Dragon's Fire Read online

  Zist blew out a misty breath and pulled on the reins controlling the workbeast, fighting with himself not to turn the wagon back.

  “Murenny promised he’d keep an eye on him,” Cayla said, noting how the wagon had slowed. “And this was your idea.”

  “Indeed,” Zist agreed, his shoulders slumping in turn. “I think it’s absolutely necessary that we learn all we can about the Shunned—”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Cayla interjected, lifting baby Carissa in her arms and rocking her instinctively.

  “Thread will come again soon enough, and what then?” Zist went on, repeating his reasons needlessly. “If there are enough Shunned, what’s to stop them from overwhelming a hold or craft hall?”

  Cayla didn’t have to say a word to make her opinion of that clear; she’d said enough before.

  “Well, even if they don’t, what will they do when Thread comes again?” Zist asked reflectively. “It’s not right to condemn them all to a death no one on Pern should ever experience.”

  “I know, love, I know,” Cayla said soothingly, recognizing that her mate was working himself into another passionate discourse. She knew from past discussions how vivid the image of Thread, falling mindlessly from the sky, devouring all life, searing all flesh, was engrained in Zist’s mind from his reading. “We’ve discussed this, Murenny’s discussed this, and that’s why we’re here in this wagon, dressed like the Shunned—”

  “Do you think we should put an ‘S’ on your head, too?” Master Zist asked, pointing to the purple-blue mark on his forehead.

  “No,” Cayla said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And you’d best be right about how to get that mark off.”

  “It’s not proper bluebush ink,” Zist reminded her. The sap of the bluebush, used for marking the Shunned, was indelible and permanently stained skin. “Some pinesap, lots of hot water and soap, and it’ll come off.”

  “So you’ve said,” Cayla remarked, sounding no more convinced.

  In front, Zist noticed that the workbeast was slowing and flicked the reins to encourage it back to a faster walk.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re with me,” Zist told Cayla, after satisfying himself that they were moving fast enough.

  “I’m glad that we left Pellar behind,” Cayla said. “Ten Turns is too young to see the sights we expect.”

  “Indeed,” Zist agreed.

  “Carissa’s so little that she’ll remember none of it,” Cayla continued, half to answer Zist’s unspoken thought, half to answer her own fears.

  “There’ll be children among the Shunned,” Zist remarked. “That’s part of what makes it so wrong.”

  “Yes,” Cayla agreed. She flicked a wisp of her honey-blond hair back behind her ear and continued rocking little Carissa. Then she looked back again. “He’s gone now.”

  “We’ll be back in less than half a Turn,” Zist said after a moment of thoughtful silence. “He’ll be all right.”

  “I hope he’ll forgive us,” Cayla said.

  Zist took the coast road south, toward Hold Gar, Southern Boll Hold, and warmer weather. He and Cayla had guessed that the warmer climes would attract the Shunned, who would find the harsh winters of the north harder to survive.

  The road was still snow covered and never more than a pair of ruts running down along the coastline. Even in the protected enclosure of the wagon, Cayla wrapped herself up tightly and nuzzled little Carissa close to her side to keep them both warm. In front, perched on the rattling bench seat, Zist had a thick wherhide blanket spread over his knees and layers of warm thick-knit Tillek sweaters, the same as those used by the Tillek sailors because they kept out the worst of the wet and cold even at sea. Even so, Zist was chilled to the bone every evening when they halted.

  They were both relieved when they finally came upon the outskirts of Hold Gar.

  Their reception by the holders was sharp and unpleasant.

  “Go away!” shrieked the first old woman whose cothold they had stopped at, hoping to barter for food. “Would you have me Shunned, too?”

  She hurried them on their way by throwing stones and setting her dogs on them.

  “Go back north and freeze! We’re hardworking folk down here,” she yelled after them. “You won’t find any handouts.”

  Zist shared a shaken look with Cayla who busily tried to comfort a bawling Carissa.

  As they neared the next hold, Cayla glanced quickly at the “S” on Zist’s forehead. “Maybe I should go by myself,” she suggested.

