He nearly had the time he'd been so sick with the thorn poison in his foot. He knew that dragons died when their riders did but no‑one who had a fire‑lizard had died in Paradise River so he wasn't sure about their reaction. Then he realized that the grown‑ups on the lawn were talking softly among themselves.
Kami thought they should get some glowbaskets. So Readis led her and Pardure who offered to help to where they kept them and set enough out so that this remarkable scene was lit.
Many Turns later, Readis remembered that night and the shadows cast on familiar faces all saddened by their loss. He remembered that, although there had been many skins of wine opened, and everyone was drinking, no‑one got merry from the wine. There was no singing which was most unusual for any group with a harper in the center of it. Readis wondered as the night got later and later why no‑one was chasing him and the other youngsters off to their beds. The littlest ones fell asleep where they were, on a parent's lap or on the ground beside them. Eventually he got up and collected covers for Aranya, Kami and her sisters and himself and Pardure and Anskono: his baby brother was sleeping in the hammock on the porch with their mother.
He tried to stay awake, to see what staying up all night was like, but the soft murmur of sad voices lulled him to sleep.
When he woke the next morning, he was in his own bed.
Checking outside, he saw that a fair number of people had slept the night on the grass. Boskoney occupied the hammock, Aramina's prized rug covering him. This was the day Readis was supposed to start school but he knew it wouldn't start today. The school had been Master Robinton's idea. Maybe it wouldn't happen now he was dead. Somehow Readis didn't like being deprived of that opportunity, especially when it mean he'd be going journeying to school a‑dragonback.
His stomach was rumbling, since he hadn't eaten much last night out of deference to the occasion, so Readis went to the larder to see what he could find to eat. Evidently alerted by the small noises he was making, Aranya entered the kitchen, Almie tagging beside her.
"Hungry,” Almie said clearly, pouting. Although Aranya was in a clean coverall, Almie was still in the rumpled things she'd worn yesterday. "I'm empty in my middle."
"I'll feed you so be quiet,” Readis said in a low voice. He sort of figured his parents wouldn't want to be awakened. His baby brother would always sleep until someone, or some loud noise, woke him. Readis didn't want the loud noise to be Almie.
He set out bowls, filled them with the fruit which was always sliced and ready in the cooler and toasted bread for his sisters so they'd keep quiet. He spread Almie's bread with the sweetener she loved because he knew if he didn't, she'd demand it and loudly, too. Aranya was much easier to deal with than Almie.
Then he got the grain for the poultry and took care of them, and Delky who patiently waited out the back door for her morning handful of corn. The canines were just getting restless when he deposited their bowls in the run. They could howl loud enough to wake the dead, as his mother often said. Back in the kitchen, he heated water and ground more klah bark because the jar was empty. One thing for sure he knew would be needed was plenty of klah.
He got Aranya to take Almie into their room and wash her and dress her. Aranya loved playing ‘mother' to their sister.
He was just sitting down to his own toast when Kami slipped in the back door, her blue eyes wide with the tidings and her expression solemn.
"It's awful, isn't it?" she whispered at him.
"They're still asleep,” Readis said, speaking low but not in a whisper. He gestured with the toasting fork and she shook her head. She did however look wistfully at the pitcher of fruit juice on the table so he filled her a glass of it.
"Father got messages this morning. We're all to sail to Monaco to escort the Harper to sea.”
Readis felt his throat close over. Boskoney had sung a very moving song about an honorable sea burial, for another old harper, Aunt Menolly's master. It would be like that.
"All of us?" Readis asked after swallowing the lump. All of us in Paradise?" He meant children as well as grown‑ups.
Kami nodded. "Father says we'll use all three ships so just about everyone can be there to honour our Master Harper.
" Father said we should never forget what we owe Master Robinton."
"Then we will be able to go to school?" Readis asked.
"Oh, how can you think of something like school when the whole world mourns?" Kami's voice rose in her disgust of his innocent query.
"It's a fair question,” said Jayge from the doorway. "Ah, klah!”
“ That was thoughtful of someone,” he added and cocked his head toward Readis. "Good lad. Your sisters are fed and occupied?”
“Thank you." He poured three cups, adding sweetener in two and placed them on a tray. "I'll be back. Toast me some bread, would you, Readis. I don't think any of us ate anything last night.”
"A moment, please, Holder Readis,” Kami began formally and she took a deep breath. "My father says that a message has come requesting the Hold to come to Monaco Bay tomorrow morning.
My father says the ships will have to be loaded and casting off at the top of the night to reach Monaco by the appointed time.
"All three ships? Hmm, that'll be room enough for everyone?"
Kami nodded, the picture of solemnity, "Yes, sir. Everyone who can come, should, he said. The message said so."
"Very well. Can you take the message round the Hold? Good, thank you, Kami.”
Kami slipped out the back door and, through the window, Readis could see her running down the path toward the cotholds.
"The bread, please, Readis, and enough for your mother and Boskoney, too."
It was an odd day. People did what they usually did but everyone was solemn‑faced. Some people were red‑eyed and sniffed a lot.
