Song of the Shiver Barrens

by Glenda Larke

  ‘Worth trying?’

  He struggled for a moment, torn between hope and restraint. Oh, yes. I’ll be a shleth’s backside—the fellow can think after all.

  ‘It won’t harm you Mirage Makers?’

  No, no. I shouldn’t think so. And if it does—well, what does it matter? We’ll be dead, which is what we are trying to do to ourselves anyway.

  ‘Right. We’ll wait for Garis and Sarana and Sam.’

  I—I think it would be better if we didn’t wait at all, Arrant. We are close to losing out here. We lost another Mirage Maker a moment ago.

  ‘Lost?’

  A Ravage beast absorbed him. That makes twenty. Another Ravage beast with the talent of an illusionist. Start now, brother. Before we lose more of us. Find the narrowest, lowest part of the rake. And I hope you are right in your assertion that the Barrens have the same properties as water.

  Arrant pointed to a spot about two hundred paces away to the east. ‘There, I think. It’s only about, what, twenty paces wide?’ He strode off in that direction and positioned himself on the crest. The Shiver Barrens were clearly at a higher level than the Mirage. Any channel he dug to connect the two would slope down towards the Mirage.

  You think it will pour itself, like water?

  ‘Yes, I believe so. A cascade. We know they dance in the heat, just as waves dance in wind, and I don’t believe they can flow uphill any more than water can. We have to give them a slope, even if it’s not a very steep one.’

  Then let’s try it.

  Arrant drew his sword out of its scabbard, and it jumped joyously in his hand, flaming with light. He had to struggle even to hold it, as it was fuelled by the sudden passion of Tarran’s last hope.

  What are you doing? Tarran asked as the weapon skidded in a sideways swipe and almost removed Arrant’s kneecap. You’d better get it under control, brother, before you decapitate yourself. I’d hate to think what that would do to your thought processes.

  ‘Sweet Elysium! Listen!’ Arrant hissed at him. He could not believe what he was hearing. Voices in the air, whispering voices, repeating the same words over and over. Free us, free us, free us…He’d heard those voices before, but they had never made sense. He stood motionless, gripping the sword, his jaw sagging open.

  I’ll be Ravage blasted. Tarran’s amazement was a blaze across Arrant’s mind. It’s the Shiver Barrens. It’s the song of the Shiver Barrens.

  ‘They are using words?’ He could hear them, and yet still couldn’t believe it. ‘Sweet cabochon. It is them. I can understand them.’ It wasn’t that the song had changed, but rather that the two of them had attained the ability to understand it. ‘Why now?’

  With breathless wonder, Tarran said, This is the first time we’ve been within range of them while I was in your head and your sword was in your hand!

  ‘And with my necklet around my neck.’

  Sands, yes. The necklet, the sword and the two of us.

  The song swirled and twisted, swelled and faded and skirled, following the patterns the skeins of sand wove in the air. Free us to serve you, free us, Mirage Maker, free us…

  ‘I’ll be Vortexdamned,’ Arrant said weakly. They’d thought it just a pretty melody, and all the time the sands had been trying to communicate.

  Free us to serve you, Mirage Maker, free us, we can help you, free us…

  Tarran laughed. Who would have thought it? We were deaf to its messages. I wonder what else it’s been saying?

  ‘Sweet hells, this is why the Ravage has worked so hard to keep me away from here, frightening me with its dreams! It was afraid that together we’d be able to hear the song of the Shiver Barrens—and be able to do something about it. That we’d know what to do about it.’ On the heels of soaring joy came the sadder thought of how different things might have been if only Tarran had entered his head the day he had first received his sword.

  They knew, Tarran said, realising it for the first time. They knew and kept me away that day with their attacks. It must have been something they sensed in us from the time I became a Mirage Maker and you had the necklet given you at birth. They’ve known since you were born.

  Arrant didn’t reply. There was no point in agonising over what might have been.

  We have another chance now, Tarran murmured, comforting him. Is this the spot?

  ‘This is it. Well, shall I free them?’

  Do it.

