Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  Take him by surprise, Tarran suggested after another couple of fruitless attacks from Lesgath.

  How?

  Why not swap your sword to your right hand, and use your cabochon. After all, he’s only protected against your sword, right?

  Arrant parried another attack. This is supposed to be a class in Magor sword usage, that’s why.

  Who cares?

  I do! Firgan would chew me up like a mouthful of nuts over it.

  So? You’d be alive. And don’t worry, you have perfect control at the moment. You can please yourself just how much power you use.

  Lesgath feinted, then twisted his power, imbued now with pain-giving magic. Arrant was slow to block the second thrust and power brushed his bare arm. Pain leaped from the gold light into him, searing his bones, biting deep as it travelled up his arm. This time, though, he had his own magic. He summoned his power and blocked the spread of the agony, then diminished its racking torment until he finally banished it altogether.

  Lesgath laughed. ‘Hurt you, didn’t I? You weren’t quick enough, you son of a traitorous bitch. Why don’t you try that on me?’ Mockingly, he thrust his bared arm at Arrant and lowered his guard. ‘Go on, I dare you!’

  He couldn’t, of course. The pain would rebound on him.

  ‘Bastard son of a Tyranian Brotherhood bitch,’ Lesgath hissed. ‘Fight me!’

  Arrant threw his sword to his other hand and shot a controlled beam of gold from his cabochon. He aimed it straight at Lesgath’s chest. Just enough power there to send Lesgath flying backwards, so he would land ignominiously on his back, but not enough to harm him…With his guard so foolishly lowered, the youth would not have time to block the beam. Out of the corner of his eye, Arrant was aware that someone was moving towards him. Firgan, he thought, but all his focus was on Lesgath.

  As the power left Arrant’s cabochon, Firgan’s emotion leaked into the air, splendidly triumphant. More than enough to tell Arrant he had made a terrible mistake. A splinter of time when everything went wrong, and no time to take anything back. No time to stop anything. No time even to understand.

  Firgan bellowed in his ear, ‘Don’t! For Mirage sake, no!’ and grasped Arrant hard, on the shoulder. His fingernails dug into the flesh. Under his hand, Arrant’s clothing scorched as power burned into his skin.

  Gold light billowed from Arrant in a spreading arc, out of his control. The wedge of it mowed down everything in its path, gouging furrows into the hard earth of the yard. Lesgath flew through the air, his clothing and hair on fire. He still held his sword in his hand. Pain exploded in Arrant’s head, behind his eyes, in his chest, through his gut. He lost control of his bodily functions. His muscles began to fail, to become too soft and weak to hold him upright.

  Tarran screamed, a terrible sound that wouldn’t stop, splitting Arrant’s head like an axe blade, fracturing his thoughts into uncomprehending shards.

  Beyond the flying fireball that was Lesgath, Perradin stood, frozen as the billow of gold engulfed him. Behind him, Serenelle had her sword thrust out, as though she could stop the burning magic as it rolled towards her. People screamed, but Arrant could no longer hear them. As he fell, gold in the air in front of his face blistered into molten bubbles, then curled and crisped around the edges like burning papyrus, until it turned as black as a starless sky, and he saw and felt nothing more. Knew nothing more, except that he had killed again.

  That shard of knowledge he took with him into oblivion.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When he woke, his immediate awareness told him time had passed. He wasn’t in the practice yard; he was in his own room. And it was night-time. A single lamp, turned low, burned on the windowsill. His awareness expanded, telling him he wasn’t alone; someone was sitting by his bed, outlined by the dim glow from the lamp wick. He could smell a woman’s perfume.

  Then he became aware of his pain. It hurt everywhere. His head ached almost beyond bearing. It hurt even to move his eyeballs. His shoulder was on fire. His whole left arm was in agony. Scalding pain spread through his veins. To extend his fingers was to touch hot coals.

  His next realisation came in a rush: a block of knowledge he didn’t want, relayed by his memory of a single image. The practice yard. The moment before he’d lost consciousness. Uncontrolled power shooting away from his hand in a gold curtain of light. He had killed again.

  No, no, no, oh no, please make it not be true, please make it all a dream, please, please, please…

  ‘Are you awake?’ A familiar voice at his side, responding to his stirring.

