Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  On Lord Dragon’s belt, he realized. This was only the second sword he had even glimpsed, and the first he had seen out of its sheath. It gleamed in the dim orange light, and Arlian stared at it, fascinated, studying the way the stranger held it.

  “All right, stand back!” the swordsman bellowed. “Where’s the overseer?”

  Half a dozen voices answered, and several fingers pointed. The man turned and spotted Bloody Hand, lying half covered in dust and rubble.

  “What about our dinner?” someone called.

  “You’ll get your food,” the swordsman snapped, as he strode over to Bloody Hand. He knelt, but kept the sword ready and didn’t look down as he felt the downed overseer’s throat, but instead kept a watchful eye on the slaves in the tunnels.

  “He’s breathing,” the swordsman shouted up the shaft. “I don’t see much blood. I think he’s all right.”

  “Can he hold a rope?” a voice called from above.

  “Not a chance,” the swordsman replied. “Send someone down!”

  Arlian watched silently and saw that Bloody Hand was blinking, and trying to raise his right hand free of the rocks. By the time another man had clambered down the rope from the ledge above the swordsman was helping Bloody Hand to sit up.

  Arlian and Wark watched as the new arrival helped the overseer to the dangling rope. The swordsman stood guard as the others clung to the rope while it was hauled up; then the rope was flung down again, and the swordsman sheathed his blade and ascended.

  Then the rope was pulled up.

  For a moment nothing more happened, though Arlian could hear voices. Then the hopper, still dangling by its one corner, was lowered.

  “Where’s our supper?” someone shouted, and several other voices joined in protest at seeing the hopper descend without the customary contents.

  “Wait a moment, will you?” the swordsman’s voice called down.

  A chorus of angry voices replied incoherently, and at last the miners spilled out of the tunnels into the pitshaft. Arlian saw Swamp shaking an angry fist at the invisible figures in the upper tunnels.

  Then a heavy burlap sack came sailing down the shaft, to land with a thump atop the heap of spilled ore. Swamp and the others ran to open it.

  Arlian stepped out into the pitshaft, Wark at his heels. The two of them made their way up the mound of ore to where Swamp and Bitter were distributing the usual food from the sack—coarse bread, tasteless dried-out cheese, some dried fruit to prevent scurvy.

  Arlian held out his hand, and Swamp started to pass him a slab of bread, when Stain spoke up.

  “Not him! He’s the one who saved Bloody Hand’s life! You don’t want to feed him!”

  Swamp hesitated, and looked at Rat.

  Rat, a small man known for his quick wits, looked at Arlian. “You’re the one pulled him out from underneath, Arlian? Or was it Wark?”

  “It was Arlian,” Wark said.

  “I did it,” Arlian admitted.

  “Trying to get on the bosses’ good side, are you?” Rat snarled. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone?”

  “You know the rules, Rat,” Arlian said—he wasn’t exactly slow himself, and had no intention of admitting he had acted out of genuine concern for a fellow human being. “If we don’t deliver a live overseer at the end of each shift, we don’t get fed.”

  “You risked your life over one meal, boy?” Rat sneered. “It’d be worth skipping a meal to see Bloody Hand’s brains bashed out, if you ask me!”

  “Hey, where’s Lampspiller?” someone asked before Arlian could reply. “He didn’t come down!”

  That created a stir of concern—the miners did know the rules. Each overseer stayed for a single shift—probably twelve hours each—then was replaced by the other. Bloody Hand had been hauled up, but Lampspiller had not come down for his shift.

  And if there were no overseer, there would be no food at the next shift change.

  Arlian’s saving of Bloody Hand’s life was forgotten for the moment as the miners argued and shouted. Arlian ignored the debate and took the bread from Swamp’s hand; Swamp didn’t resist, but simply shrugged, handed Arlian a wedge of cheese, and went back to distributing food.

