The Renegades of Pern (26 page)

“More than we need right now,” Ara said, swatting at Jayge affectionately when he winked at Piemur. Though her figure was not yet distorted, the harper had suspected she might be pregnant again. There was a luminous quality to her eyes and face that Sharra had told him often enhanced the beauty of a gravid woman. “Twelve rooms, but some would be awfully small to house a whole family. We had to shovel out the sand in the front rooms. The walls were filthy; I was afraid we’d have to scrub them clean, but the dirt sort of slid off when we washed them. I haven’t quite got the stains completely off, but now you can see what pretty colors they used.”

“We fixed this roof with slabs taken from the other ones,” Jayge said. “I’ve never seen material like this before. And we shouldn’t have been able to nail it, but Ara found a keg of nails that would penetrate and hold.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ara went on with an air of confession. “The house is unusual, but the thick walls keep us cool in the heat of the day and warm enough on cold ones. We found the strangest-looking containers, most of them empty. Jayge laughs at me, but I know we’ll find something to tell us who lived here before we did.”

“I’d like to know when you do,” Piemur said. “Did you find those colored fishnets here?”

They both grinned, exchanging glances, and Jayge explained. “We found lots of empty nets stored in one corner of the largest building. It had neither porch nor windows but it did have vents along the roof, so we figured it may have been a storehouse. Snakes and other insects had destroyed whatever was in the crates and barrels and those nets, but the material they were made of seems indestructible.”

“It’d have to be, to last any length of time here in the south,” Piemur said casually, though he was more excited about the settlement than he dared express. The Harper should know about it. He wondered if he should send Farli with a message to Master Robinton but decided that it could wait until morning. “So you’ve fished, and you’ve stock . . .”

“I’ll have to introduce you to the dogs tomorrow,” Ara said. “We have them against snakes and big spotted cats.”

“You have them here, too?” Piemur asked eagerly. Sharra had thought those cats a local sport—she would be interested to know that they inhabited other parts of the Southern Continent.

“Enough so that we don’t hunt without the dogs,” Jayge said. “And we carry spear or bow and arrow once we pass the clearings.”

“But there’s wild rice,” Am put in enthusiastically, “and all kinds of vegetables—even a grove of the oldest fellis trees I’ve ever seen!” She waved to the east of the hold. “We’ve floods of wild wherry, and runner and herd beasts grazing in the river valley, a day’s good run from here. Jayge is a good spearman.”

“And you’ve never missed with bow and arrow,” Jayge said proudly. “And—” Jayge grinned at Piemur. “We’ve a fair home brew.” He went to a wall cupboard, fashioned out of one of the crates he had mentioned, and opened it to display two small barrels, their shape reminiscent of much larger ones Piemur had seen at the Benden Mastervintner’s. “We’ve been experimenting,” Jayge went on, pouring three cups and serving them. “And it’s improving!”

Piemur sniffed and found its aroma odd, not as fruity as he had expected. He took a sip.

“Ooooh, that’s great stuff!” His appreciation was genuine as he felt the shock of it coursing pleasantly through him. He raised his cup to the smiling Ara and Jayge in a toast. “To friends, near and far!”

“I think it’ll improve with age,” Jayge remarked with quiet satisfaction after he and Ara had solemnly returned the toast. “But for a trader’s brew, it’s passable.”

“I could be prejudiced, or maybe I’ve just lost my palate, but Jayge, this’s smooth to lip, mouth, and throat, and a tonic to blood and bone.”

They talked long into the crystal clear, chill early hours of the morning until sheer fatigue slowed both question and answer. If Piemur had extracted from them an account of their establishment there, he had replied with eagerly received news of the North—expurgated, of course, and embellished when the incident deserved his harper’s touch. Piemur had introduced himself with rank, craft, and hold affiliation and explained that his current task was to explore the coast. Jayge had responded that he was a trader by craft and that Ara was from Igen. There was something that they were not revealing, Piemur was quick enough to realize, but then, he had not told them the entire truth either.

