Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  ‘I will explain.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I lost a son yesterday. And today I lose a friend.’ He shook his head in sorrow. ‘I have been jealous of him most of my life, knowing he was Mirager, and I never would be. I felt deeply for Firgan, knowing he had the same battle of envy to fight. I thought he would be a better Mirager than you. Now I am not so sure. Now I have seen a fifteen-year-old lad put us all to shame with his nobility of spirit, and his courage. It is a tragedy that you were not granted control over your power, Arrant. A tragedy for Lesgath, yes, but also for you and this land. You would have made a fine ruler if you had been truly Magor. I grieve for you and Lesgath both, today.’

  ‘That is—is generous of you. I think I understand now why my father has held you in such deep respect, Magori.’ He looked down at his palm. ‘How—how do we do this? You know, back in Tyrans I had a nurse with a shattered cabochon. A Theura once. She told me legionnaires crushed her cabochon with a heavy blow from a blacksmith’s hammer while she was unconscious. In the process, they smashed her hand as well, breaking all the bones. And afterwards she couldn’t mend herself, or halt the pain…’

  Korden tried to reassure him. ‘I have a Magor sword. There is no need of anything so crude or dangerous. The legionnaires had to use force because they had nothing else that would break a gem. Of course, leaking power often killed not only the soldiers who wielded the hammer, but also anyone standing in the vicinity. Magic escaping without control can be lethal, much as it was for Lesgath, I suppose. The Tyranians made slaves do it in the end. Not Kardi slaves, because they refused, preferring death for disobedience. To deform a Magor was anathema to them.’ His eyes had the far-away look of a man recalling a distant past of abiding sadness. ‘They were dark times, Arrant. So many heroes who died alone or suffered unsung—slaves who revered the Magor, and people like your nurse.’

  ‘Can we be sure this is safe now?’

  ‘If I use a thin, clean cut with my Magor sword, the power should leak out slowly enough to be contained. And contain it I shall. I’ll build a ward. I’ll attune it to you so that we can pull your hand out afterwards, and just leave the ward here with the leaked power within. It can dissipate over several days as the ward weakens.’

  Arrant nodded. It was an effort to be so matter-of-fact, to resist the temptation to scream or run or cry—anything, rather than stand here and sound calm and rational.

  Korden continued: ‘The cut will be painful, but I’ll place a pain block as soon as I can. You will feel weak and lose consciousness. The healer will keep an eye on you, to make sure you don’t lose too much strength. When you wake, it—it will be as an ordinary man.’

  Arrant nodded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Are you sure? There can be no stepping back from this. Ever.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you ready now, or do you wish to wait for the healer?’

  ‘Do it now, Magori. And feel no guilt. This should have been done a long time ago.’ And he had another unwelcome thought: ‘If it had, Papa wouldn’t be blind and I wouldn’t have hurt Tarran. Will I ever know if I have killed him?’ A tear rolled down his cheek and he made no effort to wipe it away. Someone should cry for Tarran. His life should never be unsung.

  Korden nodded. Arrant undid his scabbard and sword and laid it aside, knowing he would never wear it again. He knelt on the floor beside the low table, and placed his left hand, palm upwards, in the centre. Korden stood beside him, unsheathing his sword. The translucent blade filled with the gold of power. They waited, both calm and silent, while Korden built a ward, encompassing Arrant’s hand and the space above the table. He strengthened it with incantations. Then he nodded to Arrant. ‘Test it. Can you remove your hand?’

  Arrant pulled his hand free and then thrust it back again. ‘I am ready.’

  Korden slipped his blade inside the ward, and used the cutting edge to draw a line—no wider than a hairline crack—the length of the cabochon. It began to leak colour. Gold. Beautiful flowing gold, rich in hue, vibrant in tone.

  Arrant could not contain his gasp. The intensity of the loss made the blood drain from his face. His being was streaming away from him in a river of gold. All that he was, or could have been. His essence, his core, his Magorness; his integrity wrenched from his bones, stolen from his flesh, torn from his skin. Every drop of power was garnered at the price of an agony rooted so deep he thought it took his life as it flowed away from him.

