Dragon’s Kin

Chapter IX

Well, I’ve given up.” Master Zist sat back on his haunches with a disgusted look. “I’ve read everything I could, got Tarri to bring me references up from Crom itself, and we still don’t know anything more about our voracious friend here than what we’ve learned ourselves in the past three months.”

Kindan, Zenor, and Nuella all nodded in agreement.

“They’re smarter than fire-lizards,” Zenor said stalwartly. One of Tarri’s traders had a fire-lizard, and Zenor had observed it closely the last time the caravan had come.

“And Kisk, at least, can sense when I’m sad or happy,” Kindan said, his voice breaking as he spoke. Zenor grinned at his discomfort, earning a scowl from Kindan. He was glad that the Harper had not commented on Kindan’s voice—which seemed all squeak and growl, either too high or too low. He remembered with deep regret how horribly he’d teased Kaylek when the older boy’s voice had broken.

“I’ll bet you’d be happier if she could understand when you’re sleepy,” Nuella murmured.

“Oh, not to worry, Nuella,” Master Zist said with a wave of his hand. “Kindan’s just turned twelve, and as soon as he hits his growth, he’ll find himself a night owl just like Kisk, here.”

Zenor, who had shot up in the past several months, nodded glumly. “Growth spurts hurt, Kindan,” he said. “But at least you won’t worry about your sleep schedule.”

Zenor had teased Nuella when he’d passed her height, but she had ignored him. However, when Kisk grew tall enough to butt her head, Nuella had been quite startled.

“Well, it’s only fair,” Zenor had joked in his new, deep voice. “You started growing earlier and have been taller all this time. It’s about time you got a dose of your own medicine.”

Kindan, whose height was still less than Nuella’s, wisely kept quiet. In fact, if he didn’t grow soon, Kisk’s shoulders would be level with his.

She was twelve hands high at the shoulder, and nearly forty hands from nose to tail. She had all the size of a near-grown workbeast like those pulling the drays.

“She’s filled out a fair bit, too,” Master Zist commented, patting Kisk firmly on the side of her neck. Her muscles, always visible under her skin, were now tight and well formed, firm with strength. “I think she’ll reach her full height in another two months or so.”

“Is that earlier than dragons?” Kindan asked.

“Hmm, there’s one way to find out,” Master Zist said. He stood up. “Kindan, why don’t you leave Kisk in our care while you go to the watch-heights? I’m sure M’tal would like to see how well your watch-wher’s grown.”

“You’re going to send for a dragonrider?” Nuella asked in amazement.

“He’s an old friend of mine,” Master Zist confided.

“But I thought that Telgar wouldn’t answer the call.”

“Weyrleader M’tal,” Kindan said, pausing to savor his friends’ astonishment, “leads Benden, not Telgar.”

“Benden!” Zenor and Nuella gasped in unison. Both of them had been born and raised in Camp Natalon. Crom Hold was an unimaginable distance to them, Telgar Weyr a place only in the rarest of dreams. They couldn’t begin to imagine a place as distant as Benden Weyr.

“All right, Kindan, now that you’ve seen their jaws drop, you can run off and drum out the call,” Master Zist said drolly. “You do remember it?”

“Zist requests M’tal,” Kindan recited easily.

Kindan knew that it would take some time before M’tal would even get the drum message and probably longer still before the Weyrleader could find time to respond.

Winter had come again to the Camp. Toldur and his evening shift had finished cutting the new shaft into the mine. There had been a special Gather at Natalon’s hold to celebrate. Because there were no traders, Nuella couldn’t attend. It had looked like Master Zist would have to handle the evening’s entertainment by himself, but Nuella, with Zenor’s connivance, had volunteered to watch Kisk.

“She’ll need exercise,” Kindan had warned.

Nuella had dismissed that with a toss of her head. “You can exercise her when you get back. I’ll keep her here, thank you.”

“How will you get back to the hold?” Kindan had asked.

“How else? You and Kisk will escort me,” Nuella had replied. “Honestly, don’t you think everyone will be too tired to notice or, more likely, asleep?”

Kindan had cheered up. “Thanks, Nuella. I appreciate this.”

Nuella smiled at him. Then she added, “Don’t think I won’t remember it, you know.”

“And I’ll keep Zenor out of trouble,” Kindan had added.

“That goes without saying,” Nuella had responded, shoving him out the door.

