Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  It’s beautiful. Why is our sky so much brighter than that of Tyrans?

  ‘Foran used to tell me it was because there is less moisture in the air here.’

  In silence, they watched the sky lighten, changing colour through pinks and reds into an early-morning azure.

  It’s so serene, Tarran said as the sun came up.

  ‘Can you stay with me today?’

  No. I should go back now. One other thing first. Something else I wanted to say: I found a speck of wisdom in your chaotic thoughts. About Firgan. Beware of that man. I didn’t like the way he felt when he received his own sword as a youth.

  ‘You weren’t alive then, surely.’

  No, but it’s in my memory now, like the runes. Nothing we can identify—just the feeling that he covets power for what it can bring him, rather than for the good it can do.

  ‘Wouldn’t the Mirage Makers refuse him a Mirager’s sword then?’

  No. It is part of the Covenant that we don’t interfere in the affairs of the Magor, remember? We supply the swords. What you do with them is up to you. If we changed the rules, we would damage the magic, and I am not sure that we would know how to fix it. Magor magic was made so long ago that we have indistinct memories of how it was done. We did not keep the knowledge alive by thinking about it—there seemed no reason to do so. Of course, if a Mirager broke the Covenant, then there would be no more swords. But then, that’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it? No more swords, I mean. Soon, too.

  A lump formed in Arrant’s throat. He wanted to say all sorts of things: Fight it. Don’t die. Stay with me. I can’t bear the thought of you gone. I’m frightened—but he curbed the desire. Tarran needed his strength, not his fear. Instead he asked, ‘Are you scared?’

  I—I don’t want to be nothing.

  ‘You will become one with the land, as we all do when we die. To nurture those who follow us. To be part of them. We’ll be together one day.’

  I’d rather be the way I am.

  ‘I—I know. I’d rather you were too. But it’s better than nothing.’ Maybe. He wanted to say something comforting, but did not have the words. His gaze followed the drift of a flight of roof-scurriers. Standing there in his nightgown, Arrant felt the chill of the morning air and thought of death. Of Tarran dying.

  ‘How soon is soon?’ he asked, his voice husky.

  But his brother had already gone.

  ‘That’s not good news,’ Firgan said. He was speaking to his father, but his eyes were on Serenelle where she sat sewing. It was a humid day and her anoudain was sticking to her breasts. His eyes feasted. She glared.

  He smiled at her and continued, ‘The other day you told us Temellin still won’t give up any of his power in spite of his blindness, and now you say he is postponing his brat’s swearing-in again? I was hoping it would be soon.’

  ‘He’s still in the Mirage and he wants to be present, which is hardly surprising,’ Korden replied.

  ‘The boy is going to fall flat on his unresponsive sword and people will remember when the time arrives to vote on his suitability as Mirager-heir. Temellin is postponing the ceremony, hoping Arrant will improve with time.’

  ‘Is his sword unresponsive?’

  ‘I haven’t taught him yet. Ask Serenelle. She attends some of the same classes.’

  ‘It’s unpredictable,’ she said. ‘Same as his cabochon. Nothing’s changed.’

  ‘What do the other students think of him?’ Firgan asked her.

  She shrugged. ‘How would I know? I don’t ask them.’

  ‘Then guess,’ he snapped.

  She winced and answered. ‘He has a certain amount of respect. He never gives up when he fails, which is all the time as far as his Magor power is concerned. If he failed at everything, maybe the students would mock him. But he doesn’t. He’s at the top in every class except Magor studies. He can ride better than anyone I’ve ever seen—remarkable seeing he’d never ridden a shleth at all until he came to Kardiastan. And the students respect the fact that he can beat them with one hand tied behind his back when it comes to normal swordfighting. He’s good, Firgan. And then there’s his ability to talk to his Mirage Maker brother. That gives him a certain, um, status.’ She picked up her sewing and left the room before he could comment.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll make a Mirager of him yet,’ Korden said.

  ‘He might be lying about being able to speak to his brother.’

  ‘In which case, we would know, would we not?’ Korden asked drily.

