Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  He stared at her, his face as blank as new wax on a tablet. The wind pushed him towards her in a blast of dust and leaves, whirling him so that his feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. When he reached her, the gale died to a whisper. He swept the clothes out of her arms, scattering them unheeded to the ground. His gaze fell to the curve of her body where her baby kicked. She faltered. ‘Brix—? What’s wrong?’

  He put his hand to the swelling of the child. She wanted to run. Knew she should run, but he was her husband. He loved her, she would have staked her life on that. And she loved him. He curved his hands and the eagle-sharp talons that she’d thought were fingers drove into her body.

  It took her a long time to die, watching with uncomprehending eyes while her husband ate their unborn child.

  ‘You’re daft.’

  ‘No, I’m not. You’re the one that’s daft. You’ve been discussing what to do about Firgan with his sister. Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Arrant, you know you want to talk to Tarran, and this is the only way to do it. And now you know that what caused your loss of control had nothing to do with you, you can do it without fear.’

  Samia had waylaid him while he was raiding the fig tree in one of the Mirager’s Pavilion gardens, and now she stood, her hands on her hips, glaring at him belligerently from the other side of the sundial. ‘And to think I spent so much time trying to help you in Madrinya while you were running off to Tyr.’

  ‘Help me? How was it going to help me to tell me that what I did was all for nothing? That Tarran and I didn’t lose control of my power after all? That I threw away any chance I had to be a proper Magoroth because I was stupid enough to be duped? And why, under all the wide blue skies, have you been friendly with Serenelle, of all people, while I’ve been gone?’

  She thumped her hand down on the sundial, narrowly missing the bronze gnomon casting its shadow across the dial. ‘Arrant, she’s scared of Firgan. He killed Lesgath, remember? Maybe she’s next.’ Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath and calmed. It took physical effort for him not to let his gaze linger on the swell of her bodice as she continued: ‘She’s been helpful. She was the one who kept goading me to find out how Firgan did it. She was so sure, just as I was, that he must have been responsible, and she wouldn’t give up. Anyway, you’ve got a cheek to say I shouldn’t be friendly with her. You’re the one who kissed her.’

  He stared at her, mortified. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘She told me. How else?’

  He felt his neck going hot and red. ‘That was years ago.’ To buy himself some breathing space, he took a bite of the fig in his hand, cursing himself for sounding so feeble.

  Samia raised her eyebrows.

  He stared at her, baffled, and wondered if it had been such a good idea to come home after all. In Tyrans people had looked up to him and called him buildermaster; here everyone was trying to tell him what to do, without even asking his opinion first. He’d been back two days and he’d spent a remarkable amount of time arguing with someone or other, mostly about how to regain his powers.

  Sarana wanted all the healers to be called, to see if they could mend his cabochon permanently. Temellin wanted to try to give him another cabochon—in his right hand this time, although that had never been done before—so that he could power his sword again. Perry wanted him to spend all his time in the library, looking for solutions in the old texts. Vevi and Serenelle—another unlikely alliance, he thought incredulously—wanted him to work out some way to ward his cabochon to keep his power inside, even though everyone knew wards attached to a living creature, man or animal, never worked because the moment they moved, they left the ward behind. Hades only knew why.

  And now Samia. Only she wanted to go one step further. She wanted to put her cabochon over his and use her direct healing power to seal his cabochon temporarily. ‘I think my seal will last a few hours,’ she said. ‘Long enough for your power to build up a bit. In the end the gold will be strong enough to break through my red, but until that happens you could call to Tarran. My seal is better than a ward, because you won’t have to keep immobile while your power builds. And with a ward, we’d have to remove it for you to use the magic—and then the power would start pouring out, so it would be quickly lost. Maybe before you had a chance to use it.’

  He almost choked on the fig. ‘Listen to yourself! My power breaking through your red? Sam, I don’t want to hurt anyone. And if power pours out of a cut the length of my cabochon, that’s exactly what I will do. Hurt someone. I won’t do it.’ He thought he’d won the argument.

  He should have known better.

