Dragon Harper (30 page)

“It’s midday,” Bemin called from the door, a tray in his hands. “I’d prefer to let you sleep longer, but—” he cut himself off, placed the tray on a bedside table, and dragged up a chair for himself.

“What, my lord?” Kindan asked, sitting up and feeling strange to be in a bed when the Lord Holder had clearly been awake for hours, and also feeling strange that he felt no discomfort lying in Koriana’s bed in Bemin’s presence. It wasn’t just that the Lord Holder had put him there; it was that Kindan felt Bemin
welcomed
him there.

“Drink and eat, while I talk,” Bemin said, handing Kindan a mug of
klah.
Kindan took the mug and nodded in thanks. Bemin took a breath before continuing, “Fort Hold was home to more than ten thousand holders before this plague.” He gestured toward the grave below. “I figure we’ve buried over a thousand and there are probably as many bodies we haven’t yet discovered.” Kindan nodded gravely. “That means that we’ll have about six thousand left—”

“My lord? Surely you mean eight. Two from ten leaves eight,” Kindan said respectfully.

“There are easily two thousand who will starve or die from illness resulting from the plague,” Bemin replied. “We need at least three thousand healthy people to supply our basic needs and we need them every day. More than half the hold is still recovering from this illness—there aren’t enough hands to keep things running until the rest recover.”

Kindan paled; he hadn’t realized the peril that remained. He didn’t question Bemin’s numbers;
he
had only a vague understanding of the workings of a major Hold, Bemin had Turns of practical experience.

“The fruit?”

“Enough for a few days yet,” Bemin agreed. Bleakly he continued, “But not enough to get our coal brought down, get the infested apartments cleaned, set up the kitchen, bring up the stored meats, clear the silos, check on the livestock.”

“If not, what will happen?”

Bemin shook his head. “I’m certain that the Hold will survive, I just can’t be certain that thousands more won’t die before winter’s end.” He paused before adding, “And this is not just Fort Hold; every Hold on Pern must be in about the same state.”

The Lord Holder rose up irritably and started pacing the room. “I’m sorry I told you,” he apologized to Kindan. “It’s just that, after we’ve come so far, I felt you had to know.”

“I understand, my lord,” Kindan replied. “And thank you.”

“For what?” Bemin asked, surprised.

“For treating me like a son.”

The Lord Holder stopped in his tracks, turned to Kindan, flushed, and nodded mutely. For a moment, they needed no words: Kindan understanding Bemin’s trust and faith in him; Bemin knowing that Kindan accepted both the privileges and responsibilities of his offer.

After a moment, Kindan rose from the bed, gently smoothing the covers and looked around for his clothing.

“I’ve sent it to be washed,” Bemin said. “Although you might want to have your clothes destroyed.” He glanced at a bundle laid out at the end of the bed. “Bannor was much bigger than you, but Koriana liked to dress man-style whenever she could, so I thought you might fit in her clothes.” His mouth twitched. “Only Fort Hold colors, I’m afraid, not harper blue.”

Kindan ran his hand reverently over the fabric. “I’d be honored,” he told the Lord Holder. He glanced around. “But I would soil the clothes.”

“There’s a bath beyond there,” Bemin told him, waving at a doorway. “The water’s only warm, however.”

“Warm will be enough,” Kindan said cheerfully, carefully picking up the clothes and heading to the bathroom.

It took him longer than he would have liked to get clean and, as the water soon ran colder, he took less time than he would have hoped for the first shower in many sevendays. In the end, however, he was clean and refreshed in a way that only a person who has been so long without bathing could be. He finished his toilet and was pleased to discover that Koriana’s old clothes were nearly a good fit on him.

Lord Bemin was still waiting for him when he returned, only now he was seated once more and eating a roll. He invited Kindan to sit with him and they ate and drank in a companionable silence. At last, Bemin gestured to the Records on the table and raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“I fell asleep before I could finish them,” Kindan explained ruefully.

“Do you think there’s any point?” Bemin asked politely, although his body language made his own view clear.

“I won’t know until I’m done, my lord,” Kindan replied.

“Very well,” Bemin said with a nod. “Please don’t be too long, they’re clamoring for you downstairs.” He smiled. “It seems most of my Hold believes that I can’t operate without your presence.”

“A vile lie, I assure you,” Kindan answered with a grin of his own.