  Hellesia. But he didn’t want Hellesia. He didn’t want anyone. He wanted to die. He wanted not to know.

  Tarran? Tarran! Oh gods, Tarran, please, where are you? Did I hurt you?

  The silence greeting his anguished call was as profound as the dark that had been his unconsciousness.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Because in the end, you had to go on living. And suffering. And hating being yourself. Because in the end, there was nothing else you could do. ‘Yes, I’m awake.’ Tarran? Please tell me you are all right…

  She rose to her feet and turned up the lamp. ‘Are you hurting?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘You were burned.’ Her voice was gentle. Soothing. She knew what it was like to hurt. To be hurt. She’d been a slave.

  ‘How—how many did I kill this time?’

  His blunt query made her wince, but she answered just as bluntly. ‘One. Lesgath Korden.’

  He wasn’t deceived. ‘But—?’

  ‘There were others who were injured.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A few broken bones and one fractured skull, but they’ll all recover in time. Perradin was the only one badly hurt. They—they aren’t sure if he will live.’

  Perradin. Of all people. Why?

  He shuddered. Pain lanced through him, intense agony that stopped thought, and he no longer knew if it was physical in origin, or a rip across his soul. Perradin had wanted him to say he was sick, unable to fight that day. Perradin.

  Hellesia was remorseless. ‘Little Serenelle Korden saved much of the class; she managed to get a ward up in time.’

  He thought about that. ‘She always was the best in the class at warding. Quick, too.’ A prosaic statement of fact, delivered in a reasonable tone of voice; he was proud of that. As if the world hadn’t fractured all over again. As if he wasn’t to blame. As if he hadn’t hurt people he loved, all over again. He spared no grief for Lesgath, but Perry…Jahan and Jessah; Temellin—gods, was there never any end to the way he hurt those he cared about? And where was Tarran?

  Please don’t tell me I killed him too…

  ‘I’ll get one of the healers,’ Hellesia said. ‘That burn must be hurting you—’

  ‘No.’ He clutched at her, grabbing her hand. ‘No. I don’t want a healer. I don’t want to see anyone.’

  ‘The Illusa who is tending you asked me to call her the moment you woke. She said you would be in pain.’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t want to see anyone.’

  She stood, indecisive.

  ‘How long was I unconscious?’

  ‘It happened yesterday. It’s just before dawn now. I really should—’

  ‘No. Hellesia, right now I want to be alone.’

  Tarran, Tarran? Where are you? I really don’t want to be alone…Please tell me you aren’t hurt…

  But one of the last things he remembered hearing had been Tarran’s screaming. Tarran, who had lived with pain all his life, had screamed inside his head—and vanished like a candle flame snuffed in his fingertips.

  Hellesia hesitated still. ‘We have sent for your father and Jahan.’

  ‘Good. Now go, please.’ He wasn’t able to stop the quaver in his voice this time.

  She touched his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. She turned down the lamp again, then went out.

  He lay in the dimly lit room, unmoving. And he remembered: Firgan. The elation of the man’s
triumph. Firgan had known his brother would die and hadn’t cared. He had known Arrant’s control would fail him. He had known what would happen. How? He thought back. Firgan’s hand, clutching his shoulder. And now his shoulder hurt, as if it was burned. ‘Did he somehow send power into me?’ he whispered. ‘So I had too much, and lost control?’

  But that wasn’t possible. If Firgan had sent that much power surging into him, he—Arrant—would have died on the spot. No one survived a direct blast of cabochon power of that magnitude.

  And yet there was something Firgan had known that he didn’t. Something. Inside himself, somewhere deep and dark with despair, he wept, for he had failed his father and his land. He’d lost control, just as he had lost control at the North Gate of Tyr when he was nine.

  Tarran, if you are all right, please come…

  There was no reply.

  They came in the morning, of course. Healers to change his dressing and speed his healing and suppress his pain. Eris, his chamberlain, to cluck over him, bring him breakfast in bed and then coax him to eat a little of it.

  And later, Korden—to condemn him.

