At the front he opened the great doors of the hold and fanned them a few times.
Master Zist came running over. “Lad, what is it?”
“Bad air!” Kindan said. “I could smell it when I went into the kitchen for Dalor. I’ve got the door to the kitchen open and I’m trying to get more air in but—”
“Fire! Help, help! Fire!” Master Zist bellowed. Shapes were approaching from different directions. Kindan looked around. Help might be too late. He ducked into the hallway.
“Kindan!”
“It’s okay,” Kindan shouted back. “I’m little, I don’t need as much air as others. If I can get upstairs, I can open the windows and maybe wake them up.”
The air on the stairways was definitely bad, Kindan realized as he started up them. He took a few good lungfuls and then held his breath, suddenly grateful for the dares he’d had with Kaylek on who could hold their breath the longest. His eyes were stinging as he reached the landing. His fingers fumbled with the window latch, but he got it open finally and took a few deep breaths before he turned to the bedrooms.
He opened the first door, ran into the room, and heaved open the first window he could find. He heard the shouts of others entering the house and running up the stairs. He shook the person in the bed—it was Dalor. Dazed and confused, Dalor looked up.
“Come on, Dalor!” Kindan shouted at him. “Bad air, come with me!” Suiting actions to his words, he grabbed Dalor’s arm. Shortly, he had the other boy leaning against him and started him out of the room, fighting his own light-headedness as he did so.
Some men met him at the door. One grabbed Dalor and threw him over his shoulders and the other grabbed Kindan and did the same, despite his protests.
Suddenly Kindan was outside, spread out on the snowy ground, taking deep, steady breaths. His head ached.
Something was wrong. Someone was calling her name, but it seemed as from a great distance.
“Nuella! Nuella!” It was Zenor’s voice. A smile played across Nuella’s lips. Zenor. She really liked him. Her friend. The first friend she’d made at the camp. Her only friend. She tried to move, but her limbs felt heavy, like stone.
“Nuella!” Zenor’s voice drew nearer. Dimly Nuella heard a door open, and then she felt someone shake her, grab at her. She was picked up and dragged out of her room.
“The air’s bad, Nuella—I’ve got to get you out,” Zenor said.
Bad air? Nuella thought to herself. Outside? The first faint stirrings of alarm grew inside her, but she was too heavy and tired to move. Outside—She wasn’t supposed to be outside.
“Not outside,” she murmured. Zenor, panting and hauling her down the stairs, didn’t hear her.
“Are you all right, lad?” Master Zist asked, kneeling down beside Kindan. Kindan nodded feebly, wished he hadn’t for the way his head felt, and managed to gesture a question with an open hand. “The others? They seem all right, thanks to you.”
Another person dropped beside Kindan. It was Natalon. “Thanks, lad. We would have died in our sleep, if it hadn’t been for you.”
Kindan sat up more, managed a sickly smile for Natalon, and looked around. Jenella was being wrapped in a blanket, her eyes streaming with tears; Swanee was beside her, coughing deeply. Kindan’s eyes narrowed as he saw Zenor helping a young girl get her breath back. He looked up at Master Zist and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. The Harper cocked his head and shook it just slightly.
Kindan jumped up, ignoring the pain behind his eyes, and grabbed Dalor, with a conspiratorial look in his eyes. He jerked his head toward the girl and Dalor’s eyes grew wide. Kindan shook his head again and walked nonchalantly with Dalor over to Zenor and the girl.
Zenor had placed a blanket over the girl’s head. He looked up curiously as Kindan approached. Kindan raised a quick fingers to his lips as he moved to block the girl from the view of the others.
“Come on, Dalor, you can get warmed up at the Harper’s fire,” Kindan said loudly, motioning for the girl and Zenor to stand up.
After that, it took only a little bit of work to arrange it so that Dalor was covered by the same blanket as the girl, and the four of them marched carefully to the Harper’s cottage, Kindan talking loudly the whole way.
It was possible, he hoped, that things had happened too quickly for anyone but him to notice that two children had been brought out of Natalon’s house, instead of just one.
Safe in the kitchen, all four of them warmed themselves by the fire. Dalor and the girl, still in their nightclothes, were shivering more than Kindan and Zenor.
“How’d you find us?” Dalor asked, his lips still blue.
“You were late for watch,” Kindan explained.
“Thanks,” Dalor said.
The girl reached up a hand hesitatingly toward Kindan and brushed his cheek. “Thank you, Kindan,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Nuella,” Kindan replied. At Dalor’s hiss of surprise and Zenor’s widened eyes, he added, “Master Zist has taken me as his apprentice. He says that a harper has to keep secrets and has to respect the secrets of others.” He turned to the cupboard and pulled out some mugs.
“Zenor, will you help me bring some warm klah while Dalor,” and Kindan emphasized the one name, “warms up here?”
Zenor grinned broadly at his friend. “Sure.” Kindan winked at Dalor’s surprised look and said, “I’ll see you later.”
By that evening, everyone in the camp knew that the chimney had been blocked, apparently by a freak crack of brick, and that Natalon’s hold had been thoroughly aired and there was no danger to anyone attending Winter’s End there.
All the same, the great double front doors and the windows of the long room were wide open to reassure any worriers. The two long tables that by day served students were pushed to either side of the room, and the teacher’s table was pushed all the way to the far end of the room from the hearth so that there was a good warm area for dancing.
Kindan and Master Zist were situated on top of the long table pushed against the wall. The Harper instructed Kindan to keep a simple beat on the drums, to accompany the songs.
The drumming was so basic that Kindan could spare his attention to observe the partygoers. The whole of Camp Natalon was fewer than two hundred people, including the smallest baby, but such a crowd should have filled the room nearly to bulging. As it was, Kindan calculated that less than a quarter of the Camp’s inhabitants were present.
And no wonder—regardless of what the miners knew about bad air, not even Milla the baker could be coaxed back into the kitchen that morning to make her dainties. Natalon’s lady, Jenella, was still suffering from the combined effects of the bad air and her pregnancy and was confined to bed.
The absence of others was easier to understand—Zenor had four little sisters and his mother to look after. And, because of the cave-in that fall, it was still necessary to, work two solid shifts, so the second shift was still in the mine. A third “air” shift had been organized to keep the air pumps going through the night, but that consisted of only four people working in two pairs and they were mostly the youngest, the oldest, or the least skilled.
Kindan was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize that Master Zist had stopped playing until the Master was speaking in his ear, having gotten up from his chair and walked over to where Kindan was seated. “Keep up that beat, lad, while I go mix with the crowd.”
Kindan nodded without breaking beat and watched as the MasterHarper climbed down from the table and made his way over to the refreshments. Kindan beat a bit harder as the Harper approached that table, and his hint must have been taken, for Master Zist tossed a backward wave at him—he would bring Kindan back some refreshments on his return.