The Heart of the mirage

And inside my head, those wordless ideas: Time. Patience.

I waited.

And realised I could still hear what was happening in the room.

Comfort followed hard after the love, soothing me, attempting to take away my grief, but every sound I heard was a slash of painful memory. Someone retching. A rustle of movement. Then a groan, partly of pain, partly of anguish.

Then a voice. 'Brand?' Garis's voice. 'Brand? Oh, Ravage hells -'

I could no longer see or sense emotion, but I was hearing everything as if I were still standing there in

that room watching. Thumps and scrapes: Garis flinging off the debris to uncover Brand's body. An intake of breath at what he found, followed by sounds of unidentifiable movement. I tried to shut it out, not to hear. To concentrate on what was happening to me.

I was still standing motionless, Temellin's son in my hands. The blackness was just as solid. The love was still there, unquestioning and total, the comfort doing its best to trickle through me, to find and fill all those crevices where grief lurked and hurt. The burden I carried felt marginally lighter.

Then Garis's voice again, coming out of the darkness like an arrow of light. 'Come on, Brand, fight it, you great lunk. You can't die yet – I won't let you.'

Tears came, but I couldn't wipe them away. I still couldn't sense Brand. Garis I could feel, but not Brand. Didn't that mean he was dead? Oh, Goddess, tell me that just means he was unconscious. Tell me I was wrong…

It wasn't the Goddess who replied; it was the Mirage Makers. Concept: Death. Image: Brand. Concept: Negation. He was not dead, not yet. But then I heard the sob in Garis's voice, the despair and exhaustion. And I couldn't help.. I couldn't lend my healing to his, I couldn't move. Brand still might die while I stood invisible and helpless just a pace or two away, yet so far off I could have been in another world.

Time passed so slowly.

I should have tired, but the darkness seemed to support me. My arms did not ache even as the hours passed. The Mirage Makers did not speak, but neither did their love falter. Almost indiscernibly the thing I carried lost its reality, lightened in my hands, to become less substantial, until I held a wraith, a being _

created from nothing more substantial than mist or sunlight.

Occasionally I heard Garis make a movement from the other side of the darkness, but I could not identify his actions. I had no proof Brand was alive – until I heard his voice.

Weak, hardly more than a whisper. 'Garis?' It could have been the final mutter of a dying man; I had no way of knowing.

Garis's reply: 'Yes, it's me.'

'What are you doing?'

'Healing a great gash in your belly. Lie back and let it happen.'

A moment's silence, then Brand again. 'Pinar did it. Where's Ligea?'

'Who? Oh, Shirin. I don't know. I think she's all right.' His bitterness speared me. 'Pinar is dead.'

And still more silence, like the blankness of death.

It was several more hours before either of them spoke again. Then it was Brand's voice I heard, stronger now, no longer the voice of a dying man. My heart rejoiced, but the saner part of me wondered how it was possible. His hold on life had surely been as tenuous as a last solitary thistledown resisting the tug of the wind. And Garis was hardly an experienced healer. How then had he saved, someone so close to death? It didn't seem to make sense.

I heard Brand ask Garis, 'Did you see what happened?'

'No. I was knocked out. But Shirin was alive at the end of it all. Then she, er, sort of disappeared.' He kept his fear tightly clutched within, yet I felt it anyway. T don't know where she went. I can sense her, though. It's strange; it's as if she is close by, but also somehow

remote at the same time.' The sound of water being poured, then a pause. 'How do you feel now?'

'Stronger. I don't suppose you're going to say it, but I know I was near death then, and you brought me back. I am in your debt.' Another pause. 'Shall we bury her?'

'Cabochon knows how I am ever going to tell Temellin this -' Garis sounded sick and his voice faded. 'I shall ride after him today. He must be told.' I felt the ragged edges of his despair.

'And the Stalwarts?'

'I no longer believe in them, Brand. Or in her. Somehow she distorted what should have been true. She has power, but it is not like ours. It is tainted.'

'No.'

They were silent for a time. Two men agreeing to disagree.

'And you, what will you do?' Garis asked him.

'Wait here for her. She will be back.'

'You witless Altani ass! She doesn't deserve anyone's loyalty.'

'Because she killed Pinar? Come on, Garis, what else could she have done? Pinar was the one who attacked her. I almost died because Ligea hesitated to kill her. That's when Pinar did this to me.'

More silence.

Then Brand's: 'Let's get her buried.'

'Are you sure you're strong enough?'

'A five-year-old could probably flatten me with a cooked turnip, though I think I can help you carry a body. I don't know what you did, Garis, but it was nothing short of miraculous. You don't look so chirpy yourself, come to think of it.'

'All power has its price. That five-year-old would only need half a turnip to'knock me into next week…'

I listened to them leave the room, and relief brought my tears back.

A little later, I was aware of a change in the darkness around me, a thickening. My hands seemed empty. Concepts in my head: Completion. Appreciation. It is done. We thank you. A hand – a mirage of substance rather than vision? – took mine and clasped it. I felt a flood of gratitude, not from one but from a host of individuals, each giving me their blessing through that one hand. Then there seemed to be a movement in the darkness and I felt what might have been lips against my cheek, a kiss as light and as soft as the brush of a falling snowflake. An illusion, of course. Their attempt at a human gesture.

I was once again standing in the room, blinking in sunlight.

I was desperately weak. I had to clutch the wall to support myself as I made my way downstairs, reeling from step to step like a wood-possum drunk on fermented fruit. Then, just as I reached the outside door, I heard Brand say, 'You're going immediately?'

I stopped, leaning against the wall. I could see the two of them through the gap of the half-open door. Garis was holding the bridle of a shleth and Brand, stripped to the waist, was seated on a boulder nearby. An ugly wound ploughed raw and fresh across his stomach. Behind him, a mound – not there the night before – was covered with flowers, living ones: the Mirage Makers paying homage to the mother of their newest companion.

But it was Brand who held my attention. He was… changed. I reached out, trying to touch his mind, to gauge his emotions. As always, he shielded himself, yet still I felt he was different. He reminded me of someone. A moment later, I had it. He reminded me of a Magor

child. He had the same faint hint of undeveloped Magorness as such children had before they learned control of their cabochons.

And that was surely impossible.

Garis nodded in answer to Brand's question. 'Are you sure you won't come with me?'

'I'm sure. Garis, I don't know what you're thinking, but whatever it is, you're doing Ligea – Shirin – an injustice. Why don't you wait until she returns? She can explain -'

'There can be no explanation that would justify what she did. None.' He knew I was there, of course. He must have sensed my presence. He wanted me to hear.

'There is, you know. She told me -'

'And you believe everything she says, don't you? You're even more gullible than I was! She hated Pinar because Pinar had Temellin, so she slaughtered her. She's a dangerous killer. I don't want to see her, Brand, because if I do I will try to fry her and probably end up dead myself. She murdered Pinar; she'd make crow bait out of me. I'd give a lot to know how she managed to fade out of that room, though,' he added thoughtfully as his anger died. 'She must have learned from those Magor books.'