Gidrah and Hezra
Gidrah on the left in Purple is an expert mining supervisor. She has always loved climbing on rocks and helping sort ores, examining excavations and making sure that mining shafts are made correctly. Since there is a considerable set of mines associated with Dawnlight and Blackstone, it is very important to her that the mines remain properly open.
Hezra on the right in Brown is a records keeper of a high degree, but with an eye toward spy-craft more appropriate to Alabaster's experts. He takes notes extensively on people, but written in a queer sort of script which only he can decode.
At the ages of 20 and 19 respectively, both of them are far ahead of their peers in those ages. Gidrah especially, since her expertise is nothing short of a master's, though no master in their right mind would award her that status until she was much older. Hezra remains silent and grinning because ... he knows things about you. And you, and that guy, and the weyrleaders, and that Holder, and...
Seven years ago, they were approached by the Head Blackbottoms themselves, Nova and B'litz. The sedate black hair they both had was soon swept away in a pile of silver and a soft cream, Gidrah's personality comes out in her hair color as well as style, and Hezra's just as much only in his quiet way.
"But it's a deep mine, Gidrah," the miner panted. "If we don't get some help, this stuff will just sit here forever."
Gidrah pondered for a moment, and then blew a whistle which indicated their shift was over. Even though it was only about three hours into that shift, she thought it best to collect their findings and return to the surface. She had an idea.
First she went to the master miners offices. She casually mentioned her shaft idea, and then handed both the men there behind their desks a smallish lump of gold. Both nodded and agreed that it was time she started working toward a real mastery. They sent her on her way with a letter of good faith on their parts, if she needed to convince anyone of her intent.
Then, she was off to the kitchens. It was hard work in the mines, she'd done her share of actually sifting and sorting that morning, and was rather dirty. The mine masters of course didn't notice, but the poor kitchen staff were shocked when this dirty-grimy girl came grinning and bounding into their nice clean kitchens... They shooed her off with a small tray of foods that she could heat up in her den. She stood looking at one wall, which had a tall silvery square in it, with a four-bladed fan slowly taking the fumes and smoke out of the room from the top where it would normally have collected. Had she stayed any longer, she might have met up with her brother, who entered just a little later on.
Almost finished with her tasks, she cleaned up a bit and approached the Lords who ran the mines. She told them of her idea, and of course had to produce yet another lump of precious gold for their real interest to be piqued. That solved, knowing that if there was any danger to her workers the Lords would make good on it for their families, she exited and sprinted off.
Her last stop was at one of the gadgeteers' dens, an older man whose nimble hands were often wrapped around some interesting toy or device. He greeted her with his typical grunt, and she glanced around the room as if to check for other people.
"What's eating you, child? You look as if you've run all the way round the weyr."
"I've got something for you, if you'll do a piece of machinery for me. In the mine."
That perked his interest. "What is it, girl?" He asked, putting down the little toy he was making.
"Here," Gidrah said, hushed. She'd finally recovered her breath. "It's almost pure, only needs a little refining to make it perfect."
"Gold? I can't use this in many things... Good for conduction, but little else... soft metal."
Gidrah rolled her eyes, and smiled. "No, I KNOW that, it's for you to spend, you old codger. I need you to make a fan, a duct for the deep mines so air goes through better and the miners can breathe. It could be powerful but it doesn't have to be very big. We can run a cloth or thin metal duct down, into the deep part of the mine, and it'll cycle the air well enough so they won't suffocate. I've seen you working on the fans for the kitchens, and they work great for taking the cook-smoke out. It'd work just as well going IN."
"A... a fan. Hrm..." He mulled that over while turning the lump of yellowy-brown rock in his hand. "Of course. How deep is this mine shaft, then?"
***
"So you got him to make it?" Hezra asked his sister, while relaxing in their den's bath. He leaned his head out from the smallish room, into the hall, where he saw her puttering. "And they liked it?"
"Of course they liked it, he's a genius!" She said, smiling ear to ear and pressing another piece of gold into a holder for purification.
"I'd say you're the genius," Hezra said, his voice echoing in the room off the water. "I mean, he'd never crawl out of that workshop of his to go down into the mines, to save his life."
"But it'll save other's lives, and at least he recognized that much." Gidrah said, and crouched next to the door. "And how was your day?"
"Oh, it was... interesting..."
"Tell me about it!" Gidrah insisted, slipping into the water with a towel over her shoulders. Hezra spoke, and as usual his simple but evocative words drew quite the picture...
***
It had began as a normal day would for the records keepers. They had to find any of the texts or tomes which had begun to degrade and assign people to re-write them. Accurately if possible, the masters would laugh.
It wasn't much of a laugh if someone got a medical text or an almanac prediction wrong... So their better scribes were set onto the tasks. Hezra was rarely chosen for those duties. It wasn't as though he couldn't write perfectly well as anyone else could, but that his own eye for detail was needed somewhere else that day.
