“More than a chance,” Jaxom said, rude with excitement “She’s Ruathan-bred after all. Now get out”
His fingers were clumsy with the fastenings of his trousers and the tunic which had been new for the Telgar wedding. He hadn’t spilled on the fine fabric, but you could still see the greasy fingerprints on the right shoulder where an excited guest had pulled him away from his vantage point on the Telgar Hold steps during the fight.
He shrugged into the cloak, found the second glove under the bed and raced down into the Great Court where the blue dragon waited.
Sight of the blue, however, inevitably reminded Jaxom that Groghe’s eldest son had been given one of the fire-lizard eggs. Lytol had deliberately refused the pair to which Ruatha Hold was entitled. That, too, was a rankling injustice. Jaxom should have had a fire-lizard egg, even if Lytol couldn’t bear to Impress one. Jaxom was Lord of Ruatha and an egg had been his due. Lytol had no right to refuse him that perquisite.
“Be a good day for Ruatha if your Talina Impresses, won’t it?” D’wer, the blue’s rider, greeted him.
“Yes,” Jaxom replied, and he sounded sullen even to himself.
“Cheer up, lad,” D’wer said. “Things could be worse.”
“How?”
D’wer chuckled and, while it offended Jaxom, he couldn’t very well call a dragonman to task.
“Good morning, Trebith,” Jaxom said to the blue, who turned his head, the large eye whirling with color.
They both heard Lytol’s voice, dull-toned but clear as he gave instructions for the day’s work to the stewards.
“For every field that gets scored, we plant two more as long as we can get seed in the ground. There’s plenty of fallow land in the northeast. Move the Holders.”
“But, Lord Lytol . . .”
“Don’t give me the old wail about temporary dwellings. There’ll be temporary eating if we aren’t farsighted, and that’s harder to endure than a draught or two.”
Lytol gave Jaxom a cursory inspection and an absent good morning. The tic started in the Lord Holder’s face the moment he climbed up Trebith’s shoulder to take his seat against the neck ridges. He motioned curtly to his ward to get in front of him and then nodded to D’wer.
The blue dragonman gave a slight smile of response, as if he expected no more notice from Lytol, and suddenly they were aloft. Aloft, with Ruatha’s fire height dwindling below. And between with Jaxom holding his breath against the frightening cold. Then above Benden’s Star Stones, so close to other dragons also winging into the Weyr that Jaxom feared collision at any moment.
“How-how do they know where they are?” he asked D’wer.
The rider grinned at him. “They know. Dragons never collide.” And a shadow of memory crossed D’wer’s usually cheerful face.
Jaxom groaned. How stupid of him to make any reference to the queens’ battle.
“Lad, everything reminds us of that,” the blue rider said.
“Even the dragons are off color. But,” he continued more briskly, “the Impression will help.”
Jaxom hoped so but, pessimistically, he was sure something would go wrong today, too. Then he clutched wildly at D’wer’s riding tunic for it seemed as if they were flying straight into the rock face of the Weyr Bowl. Or worse, despite D’wer’s reassurance, right into the green dragon also veering in that direction.
But suddenly they were inside the wide mouth of the upper entrance, a dark core that led into the immense Hatching Ground. The whir of wings, a concentration of the musty scent of dragons, and then they were poised above the slightly steaming sands, in the great circle theatre with its tiers of perches for men and beasts.
Jaxom had a dizzying view of the eggs on the Hatching Ground, of the colored robes of those already assembled, and the array of dragon bodies, gleaming eyes and furled wings, the great, graceful, blue, green and brown hides. Where were the bronzes?
“They’ll bring in the candidates, Lord Jaxom. Ah, there’s the young scamp,” D’wer said, and suddenly Jaxom’s neck was jerked as Trebith backwinged to land neatly on a ledge. “Off you go.”
“Jaxom! You did come!”
And Felessan was thumping him, his clothes so new they smelled of dye and were harsh against Jaxom’s hands as he pounded his friend’s back.
“Thanks so much for bringing him, D’wer. Good day to you, Lord Warder Lytol. The Weyrleader and the Weyrwoman said to give you their greetings and to ask you to stay to eat after Impression, if you would give them a moment of your time.”