  That night they had dinner together: his parents, Garis and Samia, and himself. At first, no one mentioned his cabochon. They spoke of the Mirage, and of Tyr. They talked of his studies, and of how he wanted to build aqueducts in Kardiastan.

  ‘Why should people have to cart water up from the lake?’ he asked, unaware how his enthusiasm lit up his eyes and tinged his voice. ‘It’s laborious and expensive. Why should people have to spend so much time waiting at the wells to draw a single jar? With an aqueduct, there is water available all the time—clean water.’

  ‘Where would you get it from? The lake?’ Sarana asked.

  ‘No, no. Already people are saying the lake levels have dropped from when they were children. We are drawing too much as the city grows, and polluting it with our waste. I want to bring water in from the mountains northwest of the Asida paveway. There will be some source of underground water in the foothills. I’d have to survey it, of course, but I imagine the line would be less than a hundred miles and I think the incline will decrease—’

  ‘One hundred miles?’ Temellin’s face swung in his direction. ‘And how do you expect to pay for an aqueduct that long?’

  ‘Less than one hundred. Although I did wonder about building an underground drain as well to carry the waste water out of the city, rather than dumping it in the lake. We could sell the rights to the clean water, keeping the price cheaper than the water sellers can bring water up from the lake. That way, the aqueduct will eventually pay for itself. In the meantime, Mother has enough money to invest in the scheme if she wants to. Otherwise, I’ll go to the Assorian moneymasters.’

  Sarana looked up from her wine. ‘Of course I’ll invest if you think it’s viable. It would be wonderful to have a bath without worrying about whether I was being extravagant with water.’ She smiled at him and he knew she was remembering, as he was, the luxury of the Exaltarch’s palace. After a childhood spent either on a farm or in the stark stone Stronghold in the foothills of the Alps, he’d always appreciated the baths in Tyr.

  ‘An aqueduct sounds like a worthy project,’ Temellin agreed. ‘But surely there are others who can do the preliminary surveys? I’d rather you worked at finding a way to regain your power.’

  Arrant frowned, annoyed. Would no one see that he had another way to contribute to the prosperity of Kardiastan? He had a skill, and knew how to use it…‘Why? I still wouldn’t be able to use it properly even if I did regain it.’

  ‘Declaring Sarana Mirager-heir was just a way of buying time,’ his father said. ‘She and I are almost the same age; there has to be someone to follow us. And if it’s not you, then we really don’t have a choice but to look at Korden’s family. And there’s not one of them that is unflawed, thanks to their unbalanced upbringing. Gretha is a singularly stupid woman, and Korden was an exacting and unsympathetic father, hardly the kind of man to make up for her deficiencies.’

  ‘Father, even if someone can mend my cabochon, I’ll only be back where I used to be: with a cabochon that often doesn’t work. And no one is going to trust me until we can prove Firgan killed his brother. Which is impossible unless you can force him to answer questions about it in public.’

  ‘There’s no legal way I can force him without evidence to back up an accusation.’

  There was another long silence that Arrant couldn’t interpret. Then Sarana said, ‘
I think we must look to the next generation for an heir.’

  Arrant brightened. ‘Am I going to have a brother or sister then?’

  She laughed. ‘No, although I wouldn’t be averse to that solution if it happened. No, I was thinking of your line.’

  ‘Ah, Arrant,’ said Garis, grinning, ‘it seems we have a matchmaking mama about to start a campaign. Watch out, lad, there’s no more dangerous species on earth. But who would have thought? Sarana, of all people. She’ll soon be drawing up a list of all the eligible gold-cabochoned girls of a suitable age and looking them over like a shleth merchant at the stockyards.’

  Samia squirmed uncomfortably and closed her left hand in her lap, hiding her red gemstone in an involuntary gesture. Arrant noticed and hurriedly looked away.

  ‘Shut up, Garis,’ Sarana said amiably and tossed a grape at him.

  He caught it, grinning, and wondered aloud if being a grandmother mellowed a woman.

