PART II

Dragonflight

 

 

 

 

"If a queen isn't meant to fly, why does she have wings?" asked Lessa. She was genuinely trying to maintain a tone of sweet reason.

She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly. Unlike the average Pernese, dragonriders were apt to perceive strong emotional auras.

R'gul's heavy eyebrows drew together in a startled frown. He snapped his jaws together with exasperation. Lessa knew his answer before he uttered it

"Queens don't fly," he said flatly.

"Except to mate," S'lel amended. He had been dozing, a state he achieved effortlessly and frequently, although he was younger than the vigorous R'gul.

They are going to quarrel again, Lessa thought with an inward groan. She could stand about half an hour of that, and then her stomach would begin to churn. Their notion of instructing the new Weyrwoman in "Duties to Dragon, Weyr, and Pern" too often deteriorated into extended arguments over minor details in the lessons she had to memorize and recite wordperfect. Sometimes, as now, she entertained the fragile hope that she might wind them up so tightly in their own inconsistencies that they would inadvertently reveal a truth or two.

"A queen flies only to mate," R'gul allowed the correction.

"Surely," Lessa said with persistent patience, "if she can fly to mate, she can fly at other times."

"Queens don't fly," R'gul's expression was stubborn.

"Jora never did fly a dragon at all," S'lel mumbled, blinking rapidly in his bemusement with the past. His expression was vaguely troubled. "Jora never left these apartments."

"She took Nemorth to the feeding grounds," R'gul snapped irritably.

Bile rose in Lessa's throat. She swallowed. She would simply have to force them to leave. Would they realize that Ramoth woke all too conveniently at times? Maybe she'd better rouse R'gul's Hath. Inwardly she permitted herself a smug smile as her secret ability to hear and talk to any dragon in the Weyr, green, blue, brown, or bronze, momentarily soothed her.

"When Jora could get Nemorth to stir at all," S'lel muttered, picking at his underlip worriedly.

R'gul glared at S'lel to silence him and, succeeding, tapped pointedly on Lessa's slate.

Stifling her sigh, she picked up the stylus. She had already written this ballad out nine times, letterperfect. Ten was apparently R'gul's magic number. For she had written every single one of the traditional Teaching Ballads, the Disaster Sagas, and the Laws, letter-perfect, ten times each. True, she had not understood half of them, but she knew them by heart.

"Seas boil, and mountains move" she wrote.

Possibly. If there is a major inner upheaval of the land. One of Fax's guards at Ruatha Hold had once regaled the Watch with a tale from his great-grandsire's days. A whole coastal village in East Fort had slid into the sea. There had been monumental tides that year and, beyond Ista, a mountain had allegedly emerged at the same time, its top afire. It had subsided years later. That might be to what the line referred. Might be.

"Sands heat ... " True, in summer it was said that Igen Plain could be unendurable. No shade, no trees, no caves, just bleak sand desert. Even dragonmen eschewed that region in deep summer. Come to think of it, the sands of the Hatching Ground were always warm underfoot. Did those sands ever get hot enough to burn? And what warmed them, anyway? The same unseen internal fires that heated the water in the bathing pools throughout Benden Weyr?

"Dragons prove ..." Ambiguous for half a dozen interpretations, and R'gul won't even suggest one as official. Does it mean that dragons prove the Red Star passes? How? Coming out with a special keen, similar to the one they utter when one of their own kind passes to die between? Or did the dragons prove themselves in some other way as the Red Star passes? Besides, of course, their traditional function of burning the Threads out of the skies? Oh, all the things these ballads don't say, and no one ever explains. Yet there must originally have been a reason.

"Stone pile and fires burn/Green withers, arm Pern"

More enigma. Is someone piling the stones on the fires? Do they mean firestone? Or do the stones pile themselves as in an avalanche? The balladeer might at least have suggested the season involved - or did he, with "green withers"? Yet vegetation purportedly attracted Threads, which was the reason, traditionally, that greenery was not permitted around human habitations. But stones couldn't stop a Thread from burrowing underground and multiplying. Only the phosphine emissions of a firestone-eating dragon stopped a Thread. And nowadays, Lessa smiled thinly, no one, not even dragonmen-with the notable exceptions of F'lar and his wingmen-bothered to drill with firestone, much less uproot grass near houses. Lately hilltops, scoured barren for centuries, were allowed to burgeon with green in the spring.

"Guard all passes."

She dug the phrase out with the stylus, thinking to herself: So no dragonrider can leave the Weyr undetected.

R'gul's current course of inaction as Weyrleader was based on the idea that if no one. Lord or holder, saw a dragonrider, no one could be offended. Even traditional patrols were flown now over uninhabited areas, to allow the current agitation about the "parasitical" Weyr to die down. Fax, whose open dissension had sparked that movement, had not taken the cause to his grave. Larad, the young Lord of Telgar, was said to be the new leader.

R'gul as Weyrleader. That rankled Lessa deeply. He was so patently inadequate. But his Hath had taken Nemorth on her last flight. Traditionally (and that word was beginning to nauseate Lessa for the sins of omission ascribable to its name) the Weyrleader was the rider of the queen's mate. Oh, R'gul looked the part-a big, husky man, physically vigorous and domineering, his heavy face suggesting a sternly disciplined personality. Only, to Lessa's thinking, the discipline was misdirected.

Now F'lar ... he had disciplined himself and hit wingriders in what Lessa considered the proper direction. For he, unlike the Weyrleader, not only sincerely believed in the Laws and Traditions he followed, he understood them. Time and again she had managed to make sense of a puzzling lesson from a phrase or two F'lar tossed in her direction. But, traditionally, only the Weyrleader instructed the Weyrwoman.

