Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  She pulled a face. ‘I suppose you’re right. As much as I feel like punching Firgan Korden on his supercilious pointed nose.’

  Arrant chuckled. ‘His nose is rather sharp, isn’t it?’ He picked up the mat and began to fold it up.

  ‘There’s one thing you have to make up your mind to accept, though, Arrant,’ she said, watching him. ‘You will be the next Mirager-heir, after your mother. There’s no alternative.’

  And whether you have a working cabochon or not will be irrelevant by then, Tarran added. When the Mirage Makers die, the Magor begin to dwindle in number too.

  ‘What did he say?’ Samia asked, seeing Arrant frown.

  ‘Sweet Elysium, you two are going to send me crazy,’ he replied, ‘dragging me to and fro like a shuttle across a loom.’

  In truth, for the moment, his heart sang. He was Magor again. Samia was smiling at him. Best of all, Tarran was safe. Not for very long perhaps, and maybe none of it would last, but for now, he savoured every grain of time running through the hourglass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘We have to bring Firgan before the Council.’

  Temellin strode back and forth across the room, turning with uncanny accuracy just before he bumped into the walls at either end. Easy enough, Arrant supposed, with the wall fountains. Fish still swam in a dish on the table too, and the lizard Arrant had trained to stay in the pile of wood near the fireplace was still there. A cage of finches hung at the door to the bedroom. He wondered who now cared for them all, and whether people thought it strange that the Mirager had kept the pets around once Arrant had left for Tyrans.

  He switched his attention to his mother, seated by the window watching Temellin’s pacing with concern. ‘I don’t see how we can prove anything against Firgan,’ she said.

  ‘Arrant has just told us he was threatened with death. Isn’t the word of the son of the Mirager good enough?’ Temellin’s rage was suppressed in his voice, but not in the emotion he released for them all to feel.

  Sarana raised an eyebrow and waved a hand around at Jessah, Garis and Samia. ‘In this room, certainly. In the Council? What do you think, dear?’ Her tone was mild, without any of the sarcasm she was capable of dispensing, but it stopped his restless pacing.

  ‘I know, I know. But I don’t know what to do. And that’s a hard thing to admit. I can’t just murder him. I’m not very good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it if you want.’

  The words were stark and brutal, and it wasn’t quite a lie, but Arrant felt her innate distaste. She has no stomach for an execution either, he thought. She has been glad to leave all that behind.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ Jessah said hastily, trying unsuccessfully to hide her shock. ‘People would talk, and if the slightest blame came our way, Temellin’s position would be threatened.’

  ‘Especially as there is already talk about Kardiastan being led by a blind man who can’t work out how to stop the Ravage, eh?’ Temellin asked.

  ‘Firgan’s rumours,’ Garis said.

  Sarana looked annoyed. ‘Not to mention the rest of his twisted family. And, unfortunately, there are so damned many of them.’

  Temellin dropped into the chair next to her. ‘I cannot countenance murder. I am the Mirager and I have sworn to uphold governance by consensus. I will follow the law. And so will the rest of you.’ He laid a hand on Sarana’s arm. ‘I will not tolerate anyone else to break it, either.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, apparently unfazed. ‘I thought you’d say that.’

  ‘We will just have to lay a snare for Firgan,’ Garis said.

  ‘He’ll see through anything too obvious,’ Jessah warned. ‘That man is as devious as a trapdoor spider.’

  ‘I’m an expert at deviousness,’ Sarana said. ‘I was taught by the very best web-spinners.’

  ‘Everybody give it some thought,’ Temellin said. ‘Unfortunately, we have to keep fighting the Ravage in the meantime and we will all have to take our turns there.’

  Arrant looked up happily. Was he about to see the Mirage for the first time?

  Not a hope, Tarran said. You’ll see.

  ‘Except Arrant, of course. His power is too unpredictable when Tarran is not around.’

  Told you.