  He heard the commotion outside his room; people arguing. Then the door opened and Korden strode in, his grief radiating from him, unrestrained and wild. Hellesia clung to one arm, trying to hold him back; Eris clutched at the other, begging him to calm down. The blaze of his grief preceded him as he shook them both off and spoke to Arrant: ‘You killed my son!’

  Arrant froze in panic, sure his heart had stopped beating. What in all of Acheron could he possibly say to the father of someone he had slain?

  Korden shrugged himself free of Eris and Hellesia, and strode to the bedside. His whole body shook with grief and rage. ‘I warned Temellin about you. I warned him!’ He shook a forefinger at Arrant, his speech thick with terrible emotion. ‘I will see to it that you never do anything like this again. I will see to it that you will never become Mirager.’ He shuddered, and regained some composure. ‘You will appear before the Magoroth Council today,’ he continued, ‘in the first hour past midday. I am charging you with the misuse of Magor powers, and you must answer to that charge. You are also charged with the manslaughter of a fellow Magoroth, and will answer to that charge, too, before our peers. If you do not appear, you will be sentenced in your absence.’

  Arrant couldn’t move. No words came to him. He couldn’t even say he was sorry. He hadn’t sought Lesgath’s death, but he regretted it more because of its consequences than because it grieved him. He had loathed Lesgath, loathed him deeply.

  Only when the silence became embarrassing did he force words between his dry lips. ‘I am sorry for your grief,’ he said. ‘I thought I had control. I didn’t believe I would harm anyone, I truly didn’t think I would. But Firgan put his hand on my shoulder and maybe somehow his power went into me. There’s a burn mark there—’

  ‘What?’ Korden’s rage was white-hot. ‘You would blame another son of mine? How dare you!’ His hands trembled, as though they ached to choke Arrant. ‘Firgan tried desperately to stop you. Any power he used was aimed at halting you! If he had not done that, every child on that practice yard would be dead, in a shower of bloody rain.’ His revulsion was complete. He stepped back from Arrant’s pallet in repugnance. ‘You don’t even have the decency to accept the blame for what you’ve done. Firgan watched his brother burn. Alive. Burn until his eyes melted and his blood boiled. You are less than the leavings on a stable floor, Arrant Temellin. You will never have the option to harm anyone again. Today I will see to that.’ With those words, he turned on his heel and left.

  Arrant closed his eyes.

  Hellesia and Eris exchanged worried glances. ‘Find out if they can really do this in the Mirager’s absence,’ Hellesia said.

  Eris nodded. ‘They might not be able to get a quorum so quickly anyway.’

  Hellesia came forward to stand at Arrant’s bedside as Eris left, her face drawn with worry. ‘They ought not to do this now. They ought to wait for your father’s return.’

  The quorum. He knew about that from his lessons. Half the number of Magor sword holders over the age of sixteen living less than a day’s ride from Madrinya. ‘Not so easy to raise a quorum so quickly,’ he said. His voice sounded hard and frozen to his ears, a match to his insides. He couldn’t let himself feel. To feel was pain. To feel was fear. No, terror. Terror that he had somehow killed Tarran. Terror that the Council was going to kill him. ‘So many warriors are in the Mirage.’

  ‘He sent word out yesterday. He seems to think he’ll get the numbers,’ Hellesia said.

  Arrant wanted to ask: What will the Council do? but he knew she wouldn’t know. She wasn’t Magor.

  Hellesia took hold of his hand. ‘Temellin left you in the care of Magoria-jessah, but her son may not live. She will not be parted from his side.’

  Gods, he was cold. ‘I understand.’ Jessah wouldn’t want to see him anyway. He was the cause of Perry’s injury. Ironic, that. Of all the people he had not wanted to harm, Perradin would have headed the list. ‘Don’t feel,’ he told himself. To feel was too painful. Was there anyone else he could ask for help? In despair, he realised there probably wasn’t. Many of the children of the senior Magoroth had been on that practice ground. They were not likely to view Arrant with anything but suspicion, or downright loathing.

  ‘Will you be able to attend?’ Hellesia asked. ‘How do you feel?’

  He shrugged. The healers had done their job well. The pain was manageable, the weakness surmountable. None of that mattered anyway, not to him. ‘I’ll be there.’

  She nodded. ‘Then rest now. I will go and find out as much as I can in the meantime. I’ll ask Illuser-reftim, the librarian. He always seems to know what’s going on.’

