The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  No matter, on top of Rosheen’s uneasiness and Arminet’s odd remarks, a late-night message from the Harper Hall, and from Beauty, Menolly’s gold, was alarming. Tagetarl wondered why Ola, Rosheen’s fire-lizard queen, did not instantly appear to “supervise” the visitor. Ola wasn’t usually absent when needed.

  He held out his hand and Beauty stepped onto it. He could see the message holder on her left foreleg but it was too dark to read it. Rising carefully so as not to disturb Rosheen unnecessarily, he slipped yesterday’s shirt and pants from the clothing rack and left the room. He pushed his hand for Beauty to leave it and motioned her down the stairs. He pulled on his clothes, her annoyed chirp hurrying the process. The thin carpet on the hall was cold under his bare feet, another incentive to move quickly.

  As he descended the stairs, he peered out the windows into the court, silent and shadowed. Maybe that’s where Ola was, lurking on the rooftop. The weaver’s roof abutted the Hall’s outbuildings. Pinch had made use of that entry. But Ola knew him. Tagetarl paused on the landing, listening for any sound from the hall that led to the upper story of the Print Hall. Nothing moved in that direction. He heard an admonitory chirp in the other and continued on to the spacious kitchen that was also their main living room.

  Then Tagetarl berated himself for assuming that the message dealt with the Print Hall. There were any number of reasons—all equally worrying—that could have prompted Menolly to send Beauty in the middle of the night. It wasn’t that late at the Harper Hall. Maybe she was merely inquiring about the musical scores she had recently sent him to be printed. Even with Beauty impatient, Tagetarl took the few steps to the porch door. It had a fine lock, strong, well-cast metal with another cunning catch that you’d have to know about to open the door once it was set. And the glass was Morilton-made, not easily shattered.

  Tagetarl turned right into the big, dark kitchen, warm enough from the banked fires in the big range. Orange light from the ash grate made an eerie glow on the flagstones: not bright enough to read by. The shutters were closed against the winter’s cold so he flicked on a small light and saw Beauty perched on a chair back, ruffling her wings shut. She held up her left foreleg for him to remove the message tube, cocking her head at him as if reproving his slowness. Taking a deep breath, Tagetarl unrolled the thin sheet of the message.

  “Runners confirm trouble at Wide Bay. Guard the Hall. Assistance planned.”

  Rosheen had been right. Had Arminet been just passing on suspicions? Which now the Harper Hall was confirming? Trouble? From whom? Instantly the Abominators came to mind. But there hadn’t been any more activity from that source since Turn’s End. Of course, the Fireball Flood had kept everyone busy.

  “Trouble? What sort of trouble?” Out of habit, he filled the kettle, put it on the range, and stoked the fire with blackstone. Then he stared at the range. “Fire trouble?” He swallowed hard. Paper burned just as easily as dried herbs or powdered medicines. And he had all those books displayed in the Hall, more packed to be shipped north and south. The presses could be smashed just as easily as medicine bottles and equipment, toner and ink could be spilled, and the sheds where he stored paper had wooden doors, because he hadn’t been able to afford steel doors.

  The note didn’t mention Abominators. What made him think they would attack his Hall? What made him think they wouldn’t? He was using a process that Aivas had provided, encouraged. Was the use of “Aivas procedures” all that was needed to agitate them?

  “What sort of assistance?”

  Perhaps he should ask some of his male apprentices to sleep in the Hall, or in the sheds. And Ola. Which reminded him. Where was she? Menolly had helped train her and she was certainly most responsible when Rosheen sent her with messages, going and returning as quickly as anyone could expect.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting back to Menolly?” he asked, a little sharp with worry.

  She blinked her green eyes. Well, she wasn’t worried if her eyes were green.

  A whir of wings and into the kitchen flew Rosheen’s gold queen, Ola. She may have landed on his shoulder but the warble of her message was for the Harper Hall queen. For a brief second, Tagetarl was amused at Ola’s proprietary perch. Beauty’s eyes whirled and, with a very definite air of command, she trilled several long musical phrases at the younger fire-lizard.

  Ola straightened on Tagetarl’s shoulder, sending her claws into shirt and flesh.

  “Easy there, Ola!” She stroked his cheek with her head in apology.

