Dragonquest (9 page)

“Then we're agreed,” said F'lar quickly, before the hypocrisy he was practicing overcame him with disgust. “We mount watches, aided by the Holders, and we keep track of the new shift. We'll soon know how to judge it.”

“What of T'kul?” G'narish asked.

D'ram looked squarely at T'ron. “We'll explain the situation to him.”

“He respects you two,” F'lar agreed. “It might be wiser, though, not to suggest we knew about . . .”

“We can handle T'kul, without your advice, F'lar,” D'ram cut him off abruptly, and F'lar knew that the momentary harmony between them was at an end. The Oldtimers were closing ranks against the crime of their contemporary, just as they had at that abortive meeting a few nights ago. He could console himself with the fact that they hadn't been able to escape all the implications of this incident.

Lessa came back into the weyr just then, her face flushed, her eyes exceedingly bright. Even D'ram bowed low to her in making his farewells.

“Don't leave, D'ram, T'ron. I've good word from Telgar Weyr,” she cried, but catching F'lar's glance, did not try to keep them when they demurred.

“R'mart's all right?” G'narish asked, trying to smooth over the awkwardness.

Lessa recovered herself with a smile for the Igen leader. “Oh that messenger—he's only a boy—he exaggerated. Ramoth bespoke Solth the senior queen at Telgar Weyt. R'mart is badly scored, yes. Bedella evidently overdosed him with numbweed powder.
She
hadn't the wit to send word to anyone. And the Wing-second assumed that we'd all been informed because he'd heard R'mart telling Bedella to send messengers, never dreaming she hadn't. When R'mart passed out, she forgot everything.” Lessa's shrug indicated her low opinion of Bedella. “The Wing-second says he'd be grateful for your advice.”

“H'ages is Wing-second at Telgar Weyr,” G'narish said. “A sound enough rider but he's got no initiative. Say, you're Thread-bared yourself F'lar.”

“It's nothing.”

“It's bleeding,” Lessa contradicted. “And you haven't eaten a thing.”

“I'll stop at Telgar Weyr, F'lar, and talk to H'ages,” G'narish said.

“I'd like to come with you, G'narish, if you've no objections . . .”

“I've objections,” Lessa put in. “G'narish's capable of ascertaining the extent of the Fall there and can relay the information to us. I'll see him to the ledge while
you start eating.”
Lessa was so didactic that G'narish chuckled. She tucked her arm in his and started toward the corridor. “I've not made my duty to Gyarmath,” she said, smiling sweetly up at G'narish, “and he's a favorite of mine, you know.”

She was flirting so outrageously that F'lar wondered that Ramoth wasn't roaring protest. As if Gyarmath could ever catch Ramoth in flight! Then he heard Mnementh's rumble of humor and was reassured.

Eat,
his bronze advised him.
Let Lessa flatter G'narish. Gyarmath doesn't mind.. Nor Ramoth. Nor I.

“What I do for my Weyr,” said Lessa with an exaggerated sigh as she returned a few moments later.

F'lar gave her a cynical look. “G'narish is more of a modern mind than he knows.”

“Then we'll have to make him conscious of it,” Lessa said firmly.

“Just so long as it is ‘we' who make him,” F'lar replied with mock severity, catching her hand and pulling her to him.

She made a token resistance, as she always did, scowling ferociously at him and then relaxed against his shoulder all at once. “Signal fires and sweepriding are not enough, F'lar,” she said thoughtfully. “Although I do believe we've worried too much about the change in Threadfall.”

“That nonsense was to fool G'narish and the others, but I thought you'd . . .”

“But don't you see that you were right?”

F'lar gave her a long incredulous look.

“By the Egg, Weyrleader, you astonish me. Why can't there be deviations? Because you, F'lar, compiled those Records and to spite the Oldtimers they must remain infallible? Great golden eggs, man, there were such things as Intervals when no Threads fell—as we both know. Why not a change of pace in Threadfall itself during a Pass?”

“But why? Give me one good reason why.”

“Give me one good reason why not! The same thing that affects the Red Star so that it doesn't always pass close enough to cast Thread on us can pull it enough off course to change Fall! The Red Star is not the only one to rise and set with the seasons. There could be another heavenly body affecting not only us but the Red Star.”