  He lay quietly after she had gone, staring at the ceiling. Tarran still didn’t answer his call, and Arrant’s fear crawled into every thought and lay beneath them like a weight to drag him down.

  ‘Firgan’s won,’ he thought. ‘And I can’t do anything about it. I don’t even know how he knew I’d make such a mess of things. I don’t know if any of it was his fault. I don’t know what he did. Rest, Hellesia? I will never rest again, not really.’

  He had never entered the compound of the Magoroth Council Pavilion. There had been no reason to do so; tradition decreed that only Magoroth over sixteen had free access to the building, and he was still short of his sixteenth anniversary day.

  With Eris hovering at his side, he walked through the glorious colour of the gardens, poignantly aware of the perfume of the flowers and the joyousness of the birdsong, as if he was never going to smell or hear them again. He passed by a sundial carved with ancient runes, rescued, he had heard, from the ruins of the first pavilion. He skirted the fishponds brimming with inquisitive spout-nosed trout and arrived at the main stairs of the building.

  He paused at the bottom of the steps leading to the main door. Two Magoroth waited for him. The first was Magoria-markess. He was glad when his cabochon didn’t work because he was sure, from the expression on her face, that her disdain was hanging in the air like an unpleasant smell. The other guard was Perradin’s eldest brother, Grevilyon Jahan, a Magori in his late twenties who had not long returned from a stint in the Mirage. Arrant had met him several times when he had come to see his brother in the Academy.

  Arrant murmured, ‘Thank you, Eris. You may return now.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ the man said.

  Arrant opened his mouth to insist, but Eris’s stare was implacable. Arrant nodded and mounted the stairs. Grevilyon stepped forward as soon as Arrant reached the top step.

  ‘Welcome to the Hall of the Magoroth Council, Magori-arrant, Mirager-heir,’ he said in formal greeting. He wasn’t smiling. ‘I will escort you to your place.’

  They stepped inside the wide doorway, and he found himself in a large entry hall. People had gathered in unhappy groups, but his entrance was enough to stop all conversation. Arrant tried to ignore both the silence
and the concentration of stares as he and Grevilyon started to walk across the hall in between the tense knots of people. He said quietly, ‘Magori, I am deeply sorry for what has happened to Perry. Please tell me how he is.’ In the silence that had followed his entrance, his voice echoed, clearly audible. He winced.

  ‘He has a number of broken bones and, we believe, a lung torn by a rib. Some burns too. The injuries were severe, but we have not given up hope. He is strong and the healers do not leave his side.’

  The cold came again, slithering. He said woodenly, ‘Please convey my regrets to Magoria-jessah. I have known nothing but kindness from your family and it—it devastates me that I have done this to you all.’ The words were too formal, he knew. Too cold. But he didn’t know how to express the grief he felt. He didn’t know that any words could begin to say what he felt.

  ‘We know you didn’t mean it,’ Grevilyon said in little more than a whisper, but the words were edged with anger. ‘That does not make it any easier to bear.’ He looked at Arrant and the anger suddenly melted to sorrow. ‘My mother dares not leave his side. And you should know that I will not vote to support you. I mean you no ill will, you understand; but I cannot think that you would make a good Mirager, not after this. I thought otherwise at first—especially when you took your Covenant vows. I’d never seen such pure untarnished power as I saw then. I like you, Arrant, but our next Mirager has to be someone who can control his power.’

  Arrant nodded. There was a lump in his throat, too large to allow speech. Was the Council going to take a vote on his suitability as heir, then?

  Wordlessly they crossed the space into the Meeting Hall. It lacked the marbled grandeur of a domed and pillared Tyranian public building, but was still astonishingly beautiful to Arrant’s eyes. Polished adobe walls were studded with tiled niches containing busts of all those Magoroth killed during the Feast of the Shimmer Festival. ‘Acheron’s mists,’ he thought, ‘so many of them are children.’ He’d known that, yet it wasn’t until he saw their likenesses that the full extent of the tragedy became real. These children had been his parents’ contemporaries. His father’s sister was there somewhere. He wondered if there was a bust of their betrayer, Sarana’s father, Solad. He assumed not.