Dragon's Fire

by Anne McCaffrey

  Before Pellar could scamper out of sight, the door to the Masterharper’s quarters sprang open and Zist appeared in the doorway, beckoning to him with a crooked finger. With his head hung low, Pellar slumped into the room, expecting a scolding. Instead, with a glance of confirmation at the Masterharper, Zist said, “You’ll hear better on this side of the door.”

  “Not a harper,” Pellar scrawled on his slate in protest. Master Zist read the message and passed it over to the Masterharper with a twinkle in his eye.

  Murenny gave a loud guffaw as he read the slate and then said to Pellar, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, youngster. You listen well, as you’ve just shown.”

  He gestured for Pellar to take a chair and beckoned inquiringly toward the spare mug beside the pitcher of klah. With a wink, he said, “Listening’s thirsty work.”

  Pellar looked inquiringly at Master Zist, who nodded permission. Pellar smiled gratefully and offered the pitcher to the Masterharper and Master Zist, who both declined, before serving himself some of the hot tasty brew.

  “I know there’s no need to tell you that what we say here is craft secret,” Murenny said when Pellar had seated himself and fastened his eyes on the Masterharper. Pellar nodded emphatically.

  “Good,” the Masterharper said, satisfied. He turned to Master Zist. “Any sign of Moran, then?”

  “None at all,” Master Zist said, shaking his head. “Of course, we didn’t travel very far before we came across those poor sick folk and then—” His voice broke, and it was a moment before he continued, “Cayla insisted we help. When Carissa got a fever, we broke camp as quickly as we could, but…”

  “I understand,” Murenny said softly in the pained silence that fell.

  Zist looked up again, his eyes shining. “That’s another thing, what about the children? They’ve done nothing wrong, and yet they’re either separated from their Shunned parents or forced to leave with them—mostly on the whim of their Holder—to starve or die without any hope for a future. Is this the justice of Pern?”

  Murenny shook his head. “Those who refuse to do their share of work, who steal from others, who commit murder—what else is there to do with them but to Shun them?”

  Zist made a face but said nothing, staring at the floor.

  “Holders and Crafters can set fines, but if that doesn’t bring a person to his senses, what else is there?” Murenny persisted. “Is it any fairer to insist that good, hardworking folk support lazy, shiftless thieves?”

  Zist shook his head glumly. He glanced up, saying, “But Thread is coming soon, what then? Shall the Shunned be scoured off Pern by Thread?”

  Pellar shuddered. Thread had not fallen on Pern for nearly two hundred Turns. The Red Star, harbinger of Pern’s doom, was still only a glowing menace in the night sky. It would be another eighteen Turns before it grew to its ghastly largest size and brought the voracious Thread to threaten all life on Pern for a whole fifty Turns. Pellar would be nearly thirty then, a number unimaginable to him, but he did not doubt the harpers’ tales of the First and Second Passes of the Red Star.

  To be caught outside of the safe stone of hold or crafthall would mean being exposed to the ravages of Thread, to be burned to a lifeless crisp as the Thread devoured all life. Only Pern’s great fire-breathing dragons could save everyone and the planet itself from complete annihilation.

  Zist snorted as another thought crossed his mind. “Not that Thread’s their biggest threat—there’s enough disease and fever to be found, as well.”

  “Did you get an idea of their numbers, then?” Murenny asked softly.

  “No, they were always drifting about, and some of them were mixed in with proper Traders,” Zist responded. “The traders don’t like them because too many of them steal—what have they got to lose?—and they give the traders a bad name with the Holders.

  “And there’s another thing,” he continued. “They eat so poorly that many of them succumb to the least cold or infection. But they mix enough with crafters and holders that their diseases could be spread to others.”

  “Have you a suggestion, then?”

  “Not any better than my last,” Zist replied sourly. “Nor the one before it.”

  “I thought it was a good idea to get a harper in amongst the Shunned,” Murenny said. “It’s a shame that we’ll never know what happened to Moran.”

  “It’s a great shame,” Zist agreed. “I was sure they would have accepted him. Perhaps he could have helped their plight.”

  “And given us some better thoughts on how to deal with the long-term issues of Thread and the Shunned,” Murenny agreed.

  Pellar scribbled quickly on his slate, “I’ll go.”

  “No, you won’t,” Zist said harshly when he read the slate.

  “Not a harper?” Pellar scrawled in response.

  “That’s not it,” Murenny said, leaning forward to read Pellar’s message upside down. He glanced significantly at Master Zist, and Pellar subsided. The older harper’s face was scrunched up in thought.

  “I’ll make you a harper now,” Zist said finally. He looked up at Murenny. “With Moran gone, I’ve a right to another apprentice.”

  “Very well,” Murenny agreed, raising his bushy eyebrows to Pellar. “Do you accept?” Before Pellar could write his reply, Murenny held up a hand. “You know how tough he is. Think carefully before you answer.”

  Pellar’s face lit up impishly and he shook with silent laughter.

  “I should,” he wrote, showing the slate to the other two. He grabbed it back quickly, wiped it clean with his sleeve, and wrote, “But I won’t.”

