Free Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey Page B

accurately? The creatures were
not
to come.’
    ‘They follow her everywhere, Master Shonagar, only she says they’ll be quiet if she tells them to.’
    Master Shonagar turned his heavy head to regard Menolly with hooded eyes.
    ‘So tell them!’
    Menolly detached Beauty from her shoulder and ordered them all to perch themselves quietly. And not to make a single sound until she said they could.
    ‘Well,’ remarked Master Shonagar, turning his head slightly to observe the obedience of the fire lizards. ‘That is a welcome sight, surrounded as I generally am by mass disobedience.’ He glared narrow-eyed at Piemur, who had had the temerity to giggle, and, at Master Shonagar’s stare, tried to assume a sober expression. ‘I’ve had enough of your bold face, Piemur, and your dilatory manner. Take them away!’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Piemur cheerfully, and twisting about on his heels, he marched himself smartly to the door, pausing to give Menolly an encouraging wave as he skipped down the steps.
    ‘Rascal,’ said the Master in a mock growl as he flicked his fingers at Menolly to take the stool opposite him. ‘I’m given to believe that Petiron ended his days as Harper at your Hold, Menolly.’
    She nodded, tacitly reassured by his unexpected willingness to address her by name.
    ‘And he taught you to play instruments and to understand musical theory?’
    Menolly nodded again.
    ‘In which Masters Domick and Morshal have examined you today.’ Some dryness in his tone alerted her, and she regarded him more warily as he tilted his heavy head sideways on his massive shoulders. ‘And did Petiron,’ and now the bass voice rolled with a hint of coming displeasure, so that Menolly wondered if her original assessment of this man was wrong and he was just as prejudiced as cynical Domick and soured Morshall. ‘Did he have the audacity to teach you how to use your voice?’
    ‘No, sir. At least, I don’t think he did. We … we just sang together.’
    ‘Ha!’ And the huge hand of Master Shonagar came down so forcefully on the sandtable that the drier portions jumped in their frames. ‘You just sang together. As you sang together with those fire lizards of yours?’
    Her friends chirped enquiringly.
    ‘Silence!’ he cried, with another sand-displacing thump on the table.
    Somewhat to Menolly’s surprise, because Master Shonagar had startled her again, the fire lizards flipped their wings to their backs and settled down.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Did I just sing with them? Yes, I did.’
    ‘As you used to sing with Petiron?’
    ‘Well, I used to sing descant to Petiron’s melody, and the fire lizards usually do the descant now.’
    ‘That was not precisely what I meant. Now, I wish you just to sing for me.’
    ‘What, sir?’ she asked, reaching for the gitar slung across her back.
    ‘No, not with that,’ and he waved at her impatiently. ‘Sing, not concertize. The voice only is important now, not how you mask vocal inadequacies with pleasant strumming and clever harmony. I want to hear the voice … It is the voice we communicate with, the voice which utters the words we seek to impress on men’s minds, the voice which evokes emotional response; tears, laughter, sense. Your voice is the most important, most complex, most amazing instrument of all. And if you cannot use that voice properly, effectively, you might just as well go back to whatever insignificant Hold you came from.’
    Menolly had been so fascinated by the richness and variety of the Master’s tones that she didn’t really pay heed to the content.
    ‘Well?’ he demanded.
    She blinked at him, drawing in her breath, belatedly aware that he was waiting for her to sing.
    ‘No, not like that! Dolt! You breathe from here,’ and his fingers spread across his barrel-width midsection, pressing in so that the sound from his mouth reflected that pressure. ‘Through the nose, so …’ and he inhaled, his massive chest barely rising as it was filled, ‘down