Dragon's Kin

by Anne McCaffrey

  He had kept Kaylek’s second set of coveralls, but as he hurriedly put them on, he discovered that he was still a bit too small and had to roll up both the sleeves and the legs. Kaylek’s hard hat fit once he adjusted the headband—perhaps, he thought ruefully, Kaylek’s teasing about his big head had had some measure of truth in it. Properly attired, though without good work gloves, Kindan made his way to the mine entrance.

  Inside the mine, he was pleased to recognize Zenor. Zenor was tired and grumpy. “All I ever do is work topside,” he groused. “Honestly, Kindan, I saw more of the mines when you and I had to change the glows.”

  “Natalon has you working the pumps?” Kindan asked rhetorically. When Zenor nodded miserably, Kindan clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, he must trust you a lot, putting his life in your hands like that.”

  Zenor brightened a bit at the thought. “Really?”

  “Really,” Kindan replied. “You’re what keeps him breathing.”

  “And it’s hard work, too,” Zenor agreed. He was on a rotation, resting from the constant work of the pumps but on call for running the lifts. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “I’ve got to deliver a message from Master Zist,” Kindan said. “Can you lower me down?”

  “A message?” Zenor repeated, leaning in toward Kindan, curiosity shining in his eyes.

  “There’s a trader caravan approaching,” Kindan told him confidentially.

  Zenor’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the other five working the top of the mine on his shift, contemplating how this inside bit of gossip would go over with them. “I hope they brought apprentices,” he said fervently. “I could trade places and get down the mines myself.”

  Kindan grinned. “There’s an idea,” he said. “But Natalon needs to hear this, too. Can you lower me down?”

  “Sure,” Zenor said, heading to the lift controls. “Hop in.”

  Before lowering the lift, Zenor made a careful check of Kindan’s gear and changed the glow that was strapped to the front of his hard hat. He thrust a heavy sack at him, too. “Bring these glows on down with you; they’ll be calling for them soon enough anyways.”

  At the bottom of the shaft, Kindan climbed off. He was met by Toldur, one of the miners.

  “I was just about to go for those,” Toldur told him, nodding approvingly at the sack of glows Kindan had brought.

  “I’ve a message for Natalon from the Harper,” Kindan said.

  “I’m going back to him,” Toldur replied, throwing the sack over his back with the ease of long practice. He double-checked Kindan’s gear, muttered about the too-long coveralls, and motioned for Kindan to follow him.

  The solid rock of the mine shaft immediately gave way to the soot black of coal. Kindan had been in the mines before, but he always took the chance to examine the changes and take in more detail. And this was the first time he’d been in the mine since the cave-in.

  “We’re taking a different road from the one your father was on,” Toldur commented.

  Kindan studied the shoring along the way. The trees nearest the campsite would have to be cleared long before Thread came again, so there was no shortage of timber to support the roof of the mine, but there was a shortage of labor to cut the trees. Kindan had been on many work parties that had trimmed the branches off felled trees, or had helped to cart the finished beams and planks to the supply shed up by the mine entrance.

  He measured distance by counting glows along the way. Toldur paused a few times to replace dim glows with new ones from the sack Kindan had brought. Glows were placed every three meters, Kindan knew, so he knew that they’d gone sixty meters before they saw Natalon’s work party.

  Toldur had to shoulder his way into the group to carve a path for Kindan. The rest of the crew took the opportunity to take a quick break from their labors. There was a line of carts on the track that they’d filled with coal.

  “What is it, Kindan?” Natalon asked cheerfully.

  “There’s a trader caravan approaching,” Kindan told him. The other miners perked up at that and began talking happily among themselves, hoping that there were new apprentices in the caravan or wondering whether the traders brought some of the things they’d been missing, such as new fabrics—“for the wife”—or pickaxes—“never can have enough.”

  “When do you think it’ll arrive at the camp?” Natalon asked.

  Kindan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Probably just as your shift ends.” The other miners, who had gone quiet to hear their conversation, raised a cheer over the news. Kindan could see the weary acceptance in Natalon’s face.

