Dragon Harper (22 page)

When they arrived at the Healer Hall they were turned around again.

“What are you doing here?” Lenner demanded, looking up from one of the many crowded beds in his infirmary. “You’re supposed to be in the Archives.”

“Master Resler sent us here,” Kindan told him.

Lenner sighed and straightened, running a weary hand through his hair.

“You won’t do as much good here as you will in the Archives,” Lenner declared.

“What about Verilan?” Kindan asked.

Lenner pointed off into the distance. “He’s in the Harper Hall infirmary.”

“So, he’s not too sick then,” Kindan said hoping to reassure himself.

“He can’t be moved,” Lenner corrected him, his eyes full of sorrow.

“What about Conar?” Kindan asked, glancing around the beds.

“He’s all right,” Lenner said. “He’s been helping here, no sign of a cough yet, though.” He whistled loudly and called, “Conar! Report!”

A small figure scurried toward them. He brightened when he spotted Kindan and Vaxoram. “You’re back,” he said, his face splitting with a smile. “And you’re alive!”

Kindan grinned back and nodded, but he couldn’t help noticing the dark circles under the younger boy’s eyes. He turned toward Vaxoram, still grinning, expecting the older apprentice to share his happiness but was surprised by the grim look on Vaxoram’s face. In an instant he recognized the cause and asked, “Nonala and Kelsa, are they all right?”

“Yes,” Lenner replied quickly. “They’re helping in the kitchens. We’re keeping most everyone quarantined to prevent the spread.”

“It didn’t work,” Conar said quickly, glancing at the Healer apologetically. “In the Records, they said that it didn’t work.”

“Find out why,” Lenner ordered Kindan. “Go look in the earliest Records, see if they have suggestions, ideas from back before Landing.” He turned away from them, distracted by another hacking cough in the distance. “Don’t come back until you’ve got an answer,” he called gruffly back over his shoulder.

“Come on,” Kindan said, turning back to the corridor leading toward the Harper Hall and the Archive Room.

“What about Resler?” Vaxoram asked. “He’s senior. And you know how he frets about his Records.”

“Are you going to let people die?” Kindan replied, not caring whether Vaxoram followed or not.

“It’ll be on your head,” Vaxoram’s voice carried to his ears a moment later.

“So be it,” Kindan replied fiercely.

“We’ll need glows,” Kindan said as they entered the dark confines of the Archive Room, knowing that Master Resler was too busy managing the Hall to come back to his beloved Records.

“There’s light now,” Vaxoram said, waving at the lighter patches in the room.

Kindan shook his head. “We’ll need more light soon,” he replied. “And we’re working through the night. Get some
klah
too.”

He waved dismissively at Vaxoram. Vaxoram’s nostrils flared in irritation; then the older harper shook himself and turned on his heel.

Kindan didn’t notice his departure, the sounds concealed by the noise of his rooting through the stacks of ancient Records. Some were so old and dusty that he could see them disintegrating right in front of him; brittle documents that cracked and flaked as he moved them. And then there were others, still supple and pliant, nearly as fresh as when they were first drawn. Kindan set them aside at first, assuming that they were new Records misfiled. It was only when he got to the oldest Records, Records drawn on some material that seemed like a strange combination of thin metal and living flesh, silky, soothing to the touch, that Kindan thought to look back at the stack of “new” Records.

“There are no glows,” Vaxoram’s voice boomed from the far end of the Archive Room. “None to spare, at least. They’re all being used in the infirmaries. I set some up to recharge but they’re clamoring for them, so they’ll take them before I get back.”

“We need light!” Kindan shouted. “Find some!”

Vaxoram glared at Kindan’s back angrily but the young harper never noticed. With a deep sigh, Vaxoram calmed himself and turned away once more, leaving the Archive Room to follow Kindan’s orders.