  He tried to call out. He tried to change his mind. To scream denial, to stop the tide. Tried to say just one word. Tried over and over. No. No. No. He opened his mouth to refuse, to plead—yet no sound came.

  He had never felt such pain. He had never known it was possible to feel such agony. It was death. Not a quick death, but a slow eternity of dying. And he couldn’t even scream.

  In the end there was just a thought. ‘Papa, I am sorry I cannot be an heir to be proud of…I am so very, very sorry.’

  Goddess!

  Ligea flew up the stairs, two at a time. As close to panic as she had ever been. Heedless of gaping servants. Swung around the newel post at the top. Flung open the door to her personal apartments. Scared the life out of Narjemah who was sitting in the atrium sewing. Grabbed up the Mirage clay in trembling hands, and waited, panting. Waited for the clay to change.

  Narjemah came to her side, white-faced. ‘The Mirager?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. Gods, I don’t know. Something awful. I felt as though someone ripped my heart out.’

  The clay changed and Temellin’s face appeared. He was smiling. ‘No, not Temellin.’ Appalled, she looked up at Narjemah. ‘It must be Arrant. And Temellin doesn’t even know.’

  She drew her sword from its scabbard, and swapped it to her right hand to look at her cabochon. ‘Will you help me—?’

  Narjemah divined her intention immediately and grabbed her by the arm. ‘No! Never. You are too far away. No essensa would ever be able to cross so far and then make it back to the body in time. You’d die out there. Die bodiless, fading away to nothing.’

  ‘But I must know what happened.’

  ‘Then go to Madrinya. Tyrans won’t fall to pieces. You’ve had most of the highborn come and kiss the hem of your robe already. There’s only Devros of the Lucii left, and Gev and Valorian and the Senate can handle him. In fact, it’s time. It’s time Ligea became Sarana, and went home.’

  Ligea took a deep breath, calming herself. ‘Ah, Narjemah, I don’t know what’s home any more. But yes, you are right. It’s time I went to them both.’ She slid the sword back into its scabbard. ‘And I will have to bear the agony of the weeks of not knowing what happened until I get there. Oh, goddess, Narjemah, what if Arrant has died?’

  The door to the Mirager’s room in the Magoroth Pavilion burst open and Jessah rushed in. Her anoudain was crumpled and dirty. Her hair appeared not to have been combed in days. She looked from Arrant to Korden, aghast. Above the table was a pillar of gold, a scintillating, twisting gyre. The glowing intensity of it made her avert her face. She turned her shock on Korden. ‘What have you done?’

  He looked up from where he was cradling Arrant’s body, rocking him. ‘Jess,’ he said, his uncontrolled misery swamping her. ‘I am glad you came.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘What was necessary.’ He brushed Arrant’s hair away from his face. ‘But there is such irony here. He could have been the greatest of us all. Look at his magic, Jess. Look at it.’ He gazed at the twisting colour. ‘Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? So pure?’ He turned back to Arrant, and gently touched his face. ‘The greatest of us all—if only he could have controlled what he had. That power killed my son, Jess. I have made sure it will never kill again. Ironic, isn’t it, that something so radiant, in a lad so brave, could kill my Lesgath so wantonly.’

  She looked up at the warded magic. ‘Mirageless soul. You—you cut his cabochon?’

  ‘You should be glad. It hurt your son.’


  ‘Glad? Never! Sands but you are sick, Korden. Is—is he going to die?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. And perhaps that is his tragedy.’

  She crossed the room to take up Arrant’s left hand. The cabochon was just colourless glass in his hand, with a crack running lengthways down its centre. ‘No,’ she said, and the word was a sob in her throat. ‘I’m not glad. Mirageless souls, Korden, he was in my care. Poor, poor lad! And how do I tell Temellin this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Arrant killed my Lesgath, but I think what I’ve done to him is far worse. I have made the greatest Magoroth ever born so…so very ordinary.’ He bent his head, and for the first time since Lesgath had died, he truly wept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Papa, if you are going to stay in Madrinya, then so am I. And that’s the end of it. No more discussion. I really will not return to Asufa and Theura-viska. You’ve been ill, and you need someone to look after you.’

