Dragon's Fire (5 page)

They spent more than a Turn gathering information. In that time, Pellar had made his first violin under Master Caldazon’s instruction, and had spent as much time as he could working with Mikal, learning about herbal cures and first aid. Summer had come again before Zist made his discovery.

“I think I should go to Crom,” he said late one night in a quiet conference with Murenny.

The Masterharper gave him an inquiring look.

“There were those reports last winter of missing coal and there are some more reports just in,” Zist said, waving a slate to the Masterharper. “And Masterminer Britell’s setting up some new mines far away from Crom Hold.”

“Go on.”

“Places far up in the mountains that will be isolated during the winter months,” Zist continued.

“Good places for things to go missing?” Murenny suggested.

“Along with good places to hide,” Zist agreed. “This report from Jofri suggests that there might be some friction between Miner Natalon and his uncle Tarik.”

“Wasn’t Tarik the one who reported missing a bunch of coal last winter?”

“He was,” Zist replied.

“You think perhaps the coal wasn’t lost?”

“Cromcoal costs.”

“No one would be happy to lose the value of their work,” Murenny remarked.

“Jofri’s reports lead me to wonder why Tarik didn’t complain more,” Zist said.

“What are you thinking?”

“Jofri’s ready for his Mastery,” Zist said. “He should come back here.”

Murenny nodded and motioned for the harper to continue.

“So we’ll need someone to take his place,” Zist said. “And, as I said before, I need some time away from here.”

“What about Pellar?”

Pellar had progressed mightily in the past Turn, producing a beautifully toned violin that had practically become his voice. In almost all respects, Zist thought, the boy was ready to walk the tables and become a journeyman.

“Would you leave him behind?” Murenny prompted when Zist made no response.

The other harper shook himself. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“I see my lessons have finally paid off,” Murenny remarked drolly.

Zist acknowledged the gibe with a roll of his eyes.

“And?” Murenny prompted.

“He should come with me,” Zist said. “He can make his own camp and keep out of sight.”

“His woodcraft is excellent,” Murenny agreed. “But why keep him out of sight?”

Zist shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just think it would be better if I appeared the old bitter harper, unaided.”

“Without Pellar,” Murenny noted sadly, “you’ll have no trouble filling the role.”

Pellar missed his fiddle; it had become the voice he didn’t have and he had rejoiced in it.

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” Masterharper Murenny had promised him, reverently placing it in its case and shaking his head in wonder. “I haven’t seen the like, and that’s the truth.” He shook a warning finger at Zist, saying, “You make sure the lad stays in one piece, Zist. I’ll want him back here to pass on his knowledge.” He looked down at the fiddle again and added wistfully, “If I’d’ve known, I would have had him building them Turns back.”

“He’s a talent with wood, that’s for sure,” Zist agreed. He cocked an eyebrow toward Pellar, who had filled out and shot up in the two Turns since Zist’s disastrous trip. “You’ve the makings of a fine harper.”

Murenny nodded in emphatic agreement, and Pellar’s eyes went wide with joy.

“His woodcraft is as good as this?” Murenny asked Zist, with a hint of a frown as he tore himself away from the beautiful sheen of the fiddle and turned his attention back to its maker.

“Better,” Zist told him.

Pellar looked embarrassed. “I’m naturally quiet,” he wrote.

“He crept up on me—caught me completely unawares—even though I’d told him to and was on the lookout,” Zist confided. He shook his head ruefully. “He’ll not be seen, or heard, unless he wants to.”

“Good,” Murenny said firmly. “Otherwise I would have to think twice about letting him go.” His eyes strayed again to the fiddle and then up to Pellar.

“I’ve seen you grow from a babe, youngster, and I’ve watched you more than you might imagine,” Murenny told him solemnly. “I need you to understand this: You will
always
have a place in the Harper Hall.” He gestured to the fiddle. “
This
just makes us more eager for your return.”

Pellar’s eyes grew round as he absorbed the Masterharper’s emphatic words.

Zist clapped his adopted son on the shoulder. “I told you,” he murmured softly in Pellar’s ear.

Pellar blushed bright red, but his eyes were shining with happiness.

CHAPTER 2

C
ROM
H
OLD
,
A
LL
-W
EYR
G
AMES
,
AL 492.4

C
ome on, Jamal, you’ll miss it!” Cristov called as he weaved through the Gather crowd. He looked over his shoulder and frowned as he saw that the distance between him and his friend had widened. Jamal hobbled after him gamely on his crutches. Cristov stopped, then turned back.

“I could carry you, if you want,” he offered.

“I weigh as much as you do,” Jamal said. “How far do you think we’d get?”

