The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Underneath the sink, behind the laundry soaps,” Tagetarl suggested and helped Pinch bestow it, with a final glance to be sure the bung was in tight. “And we were supposed to drink a whole skin tonight?”

  “You usually drink with your evening meal.”

  “Cider,” Tagetarl said in protest. “Wine only on special occasions. And how do they know we drink at dinner?”

  “Probably watching. Your kitchen faces the road. You don’t close the shutters until you go to bed.” Pinch shrugged. “Then, too, most people’ll drink freely of free wine, you know. And you did say you’d drink the Lord Holder’s health.”

  “It couldn’t possibly be Lord Kashman he meant?” Tagetarl asked.

  Pinch twisted his chin sideways and shrugged. “He wasn’t specific, was he? Or do they intend to impugn Lord Toronas since it’s a Benden wine? Or implicate Lord Kashman? Interesting.” Then he gave a delicate sniff of the savory odors drifting down from the kitchen level. “When did you say dinner is? I mean to join you. All that free wine!”

  Rosheen came into the cellar. “I thought I saw someone strange. Pinch?” she added, staring at the Harper as he discarded the outer layer of rags. “What are you doing here?”

  “I perceive you haven’t told her,” Pinch said with a long-suffering sigh.

  “Told me what?” She glared at both of them.

  “You were right, Rosheen,” Tagetarl said with a sad grimace. “There is trouble coming our way.”

  “Abominators?” she exclaimed when, between them, Tagetarl and Pinch disclosed all they knew.

  As ever, Rosheen did not react the way Tagetarl thought she would.

  “You mean, you didn’t tell me to cook enough to feed your friends a decent supper, Pinch? You left them waiting up there in that awful loft all day long?”

  “They brought food and they’ve slept most of the day,” Pinch added as if that was occupation enough. “Couldn’t let anyone know they were here.”

  Abruptly she sat down on the stairs, her face suddenly white as she absorbed the danger the Hall was in.

  “You mean,” and now her white skin was flushed with angry spots on her cheeks, “you let me go through the entire day oblivious to all this?”

  “Now, now, Rosheen, one of us had to act natural,” Tagetarl said.

  “Well, now, I’ve a thing or two to say to that, MasterPrinter Tagetarl—”

  “Later, Rosheen,” Pinch said. “You can say anything you want to him when we’ve got all this behind us.”

  She paused, one hand raised to point accusingly at her spouse. “When?” she repeated in a very scared, small voice.

  “Tonight, if we’re lucky,” Pinch replied.

  “That’s lucky?” She blinked. “Is that why Ola hasn’t let me out of her sight all day?”

  “Quite likely,” Pinch agreed amiably. “Now, we’ll eat dinner, and drink merrily from whatever you have in the hold that’s safe to drink. Some of your good cider?” he asked ingenuously.

  Rosheen took a deep breath, started to say something, changed her mind and pointed down the cellar hallway. “Harper, you know exactly where I store the cider!” She turned and started up the stairs, slamming each foot down hard on the riser to disperse her anger.

  “I think she took it rather well,” Pinch said to Tagetarl. He rewrapped his rags. “Now, this drudge will hobble out and disappear in the lanes and byways. And shortly a very respectably dressed gentleman will arrive from the direction of the wharf with a commission for the MasterPrinter that will be discussed while his hosts visibly toast the Lord Holder’s health.”

  And that was exactly what happened as dusk settled over Wide Bay. Then, with a great show of having enjoyed the wine, Tagetarl and Pinch went to close the outer gates for the night. The heavy sky-broom wood bar took considerable heaving to get into place. Tagetarl clipped over the unusual fastenings at both ends.

  “Now don’t worry, my good friend,” Pinch said as they walked back to the kitchen porch, giving him a reassuring shake on the shoulder. “They may get in, but I assure you, they won’t find it so easy to get out. Nor a chance to do any harm. Now we go inside, like the innocents we are, and lock the door.”

  Though Pinch had explained the various precautions he had taken during the day and where his helpers were now hiding, Tagetarl was realist enough to know that Thread could fall in unexpected tangles.

  “Try to relax, Tag,” Pinch advised him. “I think every fire-lizard in the town is ready to come when Ola warbles.”

