Heart''s Blood

  "But my old room..." Akki began. The idea of sharing with two girls who were more than likely to be chatterers suddenly made her feel slightly sick. All that talking...

  "Everyone's been resettled in different rooms," Kkarina told her. "Voted on it. Consequences of being free, so they tell me. Though I'm too old to change, and I told them so. 'If you want me up and cooking every day, I need my own place.' And they gave it to me. As for the rest ... well, rooms assigned by age and by pair-bonding. Even Likkarn shares. Though I suppose, just for now, you could bunk in with me. It would be like old times, when you were a little girl and had nightmares and would run into my room for a snuggle and to fall asleep in Kay-Ma's arms."

  Kkarina will ask more questions than a do^en strangers, Akki thought. "I'm too old for nightmares," she said, sweetening it a bit by adding, "though if I have any, I'll know where to go."

  "Here we are," Kkarina said, pointing to a large sunny room with two double bunk beds, standing against opposite walls. She added, without actually needing to, "You've the choice of two beds."

  They were both lower bunks, and she chose the one on the north wall. There were sheets, pillows, pillowcases, and blankets folded on top of the mattresses.

  A mattress! It had been a year since she'd slept on a real mattress. Even an old, lumpy nursery mattress seemed like her idea of heaven.

  "I'll help you make the bed," Kkarina began, but Akki pushed her out of the room.

  "Just send someone for me when it's time to eat." She closed the door.

  "I could bring you ..." Kkarina's voice came through the door.

  But Akki didn't answer, having already gone back to the bed and flopped down on the unmade lower bunk. Curling around the stack of bedclothes, she snagged the pillow and stuffed it under her head. Without giving any more thought to what she was doing, she fell fast asleep.

  Akki dreamed of caves and beatings and holding her breath beneath a pool of blood-red water. She woke sweating, still holding her breath.

  "Jakkin!" She sent him a reprise of her dream. But wherever he was, he was too far away to hear her. Or else—and here she made a brilliant guess—he was in the shower. Water blocked sendings, as they'd discovered in the cave pool.

  She got up with no idea of how long she'd slept. It hadn't been an easy or comforting sleep, anyway, so she had no regrets about leaving the bed. In fact, she felt even more exhausted than she had before lying down.

  There was a small mirror tacked to the wall over a shared dresser. She stared at herself for a moment. No wonder Kkarina had been pressing food on her. Though she'd always been slim, now she was thinner than was healthy. I could cut someone with these cheekbones. She wondered why Jakkin had never said anything.

  "Jakkin!" She tried again, though they'd talked about not sending to one another, at least not when they were close. Surely they were far apart now. But she stopped herself from calling again.

  Something teased into her brain. Not a sending, but ... an odor. It was sharp and sweet at the same time. She could smell cooking. Her stomach began to growl. Looking at herself once again in the mirror, she shook her finger at her image. "Time to eat, skinny girl."

  She patted her hair down. It was still damp. So, she hadn't slept all that much after all.

  Leaving the room, she turned right and headed down the hall. She made her way quickly to the dining room. A low, quick chatter from the diners came through the closed door.

  Standing outside, she knew she couldn't go in alone. Of all the things she'd overcome in the last year, facing all the nursery workers—her old friends—in the dining hall now suddenly seemed the most overwhelming of all.

  ***

  BY THE TIME Jakkin got to the dining hall, the place was packed with nursery folk. He was surprised to find Akki waiting outside the door.

  "Forget how to open it?" he asked.

  "I couldn't face them without you." She sent him a tremulous small waterfall. "Just dealing with Kkarina was hard enough. I'd forgotten how much she likes to talk."

  He nodded in understanding, then peeked in through the door at the diners. Most of them he recognized, but he was surprised by the number of new faces. Normally, nursery workers didn't move about a whole lot, even in a year. He was about to send Akki an answering waterfall to show how he was nervous, too, when a tap on his shoulder made him turn.

  Slakk—less a friend than a hatchmate—grabbed his hand to shake it, and in his curiously flat voice, peppered Jakkin with questions. "I heard you were here. I heard! Are you okay? You've lost weight. Are you glad to be home?"