  He held his answer out until the others nodded that they’d read it, then hastily wiped it clean again to write another note, which he showed to Master Zist. “I’d be honored.”

  “Well,” Master Murenny said in a drawl to Master Zist, “here’s a first: a silent harper.”

  “He might be silent, but he behaves no better than the others,” Zist replied. He turned to Pellar. “You should have been my apprentice last Turn.” When Pellar made to protest, Zist shook his head firmly, saying, “You can make and play drums, guitar, and pipes already. This Turn you’ll be able to pick your wood for a violin.”

  Pellar’s eyes widened in delighted surprise. He was to be a harper!

  “So now, Apprentice Pellar, what do you suggest we do?” Murenny asked.

  “Go where they steal,” Pellar wrote immediately.

  “A brilliant suggestion, Pellar,” Murenny said, clapping the youngster on the shoulder.

  “It is,” Zist agreed fervently.

  “We don’t know where they steal, though,” Murenny remarked after a moment of thoughtful silence. Pellar looked crestfallen until the Masterharper added, “But we can find out.”

  “Pellar, go to the drumheights and ask them to send a message requesting reports of any missing or lost material from all the Holds and Crafts,” Zist said.

  Pellar smiled shyly, bobbed his head once in acknowledgment, and sped out the door.

  “Now that he’s out of earshot, why don’t you tell me why aren’t you thinking of sending him out this time?” Masterharper Murenny asked Zist after the boy had left.

  “He’s better able to look out for himself than even Moran,” Zist said. “Mikal says that he’s good in the wild, he survived a full sevenday relying only on his wits. His woodcraft is such that I have trouble tracking him.” He frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. “But no, I think he’s better here at the Harper Hall.”

  “Then who would you send?”

  “Me,” Zist replied instantly. He spread his hands out, gesturing toward the Harper Hall. “There are too many sad memories here for me now.”

  Murenny regarded the harper silently for a long while before he sighed and nodded.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” he said. “I can’t say that I blame you.” In the distance, the Harper Hall’s drums rattled “attention.” “Just don’t forget tha
t you’re my apprentice.”

  Zist smiled and shook his head. “As if you’ll ever let me forget!”

  “Indeed,” Murenny agreed, letting his voice go commandingly deep. “And as your Master, it is my pleasant duty to inform you that Lord Egremer has informed me that he is sending two fire-lizard eggs from his latest clutch.” He wagged a finger at Zist. “I’d like you to take one.”

  Zist shook his head adamantly. When the Masterharper drew breath to protest, Zist said, “Give it to the boy instead. He’ll need a messenger, and a fire-lizard would be best.”

  Murenny pursed his lips thoughtfully and then nodded. “Very well.”

  Pellar had been overjoyed at the prospect of impressing a fire-lizard, then reflective. He stopped in his tracks as they walked back from Fort Hold to the Harper Hall and, with obvious reluctance, put down the pot full of warm sand in which the mottled fire-lizard egg was nestled. Zist looked at him inquiringly but Pellar shook his head and pulled out his slate.

  “You should have it,” he wrote to Master Zist.

  “It was offered to me,” Zist told him. “I chose to give it to you—apprentice.”

  Pellar’s face went through a rainbow of expressions, going from stubborn intent through hopeful disbelief to delirious incredulity. He dropped his slate back around his neck and hugged Zist tight. Zist returned the hug with equal intensity, finally pushing the youngster away and pointing down to the egg.

  “We’d better get it back to the Hall quickly and near the hearth so that it stays warm.”

  Pellar picked up the pot gingerly, and in an unusual display of controlled haste, set off again for the Harper Hall.

  In the end, Zist was glad of his choice, content to let Pellar spend the next several sevendays hovering around the kitchen hearth in the Harper Hall, happily answering any questions about the egg and anxiously checking it every few minutes.

  Pellar was well prepared when the egg finally started shaking and small cracks appeared in the middle of the night. Zist was sure that, had he kept the egg himself, he would have been too tired to notice.

  As it was, Zist was rudely jostled awake by Pellar, who used his foot, his hands being fully occupied with the just-gorged fire-lizard, his face split with a grin and his eyes shining in pure joy. Zist managed to remain awake long enough to ascertain that the fire-lizard was a brown, and to assure Pellar that it was, indeed, the most marvelous creature ever to grace any part of Pern.

  Pellar named the fire-lizard Chitter, having first toyed with the name Voice because, as he wrote, Chitter was even better than having a voice—no one complained (much) when the fire-lizard made noise.

  Masterharper Murenny had to agree with the youngster’s assessment, as the antics of the fire-lizard and his bright-eyed partner were soon the talk of the Harper Hall.

  Not everyone appreciated the fire-lizard, however. “Take it away!” Mikal had cried in a hoarse, pained voice when Pellar proudly brought Chitter over to Mikal’s cave for inspection. Better was the effect the pair had on Zist, bringing the harper slowly out of the depths of his grief.

  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

  Flame on high,<
br />
  Thread will die.

  Flame too low,

  Burrows woe.

  CROM HOLD,

  ALL-WEYR GAMES,

  AL 492.4

  Come 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.