***
AFTER BREAKFAST, and after checking the chores list, Akki called Jakkin to the side door.
"We really have to stop our sendings," she warned quietly. "Or we're going to make them all suspicious."
"They're already suspicious," he whispered back.
"They're suspicious that we've pair-bonded. Likkarn probably told someone about that kiss. Wouldn't you be suspicious of two people off together for a year, keeping 'warm' in caves?"
He shrugged, smiling at the memory.
"And one of them going walkabout at night. Where were you? We can't afford to let them suspect that we..."
"...communicate without words or can go outside during Dark-After?"
She turned away from him, sending, "You really are ex-asperating."
"Wait a minute." His hand was on her shoulder. "You're the one who keeps sending. Not me."
"I know, I know. I said 'We.' It's just so easy." She shrugged off his hand. "See," she sent, "we can both shrug," and opened the door, looking out into the glaring light. "I think Slakk is already guessing."
"Not Slakk. He's not that smart. He's just jealous of me, that's all. Errikkin's too angry about something else to be guessing anything. The rest don't know either of us well enough. Except..."
She spun around. "Except?"
"Old Likkarn, of course."
She glared daggers at him. "I can handle him. You're the one who has problems dealing with him. I wish I knew why. He's really all hough and no harm." That was something nursery folk said about male dragons.
Jakkin's face scrunched up, the way it did when he was going to say something hurtful. "Maybe he never harmed you," he began, "but there's not a boy in the nursery who hasn't felt his heavy hand. He thinks a bang on the head or arm or back is a good teaching tool."
"He's only treating you the way dragon studs treat the young males," Akki said. "That's all."
"And me worse than all the others combined."
"Sometimes," Akki told him, "boys whine too much." She turned and walked out the door.
He raced after her. "Where are you going?"
"To the incubarn, to check on Auricle and the hatchling." She kept walking, a fast, long stride.
"She was fine last night. And if there's a change, we'd know because Auricle would have sent to me. Or you."
Akki stopped suddenly, looked at him over her shoulder, glaring. "Auricle is a dragon, not a doctor." She resumed walking.
"You're not a doctor either, Akki," he shot back cuttingly. "Not a real one."
That was too close to the bone. Too close to what she feared the most. Akki rounded on him angrily. It was easier getting mad at him than getting mad at the world. "I'm the nearest almost real doctor this place has. That's why visiting the quarantined dragons is on my list of chores, not yours." She felt taut, like stretched wire. "Likkarn and the men know that I'm the one they have to go to for medical knowledge—especially now, with the embargo. Likkarn says that though medical ships are allowed through, few have actually come."
"I didn't mean—"
She suspected that at least was true, but couldn't stop herself from saying, "You never do."
He put his hand out beseechingly, as if he wanted to touch her. Instead he said, "We never fought out there." He gestured vaguely toward the mountains.
Her anger ebbed, her face softened. She took a deep breath. "We fought all the time out there, Jakkin."
He shook his head. "Not really. Not fought—we argued. But we always agreed on the important things. The life-or-death matters. And there were a lot of those." A soft breeze touched Jakkin's face, lifting the hair on his forehead, then letting it fall again, almost obscuring his eyes. Watching him, Akki suddenly felt terribly young and vulnerable. But she couldn't let herself feel that way. Too much was resting on her shoulders, and it frightened her. She wanted him to understand.
"Jakkin..." She was ready to tell him about The Rokk and the lab and how she'd gotten Kkarina to find a way to get her there and that only this morning Kkarina said there was a truck coming to take her off. Today. "Jakkin, about the nursery—"
"We're safe here, Akki, safe from the wardens and the rebels and the trogs. We're home. It's where we belong. I've finally just this minute figured it out. We don't really have to do anything about the dragons, you know. Just keep the secret safe. If it's safe, so are we. And so are the dragons. So why are we still arguing?"
And then the moment to confide in him, the moment to tell him how all on her own she'd made plans to go to the city, to work on the most important problem Austar had—that moment was gone. Her fear and her anger flooded back. "Because ... because after a year of freedom, we're not just back home, we're back in bond." She turned away and walked off.
