Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  ‘Oh.’ She looked aghast. ‘I’m sorry.’ She walked away, perhaps to give him time to compose himself, perhaps because she didn’t want him to see how upset she was.

  ‘Hey, you’re vandalising an artwork,’ he said, trying to regain their light-heartedness. ‘Look at your footprints!’

  But she wasn’t listening. She had knelt down and was prodding cautiously with a fingertip at something lying half buried in the sand. Then she shuddered and pulled a face. He joined her to look. It had been a large creature once, at least as big as a Tyranian goat. Except it didn’t seem to be all there. ‘Something must have been eating it,’ he said. ‘There are no bones.’ All that remained was a dried-up pile of sinew and skin and scales. ‘I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right. Let’s leave it alone.’ She stood and pulled him away.

  ‘It’s just a dead animal.’ But even as he said the words, he knew it wasn’t. It was the remains of a Ravage beast. And they were just a few miles from Madrinya. His heart pounded, his mouth went dry.

  ‘You know what it is,’ she said flatly. She turned to lead her mount back up the slope to where the spreading branches of a solitary thorn tree offered shade. She tied her mount to the trunk and emptied the saddlebags. She’d brought a mat, and food and drink for a picnic. As she laid out the things, she asked, ‘If the Mirage Makers die, my father says all the Ravage creatures will come streaming out of the Mirage on the wind.’

  He nodded. ‘The winds apparently come every night now, cold air from the mountains drawn in to the heat of the Ravage sores. But we can fight them when—if—the time comes. The beasts cannot live long outside of their sores, we know that. It won’t mean the end of Kardiastan, just—just a bad time for us all.’ He added abruptly, ‘You’re right. I have to go and see the Mirage. I have to see Tarran in case—’ In case he dies.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as he joined her on the mat. ‘I didn’t mean to make you sad by bringing you here.’

  ‘Then I shan’t be sad,’ he promised. ‘This looks good. And I am hungry.’

  She reached out and took his left hand in hers. ‘You are going to have to eat with one hand.’

  He stared at her, not understanding.

  ‘Because I am going to hold your hand, cabochon to cabochon, and repair the cut. It will probably take half an hour or so. After which I shall ride back down to the inn along the paveway. I’ll wait for you there.’ She raised her other hand to forestall his protest. ‘Think of this as an experiment. There’s nobody here to hurt. We are out in the middle of nowhere. If something goes wrong, the worst thing you could do would be to blast a pile of sand into a spectacular whirlwind.’

  ‘I thought it was an artwork.’

  She ignored that. ‘I estimate you will have to wait a couple of hours for your power to build up sufficiently for you to be able to call Tarran. Please, Arrant. Do this. Do it for your brother if you won’t do it for me or for yourself.’

  He shook his head, but more in exasperation than negation. ‘You planned this. You never give up, do you?’

  ‘Not often. Not with people I care about.’

  He lifted his right hand and put a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t care too much, Sam.’ It was all he dared say.

  She just smiled and held out the loaf of bread. ‘Shall I hold and you cut, or you hold and I cut?’

  Almost everything she had brought necessitated two hands to unwrap or open, cut or peel; tasks that now had to be shared. Peeling an orange resulted in juice all over her anoudain; opening the small earthenware jar of olives squirted oil down his bolero and sleeve. Every misadventure sent her into peals of laughter and, swamped by her sense of fun, he was helpless. By the end of the half-hour, his sadness was unremembered. And he knew he was three parts in love.

  It was she who sobered first. ‘I’ve finished. The crack in your cabochon is filled.’

  She unclasped his hand. The cut was now a thin blood-red line in the gem, with fine webs of scarlet spreading into the tiniest of hairline fissures he hadn’t even known were there. ‘It’s pretty,’ he said, and laughed. ‘If nothing else, I have the prettiest cabochon in the land.’

  As she bent to look, her hair brushed his lips. He drew back sharply, overwhelmed by longing for something he could never have. ‘It’s time you left,’ he said and faced his cabochon away from her. ‘If something were to go wrong—’

  ‘All right,’ she said and scrambled to her feet. ‘You will remember to bring back the rest of the picnic things, won’t you?’

