Dragon's Fire (43 page)

“Scars like that make a dragonrider look distinguished,” D’vin declared as he entered the room. Sonia looked up and flashed him a smile, which the dragonrider returned enthusiastically.

Cristov turned his scarred head to Sonia and asked, “Do you think so?”

“No,” Sonia admitted. “But I look at the heart of a man, not his face.”

“Anyway, I’m not a dragonrider,” Cristov said to no one in particular.

D’vin ignored the comment, turning instead to the healer. “Is he fit?”

“Fit enough.”

D’vin nodded at the assurance and turned back to Cristov. “Why don’t you come for a stroll with me? I’d like to show you what you gave so much for.”

Reluctantly, Cristov rose and followed the bronze rider.

D’vin turned back at the entrance and said, “You might want to come, too, Sonia.”

Sonia gave him a look that Cristov couldn’t read, exchanged an inquiring look with her father, who nodded in assent, and joined them, her eyes gleaming.

Cristov found as he walked that the left side of his neck felt tight, awkward.

“It will take a while for the skin to stretch out,” Sonia commented from behind him, grabbing his hand as he reached to touch the scarred surface. “It’s best not to irritate it. Father will give you a salve to help the skin stretch more.”

As they exited the tunnels into the great Bowl of the Weyr, he noticed with annoyance that it hurt the left side of his neck to squint against the light, and he felt a twinge as he lifted his head upward. But the sight before him drove such minor aches completely away from his thoughts.

Dragons!

Golds, bronzes, browns, blues, greens, all soared in a graceful pattern over the top of the bowl, striping the ground below with wing-shadows.

An older man detached himself from a group of dragonriders who were also watching their friends’ aerial antics.

“They’re honoring you,” the man said, giving Cristov a slight nod.

Cristov could only nod back, still transfixed by the sights above him. So many dragons! Twisting, spinning, pirouetting, climbing, diving—it was almost as though a rainbow had taken flight.

For a moment, Cristov imagined himself on the back of one of those dragons, soaring up and diving down with delight. He could almost feel it.

Almost. “They’re beautiful.”

“They are indeed,” the man agreed. Cristov tore his gaze away from the aerial antics and looked at the man who had spoken. His hair was gray and his face grizzled, his body seemed shrunken, tired, but he bore himself with an air that commanded respect. Cristov’s eyes widened as he took in the rank knots on the man’s shoulder.

“Weyrleader,” Cristov breathed. He shook himself, angry at the pain on the left side of his neck. “I meant no disrespect.”

“None was taken,” High Reaches’s Weyrleader told him with a smile. He held out his hand and Cristov took it. “I am B’ralar.”

“Weyrleader B’ralar,” Cristov said, bowing deeply. “Thank you for your kindness.”

B’ralar gestured for Cristov to straighten up and waved aside his thanks, saying, “It’s we who should be honoring and thanking you.”

Cristov was so surprised that B’ralar chuckled. “Why, it’s because of you that we had any firestone at all.”

“But the mine’s ruined!” Cristov cried. “And Telgar has no mine, either.” Cristov stopped for a moment as he absorbed the full impact of his words, then squared his shoulders, looked up into B’ralar’s eyes, and said, “I’m ready to start again, Weyrleader.”

B’ralar looked into Cristov’s eyes for a long while before responding, “I see that you are. But, I think it would be best if you were to wait here with us awhile longer.” When Cristov made to protest, B’ralar raised a hand. “We have enough firestone—thanks to you—to keep us for a month, if necessary.”

The Weyrleader waved his hand to indicate the entire Weyr. “In the meantime, we would like to offer you our hospitality as thanks for all you’ve done.”

Cristov still looked ready to argue. B’ralar smiled at him again. “Please,” he said, “we owe you.”

“But—”

“Come see the Hatching Grounds,” D’vin interrupted, laying a firm hand on Cristov’s right shoulder. “There are twenty-three eggs near to hatching.”

“Yes, do!” B’ralar agreed, waving him away.

Cristov had only a few moments to notice High Reaches’s lofty seven spires, the uneven peaks that gave the Weyr its name, before he found his eyes adjusting to a darker indoors, the tunnel to the Hatching Grounds.

Sonia, who had paused to chat with some weyrfolk, eagerly rejoined them.