  Arrant put both hands to the hilt of his sword and steadied it. Then he aimed the point at the rocky barrier separating Shiver Barrens and Ravage, choosing the place where the crest was lowest. The sword released a stream of power. And he almost fell over backwards, flattened by the force that spun out of the blade. He’d never seen anyone produce anything like this before. A band of light, a pulsating stream of writhing power—it hit the rock in a shower of yellow sparks and everything there melted into a molten stream. He took a flying leap out of the way as liquid red-gold magma flowed towards the Ravage. He watched it go, mesmerised by its terrible destructive beauty, until it poured away into the khaki ooze of the sea. The Ravage boiled, and then erupted in a spout of sludge and slime. A fractured scream followed the eruption into the air. An instant later steam billowed out in a hissing whoosh of sound.

  I’ll be a wingless butterfly, Tarran said, awed. Did we do that?

  ‘Hells, Foran always did say I might have had more power than I could handle.’

  He directed the power of the sword back at the rock once again, this time taking more care to stand well clear of the resulting flow of molten colour. ‘Tarran,’ he asked a moment later in irritation, ‘what are you doing?’ His brother was jiggling around in his mind, making it hard for him to concentrate.

  Hey, he said, this is my life we’re saving, you know. Allow me the privilege of excitement, will you?

  Arrant found himself grinning, and it wasn’t him that had put the smile there. He went about the job of melting a channel between Barrens and Ravage with a joyous sense of accomplishment, fuelled by Tarran’s exuberance.

  Arrant, Tarran said a little later, suddenly sober, would you mind turning around for a moment and having a look behind you?

  Arrant did as he asked, and drew in a sharp breath of dismay. Ravage creatures were climbing towards him out of the sea of muck they had created. They were scrambling over the rock on their loathsome bodies, ponderously dragging and sliding and humping their way, leaving slime trails, globs of mucus and smears of purulence behind them. Out of the ooze they lived in they were clumsy things, flopping about like fish on the shore, but Arrant didn’t doubt for a moment that they were dangerous. They propelled themselves up the slope with flippers and claws and coils and hooks, their eyes burning with red-rimmed loathing. Fortunately their progress, while steady, was slow. They bellowed their distress and pain and suffering.

  You can walk faster than they can crawl, Tarran reassured him.

  Yet, even as he kept a wary eye on what was happening, he saw the exodus of the Ravage spread up and down the rake in both directions. His heart plunged. In one direction, Temellin was riding towards Raker’s Camp. In the other, Samia and Garis and Sarana would have started on their way towards him. As far as the eye could see, the Ravage beasts were leaving the sea of muck. He could walk faster than they could crawl—but there was nowhere to go.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he whispered.

  They’ll die, Tarran said. They can’t live out of their liquid.

  ‘I’m not exactly seeing them keel over, am I?’

  Give them time.

  ‘Have I got time?’

  Tarran was silent.

  ‘Right now, I don’t think they care. As long as they can tear me to pieces first. And what about Father and the others—?’ He didn’t stop pouring power at the rock, and the molten river widened, catching some of the creatures and melting them into nothingness.

  They are Magor, Tarran said, looking for a way to comfort them both. They can fight.

  Arrant kept his next though
t to himself: ‘Temellin is alone and blind.’

  At least it looks as if we’re doing the right thing, doesn’t it? Tarran remarked. Otherwise, why would they bother to kill themselves by coming after you?

  ‘Yeah, thanks. I’ll remember you said that as I get minced up into Ravage food.’

  He continued to blast the rock and Tarran kept swivelling his eyes at the progress of the foul parade scrabbling towards him, until Arrant told him crossly to stop that and allow him the control of his own body.

  Sorry, he said, contrite. It’s just that I’m very fond of you, and it upsets me to think of you as dinner for one of those things. That black worm-like creature appears to be winning the race, doesn’t it? Keep an eye on it, Arrant. It can wriggle faster than the rest—

  ‘I will, I promise.’

  When the time comes, don’t cut them. You’ll either have to burn or melt them to make them stay down.