It all came out in such a rush that the blue rider grinned. Lytol bowed in such solemn acknowledgment that Jaxom felt a surge of irritation for his stuffy guardian.
Felessan was impervious to such nuances and pulled Jaxom eagerly away from the adults. Having achieved a certain physical distance, the boy chattered away in so loud a whisper that everyone two ledges up could hear him distinctly.
“I was sure you wouldn’t be allowed to come. Everything’s been so sour and horrible since the—you know—happened.”
“Don’t you know anything, Felessan?” Jaxom said in a rebuking hiss that startled his friend into wide-eyed silence.
“Huh? What’d I do wrong?” he demanded, this time in a more circumspect tone, glancing around him apprehensively. “Don’t tell me something’s gone wrong at Ruatha Hold?”
Jaxom pulled his friend as far from Lytol as they could go on that row of seats and then sat the younger boy down so hard that Felessan let out a yip of protest which he instantly muffled behind both hands. Jaxom glanced surreptitiously back at Lytol but the man was responding to the greetings of those in the level above. People were still arriving, both by dragonwing and by a climb up the flight of stairs from the hot sands. Felessan giggled suddenly, pointing toward a portly man and woman now crossing the Hatching Ground. They obviously wore thin-soled shoes for they kept picking their feet up and putting them down in a curious mincing motion, totally at variance with their physical appearance.
“Didn’t think so many people would come what with all that’s been happening,” Felessan murmured excitedly, his eyes dancing. “Look at them!” and he pointed out three boys, all with the Nerat device on their chests. “They look as if they smelled something unpleasant. You don’t think dragons smell, do you?”
“No, of course not. Only a little and it’s pleasant. They aren’t candidates, are they?” Jaxom asked, disgusted.
“Nooo. Candidates wear white.” Felessan made a grimace for Jaxom’s ignorance. “They don’t come in till later. Ooops! And later may be sooner. Didja see that egg rock?”
The motion had been observed, for the dragons began to hum. There were excited cries from late arrivals who now scurried for places. And Jaxom could scarcely see the rest of the eggs for the sudden flutter of dragon wings in the air. Just as suddenly, there were no more impediments to vision and all the eggs seemed to be rocking. Almost as if they finally found the hot sands underneath too much. Only one egg was motionless. The little one, still off by itself against the far wall.
“What’s wrong with that one?” Jaxom asked, pointing.
“That smallest one?” Felessan swallowed, keeping his face averted.
“We didn’t do anything to it”
“I didn’t,” Felessan said firmly, glaring at Jaxom. “You touched it.”
“I may have touched it but that doesn’t mean I hurt it,” the young Lord Holder begged for reassurance.
“No, touching ’em doesn’t hurt ’em. The candidates’ve been touching ’em for weeks and they’re rocking.”
“Why isn’t that one then?”
Jaxom had difficulty making Felessan understand him for the humming had increased until it was a constant, exciting thrum reverberating back and forth across the Hatching Ground.
“I dunno,” Felessan shrugged diffidently. “It may not even Hatch. That’s what they say, at any rate.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Jaxom insisted, mostly for his own comfort.
“I told you that! Look, here come the candidates.” Then Felessan leaned over, his lips right at Jaxom’s ear, whispering something so unintelligible that he had to repeat it three times before Jaxom did hear him.
“Re-Impress Brekke?” Jaxom exclaimed, far louder than he meant to, glancing toward Lytol.
“Deafwit!” Felessan hissed at him, jerking him back in his seat “You don’t know what’s been going on here. Let me tell you, it’s been something!” Felessan’s eyes were wide with suppressed knowledge.
“What? Tell me!”
Felessan glanced toward Lytol but the man seemed oblivious of them; his attention was on the young boys marching toward the rocking eggs, their faces white and purposeful, their bodies in the white tunics taut with excitement and anticipation.
“What do you mean about Brekke re-Impressing? Why? How?” Jaxom demanded, his mind assaulted by simultaneous conflicts: Lytol astride a dragon all his own, Brekke re-Impressing, Talina left out and crying because she was Ruathan-bred and should be dragonwoman.
