Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  She was right, and by the time Firgan entered the room, they were talking quietly about the merits of the different lengths of cloth.

  ‘I like the blue,’ he said. ‘That will do for your wedding dress, Elvena. I have set the date, by the way. First day of Cornucopia. The month of fecundity—what could be more appropriate?’ He came forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Now run along to bed, both of you. I want to talk to Serenelle.’

  Gretha and Elvena obediently bundled up the lengths of silk and left the room. Firgan watched them go, smiling slightly. By the time he turned his attention back to where Serenelle had been lounging on a divan, she had warded herself in the corner of the room, using her sword and conjurations.

  ‘I heard what you said,’ he told her, and took two steps towards her ward.

  ‘Eavesdropping on your own family, Firgan? Nice.’

  ‘Just as well I did, it seems.’ He took another step closer.

  ‘And just what did you hear—?’ she asked politely, proud of how steady her voice remained.

  ‘You mentioned I might help the Tyranian bitch to die.’

  ‘So? What of it?’

  ‘It’s dangerous to speak so casually of murder, Serenelle. I wouldn’t want anyone outside my family to hear that kind of talk. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you do.’ He stepped closer still, until he was almost touching the ward. ‘I’ve been watching you the past few days. Your emotions reek of secrets you’re keeping.’

  ‘I am of an age to have secrets I want to keep from my brother.’

  ‘True. And I don’t give a damn about who you’re sleeping with, or not usually. But something has you sweating every time I look at you. And I want to know what secret it is that makes you so damned scared of a loving brother, m’dear.’ Casually he reached through the ward and cupped her chin in a powerful grip.

  She squealed in shock.

  ‘Did you really think that I would not have put my hand to the sword hilt of every member of this family?’ He slipped his left hand around to the back of her head, where he twisted it into her hair. His grip tightened as he stepped through the ward and brought his face down towards hers, as if he meant to kiss her. She tried to wriggle away, but he was a fighting man, all muscle and sinew. He hauled her up into his embrace, pinning her arms between their bodies and turning her cabochon so that it pressed hard against her diaphragm. She shuddered as he brushed his tongue along her lips and then nibbled her earlobe.

  He whispered into her ear, ‘You think you are so clever, Serenelle, but you’re just as stupid as the rest of them. You shouldn’t have used your sword to build the ward. A cabochon warding might have kept me out for a while.’

  She struggled, even knowing it was futile. His arms were like iron; the rock-hard muscles of his thighs pressed her hard to the wall. ‘You’ll hurt yourself,’ he said, his smile mocking. ‘Tell me, what is it that you have been keeping from me?’

  ‘Mirage help me,’ she thought, ‘why does no one come? Can’t they feel my panic?’ She knew the answer, even as she asked the question. The only person who would have come to her aid was her father, and he was away accompanying a young Magoroth relative who had gone to pick up her Magor sword in the Shiver Barrens.

  He pulled back on her hair so that she had to keep her face upturned to his. He ran his mouth over her cheek, her nose, her eyes, her ear, nuzzling. Licking away the perspiration of her fear. ‘Tell me, little sister. Tell me.’

  She smelled her own terror. She tasted the bile rising in her throat.

  Then he released her hair and gripped her face in both hands instead. He ran his thumbs up to the corners of her eyes and pressed down softly. ‘You know what we used to do to legionnaire prisoners during the war, Serenelle? For fun?’ He kissed her eyelids, his voice dropping to a murmur. ‘We used to gouge out their eyes with our thumbs. A bloody business. How they used to scream. There was a man in my cohort who used to eat them. The eyeball, I mean. Raw. What shall I do with yours? String them on a chain around my neck? Such pretty brown irises. Your best feature, I’ve always thought.’

  Gently, he increased the pressure at the corners of her eyes.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ she said, trying to believe her own words. ‘No one would forgive you. Even Papa would turn against you. You’d never become Mirager.’ His thumbs made circles on her skin, unpleasantly firm against the edge of her eyelids.