  “Bring the baby,” Zist agreed. “I’ll tend the beast.”

  Carissa returned later, smiling and carrying a sack full of goods.

  “They cost more than they should,” she said when she handed the bag to Zist. “The lady fed us, though, and had fresh milk for Carissa.”

  Two days later they came upon a wagon by the side of the road. It had been burned down to the wheels.

  Zist halted. He went to the wreck, crawled around and through it, and came back thirty minutes later, his face grim.

  “They were caught while they were sleeping,” he told Cayla.

  “How do you know it wasn’t an accident with a lantern?” Cayla asked. While holders used glows, the Shunned had to make do with what they could scrounge, and that often meant candles or lanterns.

  “I’d rather not say,” he replied grimly.

  “I suppose we should keep a watch at nights,” Cayla said.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” Zist said. “This is beginning to seem more dangerous than I’d feared.”

  “Perhaps this is what happened to Moran.”

  “Perhaps,” Zist agreed, his face going pale. With a sour look, he gestured to the burned wreck. “There has to be a better way to deal with the Shunned.”

  “We don’t know what happened here. We know that some were Shunned for murder. After being Shunned, what would stop them from murdering again?” Cayla responded. “Perhaps we’re only seeing justice done.”

  “No,” Zist said, shaking his head firmly. “That was a wagon much like ours.”

  Cayla realized from what he’d left unsaid that the occupants of the wagon were much like them, too—a man, woman, and child.

  “We should move on before we attract attention,” she said firmly.

  “I’d like you to keep watch from the back of the wagon,” Zist said by way of agreement.

  “Of course.”

  When they camped that evening, Cayla brought out her pipes and Zist’s gitar. They had left their best instruments behind as they had the telltale stamp of the Harper Hall to distinguish them as works of craftsmanship. Instead, they had brought older instruments, as befitted their status of homeless Shunned.

  “Let’s play a bit,” Cayla said as she handed him his gitar. “The baby’s asleep and all bundled up for the night.”

  Zist took the gitar and started tuning it; he recognized her desire to calm them both down from the horrors of the burned wagon.

  Cayla adjusted her pipes slightly to match his gitar and then, with a twinkle in her eye, started into a lively reel, daring him to keep up.

  Zist smiled back at her, matched her pace, and then exceeded it, nodding a challenge back to her, only to find himself surprised as her fingers seemed to fly over the holes and switched pace and melody at once.

  “Very nice,” a voice called out from the darkness as they finished the reel in record time. “Have you any other songs?”

  Zist stood up quickly, started to grab for the cudgel he’d laid close to hand and stopped, raising his gitar instead. As a weapon it’d do in a pinch and it had the advantage of not being obvious.

  A thin, lanky figure stepped out of the shadows toward the fire.

  Zist’s eyes swept over him, then back to Cayla, who’d turned her back to the fire and was scanning the darkness. She trilled a quick note on her pipes but Zist wasn’t fooled—the note was a D sharp, three notes up from C, meaning that Cayla had spotted three others around the fire.

&nb
sp; Pretending to check his gitar, Zist glanced behind the stranger and caught sight of the gleam of several pairs of eyes. He strummed his gitar twice, changing chords, as though checking his tuning but really letting Cayla know his tally of two. That made five, total.

  “There’s a baby in the wagon, she’s sleeping,” a woman’s voice called from the far side of their wagon. Six.

  Zist tensed, his jaw clenched angrily.

  “Her name’s Carissa,” Cayla replied in an easy tone to the woman. “Please don’t disturb her, she’s impossible to get back to sleep.”

  “What are you doing camped out here on Gar land?” the first man asked.

  “We’re heading down to Southern Boll,” Zist said quickly. “We were hoping to trade tunes and news.”

  “That’s harper’s work,” the man said.

  The man was only visible as a shadow in the night; Zist couldn’t see his face. The question was, was the man one of the Shunned or one of Hold Gar? And if he was from Hold Gar, was he the same one who’d burned the other wagon—if that’s what had really happened?

