by Jane Yolen
"You don't know wounds, boy," growled Likkarn. "How could you? I'll show you what a real trainer knows." He grabbed the dragon's torn wing and held it firmly, then with a quick motion, and before Jakkin could stop him, he set his mouth on the jagged tear.
The dragon reared back in alarm and pain and tried to whip its tail around, but the stalls were purposely built small to curb such motion. Its tail scraped along the wall and barely tapped the man. Jakkin grabbed at Likkarn's arm with both hands and furiously tore him from the red's wing.
"I'll kill you, you weeder," he screamed. "Can't you wait till a dragon is in the stews before you try to eat it? I'll kill you." He slammed at Likkarn with his fists and feet, knowing as he did it that the man's weed anger would be turned on him and he might be killed by it, and not caring.
Suddenly Jakkin felt himself being lifted up from behind, his legs dangling, kicking uselessly at the air. A man's strong arm around his waist held him fast. At the same time, the man pushed Likkarn back against the wall.
"Hold off, boy. Hold off. He was a good trainer—once."
22
JAKKIN TWISTED AROUND as best he could and saw the man he had most feared seeing. It was Master Sarkkhan himself, dressed in a leather suit of the red and gold nursery colors. His red beard was brushed out, making it twice as bushy as normal. He looked grim.
"Hold off," Sarkkhan said again. "And hear me. Likkarn is right about the best way to deal with a wing wound. An open tear, filled with dragon's blood, will burn the tongue surely. But a man's tongue heals quickly, and there is something in human saliva that closes these small rips."
Sarkkhan put Jakkin down but held on to his shoulder with one large hand.
"It's the other way around, too," Jakkin heard his voice saying in a rush. "The dragon licked my wound and it healed clean."
"Well, now, that I never saw myself, though it's been folk wisdom around here for a while." Sarkkhan brushed his hair back from a forehead that was pitted with blood scores as evenly spaced as a bonder's chain. "Now, promise me you will let this old man look to the red's wing."
"I will not," Jakkin said hotly. "He's a weeder and he's as likely to rip the wing as heal it. And the red hates him—just as I do." Suddenly realizing who he was talking to, Jakkin put his hand up before his mouth.
Likkarn turned toward him and raised a fist, aiming it at Jakkin's head. Before it could land, the dragon had pulled the ring chain free of the stall and nosed the trainer to the ground, putting a front foot on him to hold him still.
Master Sarkkhan let go of Jakkin's shoulder and considered the red for a moment. "Likkarn," he said at last, nodding his head at the old man, "I think the boy is right. The dragon won't have you. It's too closely linked. I had wondered at that, by its actions in the pit. This confirms it. Wish I knew how Jakkin did it. That close a linkage is rare. I can control my dragons somewhat. But a fresh dragon and a trainer are never that close. It takes years to establish such a bond. Never mind now. Best leave this to the boy and me."
Jakkin nodded, saying, "Let him go, my worm."
At his words, the dragon lifted its foot slowly.
Likkarn got up clumsily and brushed off his clothes. One button of his shirt had been ripped off and the bond bag had slipped out in the scuffle. Jakkin was surprised to see that it was more than halfway plump, jangling with coins. How could he have filled his bag that way in less than a year? Betting? Perhaps he had spent his Bond-Offs not weeding but playing the dragons at Krakkow Pit.
Likkarn caught Jakkin's look and angrily stuffed that bag back inside his shirt, then jabbed at the outline of Jakkin's thin bag with a weed-reddened finger. "And how much have you got there? Not even a baby's portion, I warrant." He walked off with as much dignity as he could muster, then slumped by the stairwell to watch.
Sarkkhan, ignoring them both, was crouching down by the dragon, letting it get the smell of him. He caressed its jaws and under its neck with his large, scarred hands. Slowly the big man worked his way back toward the wings, crooning at the dragon in low tones, smoothing its scales, all the while staring into its eyes. Slowly the membranes, top and bottom, shuttered the red's eyes, and it relaxed. Only then did Sarkkhan let his hand close over the wounded wing. The dragon gave a small shudder but was otherwise quite still.
"Your Red did a good job searing its wound on the light. Did you teach it that?"
"No," the boy admitted.
"Of course not. Foolish of me. How could you? No lamps in the sands. Good breeding, then," said Sarkkhan with a small chuckle of appreciation. "And I should know. After all, your dragon's mother is my best—Heart O'Mine."