Especially when Readis played messenger and gave out the ship assignments which Unclemi sent for him to deliver. He wondered if Unclemi had told the dolphins. He must have, for when they boarded the Fair Winds in the middle of the night, he could see the dorsals crowding the water and the sleek silvery bodies in the starlight, and hear the dolphin song.
He couldn't stay awake as long as he wanted to: last night had been tiring and the day had been, too, in the oddest possible way. The dolphins were singing a sad song, too. He curled up in his cover in the prow of the Fair Winds and fell asleep to the hiss of water and the gentle motion of the ship on a calm sea.
When they arrived in Monaco Bay, there was a great array of ships and small craft and hundreds and hundreds of dolphins in the water. In the air, in great fairs, thicker even than those that had swept across the Hold yesterday, the fire‑lizards raced back and forth, blotting the sun at times. He was so busy with that display he didn't at first notice the ship, all wreathed in black, that was anchored at the pier. The Fair Winds was standing far enough out in the bay so that his father had to call his attention to the procession, a small column heading to the dock. Readis was given a chance to use Unclemi's far‑viewer.
"I want you to remember this, Readis,” his father said, passing him the cylinder. "A great man has died!'
So they watched as the ship unfurled its sails, black, and slowly they bellied with the light wind.
It moved from the pier. Unclemi made sail, too, then by, and followed in its wake, Readis all the that maybe a dolphin would be hurt, there were them, as they leaped in escort.
Trimmed in Majestically as it passed time fearful so many of What Readis remembered most that day, besides the awful solemnity of that ship and the covered body on its prow, was the dragons in the sky, wing after wing of them in close formation, hanging motionless as the ceremony was conducted.
He remembered the terrible keening of the dragons as the Master Harper's body slipped into the water. The hairs on his neck stood up and he could feel the sound down to the heels of both feet.
It was far worse than the noise the fire‑lizards had made: the dolphins squeeing and clicking only ad
ded to the uncanny noise.
Had the dolphins known the Master Harper, too? Then all the pods gave one final leap and seemed to disappear. Readis could hold his breath pretty well now and he had unconsciously held it just as they submerged. But they just didn't come back up and then he had to take a breath as spots were forming in his eyes. Shielding his eyes, he looked far out to sea and couldn't see a single dorsal fin.
Then he realized that there was only one dragon left in the sky: Ruth! His white hide unmistakable against the blue of sky!
He was motionless for so long Readis began to wonder what had happened to him. He remained, in that vigil, when Unclemi, himself at the wheel of his ship, turned to port and they began their journey homeward. The figure of Ruth dwindled finally or maybe the white dragon had ended his sky‑borne post. Readis thought that was the most sad of all he had witnessed today.
The dolphins didn't return until the Fair Winds had reached her home waters.
Three days after that funeral, T'lion arrived to take the students to Landing. They weren't taken to the Admin building as Readis had half expected. He was sort of disappointed to find that the students had their own building, three over from Admin, where a large crowd of young people had gathered. At the appointed hour, a Master appeared at the main door and, in a clear, carrying voice, announced which rooms were assigned to which class. When the older students had entered the building, he motioned for those remaining outside to approach him.
"Well, now, so you're the ones starting with us this term,' he said, letting his gaze range over them. "I am Master Samvel, head of this school and you will be known as Class 21, since this is the twenty‑first year of the Present Pass. Not very original, I fear, but that designation will identify you to us and you will listen for any messages addressed to the class in general. I shall learn to identify you each by name over the next few days.
Meanwhile, I bid you welcome and if you'll all file into room D, we can begin orientation.
Thus began what Readis later found was called the Transition Phase. He was an integral part of it.
Chapter Ten
Three Turns later, four hundred students were living in dormitories at Landing and pursuing their courses, of h a variety were now offered. When generators were established in other major Holds, additional schools were set up, ranging from primary lessons to retraining. At Harper Hall, Master Harper Sebell inaugurated a totally new course for training apprentices, and musicianship was no longer the dominant concern of the Hall. He was only able to implement the new form because Master Robinton had proposed it to the Masters of the Hall before his death. It had not been acceptable at its initial airing but, afterwards, Sebell and Menolly watched, bemused, while the obdurate older Masters insisted on adopting the program. If Menolly's reception of that reversal was bitter, Sebell held on to the advantage and pressed forward, working all the hours of the day to get every phase of Master Robinton's educational plan into operation.
With Fandarel and Oldive insisting, the Smith and Healer Crafts made it compulsory for Masters to attend courses which improved their skills and explained new craft applications of Aivas' knowledge. After the success of the Red Star mission, Master Fandarel had less trouble getting his Masters to embrace the technology. He was also attempting to produce the radio instrument which Aivas had suggested as a reliable means of communication between distant places. Materials to construct the transistors required were obtainable in quantity on Pern Master Oldive was not as fortunate, facing such rebellion from older healers that he concentrated on imparting the Aivas' techniques and methods to new and unprejudiced apprentice minds. Although he could prove the healers could now save many from desperate suffering and improve the quality of life for other patients by the discreet use of surgical remedies, Masters in his craft balked at using such methods, to the detriment of patient health and longevity. To Oldive, that was a craft failure that could not be allowed to continue. Where he could, and, oddly enough, his intrusion worked best with those who had the least training and were desperate to relieve the suffering of their patients, he introduced new procedures.