  Then, without waiting for any answers, Slakk pulled them both into the dining hall, where Jakkin's hand was shaken not once, but many times, by his old companions. Akki was enveloped in broad hugs. It was as if by touching him, by hugging Akki, the nursery folk could be sure that the two of them were really alive after all and not just a rumor.

  "Awfully solid for ghosts," Akki whispered to Jakkin, before she was whirled away from his side by more hugs.

  And the questions came at them like a rattle of rocks against a wall. "Were you hurt? Seen any feral dragons? What did you eat? How did you sleep? Did you learn to make fire? What about..."

  It was overwhelming and they both ended up silenced by the onslaught.

  Once they managed to sit down at a table, seated across from each other at the long dinner table, Jakkin realized that Akki was in new clothes, too. Bonder pants, a leather vest laced up the front, her hair still wet from the shower and tied back with a leather string. She sat upright, as if ready to flee, her mouth stretched thin, taut.

  Jakkin sent her a compliment, flowers in a green field. Her answer was a nod and a tentative smile, but she said nothing. She sent nothing back, either.

  His closest nursery bondmates—Slakk and Errikkin—sat on either side of him, and soon Akki was enclosed by two new girls. But, Jakkin thought, Akki is right. He'd forgotten how much people in the nursery liked to talk. Aloud! In the mountains he and Akki had spoken mostly with pictures. Sometimes they went days without speaking aloud. And the trogs didn't speak aloud at all. This cascade of spoken words was beginning to be a problem.

  Attending to the food seemed the easiest thing to do, so Jakkin dug in and for long minutes paid no attention to the conversation which flowed around him.

  The only one besides Jakkin and Akki who remained silent was Errikkin. He seemed a bit in awe of Jakkin, or possibly still embarrassed about his role in Jakkin's neararrest a year earlier. He held back, eyeing Jakkin with more curiosity than relief.

  But Slakk was irrepressible. Once he'd gotten through several slabs of lizard meat and a cup of takk, he started up a conversation. Perhaps conversation was not the right description, as he simply started peppering Jakkin with questions again.

  "Where were you?" he asked. "How come you didn't die? Why did you stay away so long? What did you find for food? Did you sleep on the ground? Did you know that we thought you were dead? Did you think about us? Did you try to get back home? Did you care?" All this rushed out like a river in full flood.

  Jakkin continued to eat slowly, gesturing to his full mouth, which worked at first.

  But the questions were taken up by the rest of the table.

  "Were you frightened?" This from one of the girls near Akki, a redhead with cropped hair.

  "Did you find an old barn or house to stay in?" asked Trikko, with that sly, knowing smile still plastered on his face.

  While they asked, Jakkin ate four boiled lizard eggs, using it as an excuse to offer nothing in return.

  Akki was equally silent, though she actually ate very little, mostly just pushing the food around her plate.

  Slakk went on. "Were you really in the mountains or did you get to Krakkow or The Rokk? Did you hide on purpose or by chance?" There was an inquisitive line running down between his eyes.

  Still Jakkin continued to stuff food in his mouth, holding up a finger as if to forestall any more questions. If he answered all their que
stions truthfully, the secret of the dragon's blood could come out. He had to sort through which questions to answer, which to sidestep.

  "Danger..." Akki sent. Red and black and orange. Doom colors.

  Jakkin concentrated on not squinting. "We agreed no sendings when we're this close."

  "Don't be a pile of fewmets!" Her sending was bright red, steaming.

  Jakkin looked at Slakk, then at the others, choosing his words with care. "We lived in caves. Boulders pushed against cave openings seal in the heat. Especially with a dragon or two inside to add to the warmth." That was both true and not true. True that there'd been caves with boulders for doors, but not true that they had found those caves right away. Or the dragons.

  "What dragons?" asked Trikko. "Not ferals?"

  "No, of course not ferals. We'd never have been able to coax ferals into a cave. Never could have trusted them."

  Everyone at the table nodded.

  "Your father..." Slakk said, his voice trailing off.

  It wasn't a secret. Jakkin's father had been killed by a feral dragon. He'd been trying to train it. But ferals were dangerous. Unpredictable. None of the bonders would ever have believed that he and Akki had been befriended by ferals. Besides, it wasn't true. Jakkin took a careful sip of water.

