A Sending of Dragons (10 page)

Bewildered, Jakkin felt himself cast loose of this second mind-spell. He put his hand to his cheek. He could still feel the heat of the blow beneath his fingers.

“
I Makk.
” The sending was short, brutal, final. But whether that was his name, his title, or some other designation was not clear.

Before Jakkin could respond, Makk grabbed his arm and jerked him forward until his feet were curled over the lip of the rock. For a moment Jakkin was afraid Makk meant to push him over into the flames. For a short man, he was very powerful. As another protest started to form on his lips, Jakkin felt instructions insinuate themselves in his head. He glanced down at his feet. Below, where his toes curled over the rim, was a rough-carved set of steps.

“
Down!
”

He had no choice. With Makk at his back,
Jakkin carefully made his way down the stone steps, hugging the rock as he went. He could hear the whisper of the man's feet behind him as he descended, and his head seemed filled with an alien presence he couldn't quite shake loose. The only thing he could do—and he did it with deliberate care—was to keep Akki's face out of his thoughts. She must not be caught, as he was, by the not-man men.

T
HE STEPS FOLLOWED
the curve of the cave wall and came out on the far side of the pit. Jakkin could feel the heat on his right side, and he longed to turn and say something to the man behind him, but the slap and the strange word
kkriah
were burned into his memory. Until he knew more he would not chance speaking aloud again.

Their steps echoed in the vast chamber, and Jakkin stopped for a moment, unsure which way he should proceed. He felt Makk's rough hand on his shoulder turning him toward the left, where there was another tunnel. Once they entered it he was cool again, and he welcomed the dark and the relative quiet.

Makk shoved him along the tunnel and
Jakkin went slowly, trying to shutter his mind against the barrage of questions/instructions. The minute he closed the imagined door he felt a kind of release of pressure, as if the man had simultaneously stopped searching around in his thoughts. The oddness of it made him raise his eyebrows, but he kept moving.

The tunnel ended abruptly in another large cavern, but this one was not lit with fires. Instead there was a complete wall of phosphorescence that made the cave a place of deep shadows. Over thirty men were in the room, some sitting at long tables eating, some sleeping on rocky outcroppings, some apparently in deep conversations, for their hands moved as if shaping images, though their mouths were still. It reminded Jakkin of an evening in the nursery bondhouse, though it was certainly much quieter. And the memory ached like a rotten tooth when he probed it further.

“What is . . .” Jakkin began aloud, and was stunned into silence by the violence of a multiple sending. He began again, this time only with his mind.
“What is this place?”

Makk put a hand on his shoulder again.
“
This Place of Men.
” The pictures he sent were straightforward and without any of the subtleties or undertones Jakkin associated with Akki's sendings.

“
What about
. . .
women?
”

“
Place of Women not here. There.
” The image Makk sent was of a different cavern in which stocky, broad-shouldered women with long, straight dark hair ate, sat, slept in poses similar to those of the men. It was not a symbol of a place but the place itself, as sharply delineated as a picture.

Makk's sending continued. “
There, too, Place of Those Who Kkriah. There, too, Place of Great Mothers.
” The last image he sent was that of dragons huddled together as if they were clutchmates, though they ranged in shape and age.

“
Dragons?
” Jakkin sent, and when there was no answer he added, “
Worms?
” Each image was slightly different.

Makk shook his head. He sent a gray picture of dragons hovering over a pile of eggs. The meaning was clear. “
Great Mothers.
” It was reinforced by all the men.

Jakkin rubbed his head behind the right
ear, where an ache was starting. A bad one, he guessed, and nothing to laugh at to help it bleed away. He drew a deep breath, ready to begin again. Sending this way was hard work, like speaking a strange language. Just then his stomach rumbled and all the men laughed. Their laughter was silent, a bubbly mind-sending that made him almost giddy.

“
You hunger,
” Makk sent. “
You eat.”