  He shivered, waiting there. The air was still, and the day pleasantly warm, yet he shivered. He wanted Samia there beside him. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to see her smile at him again. He wanted so much to love her. And he had no right to want anything when he had so little to give.

  Fiercely he turned his gaze back to his cabochon, and concentrated. Nothing happened for a long time. Then, after almost an hour, he thought the pale gold may have deepened a little. He had no power he could discern—his far-sensing wasn’t working—but that was nothing new. Just because his power wasn’t leaking out any more didn’t mean he could use what there was.

  He waited another half-hour and thought about the carcass in the Swirls. It smelled wrong. It had no proper skeleton. Had it once been mostly illusion? Built of nightmares, not bone? A Ravage beast. And they were two hundred miles from the Mirage. Perhaps Madrinya had been lucky that the beast had ended up in the Swirls, and not, say, in the Madrinyan market-place on a busy day.

  Tarran, it’s me. Can you hear me? Are you there?

  And something slipped into his mind and huddled there. It was scrunched up, folded in on itself, barely alive. He couldn’t even recognise it.

  Tarran? Tarran, is that you?

  It couldn’t be; not this thing, this twist of life that lay there in his mind, unspeaking, unshaped, unresponsive. This, his vibrant, laughing brother? Yet he was touched with a familiarity, a tenuous feeling of connection. His brother, what was left of him.

  He forced the horror down. Contained his despair where only he would find it. And did the only thing he could; he enveloped the scrap of life crouching in his mind with his caring. He turned every thought inwards, to love and heal. And because his brother was there, his magic worked. The mind within his own began to open, to unfold like a crushed bud struggling to peel back its wounded casing in order to bloom.

  Tarran, I’m here; you’re safe.

  And then, softly, he added, I love you.

  Had he ever uttered those words before? He couldn’t remember, and was ashamed. He’d taken for granted that Tarran knew he was loved. And he probably had known; he had inhabited a corner of Arrant’s thoughts at times, after all. But it wasn’t the same. Arrant should have said the words.

  He wound his love tight, swaddling his brother, pouring all the power he had into the healing embrace of his mind. ‘I love you, Tarran,’ he said aloud, and held his breath, waiting for a reply.

  And Tarran responded. He unfurled, the bud opening. Arrant? Is that really you? No more than a thready whisper of thought.

  Arrant breathed again. ‘It’s me.’

  I knew you’d find a way to find me. I knew it. The bud opened a little more. Strengthened. Stretched.

  ‘What can I do to help?’

  Just be.

  Arrant quietened, turned inwards, lending his strength. His power. Time passed. The shadow of the tree lessened as the sun climbed in the cloudless sky. And gradually the bud blossomed.

  Let me in, Arrant. Show me what happened. Show me who did this to us. The person who sent that blast through you that seared me so, that sent me flying back to the Mirage—who was it?

  ‘Firgan, Korden’s oldest son. Were you hurt?’

  The surge of power scrambled my thoughts. I couldn’t even remember who I was for days. And then when I did, I couldn’t get back to you. I—I thought you’d died. That hurt, Arrant. I never knew what grief was till then. Not really. I thought I’d never speak to you again.
If that young Magori had not come, I’d just be so much sand blowing in the wind by now. But he told me you were alive. Knowing that made all the difference. Tell me what happened.

  To save time, Arrant lowered all his barriers and let his brother roam freely through his memory.

  When Tarran spoke again, it was to offer practical advice. The Mirage Makers know of no way to repair your cabochon. And trying to give you another will not succeed. The best that can be done is what Samia has done.

  ‘When her seal breaks, what then?’

  Have faith in her. She knows her own power. The seal will slowly fade, not break. Your loss of power will be a gradual leak. In fact, it’s already happening. Take a look.

  He glanced down. A faint golden glow had spread across his hand, to trickle between his fingers. His power, drifting away into the air. ‘And when it’s all gone? Will you be able to stay in my head?’

