Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  Don’t be bloody daft. His brother was alone; the larger entity had retreated. How can you go around with a Mirage Maker inside your head for the rest of your life? It’d drive you crazy. He paused. Crazier.

  ‘It’s better than you being bloody dead.’

  No, it’s not. You don’t know what the inside of your head’s like. Oh, Vortex, Arrant, I know what you’re saying, but I won’t do it. Not ever, so don’t even think it.

  ‘Then what about you all moving to another place? You came here from all over Kardiastan—why not leave that sea of muck here and move yourselves elsewhere?’

  Do you think we wouldn’t have done that if we could have? The Ravage wouldn’t let us leave without it. It’d just come with us. It’s part of us. Or perhaps it’s the other way around now: we are part of it. Arrant, I must go.

  ‘Not yet. What if we built the ward, and then you left? Couldn’t you leave them behind then?’

  If there’s a ward, we couldn’t pass through it to go anywhere, he pointed out. If there is no ward, then the Ravage beasts would leave with us.

  ‘Tarran, there must be a reason the Ravage fears me.’ He was frantic, yet knew he had nothing to offer.

  Cracks appeared across another of the islands and the Ravage crept forward, insinuating itself into the openings, its glee palpable. The heat intensified; Arrant could feel it rising from the surface of the sea. And once again he felt the wash of pain from the Mirage Makers. Behind him he felt Samia wince. She had felt it too. Without turning around he held out his hand, and she came to take it, kneeling beside him, leaning into him, hiding her face against his chest.

  ‘He’s with me now,’ he told her.

  ‘Well met, Tarran. We have been worried about you,’ she whispered, looking into Arrant’s eyes as though she searched for his brother there.

  I hope—I hope we can give you both a future. He was silent a moment, then added, Vortexdamn, Arrant, I’m sorry. I just don’t see what you can do. It’s no use plunging into that sea of sleaze over there waving your sword, even with me in your head, because it wouldn’t accomplish anything but your death. The creatures of the Ravage can’t be wiped out that way. The Magor have tried it, remember. We will all gather here by tomorrow morning. Be ready to ward us.

  ‘Which way is Raker’s Camp?’

  To your left. A few miles along. He hesitated. Arrant, brother—

  But whatever it was he was going to say he couldn’t voice. Instead, he sent a touch of love, and gratitude, and sorrow: his farewell. And then he was gone, and Arrant knew Tarran meant it to be final.

  He knelt there, grieving, Samia clinging to him, unable to offer any panacea as he told her all the Mirage Makers had said.

  Somewhere inside him he knew there was an answer, but he couldn’t find it, and because of his failure, a world was dying.

  He had no tears, yet felt that he wept.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ‘Arrant? Samia?’

  It was the last voice he had expected, and yet the one he had unconsciously most wanted to hear. He scrambled to his feet and turned, Samia beside him. Temellin was mounted on a shleth, and he’d ridden, not out of the Shiver Barrens, which were already impassable in the heat, but from the east, along the rake.

  ‘Father?’ he asked, unbelieving. ‘And you’re alone? Sweet Elysium—what are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for you.’ He slid down from his mount and waited for Arrant to come to him.

  They embraced, and Arrant was surprised by the fierceness of the hug. ‘You were worried?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t know you even knew we were in trouble. Have you seen Mother and Garis? Are they all right? There was a landslide—’

  ‘They’re fine. They’re asleep back there. They were looking for you all last night.’ His sightless eyes moved towards Samia. ‘Well met, Samia. Garis is frantic. You had better get your shleth and go to find him and tell him you are in one piece.’

  ‘Well met, Magori-temellin. We were worried about them, too. Where is he?’

  ‘Just ride straight down the rake that way.’ He pointed the way he had come. ‘We camped there this morning. About three miles along. Tell them to join us here. We’ll head back to Raker’s Camp.’

  Arrant unfolded his anxiety for them to feel. ‘Will she be all right alone? I mean—is it safe? The Ravage—’

  ‘They don’t leave the sores unless there’s a wind, and you can tell when that’s coming. Just don’t go close to the edge, because they can snatch the unwary.’