“Far enough,” Cristov lied stoutly. “It’s only a few dragonlengths to the edge of the crowd.”

Jamal shoved Cristov away.

“It’ll take forever with these,” he cried, waving at one of the crutches with his arm. Jamal had broken his leg a sevenday before and would be on crutches for at least two months.

“Then I’ll carry you,” Cristov persisted, trying again to grab hold of his friend.

“You couldn’t do it even if you were the size of your father,” Jamal said. Cristov hid a sigh; even if he were the size of Tarik, he’d probably not be big enough to carry Jamal.

“You’ll be the proper size for the mines,” Tarik had said once when Cristov had complained that all his friends were taller than him.

“I can still try,” Cristov persisted. Jamal groaned at him and tried to shake off Cristov’s aid.

“There’s your father,” Jamal said in a low tone. Cristov looked back to the edge of the Gather and saw Tarik. Their eyes locked, and Cristov’s heart sank as his father beckoned imperiously to him. “You’d better go. He looks like he’s in one of his moods.”

“I’ll be back,” Cristov said as he started away. Not hearing any comment from Jamal, he turned back but Jamal was already hobbling away, nearly lost in the Gather crowd. Cristov wanted to sprint after him, to turn him around, to meet his father with a friend at his side, but—

With a grimace, Cristov turned back to the edge of the Gather crowd and caught the look on his father’s face, Tarik repeated his impatient, beckoning gesture and Cristov knew why Jamal had left.

“I just wanted to spend some time with Jamal,” Cristov said as he neared speaking distance.

“Never mind him,” Tarik growled impatiently. “You’ll make new friends up at the Camp, you won’t need worry about that cripple.”

“He’ll be fine when the cast’s off,” Cristov protested. For all the ten Turns that Cristov had lived, his father had found fault with anyone that Cristov had tried to befriend.

“That’s neither here nor there,” Tarik grunted. “He’s a cripple now and I’m glad you won’t be around him.” He snaked a hand onto Cristov’s shoulder and pulled him tight against him.

“This is Harper Moran,” Tarik said, gesturing to the man in blue beside him. Cristov nodded politely to the harper.

“Look! The dragons are starting the games!” Moran exclaimed, pointing up to the sky.

Cristov craned his neck back but found himself bumping into his father’s chest. He squirmed forward to give himself enough distance to look straight up into the sky.

“It’s a nice day for it,” Moran said. “Not a cloud in the sky.”

“I hope Telgar wins again,” Cristov said. Crom Hold was under Telgar Weyr’s protection; it would be the dragons from Telgar who flamed Thread from the sky when it fell. Cristov knew that Thread wasn’t due for nearly another sixteen Turns; having only ten Turns of age himself, Cristov could hardly imagine such a distant future.

“Of course they’ll win again,” Tarik growled. “They won last year, because of their new Weyrleader.”

“He came from Igen Weyr, didn’t he, Father?” Cristov asked, still amazed that a whole Weyr had been abandoned.

“There wasn’t much else for them to do,” Harper Moran remarked, “given the drought down that way and that their last queen had died.”

“Their loss, our gain,” Tarik said. “Telgar Weyr’s got nearly twice the dragons the other Weyrs have.”

“And twice the duty, too,” Moran said.

Cristov lost the sound of their voices, intent only on the dragons flying into view above him.

One group, all golden, burst into view high up above them. The queen dragons.

Moran pointed. “They’re going to throw the first Thread.”

“Thread?” Cristov gulped. He knew that from the Teaching Ballads that had been drilled into him first by Harper Jofri and then by Harper Zist, just as they were taught to everyone on Pern. He knew that every two hundred Turns the Red Star returned, bringing Thread: a mindless, voracious parasite that ate anything organic—wood, plants, coal, flesh—and grew with such rapidity that a whole valley would be destroyed in mere hours. Water drowned it, steel and stone were impervious to it, and flame, particularly dragon’s fire, reduced it to impotent ash.

“Not real Thread,” Tarik growled. “Just rope.”

“Made to look like Thread,” the harper added. “For the games.”

“Oh.” Cristov turned back around and craned his neck skyward, relieved.

A wing of dragons suddenly appeared in the sky, well below the queens, and moments later the loud
booms
of their arrival shook the air.

“Light travels faster than sound,” Harper Moran murmured. Cristov wasn’t sure if the harper meant to be heard or was just so used to teaching that he never stopped.

“They look small,” Cristov said, surprised.

“They’re weyrlings,” the harper said. “They’re just old enough to fly
between
and carry firestone.”