  I don’t see why not. But once I leave, I won’t be able to come unless you allow her to do the same thing again. When you have no power in your cabochon, I cannot sense you all the way from the Mirage. I could not find you, Arrant. It was terrible…

  ‘Tarran, how—?’

  A pause, but Tarran knew exactly what Arrant could not say. I don’t think we’ll see the beginning of another year. What the Magor are doing helps—but nothing can stop the Ravage. Nothing. Only the intervention of the Magor has kept us alive as long as this. I’m frightened, Arrant. I don’t want to—to not be. The others are caught up in the fighting; they don’t have time to—to think about what it all means. But everything feels unfinished for me…As though if I die I would take the world with me, instead of leaving it behind. Does that make sense?

  ‘It’s guilt,’ Arrant thought. Tarran had been supposed to save the world, or the Mirage anyway. He’d carried the burden of that all his life, yet never found an answer. No wonder it all seemed unfinished.

  Some of us have died, Tarran added. They just became too tired and—ceased to live. And there have been several recently who—who disappeared. That’s never happened before. It’s hard for us to separate one Mirage Maker from another, but I knew the essensa of one of them well. She was one of the most ancient, and rather absent-minded. I called her Flower. She loved flowers. She always did the flowers. Skies, Arrant, what happened to her? Did she disappear on the wind?

  ‘I want to show you something.’ Arrant walked down to the Swirls again, and indicated the carcass. ‘What does that look like to you?’

  I can tell you what it smells like. A Ravage beast. But there’s no Ravage sore.

  ‘And we are two or three hundred miles from the Mirage.’

  The winds grow stronger as we weaken.

  They were both silent, taking in that thought.

  Arrant walked back to the mat. The serrated edge of his terror sharpened his thoughts. The Ravage—his nightmares, damn it—leaving the remains of the Mirage on the wind…

  To destroy Kardiastan. And a Mirage Maker had just gone missing.

  Tarran, who had been continuing to sort through the memories Arrant had opened up to him, suddenly laughed. Hey, he said, what did I tell you! You have a weakness for long legs. That Samia really has you panting like a shleth on heat, hasn’t she?

  ‘It’s just as well you don’t have a body, brother, or I’d thump you on the nose. You keep your mind on your own affairs, and stop rooting around in my personal memories, thank you very much.’ Carefully, he shut up the private part of his mind.

  Spoilsport. Ooooh, your memories would light a fire all by themselves. Why haven’t you done anything about it?

  ‘Tarran,’ he growled, ‘I’ll stuff your memories full of pallet cotton if you aren’t careful. None of that is ever any of your business.’

  She’s coming back, his brother said smugly. This should be interesting.

  Arrant’s heart sank. Tarran was right. His positioning abilities indicated Samia was riding their way. Confound it, he had his brother back, and the first thing he did was tease.

  You said you loved me, Tarran hastened to point out. I heard you. Several times.

  ‘I lost my mind there for a bit, that’s all. I was worried about your invisible hide.’

  Lost more than your mind, I think, where the lovely Samia is concerned.

  ‘Manure sweepings! Hankering after a roll on the pallet is not the same as losing one’s heart.’

  That’s true. I remember how your eyes used to pop out of your head every time you saw Elvena Korden. You used to positively salivate. But this feels different.’

  ‘Of course it’s different. Samia is a friend. And I am a lot older.’

  Ah. And that explains everything?

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  Go and eat something, brother. Not surprising with so much magic leaking out that you feel hungry. It will put you in a better temper if you eat.

  ‘Huh! You just want to enjoy the sensations on my tastebuds.’

  Inside his mind, Tarran was grinning. And Arrant had to admit it felt good to have him there, even if it meant he was being laughed at.

  Samia tied up her mount and came to sit next to him.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to come back,’ he scolded.

  ‘I worried too much. Couldn’t stand it any longer.’ She took his hand to look at his cabochon. ‘Oh, it’s leaking all over the place.’

  His heart started to thump and he silently cursed Tarran for putting ideas into his head.

  Rubbish. Wasn’t me put the thoughts there. They were already in evidence, as thick and rich as cream on cow’s milk.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Arrant said in answer to Samia. ‘No problem, though. It’s just a bit at a time.’

