Dragon Harper (32 page)

“Verilan, is it?” Zist asked, lazily pushing the drum out of his lap and back onto the table. “I sent for the Archivist.”

“I am the Archivist,” Verilan replied. “Master Resler is dead.”

“But you’re just an apprentice,” Zist said scornfully.

“I’m the Archivist,” Verilan persisted staunchly.

“Prove it,” Zist said. He turned to Kindan. “Aren’t you done yet?”

“Yes, Master,” Kindan said, printing out the last line of his Record. He turned with the page in his hand and passed it over to the Master.

“About time,” Zist murmured. He glanced at the Record and handed it over to Verilan. “Kelsa is in the other room writing a song using this Record,” he told him. “You are to make a copy and then have your scribes make copies for every hold, major and minor.

“When they are done with that,” Zist continued, “Kelsa will have a song for you to copy also. You must have both completed by dusk, ready to send.”

Verilan nodded curtly and marched into the other room. He was back a moment later, retrieving stylus, ink, and paper from the workdesk, unperturbed by Zist’s ominous gaze.

As Verilan retreated to the back room, Zist said to Kindan, “Go tell Selora that we will have a new song tonight.”

Kindan desperately wanted to stay with his friends, but he knew Zist too well to argue, so he nodded and left.

“Let me know when your fire-lizard returns!” Zist called at his retreating back.

“A new song, eh?” Selora said, her look inscrutable. “Hmm, well, we’ll need help in the kitchens, then, because new songs mean lots of food.” She threw an apron to Kindan. “You can get started with the dessert.”

Kindan suppressed a groan. Perhaps things were getting back to normal after all.

In fact, Selora was hard-pressed for help and feeding even thirty harpers meant a lot of cooking. Kindan was hot and sweaty by the time the soup was set to simmering, the shepherd’s pies were cooking in the oven, the bread was set to cooling, the fires were stoked, and the greens washed.

Selora consulted some internal clock that only cooks seemed to possess and told Kindan consideringly, “You’d best go change, Master Zist would have your hide if you came to dinner looking like that.”

Kindan was still wearing Koriana’s clothes and was reluctant to part with them. Besides, he wasn’t sure if he had any clean clothes left.

Seeing his concern, Selora told him, “Lord Bemin sent you down some clothes. I had someone lay them on your bunk.”

Kindan took the time to wash and brush his teeth before returning to his bunk. He was astonished to see not one but three sets of clothes on a hanger—all in harper’s blue. He eyed the finish critically; it appeared that the apprentice stripes were merely tacked on. Well, there was nothing for it, he could fix them later.

The fresh clean cloth felt good against his skin. There was just a hint of a special fragrance, the smell that Kindan would always associate with Koriana’s hair. He was just ready to leave when Verilan, Nonala, and Kelsa came rushing in.

“He sent us to change!” Kelsa wailed.

“You should gripe, we’ve only had one practice, and I’m going to have to sing soprano,” Nonala replied, heading toward the restroom.

“Hey, who put these clothes here?” Verilan complained as he approached his bunk. Kindan looked over and saw that Verilan, too, had a new set of harper’s blue.

“Maybe Lord Bemin,” Kindan said. “He sent some down for me.”

“For all of us,” Kelsa exclaimed, glancing appreciatively at the finery. “But they must have rushed, the sewing’s not all that good.”

When he returned to the kitchen, Selora sent him out peremptorily. “You’re to go to the Dining Hall!”

Kindan came up to the Dining Hall just as it was filling. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t identify it. From the Masters’ table, Master Jofri waved at him and Kindan waved back, his face splitting into a grin.

Something…about the clothes. But before Kindan could figure it out, Verilan, Nonala, and Kelsa came rushing into the hall along with the rest of the apprentices. Kindan turned to Kelsa, mouth open, ready to ask a question when Master Zist entered the room, dressed in a fine new Masterharper’s outfit.

He was flanked, Kindan noted with surprise, by Lord Holder Bemin, Weyrleader B’ralar, and—best of all—M’tal. Behind them came Jelir, Neesa, Melira, Stennel, and Yanira, carrying baby Fiona. Behind
them
came the High Reaches Weyrleader, D’vin, and C’tov! In back of them was a last group—Dalor and Nuella, Kindan’s friends from his youth in the mines. They were dressed in their finest clothes and the twin brother and sister waved cheerfully at Kindan.

The dignitaries were seated at the journeymen’s table which surprised Kindan greatly, but not nearly as much as it did Verilan, who looked completely nonplussed.

“Do you know—” Verilan began in an excited whisper, only to be cut off by Master Zist’s resounding voice.

“We are honored tonight by hold, craft, and weyr,” Zist told the group.

“Something’s up,” Kelsa declared, glancing around the room suspiciously.

“I know,” Verilan agreed fervently.

“We have all been through many perils and much pain,” Zist continued. “Now that they are past, it is time to begin again.

“Tonight marks a new beginning for Pern,” he said. “And tonight we celebrate it.” He took a deep breath and turned to the apprentices. “You have survived great pain and loss, you have been called upon to meet the sternest of challenges, and you did not fail. Your childhood ended abruptly and far too early.” He nodded sorrowfully toward them, then paused for a moment.

“Songmaster Kelsa, please rise,” Zist said.

Kelsa rose to her feet, her face white.

At she did, Jofri rose beside Master Zist, and so did all the dignitaries at the journeymen’s table.