Why, in the name of the Egg, hadn't Mnementh, F'lar's bronze giant, flown Nemorth? Hath was a noble beast, in full prime, but he could not compare with Mnementh in size, wingspread, or strength. There would have been more than ten eggs in that last clutch of Nemorth's if Mnementh had flown her.

Jora, the late and unlamented Weyrwoman, had been obese, stupid, and incompetent. On this everyone agreed. Supposedly the dragon reflected its rider as much as the rider the dragon. Lessa's thoughts turned critical. Undoubtedly Mnementh had been as repelled by the dragon, as a man like F'lar would be by the rider-unrider, Lessa corrected herself, sardonically glancing at the drowsing S'lel.

But if F'lar had gone to the trouble of that desperate duel with Fax to save Lessa's life back in Ruatha Hold to bring her to the Weyr as a candidate at the Impression, why had he not taken over the Weyr when she proved successful, and ousted R'gul? What was he waiting for? He had been vehement and persuasive enough in making Lessa relinquish Ruatha and come to Benden Weyr. Why, now, did he adopt such an aloof pose of detachment as the Weyr tumbled further and further into disfavor?

"To save Pern," F'lar's words had been. From what if not R'gul? F'lar had better start salvation procedures. Or was he biding his time until R'gul blundered fatally? R'gul won't blunder, Lessa thought sourly, because he won't do anything. Most particularly he wouldn't explain what she wanted to know.

"Star Stone watch, scan sky." From her ledge, Lessa could see the gigantic rectangle of the Star Stone outlined against the sky. A watch-rider always stood by it. One day she'd get up there. It gave a magnificent view of the Benden Range and the high plateau that came right up to the foot of the Weyr. Last Turn there had been quite a ceremony at Star Stone, when the rising sun seemed to settle briefly on Finger Rock, marking the winter solstice. However, that only explained the significance of the Finger Rock, not the Star Stone. Add one more unexplained mystery.

"Ready the Weyrs," Lessa wrote morosely. Plural. Not Weyr but Weyrs. R'gul couldn't deny there were five empty Weyrs around Pern, deserted for who knows how many Turns. She'd had to learn the names, the order of their establishment, too. Fort was the first and mightiest, then Benden, High Reaches, Hot Igen, Ocean Ista and plainland Telgar. Yet no explanation as to why five had been abandoned. Nor why great Benden, capable of housing five hundred beasts in its myriad weyr-caverns, maintained a scant two hundred. Of course, R'gul had fobbed their new Weyrwoman off with the convenient excuse that Jora had been an incompetent and neurotic Weyrwoman, allowing her dragon queen to gorge unrestrained. (No one told Lessa why this was so undesirable, nor why, contradictorily, they were so pleased when Ramoth stuffed herself.) Of course, Ramoth was growing, growing so rapidly that the changes were apparent overnight.

Lessa smiled, a tender smile that not even the presence of R'gul and S'lel could embarrass. She glanced up from her writing to the passageway that led from the Council Room up to the great cavern that was Ramoth's weyr. She could sense that Ramoth was still deeply asleep. She longed for the dragon to wake, longed for the reassuring regard of those rainbow eyes, for the comforting companionship that made life in the Weyr endurable. Sometimes Lessa felt she was two people: gay and fulfilled when she was attending Ramoth, gray and frustrated when the dragon slept. Abruptly Lessa cut off this depressing reflection and bent diligently to her lesson. It did pass time.

"Red Star passes."

That benighted, begreened Red Star, and Lessa jammed her stylus into the soft wax with the symbol for a completed score.

There had been that unforgettable dawn, over two full Turns ago, when she had been roused by an ominous presentiment from the damp straw of the cheeseroom at Ruatha. And the Red Star had gleamed at her.

Yet here she was. And that bright, active future F'lar had so glowingly painted had not materialized. Instead of using her subtle power to manipulate events and people for Pern's good, she was forced into a round of inconclusive, uninstructive, tedious days, bored to active nausea by R'gul and S'lel, restricted to the Weyrwoman's apartments (however much of an improvement that was over her square foot of the cheeseroom floor) and the feeding grounds and the bathing lake. The only time she used her ability was to terminate these sessions with her so-called tutors. Grinding her teeth, Lessa thought that if it weren't for Ramoth, she would just leave. Oust Gemma's son and take Hold at Ruatha as she ought to have done once Fax was dead.

She caught her lip under her teeth, smiling in self-derision. If it weren't for Ramoth, she wouldn't have stayed here a moment past Impression anyway. But, from the second in which her eyes had met those of the young queen on the Hatching Ground, nothing but Ramoth mattered. Lessa was Ramoth's and Ramoth was hers, mind and heart, irrevocably attuned. Only death could dissolve that incredible bond.

Occasionally a dragonless man remained living, such as Lytol, Ruatha's Warder, but he was half shadow and that indistinct self lived in torment. When his rider died, a dragon winked into between, that frozen nothingness through which a dragon somehow moved himself and his rider, instantly, from one geographical position on Pern to another. To enter between held danger to the uniniated, Lessa knew, the danger of being trapped between for longer than it took a man to cough three times.

Yet Lessa's one dragonflight on Mnementh's neck had filled her with an insatiable compulsion to repeat the experience. Naively she had thought she would be taught, as the young riders and dragonets were. But she, supposedly the most important inhabitant of the Weyr next to Ramoth, remained earthbound while the youngsters winked in and out of between above the Weyr in endless practice. She chafed at the intolerable restriction.

Female or not, Ramoth must have the same innate ability to pass between as the males did. This theory was supported - unequivocally in Lessa's mind - by "The Ballad of Moreta's Ride." Were not ballads constructed to inform? To teach those who could not read and write? So that the young Pernese, whether he be dragonman, Lord, or holder, might learn his duty toward Pern and rehearse Pern's bright history? These two arrant idiots might deny the existence of that Ballad, but how had Lessa learned it if it did not exist? No doubt, Lessa thought acidly, for the same reason queens had wings!