“You’re lucky she was willing to take the risk,” Master Zist had commented later. “I’m afraid this is the last time we’ll be able to perform together.”

“What?” Kindan had been aghast.

“Think about it,” Master Zist had said. “Your watch-wher is getting bigger. She’s almost old enough to start training. And then she’ll start work. Watch-whers work—and train—at night. There will be very few Gathers during the day until the thaw. And then you’ll be working full-time.”

Kindan had been thunderstruck. He had known that becoming the wherhandler had meant that he couldn’t remain Master Zist’s apprentice, but he had hoped to always be able to find time to perform with the Harper. Master Zist had seen the look on his face and had worked carefully to cheer Kindan up before the Gather, finding dainties for him and talking encouragingly about the watch-wher and Kindan’s sacrifice for the good of the miners.

Kindan was sad when he returned to the shed after the Gather. He found Kisk and Nuella curled up together in the straw. He woke Nuella, and Kisk stretched luxuriously in what appeared to be the beginnings of a long, active night.

“What’s wrong?” Nuella asked on the silent walk back up to the hold. Kindan told her. “It has to happen, Kindan,” she said. “The night shift only sees a Gather on a restday. You can’t be at Gathers and in the mines at the same time.”

“I know,” he replied sadly. He looked at Kisk, whose great eyes whirled green and blue in her love for him, and sighed. “But I liked singing and playing.”

“You’re not much good for singing, with your voice going up and down like that,” Nuella remarked. Kindan grunted sourly.

“You know,” Nuella said after an uncomfortable silence, “that new mine shaft’s awfully close to Father’s secret passage.”

“Secret passage?” Kindan repeated.

“Yes, the one that I used to get Master Zist back to his cottage before you the first day he came,” she answered. She smiled in memory. “You should have heard the way you reacted! All panting and then gasping in shock. I nearly burst when I heard you.”

Kindan stopped, struck by a sudden inspiration. “Nuella, can you show me that passage?”

It had taken very persuasive talk on Kindan’s part to finally get Nuella to agree to let him see the secret passageway.

“You’ll wait until after dark, of course,” Nuella told him. “Then meet me on the second-floor landing.”

“I want to bring Kisk,” Kindan objected.

“Well, of course you do,” Nuella said. “You told me that it’d be good training for her. Although I think it’d be more for you—she can see in the dark.”

Kindan shrugged. “We have to work together.”

“I understand,” Nuella said condescendingly. “So meet me tonight, after I’ve finished my lesson with Master Zist.”

“After?”

“Well, you can’t expect me to go along and miss my lessons, can you?” she asked with a touch of exasperation.

“You’re coming?”

“How are you going to find your way about without me?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. “It’s not as though you’ll be able to see in the dark, you know.”

Kindan gave in with a reluctant sigh. “Fine. I’ll see you tonight.” Then he frowned. “But why do you want to meet on the second floor? Why not by the kitchen?”

“Because the entrance to the secret passageway is on the second floor,” she told him simply.

From the very start, things did not go the way Kindan had planned. He found himself at the end of a line with Nuella leading Kisk.

“Why am I back here?” he complained as they reached the first turn in the passageway. He stumbled and caught himself.

“That’s why,” Nuella replied calmly. “You want Kisk to learn how to lead people safely in the dark, don’t you? Well, how can she do that if all you can teach her is how to stumble around?”

“But it’s dark in here,” Kindan said, defensively.

Nuella snorted. “It’s no darker here than it is anywhere else for me,” she said. “Honestly, Kindan, have you never tried walking with your eyes closed?”

“No,” Kindan replied, stumbling on a rock and going down hard on his knees—again.

“Well, it’s time you learned,” Nuella said. She added conversationally, “It was the first game I learned to play with Dalor.”

“Really?”

“Well, he used to tease me so much and it really got to me,” she admitted. “But my mother asked me one day why didn’t I play a game that showed my strengths, not my weaknesses. So we started playing in the dark.” She added with a laugh, “It got so that I used to move the furniture around to make Dalor trip.”

Kindan, feeling the smart from his shins, still couldn’t understand why he was behind Kisk and Nuella was in front of her. Nuella’s explanation was that she could show Kisk where to go, and it made no sense for the two of them, who could “see” well enough in the dark, to have to halt their stride just because Kindan couldn’t. But it was a pity the passageway wasn’t quite wide enough for Kindan to travel side by side with Kisk.

