Nerilka's Story

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Don't try to make sense of it. Rill," Desdra advised me, her wry tone amused. "It actually can be done if one takes into account unusual draconic abilities."

  Her reference confused me further, but the Istan and Fort contingents of dragons were back for their last consignments. If the dragons looked a bit off, color, that was to be expected. Going between must take a great deal of energy, as did all that landing and taking off. Leri looked exhausted, but then she was the oldest of the dragonriders at Fort. It was a measure of her dedication to the Weyrs that she undertook such a task.

  Suddenly all the queens let out roars of angry protest. The only blue dragon present cringed. Leri looked furious, as did the other queen riders. There seemed to be an intense, if silent, conference among them. Leri signaled me, as the nearest person to her, to take her last consignment from her.

  "Take these to S'peren; there's a good girl. He'll deliver."

  I was soon covered in the dust stirred up by Holth's precipitous departure. I think the dragon hadn't so much as cleared the outer wall before she went between. A whoosh of cold air made me shudder convulsively. Everyone else had grown grim indeed when there should have been some measure of satisfaction for the completion of a difficult and most unusual task. I walked slowly back to the Hall.

  "These can go back to the cool rooms." Alessan was indicating the remaining crates of serum, the extras prepared against the possibility of breakage. "We ought to get them over to Keroon Beasthold when the fuss subsides. Whoever becomes Beastcraftmaster will be glad of them. They're sure to discover more abandoned runners in Keroon or Telgar. There are many untenanted holds there now."

  At that point, Deefer and his team came back, all grinning broadly, each man carrying at least one plump wherry on his back.

  "We shall feast tonight. Oklina, Rill, what else can we find in the larder to add to roast wherry? We owe ourselves a real celebration; a proper meal, not another stew, and a swing round with a wineskin."

  There was a general outbreak of cheers and shouts, and offers of assistance to the cooks. The Hall was enthusiastically cleared of its medical detritus, and the long, absent sturdy dinner tables were hauled, dusty, from their cupboards. They had been so hastily stored after the Gather that some still bore wine and food stained cloths. Oklina and I quickly bundled those up and out of sight in the mound of wash.

  "I shall be sorry to leave here," Desdra said to me as she paused in collecting her bits and pieces and her records of the serum manufacture. "Despite all this, " she gestured at the disorder, "Ruatha is recovering quickly."

  "You and Master Capiam must come back soon," Oklina said, her eyes still shining from B'lerion's last visit "You'll see what Ruatha should look like, won't she. Rill?"

  "Just give me elbow room, and we'll have the place to rights in no time," I vowed so fervently that Desdra laughed.

  Then she winked so that Oklina wouldn't see.

  "You were right to come here, Rill. You were never appreciated at your former Hold. And I'd like to apologize for misconstruing your motive in offering your assistance at the Hall. You'd've been a rare, fine help to us there."

  "No, I would not have been allowed," I said, relieved that Oklina had moved out of earshot. "Here I am my own person, accepted on the strength of my own endeavors. I can be of use here, especially if Oklina, " I paused, not certain what I meant to say.

  Desdra cocked one eyebrow, and I quickly corrected any misapprehension she had of highflown ambitions.

  "Oh, don't be ridiculous, Desdra. Despite Ruatha's present state, this is a prestigious Hold for alliance. Alessan's done himself no harm in anyone's eyes to pull out of this disaster with so much dignity. Every Lord Holder with eligible daughters will be courting him assiduously as soon as they can wangle conveyance here."

  "You've sufficient rank, Lady Nerilka."

  "Hush! Rank to be sure I had." I emphasized the past tense. "And little joy of it. I am far more satisfied to be part of Ruatha's future, for I had none of my own at Fort."

  Desdra conceded my point with an open gesture of both hands. "Is there anyone to whom I should drop a hint of your whereabouts? I shall be most discreet."

  "If you would, tell my Uncle Munchaun that you have seen me on your travels, well and happy. He'll reassure my sisters."

  "Campen was worried, too, you know. He and Theskin searched the surroundings for a whole day, certain you had been hurt out gathering herbs."

  I nodded, accepting what she didn't say as well as Campen's attempt.

