Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  He, who had never had a family life, found he missed it with an intense longing. It was four years since he had seen either of his parents. He missed Temellin with a sorrow that lingered, in spite of frequent letters. And he longed to see his mother, to talk to her. To tell her about the things only she would understand: how Gevenan had come to see him, how Arcadim was now the Rebiarch, how the Senate was struggling to stop the highborn families from circumventing the anti-slavery laws by indenturing the poor and then forcing them to work off the debt.

  ‘Hey, Araneolus!’

  Arrant broke free of his reverie and peered over the edge of the arch. The winchman supervising the raising of the keystone had his hands cupped around his mouth. ‘Someone here to see you!’

  Arrant waved to signify he’d heard and scanned the people below. Carpenters, masons, labourers, surveyors, a water-boy—and a man wearing a riding cloak, sliding down from his mount. From his shleth. A second shleth was being used as a pack animal.

  Oh gods, Arrant thought, please don’t let this be bad news.

  He made for the topmost ladder, calling to the mason as he went. ‘Licinius, seems I have to go down. The honour of placing the last keystone is yours.’

  He more than earned his right to his nickname by the speed with which he reached the ground. ‘Garis?’ he asked as jumped from the bottom rung. ‘What are you doing here? Is everything all right back in Kardiastan?’

  For a moment Garis looked at him blankly. Then he stepped forward, submitting to Arrant’s hug with an incredulous grin on his face. ‘Mirageless soul—I scarcely recognised you. You feel different. And you’ve grown. Filled out. Shiver the sands, you’re taller than I am.’

  Arrant grinned in turn; Garis was not a tall man. ‘It happens. But you haven’t answered my question: is everything all right?’

  ‘Everyone’s fine, but I have something to tell you. In private.’

  ‘Then let’s go to my tent.’ He informed the mason master where he was going, and the two men picked their way through the construction site. ‘I suppose my parents told you where to find me?’ he asked as they dodged around a cart unloading more stone blocks from the quarry.

  ‘Yes. Building a bridge across the Arteus, Temellin said. Which didn’t mean a thing to me. I had to ride to Getria first, to ask for directions.’ He glanced over his shoulder to where the aqueduct stood, clad in its scaffolding. ‘Temellin would like your bridge. He’s proud of you, of what you’re doing, you know.’

  ‘Is he? At last I’ve found something I can do well, huh? It’s a pity he can’t actually see it.’ There was an awkward silence. ‘Sorry,’ he added, sighing. ‘That was an utterly tasteless remark. Sometimes I wallow in self-pity, as unattractive as it must be.’ He flashed a smile at Garis. ‘I am delighted to see you, really! I’ve missed you.’ He’d also missed Sam, although he wasn’t about to admit that. She’d written the occasional letter, without much news, but always including some funny facet of her life as a student healer. He invariably ended up laughing as he read them.

  With Garis leading his shleths, they left the work site between the rows of stacked stones ready for the building of the aqueduct channel, and headed upriver. When they rounded the first bend, Arrant indicated the largest tent in the encampment on the banks ahead. ‘Beautiful spot, isn’t it? I swim in the river every evening, and the kingfishers are so used to me that they hang around to catch the fish I scare in their direction.’ He called to a boy carrying a basket of onions from the store tent to the kitchen area. ‘Hey, Senesces! Take these beasts and get someone to unsaddle and water them, will you? And then bring the packs to my tent, and some wine and something to eat, as well.’

  Senesces gaped at the shleths and took the reins with nervous reluctance. ‘Will they bite?’ he asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Not even a nip,’ Garis said airily, slapping down a mischievous feeding arm.

  Arrant grinned and shook his head in mock despair as he drew back the flap of his tent to allow them to enter. ‘Slip your sandals off, you barbarian. You’re in Tyrans, you know, and even a tent has refinements here.’

