’


‘You didn’t have to come.’

‘Blame Temellin. He’s the one who said I had to look after you. When, of course, he ought to have been asking you to look after me. You’re the one with the Vortexdamn power.’


She tried not to feel annoyed that he had insisted on coming with her in the first place. Experience told her a protective
man was usually more hindrance than help.


Confound this baby, she thought. He changes everything, even Brand. Then, more incredulous: Temellin asked Brand to look after me?

She waved a hand at the back wall of the building they were passing. ‘This looks like a good place. Stand next to me, back
to the wall, so I only have to worry about what comes at us from one direction.’ She pulled out her sword and called the light
into the blade. Other buildings, heavy with statuary, loomed up out of the night as if beckoned by the glow.


‘What are these places?’ he asked.


‘The treasuries. Erected by other cities to store their votive offerings and sacred vessels and stuff like that. You’ve never
been to the temple before?’


‘No. Why should I?’

Of course not. Silly question. He didn’t worship any of the gods of the pantheon, for all that he often swore by parts of
Ocrastes’ anatomy.


‘I might start really soon, though,’ he added, ‘with a prayer for protection against ravening dogs …’

The hounds flowed out of the dark, silent and swift. She felt Brand’s fear thicken. ‘I have a ward in place!’ she reassured.

‘I just wish I could see it.’ He gripped his sword in a two-handed grasp. And then the dogs were upon them.


The leader of the pack, a large brindled beast, launched itself with jowls drawn back into a teeth-baring growl. And slammed
hard into the invisible wall of the ward. Brand flinched. Every other dog in the pack suffered the same fate an instant later,
until the area in front of them was a mass of snarling, yelping animals nursing bruised snouts and forepaws.


‘I think my hair just went grey,’ Brand said from between clenched teeth. ‘Why is living in your vicinity always so damned
dangerous?’


She tried to wrap the ward around the confused animals, but they scattered and re-formed a short distance away. When she moved
the ward in their direction, they scattered again, breaking up to approach in a semicircle. Slowly this time. Silent. Bellies
low to the ground. Eyes fixed on prey.


The pack after the bear.

She was forced to bring the ward in closer to block them off on all sides.

‘Ligea, um, what are you doing? This is nerve-racking!’


Worried, she said, ‘They seem able to sense the ward now.’

‘No wonder, after breaking their noses on the wretched thing! Where the hell is it anyway?’

‘In an arc around us.’

‘Ah. So, in effect, we are imprisoned, rather than the dogs. Great.’ Brand, as usual, putting his finger on her errors.


She sighed. ‘I thought I could just curl the edges of the ward around to corral them, but they wouldn’t stay still long enough.’

She didn’t get any further. The pack leader hurled itself at the ward. This time it didn’t leap into it, but up. She had a bare second to think, Goddess, he’s going over the top – before the hound slammed into her chest.


Her sword went flying. The weight of the animal sent her crashing to the ground. All the air in her lungs whooshed out. The
dog somersaulted over her to land awkwardly somewhere behind.


Winded, she was helpless. She doubled up, desperately fighting for breath. She could only watch as the other dogs tried to
follow. Fortunately, they lacked the pack leader’s powerful haunches and failed to clear the ward in a single leap. Their
feet scrabbled at the top of the ward. Brand beat them off with his sword as they grappled for purchase on the invisible.
Even hampered by his inability to see the warding, he managed to block their attempts to heave themselves over the top.


She groped desperately for clarity. Where was the leader of the pack? Shit! It must be somewhere inside the ward …


She wanted to tell Brand she was in trouble, but her body, focused on inhaling, wouldn’t cooperate. Still rolling on the ground
in breathless pain, she grabbed at the power already in her cabochon and raised the warding higher.


Limping, the pack leader circled into her view. She aimed her cabochon at it, but wasn’t fast enough. The dog sprang at her
throat; the beam of power went astray to gouge a hole in the treasury wall.


She expected to die. Knew she was going to have her throat ripped out. Had time only to think: How ridiculous. A Magoroth dying because she was winded.


And the hound jerked to a stop a hand span from her face. Its jowls dripped saliva on her chest. She could smell its dog breath.
The growl in the back of its throat was pure animal fury. Its yellowed teeth meshed together, aching to close on her throat.


Brand, feet planted on either side of her body, hauled frantically on its collar. The hound strained as it leaned into her,
its bulk and the powerful muscles of its shoulders pitted against a man with a withered arm.


Finally recovering control, she aimed her cabochon and sank the gleam of its power into the beast’s chest. It collapsed onto
her, dead, driving more breath out of her lungs. Brand, suddenly relieved of its pull, sat down with a thump, hauling the
corpse away as he fell.


Sweet Melete, all that lasted only a moment. Less time than it takes to light a votive lamp, and I almost died.

She sat up, gasping, and stared at Brand, at the dog lying between them. A leather collar. That – and Brand’s strength and
speed – were all that had saved her. Brand stared back, breathing heavily.


‘What the hell just happened?’ he asked finally.

‘I didn’t build the ward high enough. The dog landed on me. I was winded. Sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ Words failed him.


She groped for her sword with shaking fingers and stood up. The other hounds still milled around outside the ward. ‘They’ll
want to come and sniff their leader’s body. Move away, Brand. I’ll make two holes in the ward, one for them to come in on
this side and one for us to leave on the other.’


This time nothing went wrong, and within minutes she had the leaderless hounds corralled into a tight group against the treasury
wall. Some whimpered, others began to howl.


‘The howling will bring the guards,’ Brand said. He was still pale with shock.