“Where?”

Lessa shrugged impatiently. “How do I know? I'm not long in the eye like F'rad. But we can try to find out. Or have seven full Turns of certainty and schedule dulled your Wits?”

“Now, see here, Lessa . . .”

Suddenly she pressed herself close to him, full of contrition for her sharp tongue. He held her close, all too aware that she was right. And yet . . . There had been that long and lonely wait until he and Mnementh could come into their own. The terrible dichotomy of confidence in his own prophecy that Thread would fall and fear that nothing would rescue the Dragonriders from their lethargy. Then the crushing realization that those all too few dragonmen were all that could save an entire world from destruction; the three days of torture between the initial fall over the impending one at Nerat Hold and Telgar Hold with Lessa who-knew-where. Did he not have a right to relax his vigilance? Some freedom from the weight of responsibility?

“I've no right to say such things to you,” Lessa was whispering in soft remorse.

“Why not? It's true enough.”

“I ought never to diminish you, and all you've done, to placate a trio of narrow-minded, parochial, conservative . . .”

He stopped her words with a kiss, a teasing kiss that abruptly became passionate. Then he winced as her hands, curving sensuously around his neck, rubbed against the Thread-bared skin.

“Oh, I'm so sorry. Here, let me—” and Lessa's apology trailed off as she swiveled her body around to reach for the numbweed jar.

“I forgive you, dear heart, for all your daily machinations,” F'lar assured her sententiously. “It's easier to flatter a man than fight him. I wish I had F'nor here right now!”

“I still haven't forgiven that old fool T'ron,” Lessa said, her eyes narrowing, her lips pursed. “Oh,
why
didn't F'nor just let T'reb have the knife?”

“F'nor acted with integrity,” F'lar said with stiff disapproval.

“He could've ducked quicker then. And you're no better.” Her touch was gentle but the burns stung.

“Hmmm. What I have ducked is my responsibility to
our
Pern in bringing the Oldtimers forward. We've let ourselves get bogged down on small issues, like whose was the blame in that asinine fight at the Mastersmith's Hall. The real problem is to reconcile the old with the new. And we may just be able to make this new crisis work there to our advantage, Lessa.”

She heard the ring in his voice and smiled back at him approvingly.

“When we cut through traditions before the Oldtimers came forward, we also discovered how hollow and restrictive some of them were; such as this business of minimal contact between Hold, Craft and Weyr. Oh, true, if we wish to bespeak another Weyr, we can go there in a few seconds on a dragon, but it takes Holder or Crafter days to get from one place to another. They had a taste of convenience seven Turns ago. I should never have acquiesced and let the Oldtimers talk me out of continuing a dragon in Hold and Craft. Those signal fires won't work, and neither will sweepriders. You're absolutely right about that, Lessa. Now if Fandarel can think up some alternative method of . . . What's the matter? Why are you smiling like that?”

“I knew it. I knew you'd want to see the Smith and the Harper so I sent for them, but they won't be here until you've eaten and rested.” She tested the fresh numbweed to see if it had hardened.

“And of course you've eaten and rested, too?”

She got off his lap in one fluid movement, her eyes almost black.
“I'll
have sense enough to go to bed when I'm tired.
You'll
keep on talking with Fandarel and Robinton long after you've chewed your business to death. And you'll drink—as if you haven't learned yet that only a dragon could outdrink that Harper and that Smith—” She broke off again, her scowl turning into a thoughtful frown. “Come to think of it, we'd do well to invite Lytol, if he'd come. I'd like to know exactly what the Lord Holders' reactions are. But first, you eat!”

F'lar laughingly obeyed, wondering how he could suddenly feel so optimistic when it was now obvious that the problems of Pern were coming home to roost on his weyr ledge again.

 

CHAPTER IV

 

Midday at Southern Weyr

 

 

 

K
YLARA WHIRLED
in front of the mirror, turning her head to watch her slender image, observing the swing and fall of the heavy fabric of the deep red dress.