Kindan pulled the stack of “new” Records over to a table and started to go through them. They were written from just after Crossing. The writing was small, much smaller than he was accustomed to. In the dim light, they were hard to read. He leaned close, his nose almost touching the Record as he read.

“Contents of Shipment #345-B, offloaded from gravsled #5,3.10.8 at 22:45,” the document began. What was a gravsled? Kindan wondered. And the date, was that the third day of the tenth month in the eighth Turn after Landing? And that number, 22:45—what was that?

Kindan turned through several more Records and then he stopped, grunting in surprise as he read the first line of a poem or a song:

“A thousand voices keen at night,

A thousand voices wail,

A thousand voices cry in fright,

A thousand voices fail.”

Maybe this will help, Kindan thought to himself, peering down to the next verse:

“You followed them, young healer lass,”

—young healer lass? Kindan wondered to himself. He knew of no healer lass at the Harper Hall or anywhere on Pern. With a sinking feeling he continued to read:

“Till they could not be seen;

A thousand dragons made their loss

A bridge ’tween you and me.”

Kindan shook his head, grimacing. This must just be another harper song, nothing important, Kindan thought to himself, recalling the countless drinking songs harpers wrote and sang for the entertainment of holder and crafter alike. He could imagine the tone of the piece, however, dour with minor chords throughout, a proper dirge—that didn’t seem right for a drinking song.

The next stanza seemed to confirm his suspicion:

“And in the cold and darkest night,

A single voice is heard,

A single voice both clear and bright,

It says a single word.”

A single word? Help? Kindan mused. Could Nonala, whose voice was “clear and bright,” somehow sing a word that would help save all of Pern? Maybe she was training to be a healer and hadn’t told him. He peered down to the next verse and read:

“That word is what you now must say

To—”

“I’ve got a torch!” Vaxoram called excitedly, breaking Kindan’s concentration.

“A torch?” Kindan cried, turning around and seeing the blazing light that Vaxoram was holding in his hand. “Are you mad? The Records are mostly paper!”

“You said to get light,” Vaxoram snapped. He waved the torch. “This is light. It’s even brighter than glows.”

Kindan had to admit that even from the great distance of the door to his table, the torch’s light was having an effect.

“Bring it here, let’s see how good it is,” Kindan said.

As Vaxoram approached, Kindan could see more and more of the Record. He noticed small marks which he hadn’t seen in the dimmer light and saw that they were chord markings. Yes, it was a song—a song written in a minor key, just as he had thought. The tune started playing in his mind and he realized that, sour as it was, it was quite catchy. Whoever had written this song had meant it to be remembered for a long time.

It was important.

“That word is what you now must say,

To open up the door,

In Benden Weyr, to find the way

To all my healing lore.”

“What’s this—”

“Shh!” Kindan ordered.

“It’s all that I can give to you,

To save both Weyr and Hold.

It’s little I can offer you,

Who paid with dragon gold.”

Yes, the tune was definitely catchy. But, “paid with dragon gold”? Kindan could think of no one who had lost a gold dragon. Could the song refer to Koriana? But they’d been to Benden already, and found nothing. And—

“This is just some nonsense song,” Vaxoram declared, shaking his head, grabbing the Record with his free hand and easily reading it in the torch’s bright light. “You’re wasting your time.”

Kindan shook his head. “I don’t know, it looks important.”

“Only to the person who wrote it,” Vaxoram declared. “A waste of paper or whatever this is.” He dropped the Record back to the table dismissively. “But the light helps, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Kindan replied absently, picking up the Record and rereading it closely. “There could be a thousand deaths from this—”

“More,” Vaxoram said, peering down at the Record. “You’re wasting time, Kindan.” He grabbed for the Record again, yanking it out of Kindan’s hands.

Before Kindan could react, a drum message boomed out, echoing across the valley from Fort Hold and reverberating in the confines of the Archive Room.

“Master Kilti ill, please help,” the message said. Kindan recognized the drummer—Koriana.