When R'gul consented - and she would wear him down till he did - to allow her to take up her "traditional" responsibility as Keeper of the Records, she would find that Ballad. One day it was going to have to be R'gul's much delayed "right time."

Right time! she fumed. Right time! I have too much of the wrong time on my hands. When will this particular right time of theirs occur? When the moons turn green? What are they waiting for? And what might the superior F'lar be waiting for? The passing of the Red Star he alone believes in? She paused, for even the most casual reference to that phenomenon evoked a cold, mocking sense of menace within her.

She shook her head to dispel it. Her movement was injudicious. It caught R'gul's attention. He looked up from the Records he was laboriously reading. As he drew her slate across the stone Council table, the clatter roused S'lel. He jerked his head up, uncertain of his surroundings.

"Humph? Eh? Yes?" he mumbled, blinking to focus sleep-blurred eyes.

It was too much. Lessa quickly made contact with S'lel's Tuenth, himself just rousing from a nap. Tuenth was quite agreeable.

"Tuenth is restless, must go," S'lel promptly muttered. He hastened up the passageway, his relief at leaving no less than Lessa's at seeing him go. She was startled to hear him greet someone in the corridor and hoped the new arrival would provide an excuse to rid herself of R'gul.

It was Manora who entered. Lessa greeted the headwoman of the Lower Caverns with thinly disguised relief. R'gul, always nervous in Manora's presence, immediately departed.

Manora, a stately woman of middle years, exuded an aura of quiet strength and purpose, having come to a difficult compromise with life which she maintained with serene dignity. Her patience tacitly chided Lessa for her fretfulness and petty grievances. Of all the women she had met in the Weyr, (when she was permitted by the dragonmen to meet any) Lessa admired and respected Manora most. Some instinct in Lessa made her bitterly aware that she would never be on easy or intimate terms with any of the women in the Weyr. Her carefully formal relationship with Manora, however, was both satisfying and satisfactory.

Manora had brought the tally slates of the Supply Caves. It was her responsibility as headwoman to keep the Weyrwoman informed of the domestic management of the Weyr. (One duty R'gul insisted she perform.)

"Bitra, Benden, and Lemos have sent in their tithes, but that won't be enough to see us through the deep cold this Turn."

"We had only those three last Turn and seemed to eat well enough."

Manor smiled amiably, but it was obvious she did not consider the Weyr generously supplied.

"True, but that was because we had stores of preserved and dried foods from more bountiful Turns to sustain us. That reserve is now gone. Except for those barrels and barrels of fish from Tillek . .." Her voice trailed on expressively.

Lessa shuddered. Dried fish, salted fish, fish, had been served all too frequently of late.

"Our supplies of grain and flour in the Dry Caves are very low, for Benden, Bitra, and Lemos are not grain producers."

"Our biggest needs are grains and meat?"

"We could use more fruits and root vegetables for variety," Manora said thoughtfully. "Particularly if we have the long cold season the weather-wise predict. Now we did go to Igen Plain for the spring and fall nuts, berries ..."

"We? to Igen Plain?" Lessa interrupted her, stunned.

"Yes," Manora answered, surprised at Lessa's reaction. "We always pick there. And we beat out the water grains from the low swamplands."

"How do you get there?" asked Lessa sharply. There could be only one answer.

"Why, the old ones fly us. They don't mind, and it gives the beasts something to do that isn't tiring. You knew that, didn't you?"

"That the women in the Lower Caverns fly with dragonriders?" Lessa pursed her lips angrily. "No. I wasn't told." Nor did it help Lessa's mood to see the pity and regret in Manora's eyes.

"As Weyrwoman," she said gently, "your obligations restrict you where ..." "If I should ask to be flown to ... Ruatha, for instance," Lessa cut in, ruthlessly pursuing a subject she sensed Manora wanted to drop, "would it be refused me?" Manora regarded Lessa closely, her eyes dark with concern. Lessa waited. Deliberately she had put Manora into a position where the woman must either lie outright, which would be distasteful to a person of her integrity, or prevaricate, which could prove more instructive.

"An absence for any reason these days might be disastrous. Absolutely disastrous," Manora said firmly and, unaccountably, flushed. "Not with the queen growing so quickly. You must be here." Her unexpectedly urgent entreaty, delivered with a mounting anxiety, impressed Lessa far more than all R'gul's pompous exhortations about constant attendance on Ramoth.

"You must be here," Manora repeated, her fear naked.

"Queens do not fly," Lessa reminded her acidly. She suspected Manora was about to echo S'lel's reply to that statement, but the older woman suddenly shifted to a safer subject.

"We cannot, even with half-rations," Manora blurted out breathlessly, with a nervous shuffling of her slates, "last the full Cold."

"Hasn't there ever been such a shortage before ... in all Tradition?" Lessa demanded with caustic sweetness.

Manora raised questioning eyes to Lessa, who flushed, ashamed of herself for venting her frustrations with the dragonmen on the headwoman. She was doubly contrite when Manora gravely accepted her mute apology. In that moment Lessa's determination to end R'gul's domination over herself and the Weyr crystallized.

"No," Manora went on calmly, "traditionally," and she accorded Lessa a wry smile, "the Weyr is supplied from the first fruits of the soil and hunt. True, in recent Turns we have been chronically shorted, but it didn't signify. We had no young dragons to feed. They do eat, as you know." The glances of the two women locked in a timeless feminine amusement over the vagaries of the young under their care. Then Manora shrugged. "The riders used to hunt their beasts in the High Reaches or on the Keroon plateau. Now, however ..."

