Dragonflight

CHAPTER I

«If a queen isn't meant to fly, why does she have wings?» asked Lessa. She was genuinely trying to maintain a tone of sweet reason.

She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly. Unlike the average Pernese, dragonriders were apt to perceive strong emotional auras.

R'gul's heavy eyebrows drew together in a startled frown. He snapped his jaws together with exasperation. Lessa knew his answer before he uttered it

«Queens don't fly,» he said flatly.

«Except to mate,» S'lel amended. He had been dozing, a state he achieved effortlessly and frequently, although he was younger than the vigorous R'gul.

They are going to quarrel again, Lessa thought with an inward groan. She could stand about half an hour of that, and then her stomach would begin to churn. Their notion of instructing the new Weyrwoman in «Duties to Dragon, Weyr, and Pern» too often deteriorated into extended arguments over minor details in the lessons she had to memorize and recite wordperfect. Sometimes, as now, she entertained the fragile hope that she might wind them up so tightly in their own inconsistencies that they would inadvertently reveal a truth or two.

«A queen flies only to mate,» R'gul allowed the correction.

«Surely,» Lessa said with persistent patience, «if she can fly to mate, she can fly at other times.»

«Queens don't fly,» R'gul's expression was stubborn.

«Jora never did fly a dragon at all,» S'lel mumbled, blinking rapidly in his bemusement with the past. His expression was vaguely troubled. «Jora never left these apartments.»

«She took Nemorth to the feeding grounds,» R'gul snapped irritably.

Bile rose in Lessa's throat. She swallowed. She would simply have to force them to leave. Would they realize that Ramoth woke all too conveniently at times? Maybe she'd better rouse R'gul's Hath. Inwardly she permitted herself a smug smile as her secret ability to hear and talk to any dragon in the Weyr, green, blue, brown, or bronze, momentarily soothed her.

«When Jora could get Nemorth to stir at all,» S'lel muttered, picking at his underlip worriedly.

R'gul glared at S'lel to silence him and, succeeding, tapped pointedly on Lessa's slate.

Stifling her sigh, she picked up the stylus. She had already written this ballad out nine times, letterperfect. Ten was apparently R'gul's magic number. For she had written every single one of the traditional Teaching Ballads, the Disaster Sagas, and the Laws, letter-perfect, ten times each. True, she had not understood half of them, but she knew them by heart.

«Seas boil, and mountains move» she wrote.

Possibly. If there is a major inner upheaval of the land. One of Fax's guards at Ruatha Hold had once regaled the Watch with a tale from his great-grandsire's days. A whole coastal village in East Fort had slid into the sea. There had been monumental tides that year and, beyond Ista, a mountain had allegedly emerged at the same time, its top afire. It had subsided years later. That might be to what the line referred. Might be.

«Sands heat. . « True, in summer it was said that Igen Plain could be unendurable. No shade, no trees, no caves, just bleak sand desert. Even dragonmen eschewed that region in deep summer. Come to think of it, the sands of the Hatching Ground were always warm underfoot. Did those sands ever get hot enough to burn? And what warmed them, anyway? The same unseen internal fires that heated the water in the bathing pools throughout Benden Weyr?

«Dragons prove . . .» Ambiguous for half a dozen interpretations, and R'gul won't even suggest one as official. Does it mean that dragons prove the Red Star passes? How? Coming out with a special keen, similar to the one they utter when one of their own kind passes to die between? Or did the dragons prove themselves in some other way as the Red Star passes? Besides, of course, their traditional function of burning the Threads out of the skies? Oh, all the things these ballads don't say, and no one ever explains. Yet there must originally have been a reason.

«Stone pile and fires burn/Green withers, arm Pern»

More enigma. Is someone piling the stones on the fires? Do they mean firestone? Or do the stones pile themselves as in an avalanche? The balladeer might at least have suggested the season involved-or did he, with «green withers»? Yet vegetation purportedly attracted Threads, which was the reason, traditionally, that greenery was not permitted around human habitations. But stones couldn't stop a Thread from burrowing underground and multiplying. Only the phosphine emissions of a firestone-eating dragon stopped a Thread. And nowadays, Lessa smiled thinly, no one, not even dragonmen-with the notable exceptions of F'lar and his wingmen-bothered to drill with firestone, much less uproot grass near houses. Lately hilltops, scoured barren for centuries, were allowed to burgeon with green in the spring.

«Guard all passes.»

She dug the phrase out with the stylus, thinking to herself: So no dragonrider can leave the Weyr undetected.

R'gul's current course of inaction as Weyrleader was based on the idea that if no one. Lord or holder, saw a dragonrider, no one could be offended. Even traditional patrols were flown now over uninhabited areas, to allow the current agitation about the «parasitical» Weyr to die down. Fax, whose open dissension had sparked that movement, had not taken the cause to his grave. Larad, the young Lord of Telgar, was said to be the new leader.

R'gul as Weyrleader. That rankled Lessa deeply. He was so patently inadequate. But his Hath had taken Nemorth on her last flight. Traditionally (and that word was beginning to nauseate Lessa for the sins of omission ascribable to its name) the Weyrleader was the rider of the queen's mate. Oh, R'gul looked the part-a big, husky man, physically vigorous and domineering, his heavy face suggesting a sternly disciplined personality. Only, to Lessa's thinking, the discipline was misdirected.

Now F'lar … he had disciplined himself and hit wingriders in what Lessa considered the proper direction. For he, unlike the Weyrleader, not only sincerely believed in the Laws and Traditions he followed, he understood them. Time and again she had managed to make sense of a puzzling lesson from a phrase or two F'lar tossed in her direction. But, traditionally, only the Weyrleader instructed the Weyrwoman.

Why, in the name of the Egg, hadn't Mnementh, F'lar's bronze giant, flown Nemorth? Hath was a noble beast, in full prime, but he could not compare with Mnementh in size, wingspread, or strength. There would have been more than ten eggs in that last clutch of Nemorth's if Mnementh had flown her.

Jora, the late and unlamented Weyrwoman, had been obese, stupid, and incompetent. On this everyone agreed. Supposedly the dragon reflected its rider as much as the rider the dragon. Lessa's thoughts turned critical. Undoubtedly Mnementh had been as repelled by the dragon, as a man like F'lar would be by the rider-unrider, Lessa corrected herself, sardonically glancing at the drowsing S'lel.

But if F'lar had gone to the trouble of that desperate duel with Fax to save Lessa's life back in Ruatha Hold to bring her to the Weyr as a candidate at the Impression, why had he not taken over the Weyr when she proved successful, and ousted R'gul? What was he waiting for? He had been vehement and persuasive enough in making Lessa relinquish Ruatha and come to Benden Weyr. Why, now, did he adopt such an aloof pose of detachment as the Weyr tumbled further and further into disfavor?

«To save Pern,» F'lar's words had been. From what if not R'gul? F'lar had better start salvation procedures. Or was he biding his time until R'gul blundered fatally? R'gul won't blunder, Lessa thought sourly, because he won't do anything. Most particularly he wouldn't explain what she wanted to know.

«Star Stone watch, scan sky.» From her ledge, Lessa could see the gigantic rectangle of the Star Stone outlined against the sky. A watch-rider always stood by it. One day she'd get up there. It gave a magnificent view of the Benden Range and the high plateau that came right up to the foot of the Weyr. Last Turn there had been quite a ceremony at Star Stone, when the rising sun seemed to settle briefly on Finger Rock, marking the winter solstice. However, that only explained the significance of the Finger Rock, not the Star Stone. Add one more unexplained mystery.

«Ready the Weyrs,» Lessa wrote morosely. Plural. Not Weyr but Weyrs. R'gul couldn't deny there were five empty Weyrs around Pern, deserted for who knows how many Turns. She'd had to learn the names, the order of their establishment, too. Fort was the first and mightiest, then Benden, High Reaches, Hot Igen, Ocean Ista and plainland Telgar. Yet no explanation as to why five had been abandoned. Nor why great Benden, capable of housing five hundred beasts in its myriad weyr-caverns, maintained a scant two hundred. Of course, R'gul had fobbed their new Weyrwoman off with the convenient excuse that Jora had been an incompetent and neurotic Weyrwoman, allowing her dragon queen to gorge unrestrained. (No one told Lessa why this was so undesirable, nor why, contradictorily, they were so pleased when Ramoth stuffed herself.) Of course, Ramoth was growing, growing so rapidly that the changes were apparent overnight.

Lessa smiled, a tender smile that not even the presence of R'gul and S'lel could embarrass. She glanced up from her writing to the passageway that led from the Council Room up to the great cavern that was Ramoth's weyr. She could sense that Ramoth was still deeply asleep. She longed for the dragon to wake, longed for the reassuring regard of those rainbow eyes, for the comforting companionship that made life in the Weyr endurable. Sometimes Lessa felt she was two people: gay and fulfilled when she was attending Ramoth, gray and frustrated when the dragon slept. Abruptly Lessa cut off this depressing reflection and bent diligently to her lesson. It did pass time.

«Red Star passes.»

That benighted, begreened Red Star, and Lessa jammed her stylus into the soft wax with the symbol for a completed score.

There had been that unforgettable dawn, over two full Turns ago, when she had been roused by an ominous presentiment from the damp straw of the cheeseroom at Ruatha. And the Red Star had gleamed at her.

Yet here she was. And that bright, active future F'lar had so glowingly painted had not materialized. Instead of using her subtle power to manipulate events and people for Pern's good, she was forced into a round of inconclusive, uninstructive, tedious days, bored to active nausea by R'gul and S'lel, restricted to the Weyrwoman's apartments (however much of an improvement that was over her square foot of the cheeseroom floor) and the feeding grounds and the bathing lake. The only time she used her ability was to terminate these sessions with her so-called tutors. Grinding her teeth, Lessa thought that if it weren't for Ramoth, she would just leave. Oust Gemma's son and take Hold at Ruatha as she ought to have done once Fax was dead.

She caught her lip under her teeth, smiling in self-derision. If it weren't for Ramoth, she wouldn't have stayed here a moment past Impression anyway. But, from the second in which her eyes had met those of the young queen on the Hatching Ground, nothing but Ramoth mattered. Lessa was Ramoth's and Ramoth was hers, mind and heart, irrevocably attuned. Only death could dissolve that incredible bond.

Occasionally a dragonless man remained living, such as Lytol, Ruatha's Warder, but he was half shadow and that indistinct self lived in torment. When his rider died, a dragon winked into between, that frozen nothingness through which a dragon somehow moved himself and his rider, instantly, from one geographical position on Pern to another. To enter between held danger to the uniniated, Lessa knew, the danger of being trapped between for longer than it took a man to cough three times.

Yet Lessa's one dragonflight on Mnementh's neck had filled her with an insatiable compulsion to repeat the experience. Naively she had thought she would be taught, as the young riders and dragonets were. But she, supposedly the most important inhabitant of the Weyr next to Ramoth, remained earthbound while the youngsters winked in and out of between above the Weyr in endless practice. She chafed at the intolerable restriction.