  Samia patted Arrant on the arm. ‘I won’t take any more foolish risks, I promise.’ She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Skies, what did you do to your neck? It looks as if you burned it. You need healing.’

  He touched one of the places where the runes had seared his skin and, wincing, he removed the necklet. ‘Quyriot magic. Perhaps, Father, you could do something—? I am aching all over, come to think of it. I fell off my shleth. Sam, go put your father out of his misery. And my mother too, if it comes to that.’

  He watched her go, riding one of Firgan’s mounts, and tried desperately to hide his emotions. She looked back over her shoulder, a look of pure mischief, so he suspected he had not been too successful.

  Temellin touched his neck with the glow of his cabochon. He was sucking in his cheeks in an attempt not to laugh.

  ‘I’m broadcasting my emotions, aren’t I?’ Arrant asked, annoyed with himself.

  ‘You love her. No shame in telling everyone.’

  ‘You don’t mind? Because she is not Magoroth…’

  ‘Mind? I am delighted! The daughter of one of my closest friends, a healer of note, and a memorable woman in her own right—I owe her what little I have of my sight, you know. You could not have made a better choice. I married once for Magoroth reasons, and the only good thing to come out of that was Tarran. If we live through this, you marry whom you will, and be happy. Arrant, is—is he still there?’

  Arrant nodded. ‘Not with me, but out there, yes. He hurts, Father. And I know there must be a way to do something. I just can’t work out what it is.’ The tragedy of his failure tore at him. He looked down at his cabochon. Samia’s seal was tight and gleamed crimson against the gold. ‘I have a message for you, from the Mirage Makers. The answer to your questions.’

  He related again all the Mirage Makers and Tarran had told him, then added, ‘There is a possibility we can defeat it this way, Father. But the cost is going to be so high and we will have problems with those nineteen Mirage Makers who are now Ravage beasts.’ He paused. ‘You aren’t angry with me for leaving Madrinya, are you?’

  ‘I was scared for you, not angry. I understand your need to be with Tarran. And now you have given us a road to success, of a kind. Be proud of that. And be careful. If those beasts see an opportunity to kill you, they’ll seize it.’

  ‘I know. I felt their hate when Tarran was in my head. How far is Raker’s Camp, by the way?’

  Temellin pointed in the opposite direction to the way Samia had gone. ‘About six miles that way. I shall go to tell them in a minute what you’ve just told me. We will gather here by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘No—you wait here for the others. You mother won’t be happy until she sees you.’

  ‘It’s dangerous for you. The rock is uneven. You could fall.’

  ‘My shleth can see and it knows I rely on it. I’ve trained a number of them to travel without guidance from me, and this one’s the best of the lot. I keep it at Raker’s Camp for whenever I’m here. It’s used to me riding the rake. Besides, I can feel the Ravage. Better than I used to be able to, in fact. A man with Magor powers is never really blind.’ He made a gesture of dismissal. ‘But enough of that. Come, it’s getting hot here. Let’s go and find a spot of shade and talk for a bit while I fix that burn of yours. It may be our last chance for private conversation in quite a while.’

  As they walked further away from the Ravage and what was left of the Mirage,
to where an outcrop of rock still cast shadow, Temellin said, ‘Oh—one thing you probably don’t know. Serenelle Korden: she was found dead in the woods along the lake. Murdered, someone had cut out her cabochon.’

  ‘Firgan. He told me he’d done it.’

  ‘Mirageless hells! He told you that? Is he mad?’

  ‘I suspect he thought I would not live long enough to testify to it. But as it turned out, he’s the one who’s dead.’

  Temellin was silenced for a long moment. Then, ‘You came across Firgan, and Firgan’s dead?’ They reached a patch of shade and Arrant guided him to a place where they could sit under an overhang. His father’s healing touch continued, but it was some time before he spoke again. ‘Arrant, I have to say you impress me.’

