Dragon's Fire (46 page)

“Maybe they couldn’t find it in the north,” Kindan suggested.

“Maybe,” Mikal agreed dubiously. Then he brightened. “But you know where it was, so you could go there.”

“Go to the Southern Continent?” Kindan asked warily. Everyone knew that the Southern Continent was unsafe: That was why the colonists had moved to the northern continent nearly five hundred Turns ago. He mulled over the thought. “Perhaps we could go just to find a sample.”

“Wouldn’t the Masterminer be able to tell you where to find this firestone here, once you had a sample for him?” Mikal asked.

“I don’t know,” Kindan said, then shrugged in apology for contradicting the old man. “It’s just that the records seem to show that firestone mining has been dangerous for several hundred Turns. If there was a safer firestone, we’d be mining it.”

“Unless the only ones who could tell had died,” Mikal said.

“It would have been an accident, most likely,” Kindan said. “Perhaps they discovered a vein of our firestone and it blew up before they realized their mistake.”

Mikal mulled the suggestion over. “Perhaps.”

Kindan was intrigued with the notion. “If they didn’t know about our type of firestone, they’d never know their peril.”

“And if the fire-lizards’ firestone was impervious to water, they might have dowsed the new firestone with water without realizing the danger,” Mikal said.

Kindan had a horrific image of miners using water to clean a wall of rock only to have it explode in a sheet of flame, extinguishing them in a terrifying instant.

“But why wouldn’t the next miners have simply gotten a new sample from one of the Weyrs?” Kindan wondered.

Mikal shook his head. “We’ll never know.

“And we’ll never know if there is such a firestone until someone gets a sample from the Southern Continent.” He pushed himself upright and turned determinedly toward the entrance. “We must talk with the dragonrider.”

CHAPTER II

H
IGH
R
EACHES
W
EYR,
AL 495.8

C
ristov had never felt more uncomfortable in his life. He was in a meeting with the Weyrleader of High Reaches Weyr and all his wingleaders: the Masterharper of Pern; Master Zist; a grizzled old healer named Mikal who was treated with awe by the dragonriders; Toldur’s widow, Alarra; and Kindan. The grouping of so many august personages had been so frightening that Sonia had avoided it, which only increased Cristov’s own sense of alarm.

Of all them, Kindan made him feel most uncomfortable. However he tried, Kindan could not quite keep his eyes from Cristov’s injuries. If he hadn’t been so obviously understanding and sympathetic, Cristov might have hit him.

If Kindan had just looked a bit smug, Cristov probably would have. But Kindan looked even more apprehensive than Cristov felt.

“So you want us to go to the Southern Continent, from which our ancestors fled, to search for a firestone that fire-lizards will chew?” B’ralar asked, summarizing Kindan’s report.

Kindan flushed and nodded. “Yes, sir—I mean, my lord,” he said in a small voice.

“I think he’s right,” Mikal said. “For myself, I shudder to think how many have suffered needlessly if this is so.”

“But what if this firestone is only good for fire-lizards?” one of the wingleaders protested. “What then?”

“The only way to know is for a dragon to test it,” another observed.

“I’ll do it,” D’vin declared. “Hurth is willing.”

B’ralar pursed his lips. “We don’t have that many bronzes.”

D’vin pointed at Cristov. “And we’ve even fewer miners.”

B’ralar glanced at Cristov and Alarra sitting beside him, sighed, and nodded in agreement. “Very well,” he said. “I approve this journey.”

“You know,” Murenny said thoughtfully, “even if we find this new firestone here in the north, who’s going to mine it?”

“I’ll mine it,” Cristov declared.

B’ralar gave him a troubled look. “There’s a Hatching soon; you should stay here.”

For a moment Cristov’s eyes lit with joy. The Weyrleader was offering him a chance to Impress a dragon!

“I’ll go,” Alarra said. “I owe it to Toldur’s memory.”

Cristov nodded. “I’ll go,” he said. He met the Weyrleader’s startled look. “I owe it to Toldur, and I owe it for my father.”

“Even that won’t be enough, just the two of you,” Kindan objected, somewhat surprised by his own jealous reaction to B’ralar’s implied offer to Cristov. “You need a shift of ten to do any serious work.”

“That’s for
coal,
” Cristov corrected.

“Rock’s rock,” Kindan replied, standing his ground. “There’s only so much a person can mine in a day.”

“The weyrfolk helped,” Cristov responded.

“But will they be able when Thread falls?” Zist wondered. He glanced at B’ralar, who returned his glance with a troubled look.

“We could use the Shunned,” Mikal suggested. In response to the others’ muted reactions, he added, “Offer them an amnesty for a Turn’s worth of work.”

Murenny shook his head regretfully. “A good suggestion, but Telgar’s been putting the Shunned to work in the mines for Turns—they know it’s death to work firestone.”

“Someone would have to tell them otherwise, then,” Mikal suggested. “If they knew the firestone wouldn’t explode, I’d bet they’d come in droves.”

Zist gave him a thoughtful look and then said to Murenny, “It might be the solution to our problem.”

Murenny nodded and, in response to B’ralar’s questioning look, explained, “Master Zist and I have been concerned with the issue of the Shunned and what will happen with them during the Fall.”

“They’d be protected like anyone else on Pern,” B’ralar said immediately.

“But they’ve no holds, no place to grow crops,” Zist pointed out. “Such people will be desperate.”