Female or not, Ramoth must have the same innate ability to pass between as the males did. This theory was supported-unequivocally in Lessa's mind-by «The Ballad of Moreta's Ride.» Were not ballads constructed to inform? To teach those who could not read and write? So that the young Pernese, whether he be dragonman. Lord, or holder, might learn his duty toward Pern and rehearse Pern's bright history? These two arrant idiots might deny the existence of that Ballad, but how had Lessa learned it if it did not exist? No doubt, Lessa thought acidly, for the same reason queens had wings!

When R'gul consented-and she would wear him down till he did-to allow her to take up her «traditional» responsibility as Keeper of the Records, she would find that Ballad. One day it was going to have to be R'gul's much delayed «right time.»

Right time! she fumed. Right time! I have too much of the wrong time on my hands. When will this particular right time of theirs occur? When the moons turn green? What are they waiting for? And what might the superior F'lar be waiting for? The passing of the Red Star he alone believes in? She paused, for even the most casual reference to that phenomenon evoked a cold, mocking sense of menace within her.

She shook her head to dispel it. Her movement was injudicious. It caught R'gul's attention. He looked up from the Records he was laboriously reading. As he drew her slate across the stone Council table, the clatter roused S'lel. He jerked his head up, uncertain of his surroundings.

«Humph? Eh? Yes?» he mumbled, blinking to focus sleep-blurred eyes.

It was too much. Lessa quickly made contact with S'lel's Tuenth, himself just rousing from a nap. Tuenth was quite agreeable.

«Tuenth is restless, must go,» S'lel promptly muttered. He hastened up the passageway, his relief at leaving no less than Lessa's at seeing him go. She was startled to hear him greet someone in the corridor and hoped the new arrival would provide an excuse to rid herself of R'gul.

It was Manora who entered. Lessa greeted the headwoman of the Lower Caverns with thinly disguised relief. R'gul, always nervous in Manora's presence, immediately departed.

Manora, a stately woman of middle years, exuded an aura of quiet strength and purpose, having come to a difficult compromise with life which she maintained with serene dignity. Her patience tacitly chided Lessa for her fretfulness and petty grievances. Of all the women she had met in the Weyr, (when she was permitted by the dragonmen to meet any) Lessa admired and respected Manora most. Some instinct in Lessa made her bitterly aware that she would never be on easy or intimate terms with any of the women in the Weyr. Her carefully formal relationship with Manora, however, was both satisfying and satisfactory.

Manora had brought the tally slates of the Supply Caves. It was her responsibility as headwoman to keep the Weyrwoman informed of the domestic management of the Weyr. (One duty R'gul insisted she perform.)

«Bitra, Benden, and Lemos have sent in their tithes, but that won't be enough to see us through the deep cold this Turn.»

«We had only those three last Turn and seemed to eat well enough.»

Manor smiled amiably, but it was obvious she did not consider the Weyr generously supplied.

«True, but that was because we had stores of preserved and dried foods from more bountiful Turns to sustain us. That reserve is now gone. Except for those barrels and barrels of fish from Tillek . ..» Her voice trailed on expressively.

Lessa shuddered. Dried fish, salted fish, fish, had been served all too frequently of late.

«Our supplies of grain and flour in the Dry Caves are very low, for Benden, Bitra, and Lemos are not grain producers.»

«Our biggest needs are grains and meat?»

«We could use more fruits and root vegetables for variety,» Manora said thoughtfully. «Particularly if we have the long cold season the weather-wise predict. Now we did go to Igen Plain for the spring and fall nuts, berries …»

«We? to Igen Plain?» Lessa interrupted her, stunned.

«Yes,» Manora answered, surprised at Lessa's reaction. «We always pick there. And we beat out the water grains from the low swamplands.»

«How do you get there?» asked Lessa sharply. There could be only one answer.

«Why, the old ones fly us. They don't mind, and it gives the beasts something to do that isn't tiring. You knew that, didn't you?»

«That the women in the Lower Caverns fly with dragonriders?» Lessa pursed her lips angrily. «No. I wasn't told.» Nor did it help Lessa's mood to see the pity and regret in Manora's eyes.

«As Weyrwoman,» she said gently, «your obligations restrict you where …»

«If I should ask to be flown to … Ruatha, for instance,» Lessa cut in, ruthlessly pursuing a subject she sensed Manora wanted to drop, «would it be refused me?» Manora regarded Lessa closely, her eyes dark with concern. Lessa waited. Deliberately she had put Manora into a position where the woman must either lie outright, which would be distasteful to a person of her integrity, or prevaricate, which could prove more instructive.

«An absence for any reason these days might be disastrous. Absolutely disastrous,» Manora said firmly and, unaccountably, flushed. «Not with the queen growing so quickly. You must be here.» Her unexpectedly urgent entreaty, delivered with a mounting anxiety, impressed Lessa far more than all R'gul's pompous exhortations about constant attendance on Ramoth.

«You must be here,» Manora repeated, her fear naked.

«Queens do not fly,» Lessa reminded her acidly. She suspected Manora was about to echo S'lel's reply to that statement, but the older woman suddenly shifted to a safer subject.

«We cannot, even with half-rations,» Manora blurted out breathlessly, with a nervous shuffling of her slates, «last the full Cold.»

«Hasn't there ever been such a shortage before . . . in all Tradition?» Lessa demanded with caustic sweetness.

Manora raised questioning eyes to Lessa, who flushed, ashamed of herself for venting her frustrations with the dragonmen on the headwoman. She was doubly contrite when Manora gravely accepted her mute apology. In that moment Lessa's determination to end R'gul's domination over herself and the Weyr crystallized.

«No,» Manora went on calmly, «traditionally,» and she accorded Lessa a wry smile, «the Weyr is supplied from the first fruits of the soil and hunt. True, in recent Turns we have been chronically shorted, but it didn't signify. We had no young dragons to feed. They do eat, as you know.» The glances of the two women locked in a timeless feminine amusement over the vagaries of the young under their care. Then Manora shrugged. «The riders used to hunt their beasts in the High Reaches or on the Keroon plateau. Now, however …»

She made a helpless grimace to indicate that R'gul's restrictions deprived them of that victual relief.

«Time was,» she went on, her voice soft with nostalgia, «we would pass the coldest part of the Turn in one of the southern Holds. Or, if we wished and could, return to our birthplaces. Families used to take pride in daughters with dragonfolk sons.» Her face settled into sad lines. «The world turns and times change.»

«Yes,» Lessa heard herself say in a grating voice, «the world does turn, and times … times will change.»

Manora looked at Lessa, startled.

«Even R'gul will see we have no alternative,» Manora continued hastily, trying to stick to her problem.

«To what? Letting the mature dragons hunt?»

«Oh, no. He's so adamant about that. No. We'll have to barter at Fort or Telgar.»

Righteous indignation flared up in Lessa.

«The day the Weyr has to buy what should be given . . .» and she halted in midsentence, stunned as much by such a necessity as by the ominous echo of other words. «The day one of my Holds cannot support itself or the visit of its rightful overlord . . .» Fax's words rang in her head. Did those words again foreshadow disaster? For whom? For what?

«I know, I know,» Manora was saying worriedly, unaware of Lessa's shock. «It goes against the grain. But if R'gul will not permit judicious hunting, there is no other choice. He will not like the pinch of hunger in his belly.»

Lessa was struggling to control her inner terror. She took a deep breath.

«He'd probably then cut his throat to isolate his stomach,» she snapped, her acid comment restoring her wits. She ignored Manora's startled look of dismay and went on. «It is traditional for you as headwoman of the Lower Cavern to bring such matters to the attention of the Weyrwoman, correct?»

Manora nodded, unsettled by Lessa's rapid switches of mood.

«I, then, as Weyrwoman, presumably bring this to the attention of the Weyrleader who, presumably,»– she made no attempt to moderate her derision-«acts upon it?»

Manora nodded, her eyes perplexed.

«Well,» Lessa said in a pleasant, light voice, «you have dutifully discharged your traditional obligation. It is up to me now to discharge mine. Right?»

Manora regarded Lessa warily. Lessa smiled at her reassuringly.

«You may leave it in my hands, then.»

Manora rose slowly. Without taking her eyes from Lessa, she began to gather up her records.

«It is said that Fort and Telgar had unusually good harvests,» she suggested, her light tone not quite masking her anxiety. «Keroon, too, in spite of that coastal flooding.»

«Is that so?» Lessa murmured politely.

«Yes,» Manora continued helpfully, «and the herds at Keroon and Tillek had good increase.»

«I'm happy for them.»

Manora shot her a measuring look, not at all assured by Lessa's sudden affability. She finished gathering up her Records, then set them down again in a careful pile.

«Have you noticed how K'net and his wingriders chafe at R'gul's restrictions?» she asked, watching Lessa closely.

«K'net?»

«Yes. And old C'gan. Oh, his leg is still stiff, and Tagath may be more gray with age than blue, but he was of Udith's hatching. Her last clutch had fine beasts in it,» she remarked. «C'gan remembers other days .. .»

«Before the world turned and times changed?»

Lessa's sweet voice did not mislead Manora now.

«It is not just as Weyrwoman that you are attractive to the dragonmen, Lessa of Pern,» Manora said sharply, her face stern. «There are several of the brown riders, for instance …»

«F'nor?» Lessa asked pointedly.

Manora drew herself up proudly. «He is a man grown, Weyrwoman, and we of the Lower Caverns have learned to disregard the ties of blood and affection. It is as a brown rider, not the son I bore, that I recommend him. Yes, I'd recommend F'nor, as I would also recommend T'sum and L'rad.»

«Do you suggest them because they are of F'lar's wing and bred in the true traditions? Less apt to be swayed by my blandishments …»

«I suggest them because they believe in the tradition that the Weyr must be supplied from the Holds.»

«All right.» Lessa grinned at Manora, seeing the woman could not be baited about F'nor. «I shall take your recommendations to heart, for I do not intend . . .» She broke off her sentence. «Thank you for apprising me of our supply problems. We need fresh meat most of all?» she asked, rising to her feet.

«Grains, too, and some of the southern root vegetables would be very welcome,» Manora replied formally.

«Very well,» Lessa agreed.

Manora left, her expression thoughtful.

Lessa reflected for long moments on that interview, sitting like a slim statuette in the capacious stony chair, her legs curled up under her on the padding.

Foremost was the disturbing knowledge that Manora was deeply afraid of the mere prospect of Lessa absent from the Weyr, from Ramoth's side, for any reason, for any length of time. Her instinctive fear reaction was a far more effective argument than any of R'gul's sententious mouthings. However, Manora had given no hint of the reason for that necessity. Very well, Lessa would not try to fly one of the other dragons, with or without the rider, as she had been beginning to think she could.

As for this matter of short supplies, on that Lessa would act. Especially since R'gul would not. And, since R'gul could not protest what he did not know, she would contrive, with the help of K'net or F'nor or however many she needed, to keep the Weyr decently supplied. Eating regularly had become a pleasant habit she did not wish to curtail. She did not intend being greedy, but a little judicious pilfering of a bountiful harvest would go unnoticed by the Hold Lords.