“Firestone?” Cristov repeated, unfamiliar with the word. He made a face and turned to his father. “Is that another name for coal?”

Instantly Cristov knew from his father’s angry look that he’d asked the wrong question. Cristov flinched as he saw his father’s arm flex, ready to smack him, but he was saved by the harper.

“No, it’s not another name for coal, more’s the pity,” the harper said, not noticing or choosing to ignore Tarik’s anger. “You’ve never seen it, though you might remember it from the Songs.”

“I did,” Cristov confessed. “But I always thought it had to be coal.”

Tarik glared at him.

“You said, Father, that Cromcoal makes the hottest fire there is. I thought for sure that the dragons had to use coal for their flames,” he explained, wilting under Tarik’s look. Feebly, he finished, “I was sure they’d only use the best.”

“Your lad’s a fair one for thinking, Tarik,” Moran said with an affable laugh. “You can’t really fault his logic.”

“It’s his job to listen to his elders and learn from them,” Tarik replied. “He doesn’t need to do any thinking.”

Moran gave the miner a troubled look. “Thinking comes in handy for harpers.”

“He’s not going to
be
a harper,” Tarik replied. “Cristov’s going to be a miner. Like his father and my father before me.” He gave Moran a grim smile and held up a hand over Cristov’s head. “We’re built the right size for the mines.”

“I imagine that thinking will be important for miners, Tarik,” Moran said, shaking his head in disagreement. “Times are changing. The old mines have played out; the new seams are all deep underground. Mining down there will require news ways of thinking.”

“Not for me,” Tarik disagreed. “I know all I need to know about mining. I’ve been a miner for twenty Turns now—learned from my father and he’d been a miner for thirty Turns. It was
his
father that first opened our seam, seventy Turns back.”

A ripple of overwhelming sound and a burst of cold air announced the arrival of a huge wing of dragons, flying low over the crowd.

“Telgar!” The crowd shouted as the dragons entered a steep dive, twisted into a sharp rolling climb, and came to a halt, their formation intermeshed with the weyrlings so perfectly that it looked like the two wings of dragons had been flying as one, even though the fighting wing was head to head and a meter underneath the weyrlings.

Cristov gasped as a rain of sacks fell from the weyrlings only to be caught by the riders of the great fighting dragons. Looking at the jacket worn by the bronze rider leading the fighting wing, he saw the stylized field of wheat set in a white diamond—it was the Weyrleader himself!

As one, the fighting wing of dragons turned and dove again, flawlessly returning to hover in the same place where it had come from
between.
As the dragons hovered, their great necks twisted and their heads turned back to face their riders, who opened the sacks they had caught to feed the firestone to their dragons.

“Nasty stuff, firestone,” Cristov heard the harper mutter behind him. “Nasty stuff.”

The planet Pern was a beautiful world settled hundreds of Turns ago by colonists seeking to forget the horror of interstellar war—indeed, of all war.

But the original survey of Pern failed to notice that one of its sister planets was a wildly erratic rogue. It was not until eight Turns after Landing that the settlers learned of their peril—when the planet they called “The Red Star” came close enough to loose its deadly cargo of Thread across the void of space and onto fertile Pern.

Thread, an alien life-form that streamed into the atmosphere in the form of long silvery strands, devoured any organic material; neither flesh nor vegetation was safe from it. A single Thread burrow could suck the life out of a whole valley in half a day.

The resourceful colonists fought back with the last of their space-going technology while devising a series of long-term, biological defenses, chief among them, fire-breathing dragons that chewed phosphine-bearing rocks—firestone—to create their flames. At birth, in a ritual called “Impression,” the dragons bonded telepathically with human riders who, with their great mounts, risked their lives fighting Thread. And so Pern survived.

The Red Star receded and Thread stopped falling. For two hundred Turns the colonists spread out across the Northern Continent of Pern. When the Red Star returned, the dragonriders were prepared and flamed the Thread out of the skies.

Even a pastoral world needed steel for plows, horseshoes, and shovels. Pern required more, including steel buckles and fasteners for the riding harness used by the great dragons. Making steel required iron ore, coal, and a host of trace metals. After nearly five hundred Turns, the original surface seams of coal—easy to find, easy to mine—had been exhausted.

The Masterminer, Britell, had sent out parties of talented miners to bore into mountains seeking new seams of coal deep below ground. Those mining camps that succeeded in producing coal would be rewarded by elevation to full working mines.

Natalon, who was both Cristov’s uncle and Tarik’s nephew, had just opened one such mine. When he’d heard that Tarik was looking for work, he’d sent word inviting him to Camp Natalon. Tarik and his family would leave for the camp the day after the Games.