  Beauty trilled again briefly and disappeared.

  “So she was waiting to speak to you, eh, Ola? Just what did she say?”

  Closing the first lids over her eyes, Ola regarded him in what Rosheen called her “you-don’t-need-to-know” response. But, under the lids, her eyes were picking up speed, with little flecks of yellow. Tagetarl was not as good as Rosheen at reading fire-lizard eye colors but he knew the color was edging toward alarm. Orange or red meant danger. She pushed against his shoulder, digging her talons into his flesh deep enough to make him wince, and then she, too, disappeared.

  Tagetarl went to the window and put back the shutters, wondering if Beauty had ordered her to guard the Hall. It wasn’t quite dawn—the brightest of the northern stars just fading—so he could distinguish the uneven roofs against the dark blue sky. All of a sudden, he saw the silhouette of one fire-lizard, wings cupped high, head extended and the wink of a yellow-green eye. He liked to think his harper hearing sharp enough to catch the call she was obviously sending. Her summons brought immediate results: it was rather heartening for him to see the mass of fire-lizards that congregated along the rooftops.

  “Assistance planned” the note had said. He knew that fire-lizards could be fierce in protection of their human friends but Ola was only one and, while Wide Bay had several large fairs of wild fire-lizards, the creatures were notoriously short of memory. Surely Menolly meant more substantial assistance than a watch maintained by fire-lizards?

  The kettle began to steam so he measured klah into the big pot and poured in hot water to the top. Hadn’t Benelek told him at the last Gather that he was experimenting with an electrically heated kettle? His stomach grumbled so he looked in the bread cupboard and cut himself several slices to toast on the reawakened range. He was looking for sweetening to spread on it when he detected just the barest sound, a scuff. Had he been stupid enough to unlock the outside door when he examined it? He picked up the full klah pot; moved toward the hall, ready to fling the hot contents on anyone who appeared.

  “It’s me,” a familiar voice whispered.

  “It is I, please, Pinch,” Tagetarl corrected irritably, lowering the klah pot.

  One step brought Pinch to the doorway, his gold Bista clinging to his jacket.

  “How did you get in? No, don’t tell me. Over the roof.” Pinch made an apologetic face.

  “How’d you get in the hold?” Tagetarl was really startled now, having spent so much on a difficult lock for the hold door.

  Pinch held up a slender key. “You told me how to release the safety catch when you gave me this. I didn’t want to wake you up.” He dropped the key back into an inner pocket where it gave a muffled clink as it settled and Tagetarl wondered how many other keys the Harper had collected.

  “But Ola’s on the roof with fairs of fire-lizards.” What good would fire-lizards do in his defense?

  “For one, she knows me. And two, Bista vouched for me. I’ll give her this, she was ready to call her fairs down on me.” Then Pinch sniffed, noticing the klah pot still in Tagetarl’s hand. “You knew I was coming?” he asked, faintly surprised.

  “Beauty brought me a message. Are you and Bista my ‘assistance’?”

  Pinch’s weary face was wreathed in a smile. “Part of it, but I’m glad to know that the warning got through to the Harper Hall, too.” He looked over his shoulder and said in a louder voice, “It’s safe to come in now. There’s fresh klah. And,” he went on to the startled Tagetarl, “by the
way, I suspect that when they decide to enter these premises for their subversive activities, they, too, will use the weaver’s roof. He’s listened to loom clacking so long he’s deafer than a shuttle.”

  Pinch moved confidently to the wall cabinet and started hooking cup handles on the fingers of his left hand, gathering four more together with a clink in his right fingers. He placed all on the table as his companions solemnly entered one by one.

  “Still, it’s wiser to let them use a known vulnerability and prepare. Oh, by the way, these are more of the promised ‘assistance.’ Don’t gawk, Tag. Pour the klah while I introduce them.”

  Five young men and three girls filed in, packs on their shoulders, covered buckets in their hands, giving him a nod or a shy smile.

  “Oh, leave the stuff on the landing or there won’t be anywhere to stand,” Pinch said, gesturing them to do so before he handed out the cups. Then he named them as he poured klah. Macy, Chenoa, Egara, Magalia, Fromelin, Torjus, Garrel, and Niness.

  “Much obliged, Master.”