  Garis looked across at Samia and stifled a sigh. He had no idea how he was going to manage her for the next few years. It wasn’t that she was wilful exactly, or even disobedient. Most of the time she was everything he could have asked for in a daughter: dutiful, kind, loving, intelligent, thoughtful—until she got an idea into her head that nothing could dislodge. Like a kitten, he thought. All fluffy and adorable, until the moment it dug its claws in.

  ‘Asufa has the Healers’ Academy.’ His last line of defence, and he’d already used it. A number of times.

  He patted the neck of his shleth. They were ambling down the paveway into the vale of Madrinya as they chatted, on the final stage of their journey, and his leg ached. Not even Samia’s healing had been able to fully repair the damage it had suffered. The city was in sight, tight-packed houses jostling one another, the odd-shaped blocks of adjoining buildings separated by a web of narrow streets. And beyond, edging the lake shining in the sun below, the belt of trees. It had been a labour of love to replant that woodland after the Tyranians had gone.

  He was still saying that all she was going to do was visit her aunt, but he knew she had made up her mind before they’d left Asufa that she was staying as long as he did. And who knew how long that would be? His recuperation had delayed his coming to Madrinya to guard Arrant, but Temellin had indicated he was still expecting trouble. As the time for Arrant’s confirmation drew closer, so Firgan would be more desperate to find ways to discredit him.

  A ripple of anticipation ran up Garis’s spine. He had been so bored with his convalescence, and his duties as administrator of Asufa had not helped. Administrator! Hells, how Brand would have laughed. They’d spent ten years dodging a hundred different ways of dying, in various vassal states and provinces of the Exaltarchy—all for Garis to end up shoving his seal into a ball of warmed wax on yet another document?

  ‘Well?’ Samia asked. ‘Aren’t you going to say all the other things you usually say next?’

  He obliged. ‘You want to be a healer. The Academy for healers is in Asufa. That’s why Temellin sent me there in the first place.’

  She gave the answer she always did. ‘Papa, I am already a healer.’ But then she added something extra. ‘I am a better healer than any of my teachers. By rights, I should be teaching them.’

  ‘Damn it,’ he thought, ‘that’s probably true, too.’ Aloud, he said, ‘There are other things to learn.’

  ‘Yes, and I can learn them at the Academy in Madrinya. In fact, I need to study some of the original books on healing, the ones the Mirage Makers gave to Miragerin-sarana. I’m sure that the copyists made mistakes in the anatomy diagrams.’

  ‘You realise I will be spending a lot of my time with Arrant. Last time you met, you weren’t happy being around him.’

  ‘No, but I was younger then, and I didn’t know how to handle the terrible pain he was in. I’m better at shutting that sort of thing out now. I have to be,’ she added complacently, ‘as I am far too good at feeling it. If I couldn’t build walls around myself when I need to, I would be moondaft by now. No, Papa; make up your mind to it. I am staying in Madrinya for as long as you are.’

  He grimaced. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have taken you everywhere with me when you were a child. It made you a darn sight too fond of travel and change.’

  ‘It made me resourceful too. Don’t forget that. Did the Mirager give you any idea of what you are supposed to be protecting Arrant from?’

  ‘Korden’s sons, I gather. Especially the youngest and the oldest.’

  ‘Ah. You’ll have to be diplomatic, then. Difficult,’ she added with a cheeky grin.

  He made a face. She knew him far too well.

  They continued to chat as they rode on into the city, but when they passed through the outlying streets, Samia fell into a quiet silence and her hands fidgeted restlessly at her reins. The shleth responded to her mood, and one of its feeding arms reached out to pinch Garis’s mount. ‘Samia, do pay attention,’ he admonished. ‘Your mount is misbehaving.’

  She didn’t appear to hear him. ‘There’s something wrong,’ she said. ‘You said Mirager-temellin wouldn’t be here—well, he is, and he’s terribly upset. So are lots of people. Lots and lots. It’s awful. Papa—can’t you feel it?’

  But as always, she had sensed things first. ‘Someone’s dead?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. And more.’

  More? Fear eroded the edges of his heart.