Angrily, Kindan dived for the Record to snatch it back. He caught Vaxoram off guard and as the older lad fought to retain possession, he lost hold of the torch.

“No!” Vaxoram cried, diving for the dropped torch and loosing his hold on the Record at the same time.

“The Records!” Kindan yelled, watching in horror as first one, then another Record caught fire. “We’ve got to get water!”

“We’ve got to get help!” Vaxoram added.

In an instant, Valla was there, hovering over Kindan’s head and chittering shrilly. Then the bronze was gone again, only to be heard loudly in the courtyard beyond.

“Run!” Kindan shouted. “To the well!”

“To the kitchen!” Vaxoram said, and then both burst into action, Vaxoram retrieving the torch, Kindan darting to separate the precious Records. Vaxoram bumped into Kindan in his haste and Kindan tripped, pushing the ancient Record toward the fire. Before he could do anything, the Record was a burst of flame—and a pile of ashes.

“What is it? What is it?” Harried voices could be heard shouting in the courtyard. “It’s Kindan’s fire-lizard! Something’s wrong!”

Then Vaxoram’s voice drowned all others as he burst into the courtyard. “Fire! Fire in the Archives!”

The flames rose around Kindan and he found himself being forced backward by the heat of the rising flames, his attempts to salvage Records thwarted. Despairing, he turned to the exit only to be met by Resler.

“What have you done? What have you done?” Resler shouted, striking at Kindan furiously.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Kindan cried, trying to dodge the enraged Archivist’s blows and get into the courtyard. “We’ll put it out.”

“Step aside, we’ve got water,” a new voice called. It was Vaxoram. He shouldered Resler brusquely aside, handed Kindan a sloshing bucket, and entered the room, throwing his bucket indiscriminately and racing back for more.

“Form a line!” Kindan heard Kelsa shout. “Form a bucket line! Pass them along!”

Kindan threw his bucket on the flames, found another in his hand, then another, then another, and another—

And then, after an eternity, the flames were out. The Archive Room was a mixture of ash, damp Records, and rising smoke.

“It’s out,” Kindan called hoarsely. His message carried backward through the bucket line to those at the well. “The fire’s out.”

Behind him, Resler peered in at the mess that had been made of his precious Records, livid with fury.

CHAPTER 10

Dark rewards

Do dark deeds pay;

Harsh words

Do harsh wounds flay.

H
ARPER
H
ALL

K
indan didn’t pause as he cleared the archways of the Harper Hall. He didn’t glance back. He didn’t cry, although that took an extreme effort of will.

Gone. All his dreams were gone.

Banished. “And never come back!” Resler had shouted, still hoarse with rage.

Doomed. “You’re to go to the Hold, help as you may,” Resler had said, pointing toward the Harper Hall’s arching entrance.

“But Master Lenner—”

“Doesn’t need your sort of help,” Resler replied. He shook his head furiously. “For almost five hundred Turns we’ve preserved the Records and in ten minutes you’ve destroyed a quarter of them. Never in the history of Pern has there been greater treachery.”

Any words of protest died on Kindan’s lips. He could not tell if, among the lost Records, there was a remedy for the illness that now affected all of Pern. His mistake could have cost the lives of millions.

“You’ve got to keep going,” Vaxoram said quietly, nudging Kindan in the shoulders. Kindan turned back angrily, but Vaxoram ignored his look, nodding toward the ramp up to Fort Hold. “Keep going.”

“How?” Kindan asked in misery.

“One foot after the other, one day after the next,” the older apprentice replied. “It will get better.”

Kindan stopped, turning to face Vaxoram bitterly, demanding, “How do you know?”

“Because you taught me.” The answer was so simple, so sincere, that Kindan could not doubt it. Vaxoram bent his head and added, “That fire was my fault, not yours.”

“I could have stopped you,” Kindan said.