“I knew it. I told him that hem was uneven,” she said, coming to a dead stop, facing her reflection, suddenly aware of her own engaging scowl. She practiced the expression, found one attitude that displeased her and carefully schooled herself against an inadvertent re-use.

“A frown is a mighty weapon, dear,” her foster mother had told her again and again, “but do cultivate a pretty one. Think what would happen if your face
froze
that way.”

Her posing diverted her until she twisted, trying to assess her profile, and again caught sight of the swirl of the guilty hem.

“Rannelly!” she called, impatient when the old woman did not answer instantly. “Rannelly!”

“Coming, poppet. Old bones don't move as fast. Been setting your gowns to air. There do be such sweetness from that blooming tree. Aye, the wonder of it, a fellis tree grown to such a size.” Rannelly carried on a continuous monologue once summoned, as if the sound of her name turned on her mind. Kylara was certain that it did, for her old nurse voiced, like a dull echo, only what she heard and saw.

“Those tailors are no better than they should be, and sloppy about finishing details,” Rannelly muttered on, when Kylara sharply interrupted her maundering with the problem. She exhaled on the note of a bass drone as she knelt and flipped up the offending skirt. “Aye and just see these stitches. Taken in haste they were, with too much thread on the needle . . .”

“That man promised me the gown in three days and was seaming it when I arrived. But I need it.”

Rannelly's hands stopped; she stared up at her charge. “You weren't ever away from the Weyr without saying a word . . .”

“I go where I please,” Kylara said, stamping her foot. “I'm no babe to be checking my movements with you. I'm the Weyrwoman here at Southern. I ride the queen. No one can do anything to me. Don't forget that.”

“There's none as forgets my poppet's . . .”

“Not that this is a proper Weyr, at all . . .”

“. . . And that's an insult to my nursling, it is, to be in . . .”

“Not that
they
care, but they'll see they can't treat a Telgar of the Blood with such lack of courtesy . . .”

“. . .And who's been discourteous to my little . . .”

“Fix that hem, Rannelly, and don't be all week about it. I must look my best when I go home,” Kylara said, turning her upper torso this way and that, studying the fall of her thick, wavy blonde hair. “Only good thing about this horrible, horrible place. The sun does keep my hair bright.”

“Like a fall of sunbeams, my sweetling, and me brushing it to bring out the shine. Morning and night I brushes it. Never miss. Except when you're away.
He
was looking for you earlier . . .”

“Never mind
him.
Fix that hem.”

“Oh, aye, that I can do for you. Slip it off. There now. Ooooh, my precious, my poppet. Whoever treated you so! Did
he
make such marks on . . .”

“Be quiet!” Kylara stepped quickly from the collapsed dress at her feet, all too aware of the livid bruises that stood out on her fair skin. One more reason to wear the new gown. She shrugged into the loose linen robe she had discarded earlier. While sleeveless, its folds almost covered the big bruise on her right arm. She could always blame that on a natural accident. Not that she cared a whistle what T'bor thought but it made for less recrimination. And he never knew what he did when he was well wined-up.

“No good will come of it,” Rannelly was moaning as she gathered up the red gown and began to shuffle across to her cubby. “You're weyrfolk now. No good comes of weyrfolk mixing with Holders. Stick to your own. You're somebody here . . .”

“Shut up, you old fool. The whole point of being Weyrwoman is I can do what
I
please. I'm not my mother. I don't need your advice.”

“Aye, and I know it,” the old nurse said with such sharp bitterness that Kylara stared after her

There, she'd frowned unattractively. She must remember not to screw her brows that way; it made wrinkles. Kylara ran her hands down her sides, testing the smooth curves sensuously, drawing one hand across her flat belly. Flat even after five brats. Well, there'd be no more. She had the way of it now. Just a few moments longer
between
at the proper time and . . .

She pirouetted, laughing, throwing her arms up to the ceiling in a tendon-snapping stretch and hissing as the bruised deltoid muscle pained her.

Meron need not . . . She smiled languorously. Meron did need to, because
she
needed it.

He is not a dragonrider
said Prideth, rousing from sleep. There was no censure in the golden dragon's tone; it was a statement of fact. Mainly the fact that Prideth was bored with excursions which landed her in Holds rather than Weyrs. When Kylara's fancy took them visiting other dragons, Prideth was more than agreeable. But a Hold, with only the terrified incoherencies of a watch-wher for company was another matter.