  Lampspiller did finally descend, by rope, a few minutes later, and promptly laid about himself with his whip, clearing out the pit; Swamp and Bitter hauled the largely empty food sack into one of the tunnels to continue handing out its contents. By that time Arlian had retreated down toward his own sleeping niche in Tunnel #32, gnawing on his bread and cheese.

  He sat on the rags he used as a bed, chewing slowly, and tried to think.

  Had he done the right thing, saving Bloody Hand? Hadn’t the overseer deserved to die for what he did to Dinian?

  He had acted almost without thinking, though.

  He wondered, for the first time, whether when the time came he would be able to carry out the revenge he had planned for so long. What if someday he escaped the mine, and tracked down Lord Dragon and his men, and then was overcome by compassion and could not bring himself to slay them?

  He had never imagined that possibility before, but now that he had saved Bloody Hand’s life, at the risk of his own, he had to consider it.

  Was he too soft, still a child rather than a warrior?

  “Traitor!”

  The word was whispered, so he did not recognize the voice, and spoken from behind the shelter of a corner in the passage; Arlian looked up, startled, as an open and lit oil lamp was flung onto his bedding.

  The ancient, soiled rags caught, and Arlian hurried to stamp out the blaze as quickly as he could. The smoke affected his already dry throat, and he found himself coughing uncontrollably even after the fire was out. By the time he was himself again, able to take his own lamp and go looking for his attacker, there was no sign that the assailant had ever been there.

  He stood in the corridor for a moment, then returned dejectedly to his bedding and settled down cross-legged upon it. He poked idly at the scorched part—he would probably want to replace that, he thought.

  The rag pile was under tons of rock, though, so it would have to wait.

  Rags and rock and his oil lamp, and a small collection of mementos of dead companions, were all he really owned down here. Some of the miners had managed to make a few things from broken tools or odd scraps, but Arlian had never bothered. He had no paintings on the limestone where he slept, no carved tokens, no knife or spoon or pen; he had spent what little free time he had talking to others, learning everything he could, thinking about ways he might escape and avenge his family.

  He had told the others of his plans at first, and been laughed at for his troubles; no one else believed that escape was possible. As for an escaped slave avenging himself against a lord, that was equally absurd, and the idea of killing the dragons went beyond absurd to insane. Even Hathet had sorrowfully told Arlian it was foolish, and Arlian had quickly learned to keep his plans for vengeance to himself—but he had never given them up, and was always alert to learn as much as he could, in hopes of discovering some fact that might show him a way out of the mine.

  The owners of the mine provided rags—Arlian didn’t know where they came from, but bundles were tossed down every so often, added to the heap in the pitshaft. The miners made their clothing and bedding and assorted other things from the rags—sacks, wallets, wicks, lampshades, and whatever else they could devise. A few miners made a point of collecting white fabric, or when there was no white the lightest colors available, and writing upon it in ink made of charcoal and water—Arlian had never seen much point in that, though he had read a few of the memoirs and stories thus recorded.

  Rags, tools, food, water, and lamp oil—the owners sent those down, and the slaves sent back ore. A very simple economy, but one that had functioned smoothly for years.

  And there was almost nothing in it Arlian had considered worth saving. Bitter had a stack of whitish rags a foot high, covered with his rants about how he had been wronged and mistrea
ted, while Olneor had set down his family’s history going back four generations, and Verino had written a philosophical treatise on humanity’s place in the cosmos; Swamp had covered a wall with surprisingly subtle and beautiful drawings of his home village, while Stain had drawn crude and thoroughly obscene pictures of women in various corners. Rat was reputed to have a stash of food, oil, and knives securely hidden somewhere. Wark had made dolls and other toys out of knotted fabric.

  All Arlian had was his collection of mementos.

  He had been brought here with nothing at all of his own but the clothes on his back and the ropes he had been bound with, ropes that were promptly stolen by other miners. He had nothing by which to remember his family, and he had quickly come to feel that lack keenly. His life had a hole in it where his family should have been, and he thought that while nothing could ever fill that hole, some memento, some little trinket that would connect his life in the mines to his old life outside, might have helped to cover it, to soften its sharp edges.