  “If they remember,” Tagetarl muttered to himself, shivering a little. The night air was chilly.

  Pinch gave a soft, wry chuckle, “Bista’s there, too, you know, and she’ll remember. Now, I’ve one more trick to see to.” He clapped him once more on the shoulder and took the short interior corridor to the Hall.

  “Relax?” Tagetarl repeated under his breath.

  “How could you leave me in ignorance all day, Tag?” Rosheen demanded, coming out of the kitchen.

  “Now you know, would you rather have known earlier?” he replied more bitingly than he meant and put his arms about her in a tight, apologetic embrace. He could feel her trembling.

  “No, I guess not, but you’ve been very brave, Tag.”

  “I’m scared stiff. If only we could have put in steel doors!”

  “Steel doors didn’t keep the Abominators out of the Healer Hall, now did they? They just walked themselves in. Well, at least they can’t just walk in here!”

  He reached over to turn out the kitchen lights.

  “Shall I giggle drunkenly or something? Having enjoyed the Lord Holder’s wine? Or s-s-should we reel up the s-s-stairs?” She spoiled her casual manner by stammering.

  “A waste of effort, dear,” he said, trying not to sound grim. “Now the gates are closed, no one can see in.”

  He transferred one arm to her waist as they climbed to their sleeping room, dowsing the lights as they went up. Then they crept back down the stairs. Fully dressed, they made themselves as comfortable as possible on the long kitchen bench. Rosheen had padded it with pillows to ease a long wait.

  “Is Ola on watch?” he asked Rosheen softly.

  “If she were more on watch, she’d give her vigilance away.” She gestured to a long shadow on the wide sill.

  Even the pillows could not make the upright design of the bench comfortable. After the very long tense day he had spent, Tagetarl found waiting in the dark for the expected attack the worst part. He could have used the time to edit the copy to be printed the next day—if his presses still worked. Surely, with most of Pinch’s folk hidden in the Hall, his presses would be untouched? He tried to remember the latest verses Menolly had sent him for setting and found he remembered her new tunes better. Then he was aware of a sleepy murmur from his spouse and realized that Rosheen, her head pillowed on his shoulder, had actually managed to fall asleep. He was further distracted by the many soft noises the building could make. He had to identify each one as normal. And inside the hold. Not outside.

  He was struggling to keep awake when Ola’s soft hiss roused him. He shook Rosheen and she mumbled before she realized that she shouldn’t make any sound. He felt her body tense.

  Then the fire-lizard disappeared. What had she heard that he hadn’t? Could he risk looking out the window? His ears hurt with the strain of listening.

  A noise! Outside. The muted thud of the sky-broom bar rattled in its slots. He grinned. They’d have trouble just finding the safety catches. A sudden flare of light: a match? Hunching down, he got to the kitchen door, crammed his body to one side so he had a partial view of the outer gates but wouldn’t be seen. Since his eyes were accustomed to the night, he made out two dark burly figures struggling to lift the sky-broom bar. Then another black shadow, visible crossing the pale cobbles, joined them. Three? That was the number Pinch reckoned would come over the weaver’s roof. Their initial job would be to open the outer gates and let the others in. He heard once again the muted thud
as the sky-broom bar refused to lift from its brackets. He suppressed a malicious delight in their frustration. Suddenly, outlined against the lighter building across the road, three shadows—heads and shoulders—loomed over the top of the gate. The figures disappeared back the way they had come. Had he heard muted cries? The three inside huddled together briefly and once again tried to lift the bar.

  Another flare of light, carefully shielded, but then held against one end of the stubborn bar. Tagetarl chuckled. They’d need full daylight to puzzle the mechanics: an old, old device. Another huddle; one was left examining the catch. A match was struck and he saw it passing from the head of one torch to another. In that light, he followed the progress of the arsonist across the court, saw him jam one torch under the edge of the first shed door, the second under the farther one. They burned merrily and Tagetarl held his breath. Maybe that paint wasn’t a retardant. Fearfully he watched but, although the flame leaped up along the lower edge of the door, all that was really burning was the torch, its light reflecting back from whatever covered the wood. The man who had placed the torches didn’t seem to notice, returning to the stubborn bar securing the outer gates.