Piemur remained with Jayge and Ara for longer than he should have. Not only did he admire their fortitude and industry—even Toric would consider them resourceful and diligent—but also he wanted time to delve into the mystery of the buildings there on the far edge of nowhere. In the oldest of the Harper Hall Records, there had been elusive fragments, which Piemur, as Master Robinton’s special apprentice, had been allowed to see.
When man came to Pern, he established a good Hold in the South,
one fragment had begun, only to conclude ambiguously,
but found it necessary to move north to shield.
Like Robinton, Piemur had always wondered why anyone would have left the beautiful and fertile Southern Continent and settle the far harsher north. But it must have happened—the discovery of the ancient mine had been evidence of that. And now these incredible buildings!

Piemur could not imagine how building materials could have lasted so long. It could only be more of those forgotten methods and lost secrets that Mastersmith Fandarel had complained about so often, and which his Crafthall was trying to revive.

That first morning, with young Readis toddling when he could and carried when he tired, Jayge and Ara showed Piemur around what had clearly once been an extensive settlement.

“We’ve torn down most of the creepers and shoveled out some of the blown sand,” Jayge said, leading the way into a one-room building. The two big, rangy canines—the black one was Chink and the brindle, Giri—always preceded their masters into buildings and rooms, an exercise to which they had clearly been trained. A snap of fingers brought them back to heel, or sit, or stay. “We found this.” Jayge pointed to a piece of enameled metal, a man’s hand wide and two arms long, leaning against the inside wall.

“There’s lettering on it,” Piemur said, angling to one side to read it. “P A R . . . can’t read the next one . . . D I S . . . nor the next.” He hunkered down and fingered the metal. “ ‘RIVER’ is perfectly legible!” He grinned at Ara, then tried to decipher the final word. “Looks like ‘stake’ to me.”

“We think the first word is ‘Paradise,’ ” Ara said shyly.

Piemur glanced out the open door to the idyllic surroundings, peaceful, private, beautiful with blossom and fruit. “I’d say that was a fair description,” he said.

“I’m positive this was a teaching room,” Ara went on in an embarrassed rush. “We found these!” She hefted Readis into his father’s arms and beckoned Piemur to a corner where she lifted the cover of a box of the ubiquitous opaque material. She held up a short, fat record, neatly squared off like one of Lord Asgenar’s newly bound leaves.

As Piemur turned it in his hand, its texture, despite the stains of age, was somehow soapy. The leaves fell open to clever illustrations so humorous that he smiled; he glanced at the words beneath them—short sentences all, and the letters, while recognizable, were absurdly big and bold. Master Arnor would never have let Harper Hall apprentices waste so much space; he taught them to write in small but legible letters, so that more could be crammed onto each page of hide.

“Clearly a youngster’s book,” he agreed. “But no teaching song I’ve ever read.”

“I can’t imagine what these were,” Ara said, holding up some flat rectangular objects, fingerlength and fingernail thin. “Even if they are numbered. And this . . .” She drew out a second, slimmer lesson book.

“I don’t know how much figuring a harper has to do,” Jayge said, “but it’s far beyond a trader’s need.”

Piemur recognized the combinations as equations, far more complicated than those Wansor had managed to drum into his head for use in figuring distances. He grinned, anticipating the expression on the Starsmith’s face when he opened that book.

“I know someone who might like to look at that,” he said casually.

“Take it with you,” Jayge replied. “It’s no good to us.”

Piemur shook his head regretfully. “I’d be afraid to lose it in my travels. If it’s lasted this long, it can wait here awhile longer.” Then he made a show of examining the box itself, which was made of more of that strange and durable material, without joins at its corners. “Master Fandarel is going to drive himself crazy trying to duplicate this material. How far have you gone inland and along the coast?” he asked Jayge.