“How much farther is it?” he asked when he felt that they’d gone on forever. He regretted letting Nuella convince him that they should leave the glows behind. What if something happened to her? But, Kindan reflected ruefully, everything so far had happened to him.

“I told you,” Nuella’s voice carried back in a whisper from somewhere up ahead, “there are two turns, this last one and another gentler one. The sharp turn comes about one third of the way along, and the gentle turn comes about three-quarters of the way along. Of course, it’s just the opposite on the way back.”

Kisk turned her head back and blew a soft reassurance at Kindan.

“Hey! I can almost see her eyes,” he said excitedly.

“Almost?” Nuella repeated. “How can you almost see something?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. Like maybe I can, maybe I can’t,” he replied, trying to recall the image now that Kisk had turned her head back.

Nuella’s reply was thoughtful. “Sometimes I think I can see things that way, too. It’s like when I dream. My eyes worked fine until I was about three, you know. Mother thinks that’s why I see things when I dream. It’s rather confusing, to be honest.”

Kindan, whose light-starved eyes were reporting all sorts of strange lights, nodded in understanding.

At least the air was cool and clean, he noted. He brushed his fingers against a wall, as Nuella had advised him, and corrected his course slightly. Originally he had tried holding on to Kisk’s tail, but the watch-wher had flicked it away from him impatiently.

The sound of Nuella’s breathing and the lighter, faster breathing of the watch-wher were reassuring in the darkness. Kindan stopped feeling wrong-footed—blind—and started feeling more comfortable in the darkness. He strained his ears, hoping to hear with Nuella’s ease, but admitted after a while that it was hard.

“You’re thinking too much,” Nuella’s voice piped out of the darkness. “Just listen. Don’t try so hard.”

“How did you know what I was doing?” he demanded, eyes bulging in surprise.

“Your breathing changed,” she said simply. “You took a really deep breath, then a couple of short ones, and then you started breathing in spurts.”

Kindan sighed.

“And just then you sighed because I guessed what you were thinking,” Nuella went on. She giggled. “I used to play this game with Dalor, too. It really infuriated him.”

“I can understand,” Kindan said feelingly.

“Okay,” Nuella said, “I’ll stop now. But just listen, okay?”

Kindan nodded, not worrying whether Nuella could “hear” him or not, and the three continued on in unlit silence.

After a while, Kindan noticed that his right hand was brushing against the wall. He moved to the left, but noticed a short while later that his hand was brushing the wall again.

“Is it curving now?”

“Very good,” Nuella said. “I was wondering if you’d notice.”

“So we’re almost there?”

“Yep. About fifty more paces,” Nuella told him. That had been another surprise to Kindan, being told he had to keep count of the number of paces he took. He’d forgotten to keep counting, too, and wondered if Nuella had or if she had just memorized the distances.

“Wait,” she called. “Listen.”

Kindan strained his ears. He felt Kisk turn her head this way and that.

“Can you hear it?” Nuella asked after a long moment.

“No,” Kindan confessed.

“It sounds like they’re putting up the entrance for the second shaft,” Nuella said. “It’s just through the rock on the right here.”

“How far?” Kindan wondered.

“Not more than half a meter, probably less,” she answered promptly. “I heard Father talking. I’m sure he had it made that way on purpose, so that this passage could be connected to the two shafts before the next Pass.”

That made sense. When Thread started to fall again it wouldn’t be safe to have people going outside to get into the mines; with the passage, people would be able to go straight from the Hold to the mine without venturing outside at all.

Perhaps, Kindan mused, Natalon had also thought of building a special enclosure so that all the mined coal could be safely stored without worrying about Thread.

Thread was voracious—Kindan knew that as well as any child in the camp. The Teaching Ballads said it would eat anything organic—flesh or coal. He was glad that the next Pass, when the Red Star drew Thread down on the planet, would not be for another fourteen Turns. Kindan realized that he’d be really old by then—twenty-six Turns.

“That’ll be a good thing for the next Pass,” Kindan said aloud.

“Only if the Camp is proved,” Nuella responded. “Otherwise it’ll all be a waste, like Uncle Tarik’s Camp.”

“What do you know about that?” he asked, intensely curious.

“Shh!” Nuella hissed. She added, in a whisper, “We’re getting near the end of the passage. I’ll tell you later.”