  Movement there caught Tagetarl’s eye. He caught a glimpse of someone scraping the arch in an effort to avoid the top of the gates. That was a very awkward method of clearing a height, wasn’t it? One of Pinch’s surprises? When had Pinch had a chance to trick out the gates? Not that Tagetarl had noticed since the heavy leaves reached a good half meter above his head. There was some kind of argument, carried on in emphatic gestures, some indicating the gates and another undeniably made to the person’s crotch. Whatever that had been about, now they were concentrating on both ends of the restraining bar. He counted those now inside and came up with at least ten different shadows. The attempts to shift the bar were abandoned and the group moved toward the Print Hall. Tagetarl wondered if they were falling behind their schedule.

  What had been in those barrels? He couldn’t see the Hall doors as easily as the outer gate but he did hear the scuff of heavy soles on the stone steps leading to the kitchen porch. A dark figure, a big man, was silhouetted against the useless torches across the court.

  Pinch had given Tagetarl the task of preventing anyone from entering the link from the hold to the Hall. He took a firm grip on his cudgel, wishing he had chosen a thicker one. The man looked huge in the shadows. Not since his journeyman’s days had Tagetarl been in a brawl. He heard the clink of something against the pane and smiled to himself. It took a smashing blow to break glass of Master Morilton’s manufacture. And would make a lot of noise, too.

  But it didn’t, because the intruder held something over the pane as he hit it again. The glass made a tinkling sound as the splinters fell on the inside carpet. Another dull sound and the door lock was broken. If he and Rosheen had been drugged and asleep, they would not have heard those sounds. Then he had no time to think because the man pushed open the door and crouched, listening. Tagetarl pulled back his arm and just as the man moved forward, so did he. But the man suddenly tripped, swearing as he fell. Tagetarl aimed at his head and brought down his cudgel, numbing his arm to the shoulder when his cudgel connected with something else, much harder.

  “Got’ya,” Rosheen said in a low and very smug voice and then saw Tagetarl’s cudgel lying across the heavy iron pan with which she had clouted the intruder. “I didn’t see you, Tag!”

  Tagetarl was reeling somewhat with the shock that was still coursing up his arm, his hand numb from forceful contact with an iron skillet. A whirr and Ola arrived, hissing down at the intruder. Three more fire-lizards neatly zipped in through the broken pane.

  “How’d you drop him?” he whispered.

  “Tripped him with the broom,” she said. “I heard the glass go. Where were you?”

  Tagetarl jerked his head over his shoulder.

  “Let’s throw him down the cellar steps, out of the way,” she said so coolly that Tagetarl regarded his spouse with surprise. She was generally the kindest of women. “Ola will make sure her friends don’t let him go anywhere.”

  “If you haven’t killed him.”

  “If I killed him, what was he doing where I could do so?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  He was still alive when they took him by the shoulders, dragged him the short distance to the top of the cellar stairs and then tipped him down, the hissing fire-lizards following him into the darkness below.

  Crouching, they moved back to the open kitchen door.

  Rosheen gasped as she jiggled her hand at the flaming torches across the cobbles. He caught her before she could move. “Look carefully,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s only the torches burning.”

  “Yes, but what happens when they see the fire hasn’t taken?” she shot back at him.

  Where was Pinch?

  Suddenly he heard a loud, creaking rasp of wood, the odd, squeaking, popping sound of screws being wrenched forcibly out of their seating, a mutter of triumph, and, in the light of the torches, he saw the double doors of the Hall being flattened to the cobbles. The intruders, audibly pleased with this success, started trampling across the broken leaves of the door. In the next moment, Tagetarl’s ears were pierced by such a weird warble that he flinched and blinked, as the court seemed to be full of wings and gouts of flame, converging on the battered entrance to the Print Hall. Now human shrieks and screams reverberated amid sudden surprised shouts and protests. Tagetarl was on his feet, cudgel held high as he took the porch steps in two leaps, Rosheen right behind him, swinging her skillet.