“Three days west and two east.” Jayge shrugged. “More coves and forests. Before he took sick, Scallak and I followed the river, oh, four or five days, to where there’s a deep bend in its course. We could see mountains in the distance, but the river valley was much the same as it is here.”

“And no one else,” Ara added.

“You’re lucky I came!” Piemur spread out his arms, smiling mischievously to lighten their somberness.

On his second night he brought out his reed flute and the multiple pipes he had made, copying Menolly’s design, to cheer his lonely evenings. Jayge and Ara were grateful to hear music, Jayge mumbling along in a raspy light baritone while Ara lilted in a clear, sweet soprano. He showed them both the rudiments of playing and made them pipes.

Piemur made an outline of their holding, noting the positions of the restored house and each of the ruins. He knew exactly how far a man could walk the coast in a day and marked out an appropriate border on each side of the river. An inland boundary would have to wait, but he mentioned Jayge’s bend. He witnessed the sketch and wrapped it apart from his other records, to keep until he had a chance to discuss it with Master Robinton.

If the Harper proved still too estranged from Benden, then he would speak to T’gellan about Jayge and Ara. If necessary, he would stand witness for them with Toric and the Weyrleaders himself.

He made Farli memorize the unique landmarks so that she could find her way back to the Paradise River Hold. Observing that exercise, Ara and Jayge asked him about his fire-lizard. They had Impressed eight between them—two queens, three bronzes, and three browns—but they had not trained them to any particular duties, apart from watching out for Readis’s cry. So on the fourth day, Piemur helped them with the most basic training. They were amazed at how well the creatures responded.

On the fifth morning, when Piemur went to the spacious beasthold to feed Stupid, he found Meer and Talla perched on Stupid’s back. Meer had a message from Sharra strapped to his bronze leg.

“They can even carry messages?” Ara asked, surprised.

“Useful that way, though they have to know where they’re going.” Piemur’s reply was somewhat distracted, for the message told him that Jaxom was gravely ill with fire-head at the Masterharper’s Cove. How Sharra knew where that was, Piemur could not guess. He himself had been hunting for that particular cove for the past three months. “I’ve got to leave. A friend needs me,” he added. “Look, Farli now knows who you are and where you are. As soon as I can, I’ll send you a message by her. When you’ve got it, just tell her to find Stupid—who isn’t.”

He gave Jayge a friendly clout on the back, made bold to hug Ara, and tweaked Readis’s chin, making the little fellow giggle. Then he started off in an easterly direction, wondering why Jayge did not come after him, demanding what he expected to find in that direction.

11

Southern Continent,
PP 15.08.28–15.10.15

S
ANETER HAD NEVER
felt so ineffective, though since coming to Southern, Toric had given him a good deal of practice. The old harper fervently wished that Piemur was not somewhere tramping through the eastern wilds; that Sharra, who was always clever at diverting her older brother, was not who-knew-where nursing Lord Jaxom of Ruatha Hold. Only the previous day her bronze had arrived with a message reporting that she could not yet leave her patient. Toric had irritably demanded to know how long it took to recover from the disease.

The current catastrophe added insult to Toric’s list of aggravations. T’kul on Salth and B’zon on Ranilth were both missing from the Southern Weyr. The remaining dragons, despite their frailty, were creating the most dreadful din, making everyone uneasy and certainly exacerbating the volatile Southern holder. Furthermore, every fire-lizard in the hold had streaked off, just when Toric urgently needed one.

“How,”
Toric demanded, kicking at the furniture in his workroom, “can I get word to Benden Weyr when there isn’t a fire-lizard to send?”

“They never fly off like that for very long,” Saneter suggested hopefully.

“Well, they’re gone now, and now is when I need to inform Benden of this development. It may be critical. Surely you realize that.” With a savage scowl, Toric kicked a chair out of his way. He whirled on the elderly harper, pointing a thick forefinger at him. “You must bear me witness in this! I had no means to send an urgent message, and that wretched journeyman is gone when I need him most! My hold may depend on informing Benden!
How,
Saneter?
How?”
Toric bellowed.