“
I'd love to eat,
” Jakkin sent back, his images laced with an ironic edge that spoke of other kinds of hunger: sleep, the need to understand, and a very dim image of Akki, which leaked out unbidden and which he quickly suppressed. But Makk seemed oblivious to anything but the central message.

“
You eat,
” he sent again, signaling one of the sitters with those curious finger waggles. The man stood and brought over a bowl for Jakkin.

Jakkin sniffed at the bowl. It smelled like dragon stew. Hungry as he was, Jakkin's stomach revolted. He could not eat such a meal. “
Dragon?
” he queried. Then, remembering, he added, “
Great Mother?
”

The sending that came back to him, so
solid and unemotional, chilled him. “
What else?
”

He put the bowl on the nearest table and shook his head. “
No!
”

“
You insult Great Mother's gift?
” Even the sleepers stirred at that sending.

“
I'm not that hungry. I can't eat.
” How could he explain to these crude cave dwellers that once he'd made full contact with dragons, eating their meat was impossible. His stomach chose that moment to growl again.

The bubbling response of the men was far out of proportion to the joke, and Jakkin suddenly wondered if any involuntary body noise was funny to these silent men. He tried to explain his refusal to eat meat as clearly and directly as he could. “
My . . . people . . . do not eat Great Mothers.
” It was not exactly a lie. He and Akki were a separate people now.

“
Ancestors warn of such people.
” Makk's sending seemed tinged with an emotion other than anger for the first time.

“
Your ancestors. Tell me.
” Maybe, Jakkin hoped, careful to keep the thought hidden, maybe here was a real clue, a way out of this place.

Makk's face softened, as if the question somehow pleased him. His sending began and it had the rhythms of a story long rehearsed and often told. “
First were The Men. Strong Men. Men of Bonds.
” He held up his wrists, and for the first time Jakkin noticed he wore metal bracelets.

Metal! Jakkin gasped aloud. There was so little metal on Austar that what there was had to be carefully husbanded for use in the cities. The cost of metal was far beyond the ordinary bonder. Even most masters could afford little. He remembered the grillwork under the great pots in the fire cavern. And the pots themselves. And the sticks! They were all metal. How could he have been so blind? These strange men had a secret the outside world would love to have—a secret metal cache. If he listened carefully, perhaps he could find out more.

Makk was continuing. “
One man, First Makker, knew to take Stone. Knew to turn Stone to Ore. From Ore comes The Fire That Is Water. From The Fire That Is Water come Bands. For we were of Bonds who now are of Bands.
”

There was a poetry in Makk's sending that almost obscured the story he told. Drawing a curtain between Makk's mind and his own, Jakkin tried to find the real meaning. Could First Makker have been an escaped prisoner back in the days of all their grandfathers? Someone with a working knowledge of metal making who had somehow managed to live through the deadly cold. Jakkin knew that not all the early prisoners were murderers and thieves. A few had been political prisoners sent away from Earth or other planets to the metal-poor desert world of Austar. Some of those prisoners must have had skills beyond the ordinary. What if that First Makker was one? And what if other escapees had joined him and remained hidden within the bowels of the mountains, generation after generation? It made sense. Makk said they were Men of Bonds. And if the secret of the metal making had passed down from father to son over the years . . . He suddenly realized Makk had stopped sending and was staring at him. Jakkin stared back, the wall around his thoughts carefully constructed again.

Makk nodded and the sendings came
again. “
We Men of Great Mother, Flesh of her flesh. Blood of her blood. One day go to place of Bonds and throw them over.
” The sending was dark red, the red of anger and fire and blood, but Makk's hands were raised as if in ecstasy.

Jakkin didn't understand what that meant at all. Some ritual of eating, perhaps? What if they insisted he eat with them? Could he do it? Did he dare refuse again? And if these strange men really did plan to go outside and fight, shouldn't he warn the outsiders? After all, the closest civilized place to these mountains was Sarkkhan's Nursery, where he had grown up. His friends were there. But if he managed to get out, the last place he should go would be the nursery. Surely any searchers would have spies there.