  I remember that I was wondering if we'd ever eradicate the astringent odor of redwort from the Main Hall when Oklina, setting the highly burnished copper ornaments back on the mantel, suddenly cried out and would have fallen had not Desdra, beside her, held her up. Ashen, faced, Alessan burst from the small office that had so recently been Follen's surgery.

  "MORRRETTTAAA!" Alessan's scream was the anguish of a man already overburdened by grief and loss. He fell heavily to his knees after that one shout, sobs racking his body as he bent over, pounding his fists on the stone, heedless of Follen's attempts to restrain him from doing himself damage.

  I couldn't stand those sobs and ran to him, kneeling so that his already, bloodied fists pummeled my thighs, not cold stone. He gripped my thighs so fiercely I had to bite my lips to suppress a cry, but then he burrowed his head in my lap, convulsed by this grief.

  Moreta! What harm could have befallen her at Fort Weyr? I knew that her queen was in the Hatching Ground, surely the safest place in any Weyr.

  Alessan's arms encircled my hips, his fingers clawing at my back, as he wrestled with this new and tremendous grief. I clasped him to me as tightly as I could, murmuring inanities, trying to understand what could have happened.

  I was aware that Follen and Tuero were standing beside us, but whatever they said was masked by Alessan's hideous, gasping sobs and the scrape of his boots on the stone as his very body tried to escape this new tragedy.

  "Whatever it is," I said, "let him purge it, for he has not indulged himself with tears until now. What can have happened to Moreta?"

  "Whatever," Desdra said, joining them, "has rendered Oklina unconscious. I don't understand any of this. He's not a rider, nor is she, yet."

  We heard a mournful howl, far louder than could have come from the throat of only one watchwher.

  "Shards!" Desdra cried.

  I looked up at the anguish in her voice and saw B'lerion leaping up the stairs into the Hold, his face totally white, his eyes wild. The grayed dragon beyond him was a terribly altered Nabeth. It was his weird keening we had heard,

  "Oklina!" B'lerion cried, trying to find her among us.

  "She fainted, B'lerion." Desdra pointed to the Hall where Oklina's body was stretched out on the table, a servant hovering solicitously by her. "What has happened to Moreta?"

  B'lerion turned haggard tear, filled eyes from Oklina to Alessan, whose sobs as he lay in my arms were as racking as ever, and the bronze rider's whole body sagged as he dropped his head on his chest. Tuero reached out to support him on one side, Follen on the other.

  "Moreta went between."

  I couldn't quite grasp what he meant. Dragons and riders went between so frequently.

  "On Holth. Telgar riders defected. She knew Keroon. She made the run. Holth was already tired. She did too much. They both went between. And died!"

  I held Alessan even tighter then, my own tears mingling with his, my grief as fierce but more for him now than for the valiant Weyrwoman. How could he endure this third ghastly tragedy when he had stood so courageously against the plague, and mourned Suriana far longer than would most men. I burned anew against my father. Why, if there was any justice in the world, was Alessan so grievously assaulted by misfortunes of the most terrible degree while Tolocamp enjoyed health, fortune, and fleshly pleasures that he no longer deserved?

  I knew then why Alessan's incredible eyes had been shining the day I arrived. I certainly didn't know how Moreta and Alessan had
contrived to be lovers. They could not have had much time together at all. On that afternoon, the six had been gone from Ruatha only an hour. Alessan's sanction of Oklina and B'lerion was now more comprehensible if he and Moreta were involved. I was glad that the Weyrwoman had had some joy, for I hadn't liked Sh'gall on those few times I had encountered him. He wasn't likable, whereas Moreta was. Poor Moreta. Poor, poor Alessan. What could possibly comfort him in this new trial?

  Desdra had an answer. She waited until Alessan's sobbing had subsided to shudderings. Then she and Tuero lifted him from my lap. I could not move immediately, so cramped were my legs. But I could and did cushion him against my body as Desdra gently tipped a cup to his lips and told him to drink.

  The look in his eyes will always haunt me, lost, totally lost, incredulous of his loss, and so, so sad. He had taken all the draught Desdra had given him, and it was merciful to him as well as to those about him that his eyelids lowered over his ghastly expression as the fellis took instant effect.