K'net, though, was young; he might be rash and indiscreet. Perhaps F'nor would be the wiser choice. But was he as free to maneuver as K'net, who was, after all, a bronze rider? Maybe C'gan. The absence of a retired blue rider, time heavy on his hands, might not be noticed at all.

Lessa smiled to herself, but her smile faded quickly.

«The day the Weyr has to barter for what should be given . . .» She thrust back the premonitory shudder, concentrated on the ignominy of that situation. It certainly emphasized the measure of her self-delusion.

Why had she thought being at the Weyr would be so different from Ruatha Hold? Had her early childhood training instilled such a questionless reverence for the Weyr that life must alter its pattern because Lessa of Ruatha had been Impressed by Ramoth? How could she have been such a romantic little fool?

Look around you, Lessa of Pern, look around the Weyr with unveiled eyes. Old and hallowed is the Weyr? Yes, but shabby and worn-and disregarded. Yes, you were elated to sit in the Weyrwoman's great chair at the Council Table, but the padding is thin and the fabric dusty. Humbled to think your hands rest where Moreta's and Torene's had rested? Well, the stone is ingrained with dirt and needs a good scrubbing. And your rump may rest where theirs did-but that's not where you have your brains.

The shabby Weyr reflected the deterioration of its purpose in the scheme of life on Pern. Those handsome dragonriders, too, so brave in their wher-hide accouterments, proud on the necks of their great beasts-they did not submit kindly to dose examination without a few disappointing revelations. They were only men, with manlike lusts and ambitions, full of very human faults and frustrations, unwilling to disrupt their easy existence for the harsh exigencies that would reestablish the Weyr. They had settled too deeply in their isolation from the rest of their race; they did not realize they were little thought of. There was no real leader at their head…

F'lar! What was he waiting for? For Lessa to see through R'gul's ineffectiveness? No, Lessa decided slowly, for Ramoth to grow up. For Mnementh to fly her when he can . . . traditionalist that F'lar is, and Lessa thought this excuse to be specious . . . when the mating dragon's rider became, traditionally, the Weyrleader. That rider!

Well, F'lar might just find events not turning out as he planned.

My eyes were dazzled by Ramoth's, but I can see around the rainbow now, Lessa thought, steeling herself against the tenderness that always accompanied any thought of the golden beast. Yes, I can see into the black and gray shadows now, where my apprenticeship at Ruatha should stand me in good stead. True, there's more to control than one small Hold and far more perceptive minds to influence. Perceptive but dense in their own way. A greater hazard if I lose. But how can I? Lessa's smile broadened. She rubbed her palms against her thighs in anticipation of the challenge. They can do nothing with Ramoth without me, and they must have Ramoth. No one can coerce Lessa of Ruatha, and they're as stuck with me as they were with Jora. Only, I'm no Jora!

Elated, Lessa jumped from the chair. She felt alive again. And more powerful in herself than she felt when Ramoth was awake.

Time, time, time. R'gul's time. Well, Lessa had done with marking his time. She'd been a silly fool. Now she'd be the Weyrwoman F'lar had beguiled her to think she could be.

F'lar . . . her thoughts returned to him constantly. She'd have to watch out for him. Particularly when she started «arranging» things to suit herself. But she had an advantage he couldn't know-that she could speak to all the dragons, not just Ramoth. Even to his precious Mnementh.

Lessa threw back her hand and laughed, the sound echoing hollowly in the large, empty Council Room. She laughed again, delighted with an exercise she had had rare occasion to use. Her mirth roused Ramoth. The exultation of her decision was replaced by that of knowing the golden dragon was waking.

Ramoth stirred again and stretched restlessly as hunger pierced slumber. Lessa ran up the passage on light feet, eager as a child for the first sight of the glorious eyes and the sweetness that characterized the dragon's personality.

Ramoth's huge golden wedge-shaped head swiveled around as the sleepy dragon instinctively sought her Weyrmate. Lessa quickly touched her blunt chin, and the searching head was still, comforted. The several protecting lids parted over the many-faceted eyes, and Ramoth and Lessa renewed the pledge of their mutual devotion.

Ramoth had had those dreams again, she told Lessa, shuddering slightly. It was so cold there! Lessa caressed the soft down above her eye-ridge, soothing the dragon. Linked firmly to Ramoth as she had become, she was acutely aware of the dismay those curious sequences produced.

Ramoth complained of an itch by the left dorsal ridge.

«The skin is flaking again,» Lessa told her, quickly spreading sweet oil on the affected area. «You're growing so fast,» she added with mock and tender dismay.

Ramoth repeated that she itched abominably.

«Either eat less so you'll sleep less or stop outgrowing your hide overnight.»

She chanted dutifully as she rubbed in the oil, «The dragonet must be oiled daily as the rapid growth in early development can overstretch fragile skin tissues, rendering them tender and sensitive.»

They itch, Ramoth corrected petulantly, squirming.

«Hush. I'm only repeating what I was taught.»

Ramoth issued a dragon-sized snort that blew Lessa's robe tightly around her legs.

«Hush. Daily bathing is compulsory, and thorough oiling must accompany these ablutions. Patchy skin becomes imperfect hide in the adult dragon. Imperfect hide results in skin ruptures that may prove fatal to a flying beast.»

Don't stop rubbing, Ramoth entreated.

«Flying beast indeed!»

Ramoth informed Lessa she was so hungry. Couldn't she bathe and oil later?

«The moment that cavern you call a belly is full, you're so sleepy you can barely crawl. You've gotten too big to be carried.»

Ramoth's tart rejoinder was interrupted by a low chuckle. Lessa whirled, hastily controlling the annoyance she felt at seeing F'lar lounging indolently against the archway to the ledge-corridor.

He had obviously been flying a patrol, for he still wore the heavy wher-hide gear. The stiff tunic clung to the flat chest, outlined the long, muscular legs. His bony but handsome face was still reddened by the ultra-cold of between. His curiously amber eyes glinted with amusement and, Lessa added, conceit

«She grows sleek,» he commented, approaching Ramoth's couch with a courteous bow to the young queen.

Lessa heard Mnementh give a greeting to Ramoth from his perch on the ledge.

Ramoth rolled her eyes coquettishly at the wingleader. His smile of almost possessive pride in her doubled Lessa's irritation.

«The escort arrives in good time to bid the queen good day.»

«Good day, Ramoth,» F'lar said obediently. He straightened, slapping his heavy gloves against his thigh.

«We interrupted your patrol pattern?» asked Lessa, sweetly apologetic.

«No matter. A routine flight,» F'lar replied, undaunted. He sauntered to one side of Lessa for an unimpeded view of the queen. «She's bigger than most of the browns. There have been high seas and flooding at Telgar. And the tidal swamps at Igen are dragondeep.» His grin flashed as if this minor disaster pleased him.

As F'lar said nothing without purpose, Lessa filed that statement away for future reference. However irritating F'lar might be, she preferred his company to that of the other bronze riders.

Ramoth interrupted Lessa's reflections with a tart reminder: If she had to bathe before eating, could they get on with it before she expired from hunger?

Lessa heard Mnementh's amused rumble without the cavern.

«Mnementh says we'd better humor her,» F'lar remarked indulgently.

Lessa suppressed the desire to retort that she could perfectly well hear what Mnementh said. One day it was going to be most salutary to witness F'lar's stunned reaction to the knowledge that she could hear and speak to every dragon in the Weyr.

«I neglect her shockingly,» Lessa said, as if contritely.

She saw F'lar about to answer her. He paused, his amber eyes narrowing briefly. Smiling affably, he gestured for her to lead the way.

An inner perversity prompted Lessa to bait F'lar whenever possible. One day she would pierce that pose and flay him to the quick. It would take doing. He was sharp-witted.

The three joined Mnementh on the ledge. He hovered protectingly over Ramoth as she glided awkwardly down to the far end of the long oval Weyr Bowl. Mist, rising from the warmed water of the small lake, parted in the sweep of Ramoth's ungainly wings. Her growth had been so rapid that she had had no time to coordinate muscle and bulk. As F'lar set Lessa on Mnementh's neck for the short drop, she looked anxiously after the gawky, blundering queen.

Queens don't fly because they can't, Lessa told herself with bitter candor, contrasting Ramoth's grotesque descent with Mnementh's effortless drift.

«Mnementh says to assure you she'll be more graceful when she gets her full growth,» F'lar's amused voice said in her ear.

«But the young males are growing just as fast, and they're not a bit…» She broke off. She wouldn't admit anything to that F'lar.

«They don't grow as large, and they constantly practice …»

«Flying! . . .» Lessa leaped on the word, and then, catching a glimpse of the bronze rider's face, said no more. He was just as quick with a casual taunt.

Ramoth had immersed herself and was irritably waiting to be sanded. The left dorsal ridge itched abominably. Lessa dutifully attacked the affected area with a sandy hand.

No, her life at the Weyr was no different from that at Ruatha. She was still scrubbing. And there was more of Ramoth to scrub each day, she thought as she finally sent the golden beast into the deeper water to rinse. Ramoth wallowed, submerging to the tip of her nose. Her eyes, covered by the thin inner lid, glowed just below the surface-watery jewels. Ramoth languidly turned over, and the water lapped around Lessa's ankles.

All occupations were suspended when Ramoth was abroad. Lessa noticed the women clustered at the entrance to the Lower Caverns, their eyes wide with fascination. Dragons perched on their ledges or idly circled overhead. Even the weyrlings, boy and dragonet, wandered forth curiously from the fledgling barracks of the training fields.

A dragon trumpeted unexpectedly on the heights by the Star Stone. He and his rider spiraled down.

«Timings, F'lar, a train in the pass,» the blue rider announced, grinning broadly until he became disappointed by the calm way his unexpected good news was received by the bronze rider.

«F'nor will see to it,» F'lar told him indifferently. The blue dragon obediently lifted his rider to the wingsecond's ledge.

«Who could it be?» Lessa asked F'lar. «The loyal three are in.»

F'lar waited until he saw F'nor on brown Canth wheel up and over the protecting lip of the Weyr, followed by several green riders of the wing.

«We'll know soon enough,» he remarked. He turned his head thoughtfully eastward, an unpleasant smile touching the comer of his mouth briefly. Lessa, too, glanced eastward where, to the knowing eye, the faint spark of the Red Star could be seen, even though the sun was full up.

«The loyal ones will be protected,» F'lar muttered under his breath, «when the Red Star passes.»

How and why they two were in accord in they unpopular belief in the significance of the Red Star Lessa did not know. She only knew that she, too, recognized it as Menace. It had actually been the foremost consideration in all F'lar's arguments that she leave Ruatha and come to the Weyr. Why he had not succumbed to the pernicious indifference that had emasculated the other dragonmen she did not know. She had never asked him-not out of spite, but because it was so obvious that his belief was beyond question. He knew. And she knew.