She made a helpless grimace to indicate that R'gul's restrictions deprived them of that victual relief.

"Time was," she went on, her voice soft with nostalgia, "we would pass the coldest part of the Turn in one of the southern Holds. Or, if we wished and could, return to our birthplaces. Families used to take pride in daughters with dragonfolk sons." Her face settled into sad lines. "The world turns and times change."

"Yes," Lessa heard herself say in a grating voice, "the world does turn, and times ... times will change."

Manora looked at Lessa, startled.

"Even R'gul will see we have no alternative," Manora continued hastily, trying to stick to her problem.

"To what? Letting the mature dragons hunt?"

"Oh, no. He's so adamant about that. No. We'll have to barter at Fort or Telgar."

Righteous indignation flared up in Lessa.

"The day the Weyr has to buy what should be given ..." and she halted in midsentence, stunned as much by such a necessity as by the ominous echo of other words. "The day one of my Holds cannot support itself or the visit of its rightful overlord ..." Fax's words rang in her head. Did those words again foreshadow disaster? For whom? For what?

"I know, I know," Manora was saying worriedly, unaware of Lessa's shock. "It goes against the grain. But if R'gul will not permit judicious hunting, there is no other choice. He will not like the pinch of hunger in his belly."

Lessa was struggling to control her inner terror. She took a deep breath.

"He'd probably then cut his throat to isolate his stomach," she snapped, her acid comment restoring her wits. She ignored Manora's startled look of dismay and went on. "It is traditional for you as headwoman of the Lower Cavern to bring such matters to the attention of the Weyrwoman, correct?"

Manora nodded, unsettled by Lessa's rapid switches of mood.

"I, then, as Weyrwoman, presumably bring this to the attention of the Weyrleader who, presumably," - she made no attempt to moderate her derision - "acts upon it?"

Manora nodded, her eyes perplexed.

"Well," Lessa said in a pleasant, light voice, "you have dutifully discharged your traditional obligation. It is up to me now to discharge mine. Right?"

Manora regarded Lessa warily. Lessa smiled at her reassuringly.

"You may leave it in my hands, then."

Manora rose slowly. Without taking her eyes from Lessa, she began to gather up her records.

"It is said that Fort and Telgar had unusually good harvests," she suggested, her light tone not quite masking her anxiety. "Keroon, too, in spite of that coastal flooding."

"Is that so?" Lessa murmured politely.

"Yes," Manora continued helpfully, "and the herds at Keroon and Tillek had good increase."

"I'm happy for them." Manora shot her a measuring look, not at all assured by Lessa's sudden affability. She finished gathering up her Records, then set them down again in a careful pile.

"Have you noticed how K'net and his wingriders chafe at R'gul's restrictions?" she asked, watching Lessa closely.

"K'net?"

"Yes. And old C'gan. Oh, his leg is still stiff, and Tagath may be more gray with age than blue, but he was of Udith's hatching. Her last clutch had fine beasts in it," she remarked. "C'gan remembers other days .. ."

"Before the world turned and times changed?"

Lessa's sweet voice did not mislead Manora now.

"It is not just as Weyrwoman that you are attractive to the dragonmen, Lessa of Pern," Manora said sharply, her face stern. "There are several of the brown riders, for instance ..."

"F'nor?" Lessa asked pointedly.

Manora drew herself up proudly. "He is a man grown, Weyrwoman, and we of the Lower Caverns have learned to disregard the ties of blood and affection. It is as a brown rider, not the son I bore, that I recommend him. Yes, I'd recommend F'nor, as I would also recommend T'sum and L'rad."

"Do you suggest them because they are of F'lar's wing and bred in the true traditions? Less apt to be swayed by my blandishments ..." "I suggest them because they believe in the tradition that the Weyr must be supplied from the Holds."

"All right." Lessa grinned at Manora, seeing the woman could not be baited about F'nor. "I shall take your recommendations to heart, for I do not intend ..." She broke off her sentence. "Thank you for apprising me of our supply problems. We need fresh meat most of all?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Grains, too, and some of the southern root vegetables would be very welcome," Manora replied formally.

"Very well," Lessa agreed.

Manora left, her expression thoughtful.

Lessa reflected for long moments on that interview, sitting like a slim statuette in the capacious stony chair, her legs curled up under her on the padding.

Foremost was the disturbing knowledge that Manora was deeply afraid of the mere prospect of Lessa absent from the Weyr, from Ramoth's side, for any reason, for any length of time. Her instinctive fear reaction was a far more effective argument than any of R'gul's sententious mouthings. However, Manora had given no hint of the reason for that necessity. Very well, Lessa would not try to fly one of the other dragons, with or without the rider, as she had been beginning to think she could.

As for this matter of short supplies, on that Lessa would act. Especially since R'gul would not. And, since R'gul could not protest what he did not know, she would contrive, with the help of K'net or F'nor or however many she needed, to keep the Weyr decently supplied. Eating regularly had become a pleasant habit she did not wish to curtail. She did not intend being greedy, but a little judicious pilfering of a bountiful harvest would go unnoticed by the Hold Lords.

K'net, though, was young; he might be rash and indiscreet. Perhaps F'nor would be the wiser choice. But was he as free to maneuver as K'net, who was, after all, a bronze rider? Maybe C'gan. The absence of a retired blue rider, time heavy on his hands, might not be noticed at all.

Lessa smiled to herself, but her smile faded quickly.

"The day the Weyr has to barter for what should be given ..." She thrust back the premonitory shudder, concentrated on the ignominy of that situation. It certainly emphasized the measure of her self-delusion.

Why had she thought being at the Weyr would be so different from Ruatha Hold? Had her early childhood training instilled such a questionless reverence for the Weyr that life must alter its pattern because Lessa of Ruatha had been Impressed by Ramoth? How could she have been such a romantic little fool?

