He was not surprised to see Halla standing in the center of all the activity, but he was surprised at how tall and graceful she had grown. She raised a hand as soon as she identified him and then was jumping up and down, waving both hands frantically to catch his attention.

C’tov smiled.
Ready?

Ready,
Sereth agreed. The bronze dived and then flipped wingtip over wingtip, rolling around in the air so that the world was one moment below, next moment beside, next moment above, beside again and, finally, properly below. A surge of elation spread through dragon and rider while beneath them erupted noises first of fear, then of amazement and outright pandemonium.

I think they know we’re here,
C’tov said with a huge grin. He asked Sereth to land in the clearing.

Halla had grown into great beauty; for a moment C’tov’s heart faltered and he wondered whether it had been a mistake to return, particularly on this festive day. The moment lasted only as long as it took Halla to race across the distance and grab him in her arms tightly.

“You came, oh, we’d hoped you’d come!” she roared into his good ear, her exuberance complete and unfeigned.

Just as C’tov thought he might recover, another figure thundered into him and grabbed both him
and
Halla into a huge bear hug.

Pellar? C’tov thought to himself in amazement. C’tov had never imagined that Pellar could grow so tall and broad. Indeed, the bronze rider felt nearly dwarfed by the other.

The two fireminers pulled back as one and in that instant, C’tov lost any misgivings he’d had at coming back. Pellar’s gentle movements were complemented and amplified by the exuberant but indefinably graceful movements of Halla.

Just as he, C’tov, was forever bonded with Sereth, so were Pellar and Halla bonded to each other. They moved, C’tov decided, like parts of the same body, with a respect and strength that flowed between them.

“I’m glad I came,” he replied, and he realized that he truly was. He took a moment to grab Pellar and pull him into a deep hug, putting into his motion all the gratitude he felt for the other’s selflessness Turns gone by. Strengthened by the warm embrace, he pushed Pellar away and stared deep in his eyes. Then he turned to Halla. “Would you let us talk alone for a moment?”

Halla raised a hand toward Pellar, who nodded in response. Halla cocked her head at both of them. “Only for a moment, no longer,” she declared and raced back to the other miners of the hold.

Pellar followed her prancing movement with his eyes until she was lost in the throng, then politely turned his attention back to C’tov.

C’tov turned to Sereth, unable to keep the joy of Impression from brightening his face. He turned back to Pellar again, looking serious.

“You could have had him, you know,” he said softly. “I’m sure you would have got a bronze.”

Pellar met his friend’s eyes and nodded slowly, glancing only briefly at the beautiful bronze dragon.

“Why?” C’tov asked, his face full of honest inquiry.

Pellar pulled something from his tunic and handed it to C’tov. It was a tiny yellow flower. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a second yellow flower. Beckoning politely to C’tov to hand the first flower back, Pellar gently took the two flowers and wound them together by the stems. He handed the paired flowers back to C’tov.

C’tov looked at them and then at Pellar. “I don’t understand.”

Pellar pointed to the flowers and then to C’tov and Sereth. Then Pellar pointed to the flowers again and to himself and off to where Halla had vanished.

“You are bound to Halla like I am to Sereth?” C’tov guessed. “I’d say that everyone sees that,” he added with a laugh.

Pellar waggled at hand in response: not quite. He turned away from C’tov and gestured far off in the distance. C’tov followed his gesture and spotted a meadow full of yellow flowers, the same as those Pellar had produced.

The flowers are on mounds,
Sereth, with his greater eyesight, informed him.

“Graves?” C’tov asked Pellar. “Halla was the one who put the flowers on the graves?”

Pellar smiled and nodded.

“But you could have still Impressed and brought Halla to the Weyr,” C’tov protested. He wouldn’t have traded his bond with Sereth for anything, but he couldn’t help feel that the chance should have been Pellar’s instead.

Pellar turned back to C’tov and nodded, his lips pursed in acknowledgment.

“So why didn’t you?”

Pellar pointed to the two twined flowers in his hand. He crumpled them up and then pointed to the graves in the distance.

“If you and Halla weren’t here, then no one would tend the graves?” C’tov guessed.

Pellar nodded, then held up a hand—there was more. He raised both hands and made the gesture of pushing away, turning in a great circle.

“And no one would care for the Shunned,” C’tov guessed.

Pellar nodded.

“That still doesn’t seem enough to exchange for a dragon,” C’tov said.

Pellar held up a hand again for patience, then raised the other and grabbed them together, going down on one knee—pleading.

“Whatever you want,” C’tov told him fervently. “Always and forever.”

Pellar shook his head and held up just a finger—only once.

“Anytime,” C’tov corrected him firmly. “Ask away.”

Pellar looked very nervous, which surprised C’tov. For a moment the bronze rider wondered if he had promised more than he could deliver, then the moment passed as he resolved that he would meet any request Pellar placed on him.

Pellar pointed, hesitantly to his head, and then to Sereth’s great head.

C’tov grasped the request instantly.
Sereth, what does Pellar want to say to me?

C’tov waited, trying to control his anxiousness, as he felt his dragon communicating with another. It was an odd feeling, and C’tov forced any jealousy out of his mind. After all, he could talk with Sereth anytime.

Pellar,
and C’tov was surprised by the warmth of his dragon’s tone when referring to the mute harper,
says that Halla is his voice; that he is her song; and only together can they make music.
The dragon paused for a moment.
The music they make is compassion, and their song is for all Pern.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A
T
C
AMP
N
ATALON

Cristov, son of Tarik

Natalon, Masterminer

Tarik, Natalon’s uncle, a miner Kindan, son of Danil the wher-handler

A
T THE
H
ARPER
H
ALL

Murenny, Masterharper

Zist, Masterharper

Cayla, Zist’s wife

Pellar, adopted son of Zist and Cayla

A
T
C
ROM
H
OLD

Fenner, Lord Holder

C
HILDREN OF THE
S
HUNNED

Halla, a young girl

Tenim, a young lad

A
T
H
IGH
R
EACHES
W
EYR

D’vin, wingleader, bronze Hurth

Sonia, daughter of the Weyr Healer

PROLOGUE

Dragon’s heart,

Dragon’s fire,

Rider true,

Fly higher.

H
ARPER
H
ALL
,
S
ECOND
I
NTERVAL,
A
FTER
L
ANDING
(AL) 483.7

W
hy 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.”

BOOK: Dragon's Fire

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