For one horrified second, Saneter heard an echo of that shout. Only it was not precisely an echo of Toric’s bellow. It was the sort of noise that lifted the hair on the back of the neck, the keening that Saneter was all too familiar with: dragons announcing the death of one of their kind.

“Who?”
Toric demanded of the walls at the top of his voice. He wheeled to Saneter, then obviously remembered that the old harper was unable to run any errands and charged from the chamber in search of an answer.

Toric was halfway down the path between hold and Weyr when a bronze dragon, giving a consoling bugle, swooped in over his head to land before the Weyrhall. Toric did not recognize the rider when he stripped off helmet and flying gear and stood looking around him. The keening of the resident dragons, however, had dropped to a bearable moan, and the unfamiliar bronze changed his tone to something that sounded, even to Toric, like encouragement.

“Dragonrider, I’m Toric of Southern. Which dragon died?” The Southerner strode across the clearing, taking the measure of the older man. Despite his fury and frustration, Toric found some reassurance in the confident manner in which the dragonrider awaited him.

“D’ram rider of Tiroth, formerly Weyrleader of Ista. F’lar has asked me to assume the leadership of Southern. Other young riders have volunteered to help and will arrive shortly.”

“Who died?” Toric demanded again, impatience getting the better of courtesy.

“Salth. Ranilth is badly spent but may recover. He and B’zon remain at Ista.” D’ram spoke with such deep sorrow that Toric felt the tacit rebuke.

“What happened?” he asked more politely. “We knew the bronzes were missing, but so,” he added through clenched teeth, “was every fire-lizard we could have sent to warn Benden.”

D’ram nodded acknowledgement of Toric’s quandary. “T’kul and B’zon brought their bronzes to Caylith’s mating flight, which had been thrown open to decide the new Istan Weyrleader. Salth burst his heart trying to fly the queen . . .” D’ram paused, terribly distraught, then sighed heavily and continued without meeting Toric’s eyes. “Having nothing to lose by it, T’kul challenged F’lar.”

“F’lar is dead?” Toric was appalled, seeing all he had worked so hard to obtain lost through more of T’kul’s stupidity.

“No, the Benden Weyrleader was the stronger. He mourns T’kul’s death as all dragonriders do.” D’ram gave Toric such a challenging look that Toric nodded in a gesture that was close to apology.

“I can’t say I’m sorry T’kul is dead,” Toric replied, though he was careful to speak with no heat, “or Salth. They’ve both run mad and uncontrolled ever since T’ron—and Fidranth—died.” Toric had struggled to recall T’ron’s dragon’s name. But he was rapidly realizing, and hoping, that F’lar’s appointment of a new Weyrleader heralded the changes he had so long sought: open commerce with the North, allowing his hold to expand as he had always planned.

Just then Mardra appeared, sobbing hysterically in a maudlin show of grief that disgusted Toric, who knew very well how often she had quarrelled with T’kul. He excused himself, telling D’ram that the Weyrleader had only to ask what he could do to assist him.

“There will be other dragonriders joining me here, both Oldtimers and those of this Pass. You will see the Weyr restored,” D’ram said with quiet confidence before he went to comfort Mardra.

Toric walked slowly back to his Hold, deep in thought about the implications of such a promise. Anything would be an improvement—just so long as it was not a hindrance. How was he to retrieve Sharra? How was he to contact Piemur? He needed the quick wit and solid Northern associations of that devious young man more than he had remotely appreciated. It was then that he noticed the return of the Hold’s fire-lizard population. But when his little queen tried to settle on his shoulder, chitterring agitatedly about something, he was in no mood to heed her.