Look around you, Lessa of Pern, look around the Weyr with unveiled eyes. Old and hallowed is the Weyr? Yes, but shabby and worn-and disregarded. Yes, you were elated to sit in the Weyrwoman's great chair at the Council Table, but the padding is thin and the fabric dusty. Humbled to think your hands rest where Moreta's and Torene's had rested? Well, the stone is ingrained with dirt and needs a good scrubbing. And your rump may rest where theirs did-but that's not where you have your brains.

The shabby Weyr reflected the deterioration of its purpose in the scheme of life on Pern. Those handsome dragonriders, too, so brave in their wher-hide accouterments, proud on the necks of their great beasts-they did not submit kindly to dose examination without a few disappointing revelations. They were only men, with manlike lusts and ambitions, full of very human faults and frustrations, unwilling to disrupt their easy existence for the harsh exigencies that would reestablish the Weyr. They had settled too deeply in their isolation from the rest of their race; they did not realize they were little thought of. There was no real leader at their head...

F'lar! What was he waiting for? For Lessa to see through R'gul's ineffectiveness? No, Lessa decided slowly, for Ramoth to grow up. For Mnementh to fly her when he can ... traditionalist that F'lar is, and Lessa thought this excuse to be specious ... when the mating dragon's rider became, traditionally, the Weyrleader. That rider!

Well, F'lar might just find events not turning out as he planned.

My eyes were dazzled by Ramoth's, but I can see around the rainbow now, Lessa thought, steeling herself against the tenderness that always accompanied any thought of the golden beast. Yes, I can see into the black and gray shadows now, where my apprenticeship at Ruatha should stand me in good stead. True, there's more to control than one small Hold and far more perceptive minds to influence. Perceptive but dense in their own way. A greater hazard if I lose. But how can I? Lessa's smile broadened. She rubbed her palms against her thighs in anticipation of the challenge. They can do nothing with Ramoth without me, and they must have Ramoth. No one can coerce Lessa of Ruatha, and they're as stuck with me as they were with Jora. Only, I'm no Jora!

Elated, Lessa jumped from the chair. She felt alive again. And more powerful in herself than she felt when Ramoth was awake.

Time, time, time. R'gul's time. Well, Lessa had done with marking his time. She'd been a silly fool. Now she'd be the Weyrwoman F'lar had beguiled her to think she could be.

F'lar ... her thoughts returned to him constantly. She'd have to watch out for him. Particularly when she started "arranging" things to suit herself. But she had an advantage he couldn't know-that she could speak to all the dragons, not just Ramoth. Even to his precious Mnementh.

Lessa threw back her hand and laughed, the sound echoing hollowly in the large, empty Council Room. She laughed again, delighted with an exercise she had had rare occasion to use. Her mirth roused Ramoth. The exultation of her decision was replaced by that of knowing the golden dragon was waking.

Ramoth stirred again and stretched restlessly as hunger pierced slumber. Lessa ran up the passage on light feet, eager as a child for the first sight of the glorious eyes and the sweetness that characterized the dragon's personality.

Ramoth's huge golden wedge-shaped head swiveled around as the sleepy dragon instinctively sought her Weyrmate. Lessa quickly touched her blunt chin, and the searching head was still, comforted. The several protecting lids parted over the many-faceted eyes, and Ramoth and Lessa renewed the pledge of their mutual devotion.

Ramoth had had those dreams again, she told Lessa, shuddering slightly. It was so cold there! Lessa caressed the soft down above her eye-ridge, soothing the dragon. Linked firmly to Ramoth as she had become, she was acutely aware of the dismay those curious sequences produced.

Ramoth complained of an itch by the left dorsal ridge.

"The skin is flaking again," Lessa told her, quickly spreading sweet oil on the affected area. "You're growing so fast," she added with mock and tender dismay.

Ramoth repeated that she itched abominably.

"Either eat less so you'll sleep less or stop outgrowing your hide overnight."

She chanted dutifully as she rubbed in the oil, "The dragonet must be oiled daily as the rapid growth in early development can overstretch fragile skin tissues, rendering them tender and sensitive."

They itch, Ramoth corrected petulantly, squirming.

"Hush. I'm only repeating what I was taught."

Ramoth issued a dragon-sized snort that blew Lessa's robe tightly around her legs.

"Hush. Daily bathing is compulsory, and thorough oiling must accompany these ablutions. Patchy skin becomes imperfect hide in the adult dragon. Imperfect hide results in skin ruptures that may prove fatal to a flying beast."

Don't stop rubbing, Ramoth entreated.

"Flying beast indeed!"

Ramoth informed Lessa she was so hungry. Couldn't she bathe and oil later?

"The moment that cavern you call a belly is full, you're so sleepy you can barely crawl. You've gotten too big to be carried."

Ramoth's tart rejoinder was interrupted by a low chuckle. Lessa whirled, hastily controlling the annoyance she felt at seeing F'lar lounging indolently against the archway to the ledge-corridor.

He had obviously been flying a patrol, for he still wore the heavy wher-hide gear. The stiff tunic clung to the flat chest, outlined the long, muscular legs. His bony but handsome face was still reddened by the ultra-cold of between. His curiously amber eyes glinted with amusement and, Lessa added, conceit.

"She grows sleek," he commented, approaching Ramoth's couch with a courteous bow to the young queen.

Lessa heard Mnementh give a greeting to Ramoth from his perch on the ledge.

Ramoth rolled her eyes coquettishly at the wingleader. His smile of almost possessive pride in her doubled Lessa's irritation.

"The escort arrives in good time to bid the queen good day."

"Good day, Ramoth," F'lar said obediently. He straightened, slapping his heavy gloves against his thigh.