“Just that. She Impressed a dragon once, she’s young. They said she was a far better Weyrwoman than that Kylara.” Felessan’s tone echoed the universally bad opinion of the Southern ex-Weyrwoman. “That way Brekke’d get well. You see,” and Felessan lowered his voice again, “F’nor loves her! And I heard—” he paused dramatically and looked around (as if anyone could overbear them), “I heard that F’nor was going to let Canth fly her queen.”
Jaxom stared at his friend, shocked. “You’re crazy! Brown dragons don’t fly queens.”
“Well, F’nor was going to try it.”
“But—but . . .”
“Yes, it is!” Felessan agreed sagely. “You should’ve heard F’lar and F’nor.” His eyes widened to double their normal size. “It was Lessa, my mother, who said what they ought to do. Make Brekke re-Impress. She was too good, Lessa said, to live half-dead.”
Both boys glanced guiltily toward Lytol.
“Do they—do they think she can re-Impress?” asked Jaxom, staring at the stern profile of his guardian and wondering.
Felessan shrugged. “We’ll know soon. Here they come.”
And sure enough, out of the black maw of the upper tunnel, flew bronze dragons in such rapid succession that they seemed nose to tail.
“There’s Talina!” Jaxom exclaimed, jumping to his feet “There’s Talina, Lytol,” and he crossed to pull at his guardian’s arm. Lytol wouldn’t have noticed either Jaxom’s importunities or Talina’s entrance. The man had eyes only for the girl entering from the Ground level. Two figures, a man and a woman, stood by the wide opening, as if they could accompany her this far, no further.
“That’s Brekke all right,” Felessan said in a hushed tone as he slid beside Jaxom.
She stumbled slightly, halted, seeming impervious to the uncomfortably hot sands. She straightened her shoulders and slowly walked across to join the five girls who waited near the golden egg. She stopped by Talina, who turned and gestured for the newcomer to take a place in the loose semicircle about the queen egg.
The humming stopped. In the sudden, unquiet silence, the faint crack of a shell was clearly audible, followed by the pop and shatter of others.
The dragonets, glistening, awkward, ugly young things, began to flop from their casings, squawking, crooning, their wedge-shaped heads too big for the thin, sinuous necks. The young boys stood very still, their bodies tense with the mental efforts of attracting the dragonets to them.
The first was free of its encumbrance, staggering beyond the nearest boy who jumped adroitly out of its way. It fell, nose first at the feet of a tall black-haired lad. The boy knelt, helped the dragonet balance on his shaky feet, looked into the rainbow eyes. Jaxom saw Lytol close his, and saw the fact of Lytol’s terrible loss engraved on the man’s gray face, as much of a torture now as the day his Larth had died of phosphine burns.
“Look,” Jaxom cried, “the queen egg. It’s rocking. Oh, how I wish . . .”
Then he couldn’t go on without compromising himself in his friend’s good opinion. For much as he wanted Talina to Impress which would mean three living Ruathan-bred Weyrwomen, he knew that Felessan was betting on Brekke.
Felessan was so intensely involved in the scene below that he hadn’t been aware of Jaxom’s unfinished phrase.
The golden shell cracked suddenly, right down the center, and its inmate, with a raucous protest, fell to the sand on her back Talina and two others moved forward quickly, trying to help the little creature right herself. The queen was no sooner on all four legs than the girls stepped back, almost as if they could not press their claim, by mutual consent leaving the first opportunity to Brekke.
She was oblivious. To Jaxom, it seemed she didn’t care. She seemed limp, broken, pathetic, listing to one side. A dragon crooned softly and she shook her head as if only then aware of her surroundings.
The queen’s head turned to Brekke, the glistening eyes enormous in the outsized skull. The queen lurched forward a step.
At that moment a small blur of bronze streaked across the Hatching Ground. With defiant screams, a fire lizard hung just above the queen’s head. So close, in fact, that the little queen reared back with a startled shriek and bit at the air, instinctively spreading her wings as protection for her vulnerable eyes.
Dragons protested from their ledges. Talina interposed her body between the queen and her small attacker.
“Berd! Don’t!” Brekke moved forward, arm extended, to capture the irate bronze. The little queen cried out in protest, hiding her face in Talina’s skirts. The two women faced one another, their bodies tense, wary.