And occasionally that knowledge must stir in the dragons. At dawn, as one, they stirred restlessly in their sleep-if they slept-or lashed their tails and spread their wings in protest if they were awake. Manora, too, seemed to believe. F'nor must. And perhaps some of F'lar's surety had infected his wingriders. He certainly demanded implicit obedience to tradition in his riders and received it, to the point of open devotion.

Ramoth emerged from the lake and half-flapped, half-floundered her way to the feeding grounds. Mnementh arranged himself at the edge and permitted Lessa to seat herself on his foreleg. The ground away from the Bowl rim was cold underfoot.

Ramoth ate, complaining bitterly over the stringy bucks that made her meal and resenting it when Lessa restricted her to six.

«Others have to eat, too, you know.»

Ramoth informed Lessa that she was queen and had priority.

«You'll itch tomorrow.»

Mnementh said she could have his share. He had eaten well of a fat buck in Keroon two days ago. Lessa regarded Mnementh with considerable interest. Was that why all the dragons in F'lar's wing looked so smug? She must pay more attention as to who frequented the feeding grounds and how often.

Ramoth had settled into her weyr again and was already drowsing when F'lar brought the train-captain into the quarters.

«Weyrwoman,» F'lar said, «this messenger is from Lytol with duty to you.»

The man, reluctantly tearing his eyes from the glowing golden queen, bowed to Lessa.

«Tilarek, Weyrwoman, from Lytol, Warder of Ruatha Hold,» he said respectfully, but his eyes, as he looked at Lessa, were so admiring as to be just short of impudence. He withdrew a message from his belt and hesitated, torn between the knowledge that women did not read and his instructions to give it to the Weyrwoman. Just as he caught F'lar's amused reassurance, Lessa extended her hand imperiously.

«The queen sleeps,» F'lar remarked, indicating the passageway to the Council Room.

Adroit of F'lar, Lessa thought, to be sure the messenger had a long look at Ramoth. Tilarek would spread the word on his return journey, properly elaborated with each retelling, of the queen's unusual size and fine health. Let Tilarek also broadcast his opinion of the new Weyrwoman.

Lessa waited until she saw F'lar offer the courier wine before she opened the skin. As she deciphered Lytol's inscription, Lessa realized how glad she was to receive news of Ruatha. But why did Lytol's first words have to be:

The babe grows strong and is healthy… She cared little for that infant's prosperity. Ah . . .

Ruatha is green-free, from hill crown to crafthold verge. The harvest has been very good, and the beasts multiply from the new studs. Herewith is the due and proper tithe of Ruatha Hold. May it prosper the Weyr which protects us.

Lessa snorted under her breath. Ruatha knew its duty, true, but not even the other three tithing holds had sent proper greetings. Lytol's message contained ominously:

A word to the wise. With Fax's death, Telgar has come to the fore in the growing sedition. Meron, so-called Lord of Nabol, is strong and seeks, I feel, to be first: Telgar is too cautious for him. The dissension strengthens and is more widespread than when I last spoke with Bronze Rider F'lar. The Weyr must be doubly on its guard. If Ruatha may serve, send word.

Lessa scowled at the last sentence. It only emphasized the fact that too few Holds served in any way.

». . . laughed at we were, good F'lar,» Tilarek was saying, moistening his throat with a generous gulp of Weyr-made wine, «for doing as men ought.

«Funny thing, that, for the nearer we got to Benden Range the less laughing we heard. Sometimes it's hard to make sense of some things, being as how you don't do 'em much. Like if I were not to keep my sword arm strong and used to the weight of a blade,» and he made vigorous slashes and thrusts with his right arm, «I'd be put to it to defend myself come a long-drawn fight. Some folk, too, believe what the loudest talker says. And some folk because it frightens them not to. However,» he went on briskly, «I'm soldier-bred and it goes hard to take the gibes of mere crafters and holders. But we'd orders to keep our swords sheathed, and we did. Just as well,» he said with a wry grimace, «to talk soft. The Lords have kept full guard since . . . since the Search…»

Lessa wondered what he had been about to say, but he went on soberly.

«There are those that'll be sorry when the Threads fall again on all that green around their doors.»

F'lar refilled the man's cup, asking casually about the harvests seen on the road here.

«Fine, fat and heavy,» the courier assured him. «They do say this Turn has been the best in memory of living man. Why, the vines in Crom had bunches this big!» He made a wide circle with his two huge hands, and his listeners made proper response. «And I've never seen the Telgar grain so full and heavy. Never.»

«Pern prospers,» F'lar remarked dryly.

«Begging your pardon»-Tilarek picked up a wizened piece of fruit from the tray-«I've scooped better than this dropped on the road behind a harvest wagon.» He ate the fruit in two bites, wiping his hands on the tunic. Then, realizing what he had said, he added in hasty apology, «Ruatha Hold sent you its best. First fruits as man ought. No ground pickings from us. You may be sure.»

«It is reassuring to know we have Ruatha's loyalty as well as its full measure,» F'lar assured him. «Roads were clear?»

«Aye, and there's a funny thing this time of year. Cold, then suddenly warm like the weather couldn't remember the season. No snow and little rain. But winds! Like you'd never believe. They do say as how the coasts have been hit hard with high water.» He rolled his eyes expressively and then, hunching his shoulders, confidentially added, «They do say Ista's smoking mountain that does appear and then… phffst … disappears . . . has appeared again.»

F'lar looked properly skeptical, although Lessa did not miss the gleam of excitement in his eyes. The man sounded like one of R'gul's ambiguous verses.

«You must stay a few days for a good rest,» F'lar invited Tilarek genially, guiding him out past sleeping Ramoth.

«Aye and grateful. Man gets to the Weyr maybe once or twice in his life,» Tilarek was saying absently, craning his neck to keep Ramoth in sight as F'lar led him out. «Never knew queens grew so big.»

«Ramoth is already much larger and stronger than Nemorth,» F'lar assured him as he turned the messenger over to the weyrling waiting to escort him to quarters.

«Read this,» Lessa said, impatiently shoving the skin at the bronze rider as soon as they were again in the Council Room.

«I expected little else,» F'lar remarked, unconcerned, perching on the edge of the great stone table.

«And . ..?» Lessa demanded fiercely.

«Time will tell,» F'lar replied serenely, examining a fruit for spots.

«Tilarek implied that not all the holders echo their Lords' seditious sentiments,» Lessa commented, trying to reassure herself.

F'lar snorted. «Tilarek says 'as will please his listeners,' « he said in a passable imitation of the man's speech.

«You'd better know, too,» F'nor said from the doorway, «he doesn't speak for all his men. There was a good deal of grumbling in the escort.» F'nor accorded Lessa a courteous if absentminded salute. «It was felt that Ruatha has been too long poor to give such a share to the Weyr its first profitable Turn. And I'll say that Lytol was more generous than he ought to be. We'll eat well… for a while.»

F'lar tossed the messageskin to the brown rider.

«As if we didn't know that,» F'nor grunted after he had quickly scanned the contents.

«If you know that, what will you do about it?» Lessa spoke up. «The Weyr is in such disrepute that the day is coming when it can't feed its own.»

She used the phrase deliberately, noticing with satisfaction that it stung the memories of both dragonmen. The look they turned on her was almost savage. Then F'lar chuckled so that F'nor relaxed with a sour laugh.

«Well?» she demanded.

«R'gul and S'lel will undoubtedly get hungry,» F'nor said, shrugging.

«And you two?»

F'lar shrugged, too, and, rising, bowed formally to Lessa. «As Ramoth is deep asleep, Weyrwoman, your permission to withdraw.»

«Get out!» Lessa shouted at them.

They had turned, grinning at each other, when R'gul came storming into the chamber, S'lel, D'nol, T'bor, and K'net close on his heels.

«What is this I hear? That Ruatha alone of the High Reaches sends tithes?»

«True, all too true,» F'lar conceded calmly, tossing the messageskin at R'gul.

The Weyrleader scanned it, mumbling the words under his breath, frowning at its content. He passed it distastefully to S'lel, who held it for all to read.

«We fed the Weyr last year on the tithings of three Holds,» R'gul announced disdainfully.

«Last year,» Lessa put in, «but only because there were reserves in the supply caves. Manora has just reported that those reserves are exhausted….»

«Ruatha has been very generous,» F'lar put in quickly. «It should make the difference.»

Lessa hesitated a moment, thinking she hadn't heard him right.

«Not that generous.» She rushed on, ignoring the remanding glare F'lar shot her way.

«The dragonets require more this year, anyway. So there's only one solution. The Weyr must barter with Telgar and Fort to survive the Cold.»

Her words touched off instant rebellion.

«Barter? Never'»

«The Weyr reduced to bartering? Raid!»

«R'gul, we'll raid first. Barter never!»

That had stung all the bronze riders to the quick. Even S'lel reacted with indignation. K'net was all but dancing, his eyes sparkling with anticipation of action.

Only F'lar remained aloof, his arms folded across his chest, glaring at her coldly.

«Raid?» R'gul's voice rose authoritatively above the noise. «There can be no raid!»

Out of conditioned reflex to his commanding tone, they quieted momentarily.

«No raids?» T'bor and D'nol demanded in chorus.

«Why not?» D'nol went on, the veins in his neck standing out.

He was not the one, groaned Lessa to herself, trying to spot S'lar, only to remember that he was out on the training field. Occasionally he and D'nol acted together against R'gul in Council, but D'nol was not strong enough to stand alone.

Lessa glanced hopefully toward F'lar. Why didn't he speak up now?

«I'm sick of stringy old flesh, of bad bread, of wood-tasting roots,» D'nol was shouting, thoroughly incensed. «Pern prospered this Turn. Let some spill over into the Weyr as it ought!»

T'bor, standing belligerently beside him, growled agreement, his eyes fixing on first one, then another of the silent bronze riders. Lessa caught at the hope that T'bor might act as substitute for S'lan.

«One move from the Weyr at this moment,» R'gul interrupted, his arm raised warningly, «and all the Lords will move-against us.» His arm dropped dramatically.

He stood, squarely facing the two rebels, feet slightly apart, head high, eyes flashing. He towered a head and a half above the stocky, short D'nol and the slender T'bor. The contrast was unfortunate: the tableau was of the stern patriarch reprimanding errant children.

«The roads are clear,» R'gul went on portentously, «with neither rain nor snow to stay an advancing army. The Lords have kept full guards under arms since Fax was killed.» R'gul's head turned just slightly in F'lar's direction. «Surely you all remember the scant hospitality we got on Search?» Now R'gul pinned each bronze rider in turn with a significant stare. «You know the temper of the Holds, you saw their strength.» He jerked his chin up. «Are you fools to antagonize them?»

«A good firestoning . . .» D'nol blurted out angrily and stopped. His rash words shocked himself as much as anyone else in the room.

Even Lessa gasped at the idea of deliberately using firestone against man.

«Something has to be done . . .» D'nol blundered on desperately, turning first to F'lar, then, less hopefully, to T'bor.

If R'gul wins, it will be the end, Lessa thought, coldly furious, and reacted, turning her thoughts toward T'bor. At Ruatha it had been easiest to sway angry men. If she could just… A dragon trumpeted outside.