Bemin surprised him with a hearty guffaw. He rose and strode to the door, turning back to say, “All the same, don’t be too long, if you can. All vile lies aside, I appreciate your wisdom and your company.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I’ve finished,” Kindan promised.

Bemin nodded, serious again, and strode away briskly down the hall. His steps on the great circular staircase died away slowly, leaving Kindan alone with the eerie presence once more.

He returned to the writing desk and bent to his reading, intent on catching every word of the late Masterhealer’s writings.

Two hours later he had more questions than answers. He rooted around the table, looking for a scrap of paper and finally, in desperation, turned over one of Koriana’s old scratch pieces and began to make notes.

The first symptoms. The first illness. The first death. The second patient. The third patient. He filled in names and dates, brows furrowed as he tried to discern a pattern.

“Must establish incubation period,” Lenner had scrawled on one Record.

“Yes, I know that,” Kindan murmured. “But what is it?”

He dredged his memory, trying to recall what Lenner had said about diseases. First there was the latent period when there were no symptoms, then the infectious period when the illness could be spread, and finally, the—Kindan couldn’t remember what it was called—it was the time after between being infectious and either recovering or dying.

People who were infected and recovered had immunity from the disease, Kindan was certain. But some vague memory from his conversations with Mikal led him to believe that sometimes the same disease could reinfect a recovered person. If that were the case, however, then Kindan would certainly have been infected again. But he could still be in the latent period, not yet infectious himself.

“No, once I know the latent period, I can tell if I might still be infected and not infectious,” he said out loud, hoping that hearing the words would help him
remember
them. They certainly sounded like something he’d heard once from either Mikal or Lenner.

First, figure out the latent period, Kindan told himself. He remembered his trip to Benden Weyr. He and the others had been gone nearly a sevenday. When they’d come back everyone was falling ill.

A sevenday. He looked back over his notes. That seemed right. Maybe less, maybe only five days. But a sevenday, not more. Kindan realized with a sense of relief that it had been more than a sevenday since he’d felt ill. He probably hadn’t been reinfected. He couldn’t be sure, couldn’t be certain until he remained free of infection for the life span of the disease: the total of the latent, infectious, and terminal phases.

His instinct told him that the disease lasted no more than three sevendays, that the infectious phase was four to six days,
maybe
a sevenday but no more, and that the final phase was probably about the same, less than seven days before a person was clear of infection.

So if a person showed no symptoms for three sevendays, they were unlikely to be contagious, unlikely to have this killer flu.

He got up from the writing desk, bringing his scrap paper with him, and headed down to the Great Hall.

“Kindan!” Merila called as she saw him. “Great, can you take over? I’m exhausted.”

“Yes,” Kindan said, seeing in one glance the extent of the midwife’s fatigue, her stumbling gait, the dark rings under her eyes, the way she more jittered than moved. “Don’t get up until you wake up on your own.”

“Morning, then,” Merila said. She gestured to a group of cots set off by themselves. “Maybe your friends will feel better by then.”

Kindan nodded, but his eyes lingered on the cots in the distance. He headed for them first.

“Kindan,” Verilan exclaimed when he caught sight of him, “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not,” Kindan told him cheerfully. “It’s good to see you, too.” He examined the moodpaste dabbed on Verilan’s head and was relieved to note that it was nearly green, only a hint of red showing. “Can I get you anything?”

“A bedpan would be nice,” Kelsa chimed from the other cot. “Or permission to use the necessary.”

“No,” Kindan said immediately, waving down one of the holders and signing for a bedpan with his hands. The holder nodded in understanding and sped off. “Wait a bit, we’ve got one coming.”

“I never thought I’d pee again,” Kelsa said. “And now I’ve got to
go.
”

Kindan, who had heard and dealt with much more horrific bodily functions in the past several sevendays, had no reaction to this admission, except to tell her acerbically, “Hold it.”

He checked her forehead and wasn’t surprised to see that the moodpaste was a comforting green: He had already guessed that Kelsa was well on her way to recovery by the tone of her voice and the directness of her speech.

“Verilan,” Kindan began, remembering his notes, “do you know if Lenner had determined the illness’s duration?”

“It seemed like forever,” Nonala murmured from her cot. “But I guess it wasn’t that long.”

“We all got fevers within a sevenday of your leaving,” Verilan informed him. He made a thoughtful face. “It seemed like the fever lasted a sevenday, maybe less.”