  ‘We can’t sense anything about him most of the time,’ Firgan pointed out. ‘Maybe he can lie to us. Anyway, the fact remains—I will never allow this land to have an official heir who can’t manage his cabochon!’

  ‘Neither will I. But he still has a couple of years to prove himself. His determination to learn control might lead to success eventually.’

  ‘Father, this country needs vision in its leaders, and we haven’t got it. In any sense. I am not interested in following either Temellin or Arrant into oblivion.’

  ‘Oblivion?’

  ‘Read the signs! The continuity of Magor power is doomed. We will lose this war against the Ravage because we don’t know how to fight beasts you can’t easily kill. Skies, Father, you know: cut a Ravage beast in two and they don’t die—you just have two beasts instead of one!’

  ‘They can be sword-burned.’

  ‘Use power like that and a warrior soon has an empty sword. It’s not our kind of battle. What if the Mirage Makers do disappear, and we have no new Magor? What if Kardiastan ends up being decimated by Ravage beasts? We need new horizons. New wealth. With proper planning and strong leadership we could conquer and control Tyrans and Corsene. We could abandon Kardiastan to the ordinary Kardi—if they wanted it—and leave to rule elsewhere.’

  ‘Protection of Kardiastan is our sacred duty—’

  ‘Rubbish. The Covenant is broken, or will be the moment our children fail to receive their cabochons. Our duty is to find a safe home for us, and for all who care to follow us. Every Kardi alive, if they want.’

  Korden stared at him, uncomfortable. Firgan smiled. It wasn’t the first time he had broached such ideas, but it was the first time that they had seemed to resonate with his father. ‘Dripping water wears hollows in even the hardest of rocks,’ he thought.

  ‘No.’ Barret, buildermaster of Madrinya, shook his head as he pored myopically over the parchment on the table. ‘There wouldn’t be sufficient lateral force, Magori. You’ve factored in the weight of the water channel, but you’ve forgotten about the weight of the water. Your aqueduct wouldn’t hold up if the channel was full.’

  ‘Oh. So it would need buttressing?’

  ‘Yes. Here and here, to pass the thrust. But looking at the land contour and your flow map, I think a siphon might be a better solution for that valley anyway—’

  Outside, a bell started tolling and Arrant jumped. ‘Skies, I’ve got to get back. I have a meeting with the Mirager.’

  There was no doubting the pleasure in his voice, but Barret felt a pang of sorrow. How long was it now since the lad had arrived in Kardiastan—five months maybe? Yet he had hardly seen his father for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Others may envy the Magor, but Barret knew the price they paid for their power. ‘Come again any time,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, buildermaster. I’d like to.’

  Barret accompanied him to the door and watched him ride away through the streets of the city, trailed by two mounted guards. The Magor might mutter about a lad who couldn’t control his sword—he’d heard the rumours—but Buildermaster Barret was well pleased with the idea of a Mirager-heir who spent his spare time designing aqueducts and bridges over imaginary landscapes.

  Out on the street, there were so many people thronging the city that Arrant found it hard to urge his mount at more than a walk. For the past few months, Madrinya had been chaotic. First there’d been the full Council meeting followed by the wider Magor gathering, and after
that there had been a steady build-up of armed men, most of them Magor, and auxiliaries, all non-Magor, not to mention their mounts and the howdah shleths that would be transporting men and goods. Early reconnaissance troops had left first, then the major contingent, led by the Mirager. They had been followed by a second contingent, after which Temellin had returned. Arrant did not expect him to stay long. He was planning to visit Asida and Amisa to the north.

  ‘Hey, Arrant!’

  He turned in his saddle to see Perradin calling to him. He was with Bevran, Vevi and Serenelle, and they were all leading shleths. ‘We’re off to have a game of dubblup by the lake—want to come?’