  There were willing arms to transport him to his quarters, and I willing to sit by him, though Desdra assured me that she had given him enough fellis to keep him asleep until the next day.

  "What can we do for him then, Desdra?" I asked, still shaken by his grief. Tears would not stop coursing down my cheeks.

  "My dear Lady Nerilka, if I knew the answer to that, I would be Masterhealer." She shook her head from side to side, expressing the utter helplessness that I, too, felt to my core. "It will depend in every degree on what he will allow us to do for him. How cruel this new loss. How horribly, wastefully cruel!"

  We undressed him and covered him with the fur. His face was prematurely aged, his eyes shrunken in his head, his lips drawn down, his complexion waxy, white. Desdra felt his pulse and nodded with relief. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed, wearily propping her back against the stead, her hands palms up and limp in her lap.

  "He loved Moreta?" I was bold enough to ask.

  Desdra nodded. "When we collected the needlethorn. What a glorious day that was!" She sighed, the faintest of smiles touching her usually austere face. "I'm glad they had that much. And perhaps, in a strange, unjust way, it is for the best That is, if Ruatha is to endure."

  "Because Alessan must secure his Bloodline?" In all of Pern's history, no Weyrwoman had become a Lady Holder, though many Lady Holders had become Weyrwomen. Moreta had been nearly to the end of safe childbearing, but Alessan could have taken a wife as well. A Lord Holder could make his own laws within his Hold, especially to secure his Bloodline. Hold girls were raised with that precept firmly implanted in their brains and hearts.

  "Oklina's children were to be fostered here," Desdra said.

  "But that's not enough with all his losses."

  "You must tell him who you are. Lady Nerilka."

  I shook my head even as I grasped firmly at the thought, at that utterly impossible possibility. He needed someone pretty and appealing, clever and charming, who could rouse him from all the grief he had endured.

  She left me then, murmuring something about bringing food when it was ready. It took too much energy to tell her that I doubted I could choke anything down.

  Chapter 10

  3.24.43, 4.23.43

  I'm not sure how any of us got through the next few days. Blerion stayed with Oklina. It was more obvious than ever to me that her destiny would be the Weyr. She had heard the outcry from the dragons, which was unusual enough for someone not of the Weyr or dragon linked. Alessan's knowledge of Moreta's death was shatteringly unexpected to all but Desdra and Oklina. I pieced together some parts of their story, aided by a growing intuition that seemed to be sensitive to anything concerning Alessan.

  All the dragonriders and most Weyrfolk had been instantly aware of the two deaths, Moreta's and Holth's. Later B'lerion told us of the reinforced rules and disciplines imposed on all riders to prevent a recurrence of this type of tragedy.

  It had begun as a logical expedient for injured riders to ask their flight worthy dragons if they would fly a sound dragonman to make up Wing strength at Threadfall. Each dragon had his own peculiarities of flight that his impressed rider understood. But, generally speaking, any dragonrider was capable of riding another's dragon. No blame could be attached to Leri for adopting that custom and allowing Moreta to ride Holth in the several emergencies that had arisen. The courtesy was by then customary Weyr practice. But tired dragons and tired riders make mistakes, and that late afternoon, Moreta and Holth had been pushed beyond mere exhaustion to the point where habit only had carried them through the motions of landing and taking off. I remembered then how Holth had gone between a wingspan above the Court that afternoon.

  "Yes," B'lerion said, his voice a broken whisper. "Holth had lost a lot of natural spring in her hindquarters. She'd have leaped up and gone between before Moreta could have told her where to fly, they stayed lost, between."

  Later, when Master Tirone began to write a celebratory ballad about Moreta's courageous ride, Desdra told me that, at the insistence of all Weyrleaders, Moreta was to be properly mounted on her own queen, not Holth. To broadcast the truth behind that tragedy could have done incalculable harm. Most of Pern never knew the truth. I'm not so certain I was all that glad to be in the minority. Not that it diminished Moreta's heroism in my estimation, but because so simple a mistake was causing so much anguish.