“Mmm,” Kindan murmured, wishing he had more evidence for his theory. Not that it mattered much. If he was right, the holders who survived wouldn’t spread the illness or get infected again but, according to Bemin, another quarter of them or more would die of starvation before winter’s end.

There had to be something he could do. Some way to get more help. But everyone on Pern was too sick—and suddenly Kindan had the answer. All that was required was to risk the dragons and riders of Pern.

“Valla!” he called, sending his thoughts to the bronze fire-lizard. He had images of writing a long note, describing his theories, and then he had a better idea. “Get J’trel, Valla, get the blue rider!”

CHAPTER 16

Step by step

Moment by moment

We live through

Another day.

I
GEN
W
EYR
S
TAR
S
TONES

A
dry, warm wind—warm even in winter—blew across the top of the abandoned Weyr. Drought had ruined Igen Hold and deprived Igen Weyr of tithe. Disaster had finished the Weyr off. The dragonriders were all gone now, having moved north to merge with Telgar Weyr. Once proud and bold, the Igen riders had instilled their values into the hardy Telgar folk, and an Igen rider was now Telgar’s Weyrleader.

But the old Weyr remained, colored slightly by wind-borne dust from the desert, deserted but not forgotten, a relic of better days, glories of past Turns.

A bronze dragon burst from
between
over Igen’s mighty Star Stones. Shortly thereafter a blue dragon with two riders appeared a short way off. The dragons landed long enough to disembark their passengers, then found perches in the high warm walls of Igen Bowl.

The riders arranged themselves so that the bronze rider was upwind of the blue rider and his passenger, so that the steady winds of Igen kept any possible infection from the bronze rider.

Those same winds made it difficult to talk, so that the down-wind portion of the conversation was conducted at just below a yell.

“Kindan, it’s good to see you,” M’tal began, grinning broadly at the young harper. The lad looked much aged, but M’tal was not surprised; the plague had made old men out of boys well before their time.

“And you,” Kindan called back.

“You wanted to speak with me,” M’tal said.

“With all the Weyrleaders, actually,” Kindan replied. “But I’ll settle for you at first.”

M’tal could not bear to tell the youngster that none of the other Weyrleaders had agreed to this meeting.

“How are things at Fort?”

“Better,” Kindan called back. “But not for long.”

M’tal took the news gravely.

“Bemin figures that two thousand died, and another two thousand or more will starve unless help comes.”

“What sort of help?” M’tal asked. “We can only keep the fruit supplies going for another day or two at the best.”

“Help setting the Holds back up,” Kindan told him. “Bemin says that normally three thousand are needed to keep the Hold going.”

“Three thousand?” M’tal repeated in surprise. The Weyrs operated with far fewer people than that. Then again, he reflected, the population of Benden Weyr was much smaller than ten thousand.

“They don’t have dragons to help,” Kindan called back.

The lad had a point, M’tal admitted to himself. “What are you proposing?”

“Station a wing of dragons at every major Hold, get them to help the Holds get going again,” Kindan replied.

“But the plague!”

“I think it’s over,” Kindan said. “If not, it doesn’t last more than three weeks. Keep the wings in the Holds for three weeks after the last infection and they should be safe returning to the Weyr. There won’t be any infection to bring.”

“But a wing is only thirty dragons and riders at best,” M’tal replied. “What can they do?”

“They’re healthy,” Kindan said. “They can help haul coal, set up carts, round up livestock, transport holders quickly from one place to the other.”

“And if one wing’s not enough, Weyrleader, then we could send two,” J’trel chimed in. “I’m proof that dragonriders can survive this illness.”

“Weyrleader C’rion said you’re too stubborn to die,” M’tal answered, grinning to take the sting out of his comments.

“I’ve got people to live for,” J’trel said diffidently. “Some of them are holders.”

“We all live for holders and crafters, I believe,” M’tal commented drolly. He leaned back and closed his eyes in thought. When he opened them again, he nodded firmly toward Kindan. “Very well, I’ll take your suggestion back to the Weyrleaders.”

“And you?”

“I’ve already ordered Gaminth to dispatch wings to Bitra, Lemos, Benden, and all the holds minor,” M’tal said. He wagged a finger at Kindan. “For all Pern, you’d better be right.”

Kindan nodded, feeling a huge weight in his stomach.

“We’ll know in three weeks,” J’trel said. Of M’tal, he asked, “Do you think B’ralar will send help?”

“Yes, he will,” M’tal said. “It may be the worst mistake we ever make, and the last, but it has torn us apart to sit idly by while the rest of Pern dies.”