  ‘Can’t!’ he replied. ‘The Mirager wants to see me.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Serenelle said, and smiled. He never knew how to take her smiles. Bevran, who swore he was in love, was always asking her to join them, even though she never evinced the slightest interest in him. It was Arrant who was the target of her considering gaze and the sweetness of her smile, but he was never sure why. Was she angling for a husband who might be Mirager one day? Or was she just spying for her family?

  ‘Damn it all,’ he thought as he rode on, ‘I might have more of an idea if I could control my sensing abilities better.’ He wasn’t sure he liked the way she made his breathing quicken. The last girl he wanted to dream about would be any member of the Korden family.

  When Arrant entered the room, Temellin was alone. He had become used to seeing his father giving orders and making plans, always surrounded by people. Feeling his son’s surprise, Temellin flashed a smile. ‘I wanted to see you alone,’ he explained. ‘This may be my last chance before I ride out tomorrow, and I won’t be back for a while. After Asida and Amisa, I will head for the Mirage.’

  ‘Oh, Father, again?’

  ‘Why not? I have my senses. I don’t need to see.’

  ‘I should be with you, in case the Mirage Makers need to communicate.’

  ‘Until you can reliably control your power, you are not going near the Ravage.’

  ‘But with Tarran in my head—’

  ‘Arrant, you told me yourself that Tarran said he cannot be sure if he can always answer your calls in an emergency. You will stay in Madrinya for the time being, and that’s final. What I wanted to tell you was that we will hold your dedication ceremony on your fourteenth anniversary day. There’s no need to delay any further, not if you can plan ahead so that Tarran can be with you to help you with your control. I will return for that. In the meantime, I intend to keep Firgan away from Madrinya as much as I can. I’ll try to arrange it so that when he’s here, I will be too. It may not always be possible, but that’s my aim. When I’m not here, either Jessah or Jahan will be, so you’ll always have someone you can rely on. And although everyone knows about your ability to communicate with Tarran, I would continue to keep quiet about the fact that having Tarran in your head gives you control over your power.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It gives you a last line of defence.’

  Against Firgan, he meant. ‘All right. I haven’t told anyone yet. Not even Perry.’

  Temellin came forward holding out his left hand. ‘Take care, son,’ he said as their cabochons met. ‘Write to your mother often. She will worry, you know.’

  ‘Father, I don’t think the Mirage Makers feel you can win.’

  ‘The Mirage Makers aren’t warriors. They deal in illusions and the bizarre. Their lives have been centred around the joy they take from their creation of the Mirage. What do they know of combat? But we Magor know. We fought the might of Tyr’s legions. And we can afford to lose this war even less than we could have the last one. We have strong motivation, Arrant, and I have the strongest of all. I will hand on to my successor a land that is whole and free, one that contains a Mirage. I swear it.’

  But Arrant knew neither of them had any way of knowing the future.

  Almost a month later, when Temellin stood on the last rake at the edge of the Mirage, the certainty of future victory appeared more remote. He could smell the rot. He could sense the Ravage, and it was everywhere. In front of him, several of the Magor were extracting Ravage beasts, one at a time, out of a sore with a grappling hook and a chain hauled by a shleth. It was hot, nasty work. Once a hook was embedded the men found it difficult to remove without being ripped to pieces. The beasts had to be kept apart from one another until they died, because if they were heaped together, they managed to exude enough liquid to start another sore—the Magor had learned that the hard way.

  He turned to Garis, who was standing beside him, and said, ‘Let’s walk back to camp. I want to know what you found out there.’ Garis, after a month of risking his life deep inside the Mirage, never knowing when he lay down to sleep at night whether he would still be alive in the morning, now knew more than anyone about the state of the Mirage.

  ‘It’s flatter than it used to be,’ came the reply. He strained to keep his voice neutral, but nonetheless Temellin heard the reflection of his troubled thoughts. ‘All the valleys where the lakes once were, they are now filled with Ravage sores. What’s left of the Mirage is bare. Flat grassland, mostly. No buildings, no roads. Oh, there are some absurdities, just as there used to be, but they are fewer, and further apart. Sands take it, Temel—the bloody grass is green! Plain, ordinary green.’