  One of the girls leaned toward Akki. "What did you say?"

  Whatever it had been, Akki had spoken too quietly for even those next to her to hear. So she repeated it. "Heart's Blood's hatchlings."

  Jakkin suddenly realized that the girl who had asked was Terakkina, who only a year ago had been a small bubbly blond child, the pet of the nursery. Now she was quite grown up.

  "Heart's Blood's hatchlings," Akki said dramatically. "They found us. They saved us."

  Terakkina said, "Really?" She clapped her hands. "How wonderful!"

  Not so grown up, then. Jakkin added, out loud, "Heart's Blood's five. A male, a singleton female, and a triplet of three females." He spoke with a kind of tamped-down passion, but he didn't have to make it up. It was a safe comment, and all true.

  "Triplets? That's amazing," Trikko said. "I've only ever seen twins from one egg."

  "Always lucky," Slakk put in, in that jealous way he had.

  A year hasn't changed anything for him, Jakkin thought. Slakk acted as if living apart for a year in constant fear and danger was somehow luckier than living in the familiar safety and comfort of the nursery.

  "Luck, if you count it so," Jakkin said, and then had to define his terms and explain some more about caves and boulders and dragons and boil, and all the while being careful not to say too much. Or too little. Not to seem to be hiding anything, yet not telling the whole truth. It was truly exhausting.

  At last, Akki stood. "Kkarina needs help," she said. "In the kitchen."

  Bounding to her feet, Terakkina said, "I'll help, too."

  Jakkin glared at Akki, willed her to stay, begged in a sending, but she left, anyway, Terakkina at her heels. He was angered by Akki's preferring Kkarina, who she'd already admitted was overwhelmingly talkative, to helping him here at the table, bombarded with questions.

  "Runaway!" he snapped at her in a sending, forgetting their promise. "Coward!" The sending was bright yellow, puslike.

  She didn't turn around, but her return sending—a long black lance—pierced the yellow pus-bubble, which suddenly looked surprisingly like his head.

  Errikkin had been sitting silently for some time with his tongue between his teeth, the sign that he was thinking deeply. Suddenly he burst out with, "Surely you had more to eat than boil." His face reddened as he spoke. "In a year. In an entire fewmetty year." Those were the first words he'd uttered to Jakkin since he'd come home.

  Jakkin smiled. "Some eggs. Some cave mushrooms, some berries, some—"

  "Have you ever eaten boil?" Balakk's helper, the moon-faced boy, asked.

  "Aye, Arakk. It's awful," L'Erikk, another of the boys, answered, making a face. "Thin, bland."

  "It's not bad. And awful only if you're not hungry," Jakkin pointed out. He was gratified to see some of the new folk nodding at that. Especially Arakk.

  "No one goes hungry anymore," Trikko said. "'With work comes food.'" It was an old nursery saying.

  Slakk laughed, though there was little mirth in it. "And there's plenty of work." He gestured grandly around them with his hand. "We're expanding."

  "Expanding?" Jakkin asked. That certainly explained the new faces.

  "They're building up Rokk Major again," L'Erikk told him. "Never mind the embargo. Because there won't always be one. And we have to be ready." He said that as if quoting authority and not speaking on his own.

  "Embargo?" Golden hadn't said anything about an embargo. Jakkin turned on the bench and stared at Slakk. "What embargo?" He didn't actually say he hadn't any idea what was meant by the word.

  "For up to fifty years," Slakk said flatly. "No Feder ships in ..." His arm made a swooping movement.

  "Until we prove ourselves," Errikkin interrupted, his handsome face now darkening with some sort of anger. "Always proving ourselves."

  "Or improving ourselves," Slakk shot back, and a ripple of laughter ran around the table. It was clearly an old argument between them.

  "As bonders we didn't need any improving," Errikkin said.

  The table now erupted in laughter.

  Arakk said, "Improving, disproving, unproving."

  "Reproving," added Trikko.

  "That's not a word," Arakk said.

  "Is too."

  "Is not."