  ‘Oh, Tyranian niceties now, eh?’ Garis asked as he removed his footwear. The floor was strewn with reed-woven mats, smooth to the feet. The interior was capacious, but even so a large table, spread with scrolls, architectural designs, styli, rulers and callipers, took up most of the available space. A cot with Arrant’s bedding was pushed into a corner, clothing hampers underneath. Several upright chairs, a number of stools and a bronze washbowl on a carved stand made up the remainder of the furniture.

  ‘Have a wash and take a seat,’ Arrant said.

  ‘You live well,’ Garis remarked as he dried himself after rinsing his face and hands. ‘Better than an officer in an army camp, anyway.’

  Arrant shrugged. ‘Better than my pay as bridge builder allows. I have an allowance Sarana arranged for me, which old Arcadim deals out every month. Did you ever meet him? Sarana’s moneymaster. He never did go back to Assoria, as he used to say he would. Whinges like the wind all the time, then sends me small luxuries he buys with his own money—and bills her for.’ He laughed. ‘She always pays. I think he’s trying to tell her something, but I’m not quite sure what. Her personal fortune is huge now, you know. The allowance is ridiculously high, so I use most of it to give the workers bonuses if they keep on schedule.’

  He dropped into a chair and waved Garis into the seat opposite. His voice sobered as he asked, ‘Tell me, are the—the Mirage Makers still alive?’ His mouth went suddenly dry as he waited for the reply. Tarran, don’t you dare have died on me, please…

  ‘Yes, just. They are down to an area about fifty Exaltarch miles long, bordering the last of the rakes.’

  Arrant paled. The original length of the Mirage had been close to five hundred miles, surely, and the width around two hundred. ‘And how wide?’ he asked in a whisper.

  There was a long silence before Garis replied. ‘Half a mile, no more.’

  ‘Gods.’

  ‘It’s much worse than when you left, Arrant. What we do does help a little, but most say that all we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Others are more optimistic, and think we can save that small area. Every so often a Ravage beast turns up south of the First Rake, usually dead. Almost like a reminder not to be too complacent, to remember that sooner or later we’ll be fighting on our farms for the safety of our vales and in our streets for the lives of our townsfolk.’

  It was a while before Arrant could speak. No one had told him by letter that it was as bad as that. Then he asked, his voice gruff, ‘Tarran?’

  ‘No news. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll come back immediately. My sword skills will be useful even if my power isn’t. And it’s time I saw the Mirage.’ Time he saw Tarran. Before he died.

  He stopped speaking when Senesces entered with the wine, followed by several camp boys bearing an array of dishes and Garis’s packs. Arrant swept the scrolls on the table up to one end, and washed his hands as the food was laid out.

  ‘Pull up your chair,’ he said as the servants left. ‘Let me see, we have bread, cheese, honey cakes, cold baked wood-possum and quail and those shrivelled things wrapped in vine leaves are stuffed dormice, I think. Crunch them up, bones and all. I have a good camp cook. He’s always trying to feed me.’ He poured out two goblets of wine and handed one to Garis.

  ‘I had another reason for coming. Did you know that Samia never gave up trying to find out how Firgan was involved in what happened to you?’

  ‘I did tell her it didn’t matter.’

  Garis snorted. ‘And when has Samia ever taken any notice of what you or I said? I don’t know how you explained why you lost control of your power while fighting Lesgath, but she never believed you had the right of it. Then one day she stumbled on something that the others had forgotten.’ He rubbed his forehead ruefully at the memory. ‘Did she ever scold them over that! The girl’s becoming a terrible shrew.’

  Arrant
was not deceived. Garis’s tone was one of fond indulgence. ‘So, what did they forget?’ he asked.

  ‘That Firgan had been in the library, researching things. Remember? Once she found that out, she was in the library every day, hunting for whatever it was he discovered. She was certain there must have been something, and I think she was right.’ He cradled his goblet and met Arrant’s gaze over the rim. ‘She found a short passage in one of the books that the Mirage Makers originally gave to Sarana, something buried deep in a discussion of battle techniques. Explaining how a Magor can place his cabochon directly onto the skin of another Magor and send his power through that person, without killing him, to discharge out through that person’s cabochon. It was mentioned as a method of creating a force greater than the two separate powers. Painful to the conduit person, though. And not controllable by either party.’