  ‘Garis,’ Temellin continued, ‘when you are not tackling the Ravage, you are back on bodyguard duty for Arrant. Alternate with Jessah. I’ll send Firgan—and other members of that damn brood—out to the Mirage as often as I can. Arrant, I want you to go ahead with the aqueduct project. I want to allay Firgan’s suspicions. I don’t want him, or anyone else outside this room, to know you have your cabochon power back yet, so keep away from all the Magor. As far as everyone is concerned, you are just a non-Magor buildermaster.’

  Arrant nodded, his delight at the idea of building an aqueduct warring with his disappointment at not being able to go to the Mirage. I want to see you, he told Tarran, in person.

  I’d rather you didn’t. I wouldn’t want you to remember me the way things are there now.

  Temellin hesitated. ‘I wonder if it would be better for you not to leave your cabochon sealed when Tarran is with you to decrease the chances any of the Magor will notice?’

  ‘And leave him defenceless?’ Sarana asked. ‘No. Arrant has been without reliable power long enough. And now that he can sometimes have perfect control, you want to take it away from him? Over my dead body!’ She glared at Temellin even though he couldn’t see the expression.

  ‘You’re right. That was a ridiculous suggestion.’

  ‘Insensitive,’ Sarana said.

  He threw his hands up in the air in surrender. ‘Insensitive. My apologies, Arrant.’

  He sent out his regret to Arrant—who managed to return a feeling of amused sympathy of the kind one man gave to another in the face of the incomprehensibility of women—only to have both his mother and Samia glare at him in turn. Hey, he thought, I could get good at this emotion-sending.

  And upset half the population in the process, Tarran pointed out. Tact, brother, tact.

  They settled into a routine. Each evening, at his request, Tarran returned to the Mirage to take his place among the Mirage Makers. Each morning, Samia came to seal Arrant’s cabochon so that he could call Tarran back again. That way Tarran could rest and maintain his strength. Tarran gleefully said he did it because he knew how much Arrant enjoyed Samia holding his hand for half an hour every morning, but Arrant ignored that.

  He began planning the aqueduct. He despatched surveyors to map the route, arranged the financing and spent part of most days working with the engineers and masons and builders of Madrinya, maintaining a conspicuous presence away from the pavilions in order to lull Firgan into thinking he was harmless. He wore a fingerless glove on his left hand, and Garis fostered a rumour that the Mirager’s son hated to talk about his Magor disability.

  And all the while, Arrant tried to devise a plan to trap Firgan into a mistake that would condemn him in the eyes of the Magoroth. ‘I have to be the bait,’ Arrant said to Tarran and Samia as they sat and chatted over breakfast in his sitting room one morning. ‘It’s the only way we can do this. Pretending I am not Magor, hiding the fact that I have power in my cabochon, that’s not the way to have Firgan act precipitously. I have to be a bait worth eating. We need to make Firgan think I will be made heir to Sarana. It might be a good idea if he was to find out I had my cabochon mended. Tarran agrees with me.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘You do?’

  Maybe she likes the idea of you being the worm on a hook, Tarran suggested. Can you try some of that honeyed porridge stuff over there? It smells delicious.

  Arrant ignored him.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘I prefer us to be in control of the situation, rather than Firgan. We need to plant some misinformation so that Firgan thinks he found out all by himself.’

  ‘You’re good friends with Serenelle. Tell her in confidence and she’ll pass it
on.’

  Samia pursed her lips in annoyance and glared.

  Just about curled your eyelashes that time, Tarran said. And no, I don’t want boiled eggs. They are boring. If you don’t want porridge, then take some of those pomegranate fritters.

  Arrant rolled his eyes, but reached for the fritters.

  ‘Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Arrant Temellin,’ Samia snapped. ‘Serenelle would not pass along anything I said to Firgan. She hates the man.’

  Thanks a lot, Tarran.

  Unfair! I didn’t roll your eyes.

  ‘She’s a Korden, Samia, and not a particularly nice person anyway. Her loyalty is to her family. She’s also scared of Firgan. She’d pass along the information and have a good laugh with her brother over your naivety. Try it and see.’

  ‘I will,’ she snapped. ‘And you’ll be the one to see that nothing happens. You know nothing about women.’

  Tarran laughed. You can say that again.

