It was this quiet, as if every living thing was holding its breath, that was disturbing Menolly. Unconsciously she began to walk faster and she had a strong urge to glance over her right shoulder, towards the northeast where a smudge of gray clouded the horizon…
A smudge of gray? Or silver?
Menolly began to tremble with rising fear, with the dawning knowledge that she was too far from the safety of the Hold to reach it before Thread reached her. The heavy metal doors, which she had so negligently left ajar, would soon be closed and barred against her, and Thread, And, even if she were missed, no one would come for her.
She began to run, and some instinct directed her towards the cliff edge before she consciously remembered the queen’s ledge. It wasn’t big enough, really. Or she could go into the sea? Thread drowned in the sea. So would she, for she couldn’t keep under the water for the time it would take Thread to pass. How long would it take the leading edge of a Fall to pass over? She’d no idea.
She was at the edge now, looking down at the beach. She could see her ledge off to the right. There was the lip of the cliff that had broken off under her weight.
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That was the quick way down, to be sure, but she couldn’t risk it again, and didn’t want to.
She glanced over her shoulder. The grayness was spreading across the horizon. Now she could see flashes against that gray. Flashes? DragonsI She was seeing dragons fighting Thread, their fiery breath charring the dreaded stuff midair. They were so far away that the winking lights were more like lost stars than dragons fighting for the life of Pern.
Maybe the leading edge wouldn’t reach this far? Maybe she was safe. “Maybes seldom are” as her mother would say.
In the stillness of the air, a new sound made itself heard: a soft rhythmic thrumming, something tike the tuneless humming of small children. Only different. The noise seemed to come from the ground.
She dropped, pressing one ear to a patch of bare stone. The sound was coming from within.
Of coursel The bluff was hollow .. . thafs why the queen lizard…
On hands and knees, Menolly scooted to the cliff edge, looking for that halfway ledge of the queen’s.
Menolly had enlarged the entry once. TTiere was every chance she could make it big enough to squirm through. The little queen would certainly be hospitable to someone who had saved her clutch I
And Menolly didn’t come empty-handed as a guest! She swung the heavy sack of spiderclaws around to her back. Grabbing handfuls of the grasses on the lip of the cliff, she began to let herself slowly down. Her feet fumbled for support; she found one toehold and dug half that foot in, the other foot prodding for another place.
She slithered badly once, but a rock protrusion caught her in the crotch before she’d slipped far. She laid her race against the cliff, gulping to get back her breath and courage. She could feel the thrumming through the stone, and oddly, that gave her heart
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There was something intensely exciting and stimulating about that sound.
Sheer luck guided her foot to the queen’s ledge. She’d risked only a few glances beneath herthe aspect was almost enough to make her lose her balance completely. She was trembling so much with her exertions that she had to rest then. Definitely the humming came from the queen’s cavern.
She could get her head into the original opening. No more. She began to tear at the sides with her bare hands until she thought of her belt knife. The blade loosened a whole section all at once, showering her with sand and bits of rock. She had to clean her eyes and mouth of grit before she could continue. Then she realized that she’d gotten to sheer rock.
She could get herself into the shelter only up to her shoulders. No matter how she turned and twisted, there was an outcropping that she could not pass. Once again she wished she were as small as a girl ought to be. Sella would have had no trouble crawling through that hole. Resolutely, Menolly began to chip at the rock with her knife, the blows jarring her band to the shoulder, and making no impression at all on the rock.