Nuella had explained, when she had first shown Kindan the entrance to the passage, that the exit was in a pocket toward the back of the mine entrance, close to where the shaft’s huge pumps were placed.

“Father had it built to look like part of the supports,” she had said.

Kindan could well imagine that no one would guess about the existence of the passage: It had been expertly concealed at the back of the upstairs hall closet in Natalon’s hold. What had looked like simple round trim at the top and bottom of the back wall had turned out to hide carefully crafted latches that slid back top and bottom on one corner when Nuella moved them. Only someone who had known how they worked would have had a chance of discovering them.

On the other side were protruding dowels: When pushed in, they caused the door to close neatly, so that no one, even someone who knew about the secret passage, would know they had entered.

The doorway to the exit was much the same. Kindan guessed that Cannehir, Crom’s itinerant woodsmith, must have made the doors. Kindan wondered how many other people knew about the “secret” passageway. He made a mental note to ask Nuella later.

He felt a change in the air in front of him, and a lighter spot showed ahead.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Opening the door,” she answered. “You didn’t think we’d come all the way here without going into the mines, did you?”

“Are you mad?” Kindan shot back, thinking that it was becoming the most common question he asked this uncommon girl. “We’ll be seen.”

“By who? Toldur’s crew are still working on the other shaft,” she replied, unperturbed. “Dalor told me that you can’t see here from the pumps, and that’s the only place people would be.”

“Dalor told you?” Kindan whispered back, eyes wide.

“Sure,” Nuella said. “You don’t think this is the first time I’ve come here, do you?”

“Of course not—you were here at least once before, with Master Zist.”

“Exactly,” she agreed in a tone that told Kindan she had been here many more times than just that once. “How is Kisk here going to learn the mines if she doesn’t explore them?”

“But we might get caught,” he responded, sweat beading on his forehead. “And no one’s supposed to go into the mines without the shift leader knowing. What if there were a cave-in? We’d be trapped.”

“I suppose you’re right about that,” she admitted after a moment’s silence. “I hadn’t thought about it before.”

Kindan snorted, remembering how he had had to remind Nuella to put on a hard hat—there was a shelf of them behind the secret door into the passageway. Everyone who ever went into the mines was taught to wear a hard hat as a matter of reflex.

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “I suppose we could turn back.”

Kindan sighed. He was as reluctant as Nuella to turn back, but he had heard too often about the dangers in the mines—and he could still remember the cave-in and Dask’s bleeding body—to be willing to take such a grave risk. “Yes. Next time we can tell someone—maybe Dalor?”

“Dalor would be perfect,” Nuella agreed. “Maybe Zenor. I don’t know about Master Zist.”

“Seeing as you’re in front,” Nuella said after they’d retreated through the door and closed it, “why don’t you lead us back? It’ll be good practice for you.”

It was. When they came across the gentle turn a quarter of the way back, he walked right into the wall.

“I told you to count your paces,” Nuella commented unsympathetically when she realized what he’d done.

Kindan groaned, rubbing his sore nose.

Nuella smothered a laugh. “Well, maybe it hurts enough to keep you from making that mistake again. Clearly, my telling you isn’t enough.”

Kindan started counting his paces. His pace was shorter than Nuella’s, who was still taller than him, but he corrected for the difference and was delighted when he accurately made the sharp right turn two-thirds of the way back to the hold’s entrance.

“I think we’re at the door,” he said not long after, when his pacing told him they should be there.

“Yup, I can smell it,” Nuella confirmed.

Kindan felt for the dowels at the top and bottom of the door, and slid them back.

“Wait!” Nuella whispered cautiously. “Listen first. You never know when someone might be out there.”

A sudden rush of fear and anger at his own foolishness swept through him, and for a moment he could not hear anything but the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.

Nuella laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I just don’t think it’d be easy to explain you and a watch-wher suddenly appearing from our closet.” She listened some more and then said, “All clear.”

Kindan slowly opened the door to reveal the still-dark closet. He cautiously opened the closet door and peered around before beckoning Kisk to come through. Nuella followed behind and they closed the door.

“I’ll lead you down to the kitchen door,” she said.

“Is this light too bright for you, Kisk?” Kindan anxiously asked the watch-wher, wondering if he could shield her eyes with his hands.

Nuella flicked open the closet door and pulled something out. “How about this?” she asked, handing him a robe.