An excruciatingly sharp pain lanced from her instep up her leg. Stunned, she staggered backward, unexpectedly falling into F'lar. He caught her arm with fingers like iron bands.

«You dare control . . .» he whispered savagely in her ear and, with false solicitude, all but slammed her down into her chair. His hand grasped her arm with vise-fingered coercion.

Swallowing convulsively against the double assault, she sat rigidly. When she could take in what had happened, she realized the moment of crisis had passed.

«Nothing can be done at this time,» R'gul was saying forcefully.

«At this time . . .» The words ricocheted in Lessa's ringing ears.

«The Weyr has young dragons to train. Young men to bring up in the proper Traditions.»

Empty Traditions, Lessa thought numbly, her mind seething with bitterness. And they will empty the very Weyr itself.

She glared with impotent fury at F'lar. His hand tightened warningly on her arm until his fingers pressed tendon to bone and she gasped again with pain. Through the tears that sprang to her eyes, she saw defeat and shame written on K'net's young face. Hope Flared up, renewed.

With an effort she forced herself to relax. Slowly, as if F'lar had really frightened her. Slowly enough for him to believe in her capitulation.

As soon as she could, she would get K'net aside. He was ripe for the idea she had just conceived. He was young, malleable, attracted to her anyway. He would serve her purpose admirably.

«Dragonman, avoid excess,» R'gul was intoning. «Greed will cause the Weyr distress.»

Lessa stared at the man, honestly appalled that he could clothe the Weyr's moral defeat with hypocritical homily.

CHAPTER II

«What's the matter? Noble F'lar going against tradition?» Lessa demanded of F'nor as the brown rider appeared with a courteous explanation of the wingleader's absence.

Lessa no longer bothered to leash her tongue in F'nor's presence. The brown rider knew it was not directed at himself, so he rarely took offense. Some of his half brother's reserve had rubbed off on him.

His expression today, however, was not tolerant; it was sternly disapproving.

«He's tracing K'net,» F'nor said bluntly, his dark eyes troubled. He pushed his heavy hair back from his forehead, another habit picked up from F'lar, which added fuel to Lessa's grievance with the absent weyrman.

«Oh, is he? He'd do well to imitate him instead,» she snapped.

F'nor's eyes flashed angrily.

Good, thought Lessa. I'm getting to him, too.

«What you do not realize, Weyrwoman, is that K'net takes your instructions too liberally. A judicious pilfering would raise no protest, but K'net is too young to be circumspect.»

«My instructions?» Lessa repeated innocently. Surely F'nor and F'lar hadn't a shred of evidence to go on. Not that she cared. «He's just too fed up with the whole cowardly mess!»

F'nor clamped his teeth down tightly against an angry rebuttal. He shifted his stance, clamped his hands around the wide rider's belt until his knuckles whitened. He returned Lessa's gaze coldly.

In that pause Lessa regretted antagonizing F'nor. He had tried to be friendly, pleasant, and had often amused her with anecdotes as she became more and more embittered. As the world turned colder, rations had gotten slimmer at the Weyr in spite of the systematic additions of K'net. Despair drifted through the Weyr on the icy winds.

Since D'nol's abortive rebellion, all spirit had drained out of the dragonmen. Even the beasts reflected it. Diet alone would not account for the dullness of their hide and their deadened attunement. Apathy could-and did. Lessa wondered that R'gul did not rue the result of his spineless decision.

«Ramoth is not awake,» she told F'nor calmly, «so you do not need to dance attendance on me.»

F'nor said nothing, and his continued silence began to discomfit Lessa. She rose, rubbing her palms on her thighs as if she could erase her last hasty words. She paced back and forth, glancing from her sleeping chamber into Ramoth's, where the golden queen, now larger than any of the bronze dragons, lay in deep slumber.

If only she would wake, Lessa thought. When she's awake, everything's all right. As right as it can be, that is. But she's like a rock.

«So . . .» she began, trying to keep her nervousness out of her voice, «F'lar is at last doing something, even if it is cutting off our one source of supply.»

«Lytol sent in a message this morning,» F'nor said curtly. His anger had subsided, but not his disapproval

Lessa turned to face him, expectantly.

«Telgar and Fort have conferred with Keroon,» F'nor went on heavily. «They've decided the Weyr is behind their losses. Why,» and his anger Flared hot again, «if you picked K'net, didn't you keep a close check on him? He's too green. C'gan, T'sum, I would have…»

«You? You don't sneeze without F'lar's consent,» she retorted.

F'nor laughed outright at her.

«F'lar did give you more credit than you deserve,» he replied, contemptuous of his own turn. «Haven't you realized why he must wait?»

«No,» Lessa shouted at him. «I haven't! Is this something I must divine, by instinct, like the dragons? By the shell of the first Egg, F'nor, no one explains anything to me!

«But it is nice to know that he has a reason for waiting. I just hope it's valid. That it is not too late already. Because I think it is.»

It was too late when he stopped me from reinforcing T'bor, she thought, but refrained from saying. Instead, she added, «It was too late when R'gul was too cowardly to feel the shame of…»

F'nor swung on her, his face white with anger. «It took more courage than you'll ever have to watch that moment slide by.»

«Why?»

F'nor took a halt step forward, so menacingly that Lessa steeled herself for a blow. He mastered the impulse, shaking his head violently to control himself.

«It is not R'gul's fault,» he said finally, his face old and drawn, his eyes troubled and hurt. «It has been hard, hard to watch and to know you had to wait.»

«Why?» Lessa all but shrieked.

F'nor would no longer be goaded. He continued in a quiet voice.

«I thought you ought to know, but it goes against F'lar's grain to apologize for one of his own.»

Lessa bit back the sarcastic remark that rose to her lips, lest she interrupt this long-awaited enlightenment.

«R'gul is Weyrleader only by default. He'd be well enough, I suppose, if there hadn't been such a long Interval. The Records warn of the dangers…»

«Records? Dangers? What do you mean by Interval?»

«An Interval occurs when the Red Star does not pass close enough to excite the Threads. The Records indicate it takes about two hundred Turns before the Red Star swings back again. F'lar figures nearly twice that time has elapsed since the last Threads fell.»

Lessa glanced apprehensively eastward. F'nor nodded solemnly.

«Yes, and it'd be rather easy to forget fear and caution in four hundred years. R'gul's a good fighter and a good wingleader, but he has to see and touch and smell danger before he admits it exists. Oh, he learned the Laws and all the Traditions, but he never understood them in his bones. Not the way F'lar does or the way I have come to,» he added defiantly, seeing the skeptical expression on Lessa's face. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed an accusing finger at her. «Nor the way you do, only you don't know why.»

She backed away, not from him but from the menace she knew existed, even if she didn't know why she believed.

«The moment F'lar Impressed Mnementh, F'lon began training him to take over. Then F'lon got himself killed in that ridiculous brawl.» An expression comprised of anger, regret, and irritation passed over F'nor's face. Belatedly Lessa realized the man was speaking of his father.

«F'lar was too young to take over, and before anyone could intervene, R'gul got Hath to fly Nemorth and we had to wait. But R'gul couldn't control Jora's grief over F'lon, and she deteriorated rapidly. And he misinterpreted F'lon's plan for carrying us over the last of the Interval to mean isolation. Consequently»-F'nor shrugged expressively-«the Weyr lost prestige faster all the time.»

«Time, time, time,» Lessa railed. «It's always the wrong time. When is now the time?»

«Listen to me.» F'nor's stern words interrupted her tirade as effectively as if he had grabbed and shaken her. She had not suspected F'nor of such forcefulness. She looked at him with increased respect.

«Ramoth is full-grown, ready for her first mating flight. When she flies, all the bronzes rise to catch her. The strongest does not always get the queen. Sometimes it is the one everyone in the Weyr wants to have win her.» He enunciated his words slowly and clearly. «That was how R'gul got Hath to fly Nemorth. The older riders wanted R'gul. They couldn't stomach a nineteen-year-old over them as Weyrleader, son though he was to F'lon. So Hath got Nemorth. And they got R'gul. They got what they wanted. And look what they've got!» His scornful gesture took in the threadbare weyr.

«It is too late, it is too late,» Lessa moaned, understanding a great deal, too well, too late.

«It may be, thanks to your prodding K'net into uncontrolled raiding,» F'nor assured her cynically. «You didn't need him, you know. Our wing was handling it quietly. But when so much kept coming in, we cut our operations down. It's a case of too much too soon, since the Hold Lords are getting imprudent enough to retaliate. Think, Lessa of Pern,» and F'nor leaned toward her, his smile bitter, «what R'gul's reaction will be. You didn't stop to think of that, did you? Think, now, what he will do when the well-armed Lords of the Hold appear, to demand satisfaction?»

Lessa closed her eyes, appalled at the scene she could picture all too clearly. She caught at her chairarm, limply sat down, undone by the knowledge she had miscalculated. Overconfident because she had been able to bring haughty Fax to his death, she was about to bring the Weyr to its ruin through that same arrogance.

There was suddenly noise enough for half the Weyr to be storming up the passageway from the ledge. She could hear the dragons calling excitedly to each other, the first outburst she had heard from them in two months.

Startled, she jumped up. Had F'lar failed to intercept K'net? Had K'net, by some horrible chance, been caught by the Lords? Together she and F'nor rushed out into the queen's weyr.

It was not F'lar and K'net and an angry Lord-or several-in tow who entered. It was R'gul. his cautious face distorted, his eyes wide with excitement. From the outside, ledge Lessa could hear Hath generating the same intense agitation. R'gul shot a quick glance at Ramoth. who slumbered on obliviously. His eyes as he approached Lessa were coldly calculating D'nol came rushing into the weyr at a dead run, hastily buckling on his tunic. Close on his heels came S'lan, S'lel, T'bor. They all converged in a loose semicircle around Lessa.

R'gul stepped forward, arm outstretched as if to embrace her. Before Lessa could step back, for there was something in R'gul's expression that revolted her, F'nor moved adroitly to her side, and R'gul, angry, lowered his arm.

«Hath is blooding his kill?» the brown rider asked ominously.

«Binth and Orth, too,» T'bor blurted out, his eyes bright with the curious fever that seemed to be affecting all the bronze riders.

Ramoth stirred restlessly, and everyone paused to watch her intently.

«Blood their kill?» Lessa exclaimed, perplexed but knowing that this was strangely significant.

«Call in K'net and F'lar,» F'nor ordered with more authority than a brown rider should use in the presence of bronzes.

R'gul's laugh was unpleasant.

«No one knows where they went.»

D'nol started to protest, but R'gul cut him off with a savage gesture.

«You wouldn't dare, R'gul,» F'nor said with cold menace.

Well, Lessa would dare. Her frantic appeal to Mnementh and Piyanth produced a faint reply. Then there was absolute blankness where Mnementh had been.

«She will wake,» R'gul was saying, his eyes piercing Lessa's. «She will wake and rise ill-tempered. You must allow her only to blood her kill. I warn you she will resist. If you do not restrain her, she will gorge and cannot fly.»