  Samia ran past the servant who was escorting them and reached Arrant’s bedroom first. She did not bother to wait for an answer to her knock. She and Garis already knew who was inside: Temellin, Arrant, Hellesia, Jessah, Jahan and an Illuser whom Garis didn’t know. She marched in, and went straight to the pallet where Arrant lay unconscious.

  Only Temellin observed the protocols of greeting, and he was terse. ‘Garis, Illusa-samia. I am glad you came. I wish it could have been sooner.’ His haunted gaze returned to his son. ‘As you can see.’

  ‘What happened?’ Garis asked. In truth, he was shocked. Arrant felt all wrong. And he had not seen Temellin in such a state since the day he’d thought Sarana was dying. His grief was entangled with rage and horror and a compulsion to do something about it that he was only just suppressing.

  Samia provided him with the answer. She held up Arrant’s left hand, and showed her father the gemstone there. A lengthwise crack, too fine and straight to have been an accident, ran down the middle. It looked as if someone had rolled the cutting edge of a Magor sword along it. All hope Garis had held that this might have a happy ending plummeted.

  The tragedy had already been played out and there was no way to change it.

  ‘Oh, my mirageless soul,’ he whispered. ‘Who did that?’

  With the exception of the healer and Arrant himself, they all moved to the sitting room next door. It was Temellin who recounted most of it, with some contribution from Jessah. It was a sad and bitter recital. Garis and Samia exchanged a glance; the tale was even worse than either of them could have thought possible.

  ‘And Perradin?’ Garis asked Jessah. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘It was touch and go for a while, but the healers—and his own powers—pulled him through. Another day or two and we won’t be able to keep him on his pallet.’

  ‘He tells the same story?’

  She nodded. ‘He was able to give us more detail of the events that led up to it, though. He—he is wild to see Arrant. To tell him that he’s fine.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  Temellin answered. ‘Eight days ago. Jessah sent for me the moment she learned Perradin was hurt and I arrived back yesterday. Arrant hasn’t regained total consciousness since Korden cut his cabochon. He will rouse himself to take liquids, but other than that…’ His words trailed off and it was a moment before he had enough composure to continue. ‘He didn’t deserve this.’

  Garis looked away, struggling to ignore the intensity of the emotions that swirled around the Mirager.

  ‘He is healing,’ Samia said. �
��I can wake him, if you like. His body is in shock. What happened was just too—too traumatic. Sometimes not being here is the best way to cope.’ That last bit was just quoting her teachers, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  Temellin nodded. He fixed his sightless gaze on her. ‘Samia, I had personal proof of your healing skills when you were barely eleven years old. I believe what little sight I have is evidence of that. What is your assessment?’

  She hesitated and glanced at her father, not wanting to say the obvious. In the end, Temellin said it for her. ‘I know he’s not Magor any more, which means he won’t heal as fast or as—as thoroughly as we do.’

  She nodded, relieved to hear he had no unrealistic expectations. ‘I think I could help heal his body. I—I don’t know how he will, um, mend his, his spirit, though.’

  Temellin rose and went to the window. ‘Let him have another night of peace. Tomorrow morning you can rouse him. He needs to eat, if nothing else. I have sent for Sarana to come,’ he added, staring blankly out into the gathering dusk. ‘She might be able to help.’

  ‘Have you seen Korden yet?’ Garis asked.

  ‘No. I have been too angry.’ He turned back to face them all. ‘I will say this: I will never allow any of the Kordens to be Mirager-heir while I am alive. More than that, I will do my level best to see to it that whoever succeeds me does not bear the Korden name. To that end, I have decided to appoint Sarana as Mirager-heir.’

  For an instant no one reacted. Then Garis flashed a smile and let loose his approval for Temellin to feel. ‘You think the Council will allow that?’ he asked. ‘After all, you are supposed to have consensus on your major decisions…’

  ‘I think this will be the one time that I can make such a decision about Sarana and have them endorse it,’ Temellin said quietly. ‘It will be a fight, I know. But in this I will succeed, and there will be enough sympathy for me to carry the vote, I think. I will extract Korden’s promise to support her.’