Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  He felt a yearning to communicate in the air, an alien entity’s desire to speak. The whisper of the sands was there, in his mind, but he could not understand.

  ‘Surely the Barrens are alive,’ he thought. ‘They feel as if they are.’ He wondered if the runes were trying to tell him what they said, the way they tried to tell him about his mounts.

  Shoulder height. He looked back at the rake. Temellin remained where Arrant had left him, motionless, a hand shading his eyes against the glare as he stared. Behind him and slightly higher up the slope of the rake, Garis stood, hand in hand with Samia. Arrant waved and turned to follow the call he still heard ahead. Not the sands, he knew; the Mirage Makers. But that yearning? That was something else, new to him.

  The sands whipped over his head, cocooning him, filtering the harsh light of the sun into a purplish gloom of cool air, swept with the capricious wind the sands themselves created with their movement.

  Arrant…Arrant…this way.

  Words whispered, not quite as Tarran spoke to him, nor yet as a person spoke, either. Tarran’s words he heard in the same way he heard his own thoughts. These words he seemed to hear whispered close to his ears. ‘They are using the song of the Shiver Barrens somehow,’ he speculated. ‘Twisting it to shape their words, because they have no true bodies and no true voice.’

  He obeyed their call and at last he saw them: shadowed, nebulous, unreal, half hidden by the undulating curtains of sand. Formed to give a semblance of humanity. Yet they weren’t really there, not in a tangible human sense. They were just an extension of the Mirage.

  ‘Tarran?’ he whispered.

  He is not here.

  Grief tore through him, shredding uncertainties, defining what was important with new clarity. He said, ‘If you are here, then he must be too.’ Words that tried to salve a wound that would not heal until he felt Tarran in his head once more.

  No. He will know later what happens here. But now, he does not hear us. He has cut you free. He feels you betrayed him.

  ‘I did not mean it as a betrayal,’ he protested. ‘But I was thoughtless and stupid and muddled. I—I have tried to call him back. When this is over, I want to talk to my father, but Tarran should be there. Please tell him that. Besides, he needs me. How can he survive without the safety of my mind?’

  The choice must be his. He grows older. We will shield him as much as we can.

  ‘But it’s also important that we communicate! Together we might find a solution…’

  None of the Mirage Makers will survive what is happening, Arrant. You must realise that. It is just a matter of time. Perhaps that is as it should be: every being comes to an end of his road and looks out into the unimaginable infinity of death beyond. It is soon to be our turn.

  He wanted to rail against the Mirage Makers’ certainty. Scream at them all to fight, Vortexdamn it, never to give in. As if they didn’t battle and never had. They were already fighting, every day of their lives.

  Arrant took a deep breath to steady himself. He subdued his frustration and said instead, as if to plead his brother’s case, ‘Tarran is only just starting out on his life. The rest of you have centuries behind you. And all he has ever known is the pain of the Ravage. There must be a way to stop what is happening. Together we must find it.’

  He has known your world. And in it, an absence of pain. You have given him that much.

  ‘I would give him more, if I knew how. He once thought perhaps I could help you. Somehow. You thought that, I know you did! So what can I do?’

  Yes, we thought he would make a difference. But there is something we missed. His presence here was not enough.

  ‘If I could use my cabochon properly, would that make a difference?’

  To us? We don’t think so. The gem in your hand, in every Magor’s hand, is a concentration of energy continually renewed by pilfering from other sources—the sun, the wind, heat. It enhances your Magorness, the essence you and all Magor possess at birth. We can feel that personal power of yours, as well as that of your cabochon. Both are there, true and strong. You just do not recognise it. Cannot reach for it.

  ‘There is something wrong within me?’

  There was a heavy silence. Then, We believe so.

  Oh, sandhells. It really was his fault. His own sodding, pickle-brained fault. ‘Then how do I learn? How do I overcome this? Tell me!’

  This time they were silent, and he knew they knew of no way.

  ‘I will never give up,’ he said, defiant. ‘Won’t having a Magor sword help?’

  Probably not.