  When he first saw another miner die, he had resolved that he would keep something to remember him, as he had been unable to do for his village, and with each death after that he had added to his collection. Most of the additions were just scraps of cloth—the dead had often been new arrivals who had owned nothing but the clothes they wore.

  There were a few other things, though. He had a braided necklace Kort had worn, woven of human hair. He had a chunk of rock stained with Fist’s blood. And he had Hathet’s purple stones.

  They were his most prized possession, and now he reached into the niche in the rock wall and pulled the bag out to look at them.

  The miners sometimes found bits of other stone in with the limestone and galena; Hathet had collected one particular variety, a sort of purple crystal he called “amethyst.” Hathet had claimed that in his homeland of Arithei, a dream-infested land far beyond the Borderlands in the mysterious and magical realms of the unexplored south, these stones were considered gems and were highly valued. They had, Hathet said, magical properties that could protect their owner.

  Hathet had also said Arithei was full of magicians, that dreams became real there and stalked the streets every night, and any number of other absurd things.

  Arlian had never believed most of Hathet’s stories; even though he had admired the old man, and had taken to heart a great deal of what he said about how a man should live and how the world was best dealt with, Arlian had always thought Hathet was not quite right in the head, and many of his tales were clearly just wishful thinking.

  Hathet had claimed that he had been sent to Manfort as the Aritheian ambassador, and was waylaid by bandits on the highway, bandits who had sold him into slavery here—and how likely was that? What sort of bandit could be so stupid as to sell an ambassador as a mine slave, rather than ransoming him?

  Hathet’s attempt at explanation, involving complicated palace intrigue and high treason, had made no sense to Arlian or the others, and they had concluded that the old man had made it up on the spot. He probably wasn’t from Arithei at all. A miner called Brown who claimed to have visited the Borderlands said that the road to Arithei had been closed for years, and all trade blocked, so there was no way Hathet could have come from there. Brown had arrived just after Hathet died, and had then died in a fall himself, so no details were available, but why would he lie?

  So Hathet had probably made it all up, and the pretty purple stones were probably just pretty purple stones, of no real value to anyone—but Hathet had collected them carefully, and now Arlian kept that collection. He had counted one hundred and sixty-eight stones, ranging in size from mere specks to the size of his thumb.

  He saw no sign that they provided any magical protection, but they were pleasant to look at, and served as a reminder of poor Hathet. Once he got out of the mine perhaps he could find Hathet’s family, in Arithei or wherever they really were, and give them the stones as a memento of their lost kinsman.

  “Traitor!”

  Arlian looked up, unsure whether he had really heard another whispered imprecation or merely imagined it. No lamp followed the word this time.

  The threat was there, though. Whether it had been the right thing to do or not, saving Bloody Hand had plainly marked him down as an enemy for many of the miners. Nothing he owned would be safe if left unattended; he still remembered the sick, stricken expression on Elezin’s face on that occasion years before when Elezin had returned from working the ore to find his little hand-carved limestone shrine smashed to powder and gravel. Elezin had angered Fist the shift before, and Fist had taken his revenge.

  Arlian understood the need for revenge very well indeed, and understood why the others would want to retaliate for his saving of Bloody Hand, but he did not intend to make it any easier to hurt him than it had to be. He gathered up the hair necklace and a few fabric scraps and tucked them into the bag with the amethysts, then twisted a rag into a crude rope belt and tied the bag to his waist. He did not want to come back here in a shift or two and find his mementos gone.

  This was normally his off shift, but he was in no mood to rest; he got to his feet, and with the bag thumping against his hip made his way down to the rock face to work off his nerves by digging out ore.

  7

  The Return of Bloody Hand

  Three shifts later the hopper was repaired, and the slaves began shoveling the heap of spilled ore back into it.

  Lampspiller was in charge of the operation; his shift was ending, and rumor had it that Bloody Hand was waiting in the tunnel above, ready to return. His previous shift had been taken by a stranger the miners had dubbed Loudmouth, a big brawling man with sun-darkened skin who had disdained the whip and had instead thoroughly beaten Swamp with his bare fists to establish his authority.