“No, he's
not
a dragonrider,” Kylara agreed emphatically, a smile of remembered pleasure touching her full red lips. It gave her a soft, mysterious, alluring look, she thought, bending to the mirror. But the surface was mottled and the close inspection made her skin appear diseased.

I itch
Prideth said, and Kylara could hear the dragon moving. The ground under her feet echoed the effect.

Kylara laughed indulgently and, with a final swirl and a grimace at the imperfect mirror, she went out to ease Prideth. If only she could find a real man who could understand and adore her the way the dragon did. If, for instance, F'lar . . .

Mnementh is Ramoth's,
Prideth told her rider as she entered the clearing which served as gold queen's Weyr in Southern. The dragon had rubbed the dirt off the bedrock just beneath the surface. The southern sun baked the slab so that it gave off comfortable heat right through the coolest night. All around, the great fellis trees drooped, the pink clustered blossoms scenting the air.

“Mnementh could be yours, silly one,” she told her beast, scrubbing the itchy spot with the long-handled brush.

No. I do not contend with Ramoth.

“You would quick enough if you were in mating heat,” Kylara replied, wishing she had the nerve to attempt such a coup. “It's not as if there was anything immoral about mating with your father or clutching your mother . . .”

Kylara thought of her own mother, a woman too early used and cast aside by Lord Telgar, for younger, more vital bedmates. Why, if she hadn't been found on Search, she might have had to marry that dolt what-ever-his-name-had-been. She'd never have been a Weyrwoman and had Prideth to love her. She scrubbed fiercely at the spot until Prideth, sighing in an excess of relief, blew three clusters of blooms off their twigs.

You are my mother,
Prideth said, turning great opalescent eyes on her rider, her tone suffused with love, admiration, affection, awe and joy.

Despite her annoying reflections, Kylara smiled tenderly at her dragon. She couldn't stay angry with the beast, not when Prideth gazed at her that way. Not when Prideth loved her, Kylara, to the exclusion of all other considerations. Gratefully the Weyrwoman rubbed the sensitive ridge of Prideth's right eye socket until the protecting lids closed one by one in contentment. The girl leaned against the wedge-shaped head, at peace momentarily with herself, with the world, the balm of Prideth's love assuaging her discontent.

Then she heard T'bor's voice in the distance, ordering the weyrlings about, and she pushed away from Prideth. Why did it have to be T'bor? He was so ineffectual. He never came near making her feel the way Meron did, except of course when Orth was flying Prideth and then, then it was bearable. But Meron, without a dragon, was almost enough. Meron was just ruthless and ambitious enough so that together they could probably control all Pern . . .

“Good day, Kylara.”

Kylara ignored the greeting. T'bor's forcedly cheerful tone told her that he was determined not to quarrel with her over whatever it was he had on his mind this time. She wondered what attraction he had ever held for her, though he was tall and not ill-favored; few dragonriders were. The thin lines of Thread scars more often gave them a rakish rather than repulsive appearance. T'bor was not scarred but a frown of apprehension and a nervous darting of his eyes marred the effect of his good looks.

“Good day, Prideth,” he added.

I like him,
Prideth told her rider.
And he is really devoted to you. You are not kind to him.

“Kindness gets you nowhere,” Kylara snapped back at her beast. She turned with indolent reluctance to the Weyrleader. “What's on your mind?”

T'bor flushed as he always did when he heard that note in Kylara's voice. She meant to unsettle him.

“I need to know how many weyrs are free. Telgar Weyr is asking.”

“Ask Brekke. How should I know?”

T'bor's flush deepened and he set his jaw. “It is customary for the Weyrwoman to direct her own staff . . .”

“Custom be Thread-bared! She knows. I don't. And I don't see why Southern should be constantly host to every idiot rider who can't dodge Thread.”

“You know perfectly well, Kylara, why Southern Weyr . . .”

“We haven't had a single casualty of any kind in seven Turns of Thread.”

“We don't get the heavy, constant Threadfall that the northern continent does, and now I understand . . .”