The cove that Piemur had heard so much about from Menolly and Master Robinton was every bit as beautiful as they had said. A perfect deep half-circle, with wide sandy beaches sloping slightly upward to meet the lush forests, trees and shrubs a riot of colorful blossom and leaf. Ripe fruit was evident on a half dozen trees. And he had seen no snakes, their absence due, no doubt, to the presence of Ruth, Jaxom’s dragon. A rough building was set well back in the shade, a well-trodden path leading to it from the shore. The water, ranging from a pale green to the deeper blue of greater depths, was deceptively pellucid, and the gentlest of waves rolled over the sand.

“So Sharra,” he said after the three had exchanged joyful greetings. “What is it that Meer, Talla, and Farli are trying to tell me? And where’s Ruth?”

“You’d better sit down, Piemur,” Sharra said gently.

Piemur stood stolidly on both feet, his expression belligerent. “I can hear it just as well standing!”

Sharra and Jaxom exchanged looks that spoke too loudly to Piemur of a well-developed understanding—and of something he was not going to like to hear.

“T’kul and B’zon tried to fly the Istan queen Caylith this morning,” Jaxom began. “Salth burst his heart, T’kul attacked F’lar—are you all right?” Piemur had sat down, very hard, his face ashen under the dark tan.

“F’lar’s alive, unhurt,” Sharra cried, going to Piemur’s side and slipping an arm about his shoulders. “B’zon and Ranilth will stay at Ista awhile.”

“D’ram is now Southern Weyrleader,” Jaxom added.

“Really?” Piemur’s color returned, and mischief glittered briefly in his eyes. “Toric’s going to love that. Another Oldtimer to deal with.”

“D’ram’s different,” Jaxom said encouragingly. “You’ll see.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. A change in the wind always helps.” Piemur glanced at Sharra to see if she had considered what the new development might mean to Toric’s ambitions, but the distress on her face had not lessened. He turned back to Jaxom. “And?”

“Master Robinton has had a heart attack!”

“That arrogant, addlepated, insufferably egotistical, altruistic know-it-all!” Piemur shouted, springing to his feet. “He thinks Pern won’t manage without his meddling, without him knowing everything that happens in every Hold and Hall on the entire planet, North and South! He won’t eat properly, he doesn’t rest enough, and he won’t let us help him even though we could probably do the same job even better than he can because we have more sense in our left toenails than he does.” He knew that Sharra and Jaxom were staring at him, but he could not stop. “He’s wasteful of his strength, he never listens to anyone, even when we
try
to get him to see sense, and he’s got this wild idea that only he, the Masterharper of Pern, has any idea of the destiny of Weyr, Hold, and Hall. Well, this serves him right. Maybe now he’ll listen. Maybe now . . .”

Tears came to Piemur’s eyes, and he stared from one to the other, begging them to say that it was all some kind of hideous joke. Sharra embraced him again, and Jaxom awkwardly patted his shoulder. Above him the fire-lizards chirruped in far too happy a tone. Piemur had not wanted to understand Farli. He had not let himself understand her.

“He’s all right,” Sharra was saying over and over, and he could feel her tears on his cheek. “He’ll be fine. Master Oldive’s with him and Lessa. Brekke’s just gone. Ruth insisted on taking her. And you know that Master Robinton will have to recover if both the Masterhealer and Brekke are attending him.”

Piemur felt Jaxom’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “The dragons, Piemur—the dragons wouldn’t let Master Robinton die!” Jaxom spaced his words out so that their sense would penetrate the young harper’s shock and fear. “The dragons wouldn’t let him die! He’s going to live. He’ll be fine. Really, Piemur, can’t you hear how happy the fire-lizards are?”

Piemur only believed in Master Robinton’s eventual recovery when the white dragon, Ruth, burst back into the clearing, his clarion bugle sending Stupid careening into the safety of the forest. Ruth was so eager to hearten Piemur that he ventured to nudge him gently with his white muzzle, a gesture of extreme affection, while the facets of his beautiful eyes whirled slowly with their reassuring green and blue.