  Arrant stilled. Shock dug claws into him, dragged out his memories in its talons. His right hand involuntarily flew to his shoulder. His fingers touched the burn puckering his skin there. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.’ But he did. He had to know.

  And Garis was relentless anyway. ‘It was mentioned as something to try only in extremity, not just because the mesh of power formed was uncontrollable, but because it was especially dangerous to anyone in the vicinity if either person involved in delivering it was a Magoroth. It doesn’t even mention what might happen if both of them are.’

  Arrant swallowed. For a moment he was back on the practice ground. A wave of gold roiling outwards, pain flaring through his body, people falling and tumbling like chaff before the winnow.

  He licked dry lips. Rage began to well up from some place deep within. ‘Can—can Firgan have done this accidentally?’

  ‘No. You’d be dead if that was the case. Without special conjurations from the initiator, a surge of cabochon power through someone’s body would kill them. He didn’t want you dead, Arrant. He wanted you blamed for something you didn’t do.’

  For a moment Arrant couldn’t move. Then he clamped a hand across his mouth, abruptly jumped up and ran from the tent. He just reached the privacy of the bushes along the riverbank before he threw up everything he had eaten that day. Afterwards, he leaned his forehead against the trunk of a tree, his body shuddering.

  Garis came after him a moment later, to lay an arm around his shoulders.

  ‘The murdering bastard,’ Arrant muttered. ‘He really did kill his own brother deliberately. And he made a fool of me. I did indeed take the blame.’ Nausea uncurled inside of him in waves. He pushed himself away from the tree with his forearm and turned his head to look at Garis. ‘I volunteered to have my powers taken from me, because of him. I castrated myself. I made myself less than I had been, less than my potential. I removed myself from the line of succession. And I cut myself off from Tarran forever. How Firgan must have laughed at me. Shades of hell, one day I will make him pay. It will be my hand that sends him to oblivion. I swear it.’

  ‘He must have laughed at us all. Come, let’s go back to the tent.’ As they walked, he added, ‘You can’t blame yourself for Firgan’s crimes, you know. You didn’t do this; he did.’

  So caught up in a ferment of emotions, Arrant hardly heard the words. ‘Fools are easily fooled. I kept thinking he was going to goad me into attacking Lesgath, even though I knew there were several things about that scenario that didn’t make sense.’

  ‘It could have been his back-up plan,’ Garis replied as they re-entered the tent. ‘A soldier like him wouldn’t have aimed all his spears at the same place, after all. The trouble was that we didn’t have that last piece of the puzzle—the bit Samia found that made sense of his main thrust. How could we know exactly what he intended without that? And I suppose another reason we underestimated him was this: it’s hard for decent people to imagine anyone being vile enough to kill their own brother, not because he was a threat or a rival, or even because he was in the way, but simply because he made a handy instrument to eliminate someone else from the running. That’s about as evil as you can get.’

  He pushed Arrant back into his chair and shoved the goblet of wine into his hand. ‘Drink this. Firgan did make one mistake, though. It never occurred to him that you would voluntarily give up your Magorness. Your bravery, your sacrifice—coupled with Korden’s inability to wait for Temellin to return—turned most of those in the Council Hall that day against the Korden family, in spite of Lesgath’s death. Firgan has found it hard to regain the respect he had previously. People saw a side of him they didn’t much like.’

  Arrant gulped some wine.

  Garis added, ‘From what I hear, people went into that hall wanting your head delivered to them on a spear, only to come out admiring your courage while condemning Korden for being precipitate and Firgan for being vindictive and greedy for power.’

  Arrant drank deeply. ‘We can’t prove a thing, can we? We can’t prove Firgan read that passage, or that he acted on it if he did read it. Knowing it’s possible—probable, even—doesn’t change anything, Garis. Temellin can’t charge him, or even accuse him. He’d just refuse to answer and behave as if he had been deeply insulted.’