“Garirth is bathing,” Sonia said as she joined them. “I’ll take a chance to check out that egg.”

D’vin chuckled. “You’ve no need, now that your father confirmed that it’s safe.” To Cristov he explained, “We thought one of the eggs had a crack in it, but it turns out it’s just a strange marking.”

“My egg,” Sonia declared, fingering the white streak in her hair. D’vin didn’t laugh. In a softer voice, she added, “Maybe Garirth’s last queen.”

“You don’t know that,” D’vin said.

“Jessala’s not been well these past two Turns,” Sonia said. “And Garirth’s mating flight was short and low.”

“Garirth’s strong.”

“Her strength is as much as her rider’s,” Sonia replied, shaking her head.

They continued on through the tunnel into the Hatching Grounds in silence.

Instead of darkening further, the way slowly brightened. Cristov gasped. The Hatching Grounds were as well lit as the Weyr Bowl outside.

“There are mirrors guiding the light into the Hatching Grounds,” D’vin explained, seeing Cristov’s expression. He shook his head at memories of his youth. “Made of some sort of metal. The weyrlings are assigned to polish them when it’s dark.”

“Some more than others,” Sonia quipped, glancing slyly at D’vin.

D’vin acknowledged her gibe with a wave of his hand, confessing to Cristov, “The Weyrlingmaster had it in for me.”

Sonia snorted derisively, but said no more, her levity fading as she caught sight of the far end of the Hatching Grounds.

“There are only twenty-three,” D’vin said apologetically. “There’d be more if Garirth were younger.”

Eggs as high as Cristov’s chest were sheltered together in an array of mottled brilliance—bluish, greenish, brown, soft brown, the eggs were swirls of color that confused the eye.

Sonia loped away, intent on one egg set slightly apart from the others.

“She’s hoping it’s a gold,” D’vin told Cristov in a low voice, “but the queen usually rolls queen eggs aside. Sonia says that it’s a sign that Garirth is weak that she couldn’t roll the egg very far away.”

Cristov nodded, thinking that was the polite thing to do.

“If it’s not a queen egg,” D’vin continued, “and Garirth dies, then we’ll be queenless, like Igen.”

“Would High Reaches band with Telgar?” Cristov asked worriedly.

D’vin laughed, shaking his head. “I doubt that would be Weyrleader B’ralar’s first choice,” he said. “No, I imagine we’d barter for a queen egg.” His face grew grim as he added, “Doubtless
that
egg would come from Telgar and we’d be beholden.”

Cristov gave him a questioning look.

“We’d be beholden,” D’vin explained, “to open our mating flight to the bronzes of Telgar.”

“So you hope that’s a gold egg, then,” Cristov surmised.

“I do,” D’vin agreed. He pointed to the other eggs, turning away from Sonia, who was carefully inspecting the odd striations in the larger egg. “Why don’t you look at the others while you’re here?”

Cristov looked at the eggs and back at D’vin in alarm. Sonia turned from her egg and said to Cristov, “Go on, when will you have another chance?”

“But—” Cristov’s protests were so many and varied that he couldn’t pick a first one.

“Everyone does it,” Sonia said. “And you’ve earned the right.”

Is that what the Weyrleader had meant? Cristov asked himself. He turned his gaze back longingly to the eggs lying less than a dragonlength away. The light played upon them like they were jewels beyond imagining. Without realizing it, he stretched a hand out as if to grasp one—but they were well out of his reach.

“You’ll have to get much closer than that,” D’vin said humorously. Just as he gestured for Cristov to move closer, a loud bellow sounded from in the Bowl.

“That’s Garirth,” Sonia said with an edge of nervousness in her voice. “She’s on her way back.”

D’vin sighed and said regretfully to Cristov, “We’d best leave. We can come back another day.”

“It’s not like you’re going anywhere soon, after all,” Sonia said.

Cristov gave her a questioning look, which she referred by a jerk of her head to D’vin, who sighed before responding slowly, “One man by himself, what could he do?”

Cristov felt himself flush with angered pride as he answered, “I could do my duty, dragonrider.”

