Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  ‘Yes,’ Arrant replied and went to pour them both some wine.

  As Temellin took the goblet, he said, ‘I want to ask you something. A serious question. Do you want to be the Mirager-heir? Or, more to the point, do you want to be Mirager once I’m dead?’

  Ah, wine. That’s good. Drink it up, Arrant.

  Shut up, you tosspot.

  He sat opposite Temellin, aware he was being offered a way out, a way of avoiding the problems that would only increase in the days to come, if he continued as the heir. A way in which he could live an ordinary life, and not have to worry himself sick about his powers being unpredictable, even deadly. Gods, how he wanted that. An uncomplicated life where he could make friends who liked him for himself, where he could one day marry whom he chose, live where he liked and how he wanted.

  He opened his mouth to say, ‘Can I? Can I really?’ but the words that he whispered instead said something entirely different. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Right now I want to know how you feel about this. It’s your decision. Your life. The life you have to live once I am not here to guide you. I worry about whether I am being fair to you, if you don’t have cabochon and sword control.’

  Once again Arrant started to say what he wanted, only to stop as the first words formed. ‘No. No, it’s not about me,’ he said. ‘It’s about what is best for Kardiastan, isn’t it?’

  Temellin nodded. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re right,’ he agreed sadly. ‘It is.’

  ‘So, um, what is best? Will it be good for Kardiastan to have a weak Mirager who can’t manage his gem, nor therefore his sword, in any reliable way?’

  ‘Do you think that Firgan will ever ask the question that you just did: “So what is best for this land?”’

  Slowly, Arrant shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps your power will always be unpredictable,’ Temellin said. ‘Whereas he will be a powerful Mirager, we both know that. Magor-strong. And he will have a following. A military-based following too. On the other hand, people are suspicious of you, because of who your mother was, because of your history. You would not have an easy job. You would have to build a power base that was not founded on Magor strength, but on other things: decency and learning and wisdom. Not always easy. Ask your mother about that one. So, do you want to be Mirager when I am gone?’

  Arrant still wanted to say no. He wanted permission to be a nobody, and it seemed he was being offered it. Perhaps, then, he would be able to forget the other things. The rain of blood and the splinters of bone shooting like darts into the ground around where he stood, all that remained of men; the kindness of Brand’s smile as he died; knowing, as Temellin guided him out of the Shiver Barrens, that his father would never see again.

  Yet Brand’s words came back to him once more: I have to die knowing how I have lived. And so he heard himself say, ‘If it means keeping that bastard from putting his hand to the hilt of the Mirager’s sword? Yes. Gods above, yes.’

  ‘Well, he really made you look a fool yesterday, didn’t he?’ Lesgath grinned at his eldest brother. ‘You looked a real hollowhead. And I could hear Papa grinding you down to grape juice about it afterwards, too.’

  Firgan wondered for a moment what the penalty would be for decapitating his brother. One of these days…‘The little Tyranian bastard did not use his farsense to read those Tablets. He can’t control his senses well enough to see a pimple on his own backside. He’d learned the Covenant by heart, obviously. Temellin must have coached him. I’ll get my own back. I’ve made myself a promise: he won’t be so smug once he fails to be confirmed as Mirager-heir, and he certainly will never be Mirager. You just do your part, brother.’

  ‘I’ll have to, won’t I? Cos you’ll be off fighting battles with green slime in the Mirage.’ He grinned at his brother.

  ‘Oh, no I won’t. Not all the time. It’s one thing to fight Tyranian legionnaires, it’s quite another when the enemy is a pile of clawed beasts in a pit of pus. I intend to stay right here in Madrinya as much as I can. I am taking charge of the training of non-Magor soldiers as well as all the senior Academy arms classes. My skills in combat need to be passed on; that is where I am of most value to Kardiastan. Father organised enough backing of Councillors to force Temellin to agree. From now on, I’m on a rotation of three months here, one in the Mirage. Most of the others have three months fighting and one month off.’