  “Thank you, Master Tagetarl.”

  “You’re very kind, Master.”

  “Appreciate this.”

  “Eight, Pinch?” Tagetarl said, automatically steadying cups as he filled them; trying to absorb the presence of the Harper and the assistance. Would there be enough klah left for him?

  “Yes, that’s the number we figured it would take to paint all the wood you’ve got,” Pinch said with a weary sigh. He snagged a stool to set his backside on, gesturing for his followers to be easy. “For all that most of your Hall is made of good fieldstone, you’ve wood in your doors and floors and window frames. They’d burn just as easily as paper will.” Pinch raised his hand to soothe Tagetarl’s explosion. “So we have thoughtfully brought a fire-retardant. A coat of that’s to go on all your wooden surfaces between now and full daylight. Doesn’t smell either. Or won’t with all the stinks this close to the wharves. The stuff dries quickly, Piemur assures me, and since our Abominators would scarcely have delved that far into Aivas’s files to know such useful substances exist, it’ll help foil their plans.”

  “It is the Abominators? You know what they plan?” Tagetarl exclaimed, nearly sloshing hot klah over Macy’s hand.

  “We can make some pretty good guesses, based on what they’ve done before,” Pinch said condescendingly. Then his lips thinned with distaste.

  “But why should they attack the Print Hall? We’re supporting the teaching program after all and …”

  “Well, you printed a concise report of the Fireball and the true extent of the Flooding,” Pinch said, grinning at the outraged Tagetarl. “We’ve surmised that the Abominators wanted to set about the rumor that Aivas had meddled with the very rhythm of Pern and that this Fireball was a direct result. Therefore anything that Aivas had suggested, recommended, dispensed the plans of, offered solutions to should be suspect, avoided, discarded, and forgotten so we can go back to the pure days when all we had to do was worry about Threadfall every two hundred and fifty Turns—give or take a few.”

  “Is that what they were going to say? After the good that’s been done by the Healers since they learned how to rectify so many ailments and provide cures for maladies that used to kill people by the hundreds? Not to mention being able to refer to books that provide explanations and—and—”

  Tagetarl was stunned. Pinch poured a cup of klah and put it in his hand.

  “Drink. You’re not awake yet. But that gives them more reason to try and put a stop to the Hall.”

  “More reason? Stop the Hall?”

  “The written word has a power all its own, that rumor can never replace. So you publish truth. The Abominators circulate rumor. A person can reread words and reestablish truth. Rumor can’t be caught, can’t be traced. It may be more fun to pass along but a book, a sheet of printed paper, that’s tangible and the sense of it doesn’t change when it’s passed from hand to hand. Drink the klah, Tagetarl,” Pinch said very gently, raising Tagetarl’s hand to bring his cup to his mouth.

  The Master Printer managed one sip of the hot liquid. “What do I do? I’ll need guards. My apprentices aren’t going to be enough!”

  Pinch raised hands to silence him. “Of course they aren’t. Nice enough lads but not trained, though I suspect Marley’s a good man in a brawl, but my reinforcements here—” He gestured broadly at the young people who were quietly sipping klah. “—have a few tricks and they know one end of a brush from another. We’ve arrived timely, too, since Beauty was here and my suspicions have been confirmed by the Runners.” He grinned brightly at Tagetarl. “Dragonriders aren’t the only ones who can be where they’re needed when they’re needed.”

  Tagetarl’s jaw dropped at what was almost a profane remark from a harper.

  “Now you’ve finished your klah, boys and girls, we’ve a lot to do before daylight. Smear the retardant on anything wooden. The gloves may be clumsy but they’ll save your skin. Work quietly, if you please. I don’t want even to hear the slap of brushes on the wood. You’ve all had practice.”

  While two of the group gathered the cups and set them in the sink, the others went out, collecting their supplies and quietly leaving by the kitchen porch. Tagetarl glanced out the window and, in the dim predawn light, could barely see the other side of the wide court.

  “Stuff’s dark going on, dries transparent. Don’t worry,” Pinch said, rising to refill the kettle from the tap at the sink and put it back on the stove. As he swung his leg over the stool, he took a sheet from a pocket and smoothed it on the table in front of Tagetarl. “Seen him around here lately?”