«She rises to mate,» F'nor snapped, his voice edged with cold and desperate fury.

«She rises to mate with whichever bronze can catch her,» R'gul continued, his voice exultant.

And he means for F'lar not to be here, Lessa realized.

«The longer the flight, the better the clutch. And she cannot fly well or high if she is stuffed with heavy meat. She must not gorge. She must be permitted only to blood her kill. Do you understand?»

«Yes, R'gul,» Lessa said, «I understand. For once I do understand you, all too well. F'lar and K'net are not here.» Her voice grew shrill. «But Ramoth will never be flown by Hath if I have to take her between.»

She saw naked fear and shock wipe R'gul's face clear of triumph, and she watched as he got himself under control. A malevolent sneer replaced surprise at her threat. Did he think her defiance was empty?

«Good afternoon,» said F'lar pleasantly from the entrance. K'net grinned broadly at his side. «Mnementh informs me that the bronzes blood their kill. How kind of you to call us in for the spectacle.»

Relief temporarily swept her recent antagonism for F'lar out of Lessa's mind. The sight of him, calm, arrogant, mocking, buoyed her.

R'gul's eyes darted around the semicircle of bronze riders, trying to pick out who had called in these two. And Lessa knew R'gul hated as well as feared F'lar. She could sense, too, that F'lar had changed. There was nothing passive or indifferent or detached about him now. Instead, there was tense anticipation. F'lar was done with waiting!

Ramoth roused, suddenly and completely awake. Her mind was in such a state that Lessa candidly realized F'lar and K'net had arrived none too soon. So intense were Ramoth's hunger pangs that Lessa hastened to her head to soothe her. But Ramoth was in no mood for placation.

With unexpected agility she rose, making for the ledge. Lessa ran after her, followed by the dragonmen. Ramoth hissed in agitation at the bronzes who hovered near the ledge. They scattered quickly out of her way. Their riders made for the broad stairs that led from the queen's weyr to the Bowl.

In a daze Lessa felt F'nor place her on Canth's neck and urge his dragon quickly after the others to the feeding grounds. Lessa watched, amazed, as Ramoth glided effortlessly and gracefully in over the alarmed, stampeding herd. She struck quickly, seizing her kill by the neck and furling her wings suddenly, dropping down on it, too ravenous to carry it aloft.

«Control her!» F'nor gasped, depositing Lessa unceremoniously to the ground.

Ramoth screamed defiance of her Weyrwoman's order. She sloughed her head around, rustling her wings angrily, her eyes blazing opalescent pools of fire. She extended her neck skyward to its full reach, shrilling her insubordination. The harsh echoes reverberated against the walls of the Weyr. All around, the dragons, blue, green, brown, and bronze, extended their wings in mighty sweeps, their answering calls brass thunder in the air.

Now indeed must Lessa call on the strength of will she had developed through hungry, vengeful years. Ramoth's wedge-shaped head whipped back and forth; her eyes glowed with incandescent rebellion. This was no amiable, trusting dragon child. This was a violent demon.

Across the bloody field Lessa matched wills with the transformed Ramoth. With no hint of weakness, no vestige of fear or thought of defeat. Lessa forced Ramoth to obey. Screeching protest, the golden dragon dropped her head to her kill, her tongue lashing at the inert body, her great jaws opening. Her head wavered over the steaming entrails her claws had ripped out. With a final snarl of reproach, Ramoth fastened her teeth on the thick throat of the buck and sucked the carcass dry of blood.

«Hold her,» F'nor murmured. Lessa had forgotten him.

Ramoth rose, screaming, and with incredible speed landed on a second squealing buck. She made a second attempt to eat from the soft belly of her kill. Again Lessa exerted her authority and won. Shrilling defiance, Ramoth reluctantly blooded again.

She did not resist Lessa's orders the third time. The dragon had begun to realize now that irresistible instinct was upon her. She had not known anything but fury until she got the taste of hot blood. Now she knew what she needed: to fly fast, far, and long, away from the Weyr, away from these puny, wingless ones, far in advance of those rutting bronzes.

Dragon instinct was limited to here-and-now, with no ability to control or anticipate. Mankind existed in partnership with them to supply wisdom and order, Lessa found herself chanting silently.

Without hesitation, Ramoth struck for the fourth time, hissing with greed as she sucked at the beast's throat.

A tense silence had fallen over the Weyr Bowl, broken only by the sound of Ramoth's feeding and the high keening of the wind.

Ramoth's skin began to glow. She seemed to enlarge, not with gorging but with luminescence. She raised her bloody head, her tongue forking out to lick her muzzle. She straightened, and simultaneously a hum arose from the bronzes ringing the feeding ground in silent anticipation.

With a sudden golden movement Ramoth arched her great back. She sprang into the sky, wings wide. With unbelievable speed she was airborne. After her, in the blink of an eye, seven bronze shapes followed, their mighty wings churning buffets of sand-laden air into the faces of the watching weyrfolk.

Her heart in her mouth at the prodigious flight, Lessa felt her soul lifting with Ramoth.

«Stay with her,» F'nor whispered urgently. «Stay with her. She must not escape your control now.»

He stepped away from Lessa, back among the folk of the Weyr, who, as one, turned their eyes skyward to the disappearing shining motes of the dragons.

Lessa, her mind curiously suspended, retained only enough physical consciousness to realize that she was in fact earthbound.

All other sense and feeling were aloft with Ramoth And she, Ramoth-Lessa, was alive with limitless power, her wings beating effortlessly to the thin heights, elation surging through her frame, elation and-desire.

She sensed rather than saw the great bronze males pursuing her. She was contemptuous of their ineffectual efforts. For she was wingfree and unconquerable.

She snaked her head under one wing and mocked their puny efforts with shrill taunts. High above them she soared. Suddenly, folding her wings, she plummeted down, delighting to see them veer off in wingcrowding haste to avoid collision.

She soared quickly above them again as they labored to make up their lost speed and altitude.

So Ramoth flirted leisurely with her lovers, splendid in her newfound freedom, daring the bronze ones to outfly her.

One dropped, spent. She crowed her superiority. Soon a second abandoned the chase as she played with them, diving and darting in intricate patterns. Sometimes she was oblivious of their existence, so lost was she in the thrill of flight.

When, at last, a little bored, she condescended to glance at her followers, she was vaguely amused to see only three great beasts still pursuing. She recognized Mnementh, Orth, and Hath. All in their prime; worthy, perhaps, of her.

She glided down, tantalizing them, amused at their now labored nights. Hath she couldn't bear. Orth? Now Orth was a fine young beast. She dropped her wings to slide between him and Mnementh.

As she swung past Mnementh, he suddenly closed his wings and dropped beside her. Startled, she tried to hover and found her wings fouled with his, his neck winding tightly about hers.

Entwined, they fell. Mnementh, calling on hidden reserves of strength, spread his wings to check their downward fall. Outmaneuvered and startled by the terrific speed of their descent, Ramoth, too, extended her great wings. And then…

Lessa reeled, her hands wildly grabbing out for any support. She seemed to be exploding back into her body, every nerve throbbing.

«Don't faint, you fool. Stay with her.» F'lar's voice grated in her ear. His arms roughly sustained her.

She tried to focus her eyes. She caught a startled glimpse of the walls of her own weyr. She clutched at F'lar, touching bare skin, shaking her head, confused.

«Bring her back.»

«How?» she cried, panting, unable to comprehend what could possibly entice Ramoth from such glory.

The pain of stinging blows on her face made her angrily aware of F'lar's disturbing proximity. His eyes were wild, his mouth distorted.

«Think with her. She cannot go between. Stay with her.»

Trembling at the thought of losing Ramoth between, Lessa sought the dragon, still locked wing to wing with Mnementh.

The mating passion of the two dragons at that moment spiraled wide to include Lessa. A tidal wave rising relentlessly from the sea of her soul flooded Lessa. With a longing cry she clung to F'lar. She felt his body rock-firm against hers, his hard arms lifting her up, his mouth fastening mercilessly on hers as she drowned deep in another unexpected flood of desire.

«Now! We bring them safely home,» he murmured.

CHAPTER III

F'lar came suddenly awake. He listened attentively, heard and was reassured by Mnementh's gratified rumble. The bronze was perched on the ledge outside the queen's weyr. All was peacefully in order in the Bowl below.

Peaceful but different. F'lar, through Mnementh's eyes and senses, perceived this instantly. There was an overnight change in the Weyr. F'lar permitted himself a satisfied grin at the previous day's tumultuous events. Something might have gone wrong.

Something nearly did, Mnementh reminded him.

Who had called K'net and himself back? F'lar mused again. Mnementh only repeated that he had been called back. Why wouldn't he identify the informer?

A nagging worry intruded on F'lar's waking ruminations.

«Did F'nor remember to . . .» he began aloud.

F'nor never forgets your orders, Mnementh reassured him testily. Canth told me that the sighting at dawn today puts the Red Star at the top of the Eye Rock. The sun is still off. too.

F'lar ran impatient fingers through his hair. «At the top of the Eye Rock. Closer, and closer the Red Star came,» just as the Old Records predicted. And that dawn when the Star gleamed scarlet at the watcher through the Eye Rock heralded a dangerous passing and … the Threads.

There was certainly no other explanation for that careful arrangement of gigantic stones and special rocks on Benden Peak. Nor for its counterpart on the eastern walls of each of the five abandoned Weyrs.

First, the Finger Rock on which the rising sun balanced briefly at dawn at the winter solstice. Then, two dragon lengths behind it, the rectangular, enormous Star Stone, chest-high to a tall man, its polished surface incised by two arrows, one pointing due east toward the Finger Rock, the other slightly north of due east, aimed directly at the Eye Rock, so ingeniously and immovably set into the Star Stone.

One dawn. in the not too distant future, he would look through the Eye Rock and meet the baleful blink of the Red Star. And then …

Sounds of vigorous splashing interrupted F'lar's reflections. He grinned again as he realized it was the girl bathing. She certainly cleaned up pretty, and undressed . . . He stretched with leisurely recollection, reviewing what his reception from that quarter might be. She ought to have no complaints at all. What a flight! He chuckled softly.

Mnementh commented from the safety of his ledge that F'lar had better watch his step with Lessa.

Lessa, is it? thought F'lar back to his dragon.

Mnementh enigmatically repeated his caution. F'lar chuckled his self-confidence.

Suddenly Mnementh was alert to an alarm.

Watchers were sending out a rider to identify the unusually persistent dust clouds on the plateau below Benden Lake, Mnementh informed his wingleader crisply.

F'lar rose hastily, gathered up his scattered clothes, and dressed. He was buckling the wide rider's belt when the curtain to the bathing room was flipped aside. Lessa confronted him, fully clothed.

He was always surprised to see how slight she was, an incongruous physical vessel for such strength of mind. Her newly washed hair framed her narrow face with a dark cloud. There was no hint in her composed eyes of the dragon-roused passion they had experienced together yesterday. There was no friendliness about her at all. No warmth. Was this what Mnementh meant? What was the matter with the girl?