"We interrupted your patrol pattern?" asked Lessa, sweetly apologetic.

"No matter. A routine flight," F'lar replied, undaunted. He sauntered to one side of Lessa for an unimpeded view of the queen. "She's bigger than most of the browns. There have been high seas and flooding at Telgar. And the tidal swamps at Igen are dragondeep." His grin flashed as if this minor disaster pleased him.

As F'lar said nothing without purpose, Lessa filed that statement away for future reference. However irritating F'lar might be, she preferred his company to that of the other bronze riders.

Ramoth interrupted Lessa's reflections with a tart reminder: If she had to bathe before eating, could they get on with it before she expired from hunger?

Lessa heard Mnementh's amused rumble without the cavern.

"Mnementh says we'd better humor her," F'lar remarked indulgently.

Lessa suppressed the desire to retort that she could perfectly well hear what Mnementh said. One day it was going to be most salutary to witness F'lar's stunned reaction to the knowledge that she could hear and speak to every dragon in the Weyr.

"I neglect her shockingly," Lessa said, as if contritely.

She saw F'lar about to answer her. He paused, his amber eyes narrowing briefly. Smiling affably, he gestured for her to lead the way.

An inner perversity prompted Lessa to bait F'lar whenever possible. One day she would pierce that pose and flay him to the quick. It would take doing. He was sharp-witted.

The three joined Mnementh on the ledge. He hovered protectingly over Ramoth as she glided awkwardly down to the far end of the long oval Weyr Bowl. Mist, rising from the warmed water of the small lake, parted in the sweep of Ramoth's ungainly wings. Her growth had been so rapid that she had had no time to coordinate muscle and bulk. As F'lar set Lessa on Mnementh's neck for the short drop, she looked anxiously after the gawky, blundering queen.

Queens don't fly because they can't, Lessa told herself with bitter candor, contrasting Ramoth's grotesque descent with Mnementh's effortless drift.

"Mnementh says to assure you she'll be more graceful when she gets her full growth," F'lar's amused voice said in her ear.

"But the young males are growing just as fast, and they're not a bit..." She broke off. She wouldn't admit anything to that F'lar.

"They don't grow as large, and they constantly practice ..."

"Flying! ..." Lessa leaped on the word, and then, catching a glimpse of the bronze rider's face, said no more. He was just as quick with a casual taunt.

Ramoth had immersed herself and was irritably waiting to be sanded. The left dorsal ridge itched abominably. Lessa dutifully attacked the affected area with a sandy hand.

No, her life at the Weyr was no different from that at Ruatha. She was still scrubbing. And there was more of Ramoth to scrub each day, she thought as she finally sent the golden beast into the deeper water to rinse. Ramoth wallowed, submerging to the tip of her nose. Her eyes, covered by the thin inner lid, glowed just below the surface-watery jewels. Ramoth languidly turned over, and the water lapped around Lessa's ankles.

All occupations were suspended when Ramoth was abroad. Lessa noticed the women clustered at the entrance to the Lower Caverns, their eyes wide with fascination. Dragons perched on their ledges or idly circled overhead. Even the weyrlings, boy and dragonet, wandered forth curiously from the fledgling barracks of the training fields.

A dragon trumpeted unexpectedly on the heights by the Star Stone. He and his rider spiraled down.

"Tithings, F'lar, a train in the pass," the blue rider announced, grinning broadly until he became disappointed by the calm way his unexpected good news was received by the bronze rider.

"F'nor will see to it," F'lar told him indifferently. The blue dragon obediently lifted his rider to the wingsecond's ledge.

"Who could it be?" Lessa asked F'lar. "The loyal three are in."

F'lar waited until he saw F'nor on brown Canth wheel up and over the protecting lip of the Weyr, followed by several green riders of the wing.

"We'll know soon enough," he remarked. He turned his head thoughtfully eastward, an unpleasant smile touching the comer of his mouth briefly. Lessa, too, glanced eastward where, to the knowing eye, the faint spark of the Red Star could be seen, even though the sun was full up.

"The loyal ones will be protected," F'lar muttered under his breath, "when the Red Star passes."

How and why they two were in accord in they unpopular belief in the significance of the Red Star Lessa did not know. She only knew that she, too, recognized it as Menace. It had actually been the foremost consideration in all F'lar's arguments that she leave Ruatha and come to the Weyr. Why he had not succumbed to the pernicious indifference that had emasculated the other dragonmen she did not know. She had never asked him-not out of spite, but because it was so obvious that his belief was beyond question. He knew. And she knew.

And occasionally that knowledge must stir in the dragons. At dawn, as one, they stirred restlessly in their sleep-if they slept-or lashed their tails and spread their wings in protest if they were awake. Manora, too, seemed to believe. F'nor must. And perhaps some of F'lar's surety had infected his wingriders. He certainly demanded implicit obedience to tradition in his riders and received it, to the point of open devotion.

Ramoth emerged from the lake and half-flapped, half-floundered her way to the feeding grounds. Mnementh arranged himself at the edge and permitted Lessa to seat herself on his foreleg. The ground away from the Bowl rim was cold underfoot.

Ramoth ate, complaining bitterly over the stringy bucks that made her meal and resenting it when Lessa restricted her to six.

"Others have to eat, too, you know."

Ramoth informed Lessa that she was queen and had priority.

"You'll itch tomorrow."

Mnementh said she could have his share. He had eaten well of a fat buck in Keroon two days ago. Lessa regarded Mnementh with considerable interest. Was that why all the dragons in F'lar's wing looked so smug? She must pay more attention as to who frequented the feeding grounds and how often.

Ramoth had settled into her weyr again and was already drowsing when F'lar brought the train-captain into the quarters.

"Weyrwoman," F'lar said, "this messenger is from Lytol with duty to you."