  Lesgath stared at him. ‘That’s clever. Fighting the Ravage is probably a wasted battle anyway. One our family shouldn’t be associated with. And I don’t believe that the beasts are really going to come flying out on the wind like grit in a sandstorm. Do you?’

  ‘I doubt it. Anyway, what I want you and Serenelle to do is keep needling Arrant. I want his life to be a misery. One day he will lash out, and then we’ll have him.’

  ‘How so? You mean, goad him into using his Magor power against one of us?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Lesgath frowned. ‘You want to get me fried?’

  ‘Don’t be silly; we’re talking about Arrant here. He couldn’t fry a quail’s egg in the sun at midday.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Firgan. I was at the dedication ceremony! Anyway, I heard that he lost control and sliced up a whole legion before he was old enough to wear trousers. His Magor tutor among them.’

  ‘Exaggeration. He says his tutor died from a legionnaire spear, for a start. Lesgath, think. The moment he uses—or tries to use—his power against another one of the Magor, he has doomed himself. He hides his emotions pretty well, but there is one feeling I read from him all the time: frustration. He burns with it. We have to play on that. You know what they used to do to Magor who sent killing power against another one of the Magor?’

  ‘Yeah. They cracked their cabochon so all their power leaked out. Not enough to kill them, just enough to stop them being Magor. But that hasn’t happened, oh, for at least a hundred years. Not with one Magor doing it to another.’

  ‘Exactly. Now doesn’t that sound like a pleasant ending for that Tyranian lowlife? All you have to do is enrage him and make sure you have your warding ready. He won’t have enough power to do any real harm. We just have to catch him trying.’

  ‘He’s not that stupid. And I’m not stupid enough to provoke him to that point.’

  ‘All right, I’ll fix it so you won’t get hurt. And he will indeed be that stupid by the time we’ve finished with him. And we have two years, brother. We can do a lot in two years.’

  Ligea read the scroll three or four times.

  Vortexdamn it, Tyranian letters were so blasted formal, and Arrant’s tutors had all been Tyranians. She had to scan it again and again to pick up the subtle nuances between the florid nature of the greetings, the coldness of the information, and the formality of the farewells.

  Temellin was blind, that was a fact. But Arrant and Temellin seemed to have laid the groundwork for a good relationship, if she read the nuances correctly. Arrant hadn’t learned to manage his power reliably yet. However, he had given a spectacular show at his dedication ceremony, which had bought him some respite from Magoroth criticism. He would explain all about that when he saw her next. (Damn the boy for hinting at things. She’d have to ask Temellin what he meant.) The Ravage had stopped expanding, but the battle seemed stalled, with neither side gaining the upper hand. They believed the Ravage was going to leave the Mirage and prey on Kardiastan, given the chance.

  She frowned. If that was true—gods, they were in trouble. She read on. He didn’t see much of Garis. All the Magor who weren’t too young or too old were taking tours of duty in the Mirage. Temellin was fine.

  She grunted in exasperation. Now, what the Hades did that mean?

  ‘News from Madrinya?’

  She’d been so engrossed in the letter, she hadn’t heard Narjemah enter the room. ‘Now how did you know that? It could have been some dry document on the state of Tyr’s road system.’

  ‘You always get this dreamy look when eith
er the Mirager or Arrant writes.’

  ‘Rubbish. The Exaltarch of Tyrans is never dreamy.’

  Narjemah snorted. ‘How is the Mirager’s eyesight?’

  Ligea capitulated. ‘It’s from Arrant.’ She gave an outline of the news contained in the scroll. Narjemah crossed to her side, sombre now. She had been a Theura once, before the legions had cracked her cabochon. She knew the significance of the news.

  Ligea handed her the parchment to read. And as the light breeze from the loggia stirred the curls of her hair, she remembered things she would rather have forgotten. Being submerged in a suffocating emotion so thick she could barely breathe. Being hit by hammer blows of an outpouring of malicious loathing. Being enveloped by a gaze of gleeful, cruel hunger. She had always felt there was something horribly human about the Ravage. As if it were all the bad things humans could be.