  “Master Zist’s got all the welcoming preparations under way,” Kindan assured him. “He wanted to know if you would let him host another evening in the hold’s great room.”

  Natalon nodded his assent. “And, if there’re new apprentices, they’ll need to be assigned shifts and lodging,” he added, diving into the administrative side of his job with a deep sigh.

  “Master Zist asked if he and Swanee couldn’t consider that,” Kindan said, happily stuffing words into the Harper’s and the camp’s supplier’s mouths. He knew how tired he was from all the excitement of the past day, and he hadn’t been working shifts, nor was it his wife who’d given birth that morning. He worked up a smile. “I believe Master Zist said that it would be an interesting challenge for him.”

  Natalon gave in with a wave of his hands. “I’ll leave it to him then.” He turned to his crew. “You lot get back to work. You’ve had enough of a break.”

  He put a fatherly hand on Kindan’s shoulder. “I’ll walk you back to the shaft,” he said. As soon as they were out of earshot of the others, he asked, “Did you see how many coal drays they had with them?”

  Kindan frowned, trying to remember. He had only just seen the head of the caravan in the rising fog. “It was still foggy,” he admitted. “I think there were four.”

  Natalon looked puzzled. “We’ve enough bagged coal for five, I think, nearly six. If they’ve only brought four it’ll be months before we sell all our bagged coal. If they’ve brought six . . .”

  Kindan had learned a lot in his months with the Harper. The camp could supply many of its own needs—lumber, coal, meat, some herbs and greens—but they needed flour, fabric, finished metal goods like pickaxes, spices, and all the little incidentals that made living more than just drudgery. Those goods had to be paid for, and coal was the way the camp paid for them. Traders preferred bagged coal, dry and ready to sell. They charged a penalty for wet coal, and another penalty for loose coal.

  If the caravan had only brought four coal drays, then the camp could only buy goods equal to that amount. But if the caravan brought six coal drays and Natalon had only enough for slightly more than five, there might be a bigger problem: No trader made a profit hauling half-filled wagons or, worse, empty ones. The trader could well decide to move on to another Camp in hopes of getting a full load. There’d be another caravan along soon that’d take what bagged coal Camp Natalon had, but it’d be at least another month.

  Kindan knew how the miners would feel to see a caravan leave without trading, even if the Camp had enough goods to carry it through until another caravan arrived. He could only guess at the unease the new apprentices would feel to arrive at a Camp that couldn’t buy the goods the traders had brought.

  Except for the coal bagged and set aside in a dry cave, all the coal that had been mined in the fall and winter was in a huge pile covered with melting snow. The warmer weather would easily see it dried out, but that couldn’t be expected for at least another three sevendays or more—far longer than any trader would be willing to wait.

  “How long would it take to mine enough coal to fill a sixth dray?” Kindan asked.

  Natalon raised his eyebrows in surprise, then nodded in comprehension. “Master Zist asked you to consider all possibilities, then?”

  Kindan shrugged. “I’m certain of four drays . . . but if there were more out of sight, then there
might be six altogether. It never hurts to be prepared, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Natalon agreed heartily, looking at the sturdy supports he’d placed along this tunnel. “Although,” he said with a stern look at Kindan, “it’s better to be accurate than to guess.”

  “I know,” Kindan agreed mournfully. “Next time I’ll stay until I’m certain that I’ve seen the end of the caravan.”

  Natalon looked at Kindan and noted the set of his jaw and the slump in his shoulders. It was obvious to him that Kindan had really thought through all the implications of his mistake and would not repeat it.

  “Good,” Natalon said firmly. “So how much to fill a sixth dray, eh?” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “If we worked three shifts, maybe two or three days.” He sighed. “But we can’t work three shifts. I’ve no one trained to be a shift leader for the third shift.”

  “So it’d take four days with two shifts?” Kindan guessed. Natalon agreed. “But how long will it take to fill the drays?”

