"Glenda Larke - Heart of the Mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Larke Glenda)

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. T want you to find this тАФ 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 тАФ?'
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 тАФ' He allowed his glance to sweep over me,