The man, reluctantly tearing his eyes from the glowing golden queen, bowed to Lessa.

"Tilarek, Weyrwoman, from Lytol, Warder of Ruatha Hold," he said respectfully, but his eyes, as he looked at Lessa, were so admiring as to be just short of impudence. He withdrew a message from his belt and hesitated, torn between the knowledge that women did not read and his instructions to give it to the Weyrwoman. Just as he caught F'lar's amused reassurance, Lessa extended her hand imperiously.

"The queen sleeps," F'lar remarked, indicating the passageway to the Council Room.

Adroit of F'lar, Lessa thought, to be sure the messenger had a long look at Ramoth. Tilarek would spread the word on his return journey, properly elaborated with each retelling, of the queen's unusual size and fine health. Let Tilarek also broadcast his opinion of the new Weyrwoman.

Lessa waited until she saw F'lar offer the courier wine before she opened the skin. As she deciphered Lytol's inscription, Lessa realized how glad she was to receive news of Ruatha. But why did Lytol's first words have to be:

 

The babe grows strong and is healthy...

 

She cared little for that infant's prosperity. Ah ...

 

Ruatha is green-free, from hill crown to crafthold verge. The harvest has been very good, and

the beasts multiply from the new studs. Herewith is the due and proper tithe of Ruatha Hold.

May it prosper the Weyr which protects us.

 

Lessa snorted under her breath. Ruatha knew its duty, true, but not even the other three tithing holds had sent proper greetings. Lytol's message contained ominously:

 

A word to the wise. With Fax's death, Telgar has come to the fore in the growing sedition.

Meron, so-called Lord of Nabol, is strong and seeks, I feel, to be first: Telgar is too cautious for

him. The dissension strengthens and is more widespread than when I last spoke with Bronze

Rider F'lar. The Weyr must be doubly on its guard. If Ruatha may serve, send word.

 

Lessa scowled at the last sentence. It only emphasized the fact that too few Holds served in any way.

"... laughed at we were, good F'lar," Tilarek was saying, moistening his throat with a generous gulp of Weyr-made wine, "for doing as men ought.

"Funny thing, that, for the nearer we got to Benden Range the less laughing we heard. Sometimes it's hard to make sense of some things, being as how you don't do 'em much. Like if I were not to keep my sword arm strong and used to the weight of a blade," and he made vigorous slashes and thrusts with his right arm, "I'd be put to it to defend myself come a long-drawn fight. Some folk, too, believe what the loudest talker says. And some folk because it frightens them not to. However," he went on briskly, "I'm soldier-bred and it goes hard to take the gibes of mere crafters and holders. But we'd orders to keep our swords sheathed, and we did. Just as well," he said with a wry grimace, "to talk soft. The Lords have kept full guard since ... since the Search..."

Lessa wondered what he had been about to say, but he went on soberly.

"There are those that'll be sorry when the Threads fall again on all that green around their doors."

F'lar refilled the man's cup, asking casually about the harvests seen on the road here.

"Fine, fat and heavy," the courier assured him. "They do say this Turn has been the best in memory of living man. Why, the vines in Crom had bunches this big!" He made a wide circle with his two huge hands, and his listeners made proper response. "And I've never seen the Telgar grain so full and heavy. Never."

"Pern prospers," F'lar remarked dryly.

"Begging your pardon"—Tilarek picked up a wizened piece of fruit from the tray—"I've scooped better than this dropped on the road behind a harvest wagon." He ate the fruit in two bites, wiping his hands on the tunic. Then, realizing what he had said, he added in hasty apology, "Ruatha Hold sent you its best. First fruits as man ought. No ground pickings from us. You may be sure."

"It is reassuring to know we have Ruatha's loyalty as well as its full measure," F'lar assured him. "Roads were clear?"

"Aye, and there's a funny thing this time of year. Cold, then suddenly warm like the weather couldn't remember the season. No snow and little rain. But winds! Like you'd never believe. They do say as how the coasts have been hit hard with high water." He rolled his eyes expressively and then, hunching his shoulders, confidentially added, "They do say Ista's smoking mountain that does appear and then... phffst ... disappears ... has appeared again."

F'lar looked properly skeptical, although Lessa did not miss the gleam of excitement in his eyes. The man sounded like one of R'gul's ambiguous verses.

"You must stay a few days for a good rest," F'lar invited Tilarek genially, guiding him out past sleeping Ramoth.

"Aye and grateful. Man gets to the Weyr maybe once or twice in his life," Tilarek was saying absently, craning his neck to keep Ramoth in sight as F'lar led him out. "Never knew queens grew so big."

"Ramoth is already much larger and stronger than Nemorth," F'lar assured him as he turned the messenger over to the weyrling waiting to escort him to quarters.

"Read this," Lessa said, impatiently shoving the skin at the bronze rider as soon as they were again in the Council Room.

"I expected little else," F'lar remarked, unconcerned, perching on the edge of the great stone table.

"And . ..?" Lessa demanded fiercely.

"Time will tell," F'lar replied serenely, examining a fruit for spots.

"Tilarek implied that not all the holders echo their Lords' seditious sentiments," Lessa commented, trying to reassure herself.

F'lar snorted. "Tilarek says 'as will please his listeners,' " he said in a passable imitation of the man's speech.

"You'd better know, too," F'nor said from the doorway, "he doesn't speak for all his men. There was a good deal of grumbling in the escort." F'nor accorded Lessa a courteous if absentminded salute. "It was felt that Ruatha has been too long poor to give such a share to the Weyr its first profitable Turn. And I'll say that Lytol was more generous than he ought to be. We'll eat well... for a while."

F'lar tossed the messageskin to the brown rider.

"As if we didn't know that," F'nor grunted after he had quickly scanned the contents.