Mnementh gave an additional alarming report, and F'lar set his jaw. He would have to postpone the understanding they must reach intellectually until after this emergency. To himself he damned R'gul's green handling of her. The man had all but ruined the Weyrwoman, as he had all but destroyed the Weyr.

Well, F'lar, bronze Mnementh's rider, was now Weyrleader, and changes were long overdue.

Long overdue, Mnementh confirmed dryly. The Lords of the Holds gather in force on the lake plateau.

«There's trouble,» F'lar announced to Lessa by way of greeting. His announcement did not appear to alarm her.

«The Lords of the Hold come to protest?» she asked coolly.

He admired her composure even as he decried her part in this development.

«You'd have done better to let me handle the raiding. K'net s still boy enough to be carried away with the joy of it all.»

Her slight smile was secretive. F'lar wondered fleetingly if that wasn't what she had intended in the first place. Had Ramoth not risen yesterday, it would be a different story altogether today. Had she thought of that?

Mnementh forewarned him that R'gul was at the ledge. R'gul was all chest and indignant eye, the dragon commented, which meant he was feeling his authority.

«He has none,» F'lar snapped .out loud, thoroughly awake and pleased with events, despite their precipitation. «R'gul?»

She was quick-witted all right, F'lar admitted. «Come, girl.» He gestured her toward the queen's weyr. The scene he was about to play with R'gul ought to redeem that shameful day in the Council Room two months back. He knew it had rankled in her as in him.

They had no sooner entered the queen's weyr than R'gul, followed by an excited K'net, stormed in from the opposite side.

«The watch informs me,» R'gul began, «that there is a large body of armed men, with banners of many Holds, approaching the Tunnel. K'net here»-R'gul was furious with the youngster-«confesses he has been raiding systematically-against all reason and most certainly against my distinct orders. Of course, we'll deal with him later,» he informed the errant rider ominously, «that is, if there is a Weyr left after the Lords are through with us.»

He turned back to F'lar, his frown deepening as he realized F'lar was grinning at him.

«Don't stand there,» R'gul growled. «There's nothing to grin about. We've got to think how to placate them.»

«No, R'gul,» F'lar contradicted the older man, still grinning, «the days of placating the Lords are over.»

«What? Are you out of your mind?»

«No. But you are out of order,» F'lar said, his grin gone, his face stern.

R'gul's eyes widened as he stared at F'lar as if he had never seen him before.

«You've forgotten a very important fact,» F'lar went on ruthlessly. «Policy changes when the leader of the Weyr is replaced. I, F'lar, Mnementh's rider, am Weyrleader now.»

On that ringing phrase, S'lel, D'nol, T'bor, and S'lan came striding into the room. They stopped, shock-still, staring at the motionless tableau.

F'lar waited, giving them a chance to absorb the fact that the dissension in the room meant that authority had indeed passed to him «Mnementh,» he said aloud, «call in all wingseconds and brown riders. We've some arrangements to make before our . . . guests arrive. As the queen is asleep, dragonmen, into the Council Room, please. After you, Weyrwoman.»

He stepped aside to permit Lessa to pass, noticing the slight flush on her cheeks. She was not completely in command of her emotions, after all.

No sooner had they taken places at the Council Table than the brown riders began to stream in. F'lar took careful note of the subtle difference in their attitudes. They walked taller, he decided. And-yes, the air of defeat and frustration was replaced by tense excitement. All else being equal, today's events ought to revive the pride and purpose of the Weyr.

F'nor and T'sum, his own seconds, strode in. There was no doubt of their high, proud good humor. Their eyes flashed around daring anyone to defy their promotion as T'sum stood by the archway and F'nor marched smartly around to his position behind F'lar's chair. F'nor paused to make a deeply respectful bow to the girl. F'lar saw her flush and drop her eyes.

«Who's at our gate, F'nor?» the new Weyrleader asked affably.

«The Lords of Telgar, Nabol, Fort, and Keroon, to name the principal banners,» F'nor answered in a similar vein.

R'gul rose from his chair; the half-formed protest died on his lips as he caught the expression in the faces of the bronze riders. S'lel, beside him, started to mumble, picking at his lower lip. «Estimated strength?»

«In excess of a thousand. In good order and well armed,» F'nor reported indifferently.

F'lar shot his second a remonstrating look. Confidence was one thing, indifference preferable to defeat, but there was no wisdom in denying the situation was very tight.

«Against the Weyr?» S'lel gasped. «Are we dragonmen or cowards?» D'nol snapped, jumping up, his fist pounding the table. «This is the final insult.»

«Indeed it is,» F'lar concurred heartily. «It has to be put down. We'll swallow no more,» D'nol continued vehemently, encouraged by F'lar's attitude. «A few flaming …»

«That's enough,» F'lar said in a hard voice. «We are dragonmen! Remember that, and remember also –never forget it-this fellowship is sworn to protect.» He enunciated that word distinctly, pinning each man with a fierce stare. «Is that point clear?» He glared questioningly at D'nol. There were to be no private heroics today.

«We do not need firestone,» he continued, certain that D'nol had taken, his meaning, «to disperse these foolish Lords.» He leaned back and went on more calmly, «I noticed on Search, as I'm sure you all did, that the common holder has not lost one jot of his … let us say … respect for dragonkind.»

T'bor grinned, and someone chuckled reminiscently.

«Oh, they follow their Lords quickly enough, incited with indignation and lots of new wine. But it's quite another matter to face a dragon, hot, tired, and cold sober. Not to mention on foot without a wall or Hold in sight.» He could sense their concurrence. «The mounted men, too, will be too much occupied with their beasts to do any serious fighting,» he added with a chuckle, echoed by most of the men in the room.

«However consoling these reflections are, there are more powerful factors in our favor. I doubt the good Lords of the Hold have bothered to review them. I suspect»-he glanced around sardonically at his riders –«they have probably forgotten them … as they have conveniently forgotten so much dragonlore . . . and tradition.

«It is now time to reeducate them.» His voice was steel. An affirming mutter answered him. Good, he had them.

«For instance, they are here at our gates. They've traveled long and hard to reach this remote Weyr. Undoubtedly some units have been marching for weeks. F'nor,» he said in a calculated aside, «remind me to discuss patrol schedules later today. Ask yourselves this, dragonmen, if the Lords of the Holds are here, who is holding the Holds for the Lords? Who keeps guard on the Inner Hold, over all the Lords hold dear?»

He heard Lessa chuckling wickedly. She was quicker than any of the bronze riders. He had chosen well that day in Ruatha, even if it had meant killing while on Search.

«Our Weyrwoman perceives my plan. T'sum, implement it.» He snapped that order out crisply. T'sum, grinning broadly, departed.

«I don't understand,» S'lel complained, blinking in confusion.

«Oh, let me explain,» Lessa put in quickly, her words couched in the sweet, reasonable tone F'lar was learning to identify as Lessa at her worst. He couldn't blame her for wanting to get some of her own back from S'lel, but this taste of hers for vengeance could become pernicious.

«Someone ought to explain something,» S'lel said querulously. «I don't like what's going on. Holders at the Tunnel Road. Dragons permitted firestone. I don't understand.»

«It's so simple,» Lessa assured him sweetly, not waiting for F'lar's permission. «I'm embarrassed to have to explain.»

«Weyrwoman!» F'lar called her sharply to order.

She didn't look at him, but she did stop needling S'lel.

«The Lords have left their Holds unprotected,» she said. «They appear not to have considered that dragons can move between in seconds. T'sum, if I am not mistaken, has gone to assemble sufficient hostages from the unguarded Holds to insure that the Lords respect the sanctity of the Weyr.» F'lar nodded confirmation. Lessa's eyes flashed angrily as she continued. «It is not the fault of the Lords that they have lost respect for the Weyr. The Weyr has …»

«The Weyr.» F'lar cut in sharply. Yes, he would have to watch this slim girl very carefully and very respectfully. «. . . the Weyr is about to insist on its traditional rights and prerogatives. Before I outline exactly how, Weyrwoman, would you greet our newest guests? A few words might be in order to reinforce the object lesson we will impress on all Pernese today.»

The girl's eyes sparkled with anticipation. She grinned with such intense pleasure that F'lar wondered if he was wise to let her instruct the defenseless hostages.

«I rely on your discretion,» he said emphatically, «and intelligence to handle the assignment adroitly.» He caught her glance, held it until she briefly inclined her head in acknowledgement of his admonition. As she left, he sent a word ahead to Mnementh to keep an eye on her.

Mnementh informed him that that would be wasted effort. Hadn't Lessa shown more wit than anyone else in the Weyr? She was circumspect by instinct.

Circumspect enough to have precipitated today's invasion, F'lar reminded his dragon.

«But… the … Lords,» R'gul was sputtering.

«Oh, freeze up,» K'net suggested. «If we hadn't listened to you for so long, we wouldn't be in this position at all. Shove between if you don't like it, but F'lar is Weyrleader now. And I say about time!»

«K'net! R'gul!» F'lar called them to order, shouting over the cheers K'net's impudent words produced. «These are my orders,» he went on when he had their complete attention. «I expect them to be followed exactly.» He glanced at each man to be sure there was no further question of his authority. Then he outlined his intentions concisely and quickly, watching with satisfaction as uncertainty was replaced with admiring respect.

Assured that every bronze and brown rider understood the plan perfectly, he asked Mnementh for the latest report.

The advancing army was streaming out across the lake plateau, the foremost units on the Tunnel road, the one ground entrance to the Weyr. Mnementh added that the Holders' women were profiting from their stay in the Weyr.

«In what way?» F'lar demanded immediately.

Mnementh rumbled with the dragon equivalent of laughter. Two of the young greens were feeding, that was all. But for some reason such a normal occupation appeared to upset the women.

The woman was diabolically clever, F'lar thought privately, careful not to let Mnementh sense his concern. That bronze clown was as besotted with the rider as he was with the queen. What kind of fascination did the Weyrwoman have for a bronze dragon?

«Our guests are at the lake plateau,» he told the dragonmen. «You have your positions. Order your wings out.» Without a backward look, he marched out, conquering an intense urge to hurry to the ledge. He absolutely did not want those hostages scared witless.

Down the valley by the lake, the women were lightly attended by four of the smallest greens-big enough for the uninitiated-and the women were probably too scared at having been seized to notice that all four riders were barely out of adolescence. He spotted the slight figure of the Weyrwoman, seated to one side of the main group. A sound of muffled weeping drifted up to his ears. He looked beyond them, to the feeding grounds, and saw a green dragon single out a buck and run it down. Another green was perched on a ledge above, eating with typical messy, dragon greed. F'lar shrugged and mounted Mnementh, clearing the ledge for the hovering dragons who waited to pick up their own riders.

As Mnementh circled above the confusion of wings and gleaming bodies, F'lar nodded approvingly. A high, fast mating flight coupled with the promise of action improved everyone's morale.

Mnementh snorted.

F'lar paid him no attention, watching R'gul as he assembled his wing. The man had taken a psychological defeat. He would bear watching and careful handling. Once the Threads started to fall and R'gul's faith was restored, he'd come around.