“You’re going to walk the tables, Kelsa!” Nonala declared in sudden comprehension.

“Apprentices, please rise and escort Kelsa to her new table,” Zist said, his voice no longer somber, his eyes twinkling.

“I don’t think I can move!” Kelsa moaned.

“Of course you can,” Kindan declared, pushing her with his hand.

Slowly, steadily, Kelsa walked around the apprentice table and over to the journeymen’s table, to be greeted enthusiastically by the Lord Holders, Crafters, and Weyrleaders.

“Congratulations, Journeyman Kelsa,” Zist said to her. The hall burst with the noise of clapping hands and stomping feet.

Zist waited until everyone was seated once more. “We’re not done yet,” he told the apprentices with a wink.

“Oh, no!” Nonala exclaimed.

“Voicemaster Nonala, please rise,” Zist said, smiling at her.

“Come on, Nonala,” Verilan urged.

“You earned it,” Kindan agreed fervently. Kelsa rushed back over to help and together the four walked the tables to deposit a shocked Nonala at the journeymen’s table.

“One more,” Zist said after the tumult died down. “And then we can eat.”

Kindan nodded toward Verilan.

“No, it’s you,” Verilan said, shaking his head. “After all you’ve done, it has to be you.”

“I was banished, remember?” Kindan told him. “I’m lucky to be here at all.”

“But—”

“Archivist Verilan, please rise,” Zist’s voice boomed out, dispelling any doubt.

Verilan sat, rebellious, until Kindan rose and grabbed him under the elbow.

“You’ve
earned
this,” Kindan told him forcefully. “By all rights you should be Master now.”

Reluctantly, Verilan stood. When Nonala and Kelsa came eagerly to him, he couldn’t help but smile back at them. He completed his circuit around the tables and sat at the journeymen’s table but he continued to look back at Kindan, his expression mirroring the injustice he felt.

The food came out and Kindan ate heartily, glad to realize that he and Selora had made such a great feast for such illustrious company. Still, he couldn’t help from time to time glancing wistfully toward his friends, wishing not so much that he were there with them as that he had their company.

The meal was finished and dessert served before Zist rose again.

“It is a rule of the Harper Hall that a person cannot be promoted until they’ve eaten one meal in their present rank,” Zist said. There was a gasp from all the apprentices and journeymen as these words registered amongst them.

Jofri rose beside Zist and they walked over to the journeymen’s table.

“Journeyman Verilan,” Jofri said soberly, “please rise.”

“Me?” Verilan squeaked. “No, it should be Kindan.”

“Get up, Verilan,” Kelsa commanded him. “Get up, or we’ll lift you.”

Reluctantly Verilan rose.

“Only once before has an apprentice been elevated to Master in the same day,” Zist told the gathering as he and Jofri escorted Verilan over to the Masters’ table. “And that was Master Murenny.

“But you are the youngest Master on record,” Zist said to Verilan. “As you might well know.”

Verilan could only nod mutely.

Kindan roared his approval along with the rest of the room. When the noise died down, Zist rose again, gesturing to Nonala.

“Journeyman Kelsa has written a song to mark the events of these past sad months and Journeyman Nonala has kindly agreed to sing it,” Zist said. He nodded to Verilan and addressed the Weyrleaders, Holders, and Crafters. “And Master Verilan will provide copies of the Records for your harpers as well as copies of this song.”

Nonala assembled her chorus and with a firm nod prepared them to sing.

“This is called ‘Kindan’s Song,’” Nonala said, her voice reverberating through the room.

Step by step

Moment by moment

We live through

Another day.

Fever consumes us

Death surrounds us

Still we succeed through

Another day.

Tears trickled down Kindan’s face as they did down all the faces in the Harper Hall and he recalled the faces of those who had died, countless, in the plague.

The song was over and there was a silence in the hall before Kindan realized that people were standing behind him. He felt arms on his, urging him upward.

M’tal and Bemin were at his side, lifting him.

“Rise, Kindan,” Zist’s voice boomed through the hall, filling every corner.

Step by step, moment by moment, Kindan walked the tables.

EPILOGUE

Harper in your garments blue

Sing a song of tales quite true

Harper with your drum so loud

You make us all feel quite proud.

B
ENDEN
W
EYR
,
AL 497.1

T
he sun was setting in the evening sky when the great bronze dragon erupted from
between
over the Star Stones. The watchdragon bugled a query and then a greeting.

Wheeling sharply, Gaminth began a steep descent into the Weyr Bowl.

“Are you ready, Harper?” M’tal called over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

AUTHORS’ NOTES

According to the
Merck Manual,
Eighteenth Edition, (Copyright 2006 by Merck & Co, Inc.) influenza A epidemics occur in the United States every two to three years. “Pandemics caused by new influenza A serotypes may cause particularly severe disease.” Influenza B viruses can cause epidemics in three-to five-year cycles.

The Great Influenza of 1918 was a pandemic of grimmer proportions than either the usual influenza A or B epidemic/pandemic cycles. It was particularly devastating among the eighteen-to twenty-one-year-old population because, sadly, people at those ages had the most well-developed immune systems. In combating the influenza, the matured immune systems would attack the lining of the lungs and, tragically, the victim’s lungs would fill with liquid, causing death by drowning (more specifically, Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome or ARDS—SARS is a variant of this).

For more information on major influenza pandemics, we recommend
The Great Influenza
by John M. Barry, published by Penguin Books, 2005 (with a new afterword).