  A wave of nausea swelled, then retreated. Sweet Elysium.

  We are sorry, Arrant. We would help if we knew how. If we thought there was a way.

  He changed the subject. ‘Tarran. I need to talk to him. If I could only explain—’

  There was another heavy silence, and then more truths he didn’t want to hear. You think it easy to wipe away the footprint of betrayal? Ask your mother, she will tell you the pain of betrayal lasts a lifetime.

  ‘Will he never forgive me?’

  He thought you were prepared to obliterate him in order to appear in a better light before your father. He wondered if you were jealous, the way you were of Brand—and wanted to keep your father’s love to yourself.

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ He refused to allow the shuddering in his chest to spill over into the release of tears. He was too old for tears. ‘If he would just speak to me—’

  Give him time. We will send him back.

  ‘Tell him I’m sorry. I wanted to unsay it the moment I said it—’

  He will know. We Mirage Makers are all one, remember? Whatever you say to us, he will know the moment we leave the Barrens. But hurt needs time to subside.

  Arrant felt as if he had been cleaved with pain. He couldn’t speak.

  Then, while he struggled with his shame, they spoke again, more information he had not wanted. We are losing our hold on the Mirage, Arrant. And we know not where it goes.

  ‘I don’t think I know what you mean.’

  The Ravage beasts have learned to use the winds. The gales come down from the mountains, drawn in by the heat, and sweep away the earth where once we thrived. Tell the Magor to beware; your people will become their prey, food to those who now devour us.

  Arrant wrenched himself away from his personal pain to deal with this new threat. ‘You mean the Ravage beasts are leaving you to attack us? But we can fight them for you. The Magor are warriors—’

  Can Magor warriors defeat monsters streaming out on the wind in the thousands? We fear our death dooms you all. Once we were all that was beautiful and gave you shelter. Now we house within us the end to all you hold dear. Tell the Mirager.

  The idea was almost too much for him to grasp. The Magor had feared the death of the Mirage Makers and an end to the magic that made the Magor special. Now it seemed they were looking at the possible annihilation of the Magor—an end to their lives, not just their power.

  It is not only that, the Mirage Makers said, as if they understood his thoughts. All of Kardiastan will fall to the Ravage beasts unless you find a way to do what we could not.

  No words came to him in answer. He had come full of hope to receive his sword, and now all hope was annihilated by the magnitude of the disaster foretold.

  While he stood there, stricken and speechless, a sword appeared in the air in front of him. A Magor sword.

  Take it. It is yours.

  He hesitated, swamped by all that had gone before. More than ever, he needed a sword that worked. The Magoroth would soon be called upon to save the land again. His desire to be a true Magoroth warrior so mingled with his fear of failure that he found it difficult to move. Finally, he reached out and plucked the weapon from the air. His cabochon slotted into the hollow on the hilt. The clasp of his hand felt right, as if it belonged. The balance of the blade was perfect. It was his.

  But nothing happened.

  No flare of colour. No surge of p
ower.

  Instead it was his pain at the failure that flared, the fire of it running through his mind and body in searing streams.

  Failure.

  He would never be a true Magoroth. His sword was just an interesting artefact, sharper than most. He stood staring at it, hardly hearing what the Mirage Makers were saying.

  There is a responsibility that comes with this weapon. This is not a sword that drinks blood for the sake of power; it is an instrument of service to this land and all who live here. Use it for personal gain, pursue corrupt goals, and you break the Covenant made by your forebears. Never turn it on your peers with lethal intent. Are you willing to accept this gift?

  He swallowed back his pain. ‘I am.’

  And then the presence of the Mirage Makers was ripped from him. The sands continued to sing—they were still urgent and fervid as if they strove to make him understand their hidden message—but there was no one else there. He was isolated, surrounded by humming sand grains.

  The shock of the abandonment shuddered through him. The Mirage Makers had been sundered from the Shiver Barrens, torn by a power he could not recognise. ‘Wait!’ he cried, terror swelling. ‘I don’t know how to go back.’