  Garis persisted. ‘We know he’ll kill anyone at all if he doesn’t get what he wants. Anyone. Think about that for a moment.’ He rose to go to his packs. He undid the ties on one of them and unearthed a long parcel wrapped in cloth, which he handed to Arrant.

  Silently, Arrant unwound the cloth and took out the contents. He already knew what it was. His Magoroth sword and scabbard.

  ‘I thought this was supposed to have been given back to the Mirage Makers? Anyway, I’m not entitled to wear it,’ he said. ‘What possible reason can Temellin have for sending it to me?’

  ‘I think he wanted to point out that, although you may not be able to use Magoroth power, you were born a Magoroth and part of you will always be Magoroth. He wants you to use it as a blade, if Kardiastan comes under attack. We want you to return.’

  Arrant rose and went to stand in the tent opening, still holding the sword. He could see the soaring elegance of the aqueduct arch above the trees. His design. His bridge across the River Atreus. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? I dreamed of returning to Kardiastan as a famous architect, not as a failed Magoroth with an empty sword coming to fight a final battle.’

  ‘You father thought you’d want to be there.’

  ‘He was right.’

  ‘Your mother wanted you to stay here.’

  ‘Mothers always want their sons to be safe.’

  ‘Sam sent you a message. She lives in Madrinya now.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She said I had to get the wording exactly right, so here it is, exactly as she said it. “Tell Arrant that no man should die without ever seeing his brother.”’

  Arrant ran a hand through his hair and turned to face Garis once more, shaking his head in wry amusement.

  ‘I know,’ Garis agreed. ‘She’s like a damned grass seed stuck in your trousers. Never lets anyone get too comfortable.’

  ‘Trouble is she has a habit of being infuriatingly right.’

  ‘Just like your mother.’

  ‘Exactly. They aren’t related, are they?’

  ‘Distantly, yes.’

  ‘I have another reason to come home, you know.’

  ‘Firgan?’

  Arrant smiled. ‘Exactly.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In a vale famous for its cotton-growing, a cotton farmer named Brix hefted another basket of bolls into the hopper and felt a quiet satisfaction. A good harvest this year. A good omen, what with him and his wife, Faretha, about to be parents for the first time. He thought of her and the swell of her belly, and smiled. He’d married well, and he knew it. The best spinner in the valley, and a darn fine cook too. She’d make a good mother…His thoughts wandered on as he turned to fetch another full basket.

  Until he saw the cloud.

  Brown-red. Moving faster than any cloud he’d eve
r seen. Devouring the sky like a lake pike after minnows. Wind blasted at him out of nowhere, filled with grit. He only just tied down the hopper lid in time to prevent the cotton being scooped out and scattered across the vale.

  He started to run for the house, to warn Faretha to coop up the hens and close the doors and windows. He didn’t like the look of this. He liked the stench even less. Sandhells, he’d never smelled anything that bad before.

  He was still running when he heard a sound, as if something had dropped out of the sky behind him. He whirled, but saw only a child standing on the pathway. He knew her, but she belonged on the other side of the valley. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘where did you spring from? You shouldn’t be out in this wind. Where’s your mama?’ The cloud was above them now, blocking the sunlight. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘no time for that. Come into the house. We’ll look for your mama later.’

  The child extended her hands and he picked her up into his arms. Her body was stiff, her clothing rough under his fingers. As he turned back towards the farmhouse, the smell was intense, choking. She leaned into him, her button nose rubbing against the stubble of his chin, the pink bud of her mouth opening into a smile in the moment just before her fangs tore out his cheek and her slavering tongue whipped around his to rip it out through the hole she had just made in his face.

  In the farmhouse, Faretha noticed the cloud through the window, even as she heard the wind howling around the corners of the outhouses. Quickly she shuttered the windows and ran to fetch the clothes she’d left drying on the berry bushes. On the way back to the house, with the wind whipping her anoudain skirting up around her face and her arms full of washing, she heard the door slam. She paused, wondering how to open it, only to realise her husband was coming up the path. She laughed. ‘Lovely—you can open the door for me.’ Her eyes sparkled at him over the top of her washing.