His mind in a turmoil, he drew in a breath and carefully drew aside the curtain over his thoughts to let a sending out. “
The Great Mothers, where are they? And where is the Place of Women?
”

Makk lowered his hands and came close to Jakkin, touching him on the shoulder. “
What place you? Too high for here. Too thin
for here. No Bands. Yet speak without noise. Not like Others.
”

“
Others? What others?
”

“
Long ago Others.
” He did not elaborate. A man who had been sitting at the far end of the table stood up and came over to Jakkin, placing his hand on top of Makk's. “
What place?
”

Jakkin thought a long time before answering, careful to cloak his mind till the last. Sweat beaded his forehead. “
I come from another Place, another mountain, another cave.
” He knew suddenly that to admit being from the outside was inviting death. “
There we wear no Bands but we, too, know the Great Mothers. I am blood of the blood with a great red.
” He wouldn't tell them
how
he'd shared the dragon's blood, though her rainbow sign broke across his sending, a memory of that generous spirit he couldn't keep out.

The colorful sending seemed to startle the men. Makk's hand dropped from his shoulder and everyone drew away mentally. Jakkin wondered if it was the color or the joy in the sending that had so provoked them. Then he shook his head, continuing:

“
I came to your place with my . . . woman.
”
He bet Akki would be furious if she knew he'd called her that.

Makk nodded, but still kept his distance. “
Yes. We know this. She in Place of Women.
”

It was Jakkin's turn to be startled. He walked over to Makk and put his hand on the man's broad shoulder. At the touch he was able to see right into Makk's mind. So that was it! He made the sending as strong as he could: “
I want my woman. That is how it is done in my place.
” When he took his hand away Makk's mind snapped shut like some kind of trap.

Makk's fingers moved swiftly, then his sharp sending pierced Jakkin's mind. “
Now you eat.
”

“
Not that stuff.
”

Turning, Makk signed toward one of the men at a table. He rose and brought over another bowl. This one was filled with a dark jellied substance. Jakkin took the bowl and tipped it eagerly into his mouth. He recognized congealed boil and chikkberries, but there was also a greenish, bittersweet taste that lingered after he had finished the food and made his mouth feel clean and good.

Only later did he realize what that meant:
chikkberries and boil. The men of the cave didn't just stay inside. Somewhere there had to be an easy access to outside, to a meadow. He wondered when and how he might dare to ask.

M
AKK MADE IT
clear, though it took many sendings, that if Jakkin didn't work like the other men, he wouldn't be fed again. Nor would he be allowed to go to the Place of Women when it was time.

“
Time?
” Jakkin had sent, hoping for an explanation. He'd already given up on the food. Somehow, somewhere, there was a supply of fresh growing things, but certainly not in the bowels of the cave.

But Makk had only reiterated the same images, of sun and moons, clear notations of time. And since there was no way for Jakkin to find the Place of Women on his own, or to feed himself, for that matter, he worked. He wasn't happy about it, but he worked,
reminding himself to stay alert and learn as much as he could.

Standing on the high shelf of rock and taking his turn at stirring pots of fire, Jakkin felt alternately hot and cold. The flames seared his front, but there was a cold breeze across his shoulders and along the backs of his knees. His arms ached from the unaccustomed labor and his mind was weary from the twin efforts of cloaking and listening. But the more he saw of the metal-making operation, the more he realized its importance. And the more he realized bitterly that he was powerless to let the rest of Austar know.

After hours with the great iron rod, Jakkin was relieved by a silent, hulking worker who signaled him with a hand on the back. When Jakkin turned away from the shelf there was Makk again, ready to lead him to another portion of the cave where men were grubbing around the walls, using metal picks the size of fewmet shovels, mining out the stuff Makk called ore. Following behind these men was a crew of workers with sling bags full of phosphorescent moss, which they placed wherever a vein of the ore had been
picked out. Despite Makk's attempts at an explanation, and the instruction of his own eyes and ears, Jakkin wasn't sure if the moss was used as tunnel markers for the pickers, for light, for decoration, or a combination of all three.