  ‘Hmm. Possibly you are right,’ he conceded, but he increased the pressure enough to move from discomfort to pain. Her eyes watered. ‘So I’ll make a little bargain with you. If you tell me what you are so desperately trying to keep from me, I won’t blind you this way when I am Mirager. I have a very long memory, Serenelle, and I don’t forgive. Ever. And never doubt that I will be Mirager. Sooner than you think.’

  ‘Skies,’ she thought. ‘He’d do it too. He killed Lesgath.’ Her courage drained from her, leaving her limp and clammy. ‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll tell you. It was Samia—she confided in me, about her and Arrant. She is using her healing power to seal his cabochon, and he can build up his power every time she does it. They aim to establish him as Sarana’s heir.’

  ‘And that’s all you have to tell me?’

  ‘That’s all.’ Her truth wafted between them as tangible as perfume.

  ‘Does he have control of his power?’

  ‘I—I didn’t ask and she didn’t say.’

  He released her and stepped away. She leaned weakly back against the wall. Her knees were trembling and she could not have stood without support. Blood trickled from one of her eyes. Slowly she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.

  ‘Damn him,’ she thought. ‘I hate him. I hate him so much.’

  She quelled the desire to kill him with her cabochon. She’d never succeed, and the price of failure was too terrible to contemplate. She tucked her hands under the skirting of her anoudain so he wouldn’t see how they trembled.

  ‘Not a word about this,’ he said. ‘Or you’ll be the victim of a mysterious murder one day soon.’ With that he was gone.

  She sat there where she was, unmoving, shrunken, as if he’d sucked something from her, and left her no more than a husk. How could she ever find the courage, in that hollow shell she’d become, to tell anyone the truth about him?

  Then she thought of Arrant. How handsome he was now that he had grown. What a fool she’d been! There’d been a time when he could have been hers for the taking, but she’d been too proud. She’d wanted a man who was a proper Magoroth, not someone struggling with a deformity. She’d admired his courage, but not enough to recognise its nobility. And she’d walked away. Now Samia had him, and the way he looked at the Illusa was enough to tell Serenelle there was no going back. Angrily, she brushed away her tears.

  Sands, she had to warn him. Or tell her father. But Firgan would kill her…

  She was still there, on the floor, when the lamp burned out. She was still there when her father came home. She heard the servant let him in the main door. His emotions arrived before he did, a dark gout of depression, defeat, fear. She recognised them all; they were hers too. Something terrible had happened.

  He entered the room and sought her in the gloom by tracing her despair. Yet he didn’t go straight to her. He sank down onto the divan and wearily reclined there before he spoke. ‘Come, little one,’ he said, patting the cushion beside him. ‘We’ll tell each other what’s the matter.’

  She rose and went to him, to cry against his chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  There can’t be a better way to start the day than holding hands with a pretty Illusa over breakfast in your apartment every morning.

  Arrant flushed, tried to hide his heightened colour from Samia, and failed.

  She hazarded a guess. ‘Tarran has arrived? Sometimes I wonder just what he says to you.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said with feeling. However, he thou
ght he’d caught the undercurrents of fatigue and despair and fear in his brother, and so the stab of dread in his own guts was savage. Gods knew, it was damnably difficult. Every day Tarran arrived, he seemed weaker than the day before, although never as bad as that first day at the Swirls.

  Rest, he said gently. Everything here is fine. Father’s here—he came in yesterday.

  Samia pushed her plate aside with her free hand, then used it to prop up her chin while she watched Arrant eat. ‘Well met, Tarran. I am enjoying watching your brother devour food. Even breakfast is a small banquet. I wish I could eat as much, but if I did, I’d be as fat as a pregnant gorclak.’

  ‘It’s all a by-product of leaking power. I have to replace the energy I lose somehow. But I wouldn’t advise cracking your cabochon just so you can make a glutton of yourself.’ Arrant helped himself to more olive oil. He poured it over his bread, added some honey and pine nuts and ate the result.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said, screwing up her nose.

  ‘You’re just jealous.’