  Cayla took the decision out of his hands. “We’re hoping to sing to those that harpers wouldn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t know any healing would you?” the woman at the back of the wagon called out anxiously. “For my Jenni’s got a terrible fever.”

  “I don’t know much,” Cayla said cautiously.

  The woman rushed from the back of the wagon and into the firelight. In her arms she held a tightly wrapped bundle, which she started to thrust into Cayla’s hands but stopped, thinking better of it.

  “Maybe you ought not,” the woman said. “My Jenni’s got a terrible fever; I wouldn’t want your wee one to get it, too.”

  “We’ve probably all got it,” the man by the fire grumbled sourly. “Three dead already…”

  “They weren’t the ones in the wagon a ways back?” Zist asked thoughtfully.

  “You found them, eh?” the man replied. Zist nodded and the man peered at him thoughtfully. “Thought it was some holder folk who set fire to the wagon, didn’t you?”

  He saw Zist’s reaction and laughed bitterly, shaking his head.

  “Other days it would have been,” the man said, and spat toward the fire. “Some of them holders would do it just for fun.”

  “You shouldn’t say that, Malir,” the woman snapped at him. The baby in her arms bawled feebly and she forgot whatever else she was going to say, instead peering down worriedly at the baby and feeling her forehead with her free hand. Horrified, she cried to Cayla, “Oh, she’s burning up! Is there anything you can do?”

  “When did the fever start and were there other symptoms?” Zist asked, turning to the woman.

  “What about those others you mentioned?” Cayla asked, turning to Malir.

  Malir gestured to the woman across the fire.

  “Yona knows it all, let her tell it,” he said, turning abruptly and disappearing into the shadows to confer, Zist guessed, with the others who had kept out of sight.

  Zist turned back to the woman, Yona.

  “Here, sit down by the fire,” Cayla said, gesturing to a comfortable spot.

  “Start heating some water,” she ordered Zist, “and get the herbals from the wagon.” She paused, frowning, frantically reviewing in her head the lore she’d learned from Mikal about fevers. “I think Carissa is safe enough in the wagon for the moment.”

  “She is, with my man and his crew guarding us,” Yona declared.

  As Zist set about his errands, Cayla turned to the other woman, for the first time able to examine her carefully. Yona’s face was lined with dirt, grime, and the strain of years of rough living. Even so, Cayla noted, there were laugh lines around her eyes. Life had been hard on Yona, Cayla surmised, but not unbearable. At least until now.

  “So tell me about the others,” Cayla said, making herself relax in order to encourage Yona to do the same. “Who got sick first and when was it noticed?”

  “Mara was first,” Yona said after a moment’s reflection. She shook her head, adding, “It’s hard to remember, because Kenner got sick just after and then their baby, little Koria.”

  She raised her eyes to meet Cayla’s and told her, “I’m the one the others come to for healing in our group. Not that I know all that much, it’s just that they started asking once and they’ve never stopped.”

  Cayla nodded understandingly.

  “So it was Mara, Koria’s mother, then Mara’s mate, and finally their baby—was that the order?”

  Yona nodded.

  “And beside the fever, were there any other symptoms?”

  “They were always thirsty, and coughing,” Yona told her. “They couldn’t drink enough and”—she paused delicately—“everything they ate came out really quick, from one end or the other.”

  Cayla nodded, showing no sign of unease. “What remedies did you try?”

  By the end of the third day there were five sick in the camp: baby Jenni; an older man named Vero; Nikka, a young girl; Torellan, Malir’s lieutenant; and Yona.

  Zist found himself splitting his time between caring for Carissa and fetching herbs for Cayla, who was completely immersed in her attempts to find a cure for the fever.

  After Zist had finished getting Carissa down for the night, he left the wagon and gathered fuel for the fire. On his return, he noticed that Cayla had fallen asleep, propped up against the wagon wheel nearest the fire’s warmth.

  He peered down at her fondly for a moment, then shook himself and started to the back of the wagon to get a blanket for her. The sound of footsteps startled him and he turned quickly. It was Malir.