"There is no more bond on Austar IV," he called after her. "Haven't you been listening?"
She sent back a loud and very clear hot, pink landscape, with streaks of red.
"Oh, I've been listening, but that's not what I heard!" she called over her shoulder. Then, using two hands, she pulled the squalling door of the incubarn open and clumped inside. "We are more in bond than ever," she said, before slamming the door in his face.
8
JAKKIN DIDN'T understand her.
He guessed he'd never understand her.
He let her go without a response.
Desolate, he walked to the stud barn to start his own chores. He and Akki had been given less than a week's grace to get over the oddness of being back at the nursery before they had to start working. But he hadn't complained. All his life he'd taken work for granted, and now that there was no more bond system, he knew they would have to work even harder. Still, the rewards should be greater. And his chores were familiar ones.
Today he had to lead three big male dragons to the mud baths. They would keep his mind off of Akki.
Sometimes, before a male dragon mated, its skin got flaky, the scales discoloring. "Scales like mud, little stud" was not just a nursery rhyme. It was true. In the wild, dragons usually soaked themselves in the muddy rivers, lying down on the river bottoms until only their eyes showed above water. The mud and the river flow scoured their scales clean. The cleaner the scales, the more likely that the male dragon could impress a female. So it was up to the nursery folk to make sure their male dragons had scales that shone like small suns. No use keeping the unpredictable males around unless they could sire more dragons. Or win big in the pits.
The mud pools in the stud barn were part of a great triple-forked water system. One fork sent drinking water into individual stalls, one funneled away wastewater when the stalls were cleaned. The third fork led into the mud baths, and that was where Jakkin went to shepherd the dragons under his care.
But leading a dragon is dangerous work. Just because once in, a dragon enjoyed the mud didn't mean that a worm always cooperated. Many a nursery boy had been nipped or stepped upon while moving a testy male toward the baths. But danger was what Jakkin needed now to stop him thinking about Akki.
Jakkin let himself into the stud barn, and the familiar power of the musk that greeted him almost made him smile. There was simply nothing like it. A hen's smell was softer, cozier, but the smell of a male dragon simply took one's breath away. Going down the long left-hand corridor, Jakkin came to the stall of the first of his assigned dragons, old Blood Bath, who was lying down on his straw and looking gray, dingy, worn. He was the grandsire of Heart's Blood, the great-grandsire of her brood, so Jakkin had a lot of affection for the old worm.
"Not good, not good, old boy," Jakkin whispered, but his sending to the dragon was much sunnier. The orangecolored dragon looked at him with shuttered eyes, the membranes having grown thick with age, leaving him almost blind. Suddenly the membranes lifted, and he stared at Jakkin with dark, unreadable eyes. Those eyes held not even the slightest flicker to signal that he'd once been a fighter and, for a long time, the best stud in the nursery.
"Let's get thee into the bath right away. Thou will fee
l much better in the mud." He sent the dragon an image of the warm, bubbling bath. "And thou will be a better stud for it."
Startled by the sending, Blood Bath lumbered to his feet, his great head starting to weave back and forth. Standing up, he was huge, even for a dragon, but his underskin beneath the orange scales was horribly faded.
He really is ancient. Probably not able to mate anymore. But he'd been one of Sarkkhan's first fighting dragons, a mighty winner in his day, who sired many other winners. Yet here he was, still in the stud barn, eating his head off. Jakkin wondered if Likkarn kept him in the nursery in honor of his past glory, instead of selling him to the stews.
If so, good for Likkarn, he thought begrudgingly.
"Come, thou brave fighter." Jakkin let the dragon sniff his left hand, which brought the great head way down. Then, with his right hand, Jakkin hooked his finger around Blood Bath's ear. Ears were one of the few sensitive areas on a dragon's body and a tug was one way—possibly the best way—of urging a beast out of his stall.
Slakk was suddenly in the corridor ahead of them.