  Desdra also told me, since she knew me to be discreet and trustworthy, how the dragonriders had managed to make so many deliveries. This had contributed to their total exhaustion, a major factor in the tragedy. Dragons could go as easily between one time and another as one place to another. Moreta and Holth had overtaxed their strength in this way. For only by stretching time in this bizarre fashion, or rather doubling back on themselves, could Moreta and Holth manage to deliver serum to all the holds on the Keroon plains. Moreta had been the only one of the riders available that fateful day sufficiently familiar with Keroon's many half hidden holds to have succeeded in that task.

  Telgar Weyr was to suffer disciplinary action from the other Weyrs, led by Weyrwomen. They were unalterably convinced that had M'tani not been so intransigent and permitted his riders to fly, Moreta's life would not have been lost. I never did learn what was done against Telgar Weyr. If Oklina ever knew, she never mentioned it.

  I also was now in a far better way of understanding how the six people, Alessan, Moreta, Capiam, Desdra, Oklina, and B'lerion, had spent that hour preceding my arrival at Ruatha. I had previously assumed that supplies of needlethorn had been available, not that these six courageous people had dared to spend a whole day in the future harvesting the thorns on far Ista.

  I understood a great deal, yet it was not enough to help Alessan. I knew only that I wondered how he would find the courage to continue after this latest brutal tragedy.

  He came back to consciousness, and awareness of this new sorrow, twenty four hours later. I had been dozing, and roused at the slight sound his restlessness occasioned. I had to look away from his haunted, almost wild eyes.

  "Desdra drugged me?" When I nodded, my own eyes downcast, he cursed her. "It won't help. Nothing will help. Does anyone know what happened?"

  So I told him, somehow able to keep my voice level and calm though my throat kept closing up. The waves of grief that rolled from the man were palpable. He stared at me when I had finished, eyes burning in his drained white face.

  "But Leri and Orlith could go together!" His resentment and fury were compressed into that accusation.

  "The eggs. Orlith stays until they hatch, Leri with her."

  "Brave Leri! Gallant Orlith!" His sarcasm made me flinch, but the agony in his rigid body, his clenched fists, told me that a different struggle was being fought. "Dragons and riders have many advantages denied us! Would that my father had released me on that Search! When I consider how much different my life would have been ..." He turned away from me, his face toward the window. Then, because I knew his view included the burial mounds, I knew wh
y he turned back, his shadowed eyes closed in the taut skin of his tormented face.

  "So you have watched me while I slept, loyal Rill. And I shall have a new guardian, no doubt, whenever I wake, to keep me living a life I have no wish to live."

  My own anguish spoke then, not the sensible, patient, dutiful, plain member of the Fort Hold Horde, but Suriana's friend, Alessan's newest holder, and someone who valued him far more than she should. Any sorrow may be borne. Time will heal the deepest hurt of heart, but time must be won.

  "You may not want to live, Lord Holder of Ruatha, but you don't have the right to die!"

  "Ruatha is no longer sufficient reason for me to live!" he told me in a bitter, intense, angry voice. "It's tried to kill me once already."

  "And you have fought to save it No one else could have done so much, with so much honor and dignity."

  "Honor and dignity mean nothing in the grave!" He flung his arm up, toward the window and the graves of so many.

  "You still breathe, and you are Ruatha." I spoke sharply, wondering if anything I said could jolt him out of the course he had tacitly announced. Duty and honor and tradition were such cold substitutes for a beautiful woman and her love. "As your holder. Lord Alessan, I require that you have an heir of your Blood to leave behind you." I surprised myself with the vehemence in my voice, and he frowned as he looked up at me. "Unless you want Fort or Tillek or Crom Blood to hold Ruatha at your defection. Then I'll mix the fellis for you myself and you can quit!"

  "A bargain, then." With a quickness I hadn't expected from a man lying abed so wracked and spent with grief, he was upright, extending an implacable hand to me. "When you are with child, Nerilka, I'll drink that cup."

  I stared back at him, aghast that my rallying words had evoked such a response from him, stunned that he misconstrued what I had said and applied it personally to me. Then I realized that he knew my name.