"You ... you knew all along, then." Jakkin suddenly felt as confused as a blooded First.
Sarkkhan stood up and stretched. In the confines of the stall he seemed enormous, a red-gold giant. Jakkin suddenly felt smaller than his fifteen years.
"Fewmets, boy, of course I knew," Sarkkhan answered. "Even when I'm not around, I know everything that happens at my nursery. Everything. Make it my business to know."
Jakkin collapsed down next to his dragon and put his arm over its neck. Akki. It had to have been Akki, because who but Akki had known everything about him? She had sold him to Sarkkhan and this was the price he had to pay: the knowledge that all of his manhood was the gift of the girl with the mocking mouth and her red-bearded lover. What had she said? "I have kept my promise in substance—if not in words." And she lied then, too. He had believed each one of her lies, believed them because he wanted to, because it was dark-haired Akki who told them. Well, he would not think about it any longer. It was too shameful, too painful.
When Jakkin finally spoke again, it was in a very small voice. "Then why did you let me do it? Were you trying to get me in trouble? Do you want me in jail? Or did you just find it all terribly funny, your own private entertainment?"
The man threw back his head and roared, and the dragons in neighboring stalls stirred uneasily at the sound. Even Likkarn started at the laugh, and a trainer six stalls down growled in disapproval. Sarkkhan looked down at the boy. "I'm sorry, boy, I keep forgetting how young you are. Never known anyone quite that young to train a hatchling successfully. But everyone gets a chance to steal an egg. It's a kind of test, you might say. The only way to break out of bond. Some are meant to be bonders, some masters. How else can you tell which is which? Likkarn's tried it—endless times—but he just can't make it, eh, old boy?" The master glanced over at Likkarn with a look akin to affection, but Likkarn only glared back. "Steal an egg and try. The only things wrong to steal are a bad egg or your master's provisions." Sarkkhan stopped talking for a minute and mused. Idly he ran a hand over the red dragon's back as it chewed contentedly on its burnwort, little gray straggles of smoke easing from its slits. "Of course most do steal bad eggs or are too impatient to train what comes out, and instead they make a quick sale to the stews just for a few coins to jangle in their bags. Then it's back to bond again before a month is out."
Jakkin interrupted. "I didn't steal an egg, sir."
"I know, boy. I always had high hopes for you. You kept yourself apart from the others. Had a kind of dedication about you. A dream you wouldn't dilute with cheap, boyish pleasures. Your coins went into your own bag, not into someone else's. You filled your bag yourself. I like that. I admire that. So I left one late hatcher uncounted, just in case. I knew you could read—and count. I had high hopes and you didn't let me down, even though you lay a week in the hospice. And didn't I give Likkarn a de-bagging for that, for killing Brother and nearly killing you. And you bounced back. Stole a hatchling from my best hen. Probably the best hatchling in the bunch. None of that false compassion—picking a runt or one with an injured wing. You went right to the best. I like that. I'd do it myself."
Jakkin started to say something, but Sarkkhan went on.
"That's all you stole, I hope. The ones who steal provisions land in jail. And the next time, it's off planet for good."
"You wouldn't put me
in jail, then? Or the red in the stews? I couldn't let you do that, Master Sarkkhan. Not even you," Jakkin said.
"Send a First Fighter, a winner, to the stews? Fewmets, boy. Where's your brain? Been smoking blisterweed?" Sarkkhan hunkered down next to him.
Jakkin looked down at his sandals; his feet were soiled from the dust of the pit. He ordered his stomach to calm down and felt an answering muted rainbow of calm from the dragon. Then a sudden, peculiar thought came to him.
"Did you have to steal an egg, Master Sarkkhan?"
The big redheaded man laughed again and thrust his right hand into Jakkin's face. Jakkin drew back, but Sarkkhan was holding up two fingers and waggling them before his eyes.
"Two! I stole two. A male and a female. Blood Type and Heart's Ease. And it was not mere chance. Even then I knew the difference. In the egg. I knew. I can tell in the egg, and by a hatchling. Even before the first mating season exposes the difference. And that's why I'm the best breeder on Austar IV." He stood up abruptly and held out his hand to the boy. "But enough. The red is fine and you are due upstairs." He yanked Jakkin to his feet and seemed at once to lose his friendliness.