  Arrant winced and dropped his head into his hands. Sometimes he thought the two of them would drive him insane. ‘I think,’ he said, carefully neutral, ‘we ought to talk to my father about this first. But he has just left for the Mirage.’

  He discussed the question with his mother later that morning, only to find her reluctant to think of using him as a lure. ‘Arrant,’ she said, her tone troubled, ‘there are two wonderful things in my life at the moment; one of them is my relationship with your father, and the second is you. I have a marked reluctance to endanger either.’

  ‘That’s richly ironic, coming from someone who made a career out of throwing herself from one dangerous situation to another.’

  ‘Ah, but I was a Magoroth living among the non-Magor. A Magoroth with a cabochon I could rely on. You are neither of those things. It’s very brave of you, Arrant, but I’d rather we find another, safer way of doing this.’

  ‘That is such a motherly thing to say,’ Arrant complained.

  She laughed. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She sobered. ‘I’ve just had a report in from one of the northern vales. I’m going to investigate. I should be away about eight or nine days.’

  ‘Ravage beasts?’ he asked.

  ‘Looks like it. But this time a lot of people seem to have died, which is why I want to look into it myself.’

  He gave a quick frown. ‘Sounds bad.’

  ‘I’ve not been mothered for a long time,’ he grumbled to Tarran afterwards. ‘And she forgets I am twenty. Besides, she’s not just my mother, she’s Ligea Gayed, too. And laying a trap is what Ligea would have done.’

  You’ll be more vulnerable once I die, Tarran said in reflection. Your cabochon will go back to being unreliable. We have to do something soon, while I am still in your head and helping you control your power.

  ‘Do you know anything about this vale she’s gone to see?’

  No, but the winds have been especially bad. Maybe we’ve been losing a lot of Ravage beasts. It’s hard to tell.

  ‘I’ll work out something then,’ Arrant said, ‘with Sam. How many—’ He choked on the words, and had to complete the question silently. How many months, Tarran?

  One or two.

  Arrant felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

  The valemaster took Sarana to the drying racks of their cotton shed, where they had laid out the dead. ‘It’s been fourteen days, but we wanted to show the Magoroth before we buried them,’ he explained in a wooden voice. ‘We want to know what killed them, and if it will happen again. We all moved out of the vale. We want to know if it is safe to return.’

  The dry air had kept the bodies in a good state of preservation and the stench of their rot was nothing more than a slight sourishness in Sarana’s nostrils. The Ravage smell was worse. She forced herself to walk up and down the rows of bodies. Looking—for what? Clues to the way they died? Hardly. That was obvious. Most had died because their hearts—or their livers, or their kidneys—had been ripped from their bodies. They died because they had been torn to pieces. More than one hundred people.

  ‘Funny thing is that most of them weren’t eaten,’ the valemaster told her. Not once did he look at the bodies. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Nothing was missing, like.’

  ‘Most?’ she asked, trying not to show how shaken she was.

  He took her to the end of the racks. ‘We think these two people were the first,’ he said. He still didn’t look at them. ‘Brixatim and his wife Faretha. Faretha was about to drop a young’un any day.’ There was a long pause, then he added, ‘My first grandchild.’

  She looked. And looked.

  ‘Sweet Elysium,’ she thought, ‘war is bad enough, but this is sick…’ Her stomach heaved. ‘Oh, hells. Gev, you’d never believe this, but the Exaltarch, veteran of years of battle, is having trouble keeping food in her stomach.’ She clamped a hand firmly over her mouth and nose and studied the bodies.

  Something had gorged on the contents of Brixatim’s chest, crunching his ribs to get at the organs, hollowing him out like a ground squirrel making a meal of a melon. And something had eaten Faretha’s baby out of its womb. Except for the tiny head. That, they had left behind.

  ‘What would do this, Magoria?’ the valemaster asked, looking at her briefly. ‘How can we find out?’

  She was astonished. ‘No one saw what did this?’

  He shook his head. ‘Everything was hidden under clouds of choking red dust for hours. Most of us just stayed indoors. When it cleared, this is what we found.’ He turned his misery-filled eyes on her. ‘Magoria, what could kill one hundred and twenty-six people in a couple of hours and then vanish?’