  He whirled around, staring, searching, but had no idea which way was out.

  He fumbled for control over his cabochon. Nothing. No colour. And nothing flowed from his cabochon to his sword. In his hand, a Magor sword was no different to a weapon crafted in the blacksmith’s alley of Madrinya. He clamped down on his panic.

  This was so stupid. No one else had been so abruptly abandoned. No one else had problems returning to the rake after receiving their Magor sword. But when he swung it to and fro, waiting for it to flare and direct him to the rake, it was quiescent.

  He licked dry lips. Tarran? he asked, the request apologetic. I am in real trouble. Can you help me? Please?

  There was no reply. Yet he knew Tarran would come if he heard. He knew it. Something had happened, something terrible, and the Mirage Makers had been wrenched away. He was on his own.

  The sands weren’t attacking him. Yet. Fear settled over his shoulders, a cloak of creeping terror. How long did he have before the remnant influence of the Mirage Makers dissipated and the sands turned on him in their mindless dance powered by the heat of the sun? He had no idea. A quarter of an hourglass? Less?

  He was disoriented. Cut off from the sky, from sounds, from smells—from anything that would indicate which way he should go.

  He shouted, calling out to Temellin. Tentatively, timidly at first, then bellowing. First one direction. Then another. But even to his own ears, his voice was muffled by the singing sands. How would Garis or Temellin or anyone else hear him?

  ‘Goddess, this is ridiculous,’ he thought. ‘I can’t die out here, within a hundred paces of safety, just because I don’t know which way to go. It’s absurd!’

  Carefully he thought about the direction in which he had just moved. A circle. He’d turned in a circle. Which meant he still had his back to the rake. So if he turned around, he ought to be facing the right way. ‘The trick,’ he told himself, ‘will be not to walk in a circle once I start.’

  He set off. After fifty paces, nothing had changed except that the dancing of the sands seemed more frenetic. The day was hotter, perhaps that was why. He had no idea where he was. None. And the first grains had brushed his skin, slid down his neck to rub against him under his shirt. One tiny sliver bounced into his eye, and began to edge itself under his eyelid. Horror made all the hairs on his neck stand up. And the grains of sand caught on them.

  He started sweating. Tarran, please!

  Silence.

  Samia was restless. It was so hot on the rake, a dry, crisping heat. Even seeking out the shade didn’t seem to help. The red rock soaked up the sun’s rays like a snake in the sun and then radiated the heat back at them. Most of the servants and guards, scattered in the indentations of the rake, were asleep.

  ‘I feel like bread in an oven,’ she complained, wilting.

  ‘Take a nap in the cave,’ her father said, referring to where the two of them had spent the night. It was more a deep fold than a cave, but it was cooler there and spread with sleeping pelts. The dew run-off had made a pool in a niche nearby, and she would have loved to bathe in it if there hadn’t been so many people about.

  ‘I don’t want to miss Arrant coming out of the sands. What’s taken him so long? All he has to do is get a sword. And it’s not even a Mirager’s sword.’

  Garis glanced over at the Barrens. ‘Well, it doesn’t take this long normally. But Arrant is not a normal youth. He has a brother among the Mirage Makers, for a start.’

  She knew the story. It was so sad…What could you say to a brother who was a Mirage Maker?

  She looked down at the edge of the sands, where the Mirager waited. He leaned against a tall finger of rock, arms folded, looking out in the direction Arrant had taken. He was stern, his grimness intimidating. ‘I’m glad I have a father who’s so much fun,’ she thought. ‘I bet Arrant doesn’t have as much fun as I do. He often looks sad.’

  ‘Why don’t you go down and ask him about your mother,’ Garis suggested. ‘It’ll take his mind off Arrant and make time seem to go faster.’

  She thought about that, but made no move.

  ‘It will help him,’ Garis said gently.

  She brightened. She liked to be of use; it was why she wanted to be a healer. She scrambled to her feet and walked over to stand in front of Temellin, her hands behind her back, a solemn expression on her face to match his. ‘Papa says I should ask you about my mother. Did you know her?’