"Upstairs?" Jakkin could not think what that meant. "You said I was not to go to jail. I want to stay with the red. I want—"
" Wormwort, boy, have you been listening or not? You have to register that dragon. Give her a name. Record her as a First Fighter, a winner."
"Her?" Jakkin heard only the one word.
"Yes, a her. Do you challenge me on that? Me? And I want to come with you and collect my gold. I bet a bagful on that red of yours—on Likkarn's advice. He's been watching you train, my orders. He said she was looking good, and sometimes I believe him."
Jakkin pulled his hand back. "Likkarn? Likkarn watched? But it was Akki. It had to be. Her footprints. Akki who told..." He trailed off into a confused silence.
Sarkkhan shook his head. "That little piece of baggage. Just like her mother, boy. But when she's a woman, she'll be something, I'll tell you. Oh, I knew she'd been sneaking out there to be with you. As I said, there's not much I don't know about my nursery. And when I first heard about it from Likkarn, about you staying out half the night making love to my girl..."
Jakkin started to protest, but Master Sarkkhan's voice overrode his. "Well, you can bet I was ready to kick your tail up between your shoulder blades till your bond shirt rattled up your backbone like a window shade. I'm not an easy father, I'm not."
"Father!"
"And her refusing to let me claim her officially, to write it into the books. Akkhina out of Rakki by Sarkkhan James. I'm not supposed to let anyone know. She's got a temper, that one. Just like her father." He laughed. "Won't have anything to do with me. Me! The best breeder on the planet. Pretending to be a bonder and wearing that damned foolish empty bag after I bought off her bond. Fool's Pride, I shouldn't wonder. Damnably silly. There are masters and there are bonders in this world and no one wants to be a bonder. 'Let her try to fill her bag alone,' Likkarn said. 'Then she'll come crawling back,' he said. And sometimes I listen to him. Sometimes. I owe him still. He took me in, taught me everything."
The day seemed made up of never-ending surprises. Jakkin kept hearing himself repeat Sarkkhan's last words like a common-mocker, the little lizard that mimicked the tail-end of its enemy's challenges and, in the ensuing confusion, often got away. Only Jakkin could not tear himself away from Sarkkhan's endless stream of revelations. "You owe him? Likkarn? He taught you?"
"Fewmets, boy, you sound like a mocker. Yes, I owe him. He found me, a runaway bond boy, out in the sand near Rokk with two eggs. Trying to hatch them with my own body warmth. Damn near froze to death in Dark-After. He found me and dragged me to a shelter and warmed me with his own clothes. Didn't turn me in either, though it could have bought him out of bond. Took three of my hatchlings in exchange when the two mated, and that's the first time he was a master. I owe him." Sarkkhan walked toward the stairwell where the old trainer still waited.
They stopped by Likkarn, who was slumped again in another blisterweed dream. Sarkkhan reached out and took the stringy red weed ash from the old man's hand. He threw it on the floor and ground it savagely into the dust. "He wasn't born a weeder, boy. And he hasn't forgotten all he once knew. But he'll never be a real man. Hasn't got the guts to stay out of bond. I hope you do." Then, shaking his head, Master Sarkkhan moved up the stairs, impatiently waving a hand at the boy to follow.
A stray strand of color pearls passed through Jakkin's mind and he turned around to look at the dragon's stall. Then he gulped and said in a rush at Sarkkhan's back, "But she's a mute, Master Sarkkhan. She may have won this fight by wiles, but she's a mute. No one will bet on a dragon that cannot roar."
The man reached down and grabbed Jakkin's hand, yanking him through the doorway and up the stairs. They mounted two at a time. "You really are lizard waste," said Sarkkhan, punctuating his sentences with another step. "Why do you think I sent a half-blind weeder skulking around the sands at night watching you train a snatchling and make love to my girl? Because I'd lost my mind? Fewmets, boy. Likkarn was the only bonder I could trust to keep his mouth shut. And I need to know what is happening to every damned dragon I have bred. I have had a hunch and a hope these past twenty-five years, breeding small-voiced dragons together. I've been trying to breed a mute. Think of it, a mute fighter—why, it would give nothing away, not to pit foes or to bettors. A mute fighter and its trainer..." And Sarkkhan stopped on the stairs, looking down at the boy. "Why, they'd rule the pits, boy."