The transition in the Healer Hall was sporadic.
After the initial experiment with the dolphins and a reciprocal service in removing any bloodfish, Oldive had asked for volunteers to work more closely with the discerning mammals.
Curran had been only too happy to permit the building of a small Healer cothold at Fort Sea Hold. A float was rigged at the end of the pier so that patients could be lowered into the water for the dolphins to use their sonar capability on them. There were similar facilities at three other seaside locations: Ista, Igen Nerat and Monaco Bay, or rather, the Eastern Weyr.
Aivas had spent much time with Master Oldive and his more receptive masters and journeymen. Though he had made it clear that Pern did not have certain requisites to bring medicine up to the level the Ancients had practised, many innovations would improve the Hall. The dolphins were an effective alternative for the Ancients' X‑ray machine and other scanning devices, an invaluable exploratory device for healers.
There was one major drawback to the dolphins' ability to perceive abnormalities in the humans they examined: they could not tell the healers exactly what the growth or lump was, nor how to treat it: only that it was inside a body and shouldn't be there.
Nevertheless, their sonar readings gave healers more knowledge of the irregularities that could not be seen or palpated.
Master Oldive often had the notion that there had been a great many such devices which Aivas did not even mention to him and he sighed over those omissions and then went on, as healers had for centuries, making do with what was to hand and had proved helpful.
Aivas had been most complimentary in general about the Healer Craft which had pleased even the hide‑bound members.
Aivas made special mention of the medicines that were in common use as efficacious, especially the numbweed derivatives which apparently had no side‑effects as artificial compounds were apt to produce.
Once the wind machines had been installed on Fort Hold fire‑heights, a terminal unit was installed in Oldive's rooms at the Harper Hall and two more dominated classrooms. Lord Holder Groghe had tried his not insignificant best to get one for Fort Hold but until the Smith Craft, or the new Computer Craft could duplicate the components, distribution was restricted to those disseminating information.
The Landing students did not study all the day long as Master Samvel was well aware that youngsters required physical exercise as well as mental. Many old games were annotated in the Aivas files and some of those Samvel revived: baseball, soccer, and polo, a sport in which Readis was to become quite proficient: as he was in the water sports when they started using the pond below the landing field. Readis suspected that Master Samvel emphasized the water sports in deference to his infirmity but he thought it made sense that people should learn how to swim when so many long journeys were made on the seas.
Master Samvel also gained permission from Benden Weyr, and a half wing of weyrling dragons, to take Class 21 to Honshu, to see the incredible artefacts left by the Ancients in the mountain eyrie, not the least of which were the incredible murals that decorated the walls. They could see and touch the machines that the Ancients had left behind them. Kami was awestruck by the paintings while Pardure found the old sled they had all seen the devices in action from tapes of that period of Pernese history ‑ the big looms, the finely crafted tools to be of more interest. Readis found the view from the Hall to be fascinating ‑ the vista of endless mountains and valleys, a sense of the breadth of the land mass of this Southern Continent which was scarcely explored.
F'lessan, rider of bronze Golanth and only son of F'lar and Lessa, made this place what he called his ‘Weyrhold'. As he explained to the students, this unique historical spot should be available to any who wished to visit it ‑ to see the magnificent murals that decorated the main hall walls. He had appointed himself the caretaker and spent more of his free time here t
han at Benden Weyr. The Weyrhold had a complement of holders, herding and experimenting with grain crops and vegetables in areas which had once, clearly, been fields, walled by stones set in place centuries before.
"You're Readis, aren't you?" F'lessan said, joining Readis on the bench placed on the upper terrace where the best view of valley could be had. The other students were clambering about the terraces below which Readis didn't care to do. "I asked Master Samvel to point you out. I knew your mother." He leaned back against the cliff wall. "She was at Benden Weyr for a while, you know, before hearing dragons got too much for her. K'van, who's now Weryleader at Southern, was one of the weyrlings in my wing and they were very close before Lessa sent her down to Benden Hold." He gazed out over the view for a few moments. "So, have you decided what to study at Landing?"
"Oh, we're just getting general stuff right now,” Readis said, "what Master Samvel calls ‘preparatory’ courses. There's so much to learn.” Sometimes the sheer volume and complexity of the knowledge available at Landing overwhelmed Readis. It was daunting to know how much he didn't know. "Master Samvel says he's learning more all the time himself.”
F'lessan grinned down at him. "Samvel's the type of person who'll never stop learning."
"My head aches sometimes,” Readis admitted shyly.
"Mine would, too,” F'lessan agreed. "I was never a good student. Even Master Robinton gave up on me."
Readis gave him a quick glance of surprise.
"You had Master Robinton as a teacher?"
F'lessan's snort was self‑deprecating. "I was in the room all right but I didn't pay much attention." He grinned. "I was too enamored with being Golanth's rider at the time, I think”.
“Jaxom, Menolly, and Benelek were the real students."
"Master Benelek of the Smith Craft? The one who's keeping the Aivas machinery running?"
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