  Fortunately they were running down the left-hand side of the court toward the Hall because something large and gray settled to the cobbles, almost on top of them. Flattening his body against the wall, Tagetarl snatched Rosheen back out of the way, unable to imagine what other menace the intruders had imported. But the shouts from inside his Hall altered to angry, startled ones and shrieks of pain and curses.

  “Get off my face!” “You’re breaking my ribs!” “My face, my face!” interspersed with pounding on the outer gate and anxious calls.

  “What’s happening in there? Open up! Tagetarl! MasterPrinter!”

  “Master Tagetarl, it’s Venabil! What’s happening in there?”

  “Watch out!”

  “Shards! Do you see what I see?”

  “Here! Back off! There now! Stand aside!”

  There was a clearance of perhaps a meter and a half between the top of the outer gates and the arch, and that space was filled with two whirling, orange eyes.

  “Tagetarl! Get this gate open!”

  “In a minute! In a minute!” Pinch roared back. “Who has the hand lights? Torjus, Chenoa, douse those torches! Macy, help me unfasten the bar!”

  The court was suddenly awash with light. Someone in the Hall had had the sense to turn on the main switch. The large gray object Tagetarl had been trying to avoid turned rainbow-colored eyes on him and Tagetarl stared back at the white dragon, Ruth. And then at the man dismounting.

  “So it’s you Ruth wants me to rescue,” was Lord Jaxom’s slightly amused greeting.

  “How did you know?” Not that Tagetarl wasn’t remarkably relieved to see him.

  “Only to come, here and now.” Jaxom was unfastening his jacket and it could be seen that he was wearing casual clothing underneath, not full riding gear. “Ruth tells me Lioth and N’ton have also been summoned. Do I assume that you’ve had some intruders?” He pointed toward the broken doors and the wriggling mass hanging just above it. “Did you catch them all in the one net?”

  Stunned by all that had happened so quickly, Tagetarl had not really noticed. So nets had been stuffed in those barrels? Hadn’t Pinch mentioned that some of his helpers were seafolk? How ingenious. He then saw that the fairs of fire-lizards that had come swooping and flaming in were attacking those captive in the nets, pecking and scratching at arms, legs, and various other parts that were protruding from the mesh. The anguished and pained protests were almost
louder than the furor of the crowd outside, demanding to be let in.

  “There’s one more,” Rosheen said, breathless with relief and pride. “He tried to get into the hold and we knocked him out and pushed him down into the cellar.”

  “Clever of you,” Jaxom said, raising his voice to be heard, “but whatever did you do, Tag, to annoy the Abominators?”

  “Why are you sure that’s who they are?” Rosheen asked.

  “Who else would try to damage a Print Hall when most of Pern can’t wait to own real books? And why else are N’ton and I here, too? As witnesses to a midnight attack on defenseless premises.”

  Just then, Pinch and Macy lifted the sky-broom bar and the outer gates were flung open to the considerable crowd waiting to enter, waving cudgels, knives, and more torches. They surged right up to the flattened leaves of the Hall’s doors, halted and stared up at the swinging net.

  “Jaxom? Are you all right?” someone cried above the angry shouting. A tall figure in riding leathers came striding through the crowd to join them. “Lioth was told to bring me to Wide Bay immediately. Tagetarl? Isn’t this your Print Hall?” N’ton had rocked to a halt when he recognized those standing with Jaxom. Then his eyes went wide. He looked over his shoulder at the swinging net. “What’s the haul?”

  “That’s what we must discover,” Pinch said, stepping forward and nodding courteously to the Lord Holder and the Weyrleader. “I may have acted hastily but I did hear that the Printer Hall might be vulnerable. So, since it is such a valuable asset to Pern, north and south, I thought to prevent any untoward impairment of its facilities. Had a—beauty—of a message yesterday.”

  Tagetarl saw Jaxom and N’ton exchange glances but, Harper though he was, he could not read more than an odd regret on N’ton’s face and a sadness in Jaxom’s.

  “There’s no question harm was meant?” N’ton asked Pinch who shook his head.

  “Three sent in over the roofs,” and Pinch pointed, raising his voice to make himself heard over the tumult in the court, “to open the main gate, torches set to fire the paper stores, hauling the Printer Hall doors off their hinges.”