With Beauty and Rocky as escort, they waded ashore, leaving Kimi and Diver still asleep. Sebell firmly captured Menolly’s hand as they raced across the hot sand to the steps that would lead to the top of the white stone cliff, which rose above the sea to make a safehold for its inhabitants.
Toric was gone from the halfway lookout when they reached it, but they were both accustomed to the southerner’s habits, and indeed, it was only sensible to get out of the burdening heat.
Toric had been able to keep the lush vegetation of the south only so far from the entrance to the cool white caves by strewing the area deeply with seashells. The crunch and break of shell also served to warn the hold of visitors. Toric awaited them just inside the hold’s entrance, gripping each by the arm with fingers that threatened to leave bruise marks.
“You were mighty short on words with that message Beauty bore me,” he said as he escorted them to his private quarters.
The Southern Hold differed from northern ones in many respects, and, at this time of day, was uninhabited. The large low cavern was used for mealtimes, bad storms or Threadfall. The Southerners preferred to live apart, in shelters set in the shade of the thick forest of the bluff. When the wind was from the wrong quarter, this cavern could be breathlessly hot. Today, however, as Toric handed them each long tubes of cooled fruit juices, the temperature was a distinct drop from the heat without.
“To expand on Beauty’s terse message,” said Sebell, without the usual harper preambles, for Toric was a blunt-spoken man and appreciated the same in return. “Meron is dead and his successor, Lord Deckter, wishes it clearly understood that he is in no way to be bound by previous commitments.”
“Fair enough. I’d expected it. Mardra and T’kul won’t like it, and they may try Deckter’s resolve—”
“He’ll remain firm—”
“So he has no problem.” Then Toric laughed to himself, shaking his head from side to side in his amusement. “No, Mardra won’t like it, but it’ll do the old one good to be thwarted. She was going to give Meron every dead fire lizard egg she could find for sending her a half-empty sack.”
“Half-empty?” Sebell caught Menolly’s eye.
“Yes, the sack arrived with the top loosened and she’s certain some of the shipment, some materials she’s been plaguing the Masterweaver for, dropped out between. Why?” Toric caught the significant glances between the harpers. “Oh, that missing lad you queried me about several sevendays back? You think he came south in it?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Never occurred to me to connect the two before now.” Toric stroked his cheek thoughtfully. “A small lad? Yes, he’d doubtless have fit in that sack. Anything else about him I should know perhaps?”
Sebell thought how like Toric to want answers before he gave his own.
“A queen fire lizard egg was involved. . . .”
“Oh ho,” and Toric’s eyes crinkled with satisfaction. “Then it’s not a possibility anymore, but a probability that your lad got here.” He stressed the word “got,” strangely, but went on before Sebell could question his emphasis. “Four, no three Threadfalls ago, weyrmen went after a wherry circle. Most of the time that means fire lizard hatchings so they do stir themselves to investigate.” Toric gave a sour laugh. “Not that that energy will profit them now if this Deckter fellow won’t follow Meron’s ways. The strange thing was that when they reached the area, the wherries flitted away through the forest, and they found only a queen’s shell on the beach. They spent a good deal of time going up and down that strand, but there wasn’t any trace of a full clutch.”
“Piemur does have his friend after all,” cried Menolly, grabbing Sebell and dancing about with him in her relief.
“Piemur? That’s your missing boy? Hey, stop that, you’ll set every fire lizard in the place a-wing.”
Kimi and Diver swooped into the cavern at that point, and with Beauty and Rocky bugling their delight, some of the southern fire lizards were also reacting. Sebell and Menolly called their four to order, and Toric sent his away.
“Yes, it’s Piemur who’s been missing, our apprentice,” said Menolly, so jubilant that for a moment Sebell thought she’d swing Toric into their joyful antics.
“He and I were at Meron’s Gather,” said Sebell. “Somehow he got into the Hold itself and purloined the queen fire lizard egg. Meron was livid. . . .”
“I can well imagine,” said Toric with a snort.
“Only none of his men could find Piemur or the egg. Kimi said she couldn’t reach him,” Sebell went on.