"Bell!" Jakkin called to him, and Slakk ran up to the nearest pull and yanked at it, sending a warning to anyone else in the barn that a stud dragon was unstalled. Then Slakk pressed into the closest safety niche in order to let them go by. Always best to be out of the way when a stud—even an ancient one—was being led to the baths. Though a niche wasn't entirely safe, especially if the dragon hackled and rampaged down the corridor, which sometimes happened during the rutting season. Many of the older nursery men sported blood scores and claw marks that made their arms and legs look as pitted as a desert landscape after an infrequent rain.
But this day Blood Bath was quiet, almost sleepwalking, as they moved toward the bath. Jakkin called back to Slakk, "Clean his stall for me, and I'll second on your dragon."
Slakk much preferred raking out the old fewmets and settling new straw for bedding than leading any of the dragons to the bath. In fact, Slakk hated dragons. He'd often threatened to run away from the nursery, and Jakkin was actually surprised—since there was no more bond—that Slakk was still here.
"Done," Slakk called back.
If necessary, Jakkin could trade all his dragon work with Slakk. Unlike Slakk, he loved the beasts. Loved their power, their beauty of movement, their single-mindedness in feeding, in fighting, and in the rut. And now that he could speak to them mind-to-mind, Jakkin loved them even more. As for the fewmets—well, he'd take a blood score any day. Let Slakk stay up to his knees in the steaming stuff. Jakkin chuckled at the thought.
When he opened the door to the sunken mud room and let go of the dragon's ear, Blood Bath happily waded in, moving faster than he'd done before. Behind him, Jakkin rode the doorstep platform over the bath.
"Good for thee, old man," he called to the dragon, as he picked up the wire brush from a hook on the door. "Looks like you're not done for yet!" He sent the dragon a bright sparkle of colorful stars. At least he could do that with the dragons though not right now with Akki.
Blood Bath lifted his head, as if astonished, as if he'd already forgotten the earlier sending that had startled him out of his stall. Then he sank down gratefully in the mud. When he was ready, he'd come over for a good scrubbing. And after that, the cleansing shower.
It's a wonderful life. Why have I forgotten just how wonderful? It was also predictable. And, if a nursery boy was careful and knew what he was doing, it was safe. Safer than joining a rebel cell or being in a cave full of murderous trogs, he reminded himself. Safer than loving an unpredictable girl.
And then he had another thought: How could Akki say we're still in bond? That she should do so rankled. He felt like a hackling dragon. His shoulders went up and his mouth set in a thin line. She's wrong, so wrong. And in so many ways. He'd tell her as soon as he saw her again. Or maybe he'd just send her his feelings. Of course, that might charge up the dragons, if they heard him. And words ... words are so much more precise than sendings.
He must have leaked some of his feelings to the dragon, for Blood Bath looked up and sent a comforting spray of bubbling colors into his mind.
"Okay, okay, I will attend thee, old man," Jakkin said at once, feeling stupid to have forgotten that dragons were safe where a bonder took care and paid attention only to them. And then he remembered there weren't any bonders anymore. He forced himself to stop thinking about Akki, about their fight, about home, wherever it might be—and gave himself over to the musk, the moisture, the dragons, and the heat of the mud.
***
AFTER OVERSEEING mud baths for his own three dragons, and then two of Slakk's, Jakkin took the rest of the afternoon off. Yes, he loved the work, but he hadn't been given any other jobs, and he'd suddenly realized that there was something else he wanted to do. Not something to do with the nursery dragons and definitely not something to do with Akki.
So he wandered over to the stone weir at the northernmost corner of the stud barn. Here, water channeled from the Narrakka River was a bright blue, reflecting the clear sky. For a moment he looked across to the sand dunes, remembering how often he'd sneaked away to the hidden oasis where he'd raised Heart's Blood, a stolen dragon, from a miscounted clutch. The best fighting dragon in all of Austar.
Running a hand through his hair, he wondered, Is it still there? Meaning the oasis, meaning the wellspring, meaning the reed shelter. Or has it changed, too?