  He smiled, and she thought he looked much nicer. He had the kind of smile that lit up a face. ‘Of course! She was funny and sweet and brave and very, very young. I was so sad when I heard she had died.’

  ‘She was only seventeen when I was born. I’m eleven now. Well, almost. But I don’t miss her. Is that wrong of me? I don’t remember her, you see. I try hard, but I don’t remember a thing.’

  ‘No, it’s not wrong. But she knew you. And loved you. She shared your life for two whole years, even though you don’t remember them. You would be a different person if she had not loved you and taught you and played with you. Nothing can take those years away, Samia. Part of you is the way it is because she was there, loving and caring for you when you were tiny.’

  She thought about that. ‘I like that. It means she left part of herself behind in me. How did you know that?’

  ‘Maybe because you remind me of her. Maybe because I, too, lost my mother when I was young. I do remember her, though, a bit. Just not as well as I would like.’

  ‘Arrant lost you when he was young, too,’ she said. ‘But now he has a chance to know you. He’s lucky.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘I hope he thinks so.’

  She looked over her shoulder at the sands. ‘He’s been in there a long while.’ She frowned. ‘Did you know he’s just started to walk away from us again?’

  ‘Again?’ He stared at the Shiver Barrens. ‘I can’t feel hi—Oh, shit!’ he said. In one fluid motion he grabbed both his cloak and Arrant’s from where they’d been flung over a rock, and raced into the sands. As he dashed past her, he roared over his shoulder, ‘Noise! Make a noise.’

  Garis came up at a run. ‘What happened?’ he asked Samia. ‘Did the Mirage Makers call Temellin in too?’

  ‘No. Arrant’s going the wrong way.’

  He stood stock still. ‘I can’t sense him at all. The sands are blocking everything.’

  ‘Can’t you? I can. And I think the Mirager did too, just then. Arrant started back this way, then he went that way’—she pointed to the right—‘then he gradually turned and started going away from us. He’s scared, Papa. The Mirager says to make a noise.’

  ‘Vortexhells.’ Garis went white, staring at her. Then he turned to shout at the guards, calling them down to the edge of the sands. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, but his gaz
e had returned to the Shiver Barrens. ‘The Mirage Makers must have gone. If the sands are active again, both of them are dead. Can you still feel him, Sam?’

  ‘He’s stopped.’

  His arm tightened. They were both thinking the same thing. Perhaps, attacked by the Barrens, he’d fallen. Perhaps he was dead.

  ‘What about Temellin?’

  ‘I could at first, but not now. He went too deep. But he did seem to know which way to go, at least at first.’

  ‘Magori?’ One of the guards spoke behind them. ‘Is there trouble?’

  ‘Yes. There might be. And I want everyone to make as much noise as they can. Yelling, screaming, hitting the rocks with cooking pans—anything at all. I want them to keep it up until the Mirager returns with his son. If they can hear us, they can get back. Understand?’

  The man nodded, already turning away to shout the orders.

  ‘Unbuckle your stirrups from your saddle, Sam,’ Garis said. ‘Bang them against the rocks. Can you sense them?’

  ‘Arrant’s moving again. Back towards us.’

  ‘Temellin?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why can I feel Arrant and not Temellin?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s your healer’s empathy. You feel his need, his—’

  ‘Pain,’ she finished for him. ‘He’s hurting.’ She shivered. Pain was filling her head with its rawness, and it was hard to shut it out. She wanted to bury her face in her father’s chest for comfort. She wanted to feel his arms about her, keeping her safe. Instead, she went to unbuckle the stirrups.

  Tarran? Gods, Tarran, please come. I am in real trouble…

  He sank to the ground, pausing to pull his bolero off and wrap it around his face. He still had no idea which way was out. His panic unfurled his emotions and set them free, spinning out of his control in all directions. Perhaps someone would feel them. But what could they do anyway? The sands were slowly changing from grains obedient to the Mirage Makers’ restrictive hold to the free spirits they normally were, free to kill with their heedless dance.