  The others had watched as Swamp was thrashed for a minor, possibly imagined offense. Had they joined forces they could easily have defeated Loudmouth—but then what? How would they get up the pitshaft to escape? So they had stood by and done nothing as Loudmouth asserted his authority, and they had obeyed Loudmouth’s bellowed orders.

  Arlian had stayed well out of Loudmouth’s way—and as much as possible out of everyone else’s way, as well. He had been tripped three or four times while working during the past three shifts; a “mis-aimed” pickax had missed his foot by inches; chunks of ore had been “accidentally” flung at his head. His bedding had disappeared completely at one point, and he had had to dig down through the spill to replace it from the ragpile.

  Even Wark was avoiding him—and Arlian couldn’t blame him; anyone who was seen befriending the outcast would be outcast himself.

  He hoped the others would get over their anger soon. While he had never been the most popular of the slaves, he had always gotten along well enough, and had made no real enemies—until now.

  Maybe, he thought as he shoveled, this would mark the end of his harassment. With the hopper back in operation and the spilled ore gone, with Bloody Hand back on the job, perhaps things would return to normal.

  Or perhaps when the backlog of ore was gone—every cart in the mine was filled to overflowing, and more ore was piled at the rock face, since there had been no way to haul it up the shaft. Maybe when that was gone he’d be forgiven his act of misplaced mercy.

  He wasn’t counting on it, though; the bag of mementos was still securely tied in place on his belt, and would stay there. He didn’t trust anyone at this point.

  He glimpsed something moving and ducked as a shovelful of ore flew past his ear.

  “Sorry,” Bitter said, his tone utterly insincere.

  “I wonder if it’s occurred to anyone,” Arlian said, not addressing anyone in particular, “that if Bloody Hand had died, he might have been replaced by someone even worse.”

  “And I wonder,” Bitter retorted, “whether anyone really could be worse, and whether Dinian’s shade is as angry at the missed chance for vengeance as I am.”

  “Shut up,” Lampspiller roared, “or I�
�ll show you that I can be worse than your worst nightmare!”

  “My nightmares are about dragons,” Arlian muttered.

  The whip cracked across his back. “You think I can’t be as bad as a dragon?” he bellowed.

  Arlian turned and stared at him, ignoring the welt rising on his shoulders. He didn’t say anything; he’d been ordered to shut up, after all. He simply looked at Lampspiller.

  The overseer faltered, then lifted his whip. “Get back to work!”

  Arlian returned to his shoveling. Some of the other miners had paused at the mention of dragons; many felt a superstitious awe of the legendary creatures that had once ruled the world, and Arlian was sure that they thought Lampspiller had just invited evil by his careless retort.

  Maybe he had. Arlian had had more direct experience of dragons than anyone else in the mine, but he still knew almost nothing about them. Maybe speaking irreverently of them could bring bad luck. Maybe his own grandfather’s explanation of dragon weather had brought about the attack on Obsidian.

  But Arlian didn’t believe that. And even if it were true, it was unjust. He would see the dragons punished someday, or he would die in pursuing it.

  “Fill this one right to the top!” Lampspiller ordered. “We’ve got an extra wagon waiting up above—we’ll be making up the missed shipments a little at a time.”

  “What if the ropes break again?” someone asked.

  “They won’t,” Lampspiller said. “Brand-new ropes all around.” He smiled crookedly. “But I won’t be standing underneath—some of us have more sense than that!”

  A few of the slaves smiled or even laughed briefly at that; Arlian did not.

  Ten minutes later the hopper was filled to overflowing, and Lampspiller sent the slaves to the tunnels before giving the signal to haul.

  He was as good as his word, and backed against the wall of the pit, well clear of the hopper as it rose upward, ropes crackling as they were stretched for the first time, pulleys and timbers creaking under the heavier-than-usual load.