  ‘This was done by Ravage beasts,’ she replied, the grimness of her own voice unpleasant to her ears. ‘I can tell that much by the smell. And some beasts remain in the village somewhere. The stench is still here. It won’t take me long to find them. They might even be dead by now; they find it hard to live away from Ravage sores.’

  ‘And if they are alive? You can kill them?’ he asked.

  ‘I can kill them.’

  In the end she found only one beast. Which was just as well, because it was unexpectedly difficult to kill. It was hidden in the roof space of a house where the whole family had been slaughtered. She located it using her sense of smell, and her Magor positioning powers. ‘Keep away until this is done,’ she told the valemaster and the men with him.

  ‘We can help,’ he protested. ‘Magoria, Faretha was my daughter—’

  ‘That was an order,’ she said quietly. ‘These beasts are best killed by Magoroth power.’

  He nodded unhappily and ushered the others away.

  She waited until everyone had gone, then she stepped back inside, gagging on the stench. She aimed her sword at the boards under the roof, and sent a blast of Magor gold upwards. The wood disintegrated and someone came tumbling down to land on the floor in front of her.

  It was Temellin. He scrambled to his feet, and quirked a smile at her. A slightly younger Temellin than the one she was used to, but just as handsome. Just as desirable. Still with a head of hair that he could never quite keep tidily tied back, although there were streaks of grey in it now.

  He didn’t speak and neither did she. She melted a hole through his chest instead. Impossibly, he kept moving towards her. His eyes pleaded, loving, his hand outstretched asking her to reach for him, to hold him. To cradle him while he died. His lips moved, mouthing words of love. And she ploughed another beam into his face, melting his eyes, his face, his brains.

  And then he wasn’t Temellin, but a Ravage beast, with claws like an eagle’s talons and teeth a handspan long, with scales and a long thin snout like a gharial of the Altani Delta. She struck again and again, burning and burning until there was nothing left. Nothing left of it, nothing left of her sword power.

  And when she was done she stepped outside and waited for the valemen to come. She was shaking. Her hands, her body, all shaking. Not believing what had happened. A Ravage beast had made an illusion. But onl
y Mirage Makers could make illusions become real. Only Mirage Makers could make illusions do anything.

  ‘Vortexdamn, Temellin,’ she muttered, ‘you’d better be alive and well, or I’m as good as moondaft for the rest of my life.’

  Elvena pouted, then frowned. ‘But I don’t want to marry Firgan.’

  Her mother, who was examining several lengths of silk from Corsene, took no notice. ‘You have to, dear. We need to keep the power in the family, and he is going to be Mirager one day. Do you like the blue, Elvie? It is such a pretty colour, even though the weave is not so fine. Bring the lamp closer, Serenelle, so we can see better.’

  ‘It doesn’t suit her,’ Serenelle said. ‘And you shouldn’t frown like that, Elvie; you’ll get wrinkles and then no one will want to marry you, including Firgan. And I wouldn’t be happy then, because he’d want to marry me instead. And I utterly refuse to.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Elvena said. ‘You’re far too young for Firgan.’

  ‘And you are far too stupid. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he wants to marry you. And unfortunately, I am not actually too young to marry. Or have you not realised I am over twenty?’

  Gretha, her mind still occupied with the silks, scolded, ‘Girls, girls! Behave.’

  ‘I don’t understand how he can be Mirager,’ Elvena said. ‘That Tyranian bitch is Mirager-heir.’

  ‘She’s as old as the Mirager. She could easily die first,’ Gretha said complacently.

  ‘And if she doesn’t, doubtless Firgan will help her along,’ Serenelle added.

  Gretha looked at her, appalled. ‘Serenelle, how can you say such a thing! I should make you wipe your mouth out with salt.’

  ‘Like that’s going to change the truth,’ Serenelle muttered. Sometimes she could hardly believe how stupid the other members of her family were. With the exception of her eldest brother, of course, and he was just plain evil.

  ‘He’s coming up the stairs right now, so you had better keep your mouth shut,’ Elvena told her.