…. – ¦¦¦..-¦ – -. ¦¦'.' ¦ '•.' A. ¦
bleeding, skinless flesh. When the sand finally chokes you and you cease to breathe, it is the mercy you have prayed for. The Barrens are cruel to those who trespass in ignorance. Even to us, the Magor. For some reason, our – our abilities are limited here. The sands do not obey our magic.'
'But there is a secret -'
'Yes, and tonight you will discover it.' His cheek rested against mine; his voice caressed, although his words were gravid with warning. 'The Shiver Barrens are the Mirage's protection from Kardiastan, just as the Alps are its protection on the western side, from Tyrans. And after today, you and Brand will both know the secret…'
He trailed fingers down the side of my neck to my breast, then swung me to face him. 'Don't betray us, Derya. Pinar and Korden think the legionnaires who were all around the safe house in Madrinya had something to do with either you or Brand.' His hand still cupped my breast, tantalising me through the cloth. 'I cannot believe that. Not when I have lain in your arms and felt your trueness, but I am not foolish enough to think I am always right. We all have the ability to hide our emotions from one another, although not our lies.' He looked back to the top of the slope, where Brand stood staring at us both with an expressionless face.
'I asked Brand about those legionnaries, and he refused to answer. He said if I doubt you, then I should talk to you, not him. He gave the same answer to Pinar. I wish he had been more… straightforward in his replies. Pinar and Korden are now convinced he won't answer such questions plainly because he knows we'll' catch him out in a lie.'
'It was Legata Ligea who ordered the legionnaires out in force,' I said, with perfect truth. 'She wants to
catch the Mirager. You. What else can either of us say? Ligea is not in the habit of talking to her handmaidens about the details of her plans. And as for Brand, he cares for me. He doesn't like to see others distrust me, or treat me like some kind of criminal. He is angry with Pinar.'
He looked up at Brand again.
'Is he your lover, Derya?'
'He is a brother to me.'
'That does not make any difference to a Magor.'
'So I've been told. It does to me. A wealth of difference.'
'He does not think of himself as your brother.'
'No.'
He put his left palm to mine, reinforcing his words with his flow of emotions. 'I have not had a woman other than you since the death of my wife. After she died, I desired no one until I put my arms around you and felt something so powerful it could not be resisted. I loved my wife, Derya. It hurts even now to think of her. And yet, she never made me feel the way you do. I wanted her, yet it never made me ache just to look at her, as I do when I look at you.' He released me and stood back a little. 'You have had time to think, Derya. Do you still want me on your pallet, knowing that's all we'll ever have?'
'Yes.' The word jerked out. I felt I was physically incapable of giving any other answer.
He nodded and leant forward to brush his lips against my forehead. 'Warn Brand that if he thinks to leave the Mirage before he has gained my trust, I will kill him before he reaches the edge of the Shiver Barrens as surely as the sun rises. As I would anyone who would betray Kardiastan to Tyrans. And now we will set up camp here for the remainder of the day. We
will move only after sunset. We must rest; it will be a ¦' long ride tonight.' He turned away, calling to Garis,
giving orders, smiling his friendship and goodwill.
I wondered what had happened to his laughter while he had been speaking to me.
I went over to Brand and gave him Temellin's warning.
'Charming fellow,' he said. 'And how long have you been bedding this scorpion, my sweet?'
I bristled. 'The slaking of my appetite is no business of yours, Brand.'
'No, more's the pity. But remember, scorpions have stings in the tail. It doesn't pay to play with them.' He grinned at me, but there was little humour in it.
I tried to sleep under the makeshift shelter they erected, but the heat was so intense it seemed to shrivel me, making my skin too small for my body, squeezing me into too small a space. The rock beneath my sleeping pelt seared as if I were meat basting over a fire. And the music from the Shiver Barrens teased, promising something just beyond my understanding. I still felt that if I could only concentrate, I would be able to comprehend the words and arrive at some eternal truth… but I could never quite hear. I rolled over to watch the dance, the endless movement that was colour and sound as well, and was again a moth fascinated by a flame. Could such beauty be deadly? I felt I could walk into the dance, be part of its glory – and emerge unscathed. Yet Temellin could not have been lying; I would have known. And the legionnaires who had set out to cross the sands had never returned.
Gradually the dancing slowed, as if the grains grew too heavy for the air, sinking lower and lower until their movement was stilled and the ground was quiet and purple under the last rays of the sun.
I slept.
When I awoke, the ground sparkled with frost. Once the warmth of the day was gone, no longer enticing the sand to dance, the Barrens were calm and virginal, a white-clad bride breathlessly awaiting the sweet violation of the wedding night.
Temellin and Garis were dismantling the camp. Brand passed food to me and I ate hurriedly, infected by the eagerness of the others to be away. 'Why didn't we start to cross at sunset?' I asked Temellin. 'We'd have had more time.'
'There are patches of quicksand out there. Ride over one of those and our mounts would flounder and sink. We'd be mired. And once again the Barrens would have claimed the unwary. The ground has to be hard for us to cross.'
I understood then. We'd had to wait, wait until the temperature fell to freezing as it did each night under those cloudless Kardi skies. Until the sand grains were bound together with the sparkle of desert dew frost; until the ground was frozen beneath the feet of a mount.
Only then could we start our journey.
I rode with Temellin beside me, Garis and Brand and the pack shleth dropping away behind, each of us careful to make our own path across the crust. To have followed the tracks of another would have been to risk breaking through the surface. If I looked back, I could see the pawprints the shleths left behind, but when I looked ahead, Temellin and I could have been the only people ever to have crossed the Shiver Barrens, ever to have made a mark on that virgin white.
As we rode, I realised why a horse or a gorclak could never have made that journey and lived. Their small feet would have broken through the surface. Only a
shleth could cross the Shiver Barrens. They spread out their pads to the size of serving plates and used a fast-walking gait that spread their weight evenly on three legs at a time. The constancy of the speed they maintained was impressive; a glance at the concentration on Temellin's face convinced me it was necessary. If we didn't reach the other side of the Barrens by dawn, we died..«• r
We rode in silence. Temellin travelled in a world of his own as if he listened to voices only he could hear, yet I did not regret the lack of conversation. I, too, wanted to listen. I wanted to listen to the song of my own body, to the sound of the footbeats of my mount, to the now-stilled music of the sands, echoes of which I still seemed to hear. Above, the purple softness of the sky with its blue points of light and swirls of Stardust; below, the sparkle of blue-frost and the crisp crunch of paws… No, there was no need of words. I was beyond them.