  Of all the things Arrant might have expected his father to say, that had not been on the list. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Well, Samia had a lot to do with it, too. He tried to kill us both out there in the Shiver Barrens. We stole his shleths. I sent Samia away first, then I slit his throat. It wasn’t particularly heroic.’

  ‘Dead is dead, and being heroic is stupid if you fail. However, I don’t think I would tell anyone about it, if I were you. Firgan’s mounts turned up on the rake without him, that’s enough.’ He paused and then added, ‘I’m glad he’s dead. That can’t have been easy, but it was well done.’

  Arrant nodded, but took no pride in taking a life, not even Firgan’s.

  ‘What can you see out there now?’ Temellin asked.

  ‘A string of islands, along the edge of the rake, none of them larger than, say, the Council Hall back in the pavilions. They are connected by ribbons. Held up by, um, things with wings.’

  ‘Last time I was here it was chains made of beads that floated below clouds of thistledown. I am almost glad I can’t see it like this, because it means I will always remember it the way it used to be. Perhaps, perhaps there is a time for all things to die, even the Mirage. And the Magor.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Arrant said. ‘Death is for individuals, not for the legacy we should leave behind us for those who come after.’

  ‘Wise words. We won’t give up, Arrant, not while there is a single breath left in us. Do you want me to go on with the healing?’

  Arrant touched his neck. ‘No. It’s much better, thank you. But I know now why the Quyriot horsemen have collars on their tunics. Y’know, I always was good with horses and I loved riding. People said I was a natural, but no one thought anything of it. It was hardly strange; I was practically brought up on the back of a horse. No one thought my talent was special.’ He handed the necklet to Temellin to feel. ‘Such a little thing—I could have stopped wearing it long ago. Sarana wanted me to. If I had, you and I both would have died in the Shiver Barrens. Or Samia and I would have died today. Instead it gave me the power to make Firgan’s mount obey me, not him.’

  ‘Little things that count,’ Temellin agreed, fingering the runes. ‘It’s often the way. Sarana helped the Quyriots before you were born, and that’s why you were gifted with this. How could she ever have known how much would ride on it? The line between life and death can be a thin one.’ He gave a half smile.

  ‘I think I’ll put it back on again. Just in case.’ Arrant thought of Brand as he did up the clasp. A finger’s width to the right or left and he might not have died. A heartbeat slower, and Sarana would have been the one stabbed in the throat.

  Temellin continued: ‘If Sarana had taken another week to get to Kardiastan back in the very beginning, I would have already been dead. If she hadn’t later quite innocently fitted her cabochon into my sword hilt, she would have died with you unborn. Did she ever tell about the time I tried to impale her with my sword?’

  He shook his head. ‘Tarran mentioned it once though.’

  ‘I meant to kill her. Because I thought she had betrayed me and my pride was hurt. And you would have died with her. Twenty years later and I still get this awful sick feeling in my stomach when I think about it. I wake up in the night and I see that blade heading towards her, and I break out in a cold sweat. That’s the story I should have told you that day you first came to Madrinya, when you spoke of your adolescent foolishness that forced her to face Rathrox defenceless and brought Brand to his death. I was luckier than you were, that’s all. And she was luckier then, than Brand was later. But instead of showing you that what you did was human, and utterly forgivable, I played the martyred, forbearing parent.’ He shook his head, remembering. ‘Never doubt that I loved you then, Arrant, as I do now. Never doubt that sending you back to Tyrans with Sarana when you were five was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I could hardly bear to look at you, knowing that I wouldn’t see you again for years, that I would never know your childhood. I thought I was doing it for the best.

  ‘Maybe I was wrong. It seems that in some ways Sarana didn’t have much more success with being a mother than I had as a father. Between us, we contrived to make you miserable and uncertain. And yet here you are, a man for any father to take pride in. And since the day Korden broke your cabochon, there are many who agree with me when I say you will make a fine Mirager one day.’ He added sadly, ‘As for your lack of power, it seems that the ability to make cabochons is not one that will be possible for the next Mirager anyway.’ He reached out and clasped Arrant’s cabochon to his own. ‘I wish you could sense right now all I feel about you. About both my sons. No father could ask for more than I have.’