“Well, I don't understand why their wounded must be a constant drain on our resources . . .”

“Kylara. Don't argue with every word I say.”

Smiling, Kylara turned from him, pleased that she had pushed him so close to breaking his childish resolve.

“Find out from Brekke.
She
enjoys filling in for me.” She glanced over her shoulder to see if he understood exactly what she meant. She was certain that Brekke shared his bed when Kylara was otherwise occupied. The more fool Brekke, who, as Kylara well knew, was pining after F'nor. She and T'bor must have interesting fantasies, each imagining the other the true object of their unrequited loves.

“Brekke is twice the woman and far more fit to be Weyrwoman than you!” T'bor said in a tight, controlled voice.

“You'll pay for that, you scum, you snivelling boy-lover,” Kylara screamed at him, enraged by the unexpectedness of his retaliation. Then she burst out laughing at the thought of Brekke as the Weyrwoman, or Brekke as passionate and adept a lover as she knew herself to be. Brekke the Bony, with no more roundness at the breast than a boy. Why, even Lessa looked more feminine.

Thought of Lessa sobered Kylara abruptly. She tried again to convince herself that Lessa would be no threat, no obstacle in her plan. Lessa was too subservient to F'lar now, aching to be pregnant again, playing the dutiful Weyrwoman, too content to see what could happen under her nose. Lessa was a fool. She could have ruled all Peru if she had half-tried. She'd had the chance and lost it. The stupidity of going back to bring up the Oldtimers when she could have had absolute dominion over the entire planet as Weyrwoman to Pern's foremost queen! Well, Kylara had no intention of remaining in the Southern Weyr, meekly tending the world's wounded weyrmen and cultivating acres and acres of food for everyone else but herself. Each egg hatched a different way, but a crack at the right time speeded things up.

And Kylara was all ready to crack a few eggs,
her
way. Noble Larad, Lord of Telgar Hold, might not have remembered to invite her, his only full-blood sister, to the wedding, but surely there was no reason why she should remain distant when her own half sister was marrying the Lord Holder of Lemos.

Brekke was changing the dressing on his arm when F'nor heard T'bor calling her. She tensed at the sound of his voice, an expression of compassion and worry momentarily clouding her face.

“I'm in F'nor's weyr,” she said, turning her head toward the open door and raising her light voice.

“Don't know why we insist on calling a hold made of wood a weyr,” said F'nor, wondering at Brekke's reaction. She was such a serious child, too old for her years. Perhaps being junior Weyrwoman to Kylara had aged her prematurely. He had finally got her to accept his teasing. Or was she humoring him, F'nor wondered, during the painful process of having the deep knife wound tended.

She gave him a little smile. “A weyr is where a dragon is, no matter how it's constructed.”

T'bor entered at that moment, ducking his head, though the door was plenty high enough to accommodate his inches.

“How's the arm, F'nor?”

“Improving under Brekke's expert care. There's a rumor,” F'nor said, grinning slyly up at Brekke, “that men sent to Southern heal quicker.”

“If that's why there are always many coming back, I'll give her other duties.” T'bor sounded so bitter that F'nor stared at him. “Brekke, how many more wounded can we accommodate?”

“Only four, but Varena at West can handle at least twenty.” From her expression, F'nor could tell she hoped there weren't that many wounded.

“R'mart asks to send ten, only one badly injured,” T'bor said, but he was still resentful.

“He'd best stay here then.”

F'nor started to say that he felt Brekke was spreading herself too thin as it was. It was obvious to him that, though she had few of the privileges, she had assumed all the responsibilities that Kylara ought to handle, while that one did much as she pleased. Including complaining that Brekke was shirking or stinting this or that. Brekke's queen, Wirenth, was still young enough to need a lot of care; Brekke fostered young Mirrim though she had had no children herself and none of the Southern riders seemed to share her bed. Yet Brekke also took it upon herself to nurse the most seriously wounded dragonriders. Not that F'nor wasn't grateful to her. She seemed to have an extra sense that told her when numbweed needed renewing, or when fever was high and made you fretful. Her hands were miracles of gentleness, cool, but she could be ruthless, too, in disciplining her patients to health.