  ‘I know, I know.’ He didn’t want to be forced to divide the power of the sword between the job in hand and a slimy parade of murderous chimeras. He concentrated on the rock, until it became clear that he had to do something to stop the tide of monsters inching their way closer. A blast from the sword then sent them reeling back, a bloodied mass of limbs and pus and high-pitched screams.

  The respite was temporary. More clambered out of the dross to take their place, each more hideous than the last, their determination undiminished. Even as he turned his back on them, he could hear the scrape of claws behind him, the snapping jaws, the rattling scales, the grinding teeth: the sounds of their single-minded progression.

  ‘How long do you think my cabochon power is going to last at this rate?’ he asked Tarran, worried. He had been expecting to blast the rock into pieces, not melt it, and the amount of power his blade produced scared him even as he rejoiced in it. ‘Are you, um, augmenting this somehow, Tarran?’

  Er, well, sort of. We are burning up the extraneous bits of the Mirage. The flowers and stuff. And channelling the power from that through me to you.

  ‘You might have told me.’

  I didn’t want to scare you.

  ‘Now whatever gave you the idea that I would be scared of a beam of gold light powerful enough to melt rock?’

  He ignored the Ravage creatures and looked at his handiwork. He aimed to make the channel about ten paces wide. Fortunately, with the level of the Barrens so much higher than that of the Ravage sea, the channel didn’t have to be very deep. He left a thin barrier of rock in place next to the Barrens, and concentrated on gouging a channel between this and the Ravage. The first part was easy because the molten rock rolled down the slope without any encouragement. As he dug deeper, the rate of flow slowed, and he had to encourage it along by keeping it almost vaporously hot. The steam where magma hit Ravage liquid billowed into a cloud.

  Beneath the steaming vapour, the sea of ooze bubbled and boiled and thrashed. The keening of the creatures it sheltered became a single sound of anguish; had Arrant not known of their remorseless desire to cause pain themselves, he might have felt sorry for them. As it was, he didn’t even bother to block out the sound. They had tortured the Mirage Makers for generations and he had no compassion for them.

  The sword became easier to handle. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, suspecting that it was more amenable because his cabochon was no longer able to power it to the same extent. He could feel himself tiring. Sweat ran from his body to splash on the rocks. Even Tarran had quietened. Did that mean the Mirage Makers too were being drained? He didn’t dare to ask.

  Time to blast the slimy bastards again, Tarran said. Damn it, Arrant, is there no end to the things?

  ‘You know them better than I do,’ Arrant said, burning another line of them to charcoal. ‘You tell me.’

  Line after line emerged from the flux, scrabbled over the bodies of those that had gone before, dragged themselves towards him filled with their mindless lust for his flesh. He alternated between killing them and digging into the red rock of the rake.

  And then at last—the final thin barrier that divided Barrens from Mirage. One last golden beam and the task was done. He stood to the side of the sloping channel he had created and waited. At first nothing happened. The last of the molten rock moved sluggishly past, leaving a coating behind that cooled and congealed as smooth as glass. Then the first of the grains of sand danced through as if delighting in their expanded horizons. Most of them were immediately fused into the still molten sides and bottom, but there were countless more to follow them. And follow they did, still singing. Free us, free us, free us…

  ‘Vortexdamn,’ he wondered, ‘what are they?’

  The heat of the channel, the beckoning heat of the Ravage beyond, seemed to increase the frenzy of their movement. They quickened their dance, tumbling and wheeling their way, flashing their colours, aided by the downward slope and the heat. Free us, free us, we can help you…

  Gradually the channel was coated with a lining of sand, and the grains that followed the first waves were able to pass on, to tumble their way down into the Ravage, a river of dancing sands.

  Arrant watched, breathless with anxiety. If this didn’t work, he was dead. He began to doubt. The sea was too vast, the sand too pathetic a trickle. The grains sank into the scum and disappeared, still singing. And the Ravage had an unlimited number of beasts to throw at him, too many for his power to outlast. Worse, some of those that he thought he had destroyed pulled themselves together again, reassembling their burned parts, not always correctly. Suppurating green flesh sometimes coated the outside, foul-smelling innards protruded, limbs were grotesquely attached.