He plunged into the weir, knee-deep in the blue water, and waded across. At the third join, he climbed out and, by habit, kept low, though it mattered little now if anyone saw him. Heart's Blood was long dead; there were no young, uncounted hatchlings to raise away from the nursery. Since all the nursery folk now owned the dragons together, there was no need to steal one, to raise it secretly in the hopes of training a winning dragon and buying oneself out of bond. He wasn't scheduled for night duty in the incubarn for several days. And since there was no more bond, there was no need for secrecy anymore.
Except for the giant secret he and Akki shared.
The desert air quickly dried his legs and sandals. The water hadn't come anywhere close to his thigh-length pants. Some of the sand from the dunes clung stubbornly to his legs, but he quickly brushed it off. For a moment, he wondered if there was even any reason for visiting the oasis now. And then he simply went on.
Memories were reason enough.
***
JAKKIN WALKED for nearly an hour before he found the place. The steady Austarian winds had blown away any semblance of a path, had recontoured the dunes just enough to confuse him. He hadn't actually gotten lost, but he was bothered for a while.
His first sight of the spring, rising as if from nowhere, was a bright ribbon of blue water threading through the golden sand. It made him sigh in recognition, made him remember Heart's Blood as a hatchling, eager, ready to learn, and waiting for him.
He had to bite his lip not to cry. Think only of the oasis, he reminded himself as he looked around. The pool he'd made when he widened the western edge of the stream was smaller than before. Now a rim of kkhan reeds ran around it entirely instead of only on one side.
But everything's still here! He gazed at it all with both wonder and relief. Running his fingers once more through his hair, he spoke the words out loud: "It's still here." He tried sending the thought back to Akki, though of course she was much too far away to get it. Or to answer. Even if she wanted to.
Looking a second time around the oasis, he realized not everything was there. The little reed shelter was gone. He'd no idea if it had been taken down by human hands or blown away by the wind dervishes that frequented the dunes. Something in his chest hurt. Just for a moment, then it was gone.
He started toward the spot where the shelter had stood, when a sudden sending, like a lightning strike, crashed through his mind, so loud and boisterous, he flinched.
"Sssargon waits," came the intrusion. "Sssargon hungers."
"Thou great beauty!" Jakkin cried, spinning around to lo
ok for the source of the sending.
About a hundred yards away, Sssargon stood up to his shoulders in a patch of burnwort. The red stalks were fully leafed out and long past their smoldering stage, and tall enough to have hidden the dragon almost completely until now. Sssargon was grazing, his long tongue reaching out to snag the top of a wort plant, then his jaws grinding and crushing the leaves as he walked on to the next.
Sssargon would spit out the burnwort seeds before swallowing. Any that he swallowed by accident would emerge later in his steaming fewmets, to drop into the patch and grow a new crop of wort. Nature on Austar was very conservative. "Waste not, want never" went nursery wisdom. But people had to be taught that wisdom. Dragons lived it without thinking.
"Sssargon full. Sssargon lies down." Just as Sssargon sent his thoughts to Jakkin, the big worm swept his pinioned wings close to his sides, the scaly feathers pushing the sand away from his body. Then, with surprising delicacy, he lay down. Surprising because up till now he'd been much more graceful in the air than on the ground.
Growing up. Jakkin smiled. My babies! And then he laughed at himself. Big babies!
Sssargon fidgeted for a moment before settling into his sandy hammock and making a humming sound.
Are the dragons really all in danger? Jakkin wondered again. Only if the secret gets out. Only if we tell. He really had to talk to Akki about it. Make her see. If there was no real immediate danger, then she had no reason to hurry to finish her training as a doctor. All they really needed was to keep quiet about it. A secret kept secret can harm no one.
Just then, Jakkin's head was filled with a barrage of red bubbles and sounds like SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! that overwhelmed all thought. Jakkin glanced around the oasis for the rest of the brood, but the only dragon he could see was Sssargon, now fast asleep on the sand.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
He looked up. Far above him were four dots, circling the oasis. Having finally gotten his attention, they sang out to him in color as they came in for a well-timed landing. They touched ground together with hardly a tremor. For all their bulk, the brood was incredibly dainty.