“Then it was our fault,” Vaxoram replied. He nudged Kindan gently, turning him toward Fort Hold. “And that’s our destiny.”

“To die in Fort Hold?”

“Maybe,” Vaxoram answered. “But at least your girlfriend’s there.”

Kindan said nothing, he could think of no response. But, unconsciously, he picked up his pace. Behind him, Vaxoram’s face lit with a brief smile.

“What are you doing here?” the Fort Hold guard demanded suspiciously as he looked out through the speaking port in the great doors. “There’s quarantine.”

“We were sent by Master Resler, to help Master Kilti,” Kindan explained.

“Are you healers?” the guard asked hopefully.

“Harpers,” Kindan confessed.

“All that can be spared,” Vaxoram added.

The guard nodded, closed the speaking port. A moment later, one of the double doors opened just enough to admit the two of them and closed again. Kindan glanced around, surprised that only one door was used, only to discover that there was only the one guard at the gate.

The guard turned away hastily, coughing, then turned back to them. “Had this cough for a sevenday now,” he told them. “One of the younger lads didn’t last that long.”

“Younger, you say?” Kindan asked, in surprise.

“Not twenty Turns yet,” the guard agreed. “And I’ve nearly forty.” He shrugged. “I thought the young ones were sturdier.”

“Me too,” Vaxoram agreed, glancing warily at the guard and then at Kindan.

“The Lord Holder will be pleased to see you,” the guard said, waving them on to the entrance to the Great Hall. “You’ll have to go on your own, I’m the only one still here.”

“Out of how many?” Kindan asked.

“Twenty,” the guard answered quickly. He turned away again to cough, then back to them, adding bleakly, “Seven are already dead.”

The doors to the Great Hall stood slightly ajar. Before Kindan approached them, Valla darted forward and through, returning a moment later with an encouraging chirp. Vaxoram gave Kindan a quizzical look, gesturing for him to go first.

Inside, Kindan was shocked to see that the floor of the Great Hall was filled with cots. And the cots, crammed so close together that it was difficult to navigate through them, were filled with people.

“Must be hundreds here,” Vaxoram remarked as they proceeded toward the great hearth at the top of the Hall.

Kindan gazed at the listless bodies and nodded in bleak agreement. But Fort Hold was home to over ten thousand; where were the rest?

He glanced around, looking for anyone upright in the filled room. It was a moment before he spotted movement, a white-haired, balding man who looked like a scarecrow and—Kindan drew a sharp breath—Koriana. They rose from one bed and went quickly to another.

With a jerk of his head, Kindan caught Vaxoram’s attention and they moved toward the two.

“Master Kilti?” Kindan guessed as they approached.

“Kindan,” Koriana said, her voice subdued but her eyes still bright when she spotted him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was sent to help,” Kindan said. “By Master Resler.”

“Resler’s an idiot,” the white-haired man muttered before turning his attention to the body in the cot below him. He felt the man’s forehead, bent forward, grabbed a wrist, and stood up again, shaking his head. “This one’s dead,” he said sadly. He glanced up to Vaxoram. “Take his body.”

Vaxoram paled.

“Where?” Kindan asked, dropping down to the dead man’s cot.

“Ask the guard,” Kilti replied dismissively. “You stay, your friend goes.”

“He’s not big enough—” Kindan began in protest.

“You’re to clear the cot and find another to fill it,” Kilti ordered. He jerked his head toward Koriana. “Next bed,” he told her.

Kindan had just a moment to shake his head in apology to Vaxoram.

“It’s all right,” the older lad said, bending down to pick up the body.

“I’ll help,” Kindan offered.

“No,” Vaxoram replied, going down to his knees. He grabbed the body at the waist and rolled it onto his shoulder. With a grunt he stood up, staggered for a moment, and began to hobble off slowly toward the front door.

Kindan eyed the mess left behind. The sheets were soiled, they’d have to be replaced. He bundled them up and looked for some place to put them.