Kindan, who had been watching Kisk closely, shook his head. “She seems okay. Glows don’t seem to bother her all that much.”

“Well, I’ll bring it anyway,” Nuella said. “It might be cold outside.”

But they needed it before they got outside. In the kitchen, Kisk skittered away from the open hearth and its roaring fire, making anxious noises in the back of her throat. Kindan quickly grabbed the robe from Nuella and shielded Risk’s eyes from the fire. Her anxiety diminished immediately, and she gave Kindan a thankful noise.

“You know,” Kindan said thoughtfully, “we’d never get away with this in a proper Hold. There’d be a guard or something.”

“Well, this is more like a house, isn’t it?” Nuella said. “And Milla only comes down to feed the fire when she gets chills.”

Coming outside into the cold evening air, Kindan felt as though he’d awoken from a dream.

“Well, thanks,” he said to Nuella as she stood in the doorway. “We’ll be going back to the shed now.”

“You’re welcome,” Nuella returned with a small smile. Shyly, she asked, “Do you want to try again tomorrow night?”

“Maybe,” Kindan said. “We’re hoping M’tal might come tomorrow.”

“Could I meet him, do you think?” Nuella asked.

“I don’t know,” Kindan said hesitantly. “What would your father say?”

Nuella dismissed his objection with a wave of her hand. “Who cares? It’s not like the Weyrleader of Benden is going to tell on me, is it?”

Kindan was still not sure. “Master Zist says that the more a secret is shared, the less it is a secret. Soon everyone knows.”

” ‘Secrets like to be free,’ ” Nuella quoted in agreement. “My mother always says that.”

“That sounds right,” Kindan agreed. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?”

“All right,” Nuella said. But she sounded as if she expected to be disappointed.

As Kindan drifted off to sleep that night, he couldn’t help wondering which would disappoint Nuella more—not being able to meet a dragonrider or not going into the mine. As he considered the question, he imagined that Nuella rarely had a chance to stretch her legs or get out and about, until he realized that she’d probably spent a lot of time navigating around the hold. She’d certainly done enough exploring to find and memorize the secret passageway. He fell asleep wistfully remembering the ease with which Nuella had navigated the dark corridor.

“She’s really grown,” M’tal said as he examined Kisk in the darkened shed. The Weyrleader had come the third day after Kindan drummed out his message. They were lucky to catch him, as the snows had settled in on the high mountains, including Benden Weyr. While snow was no deterrent to dragons and dragonriders—M’tal told an envious Kindan that the Weyr was naturally warm during winter—it could cause problems for holders and crafters caught unawares. M’tal and his Weyr had spent the first seven-day after the snowfall rescuing people trapped by the cold or isolated without needed supplies.

Kindan’s eyes had widened when he heard that—for he’d never heard of any Telgar dragonrider bothering to check up on the holders or crafters during foul weather. And, after his encounter with D’gan, Weyrleader of Telgar, he could understand why. The two Weyrleaders were clearly cut from very different cloth.

“And you say she sees in the dark?” M’tal mused now. “Dragons can’t, you know.”

“Yes, she’s—” Kindan stopped, not wanting to break Nuella’s secret about the passageways. “I think she’s almost ready to go in the mines,” he added hastily.

M’tal patted Kisk gently and rubbed his hands over her body.

“Not quite a dragon in miniature,” he commented. “She’s got more muscles—at least that I can feel. She feels well grown. And you say her skin never itched or cracked?”

Both Kindan and Master Zist shook their heads and said in unison, “Never a bit.”

M’tal sighed feelingly. “I wish I could say the same with Gaminth.”

“What we were wondering, old friend,” Master Zist said to the dragonrider, “is whether there is any lore gathered in the Weyrs that might help us in training Kisk, here.”

M’tal stroked his chin thoughtfully. Then he grimaced. “Not at Benden, as far as I know. What about the Harper Hall?”

Master Zist shook his head ruefully. “My request to the Harper Hall for any information on watch-whers crossed their request for all the information I had on watch-whers.”

“Apparently watch-whers have become forgotten on Pern.” M’tal frowned. “I don’t like that. They were clearly bred from the same source as dragons, so there must have been a need for them. We shouldn’t have lost that lore.” Gently he extended Kisk’s vestigial wings. “I can’t imagine how she could fly with these.”

“My father once flew Dask,” Kindan reported.

M’tal looked up. “Really? How?”