‘Head towards the temple steps.’

He grabbed her arm as they ran. ‘Ever thought of an alternative career as a gladiator? Or perhaps a job in charge of the Exaltarch’s
circus lions? It would be safer.’ His shock had manifested itself in anger and he didn’t bother to hide it.


She ran up the steps past the caryatids into the temple proper without answering, and he followed.

Oil lamps were lit on all the altars and in front of the main statue of Melete at the end of the stoa. She stood still for
a moment, cocking her head. ‘The attendant is in one of the rooms of the sanctum.’ Then, to forestall his next question, added,
‘That’s the walled area behind the statue, not open to the public. We need to be quiet.’


She headed to the sanctum door behind the main sacrificial altar, but the door was latched on the inside. She knocked.

‘What—?’ Brand remonstrated, sotto voce. ‘You just told me to be quiet and now you want to go knocking on the door? Would you like a horn fanfare as well?’


Ligea drew her sword. ‘Close your eyes,’ she said.

He looked as if he were about to argue, then thought better of it and not only shut his eyes, but turned his face away.

A male voice from inside asked, ‘Who is it?’

Pitching her answer to sound childlike, she said, ‘I have a message … the Priestess Antonia.’

A youth opened the door, and had to fling up his arms to protect his eyes from the overwhelming brilliance of a fully lit Magor sword pulsing with power. He staggered back.


She stepped into the sanctum and Brand, following, shut the door behind them. She turned light to pain, a sudden stab to pierce
the young acolyte through the stomach.


Vortex, I hate doing that.

While the acolyte was still doubled up, Brand grabbed a robe from a hook and flung it over him so he would not see them.

‘Behave yourself,’ she said in the youth’s ear as she banished his pain, ‘or there will be more agony like that. Not a word
out of you, understand?’ The lad shivered under her grip. When he didn’t reply, she shook him. ‘Understand?’


He nodded, his fear swamping her. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen or so.

Damn it all, I feel like a school bully …

She warded him where he stood, enclosing him in walls that were less than a hand span from his body. He wouldn’t even be able
to raise a hand to take off the enveloping robe. ‘If you don’t make a sound, the Goddess will release you before dawn’s rising,’
she said. ‘Fear not, for you are favoured by Melete herself.’


Behind her Brand snorted. She grabbed his arm and hauled him through a series of connecting rooms to the back of the sanctum.
He was broadcasting his emotions and she knew he wanted it so. She was disconcerted; his turmoil formed a background to all
she sensed. Frustrated anger, thwarted desire, deep-rooted distaste for – what? All she was doing? But most of all, an overriding
fear. For her. She had almost died, and he couldn’t forget it.


‘Brand,’ she said, quelling her exasperation, ‘you have to hide your sentiments. I can’t deal with all you are feeling right
now. If you can’t stop, then I’ll go on alone.’


His emotions blanked out, as suddenly as a snuffed lamp. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. His face was stony.

No explanation. No excuses. She nodded to indicate her satisfaction with his emotional silence, and changed the subject. ‘Last
time I was here, I had the mother of all headaches thanks to that bitch Antonia and her drugs, but I think I remember the way.’ She pointed to a nearby door. ‘That’s the room where the passage
to the Oracle starts.’


Inside, it was dark, and smelled fusty. She used her sword, considerably dimmed, instead of a lamp. She closed the door behind
them as they entered, and built a ward across it to keep it that way. They looked around in silence. The floor was of intricately
patterned mosaics. A few cupboards were lined up against the walls. There was no other visible door. The walls, made of dressed
stone, had a frieze of carved lion heads at waist height.


Brand raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘It’s the right place,’ she said. She swung her sword around to illuminate her investigation of the corners and the floor.

‘Shine it here,’ Brand said suddenly, indicating one corner. ‘The floor is scraped.’ An arc had been scored across the mosaics,
as if an ill-fitted door had been repeatedly opened and closed across the tiles. Yet there was no door immediately adjacent.
Brand reached out and touched the stones of the wall, then rubbed his fingers along the line of mortar. ‘It’s not real! Except
for the frieze,’ he said. ‘The rest is just painted wood. It must be a door. No handle, though.’


‘Try turning the lion’s head,’ she suggested.

Brand fumbled at the closest carving in the frieze and, with an unpleasant grinding sound, part of the wall shifted to reveal
the outline of a door – which then caught on the floor. He yanked it open, to reveal a stone stairway leading downwards.


A blast of foetid air swept out. Brimstone, mould, musty damp. The noxious smells of alchemist shops and stagnant bogs. She
quelled a shudder. It brought back too many memories of the last time she was here.


‘Vortexdamn, that stinks,’ Brand muttered.

Together, they looked down the long flight of steps into darkness as black as coal tar. Nothing moved. A faint murmur of sound,
muffled and obscure, came out of the blackness.


‘Let’s go down,’ she said.

Rathrox fumed. He sat in the anteroom to the Exaltarch’s audience hall, a picture of cool patience, but that was just an overlay
to the inner scowl of his rage. Bator Korbus was keeping him waiting. After all he had done for the man, he was left waiting
in the anteroom like a lackey with a petition.


The saying ‘Trust no word from the mouth that sits below the crown’ had the truth of it, he reflected. The bastard wasn’t always emperor. It’s time he remembered that.

Bator Korbus had once been just another youth in the legionnaires’ training camp, along with Rathrox, and a Legate’s son,
Gayed Lucius. Three youths with little in common, companions simply because they were billeted together. Rathrox had not forgotten
one iota of it.


Gayed Lucius had come from a military background, his family following his Legate fath