  “The baby’s dead,” he said, his face etched with pain and eyes dull with fatigue. “She died just moments ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Go,” Malir ordered. Zist drew a breath to console the distraught man, but Malir silenced him with a shake of his head. “The others think it’s your missus’s fault; they’re talking about burning our wagon—and yours.”

  “Come with us,” Zist suggested.

  Malir shook his head. “I’ll stay with my kind,” he said. He snorted when he saw Zist’s expression. “You’ve had too many meals recently to be one of us,” Malir told him. “The others haven’t noticed yet but they will, they will.”

  Malir shook his head, adding, “Anyways, if we went with you, they’d come after us for sure, certain that we were in this together.”

  Zist cast about for another way to make his argument but Malir forestalled him with an impatient gesture. “Go, now! Before they come after you.”

  Pellar was the first to hear the returning wagon, just as Master Zist had promised. He ran out under the archway from the Harper Hall. He unshielded the glows in the basket he’d kept ready and recharged for the past six months.

  “No, Pellar!” Zist shouted, his voice hoarse and oddly troubled. It took Pellar a moment to realize that the harper’s voice was tearstrained. “Get the healer and make everyone stay away.” He gestured from his seat to the covered part of the wagon, “They’re sick. It might be fever.”

  It was. Master Zist’s wife, Cayla, and their baby daughter, Carissa, were confined to the wagon. Masterhealer Kilti tried everything.

  Pellar set himself up in a tent nearby, ready to run errands whenever Zist wished. But nothing he nor Masterhealer Kilti could do helped. Even Mikal, who had come at Pellar’s first desperate pleading, could find no cure. First little Carissa, then Cayla, succumbed to the fever.

  An anguished cry, more felt than heard, startled Pellar out of his sleep and he raced to the wagon to find Master Zist leaning against it, his face buried in his hands. Pellar knew without asking that Cayla had lost her battle with the fever. Tentatively, he reached for the taller harper, awkwardly patting him only to gasp in surprise as Zist grabbed him into a tight embrace. Pellar hugged the older man back tightly until he felt Zist relax.

  Then Pellar pulled out his slate and wrote on it, “I should have come w
ith you.”

  He thrust it under Master Zist’s tear-bleared eyes. Zist read it and shook his head. “Then you would have been lost, too.”

  Pellar shook his head fiercely, gently pulled his slate out of the harper’s limp hands, erased its message with a corner of his nightshirt, and wrote once more, “Wouldn’t have mattered.”

  Zist read the new note and shook his head. “You do matter, Pellar. I’m glad you stayed behind, I’m glad you’re here.” He hugged the youngster once more. “Now, please go tell the healer.”

  Pellar gave Master Zist a cautionary look, so reminiscent of those Zist had used all too often on his mischievous charge that the harper felt his lips curving upward in spite of his sorrow. Satisfied, Pellar nodded to himself, spun on his heel, and raced off to fetch the Masterhealer.

  In the Turn that followed, Pellar was never far from the harper, doing whatever he could to console him in his grief, a grief he himself shared. Pellar helped dig the graves, one so terribly little, with tears streaming down his face as he remembered little Carissa’s first and only word: “Pellah!”

  He stood up front with Masterharper Murenny and Masterhealer Kilti while Master Zist said his last farewells to his wife and daughter. And he was by Zist’s side months later when he planted the first fresh buds of spring on their graves.

  And now Pellar stood outside the Masterharper’s door, carefully listening to the conversation inside.

  “You should have seen them, Murenny,” Pellar heard Master Zist saying. “Some of them were no more than skin and bones.”

  “They were Shunned, they had their chance,” Masterharper Murenny reminded him.

  “Not the children,” Zist responded heatedly. “And some of them were Shunned for no more than not giving favors to the Lord Holder or their local Craftmaster. Where’s the justice in that?”

  Master Murenny sighed in agreement. “But what more can we do?”

  “We—” Zist cut himself off. Pellar held his breath so as not to make any sound, but it wasn’t enough. With a resigned sigh, Zist rose from his chair, saying, “Hold on.”