“It was late at night,” Kindan replied. “I don’t think they went up too high,” he added. “I think my father was afraid of heights.”

“They fly at night?” M’tal mused. He continued thoughtfully. “And they see in the dark, don’t they? Perhaps they were bred for night.”

“So it would seem,” Master Zist agreed. “Kisk is much more active during the night—definitely nocturnal and not just light sensitive.”

“She’s certainly smarter than a fire-lizard,” M’tal noted. “I wonder...” He trailed off, frowning.

Suddenly, Kisk’s body jerked, and she gave a questioning chirp.

M’tal patted her soothingly. “That’s just Gaminth, my dragon,” he reassured her. He turned to the others, eyes alight with excitement. “Gaminth can speak to her!”

“Really?” Master Zist said.

“Wow!” Kindan exclaimed, glancing at Kisk admiringly. Then he asked her, “Can you talk to Gaminth, too?”

M’tal’s eyes widened with the possibilities. “That is certainly worth exploring, Kindan.”

“If watch-whers could talk to dragons, send messages...” Master Zist murmured, imagining all the ways in which such communication could benefit people, dragons, and watch-whers.

“I must think about this,” the Weyrleader said, still lost in thought. He slapped his hand against his thigh decisively. “Zist, if you don’t mind—and you, too, Kindan—I’d like to mention this to some acquaintances of mine. Perhaps we can help each other in learning more about watch-whers.”

“Sure.”

“Certainly.”

M’tal nodded his thanks. “In that case, I must be off. I shall return as soon as I can, maybe in company.” And with that, he departed.

“And you didn’t even tell me!” Nuella shrieked at Kindan the next morning. Kindan was still groggy from the late night—Kisk had remained excited for most of the evening and it was only when the first light of dawn could be seen that she became even remotely tired.

“It was all so sudden,” he protested. “Lord M’tal arrived and came straight into the shed, examined Kisk, and then—he was gone.”

“Hmmph!” Nuella was not in the least comforted. “And now you want me to help you into the mines? Why should I?”

“Because you offered,” he replied, wishing that somehow Nuella would retreat from her anger.

Kindan’s wish was granted. The head miner’s daughter drummed her fingers on her leg for a moment, flared her nostrils in one last spat of anger, and sighed. “All right,” she agreed. “But only because Kisk needs the training. And only if you tell me everything that dragonrider M’tal said last night.”

Kindan did so, his narration interrupted constantly by Nuella’s questions. Kindan realized as he answered her that Nuella was very good at illuminating every detail of a conversation. Her questions reminded him of things he’d forgotten and brought nuances of the conversation to light for him that he otherwise wouldn’t have seen.

“All right,” she said at last, standing up and dusting herself off determinedly. “Meet me at the hold this evening after my classes with Master Zist.”

“This evening?” Kindan was surprised. Nuella, despite her eagerness, had had to postpone their sojourn the past three nights.

“Yes,” she said. “Dalor will meet you and bring you upstairs.”

“Ah, so you convinced him, eh?” Kindan muttered.

“Not so much convinced as blackmailed,” she admitted. “I happen to know who he’s sweet on, you see.”

Kindan’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed again thoughtfully. Dalor was growing steadily and thickening out into a strong-muscled young man. Kindan himself was in that awkward stage of adolescence where his voice was neither fish nor fowl. In some ways it was a relief that he had Kisk to train; he would have hated the disappointment his breaking voice would doubtless have given Master Zist.

“And he’s gotten taller than me,” Nuella added in an aggrieved tone. “I can’t use him as a double anymore.”

“You’ve changed, too,” Kindan countered. “You couldn’t pass as Dalor even if he hadn’t gotten taller.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nuella demanded. “Oh, I suppose his voice is different, but if he kept silent, no one could tell.”

“Nuella, we’re all growing up,” Kindan responded. “I’ve noticed it, you’ve noticed it, and I’m sure Zenor’s noticed it.”

“Oh.” Nuella paused. “Do you think so?” she asked, her tone wistful.

“Yes,” he replied firmly, relieved that he’d managed not to burst out laughing at her response. It seemed he knew who Nuella was sweet on, too!

“Don’t you dare tell him,” she warned him icily.

This time, Nuella made a point of letting Kindan lead the way through the secret passageway from the hold to the mine. He had to reassure Kisk that he would be right back before the watch-wher would let him leave them. Quickly he scouted out the area around the pumps, making certain that it was possible to get from the secret door to the lifts. Then he came back for Nuella and Kisk.