Then Talina stretched her hand out to Brekke, smiling. Her pose lasted only a moment for the queen butted her legs peremptorily. Talina knelt, arms reassuringly about the dragonet. Brekke turned, no longer a statue immobilized by grief, and retraced her steps to the figures waiting at the entrance. All the time, the little bronze fire lizard whirred around her head, emitting sounds that ranged from scolding to entreaty. The racket sounded so like the cook at Ruatha Hold at dinnertime that Jaxom grinned.
“She didn’t want the queen,” Felessan said, stunned. “She didn’t try!”
“That fire lizard wouldn’t let her,” Jaxom said, wondering why he was defending Brekke.
“It would be wrong, terribly wrong for her to succeed,” Lytol said in a dead voice. He seemed to shrink in on himself, his shoulders sagging, his hands dangling limply between his knees
Some of the newly Impressed boys were beginning to lead their beasts from the Ground. Jaxom turned back, afraid to miss anything. It was all happening much too quickly. It’d be over in a few minutes.
“Didja see, Jaxom?” Felessan was saying, pulling at his sleeve. “Didja see? Birto got a bronze and Pellomar only Impressed a green. Dragons don’t like bullies and Pellomar’s been the biggest bully in the Weyr. Good for you, Birto!” Felessan cheered his friend.
“The littlest egg hasn’t cracked yet,” Jaxom said, nudging Felessan and pointing. “Shouldn’t it be hatching?”
Lytol frowned, roused by the anxiety in his ward’s voice.
“They were saying it probably wouldn’t hatch,” Felessan reminded Jaxom, far more interested in seeing what dragons his friends had Impressed.
“But what if it doesn’t hatch? Can’t someone break it and help the poor dragon out? The way a birthing woman does when the baby won’t come?”
Lytol whirled on Jaxom, his face suffused with anger.
“What would a boy your age know of birthing?”
“I know about mine,” Jaxom replied stoutly, jerking his chin up. “I nearly died. Lessa told me so and she was there. Can a dragonet die?”
“Yes,” Lytol admitted heavily because he never lied to the boy. “They can die and better so if the embryo is misformed.”
Jaxom looked at his body quickly although he knew perfectly well he was as he should be; in fact, more developed than some of the other Hold boys.
“Well, that egg’s alive,” Jaxom said. “Look at it rocking right now.”
“You’re right. It’s moving. But it isn’t cracking,” Felessan said.
“Then why is everyone leaving?” Jaxom demanded suddenly, jumping to his feet. For there was no one anywhere near the wobbling small egg.
The Ground was busy with riders urging their beasts down to help the weyrlings, or to escort guests of the Weyr back to their Holds. Most of the bronzes, of course, had gone with the new queen. Vast as the Hatching Ground was, its volume shrank with so many huge beasts around. Yet not even the disappointed candidates spared any interest for that one small remaining egg.
“There’s F’lar. He ought to be told, Lytol. Please!”
“He knows,” Lytol said, for F’lar had beckoned several of the brown riders to him and they were looking toward the little egg.
“Go, Lytol. Make them help it!”
“Small eggs can occur in any queen’s laying life,” Lytol said. “This is not my concern. Nor yours.”
He turned and began to make his way toward the steps, plainly certain that the boys would follow.
“But they’re not doing anything,” Jaxom muttered, rebelliously.
Felessan gave him a helpless shrug. “C’mon. We’ll be eating soon at this rate. And there’s all kinds of special things tonight.” He trotted after Lytol.
Jaxom looked back at the egg, now wildly rocking. “It just isn’t fair! They don’t care what happens to you. They care about that Brekke, but not you. Come on, egg. Crack your shell! Show ’em. One good crack and I’ll bet they’ll do something!”
Jaxom had edged along the tier until he was just over the little egg. It was rocking in time with his urgings now, but there was no one within a dragonlength. There was something frenzied about the way it rocked, too, that made Jaxom think the dragonet was desperate for help.
Without thinking, Jaxom swung over the wall and let himself drop to the sands. He could now see the minute striations on the shell, he could hear the frantic tapping within, observe the fissures spreading. As he touched the shell, it seemed like rock to him, it was so hard. No longer leathery as it had been the day of their escapade.
The Dragonriders of Pern Page 59