  Arrant was unable to reply, but knew he didn’t have to.

  He watched as his father rode away towards the Raker’s Camp, and part of him grieved. Possibly neither of them would survive what was to come. All Temellin had said, just before he mounted his shleth, was, ‘Madrinya needs your aqueduct, Arrant. Life must go on.’ The words he had not said resonated also. ‘Survive. You are my son, our future. I need you to survive.’

  ‘I want to do more than survive,’ Arrant thought as he settled down to wait for the others. The heat was intense now, yet it wasn’t even mid-morning. The reek of the Ravage was thick in the hot air, almost too much to breathe. He sent his thoughts questing out after Tarran, but there was no reply.

  He thought, ‘I want victory.’

  He was torn, he couldn’t bear to look at the Mirage with its fragile, absurd loveliness being swamped by such vileness, yet if he turned away he was tortured by the idea of what was happening to it. To Tarran. The horror of his brother’s situation flickered around the edges of every thought, just when he would have preferred to concentrate on the new contentment—no, the new serenity—that his conversation with Temellin had given him.

  He also had to acknowledge the finality that their conversation had implied. ‘Sometimes,’ he muttered, ‘a relationship is supposed to have unfinished ends. Is it too much to ask that we all come through this alive and go back to having misunderstandings and differences of opinion? Why must someone always die?’

  A child’s question for an adult world, and he had to laugh at himself for the naivety of his wishes.

  There were going to be many deaths. Tarran’s certainly. Possibly his own, or Samia’s or his parents’—or all of them. They were about to embark on a battle that would make the bloodbath at Tyr’s North Gate look like nothing more than a skirmish. And life always seemed more than just valuable when you were about to lose it; it was beyond price.

  He turned his back on the Ravage and climbed the short distance to the crest of the rake. The sands of the Shiver Barrens were already at the height of their dance and the flashing of their grains as they turned and caught the light made his eyes ache. They battered at the rocky barrier that bordered them, as though it was a dam they sought to breach. Idly—anything to take his mind off the hell behind him—he wondered if they would ever succeed. Perhaps in another thousand years or so they would have etched away the stone, to tumble and twist their way into…into…whatever was left. Just as the sea eventually crumbled a rocky coastline.

  Why wouldn’t Mago
r power work in the Barrens when Mirage Maker magic could?

  Because Magor power was closer to its human base? Get your thinking straight, Arrant. The Mirage Makers had once been human-like, but the aeons had changed them. They had tried to rid themselves of their human basis, they’d disposed of their human bodies and built something else, they’d changed themselves into the Mirage. And the human traits they couldn’t change: the badness, the baseness, the evil—call it what you will—that they had tried to encapsulate.

  Human faults. The Ravage was made of human faults. It was more human than the Mirage Makers themselves.

  Magor power, human-based, didn’t work in the Shiver Barrens.

  Mirage Makers’ power did.

  The Ravage was more human than anything else.

  The Shiver Barrens had savagely attacked and slaughtered a Ravage beast.

  The Shiver Barrens killed humans with their relentless battering. But they didn’t hurt the Mirage Makers.

  He turned, running, drawing his sword, bellowing, ‘Tarran, get your backside over here!’ He put everything he had into that cry—all the rage, the hope, the frustrated longing to do something that counted.

  And Tarran came. And through his despair, his pain, his weakness—still he was able to joke. I don’t have a backside to move, he said. I’ve never thought I was missing much either. From what I’ve seen of backsides they’re prone to all kinds of ailments, more trouble than they’re worth and no use for anything other than sitting on. Arrant, this had better be good.

  ‘Of course it’s good,’ he said and opened up his thoughts to his brother.

  For a moment Tarran was puzzled. Vortex, Arrant, can’t you ever get any order into your thinking? You have the mind of a deranged centipede trying to decide which leg to move first—Ah, I see your point. Oh, my mirageless soul. I see your point…