  ‘Arrant,’ Samia said, leaning forward to speak to him privately while their parents bickered amiably, ‘if you can spare time from your courtship of sundry Magorias, I would like to see the Phalanx Swirls. I thought of riding out tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?’

  He stared at her blankly. ‘What are they?’

  ‘One of the new desert patternings. It’s not far; an hour and a half by shleth.’ She smiled up at him, her eyes full of mischief. ‘It might be good to get out of the city.’

  The temptation was overwhelming. ‘I’d love to. I’ll meet you in the stables—when?’

  She smiled in delight and so transformed her face that his breath caught. ‘Immediately after breakfast?’ she asked.

  He nodded his agreement, and when he went to his pallet that night, he was mulling over just when she had altered from a gawky skinny child with freckles to an eighteen-year-old woman who could halt his breathing. He wasn’t even sure why, because she wasn’t really beautiful. Not like Elvena. Or even Serenelle.

  But it was another complication. His parents obviously wanted him to marry someone with a gold cabochon to beget a more suitable heir. And he didn’t want to involve himself with any Magor woman. It wouldn’t have been fair to her. He may not have had first-hand experience of a Magor coupling, but he had been told that it held an intensity of physical and emotional pleasure not available to a Magor if their partner was non-Magor. And what Magor woman would want to deny herself that?

  ‘Oh, Samia,’ he thought. ‘We shouldn’t tread this path.’ And then: ‘But oh, it is hard not to take the first step down a road so alluring.’

  He deliberately breakfasted early the next morning to avoid his parents, and was down in the stables before Samia. He was chatting to one of the stableboys about shleth bloodlines, when a familiar voice drawled from behind him, ‘Looking for work in the stables now, are we?’

  Firgan.

  He whipped around, his fury rising in his throat. The man waved the stableboy away, and the lad left without a second thought.

  Firgan smiled.

  Arrant gritted his teeth. How dare he? ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘What guard on the gate is going to stop Firgan Korden when he says he has an arrangement to see the previous Mirager-heir in the stables? I happened to be walking by and felt your presence. A handy ability that, I’ve always thought. To know where people are—your friends, or your enemies…’

  The sod. ‘You’re not welcome here. Get out.’

  ‘I just wanted to make clear to you, Arrant, that I don’t like you coming back to Madrinya. I don’t know what you’re up to, but if I were you, I’d think very seriously of returning to Tyr. Because if you believe the end of the Mirage Makers bestowing cabochons means a cabochonless man has a chance to be Mirager one day, we-e-ll…’ He dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned forward. ‘I would rethink. I’ll see you dead first.’

  ‘Like your brother,’ Arrant said. ‘Pleasant fellow, aren’t you? Just go away, Firgan. You put a foot wrong, and we’ll bring you before the Council on murder charges. You killed Lesgath and we know it.’

  Firgan gave an easy smile and stepped still closer, so that he was whispering into Arrant’s ear. ‘You can’t prove a thing. And no one will be able to prove your death was murder, either. But I’m a generous sort of fellow at heart. Leave, and nothing will happen to you.’

  ‘Prove it? Perhaps not. But we can put you in a position where you’d have to refuse to answer questions about your brother’s death. Which might start people wondering, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’d never dare. I would act righteously indignant, and refuse to answer such insulting insinuations. And you’d be the ones with muck on your faces.’

  ‘Shall we try it and see?’

  ‘Last warning, Arrogant. Go back to Tyr.’

  ‘No, Firgan. The last warning comes from me. Threaten any of us again, and I’ll see you dead. You’re not talking to a youth half your age any more. I’ve grown up. I’m looking you straight in the eye now, or haven’t you noticed?’ He shot a hand out and seized Firgan’s left wrist, bending it so that the cabochon pointed at Firgan’s chest. At the same time, he threw the man backwards against the stable wall. ‘You can feel the strength there, can’t you? You can’t always hide behind your Magor power, like a child sneaking under the skirting of his mother’s anoudain.’