  “Usually we take the working shift and have them fill the drays,” Natalon said. “With ten men in two shifts, we can fill the drays in a day or two.”

  “So, what if we could form a third shift to fill the drays while the other two kept on mining?” Kindan wondered. “They’d fill the drays in about three days, wouldn’t they?”

  Natalon considered the question and finally nodded. “Yes.”

  “So all we have to do is convince the trader to stay on an extra day,” Kindan said.

  “Maybe,” Natalon allowed. Then he shook his head. “But traders don’t make profits sitting around. They’re just as likely to decide to go to another Camp for their coal.”

  “They’d lose time with that, too.” Kindan shook his head. “Why don’t I ask the Harper to help out? I’m sure he’ll enjoy the challenge.”

  Natalon chuckled. “You’ve used that phrase twice now, lad,” he noted. “Is it one dear to the Harper?”

  “Yes,” Kindan agreed, suppressing a grin. They had arrived at the mine shaft. “Let Master Zist take care of it, please. He managed the birthing—I’m sure this will be nothing for him.”

  Natalon laughed aloud at the comparison. “All right, Kindan, you may tell Master Zist that I leave it all in his capable hands.”

  “I will,” Kindan said, tugging on the lift ropes to signal his ascent.

  Master Zist was amused at Kindan’s creative solutions to his challenge but not at all amused that Kindan had managed to dump Natalon’s problems squarely in his lap.

  “Well,” he said when he’d digested all the news, “if I’m to play the Holder while Natalon’s resting and Tarik’s working his shift, you’ll have to play the Harper.” He ignored Kindan’s horrified expression and continued blithely, “I’m sure that Swanee has got his lists together and can talk all that’s necessary about supplies and payments, but he strikes me as an honest man, and that’s not the best sort of person to deal with traders.”

  Kindan stoutly declaimed Swanee’s honesty. “Well then,” the Harper said, “there you go. Traders are honest in their own way, too: They’ll always give you what you pay for, but they don’t go out of their way to be sure to give you their best price. That takes bargaining. Traders love to bargain.”

  From the glint in Master Zist’s eyes, Kindan got the impression that the Harper enjoyed bargaining himself.

  “Bargaining,” the Harper continued, “takes lots of talk. And talk is what a Harper does best.” He wagged a warning finger at Kindan and added, “Although you’d never find a Trader willing to admit that a Harper could out-bargain him.

  “So,” he concluded, “it’ll be up to you to provide the entertainment while I provide the bargaining.”

  “But I only really know how to drum!” Kindan protested.

  Master Zist snorted. “And what were you doing at the wedding?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to sing,” Kindan said.

  “Except when I tell you to, or there’s no choice,” Master Zist corrected. “And I’m telling you and there’s no choice.”

  “Oh.” Kindan’s forehead puckered in thought.

  “Something else is troubling you,” Master Zist noted.

  “Well . . .” Kindan began slowly, considering his words carefully. “I’ve always been taught not to lie, and yet it seems that I’ve told an awful lot of lies recently . . . I’ve always found that lies tend to come back to me.”

  Master Zist nodded. “When have you lied?”

  “Well, I said that you’d asked for the things to be set up for the Gather tonight.”

  “And did I not send you on that task?” Master Zist asked. Kindan nodded slowly. “So you said what you said in order to do what I asked you to do, isn’t that so?” Kindan nodded. “That’s not a lie, Kindan. That’s being a good subordinate.”

  “A subordinate?” Kindan repeated, unfamiliar with the word.

  “Like Swanee is responsible for the supplies but works for Natalon,” Master Zist said, giving an example. “Or a shift leader working for the head miner. A subordinate is someone who has been given a task by his leader and sometimes uses the authority of that leader to accomplish it.

  “If you had said, ‘Master Zist asks you to make me some bubbly-pies’ when I never did, that would be a misuse of a subordinate’s powers,” the Harper added. “A subordinate does walk a tender line between lie and truth. A subordinate is supposed to guess what his leader wants and guess correctly.” He wagged a finger at Kindan, eyebrows crunched tightly together in warning. “You don’t want to be wrong when you’re my subordinate.”