Sonia made a rude noise, surprising Cristov. “By yourself, you’d die, and neither I nor my father are willing to let you,” she told him. She glanced at D’vin, who nodded, saying, “You’re the only one alive on Pern who’s mined firestone. It’d be foolish to let you go before you could at least teach what you know to others.”

“I don’t see how the Weyrs could have survived with the beastly stuff for all these hundreds of Turns,” Sonia said with a shake of her head.

D’vin indicated a side passage off the main tunnel to the Hatching Grounds, which they took just as Garirth’s lumbering form blocked the light from the Weyr Bowl.

“I agree,” he said. He looked curiously at Cristov. “Hurth hates the stuff.”

“Fire-lizards won’t eat it,” Sonia added. “I tried.”

“But it was the same as you gave us,” Cristov protested defensively.

“It was,” D’vin agreed. “And all that Hurth’s ever eaten for flame. The flames are hot and quick, but—”

“Maybe the Harper Hall will know more,” Sonia said. Cristov gave her a questioning look. “B’ralar sent to the Harper Hall for more information on firestone mining.”

“They assigned their best lad to the job,” D’vin added.

With a growing sense of surprise and dismay, Cristov guessed the answer to his own unspoken question. “Kindan?”

“Yes,” D’vin said with a curt nod of his head. “That’s the lad. Do you know him?”

Cristov could only nod wearily. And then the humor of the situation dawned on him: Kindan was working for
him
!

“I’m going to go blind and it’ll be all your fault,” Kelsa complained as she pored over yet another moldy Record stored deep in the bowels of the Harper Hall.

“Nuella’s blind and she’s got a watch-wher,” Kindan replied affably, feeling no less scratch-eyed and irritable than Kelsa but refusing to admit it.

“These Records are
useless,
” Kelsa growled. “Who wants to know who was married to whom?”

“It’s important for lineage,” Kindan replied.

“Why did you have to pick me to help?” Kelsa moaned.

“You’re good at spotting things,” Kindan replied.

“I’m better at writing songs.” Angrily, Kelsa grabbed a Record. “I can barely read this one.”

“Be careful then,” Kindan said. He waved a hand at the neat stack of Records in front of him. “These are easier to read, but they make no sense.”

“What do you mean?” Kelsa asked, glancing from her stack to Kindan’s. She’d ceded him the oldest Records in the belief that they’d be the hardest to read and was now regretting her choice.

“Well,” he said, holding up the sheet he was currently reading as an example, “this one’s all on about how they first discovered firestone.”

Kelsa leaned toward him, eyes wide. “That should be great, Kindan.”

Kindan shook his head. “It says that they spotted fire-lizards flaming and tracked it down to firestone on the beaches.”

Kelsa made a face. “Fire-lizards don’t flame.”

Kindan nodded. “And wouldn’t firestone just burn up when the tide covered it?”

Kelsa nodded. “You’re right, that’s cracked.” She moved closer, peering at the Record in his hand. “Maybe this is some child’s story that they preserved. You know, proud parents and all that.”

Blearily remembering that Kindan had no parents to be proud of him, Kelsa held out her hand, gesturing for the Record by way of diversion.

With a shake of his head, Kindan passed the sheet to Kelsa.

“You know,” he mused while she read the paper, “it must have been very odd the way the colonists discovered firestone. I mean, it’s buried under a certain sort of rock and all.”

Kelsa bent closer to the Record. “I wish we had better light,” she murmured, bringing her glow closer. “Glows just aren’t bright enough to read with.”

“We could wait until day,” Kindan suggested jokingly.

Kelsa glared at him. “I can just imagine how the Masterharper would react to
that
decision.”

“I suppose we could use a candle,” Kindan said.

“Are you mad?” Kelsa squeaked, gesturing around at the stacks of Records. “They’d
burn,
Kindan.”

“Only if you put them near the flame,” he retorted. He waved aside any further argument and gestured to the Record in Kelsa’s hands. “What do you think?”

“The print’s too small and fine to be a child’s,” she declared after a moment. She pointed at the text. “And the phrasing doesn’t sound like one either: ‘The small winged creatures dubbed fire-lizards were observed to chew a particular rock scattered along the shoreline and then emit flame to defend themselves against Thread. It was later determined that the rock was phosphine-bearing.’” She looked up at Kindan. “That sounds like Master Zist when he’s teaching.”