“Soiled sheets?” Kindan called toward Kilti. The old healer didn’t look up.

“Dump them out in the necessary,” Koriana called back. “Then drop them in the great tub in the laundry.” She made a face. “There should be someone there.”

She sounded like she wasn’t sure if there still was. Kindan nodded mutely and headed off on his task, partly familiar with the layout of the Hold from the several events he had attended in the past as a harper.

A small girl met him at the laundry. He dropped the dirtied sheets into the great tub and she tamped them down into the boiling water with a long stick.

“Clean sheets?” he asked. She gestured outside. Kindan found long lines of sheets drying in the cold air. He felt for the driest and pulled them off, returning to the Great Hall through the laundry.

“Are you all right?” he asked the girl as he went back.

She shook her head wordlessly, stamping the boiling clothes down into the tub angrily.

How could anyone be all right, Kindan wondered.

Back in the Great Hall he made the bed carefully, then looked around for another patient. At the far end of the Great Hall, he spied Vaxoram and Bemin carrying two small people over their backs. One was a young woman, the other was a young man.

“Over here,” Kindan called, gesturing for Vaxoram to put one of them on his cot. To Bemin he said, “I don’t see any others free.”

“This one!” Kilti called, looking up mournfully from another full cot.

Kindan helped Vaxoram position the fevered young woman on the cot. As they did, the woman broke into a coughing fit, spraying them in an ugly greenish-yellow mist.

“Now you’ve caught it,” Bemin told them, his voice dead. “Just like Semin.” He gestured to the young man on his shoulders.

“Your son?” Kindan asked in surprise. He glanced to the fevered woman, now covered in a fine mist of sputum. “And she is?”

“I don’t know,” Bemin said, shaking his head. “A holder of mine.” His face softened as he implored Kindan bleakly, “Do what you can for her, please?”

“Of course, my lord,” Kindan replied, covering the woman’s body with a sheet and the blanket. He felt her forehead—it was blistering hot. “I should get her some water.”

“No time!” Kilti shouted. “Get this corpse out of here!”

Kindan shook his head and started to obey, but Bemin blocked him. “You get the water, you’re the smallest,” he said to Kindan. “Just hurry back.”

Kindan nodded and raced out of the room. He went back in the kitchen and found a large bucket. While it was filling, he had time to check on the laundry girl. She had collapsed beside the tub. He pulled her away hurriedly and felt her forehead—boiling. His throat choked up in sorrow and his eyes were spangled with tears as he hauled her up and lifted her in the crook of his arm, staggering back to the kitchen to grab the bucket in the other.

He staggered back to the Great Hall.

“What about cups?” Kilti croaked. “And who’s she?”

“She was boiling the sheets,” Kindan explained, anxiously looking around for a spare cot.

“Alerilla,” Bemin said. “She’s barely turned ten.”

“Fever?” Kilti asked, rising unsteadily to his feet and slowly moving toward Kindan and the girl. Behind him, Vaxoram was lifting the dead body off the cot and Koriana was rolling up the soiled sheets.

“Like a fire,” Kindan replied.

“Good,” Kilti said, much to Kindan’s surprise. The healer noticed his look and explained, “Fever’s a body’s way of fighting.”

Kindan gestured helplessly around the room at all the fevered people lying in cots.

“The worst seems to be the cough,” Kilti said. “Fever without cough seems to survive.” He put his hand gently around the underside of the girl’s jaw and felt. “Glands are swollen, that can be good or bad.”

He nodded toward Kindan. “If she starts coughing in the next day or two…”

Kindan nodded. “How long after that?”

“It varies,” Kilti said with a shrug. “Sometimes a day, sometimes four. Never more than four.”

“After four?”

“I don’t know,” Kilti said. “Some recover, some get worse and die.” The healer shook his head sadly. “I’ve never seen the like.” He glanced up at Kindan. “Have they found anything in the Records?”