  Firgan lashed out in a fury, and for a moment they wrestled in a brutal embrace. Arrant slammed Firgan’s head against the wall. Firgan tried to knee Arrant in the groin, but didn’t have enough room for any real leverage. In the meantime, Arrant head-butted Firgan on the nose, which started to bleed. Firgan roared and stamped down hard on the bones of Arrant’s sandalled foot.

  ‘What is going on here?’ a voice bellowed from the doorway. ‘No one brawls in my stables! And I don’t give a turd’s stink who you are, either.’

  Arrant separated himself from Firgan’s grip and turned to face the irate stablemaster, Barrid, who had plunged a pail into the water trough while he was yelling. He pulled it out, slopping water, and held it ready to throw as he glared at them.

  ‘I guess we don’t want to be doused like a pair of scrapping cats, do we, Arrant?’ Firgan drawled, dabbing at his bleeding nose with the edge of his bolero. ‘Just a friendly bit of sparring, Barrid, that’s all.’ He nodded pleasantly and left the stable.

  ‘Sorry, Barrid,’ Arrant said. ‘I’ve, er, come to get a couple of mounts for Magoria-samia and myself. We are riding for the Phalanx Swirls this morning.’

  The stablemaster snorted.

  After enduring his monosyllabic conversation for some time as they rode, Samia finally said in exasperation, ‘Arrant, what in the world is wrong with you this morning? You’re as mumpish as a shleth who missed out on the mating season. And there’s blood on your collar.’

  He laughed. ‘Mumpish?’

  ‘Mumpish! And it means the way you are feeling at the moment,’ she added, forestalling his next question.

  ‘You made that up.’

  ‘Tell me what’s the matter.’

  He knew better now than to try to avoid answering Samia. ‘I just met Firgan, who threatened to kill me. And that’s quite enough to make anyone feel, er, mumpish. And I hope you can’t read all my emotions. That would be far too embarrassing.’

  ‘For a healer, reading emotions is considered a good thing. It makes our job that much easier. You, however, are mostly unreadable.’

  ‘Mostly?’

  ‘Well, unpredictable, compared to the rest of us. Sometimes not a whiff of emotion, and then wham! You hit us with a passion so strong, everybody shuts up. Your mother says that her Altani friend, Brand, was like that, too.’ She put her head on one side and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘That unpredictability tends to keep people off balance. Never quite sure what will happen next. I like it.’

  Once again she had deflated his protest, leaving him with nothing to say, so he tried to change the subject. ‘How do we find these Phalanx Swirls?’

  �
��I was given excellent directions, and the turn-off from the paveway is marked. Now, let’s get back to the question of a threat from Firgan.’

  ‘He’ll lose interest once he realises all I am doing is building an aqueduct.’ His inner voice added, ‘I hope. No, that’s a lie. I don’t hope so at all. I’m hoping the bastard will give me an excuse to kill him. Vortexdamn, I’m as bloodthirsty as the next warrior after all.’

  The look Samia gave him bordered on open disbelief but she let the subject drop. ‘Look, the last of the city houses. Let’s gallop.’

  From a small hill, they looked down on a flat depression about half a mile long. Tall thin rocks thrust up out of the sands, their surfaces pitted and roughened by wind and sand. And around the base of each, coloured grains had built up a giant artwork filling the vale with circles and swirls of red and mauve and grey and ochre and rust.

  ‘Oh!’ Samia said. ‘That is superb.’

  Arrant sat still on his mount. It was like a mosaic, but something in its inherent splendour sent a touch of cold down his spine. ‘How long has it been here?’ he asked.

  ‘No one knows exactly. The vale is hidden and the track has only been here since someone stumbled across the patterning a month or two back, and brought others to see.’

  He rode down the slope to the edge of the first swirl. There he dismounted and knelt. He slid his cupped hand into the sand and let it sieve through his fingers.

  ‘Is there something the matter?’ Samia asked, riding up.

  He stood, filled with sadness. ‘Oh, Sam, this used to be part of the Mirage. It’s been brought here by the winds.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ she asked as she dismounted.

  ‘I’m not sure. I can—I can feel it has a connection to Tarran.’