He led them to the lifts without alarm, although his heart raced as they clambered onto the platform and he began to lower them down. The mine lifts were built to operate in parallel: When one was lowered, the other was raised, so that there was always a lift at the top and the bottom of the mine shaft. Kindan was sure that the noise of the lifts would be heard throughout the mine on such a still night.

As soon as they reached the bottom, he hustled them off the lift and over into a spot unlit by glows. When his pulse had slowed enough for him to think, he peered around to see the lay of the land.

“Come on,” Nuella said impatiently, pushing past Kindan and turning to the left.

“We’re heading south,” Kindan observed quietly.

“I know,” Nuella replied testily. “South is where Father’s shift is digging the new street.”

Natalon had adopted the convention of calling tunnels dug through the length of the coal seam “streets,” and the tunnels dug through the width of the coal seam were called “avenues.” In Natalon’s mine, “streets” ran east-west, while “avenues” ran north-south.

There were already two streets dug into the coal seam, both north of the main mine shaft. Natalon’s new street was being dug one-third of the way between the current mine shaft and the newly dug shaft that Toldur’s crew had just finished. What the miners called “main avenue” had been dug following the edge of the coal seam north and south of the first mine shaft. It met and went beyond the new mine shaft toward the very edges of the coal seam. Natalon had ordered the tunneling southward to stop short of the end of the seam as he wanted to avoid the chance of tunneling into water under the lake.

The coal seam was thick, nearly two and a half meters. In making the streets, the miners had to dig out coal. As they progressed in their mining, they would divide the huge coal seam into “rooms,” leaving pillars of coal to support the rock above the seam. Now that the surface seams were all depleted on Pern, this “room and pillar” mining was the only method practical with the tools and manpower available.

Each of the east-west running streets followed the sloping coal seam as it angled deeper into the mountain range. Kindan knew that there were several north-south avenues cut between the older streets, but the miners had not yet started on a connecting avenue to Natalon’s newest east-west street.

“The glows are dim around here,” he said, looking at one flickering glow mounted on a joist.

“Really? I’d hardly noticed,” Nuella replied with a grin. Kindan snorted.

“How come you’re in front?” he asked a few paces later.

Nuella raised her arms slowly to either side. She shook her head. “I don’t know, the tunnel’s wide enough for all of us.”

Kindan bit back a tart reply, shook his head ruefully, and caught up to Nuella’s left side. Kisk poked her head between the two of them.

“Here’s the turn,” he said when they reached the new street.

“I know,” Nuella said.

Kindan didn’t bother to ask her how she knew; he had been around her long enough to guess that she’d either heard the difference in the sound of their footsteps or felt a breeze, or smelled new air, or something. There were times, he admitted to himself, when he had a hard time believing that she was blind.

Nuella turned right, into the new street.

“Wait!” Kindan called.

“Why?” she demanded.

“These supports,” he said. “There are an awful lot of them.” He ran a critical eye up and down the thick timbers that held the huge supporting beam overhead. There were three such joists in close succession, spaced within a meter. He walked past the opening to the new street and saw that there was a matching set of three joists on the far side of the new tunnel. “There are three joists on either side of the entrance.”

“I heard Father say he always puts in extra support when he starts a new tunnel,” Nuella said. She added, “He and Uncle Tarik were arguing at the time, actually. Uncle Tarik said that Father was being too worried and that a single joist would do just as well, but Father said you can never be too careful. Uncle Tarik said that there was no point in taking in all the extra time and effort so it was a waste.”

“I’ll bet he did! Him and his talk of people being ‘lazy’!”

Kindan noted as they went down the new street that there were three more joists on it, too, about two meters beyond the entrance. The glows were slightly brighter there, no doubt because Natalon and his shift would have wanted fresh glows to work with.

Kindan kept pace as he walked down the new street. Just as on the main avenue, tracks ran down the center for the coal carts. Nuella stumbled once on a poorly driven stake but recovered quickly. Her look dared Kindan to say something. He kept quiet.

The tracks ended when they had gone forty-eight meters down the new road. Kindan could clearly see the pick marks in the wall facing them just a few meters beyond.

Nuella continued forward, her right hand held up, palm out.

She stopped when her fingertips stroked the still-trapped coal. She felt the entire length of the wall, grimacing when she couldn’t reach the top.