“Then we must get back,” Kindan said. “Bemin will have preparations to make.”

“Did you tell him?” M’tal asked in surprise.

“No, he doesn’t even know I’ve gone,” Kindan replied.

Bemin might not have known that Kindan had gone, but he certainly was aware when Kindan returned.

“Where were you?” the Lord Holder shouted when he spotted Kindan entering the Great Hall. “We’ve looked everywhere!”

“Is there a problem?” Kindan asked, looking around the Great Hall nervously. Could he have been wrong, could the plague still be infectious?

“No, but Merila woke up and went looking for you and when we couldn’t find you, I—” Bemin broke off, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

“I went looking for more fruit,” Kindan said, touched by the unspoken depth of Bemin’s affection.

“Fruit?” Bemin repeated in surprise. “There’s enough of that, it’s men we need.”

J’trel, who had been watching the exchange with growing amusement from the sidelines, murmured, “He got them, too. A right proper harper, he is.”

Kindan looked questioningly at him.

“Can’t help but speak in riddles,” J’trel explained. He turned as, suddenly, outside there were excited cries.

“What’s happening?” Bemin asked, rushing toward the doors.

“More fruit,” J’trel said, grinning. He and Kindan reached the courtyard just as the first wing of dragons landed.

“J’lantir!” J’trel called excitedly to the bronze rider in the front. “What are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on you,” the bronze rider growled. J’trel had the sense to look abashed. J’lantir turned to Bemin and bowed. “My Lord Holder, I present greetings from the Weyrleaders of Ista, Benden, and Fort Weyrs.”

“Three?” Kindan said in surprise.

“There was some discussion about the Harper Hall deserving all four,” J’lantir said lightly, “but we felt that D’vin would best serve as reserve.” He turned back to Bemin. “At your harper’s request”—and he nodded at Kindan, who looked thoroughly nonplussed—“we are pleased to provide you with the better part of three wings of dragons to aid you and the harpers in their recovery.” He bowed low. “What do you desire?”

Bemin turned to Kindan, lunged, and grabbed him in a great bear hug.

“It’s over now,” Kindan said finally, staring hollow-eyed at the dragonriders. It had been nearly a month since the dragons had landed outside Fort Hold’s Great Hall. There had been no new case of the fever in a fortnight.

The days that followed had been no less wearying than the days of the plague, particularly when Kindan succeeded in convincing Bemin and J’lantir that it was time to reinhabit the Harper Hall. J’trel and J’lantir had gone there alone the first day and after that had refused to let any of the harpers near the Hall until they had completed all their work, clearing and cleaning up the Harper Hall.

Three large mounds outside the Healer Hall were covered with fresh earth, waiting for spring to cover them with green.

Kindan had been overjoyed to discover that Selora was among the survivors of the Harper Hall. In fact, apart from the younger apprentices, Selora was the only survivor of the Harper Hall—all the journeymen, Masters, and older apprentices had succumbed to the plague. Kindan couldn’t imagine how the Harper Hall would ever recover.

“There are harpers and healers in the holds,” Selora had assured him. “Some of them will come back.”

J’lantir’s pronouncement that the Harper Hall was once again fit for habitation was met by a combination of jubilation and sorrow.

Kelsa, Nonala, and Verilan were anxious to return to their quarters. Selora had gone ahead, accompanied by Neesa—who’d overridden Bemin’s worried protests with a simple, “Oh, Yanira will handle it all, you’ll see!”—to prepare a welcoming feast.

Kindan was surprised when, just outside the Harper Hall’s archway, a large bronze dragon appeared overhead and settled quickly onto the landing field. When he saw M’tal jump down, his face lit with joy.

“I wanted to be here when you returned to your Hall,” M’tal told him. “Salina wanted to come as well, but we decided not to risk that.”

“The danger’s past,” Kindan assured him.

“Not that,” M’tal replied with a grin. “The danger of leaving a whole Weyr unsupervised.”

Selora and Neesa had laid on a great feast in the Harper Hall’s dining room. Bemin was there, as were Jelir and many of the other Fort Holders, and the dragonriders.

Even so, the great dining room was only partly filled with everyone sitting at the apprentice tables. The Masters’ table and the journeymen’s tables remained empty, and Kindan realized that the Harper Hall would never seem the same to him again, that it had gotten smaller and yet somehow less intimate than before.