“We sent Journeyman Moran out to make contact with them, Turns ago,” the Masterharper added, shaking his head sadly.

“Perhaps Moran would be willing to continue his mission,” Zist suggested to Murenny. He looked up at the Weyrleader. “Would it be possible for me to get to Crom on Harper business?”

“P’lel could take you,” D’vin offered. “I’m sure his Telenth would oblige.”

Halla tracked Pellar down at last, ready to pummel him for departing their hidden camp without leaving her the slightest message. It had taken her over an hour to find the first sign of his trail and another two to find him. She was hungry, hot, irritated, and—she hated to admit it—relieved at finding him.

Her relief gave way to surprise as she took in his position. He was kneeling. Was he sick? It had taken all her strength to pull him away to safety that day, so many sevendays ago. When she had found enough energy to go back for the other boy, she discovered that he was gone, as was Tenim’s body.

“Dragonriders,” Pellar had later written in explanation. But by then days had passed, and Halla had spent sleepless nights wondering if the blast had made Pellar addled. It had taken several more days before she recognized his strange gestures as attempts to write, and then she’d spent a fruitless day searching for something he could use, only to find, on her return to their camp, that Pellar had cleared a patch of ground and had used a stick to write, “I’m not addled. Remember, I can’t speak.”

Halla’s relief had been so great that she had cried for the first time since she’d been with Lord Fenner of Crom. She was surprised and grateful when Pellar wrapped his arms around her and held her tight while she cried out all the fears and horrors of the past weeks. But she also felt a bit uneasy; with Lord Fenner, Halla had felt that she’d been with someone like the father she’d never known, but with Pellar she felt more like she’d come
home—
and it scared her.

They’d had to change camps and hide when they discovered that the firestone mine had attracted several groups of the Shunned, who looted the wrecked mine and outbuildings for whatever they could find. Halla had refused to allow Pellar to contact the dragonriders, protesting, “They’ll capture them and put them to work on firestone mines!”

Nothing Pellar wrote could persuade her otherwise, and they spent several days angrily apart, not communicating beyond the barest necessary for survival.

The Shunned had fled when the dragons returned. But the dragonriders had stayed only briefly and were gone before Halla and Pellar could resolve yet another argument over whether to contact them.

And now the last of the food Halla had was gone; they would have to move camp soon, as the local game was now too wary of their traps, and Pellar was here kneeling in the grass.

He turned at the sound of her approach—which irritated Halla no end as she could have sworn that no one could hear her—and grinned, holding up something cupped in his hands.

It was yellow. No,
they
were yellow.

“Yellowtops!” Halla exclaimed in surprise. Then she remembered her worried hours of searching and shouted at him, “You went looking for yellowtops?”

Pellar nodded, his grin slipping into a smaller smile. He stood up and handed her one, gesturing for her to follow him. Halla raised an eyebrow at him but shrugged and waited for him to lead the way.

They walked in silence, which grew more companionable with every step. Pellar was clearly excited about something, and his excitement was infectious. What was he going to do with yellowtops?

The question had just turned over in Halla’s mind when they topped a rise and she knew what he was going to do. She lengthened her stride and caught up with him, pulling him to a stop. Pellar’s eyes met hers just as Halla leaned up and kissed him.

“It was you!” she said. “You were the one.”

Pellar nodded. She kissed him again and grabbed his hand, dragging him after her as they made their way down the rise to the neat graves set in the dale below.

Wordlessly they stopped and knelt in front of the mounds. After a moment they leaned forward and carefully placed the small yellowtops on each grave.

One was Toldur’s, one was Tenim’s, but Halla could not tell which was which. Nor did she care; in her mind, the dead were clear of all debts.

Zist was surprised at the sight of Moran. His memories of the man were over a dozen Turns old, but he hadn’t expected to find the young man he’d sent on a perilous journey changed into such an old, worried person.

“Master Zist, I’m sorry,” Moran said, bowing deeply. “I’ve failed you and the Masterharper.”

Zist waved his apology aside. “Not your fault, boy. The job was bigger than you.”

“Then why have you let Lord Fenner send a mere girl on the same mission?” Moran demanded hotly, meeting Zist’s eyes squarely.

Zist raised an eyebrow and turned an inquiring look to Lord Fenner, who had the grace to look embarrassed. Behind him, however, a girl who bore a remarkable resemblance to Crom’s Lord merely snorted in annoyance.

“Father was absolutely right to send Halla,” the girl declared. “She’s a girl, after all.”

“Nerra, hush!” Fenner said quellingly. Nerra took an involuntary step backward before she caught herself, huffed, and defiantly regained her previous position.

“I will not,” she said. “You were right to send Halla—she was a much better choice to deal with the Shunned.”

“She was so small,” Moran objected.

“Exactly!” Nerra said, pouncing upon his words. “No threat to anyone and quick on her feet, as well as her wits.”

“So where is she?” Moran demanded.

Nerra’s exultant look collapsed, and she was reduced to murmuring, “They didn’t find her body at the firestone mine.”

“The dragonriders could search for her,” Zist suggested.

“Not Telgar,” Nerra declared. “They’d take her to the mines.” She pointed at Moran. “They were all ready to take
him
to the mines except that Father refused.” She sniffed. “At least D’gan still recognizes the rights of the Lord Holder, if nothing else.”