"If you know that, what will you do about it?" Lessa spoke up. "The Weyr is in such disrepute that the day is coming when it can't feed its own."

She used the phrase deliberately, noticing with satisfaction that it stung the memories of both dragonmen. The look they turned on her was almost savage. Then F'lar chuckled so that F'nor relaxed with a sour laugh.

"Well?" she demanded.

"R'gul and S'lel will undoubtedly get hungry," F'nor said, shrugging.

"And you two?"

F'lar shrugged, too, and, rising, bowed formally to Lessa. "As Ramoth is deep asleep, Weyrwoman, your permission to withdraw."

"Get out!" Lessa shouted at them.

They had turned, grinning at each other, when R'gul came storming into the chamber, S'lel, D'nol, T'bor, and K'net close on his heels.

"What is this I hear? That Ruatha alone of the High Reaches sends tithes?"

"True, all too true," F'lar conceded calmly, tossing the messageskin at R'gul.

The Weyrleader scanned it, mumbling the words under his breath, frowning at its content. He passed it distastefully to S'lel, who held it for all to read.

"We fed the Weyr last year on the tithings of three Holds," R'gul announced disdainfully. "Last year," Lessa put in, "but only because there were reserves in the supply caves. Manora has just reported that those reserves are exhausted...."

"Ruatha has been very generous," F'lar put in quickly. "It should make the difference."

Lessa hesitated a moment, thinking she hadn't heard him right.

"Not that generous." She rushed on, ignoring the remanding glare F'lar shot her way.

"The dragonets require more this year, anyway. So there's only one solution. The Weyr must barter with Telgar and Fort to survive the Cold."

Her words touched off instant rebellion.

"Barter? Never'"

"The Weyr reduced to bartering? Raid!"

"R'gul, we'll raid first. Barter never!"

That had stung all the bronze riders to the quick. Even S'lel reacted with indignation. K'net was all but dancing, his eyes sparkling with anticipation of action.

Only F'lar remained aloof, his arms folded across his chest, glaring at her coldly.

"Raid?" R'gul's voice rose authoritatively above the noise. "There can be no raid!"

Out of conditioned reflex to his commanding tone, they quieted momentarily.

"No raids?" T'bor and D'nol demanded in chorus.

"Why not?" D'nol went on, the veins in his neck standing out.

He was not the one, groaned Lessa to herself, trying to spot S'lar, only to remember that he was out on the training field. Occasionally he and D'nol acted together against R'gul in Council, but D'nol was not strong enough to stand alone.

Lessa glanced hopefully toward F'lar. Why didn't he speak up now?

"I'm sick of stringy old flesh, of bad bread, of wood-tasting roots," D'nol was shouting, thoroughly incensed. "Pern prospered this Turn. Let some spill over into the Weyr as it ought!"

T'bor, standing belligerently beside him, growled agreement, his eyes fixing on first one, then another of the silent bronze riders. Lessa caught at the hope that T'bor might act as substitute for S'lan.

"One move from the Weyr at this moment," R'gul interrupted, his arm raised warningly, "and all the Lords will move-against us." His arm dropped dramatically.

He stood, squarely facing the two rebels, feet slightly apart, head high, eyes flashing. He towered a head and a half above the stocky, short D'nol and the slender T'bor. The contrast was unfortunate: the tableau was of the stern patriarch reprimanding errant children.

"The roads are clear," R'gul went on portentously, "with neither rain nor snow to stay an advancing army. The Lords have kept full guards under arms since Fax was killed." R'gul's head turned just slightly in F'lar's direction. "Surely you all remember the scant hospitality we got on Search?" Now R'gul pinned each bronze rider in turn with a significant stare. "You know the temper of the Holds, you saw their strength." He jerked his chin up. "Are you fools to antagonize them?"

"A good firestoning ..." D'nol blurted out angrily and stopped. His rash words shocked himself as much as anyone else in the room.

Even Lessa gasped at the idea of deliberately using firestone against man.

"Something has to be done ..." D'nol blundered on desperately, turning first to F'lar, then, less hopefully, to T'bor.

If R'gul wins, it will be the end, Lessa thought, coldly furious, and reacted, turning her thoughts toward T'bor. At Ruatha it had been easiest to sway angry men. If she could just... A dragon trumpeted outside.

An excruciatingly sharp pain lanced from her instep up her leg. Stunned, she staggered backward, unexpectedly falling into F'lar. He caught her arm with fingers like iron bands.

"You dare control ..." he whispered savagely in her ear and, with false solicitude, all but slammed her down into her chair. His hand grasped her arm with vise-fingered coercion.

Swallowing convulsively against the double assault, she sat rigidly. When she could take in what had happened, she realized the moment of crisis had passed.

"Nothing can be done at this time," R'gul was saying forcefully.

"At this time ..." The words ricocheted in Lessa's ringing ears.

"The Weyr has young dragons to train. Young men to bring up in the proper Traditions."

Empty Traditions, Lessa thought numbly, her mind seething with bitterness. And they will empty the very Weyr itself.

She glared with impotent fury at F'lar. His hand tightened warningly on her arm until his fingers pressed tendon to bone and she gasped again with pain. Through the tears that sprang to her eyes, she saw defeat and shame written on K'net's young face. Hope Flared up, renewed.

With an effort she forced herself to relax. Slowly, as if F'lar had really frightened her. Slowly enough for him to believe in her capitulation.

As soon as she could, she would get K'net aside. He was ripe for the idea she had just conceived. He was young, malleable, attracted to her anyway. He would serve her purpose admirably.

"Dragonman, avoid excess," R'gul was intoning. "Greed will cause the Weyr distress." Lessa stared at the man, honestly appalled that he could clothe the Weyr's moral defeat with hypocritical homily.