She turned toward Kindan. “I always wanted to know what it was like where my father works,” she told him shyly. Then she grinned. “It’s not bad!”

Kindan, looking at the dimming light and the dirty coal of the walls, shook his head in disbelief.

Nuella took in deep lungfuls of air. “Smell anything?” she asked after a moment.

Kindan sniffed. “Nope. The air’s a bit stale, maybe.”

“Well, Father said that part of the reason he wanted to make this new road was to see if there might be more of that bad smell Dask mentioned,” she told him. “He was afraid that if there was, it would show that the mine was too dangerous to work. Uncle Tarik said that’s what happened to his mine.” Nuella’s tone clearly showed that she didn’t believe him.

“But the accident was on Second Street,” Kindan protested. Second Street was the northernmost tunnel through the coal seam.

Nuella nodded. “That’s what Uncle Tarik said. But Father said that if the problem was at the west end of the field, it would probably stretch the whole way. If it was only at the northwest end of the field, then we could still work the southern part, unless we got too close to the lake.”

“Well, I don’t smell anything,” Kindan repeated.

“What about Kisk?” Nuella asked.

“What about her?”

“Well, isn’t she supposed to notice those sorts of things?” Nuella suggested.

“I suppose.”

“So,” she replied testily, “why don’t you ask her what she smells?”

Kindan finally understood that Nuella planned to start the watch-wher’s education there and then. With smelling.

“What can you smell, Kisk?”

The watch-wher made an inquiring noise.

“Come on, smell the air. See what you can smell. I smell coal and stale air, how about you?”

“Less talking, Kindan, more thinking,” Nuella snapped.

“What do you know about it?” he snapped back.

“I know just as much about training a watch-wher as you,” she responded. “More, in fact.”

“More?”

“Yes,” she replied, raising her head. “I’ve been playing with Larissa, teaching her.”

“What can you learn from a baby that you can teach a watch-wher?” Kindan demanded angrily.

“Manners, for one thing,” she said bitingly. “And it seems to me that Master Zist needs to work on yours.”

The two traded more barbed comments before Kindan cooled off. He paused, looking shyly at Nuella, whose nostrils were still flaring in anger—until he realized that his breathing was labored.

“Nuella, the air!” Kindan said. “It’s bad. Really bad, not just stale. We need to get out of here.”

Nuella looked up at him, took a deep breath, and nodded. “You’re right. I’ve got this terrible headache and it’s not just from your shouting.” She grinned. “Talk to Kisk.”

“What?”

“Tell her about the air—get her to remember what it smells like,” she said. “I’d been hoping this would happen.”

“Hoping?”

“Yes, so we can teach Kisk,” Nuella said. “Oh, do talk to her. Or must I do that, too?”

Kindan patted the watch-wher on the neck. “Do you smell the air, Kisk?” He took a deep breath by way of example. “It smells stale, doesn’t it?” He took another breath. “Stale.”

The watch-wher took a breath and let it out with a rasp. She looked up thoughtfully at Kindan and chirped, Errwll.

“Stale,” Kindan repeated, taking another breath.

Kisk took another breath. Errwll.

“You’ve learned a word!” Nuella exclaimed.

Kindan gave her a look and was glad that she couldn’t catch it. “I can’t see how you can say that errwll sounds like stale.”

“I didn’t say that. I said that you’ve learned a word. Now you know that when Kisk chirps ‘errwll’ she’s telling you that the air is stale.”

A look of comprehension dawned on Kindan’s face. “You mean, she’s teaching me her language?”

“I doubt watch-whers have a language. Even the dragons don’t have a language—they make noise for emphasis but they don’t speak. They don’t need to, they use telepathy,” Nuella said. “But that doesn’t mean that the two of you can’t work out ways to communicate together.” She stretched a probing hand out toward the watch-wher and, when she found it, gently rubbed Kisk’s nose. “What a good little girl.”

“We’d better go,” Kindan said. “My head is killing me.”

“See? And you’ve learned that your head aches when the air gets stale,” Nuella added triumphantly.

“I knew that already,” he replied. “My head ached for days after I pulled you guys out of your house.”

“Oh,” Nuella said, crestfallen, “right. I’d forgotten.”

Silently, Kindan turned back down the street. A moment later Nuella’s hand crept shyly into his and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Kindan could think of nothing to say.