PROLOGUE

HARPER HALL,
SECOND INTERVAL,
AFTER LANDING (AL) 483.7

Why does he have to live in a cave?” Cayla muttered rebelliously as she and Zist waited impatiently outside.

“He was a dragonrider, perhaps it feels more homelike,” Zist said soothingly.

“He’s a healer, too, so why isn’t he down with the other healers?” Cayla retorted. Zist knew she was just showing her nerves.

“He’s the best one for the boy,” he told her, answering her unvoiced question.

“Because he’s half-mad?” Cayla asked, her voice seething with all the protectiveness of an adoptive mother. “And what’s he going to find out? Pellar’s barely turned three.”

“Nothing, if you keep on like that,” a voice responded tetchily from the cave. Cayla shut her mouth with a snap, cheeks turning bright red. Zist shot her a not-quite-consoling look. He was too wise to Cayla’s ways to give her any look of superiority. Anyway, he knew full well that Cayla understood him well enough to know that he wasn’t all that sure about consulting with the ex-dragonrider healer.

Cayla glared at Zist and resumed her quiet pacing outside the cave.

“Don’t block the light,” Mikal called again from the cave, causing Cayla to twitch once and stand still as stone.

Inside the cave, Mikal squatted on the hard floor opposite the child. He held up a piece of glass so that it caught the rays of the morning sun. The glass was three-sided and the light broke into a brilliant rainbow lighting the far side of the cave.

Pellar’s eyes gleamed with amazement and his mouth made a big “O” of excitement, but no noise came from his throat.

Nodding to himself, Mikal smiled at Pellar, then drew a number of colored beads from his tunic pocket and spread them out in front of Pellar.

Pellar picked them up and noted their colors: red, orange, blue, green, yellow. He looked up at the rainbow and down at the beads again. In short order he arranged them to match the rainbow in front of him and clapped his hands together excitedly.

“Good,” Mikal told him. He held up a finger with one hand and turned so that he could grab some supplies from a low cupboard. Pellar tried to peer around the man’s body to see what he was doing.

When Mikal turned back, he noticed the boy’s intent look and smiled at him. Mikal placed three small pots of paint down in between himself and Pellar. He raised his still-upright finger somewhat higher, arched his eyebrow, and made his finger dive into one of the open pots as if it were the head and neck of a flying creature. Pellar smiled and his eyes danced at the ex-dragonrider’s antics. Mikal’s finger zoomed up out of the pot with a small dab of yellow paint. Still holding his finger upright, Mikal nodded encouragingly to Pellar.

Pellar smiled and raised the same finger on his own hand. Mikal nodded again. Gleefully, Pellar thrust his finger into a different pot and zoomed it up again, his fingertip bright with thick red paint.

Silently, Mikal ran his finger over the ground, leaving a yellow snake on the white stone floor of the cave. Pellar imitated him, leaving a red snake on the floor. Mikal held up another finger and daubed up a bit of Pellar’s red paint. Pellar gave him a hurt look but Mikal shook his head and held the red-daubed finger up for patience. With a grin, Mikal rubbed his red-tipped finger over part of his yellow snake, creating an orange blob. Pellar saw the color change and, with little encouragement from Mikal, picked up a trace of Mikal’s yellow and rubbed it on his red snake to create a duplicate orange spot.

In short order, Mikal introduced blue paint from the third pot and showed the child how to make purple and green by combining blue with red and yellow.

“Can you draw me a picture of yourself?” Mikal asked. “Use any color.”

Inspired, Pellar produced a multicolored self-portrait in the way of all those who had only three Turns on Pern, exactly the same way that those who were only three years old back on long-forgotten Earth would have done—complete with arms sticking out of heads. The mouth in the big round head was upturned and smiling.

“Great! Could you draw me, too?” Mikal asked.

Pellar happily complied.

“I see my mouth is pointing down,” Mikal remarked of the finished drawing. “Are you saying I’m sad?”

Pellar nodded.

“Why is that?” Mikal asked. In response, Pellar combined all three colors onto one fingertip and drew a brown shape—a long, sinewy line crossed by another gull-shaped line.

“Zist, get in here!” Mikal called. Harper Zist raced inside, looking back and forth from Pellar to Mikal. “Did you tell him I was a dragonrider?”

“It may have come up,” Zist admitted.

“Did you tell him the color of my dragon?” Mikal pointed to one drawing.

“No, I don’t think so,” Zist said, examining the drawing himself. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever knew myself.”

“Mmm,” Mikal grunted. He looked at Pellar and pointed at the drawing. “Is that my dragon?”

Pellar nodded, eyes sad.

“How did you know what color to paint it?” Mikal asked.

Pellar raised a paint-covered finger and gently pointed at Mikal’s eyes.

“I want the boy to train with me,” Mikal told Zist. “Healing, painting, tracking, meditation—I’ll teach him everything I know.”