“You know that Ruth can’t lie, Piemur,” Jaxom said earnestly. “He says Master Robinton’s resting easily, and he tells you that Brekke told him herself that he will recover. Mainly he needs rest.” Jaxom attempted a one-sided grin. “With every dragon on Pern watching him, he won’t get away with any of his usual tricks.”

Piemur had to concede that point. Gradually he began to relax and answer his friends’ questions about his travels. He did not mention Jayge and Ara, though with Master Robinton ill, he would have to confide in someone else. Sebell was the one most likely to assume the Mastery of the Harper Hall—he had long been trained to that onerous position. He would know all Master Robinton knew, and Piemur would have no hesitation about informing his Craftmaster friend—once everything had settled down again. For the time being, the secret of Jayge and Ara’s Paradise River Hold was safe enough.

In answer to Piemur’s questions, Jaxom explained how he had found the cove. The young dragonrider had first been to the cove when searching for D’ram who had stepped down from Weyrleadership of Ista after the death of his long-time weyrmate, Fanna, and disappeared. Later, delirious with the fire-head fever he had contracted on his first visit, Jaxom had directed Ruth to bring him back to the cove.

“It’s a beautiful enough spot,” Piemur agreed. “But you were out of your shell to come here to die!”

“I didn’t know I was. In fact, neither Brekke nor Sharra here told me just how sick I’d been until I was much better.” He gave his healer an intense look that held more than simple gratitude.

“And Toric just let you come?” Piemur demanded of Sharra.

“As a favor to the Benden Weyrleaders and Master Oldive, I think.” She gave the journeyman harper a wink, then sat up straighter and stuck her nose in the air. “I do have an exceptional record of nursing fire-head victims through fever and blindness, you know.”

Piemur knew that, but he just did not like the idea of Sharra and Jaxom together. Perhaps Toric saw it another way. An alliance with the Ruathan Bloodline, and a kinship with the Benden Weyrwoman, Lessa, might prove invaluable to him.

And there was something else niggling about in the back of Piemur’s mind, especially as he noticed how many fire-lizards, mainly wild ones with no hall or hold neck markings, engulfed Ruth wherever he went. And he could not ignore the brief flashes he was getting from Farli now that she was back in the white dragon’s presence. The more the young harper twisted the matter around in his head, the more certain he became about how that stolen queen egg had gotten back to Benden Weyr Hatching Ground. But it was not something that he, for all his intimacy with Jaxom, could come right out and ask.

By the time they had settled down to eat grilled fish and fruit on the beach that night, they had caught up on the main exchange of adventures and news. Piemur was unhappily sure of Jaxom’s feelings toward Sharra. And, knowing her as well as he did, he was dismally convinced that the attraction was mutual. Even if neither of them knew it yet. Or maybe they did. But Piemur did not intend to make it easy for them. He would have to think of distractions.

The next morning Piemur told Jaxom that Stupid had eaten every nonpoisonous blade he could find near the shelter and that the runner flatly refused to emerge from the denser undergrowth when Ruth was around. “He’s a bit puny from all the traveling we’ve done, Jaxom,” Piemur said. “He needs feeding up.”

So Jaxom offered to fly him on Ruth to the nearest meadow to collect fodder for Stupid. Piemur always enjoyed riding a-dragonback; riding Ruth, who was so much smaller than the full-sized fighting dragons, added a more immediate dimension to the experience, slightly scary, though he had every faith in the amazing white beast. If he had a dragon, he thought, he would have had a much easier time exploring . . . or would he, having trod the ground and learned much that he had not appreciated of the shrubs, trees, and brilliant flowering plants? Flying straight on a dragon gave one other perceptions of vast and beautiful terrain.

Ruth landed them neatly in the center of an expanse of waving grasses dotted with wildflowers and, rolling carefully over, stretched out wing and limb to bask in the sun. But when Jaxom asked him to help harvest the grasses, he willingly set to with gusto.