  She thought about those beasts moving into Madrinya. Beasts out of one’s worst nightmares feeding on children in the streets…‘I’ve got to go back to Kardiastan,’ she said.

  Narjemah looked up from the scroll, nodding. ‘When?’

  ‘Soon,’ she said and added silently, ‘as soon as I can be sure Tyrans won’t fall apart the moment my back is turned.’ Kardiastan would need every sword they could get.

  Before the next desert-season, Gevenan brought the news she had been dreading.

  She was eating her evening meal with Narjemah when he plunged into the room, roaring at the guard to get out of his way. She waved away the Imperial Guardsman clutching at his arm, remarking mildly to Gevenan that he’d trained them to protect her, so it was hardly fair that he condemn them for doing just that. But the general wasn’t in the mood to be amused.

  ‘A mercenary army just invaded from Gala,’ he told her. ‘Fortunately I was right—they landed at Lisipo. Devros met them there. I had two legions waiting for them.’

  ‘So why do you look as if you’ve eaten a crab without shelling it first?’

  ‘They had help. That bloody idiot, the King of Janus, has sent his forces to land a second army at Ebura. Ligea, I’m sorry. But we have a proper war on our hands. This is serious. Janus has more resources than Gala. We need you.’

  She stifled an impractical desire to wring Devros’s neck. For a long while she didn’t answer, but sifted through the implications, and with every heartbeat, she felt a further chill at the thought of another conflict. She said at last, ‘Everything will depend on how much support they can garner here. The Acanicii family that Devros married into is from Lucum. Expect trouble there. And Devros’s sons have commercial interests in Burbet. They control the port and trade in much of that region. Watch for an uprising there. And they all follow the Cult of Melete. I wouldn’t mind betting Antonia has raided the Cult treasuries for gold to pay the troops. She still hankers after reinstatement to the Temple on the Forum Publicum and she’d sell her soul to anyone who would promise to give it to her. Watch the paveways for priestesses on the move and search their wagons.’

  ‘It’s the slavery issue,’ Gevenan said, and ran a hand over the close-crop of his grizzled hair. ‘There are just too many highborn in Tyrans who won’t accept your refusal to reinstate slavery. Especially those with interests in grain growing. Bloody ploughmen.’

  ‘I won’t ever go back to selling people like cattle, Gev.’

  ‘No, I know. And I’m glad. Leave the pretty boy here in Tyr to keep things quiet’—he meant Legate Valorian—‘and come with me to Ebura. We need that bloody gem in your palm. We need you.’

  She thought, despairing, ‘So does Tem. And Kardiastan.’

  He said, as if he’d read her mind, ‘Without your power this could drag on for years. You know that. The Mirager of Kardiastan has tens of warriors with stones in their palms. We have only one. Tyrans is not ready to do without you.’

  Grief swelled inside her, for she knew he was right. Peace came with a price, and you had to be prepared to pay it.

  PART TWO

  BROTHERS AND ENEMIES

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Arrant dreamed.

  There was no air. Nothing to breathe. He was struggling in thick liquid that ran into his eyes and ears and throat; a burning, stinking sludge that contaminated with its touch. He choked. Tears streamed. Skin shrivelled. He couldn’t hear, but he could see: deformed shapes striking out at him with curving claws and yellowed fangs, slimy ropes of living foulness insinuating themselves through the fluid to wind around his legs, to squeeze, pressuring, then tighter, crushing. He sweated, vomited fear, struggled…

  He reached for his father, to implore, to beg his help, his arms opening out in supplication. Temellin was there, but his eyes were unheeding and indifferent. Blind eyes. Arrant called to him: You came once, why not now?

  The rope-beast pulled its coils still tighter.

  You blinded me, his father said. You made me useless. How can a blind man help anyone?

  Guilt. It was all his fault.

  He thrashed, arms flailing, legs kicking—and woke.

  He was alone on his pallet. No nightmarish creatures. No Ravage corrosion. The fine-woven sheets were twisted about his legs, the pillow was wet with sweat.