  Tagetarl frowned. “That’s the same man you drew the last time you were here. I thought he looked familiar. I thought it odd of him to ask for a copy of Teaching Ballads. I’d actually filled an order for Lord Kashman and had none in stock. Told him to come back in a sevenday.”

  Pinch nodded as if that wasn’t news to him. “Tomorrow.”

  “You mean, he plans to just walk in here …” Tagetarl was appalled when he remembered the incident. “I showed him through the Hall. It seemed only courteous.”

  Pinch’s smile was sardonic. “I hope you limited it to the Hall.”

  “I did, but I also mentioned how many apprentices I’m training.” Tagetarl slammed his forehead with his hand. How naïve of him! Had he lost all his Harper-trained acuity? He had seven lads, none of them fully grown except Marley, and three girls, who were all of them light-boned, hired for their quick fingers. Add in the eight Pinch had brought—

  “Don’t fret,” Pinch said soothingly. “You’d no cause—then—to suspect anything. No reason not to be courteous. You are, after all, offering a special service. Even if the Abominators don’t like it.”

  Tagetarl swallowed, the hot klah cooling too rapidly in his belly to give him the comfort it usually did. “How many were there in that attack on the Healer Hall? Ten? No, fifteen.”

  “I’d say there’d have to be at least ten for the job here,” Pinch said casually, as if that made no difference. “Had any other ‘curious’ visitors lately?”

  Tagetarl buried his face in his hands, rubbing it and then scrubbing his scalp with his knuckles. “Quite likely and all of them seemed perfectly reasonable folk.”

  “They may well be,” Pinch remarked amiably, “except those who get a notion that you’re a wicked tool of the Abominator because you can turn out whole books in days instead of months.”

  Tagetarl groaned.

  Pinch reached over and patted Tagetarl on the shoulder. “But we’ve warning and I know who—and what—to be looking for.”

  “The three sketches you showed me?”

  “I’m hoping all three will come to this party.” Pinch’s expression turned enigmatic.

  “Party?” Tagetarl was livid.

  “Evening exercise, if you prefer. Since they expect to surprise you, we’ll just prepare a few of our own.” He rose and Bista glided from her perch on the windowsill to his shoulder. �
�I’ll go give them a hand.” When Tagetarl started to rise, throwing off the last of this infamous shock, Pinch motioned to the kettle. “We’ll need a lot more klah. And don’t notice me walking about today, will you? The others’ll hide in the loft. Just don’t send anyone up there, will you? Fine. We brought food and water with us. No one will know we’re here.”

  He started to leave, and then stopped, putting up a hand to steady his gold fire-lizard on his shoulder.

  “There’s one more thing, Tag,” he went on. “You might just get an unexpected gift, like a skin of good wine. Don’t even sample it out of courtesy. Or any provisions offered in kind for books received.”

  “What?” Tagetarl bristled at that. They did take fresh fruit or meat in return for printing. Would an Abominator stoop to poison? Then he remembered that Master Robinton had been drugged at the Ruatha Gather and abducted right in front of hundreds of people. “How many are involved?”

  Pinch gave an indolent shrug. “Don’t know, but Abominators seem to work in groups. Since they intend to damage the Hall, they’ll bring enough brawn to smash stuff around. There are still persons,” and he heaved a sigh for those so misguided, “who’ll do any job that drops marks in their pockets.”

  Tagetarl shuddered; he had a vivid picture of the Hall, paper burning, toner powder splotching the whitewashed walls, hammers smashing his presses, even if Pinch seemed certain that fire could be prevented.

  “You are not reassuring me, Pinch!” he said in a caustic tone.

  “While we want them to get in,” Pinch said, “to show that they had evil intentions, we want to keep them from getting out.” His grin was malicious. “That’ll be easier to do, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know, but this is just the sort of adventure you enjoy!”

  “You used to, too, in your younger days, Tag,” the Harper said with an unrepentant grin. “Until you got your Mastery and started a new Hall.” He rose before Tagetarl could marshal a stern rebuttal. “By the way, if you should hear someone whistling,” and he provided a trill, “that’s me. If you hear this one,” and the intervals of the five notes in the next warble were very odd indeed, like some of the quartet music Menolly liked to write for very experienced players, “that means someone suspicious close. Got ’em?”