  ‘Absolutely. Now, about laying a trap. I told Serenelle about the return of your powers. I don’t for a minute think it will work, but I thought I’d better warn you. Just in case.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Having second thoughts about her, are you?’

  ‘Not at—’

  A knock at the door interrupted her.

  ‘It’s Eris,’ Arrant said, puzzled that his chamberlain was so early. The man always came to clear the dishes at the end of an hour, and Arrant could have set his water clock by his punctuality. ‘Come in!’ he called.

  As Eris entered, the Council Hall Pavilion bell began to toll, the reverberations loud in the still morning air. A gong somewhere in the Mirager’s Pavilion took up the warning. Samia jumped up, turning over her chair.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Arrant asked Eris as he scrambled to his feet.

  Agitated, the man flapped his hands. ‘I don’t rightly know, Magori. Nothing is normal this morning. The Magoria-sarana came back very late last night, and so did Magori-korden. The two of them have been closeted with the Mirager for a couple of hours this morning. Now they have all moved over to the Council Hall. Korden took two young Magoroth to the Shiver Barrens to get their swords, you may remember. I think it has something to do with that.’

  Arrant nodded, frowning. Tarran, do you know anything about this?

  Things have been—bad, Arrant. The fighting is too intense for us to think of anything else. And the storms are getting worse.

  Storms?

  The winds. When Arrant was silent, Tarran added, It won’t be long now.

  Arrant headed for the door after Samia, but then turned back to rummage under his pallet platform. He drew out the package there, still wrapped, just as it had been when Garis had given it to him in Tyrans.

  Slowly, he unwound the cloth.

  The bell was a signal that there was to be a meeting in the Council Hall of the neighbouring pavilion, so that’s where he headed. In the distance, they could hear the bells of Magor households tolling to pass the message all over the city.

  Samia argued with Arrant all the way to the hall. ‘If your father wanted you there, he would have called you,’ she pointed out with her usual impeccable logic as they traversed the gardens. ‘And why have you brought your Magoroth sword? You are supposed to be keeping your Magorness a secret.’

  ‘Well that’s rich coming for someone who told Serenelle all about it. Not that I mind. I’m fed up with all the hiding,’ he replied. ‘At the moment, I am a Magoroth. And I don’t care who knows it. I’m going in. I’ll tell you all about it afterwards, I promise.’

  She caught at his arm as they arrived at the foot of the main steps to the hall. ‘You know your father doesn’t want Firgan to know—’

  He stopped to look at her. ‘Samia, I have a genius for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I know that. But time is running out for the Mirage Makers. And therefore for us, too. Tarran has been saying for years that their end is coming soon. Well, their idea of soon and our idea of soon are usually two different things and we’ve sort of got used to that. We’ve almost convinced ourselves that the end won’t happen yet a while; it’ll always be just one more crisis. But we can’t say that any more. Now “soon” means just that. And I can’t hide myself away and watch it happen. I have to try to find a way to…I don’t know. Do something that might postpone the inevitable. Just…something.’

  She was silent, but she released his arm. He smiled at her, trying to be comforting, but she looked more resigned than comforted—and not a little put out because, as an Illusa, she could not go in with him. He turned and marched on up to the guard at the top of the steps. It was Perradin.

  He flushed when he saw Arrant, his expression appalled and his embarrassment leaking. ‘Oh, sands—Arrant, I can’t let you in. Standing orders, you know. Everyone past this door has to show colour in their sword. Or be specifically granted exemption. I can send someone to ask—’

  ‘No need,’ Arrant said with a smile, sliding his sword out of its scabbard. It filled with glowing gold.

  Perradin’s jaw sagged. ‘Isn’t that impossible?’ he asked.

  ‘Evidently not,’ Arrant said drily.

  Perradin’s face lit up. ‘Welcome back,’ he said, and held out his left hand. Arrant switched his sword over to clasp cabochons with him. Perradin’s emotion was untarnished pleasure. ‘I’m looking forward to hearing how you did that, Arrant. In detail.’

  Arrant grinned at him. ‘Soon, I promise.’