“That was when he’d hidden in the sack,” Menolly said. “Oh, that wretched, that clever rascal.”
“More clever than he knew, or could guess,” Sebell continued, for Toric’s expression told him that he didn’t think so highly of Piemur’s escapade. The harper explained to Toric all that had occurred after Piemur’s daring theft: the fear of the main contenders for the Holding that Benden Weyr would discover Meron’s dealings with the Southern Oldtimers. The heirs apparent now wanted no part of the succession, nor did they want the Hold in contention, so they pressured Meron to name a successor, who would then try to placate the Benden Weyrleaders. But Meron had collapsed, and both the Master Healer and the Masterharper were summoned, for the Harper could act as mediator. He convoked other Lord Holders and the High Reaches Weyrleader to force Lord Meron to name his successor. About the methods, Sebell remained discreet. Nor did Toric inquire, since Sebell’s recitation was limited to facts rather than story-telling embellishments.
“So we think,” Sebell finished, “that since Kimi specifically said it was too dark, as in a sack, and she couldn’t ‘find’ Piemur, or room enough to get to him, he did secrete himself in a sack, which the Oldtimers collected that night—I saw the dragons—and brought here. That would also explain why none of our fire lizards could find a trace of him anywhere in Nabol.”
Toric had listened with keen attention to Sebell’s summary, but now he cocked his head to one side and made a rueful noise with his tongue against his teeth.
“It’s true a boy could have fit in that sack, and it’s true that a queen fire lizard egg was found. But . . .” and he held up his hand warningly, “. . . Thread fell that day . . .”
“Piemur knew you could live holdless through Threadfall!” said Menolly with the firmness of one trying to convince self.
“Wherries were circling that shell. They could have got the little queen at hatching—”
“Not if Piemur was alive! And I know he was,” said Menolly more stoutly now and utterly convinced. “Is that place far from here? Could your queen take our fire lizards? If Piemur’s anywhere about, they’ll find him.”
Toric was dubious, but he called up his queen. To the surprise of both harpers, the queen didn’t, as Kimi or Beauty would have done, land on Toric’s shoulder, but hovered awaiting his pleasure. Toric issued the sort of order one would give a stupid drudge. She chirped at Kimi and Beauty, disdaining the two bronzes, and flitted out of the cavern, the other four fire lizards right behind her.
“Lord Meron’s death won’t bother them,” and Toric jerked his head in the direction of the Southern Weyr, “for a while. They just brought in all they’ll need for some time. I would prefer that we somehow keep them supplied. I . . .” and he jerked his thumb at his chest in emphasis, “. . . do not wish to jeopardize my arrangements with Lessa and F’lar. They” and again he meant the Oldtimers, “don’t care how they get what they think they need. Meron was just convenient.” He took the harpers’ solemn assurance of assistance as his due, but then grinned, not pleasantly. “Has any one of Meron’s people figured out just how many green fire lizard eggs got foisted off on ’em?” Toric plainly thought little of people who would be taken in by such a deception.
“You forget that the small holders don’t know much about fire lizards,” said Sebell. “In fact, the enormous fire lizard population at Nabol is one of the reasons why Piemur and I were there: to make cert
ain Meron was the source of so many green fire lizards.”
Toric half-rose, his usually controlled expression showing anger. “No one suspected me of cheating traders?”
“No,” Sebell said, though that had been one of his problems. “Don’t forget that I collected the clutches you’ve sent north in barter, but it was necessary for the Harper to find the real culprit. Green clutches could have been brought in by sailors who have been so conveniently losing themselves in southern waters.”
“Oh, all right then.” Toric subsided, his honor unchallenged.
“The Oldtimers have not questioned those lost sailors?”
“No,” said Toric, shrugging negligently. “So long as the sails are red. They never have bothered to count the number of ships we really own.”
Toric then noticed that they had drained their juices so he replenished the cool drinks.
“Have you some ships out now?” asked Sebell, because he had thought it odd to see so few at anchor when the sun was high.