  Temellin didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. ‘Our water supply?’ he asked at last as they approached the huddle of reed roofing and makeshift shelters, known as Raker’s Camp, on the Fifth Rake. He had long since realised water could be a problem. There never had been any large rivers in the Mirage. The snow-melt from the Alps to the north soaked into the porous soils of the foothills and disappeared, only to emerge as lakes in the low-lying areas throughout Kardiastan, but if most of the lakes in the Mirage had become Ravage sores…

  Garis replied, ‘The Mirage Makers did as Tarran promised they would. There are ponds out there, and enough grazing for the shleths. How’s the fighting been going while I was gone?’

  ‘Well, pulling the creatures out of the sores is tough, as you can see. We did try nets, but they get torn by claws and teeth. I’ve sent word to Madrinya and Asufa to make more hooks. In the meantime, we forge what we can using sword power and whatever metal we have to hand. I have the mastersmiths working on it. I want to start with eradicating some of the smaller Ravage sores and their beasts, tackling them a few at a time. We need more victories; our forces need to feel we can make a difference.’ As they walked, he glanced over his shoulder at the Mirage as if he could see it. There was pain there, a continuous blur of it like a background buzz of bees. ‘Sandhells,’ he thought. ‘My son endures that, day after day?’ He flinched at the image in his mind. ‘Do you have any ideas, Garis?’

  ‘I was wondering about salt. It kills things. What would happen if we dumped blocks of salt into a Ravage sore?’

  He considered that. ‘It might work, but I doubt we could bring in enough to make a difference to the bigger sores. Salt is scarce and expensive. We buy most of ours from Assoria and we could never get enough for that job. Though the Mirage made salt once…I’ll have to send a message back to Arrant to tell him to ask Tarran if they can do it again.’ He shook his head in exasperation. Arrant was right about one thing; it would have been easier if he’d been here. He added, ‘I want you to come back to Madrinya with me at the end of next month, by the way, for Arrant’s dedication ceremony. I shall be taking Korden and Firgan too.’

  ‘Arrant won’t thank you for that.’

  ‘They need a break from the Mirage, just like everyone else—and I prefer to be there in Madrinya when Firgan is, if I can.’

  ‘You don’t trust him?’

  ‘Would you?’

  Garis laughed. ‘About as much as I’d trust a Ravage beast.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The passageways beneath Madrinya had begun their existence prosaically enough as cellars that made the most of a natural network of caverns. At the time of the Covenant bet
ween Kardis and Mirage Makers, part of them had been set aside to house the Tablets of the Covenant. When the Tyranian legions invaded, the passageways became escapeways and the Tablets were spirited away to the Mirage, to be returned only after the Kardi victory.

  The day he was to read them and take his oath of loyalty to the Covenant should have been one of the happiest in Arrant’s life. Tarran was with him, so he didn’t have to worry about his sword not reacting to his touch. His father was back, unharmed; so was Garis. The Mirage Makers were cautiously optimistic because the Ravage sores were no longer spreading. Sowing the smaller ones with salt had been successful. True, emptying the larger ones of Ravage beasts would be a huge task and no one yet had any idea whether it could be done, even in a generation, but at least the battle had begun. He should have been happy; instead, as he waited in one of the underground chambers to be called for the ceremony, he was consumed by a nebulous feeling of dread.

  Whatever is the matter with you? Tarran asked. Your mind is like an ant trying to climb the sloping sand in an ant-lion trap, scrabbling all over the place yet never getting anywhere.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been feeling strange ever since we came down here.’

  You’re not one of those people who can’t stand being underground, are you?

  ‘No, that doesn’t worry me.’

  Let me probe a bit deeper.

  ‘No thanks. I’ll manage my own mind, if you don’t mind.’

  Your stomach feels weird too. Can’t you manage it better? It makes me feel terribly odd.

  ‘I’ll tell my stomach to behave. I’ll threaten to eat a bowl of those fried anchovies you like so much if it doesn’t.’

  Are you being funny?

  ‘Trying. Never mind. I’m sure this is nothing.’