  Kindan shrugged in wary acceptance. “But what about at the birthing? You didn’t ask me to see to it that Nuella was present, and we fooled Margit and Milla. If that’s not a lie, it’s certainly stretching the truth.”

  “That was a difficult situation,” the Harper agreed. “You did well, by the way. Lies and secrets are related, Kindan. Secrets breed lies. Because Natalon wants to keep Nuella a secret, for reasons that I’m not allowed to tell you, you had to create some deceptions.”

  “But if secrets are so bad, why do so many people have them?” Kindan asked.

  “Because sometimes they are the only thing some people can truly call their own,” Master Zist answered with a sigh.

  “Well, I can’t see how long Nuella will remain a secret,” Kindan said. “Both Zenor and I know about her, and we’ve been in the Camp less than a year.”

  Master Zist nodded. “I have pointed out the same to Natalon,” he said. “But he has his reasons.”

  “Because she’s a girl, or because she’s blind?” Kindan asked. Kindan had guessed she was blind the day he’d found Natalon’s hold full of bad air—but he wasn’t certain if that was Natalon’s reason for keeping her concealed.

  Master Zist smiled at the youngster. “That was a good try—offering me a choice in hopes of getting me to reveal the secret,” he said, “but I’ve been a Harper longer than you’ve lived.

  “And it was perceptive of you to notice Nuella’s condition,” the Master continued. “Perhaps from that, you can make some conjectures”—he held up a hand when Kindan opened his mouth—“which, as my apprentice, you’ll keep to yourself.”

  “I would have figured it out sooner if I’d seen her any other time but when the traders were here,” Kindan remarked. “I thought she was one of them.”

  Master Zist nodded in understanding.

  “In such a tight community as this Camp, everyone knows everyone else and most everyone has the same things,” he continued. “Oh, there are a few special trinkets or family heirlooms, but mostly no one has more than another. So some people have secrets all their own. Or they have secrets because they’re afraid how others would react if the secret were ever known.”

  Master Zist gave Kindan a wry grin and added conspiratorially, “Most of the time, other people wouldn’t care a bit for another person’s secret. But, as I said, a secret makes a person who’s got nothing el
se feel special. Which is why Harpers are instructed”—and Kindan heard the special emphasis on the word “instructed” as an instruction to him—“to respect the secrets of others.”

  “So when is a secret a bad thing?”

  “A secret’s a bad thing when it can be used to hurt others, or when it hides a hurt,” Master Zist said quickly. “You’ve an obligation, again as a harper, to expose a secret like that when you find it.”

  “What sort of secret is that?” Kindan asked, mentally running through the small list of secrets he’d discovered about other people.

  Master Zist made a sour face. “I once knew a man, a hard man, who when he’d taken too much wine would lose his sense and temper. When he did that, he’d beat his children.” His lips tightened. “That’s that sort of secret.”

  Kindan shivered at the thought. “So a bad secret is the sort of secret that when people know it, they can help?”

  Master Zist considered his words before responding. “I suppose you could say that,” he replied. He got up, finished the last of the klah he’d been sipping, and gestured for Kindan to follow. “We’ll talk more of philosophy later. Right now we’ve got work to do.”

  There were six coal drays in the trader caravan. All the camp youngsters and women turned out to greet the traders who had walked up in front of the coal drays.

  “You’re the first fresh faces we’ve seen in six months!” Milla exclaimed, passing out dainties she’d made especially for their arrival.

  “Tarri,” a woman in her early twenties said, extending a hand to Milla and looking around at the rest of the crowd. “Journeyman Trader.”

  Master Zist stepped through the crowd with Kindan not far behind. “I’m Master Zist, pleased to meet you.”

  Tarri’s eyebrows went up at the sight of a MasterHarper here at this small camp, but she quickly schooled her expression and gladly shook his hand.

  “I’ve seven apprentices from the MasterMiner along with me,” she said, nodding to a knot of miners clustered nearby.