Toric smiled again, his good humor completely restored by Sebell’s observation. “You are well come, Harper, since the ships have sailed on your account. Or, I should say, Master Oldive’s. It’s harvest time for the numbweed, and for certain other herbs, grasses and such like that Sharra says the good man requires. If you stay until they return, then you can sail home full laden.”
“Good news, Toric, but we’d best sail home laden with Piemur as well.”
The southerner clicked his tongue pessimistically. “As I said, there’ve been three, maybe four Threadfalls since that queen egg shell was found.”
“You don’t know our Piemur,” said Menolly, so insistent that Toric raised his eyebrows in surprise at her fervor.
“Maybe, but I know how other Northerners act in Threadfall!” Toric was plainly contemptuous.
“You’re having trouble with their adaptation here?” asked Sebell, worrying that the Harper’s masterful solution of sending holdless men south to Toric in unobtrusive numbers was in jeopardy.
“No trouble,” said Toric, dismissing that consideration with a wave of his hand. “They learn to cope holdless, or stay holdbound without the additional privileges of being ranked as holders here. Some have adapted rather well,” he admitted grudgingly. Then he noticed Menolly’s anxious glances toward the entrance. “Oh, I told her to give the forests a good raking, too. The fire lizards’ll take a while if my queen has followed her orders. Now that drink is not enough to soothe a sea thirst; there’s sure to be ripe fruit cooling in the tanks.” He rose and went to the kitchen area of the cavern where he scooped a huge green-rinded fruit from a tank set in the wall. “Generally we save heavier eating for the evening, when the heat has eased.” He sectioned the fruit and carried a platter of the pink-fleshed slices to the table. “Best fruit in the world for quenching thirst. It’s mainly water.”
Sebell and Menolly were licking their fingers for the last of the succulent juices when a twittering fair of fire lizards swooped in. Beauty and Kimi made immediately for their friends’ shoulders, Rocky and Diver settled near Menolly on the table, but Toric’s queen hovered, chirping out a message, her eyes whirling with the orange-red of distress.
“I told you he might not survive,” said Toric. “My queen really looked for any trace of a human, too.”
Menolly hid her face on the pretext of reassuring her fire lizards, who were imaging to her endless distances of forest and deserted stretches of beach and sandy wastes.
“You sent them west,” said Sebell, grasping at any theory that would give them hope, “to the place where the egg shells were discovered. If I know Piemur, he wouldn’t have stayed anywhere that he had left clues. Could he have worked his way east? And be further down this side of the Southern Weyr?”
Toric gave a snort of laughter. “He could be any bloody where in the whole great southlands, but I doubt it. You Northerners don’t like to be holdless in Threadfall.”
“I managed quite well, thank you,” said Menolly, her face bleak despite the sharpness of her reminder.
“There are undeniably exceptions,” said Toricsmoothly, inclining his head to indicate he meant her no insult.
“Piemur avoided discovery by fire lizards at Nabol, he told me, by thinking of between,” said Sebell, “He could have tried that trick again today. He’d have no way of knowing they were our friends. But there’s one call he won’t ignore or hide from.”
“And what would that be?” asked the skeptical holder.
Sebell caught Menolly’s suddenly hopeful expression. “Drums! Piemur will answer a call on drums!”
“Drums?” Toric threw back his head in an honest guffaw of surprise.
“Yes, drums,” said Sebell, beginning to find Toric’s attitude offensive. “Where’s your drumheights?”
“Why would we need drumheights in Southern?”
It took the astounded harpers a little while to understand that drumheights, traditional in every hold in the north, had never been installed in the Southern’s single hold. Granted, there were now small holdings established as far to the east as the Island River, but messages came back and forth either by fire lizard or by ship.
To Sebell’s impatient query for any sort of drums in the hold, Toric said that they had a few to aid rhythm in dances. These were found in the quarters of Saneter, the hold’s harper, who roused from his midday rest to show them to Sebell and Menolly. They were, as Sebell sadly found, no better than dance drums, with no resonance to speak of.
