It wasn’t until after the noon meal, which Robinton took with the Weyrleader, that the Masterharper was confident that he understood the charts and left to begin their copying.
Across a waste of lonely tossing sea, Where no dragonwings had lately spread, Flew a gold and sturdy brown in spring, Searching if a land be dead.
As RAMOTH and Canth bore Lessa and F’nor up to the Star Stone, they saw the first of the Hold Lords and Craftmasters arriving for the Council.
In order to get back to the Southern Continent Of ten Turns ago, Lessa and F’nor had decided it was easiest to transfer first between times to the Weyr of ten Turns back which F’nor remembered. Then they would go between places to a seapoint just off the coast of the neglected Southern Continent which was as close to it as the Records gave any references.
F’nor put Canth in mind of a particular day he remembered ten Turns back, and Ramoth picked up the references from the brown’s mind. The awesome cold of between times took Lessa’s breath away, and it was with intense relief that she caught a glimpse of the normal weyr activity before the dragons, took them between places to hover over the turgid sea. Beyond them, smudged purple on this overcast and gloomy day, lurked the Southern Continent. Lessa felt a new anxiety replace the uncertainty of the temporal displacement. Ramoth beat forward with great sweeps of her wings, making for the distant coast. Canth gallantly tried to maintain a matching speed.
He’s only a brown, Lessa scolded her golden queen.
He is flying with me, Ramoth replied coolly, he must stretch his wings a little.
Lessa grinned, thinking very privately that Ramoth was still piqued that she had not been able to fight with her weyrmates. All the males would have a hard time with her for a while.
They saw the flock of wherries first and realized that there would have to be some vegetation on the Continent. Wherries needed greens to live, although they could subsist on little else besides occasional grubs if necessary.
Lessa had Canth relay questions to his rider. The Southern Continent was rendered barren by the Threads, how did new growth start? Where did the wherries come from?
Ever notice the seed pods split open and the flakes carried away by the winds? Ever notice that wherries fly south after the autumn solstice?
Yes, but …
Yes, but! But the land was Thread-bared!
In less than four hundred Turns even the scorched hilltops of our Continent begin to sprout in the springtime, F’nor replied by way of Canth, so it is easy to assume the Southern Continent could revive, too.
Even at the pace Ramoth set, it took time to reach the jagged shoreline with its forbidding cliffs, stark stone in the sullen light. Lessa groaned inwardly but urged Ramoth higher to see over the masking highlands. All seemed gray and desolate from that altitude.
Suddenly the sun broke through the cloud cover and the gray dissolved into dense greens and browns, living colors, the live greens of lush tropical growth, the browns of vigorous trees and vines. Lessa’s cry of triumph was echoed by F’nor’s hurrah and the brass voices of the dragons. Wherries, startled by the unusual sound, rose in squeaking alarm from their perches.
Beyond the headland, the land sloped away to jungle and grassy plateau, similar to mid-Boll. “Though they searched all morning, they found no hospitable cliffs wherein to found a new Weyr. Was that a contributing factor in the southern venture’s failure, Lessa wondered.
Discouraged, they landed on a high plateau by a small lake. The weather was warm but not oppressive, and while F’nor and Lessa ate their noonday meal, the two dragons wallowed in the water, refreshing themselves.
Lessa felt uneasy and had little appetite for the meat and bread. She noticed that F’nor was restless, too, shooting surreptitious glances around the lake and the jungle verge.
“What under the sun are we expecting? Wherries don’t change, and wild whers would come nowhere near a dragon. We’re ten Turns before the Red Star, so there can’t be any Threads.”