  He let out the breath he had been holding and began to ease tightened muscles, one by one. The same dream, always the same dream. Only the creatures differed each time. Different beasts, but the same pain, same fear, same horror. Some foetal memory stirred to the surface by sleep? Or was it just a fertile imagination playing with stories of the past; stories of his own beginnings? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he’d had that dream—or a variation of it—long before he could recall his mother, or Tarran for that matter, telling him of the Ravage and of how he’d suffered its horrors prior to his birth.

  He unwound the sheets, stood and padded across the bare tiled floor to the open balcony shutters. It was the hour just before dawn, when light and dark vied for supremacy. Beyond the garden, the silhouette of the Madrinya skyline was sharp-edged against a pale sky, mostly adobe buildings now. In the six months since his dedication ceremony, several of the Tyranian monstrosities arrogantly blocking out the sky had been pulled down. They’d used the marble to pave the main market. Other buildings, less offensive, had survived because they’d been planted over with creepers to hide the stone walls and blend them in better with the Kardi adobe of the homes between. The Tyranian buildings around the lake edge, with the sole exception of Korden’s villa, had disappeared even before he’d set eyes on the city. There, the traditional parkland and coppices along the shore had been replanted in an attempt to regain what had been lost. Young trees now added the softness of curves to the skyline silhouette.

  Strange, he thought, how when he’d seen Madrinya for the first time, he’d seen it through Tyranian eyes. Now, any evidence of how it had been degraded by the Tyranian occupation tore at his heart. The city had slowly crept into his consciousness and forged the power to move him.

  ‘Cabochon only knows why,’ he thought. ‘I can hardly say I’ve been happy here.’

  Temellin was away in the Mirage most of the time, and Arrant worried about him. Ligea wrote to say Tyrans had been invaded and several parts of the land had risen in rebellion against her and the Senate. Not only did that mean she could not come to Kardiastan, but she herself was leading her legions into battle, all of which added to his burden of anxiety. He was beginning to wonder if he remembered what she looked like any more. Would she recognise him? He had grown taller, but not much broader. He was going to be like his father: slim and athletic, rather than muscular and solid. Quick and lithe, not large and strong.

  But of what use was an athletic physique if his control over his powers did not improve? Even when Jahan, Jessah or Temellin were around, they rarely had the time to help him. Markess, who taught sword power classes, was sarcastic and unsympathetic.

  At the Academy, the childish campaign to subject him to an endless series of minor irritations continued. His belongings would go mysteriously missing
, only to be found torn, broken or dirty. A library scroll was found defaced, and he was the last person to have used it. The hilt of his practice sword was rubbed with itching powder, ink was spilled on his work scrolls, a model he was making in the geometry class apparently fell from the bench and smashed.

  He thought he knew who was to blame, especially when he found out from Perradin that Lesgath now had a single room instead of sleeping in the student dormitory, supposedly because his snoring disturbed the other students, which meant he could sneak out into the classrooms at night without being detected. In public, however, Lesgath maintained a distant but polite façade, and when Arrant wanted to tackle him about the breakage of his model, Perradin warned him against doing so.

  ‘You don’t ever ask a Magor a direct accusatory question unless you have some tangible proof of the accusation,’ he said. ‘It is considered a terrible breach of good manners and an invasion of privacy. Only the Council can do that, in criminal cases, and get away with it. People would condemn you as a crass Tyranian if you did it just to have a suspicion confirmed. Nor would it get you anywhere; Lesgath would just refuse to answer and he would be in his rights to do so. It wouldn’t mean anything.’

  So Arrant had continued to endure the pricks and pretend he didn’t mind, even when he felt like pounding Lesgath into the ground. No, he hadn’t had an entirely happy time at the Academy.

  He shrugged and turned towards his pallet with the intention of getting more sleep before Eris came to wake him.

  You’ve been dreaming about the Ravage again. The comment slipped into his thoughts, unbidden. Tarran.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  You get morbid. And tense. Your mind gets sort of hunched up and rigid—a bit like a constipated fisherbird standing on one leg at the lakeside. Anyway, I’m sorry that sodding bog and its ghastly tenants have been scratching around in your dreams again.