“Still and all, message drums would be handy to have nowadays, Toric,” Saneter said. “Easier than sailing down the coast to discuss something. Just drum ’em up here. Safer, too. Those Oldtimers never learned drum measures. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how much I remember myself.” Saneter regarded the journeymen harpers with an abashed surprise. “Haven’t had to use drum talk since I came here with F’nor.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to refresh your memory, Saneter, but we must have proper drums. And that would take time with all the Master Smith has on his plate right now,” said Sebell, shaking his head with the disappointment he felt. He’d been so sure. . . .
“Must drums be made of metal?” asked Toric. “These have wooden frames.” He tapped the stretched hide across the larger drum, and it rattled in response.
“The metal message drums are large, to resound—” Sebell began.
“But not necessarily metal; just something big enough, hollow enough over which to stretch your hide, and resonate?” asked Toric, ignoring the interruption. “What about a tree trunk . . . say . . .” and he began to hold out his arms, widening the circle while Sebell started in disbelief at the area he encompassed. “. . . about this big? That ought to make a bloody loud drum. Tree I’m thinking of came down in the last big storm.”
“I know things grow bigger here in the south, Toric,” said Sebell, skeptical in his own turn, “but a tree trunk as big as you suggest? Well, now, they don’t grow that big.”
Toric threw back his head, laughing at Sebell’s incredulity. He clapped Saneter on the shoulder. “We’ll show this disbelieving northerner, won’t we, Harper?”
Saneter grinned apologetically at his crafters, spreading his hands out to indicate that Toric was indeed telling the truth.
“Further, it’s not all that far from the hold. We could make it there and back before dinner,” said Toric, well pleased with himself, and strode out of the harper’s quarters ahead of the other three to rouse assistants.
While Sebell didn’t doubt that the fallen tree was “not far” from the Southern Hold, it was also not an easy trek through steamy hot forests where the trail had to be hacked out afresh. But, when they finally reached the tree, it was every bit as large in girth as Toric had promised. Sebell felt much like Menolly, awed, as they reached out to caress the smooth wood of the fallen giant. The insects that had burrowed out the monster’s core had also made meals of its bark until only a thin shell remained, the last skin of the once-livi
ng tree. Even that shell had begun to rot away in the steam and rain of its environment.
“Will this make you enough drums, harperman?” asked Toric, delighted to confound them.
“Enough for every holding you’ve got, with more left over,” said Sebell, running his eyes down the fallen trunk. Surely it must be several dragon lengths: queen dragons! It must be the biggest, oldest tree ever grown on Pern. How many Threadfalls had it survived?
“Well, how many shall we cut you today?” asked Toric, gesturing for the doubled-handed saw that had been carried by his holders.
“I’ll settle for one just now,” said Sebell, “from here . . .” and he marked the distance with an arm and his body, pointing to the limit with his right forefinger by his ribs, “. . . to here. That would make a good, deep, long-carrying sound when the hide is stretched.”
Saneter, who had come with them, stooped to pick up a thick, knobby-ended branch and pounded the tree trunk experimentally. Everyone was surprised at the hollow boom that resulted. The fire lizards, who’d been perched on the surface, lifted with shrieks of protest.
Grinning, Sebell held out his hand to Saneter for the stick. He beat out the phrase “apprentice, report!” He grinned more broadly as the majestic tones echoed through the forest and started a veritable shower of tree-dwelling insects and snakes, shaken from their perches by the unexpected loud reverberations.
“Why move it?” asked Toric. “You could hear this at the back of the mountains.”
“Ah, but site this on that landing over your harbor, and a message would carry to that Island River of yours,” said Sebell.
“Then we’ll cut your drum, Harper,” said Toric, gesturing for another man to take the opposite handle of the big saw. He held the blade for the initial cut. “Then we shall . . . take the rest . . . out in sections . . . as big as we . . . can carry them,” he said, thrusting mightily at his end of the saw.
With a man of Toric’s brawn and the willing help of the other holders, the first drum section was quickly detached from the trunk. A long pole was cut, vines quickly laced to secure the section to the carrier, and the party was soon making its way back to the Southern Hold.
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