CHAPTER XV
Evening at Jaxom’s Cove and Late Evening at Ista Weyr, 15.8.28
SHARRA WAS SHOWING Brekke and Jaxom how to play a children’s game in the sand with pebbles and sticks when Ruth, sleeping just beyond them with the firelizards, woke up. He reared to a sitting position, stretching his neck and keening the long piercing note that marked a dragon’s passing.
“Oh no!” Brekke reacted just a shade faster than Jaxom. “Salth is gone!”
“Salth?” Jaxom wondered who that was.
“Salth!” Sharra’s face drained of color. “Ask Ruth where!”
“Canth says he was trying to fly Caylith and burst his heart!” Brekke answered the question, her shoulders sagging in new grief and a poignantly remembered tragedy. “The fool! He must have known that the younger dragons would be faster, stronger than poor old Salth!”
“Serves T’kul right! And don’t soar over me, Brekke.” Sharra’s eyes flashed as Brekke turned to reprimand her. “Remember, I’ve had to deal with T’kul and the rest of those Oldtimers. They are not like your Northern dragonfolk at all. They’re … they’re impossible! I could bum your ears with tales! If T’kul was fool enough to set his bronze to fly a young queen, with the competition there’d be for the Istan Weyrleadership, then he deserves to lose his beast! I’m sorry. Harsh words for you, Brekke, and Jaxom, but I know what those Southerners are like. You don’t!”
“I knew there’d be real trouble sometime, exiling them like that,” Brekke said slowly, “but…”
“From what I’ve heard, Brekke,” Jaxom said from a compulsion to erase the desolate look from her face, “that was the only way to handle them. They weren’t honoring their responsibilities to the people beholden to them. They were greedy, over and above proper timing. Further,” and he brought out his strongest point, “I heard Lytol criticizing those dragonriders!”
“I know, Jaxom. I know all that but they did come forward from their own time to save Pern …” Jaxom wondered if she realized she was wringing her hands till the knuckles showed white.
“To save Pern, yes, and then they demanded that we remember that every time we drew breath in their presence,” Jaxom went on, recalling all too clearly the arrogant and contemptuous manner with which T’ron had treated Lytol.
“We ignore the Oldtimers,” Sharra said, with a shrug. “We go about our business, keep our Hold green clear, pen up our animals during Fall. We just run a quick search with the flamethrowers to be sure the grubs have done their work.”
“Don’t they ride a Fall?” Brekke asked in surprise.
“Oh, now and again. If they feel like it, or if their dragons get too upset …” Sharra’s contempt was trenchant. Then she noticed the dismay on the other two faces and added, “Oh, what’s happened is not the dragons’ fault, mind you. And I don’t suppose that it’s really the riders’ either. I do think they should at least try to act what they are. To be sure, most of the Oldtimers stayed north. So just a few are giving dragonmen a poor reputation in Southern. Still … if they’d met us halfway … we would have helped.”
“I should go, I think,” Brekke said, rising and facing west. “T’kul is half a man now. I know how that feels …” Her voice petered out and her face drained of all color as she stared to the west, her eyes getting larger until a cry of horror burst from her Ups. “Oh no!” Her hand went to her throat and she turned it palm outward as if warding off an attack.
“Brekke, what is it?” Sharra leaped to her feet, her arms about the woman.
Ruth whimpered and nudged against Jaxom for reassurance.
She is very afraid. She is speaking to Canth. He is unhappy. It is terrible. Another dragon is very weak. Canth is with him. It is Mnementh who talks now. T’kul fights F’lar!
“T’kul fights F’lar?” Jaxom reached out to Ruth’s shoulder for balance.
The firelizards picked up the agitation, dipping and swooping, cluttering in harsh cacophony that made Jaxom wave his arms at them to be silent.
“This is ghastly, Jaxom,” Brekke cried. “I must go. They must see that T’kul is not responsible for what he’s doing. Why don’t they just overpower him? There must be someone with wits at Ista! What is D’ram doing? I’ll get my flying things.” She ran back to the shelter.