  Behind him, Samia winced and shook her head, but Arrant didn’t see. He sheathed his sword and marched through the doors into the entrance hall, where he threaded his way between the waiting groups of people, heading for the door to the Mirager’s room. Conversation stopped as he passed, then resumed with renewed intensity as they saw his sword and felt his leaking of Magoroth power. Emotion filled the hall, and it was mixed. Surprise, shock, annoyance, delight, acceptance—it was all there.

  Sometimes I’d rather not know, he told Tarran.

  Once outside the room, he hesitated. His cabochon burned at the memory of what had happened behind that door. He flexed his hand, trying to accept the memories without flinching. You with me, Tarran? he asked.

  Not going anywhere else. Father is going to skin you alive, though.

  There was no guard outside the Mirager’s door, but he remained where he was anyway. Temellin, Sarana, Korden. And Firgan. Damn. What the Ravage hells is he doing here? All of them had their emotions carefully muted. He could have enhanced his hearing to listen in, but if ever anything had been instilled in him since he had arrived in Kardiastan, it was the sacredness of privacy. He could have knocked, or entered without knocking, but he refrained.

  He waited.

  A moment later his father opened the door. ‘Firgan started to bristle like a cat under threat the moment he sensed your power,’ Temellin said softly. ‘Couldn’t you have waited? Sarana was going to see you before the Council meeting, to speak to Tarran. However, I suppose it is too late to change things now. Come on in.’

  Arrant smiled at his mother as he entered, then looked past her to Korden and said, ‘Well met, Magori.’ It was the first time they’d spoken since he had returned from Tyrans.

  ‘Well met,’ Korden replied, but there was no pleasure in the greeting. He looked old and tired and shrunken. The creases of abnormal fatigue dragged the expression on his face into a parody of its normal hauteur. His eyes reflected something akin to horror.

  Firgan was furious and did not try to hide it. ‘Did you have an exemption to be here?’ He stared hard at Arrant’s left hand.

  ‘No,’ Arrant said, sounding cheerfully unconcerned. ‘I didn’t need it.’ He grinned and held up his palm. The cabochon throbbed with rich colour. Firgan stared, but Korden didn’t even notice.

  ‘How the hells did that happen?’ Firgan asked, his fury spilling over into the room, resonating in his voice.
/>   ‘Both Korden and Sarana have bad news,’ Temellin said, ignoring Firgan and speaking directly to Arrant. ‘The Mirage Makers did not appear when the last two candidates went to the Shiver Barrens to receive their swords.’

  The words exploded in Arrant’s head, stark and unexpected in spite of the warning Eris had given. He felt Tarran’s shock slicing across his thoughts. Ravaged hells, he asked his brother, you didn’t know they were there?

  No. We didn’t.

  Someone had come to the edge of the Shiver Barrens to obtain their Magor sword and the Mirage Makers had not felt them. The implications were searing.

  ‘That has never happened before,’ Temellin said. ‘Never, in all our history.’

  Tarran?

  Shiverdamn, Arrant, what can I say? We didn’t feel them.

  It was an effort to speak, to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. ‘The Mirage Makers never felt them arrive.’ Can you rectify this?

  Tarran’s answer was strangely formal and Arrant repeated the words exactly as Tarran said them. ‘The Mirage Makers no longer have the strength to manifest themselves in the Shiver Barrens. There will be no more Magoroth swords.’

  Temellin sat motionless, not speaking, for a long time. No one else broke the silence either. There was little anyone could say. When at last Temellin roused himself from his thoughts, his voice was harsh with grief. ‘We will inform the Council,’ he said.

  Korden looked up then. ‘All that we have done—the battles, the deaths—it has been for nothing. The Mirage is dying.’ He sounded defeated. Almost uninterested.

  ‘Not for nothing,’ Sarana said. ‘We have delayed the inevitable. Delayed it by years, perhaps.’

  That’s true, Tarran said. But the delay is almost over.

  Korden continued. ‘No one else will have a Mirager’s sword after you two have gone. Then no more cabochons. And finally no more Magor. We’ve failed our people, Temellin.’ His voice wavered as if he had suddenly sunk into old age.