He was pulled aside by one of the elder masters, a man from Alabaster. "We've heard tell there's a reward out for the location of some child or other, in a nearby Hold. His father is a very well placed man, and it'd be a shame if this son of his went missing or dead."
"Do you think he's dead?" Hezra asked, furrowing his thin brows. "I mean, if that's the case why do you need me?"
"Because he has refused to say which of his children it is. He's got three heirs, and it's known they all went on trips this last gather, and only one of them has sent word of where he's got to."
"Then I'll look at that letter or speak with the person he had courier it..." Hezra muttered, on his way to find out more already. By noon, he'd located not only the Holder himself, but the courier and two servants who said they'd seen the son around. It wasn't that one.
But Hezra had to ask him something more. Where had he been during this gather? Which ladies did he converse or dance with? Where were his brothers? They were at which stalls?
With these juicy bits of information in hand, in his strange scribbling code, Hezra stalked around Blackstone with a keen edged eye. He had an idea of who it was that was unaccounted for, it would be the youngest of the trio of boys. What sort of inheritance would he be getting, if his two older brothers had their share first?
It was always the youngest ones. And this one was only 16, headstrong as teens would be. Not as though Hezra was much older, but he was considerably different and more mature than any hold-born child. Not spoiled, used to work...
"Would you like to go home now?" Hezra asked of the third-son of this holder man. The boy looked up from a mound of potatoes which he'd been made to scrub and peel. The kid had cut himself about a dozen times already and was only a tiny portion through the stack.
"I wouldn't go back..." He said, his voice wasn't convincing, so Hezra pressured him.
"But you'll still stand to get a good amount of land, or posessions which you could sell. It's not going to be easy for your eldest brother, you know... He'll have a hold to run, and you're going to be peeling potatoes then too if he doesn't know how. You'll be the one to act as a servant."
"And I don't already?" He spat. "Come on. You don't know, obviously," the holder-born tone came out strongly when he said, "you're not of the blood to worry of such things. I won't be held down by my brothers. Or my father."
"But you'd be better off with his fortunes than without, and stop cutting the tatos like that, you're bleeding on them, fool." Hezra snatched the knife away from him, stuck it into one of the potatoes, and grabbed at his arm. "You're going to have to sort this out with them, and not drag Blackstone into it. We tend to our own you know. And my blood isn't spilling onto potatoes, is it?"
***
Hezra finished his story of his own day's events, and splashed his sister. "You're quite the mess, you know. All grimy. I don't want the water clogging with your soot!"
"Then get out, you've already taken up most of the hot water!" Gidrah laughed, there was more than enough hot water in Blackstone to last a lifetime...
***
The search rider for Keandyn weyr was present at the next morning's meal. S'nan sipped his coffee and took eager bites of the thick warm bread and butter that was served, all the while staring at the pair of Blackbottomed siblings. He knew they had to be related, even though they really didn't look quite like one another.
"Say," he commented as Hezra walked by with a note pad in one hand and a mug in the other, "Aren't you a recordskeeper? We've got some need for such a person at Keandyn weyr..."
Hezra's head tilted, and he said, "Sella needs an assistant? That'd be fun, being in a new weyr for a while..." He summoned his sister, who seemed less thrilled, since she'd just helped unearth a tremendous treasure.
"But I'd like it if you'd both come, I just ... have this feeling. And my blue Gerrath says he'd like to meet you too."
"Your blue? A ... search dragon?" Gidrah asked, leaning in and blinking so close to the rider's face that he felt her eyelashes fluttering.
"Yes, that's me... And my compliments to the cooks today!" He said as one of the servants passed by, making her blush with a grin. No one ever complimented the staff, at least, not so enthusiastically.
They went outside, where the blue waited. Gerrath perked up immediately when he saw the pair.
They will do. The clutch is still soft, you should stay here and finish your work. He thought to them.
Even after living in a weyr all their lives, neither Gidrah nor Hezra was prepared for the dragon's happy mind entering theirs. They'd been spoken to on occasion, but this... was something else! The dragon was convinced, even more than his rider!
"Well, then we could have somone take us there in a few weeks, if that's about the right time?" Hezra said, making a notation. "And you could always send for us yourself, if the clutch begins hatching without us!"
"I wouldn't dream of letting that happen..." Gidrah said, her eyes filled with the vision of the blue standing before her. "The mine will be good, I'll make sure that it stays that way... But once I'm done there, I'll be sure to get to Keandyn squeaky clean."
"And filthy rich?" Hezra asked as the search rider left for other weyrs and holds.
"You betcha," Gidrah giggled, holding the purified small bar of gold she'd done the night before...
What happens next?