  Arguing like little boys, Jakkin thought, suddenly feeling old. "I don't understand," he began. "If no Feder ships can fly in, how does rebuilding the Rokk Major pit make any sense? Who will go to the pit to bet on dragon fights? Who will bring in money? How do we fill our bags?" Though he'd already filled his and was a master himself. Some master, with no money and no great dragon.

  Arakk's face registered surprise. "There aren't any."

  One of the girls said, "No bond bags."

  "Aren't any bonders anymore," said Slakk. "While you were off in the mountains playing with dragons, we were all set free." He pulled up his leather shirt to show Jakkin his bare chest. It was pasty white, hairless, and a bit flabby. He slapped himself with the flat of his palm. "No bond bag." He laughed. "No more trying to fill that fewmetty bag and failing. No more feeling guilty when I use a coin for pleasure."

  "You never felt guilty," Trikko said.

  "And you rarely have any pleasure," added Arakk.

  Everyone laughed, Jakkin loudest of all.

  And then Jakkin remembered Golden telling them about freeing the bonders, when he'd first picked them up in the copter. But Jakkin had been so exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, he hadn't paid much attention. Getting back to the nursery, settling Auricle, dealing with the questions from the nursery folk, had taken all his concentration. But of course now he recalled what Golden said. No more bond.

  "Slakk, that's great," Jakkin said.

  "Not just me, Jakkin. All of us," Slakk said. His hands gestured to the entire room, even as his whiny voice made it sound like a complaint.

  "I get it," Jakkin said. "Golden told us."

  But they wouldn't let it go. "A charter from the government, filling all our bags," Arakk added.

  Both Arakk and Slakk were smiling broadly, and Trikko's face was all grin, but Errikkin was unaccountably grim and his normally blue eyes seemed to have gone the gray of stone.

  Slakk put a comforting hand on Jakkin's. "Don't mind Errikkin. Old Mope Face always did prefer being a slave. Remember how proud he was to have you as his master?"

  For a moment Jakkin remembered. Errikkin had been proud. At first. But all Jakkin had felt was how embarrassing it had turned out, with Errikkin even trying to take a cloth and wash his face for him. And after, they'd had a horrible fight. Funny how he could hardly remember what the fight had been about. Later, believing Jakkin had actually blown up Rokk Major, Errikkin had led the wardens right
to him. But I've forgiven him that. Jakkin bit his lip. In a way, Errikkin was right. But how strange, that my best friend—my bonder, Errikkin, who loved me—turned me in to the wardens. And Likkarn, who hated me, lost an eye giving Akki and me a chance to escape.

  "Now," Slakk continued, "we work for wages, for our food and our housing. And we share in the nursery profits as well. But no work—no pay. Errikkin hates that part!"

  "Don't put words into my mouth," Errikkin said loudly.

  Equally loudly, Slakk said, "If I had my way, we wouldn't put any food there, either. Not when you haven't earned it."

  Errikkin swung his legs over the bench and stood in one graceful, sure movement. He didn't say a word more but walked off, holding his shoulders squared and never looking back, his sandals making a snickety sound as he strode away across the dining hall.

  Jakkin was reminded of a dragon hackling.

  In the sudden silence, Jakkin called Errikkin's name. At the same time he searched his friend's mind. Of course it remained absolutely closed. Errikkin didn't show that he'd heard anything, just flung open the dining hall door and walked through.

  Pulling his hand out from under Slakk's, Jakkin slammed it against his own chest, a gesture left over from the time he'd worn a bond bag. Everyone free! Maybe true, but hard to believe. He thought, There's always been bonders and masters, from the very beginning. Austar was settled by jailers and prisoners. Then he bit his lower lip. Surely this is a good thing, being free.

  But something about the news bothered him. Not Errikkin's anger. Not even Errikkin's hackled response. Errikkin had always ducked out of work when he could, and that was an old argument between them. However, Jakkin wondered if his own unease had more to do with the fact that he'd had to win his own freedom with hard work.

  Bonders used to say, "I fill my bag myself." Did they anymore? Why would they, if somehow the hard work of filling a bag no longer mattered? He shook his head. He'd never thought about such things before. Of course freedom for everyone was more important than how hard he'd worked in the past. He was suddenly ashamed of having thought otherwise.