They finished the stairs and turned down the hallway. Sarkkhan strode ahead and Jakkin had to double-time in order to keep up with the big man's strides.
"Master Sarkkhan—" he began at the man's back.
Sarkkhan did not break stride but growled, "I'm no longer your master, Jakkin. You are a master now. A master trainer. That dragon will speak only to you, go only on your command. Remember that and act accordingly. Never have seen such a linkage as you have with that worm. It's a wonder, it is. If I were a jealous man ... but I'm not."
Jakkin blinked twice and touched his chest. "But ... but my bag is empty. I have no gold to fill it. I have no sponsor for my next fight. I..."
Sarkkhan whirled, and his eyes were fierce. "I am sponsor for your next fight. I thought that much, at least, was clear. And when your bag is full, you will pay me no gold for your bond. Instead I want pick of the first hatching when the red is bred—to a mate of my choosing. If she is a complete mute, she may breed true, and I mean to have a hatchling."
"Oh, Master Sarkkhan," Jakkin cried, suddenly realizing that all his dreams were realities, that there was no price to pay at all, "you may have the pick of the first three hatchings." He grabbed the man's hand and tried to shake his thanks into it.
"Fewmets!" the man yelled, startling some of the passersby. He shook the boy's hand loose. "How can you ever become a bettor if you offer it all up front. You have to disguise your feelings better than that. Offer me the pick of the third hatching. Counter me. Make me work for whatever I get."
Jakkin said softly, testing, "The pick of the third."
"First two," said Sarkkhan, softly back, and his smile came slowly. Then he roared, "Or I'll have you in jail and the red in the stews."
A crowd began to gather around them, betting on the outcome of the uneven match. Sarkkhan was a popular figure at pit fights and the boy was leather patched, obviously a bonder, an unknown, worm waste.
All at once Jakkin felt as if he were pitside. He felt the red's mind flooding into his, a rainbow effect that gave him a rush of courage. It was a game, then, all a game. Being a master, being a man, just meant learning the rules and how far to go. And he knew how to play. "The second," said Jakkin, smiling back. "After all, Heart's Blood is a First Fighter, and a winner. And," he hissed at Sarkkhan so that only the two of them could hear, "she's a mute." Then he stood straight and said loudly so that it carried to the crowd. "You'll be lucky to have pick of the s
econd."
Sarkkhan stood silently, as if considering both the boy and the crowd. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, exposing the blood scores; nodded. "Done," he said. "A hard bargain." Then he reached over and ruffled Jakkin's hair, saying back, "And I'll be glad to give my girl Akki to you. She needs a strong master." They walked off together.
The crowd, settling their bets, let them through.
"I thought you were a good learner," Sarkkhan said to the boy. "Second it is. Though," and he chuckled quietly, "you should remember this. There is rarely anything very good in a first hatching. That is something Likkarn has never learned. Second is the best by far."
"I didn't know that," said Jakkin.
"Why should you?" countered Sarkkhan. "You are not the best breeder on Austar IV. I am. But I like the name you picked. Heart's Blood out of Heart O'Mine. It suits."
They went through the doorway together to register the red and to stuff Jakkin's bag with his hard-earned dragon's gold.
23
THE TWIN MOONS cast shadows like blood scores across the sand. Jakkin hunkered down in the bowl-shaped depression and listened. Inside the wood-and-stone dragonry he could hear the mewling and scratching of hatchlings as they pipped out of their shells. One more night, maybe two, and the hatching would be complete.
Near the stud barn was a newer, smaller barn. In that building Heart's Blood stayed apart from the other hens. She was still too young to breed, though under Sarkkhan's tutelage she and Jakkin had won two more fights. Sarkkhan said that Heart's Blood would command the best mating prices if she fought at least ten times in a variety of minor pits. After that, if she could win a championship in a major pit, she would be known all over the world.
Sleep, my worm, Jakkin thought as he stood and walked past the barn. A cool river of greens meandered slowly through his mind in response. He knew that Likkarn was asleep in the bondhouse and no other watchers had been set on his track. Sarkkhan trusted him. Jakkin would not betray that trust. Brooming his footsteps away for the first kilometer would not keep Likkarn or Sarkkhan from his private spot, but it would keep the other bonders from finding it. He still needed a place he could go. And he hoped that Akki might be waiting for him there.