  ‘Did he come?’

  ‘Yes. He’s still here. And thank you, Sam, for everything. I should have listened to you a lot earlier.’

  ‘You should always listen to me. Would you like me to renew my seal?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ he replied more graciously. ‘Tarran says he thinks it won’t break. So nothing too drastic ought to happen.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled into his eyes. ‘Well met, Tarran.’

  Well met, Samia. I used to know your parents when they were young. Arrant, you are salivating again. Calm down, boy.

  ‘He says well met. And wants you to know that he knew your parents when they were young. Well, he means that he has memories of them then.’

  Her smile widened. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about them. Well, about my mother, anyway. I never knew her.’

  She was fun. And pretty. She used to have the same effect on your father as you do on Arrant.

  ‘He says she was fun. And pretty.’

  And what about the rest?

  If you think I am translating that, you’re got the brains of a senile gorclak.

  ‘So people tell me,’ Samia said, sighing. ‘You’ll have to tell me everything.’

  Oh, I will, if I can calm Arrant down long enough to be coherent. His heart is doing a dance in his chest at the moment simply because you are holding his hand.

  ‘He will, but, um, not—not now,’ Arrant said, desperate to maintain his equilibrium. Shut up, Tarran.

  This is fun.

  ‘Oh—all right,’ Samia said. ‘So, what now? Can I keep mending your cabochon for you after today?’

  Yes, what now, Arrant? Can I stay a while? A day or two? I—I need the rest.

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ he said, not sure who he was answering. ‘I—I don’t know what to do. Tarran says they are all very weak.’

  Samia looked stricken. ‘Oh, Tarran, I’m so sorry.’

  Yeah, well so am I. Can’t do much about it though.

  ‘You could stay with me.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ Samia asked, puzzled.

  ‘Not you; Tarran. He could stay in my head if—if the other Mirage Makers…’

  Oh sure. You’d love being two people for the rest of your life.

  ‘It would be better than mourning you the rest of my l
ife.’

  ‘What is he saying?’ she asked.

  Stop right there, Arrant. It’s not going to happen. I’m a Mirage Maker. I live and die with them. And that’s final. Now let’s change the subject.

  ‘He says he won’t.’

  Arrant, you have to do something about Firgan.

  Like what? ‘He’s also changing the subject.’

  Kill him?

  Oh, sure. As much as I’d like to, I don’t want to be dragged up before the Magoroth Council again, or worse still, the Hall of Justice, on charges of murdering a war hero.

  ‘Stop it, you two. You are cutting me out,’ Samia complained, digging Arrant in the ribs.

  ‘Sorry.’

  No one would know it was you if you used your power. After all, who would think you could kill when your cabochon is cracked open? But we could with me here. You tell Samia, and see what she thinks.

  Arrant threw up his hands. ‘Tarran here just came up with the bright idea of killing Firgan. Which is odd, because he is usually not in favour of randomly murdering people.’

  True, but this is Firgan. If someone doesn’t kill him, then he will go after our father, and your mother.

  ‘Someone should certainly do it,’ she agreed emphatically, ‘after what he did.’

  ‘Not you too. Gods, is everyone here bent on wholesale slaughter? Tarran, the Mirage Makers don’t approve of murder, surely?’ He glared at Samia. ‘Any more than healers usually do.’

  Not usually. It’s against the Covenant.

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ Samia said. ‘And neither do we. The proper thing to do would be to try him before the Magoroth Council for murdering his brother. But we all know we couldn’t prove a thing. And that’s not just why he ought to die. He ought to die because otherwise your parents are in danger, and you, and one day he is going to end up being Mirager if nobody does anything. He threatened you only this morning, Arrant.’

  See? Tarran crowed. The woman has sense. As well as luscious legs.

  ‘Oh gods, stop it, the two of you. I’ll admit it. I want to kill the bastard. But it’s one thing to think about it and another to do it in cold blood and that’s final. Sam, let’s go back to Madrinya. I need to tell my parents what Tarran says about the Mirage Makers.’