  Persistent little devils, Tarran muttered. Human follies are not easily vanquished, are they?

  More sand danced through the gap Arrant had made, all the grains travelling in the same direction. They seemed so eager to move. Their song was no longer the gentle melodic lullaby that had once charmed him, nor was it the repeated request for freedom. It had quickened, become more frenetic, almost delirious, the words running into one another and no longer intelligible.

  ‘What are they?’ Arrant asked. ‘Tarran, what are the Shiver Barrens?’

  Haven’t the faintest idea, he said cheerfully. All these years, and we thought they were just sands that danced in the heat.

  ‘They must have had some connection with the people who made my necklet.’

  Who were doubtless the same folk who carved the runes into the rock beneath the Mirage. We’ll probably never know more than we do right now, though.

  One thing I can say, these sands don’t like humanity much. Perhaps their whole dance was aimed at protecting us—the Mirage—from human intrusion. Although I’m blessed if I know why they should want to help us. He thought for a moment and added, Perhaps it’s just a natural affinity of one form of magic creator for another form. Indeed, we have always felt a certain attraction to them. It’s why we settled here in the first place. Whenever we have projected ourselves into the Barrens we have felt…welcomed.

  The grains moved faster still, streaking, pouring through the air like a stream over a waterfall, their colours blurring in the movement, their song becoming a whine. Arrant looked out over the Barrens, and gasped. The whole area, right to the far horizon near the Fourth Rake, seemed to be moving inexorably towards him, a heaving, tumbling flood of sand, all of it jostling to reach the one small break in the barrier of the Fifth Rake, the breach in the dam that had confined them.

  ‘Vortexdamn,’ he said, swallowing. ‘I hope we don’t regret this.’

  He looked anxiously along the rake, searching for Sarana or Samia or Garis. And in the other direction for Temellin. But there was no sign of any of them. His heart thudded sickeningly. If they died now—no, that would be too dreadful an irony. Fate could not be so unkind, surely. And even as he quelled the thought, he acknowledged the truth: fate could indeed be that unkind. Or worse.

  He turned to look back at the Ravage. In the area touched by the flow of sa
nd, the ooze was frothing: a fan-shaped delta of bubbles and turmoil spreading outwards, marking the surface of the Ravage like the muddy floodwaters of a river pushing out into the sea. Ravage creatures heaved and thrashed and screamed on the surface and then disappeared in whirlpools of putrescence. The smell was still nauseating, still suffocating. He gagged.

  Arrant, careful, Tarran warned, directing his attention towards several of the creatures that were trying to circle him so they could attack from the rear.

  He aimed his sword and a weak stream of gold wavered forth to hit the first of the beasts. It yelped in pain—and kept on coming. The gold flickered, dimmed, then vanished. He swapped the weapon into his other hand and looked at his cabochon. It was dulled and lifeless.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ he said, trying to sound philosophical, but his fear of dying, of being dismembered and eaten, almost stopped his thoughts. ‘There won’t be any more power until we’ve both had a day or two’s rest. And Samia will have to repair it again, too.’ He looked at the nightmarish animals edging their way towards him. He tried to draw breath, but the stench had him choking. He didn’t seem to be able to drag in enough fresh air.

  The touch of Tarran’s love was in his mind, together with his anguish. The blade’s still sharp, he said. Perhaps that will be enough. Separate out the pieces. Throw them into the Shiver Barrens.

  Arrant refrained from mentioning that he felt as weak as a newly hatched shleth. Tarran didn’t need to be told. He knew.

  He stepped forward and lopped off the head of the nearest beast; it rolled away and he kicked it into the channel, but the creature refused to die. It flopped sightlessly in front of him, swiping the air with serrated arms and sharp-honed talons. Weakness swept Arrant like a sudden fever; he staggered and fell to his knees.

  Vaguely he heard Tarran’s anguished, Oh, Mirage save us, not now, Arrant! and then he was toppling sideways. With the last vestige of strength, he rolled away from the Ravage creatures. Tarran bounced around in his mind even as claws scrabbled a pace away from his ear. A sick lip-smacking sound slurped somewhere close by. The snap of jaws…