Mnementh asked him if they should pick up the Weyrwoman.

«She doesn't belong in this,» F'lar said sharply, wondering why under the double moons the bronze had made such a suggestion. Mnementh replied that he thought Lessa would like to be there.

D'nol's wing and T'bor's rose in good formation. Those two were making good leaders. K'net took up a double wing to the Bowl lip and winked out neatly, bound to reappear behind the approaching army. C'gan, the old blue rider, had the youngsters organized.

F'lar told Mnementh to have Canth tell F'nor to proceed. With a final look to be sure the stones to the Lower Caverns were in place, F'lar gave Mnementh the signal to go between.

CHAPTER IV

Larad, lord of Telgar, eyed the walls of Benden Weyr. The striated stone looked like frozen waterfalls at sunset. And about as hospitable. Almost moribund awe squirmed at the back of his mind, of the blasphemy he and the army he led were about to commit. He stifled that thought firmly.

The Weyr had outlived its usefulness. That was obvious. There was no longer any need for the Holders to give up the profits of their sweat and labor to the lazy weyrfolk. The Holders had been patient They had supported the Weyr in good part out of gratitude for past services. But the dragonmen had overstepped the borders of grateful generosity.

First, this archaic Search foolishness. So a queen egg was laid. Why did the dragonmen need to steal away the prettiest women among the Holders when they had women of their own in the Weyr proper? No need to appropriate Larad's sister, Kylora, eagerly awaiting a far different alliance with Brant of Igen one evening and gone on that ridiculous Search the next. Never heard from since, either.

And killing Fax! Albeit the man had been dangerously ambitious, he was of the Blood. And the Weyr had not been asked to meddle in the affairs of the High Reaches.

But this steady pilfering. That was beyond enough. Oh, a holder might excuse a few bucks now and again. But when a dragon appeared out of nowhere (a talent that disturbed Larad deeply) and snatched the best stud bucks from a herd carefully protected and nurtured, that tore it!

The Weyr must be made to understand its subordinate position in Pern. It would have to make other provisions to victual its people, for no further tithes would come from anyone. Benden, Bitra, and Lemos would come around soon. They ought to be pleased to end this superstitious domination by the Weyr.

Nevertheless, the closer they came to the gigantic mountain, the more doubts Larad experienced as to just how in the world the Lords would penetrate that massif. He signaled Meron, so-called Lord of Nabol (he didn't really trust this sharp-faced ex-Warder with no Blood at all) to draw his riding beast closer.

Meron whipped his mount abreast of Larad.

«There is no other way into the Weyr proper but the Tunnel?»

Meron shook his head. «Even the locals are agreed.»

This did not dismay Meron, but he caught Larad's doubtful expression.

«I have sent a party on ahead, to the southern lip of the Peak,» and he indicated the area. «There might be a low, scalable cliff there where the brow dips.»

«You sent a party without consulting us? I was named leader . . .»

«True,» Meron agreed, with an amiable show of teeth. «A mere notion of mine.»

«A distinct possibility, I agree, but you'd have done better …» Larad glanced up at the Peak.

«They have seen us, have no doubt of that, Larad,» Meron assured him, contemptuously regarding the silent Weyr. «That will be sufficient. Deliver our ultimatum and they will surrender before such a force as ours. They've proved themselves cowards over and over. I gave insult twice to the bronze rider they call F'lar, and he ignored it. What man would?»

A sudden rustling roar and a blast of the coldest air in the world interrupted their conference. As he mastered his plunging beast, Larad caught a confused panorama of dragons all colors, sizes, and everywhere. The air was filled with the panic-stricken shrieks of plunging beasts, the cries of startled, terrified men.

Larad managed, with great effort, to drag his beast around to face the dragonmen.

By the Void that spawned us, he thought, struggling to control his own fear, I'd forgotten dragons are so big.

Foremost in that frightening array was a triangular formation of four great bronze beasts, their wings overlapping in a tremendous criss-cross pattern as they hovered just above the ground. A dragon's length above and beyond them, there ranged a second line, longer, wider, of brown beasts. Curving beyond them and higher up were blue and green and more brown beasts, all with they huge wings fanning cold air in great drafts on the terrified mob that had been an army moments before.

Where did that piercing cold come from, Larad wondered. He yanked down on his beast's mouth as it began to plunge again.

The dragonmen just sat there on their beasts' necks, watching, waiting.

«Get them off their beasts and the things away so we can talk,» Meron shouted to Larad as his mount cavorted and screamed in terror.

Larad signaled foot soldiers forward, but it took four men per mount to quiet them enough so the Lords could dismount.

Miscalculation number two, Larad thought with grim humor. We forgot the effect of dragons on the beasts of Pern. Man included. Settling his sword, pulling his gloves up onto his wrists, he jerked his head at the other Lords, and they all moved forward.

As he saw the Lords dismount, F'lar told Mnementh to pass the word to land the first three ranks. Like a great wave, the dragons obediently settled to the ground, furling their wings with an enormous rustling sigh.

Mnementh told F'lar that the dragons were excited and pleased. This was much more fun than Games.

F'lar told Mnementh sternly that this was not fun at all.

«Larad of Telgar,» the foremost man introduced himself, his voice crisp, his manner soldierly and confident for one relatively young.

«Meron of Nabol.»

F'lar immediately recognized the swarthy face with the sharp features and restless eyes. A mean and provocative fighter.

Mnementh relayed F'lar an unusual message from the Weyr. F'lar nodded imperceptibly and continued to acknowledge introductions.

«I have been appointed spokesman,» Larad of Telgar began. «The Holder Lords unanimously agree that the Weyr has outlived its function. Consequently demands from the Weyr are out of order. There are to be no more Searches among our Holds. No more raiding on the herds and barns of any Hold by any dragonfolk.»

F'lar gave him courteous attention. Larad was well-spoken and succinct. F'lar nodded. He looked at each of the Lords before him carefully, getting their measure. Their stern faces expressed their conviction and righteous indignation.

«As Weyrleader, I, F'lar, Mnementh's rider, answer you. Your complaint is heard. Now listen to what the Weyrleader commands.» His casual pose was gone. Mnementh rumbled a menacing counterpoint to his rider's voice as it rang harshly metallic across the plateau, the words carried clearly back so that even the mob heard him.

«You will turn and go back to your Holds. You will then go into your barns and among your herds. You will make a just and equable tithe. This will be on its way to the Weyr within three days of your return.»

«The Weyrleader is ordering the Lords to tithe?» Meron of Nabol's. derisive laugh rang out.

F'lar signaled, and two more wings of dragonmen appeared to hover over the Nabolese contingent.

«The Weyrleader gives orders to the Lords to tithe,» F'lar affirmed. «And until such time as the Lords do send their tithings, we regret that the ladies of Nabol, Telgar, Fort, Igen, Keroon must make their homes with us. Also, the ladies of Hold Balan, Hold Gar, Hold .. .»

He paused, for the Lords were muttering angrily and excitedly among themselves as they heard this list of hostages. F'lar gave Mnementh a quick message to relay.

«Your bluff won't work,» Meron sneered, stepping forward, his hand on his sword hilt. Raiding among the herds could be credited; it had happened. But the Holds were sacrosanct! They'd not dare-

F'lar asked Mnementh to pass the signal, and T'sum's wing appeared. Each rider held a Lady on the neck of his dragon. T'sum held his group aloft but close enough so the Lords could identify each scared or hysterical woman.

Meron's face contorted with shock and new hatred.

Larad stepped forward, tearing his eyes from his own Lady. She was a new wife to him and much beloved. It was small consolation that she neither wept nor fainted, being a quiet and brave little person.

«You have the advantage of us,» Larad admitted bleakly. «We will retire and send the tithe.» He was about to wheel when Meron pushed forward, his face wild.

«We tamely submit to their demands? Who is a dragonman to order us?»

«Shut up,» Larad ordered, grabbing the Nabolese's arm.

F'lar raised his arm in an imperious signal. A wing of blues appeared, carrying Meron's would-be mountaineers, some bearing evidence of their struggle with the southern face of Benden Peak.

«Dragonmen do order. And nothing escapes their notice.» F'lar's voice rang out coldly.

«You will retire to your Holds. You will send proper tithing because we shall know if you do not. You will then proceed, under pain of firestone, to clear your habitations of green, craft and Hold alike. Good Telgar, look to that southern outer Hold of yours. The exposure is acutely vulnerable. Clear all firepits on ridge defenses. You've let them become fouled. The mines are to be reopened and firestone stockpiled.»

«Tithes, yes, but the rest . . .» Larad interrupted.

F'lar's arm shot skyward.

«Look up. Lord. Look well. The Red Star pulses by day as well as night. The mountains beyond Ista steam and spout flaming rock. The seas rage in high tides and flood the coast. Have you all forgotten the Sagas and Ballads? As you've forgotten the abilities of dragons? Can you dismiss these portents that always presage the coming of Threads?»

Meron would never believe until he saw the silver Threads streaking across the skies. But Larad and many of the others, F'lar knew, now did.

«And the queen,» he continued, «has risen to mate in her second year. Risen to mate and flown high and far.»

The heads of all before him jerked upward. Their eyes were wide. Meron, too, looked startled. F'lar heard R'gul gasp behind him, yet he dared not look, himself, lest it be a trick.

Suddenly, on the periphery of his vision, he caught the glint of gold in the sky.

Mnementh, he snapped, and Mnementh merely rumbled happily. The queen wheeled into view just then, a brave and glowing sight, F'lar grudgingly admitted.

Dressed in flowing white, Lessa was distinctly visible on the curved golden neck. Ramoth hovered, her wing-span greater than even Mnementh's as she vaned idly. From the way she arched her neck, it was obvious that Ramoth was in good and playful spirits, but F'lar was furious.

The spectacle of the queen aloft had quite an effect on all beholders. F'lar was aware of its impact on himself and saw it reflected in the faces of the incredulous Holders knew it from the way the dragons hummed, heard it from Mnementh.

«And, of course, our greatest Weyrwomen– Moreta, Torene, to name only a few-have all come from Ruatha Hold, as does Lessa of Pern.»

«Ruatha . . .» Meron grated out the name, clenched his jaw sullenly, his face bleak.

«Threads are coming?» asked Larad.

F'lar nodded slowly. «Your harper can reinstruct you on the signs. Good Lords, the tithe is required. Your women will be returned. The Holds are to be put in order. The Weyr prepares Pern, as the Weyr is pledged to protect Pern. Your cooperation is expected-« he paused significantly-«and will be enforced.»

With that, he vaulted to Mnementh's neck, keeping the queen always in sight. He saw her golden wings beat as the dragon turned and soared upward.

It was infuriating of Lessa to take this moment, when all his energy and attention ought to go to settling the Holders' grievance for a show of rebellion. Why did she have to flaunt her independence so, in full sight of the entire Weyr and all the Lords? He longed to chase immediately after her and could not. Not until he had seen the army in actual retreat, not until he had signaled for the final show of Weyr strength for the Holders' elucidation.

Gritting his teeth, he signaled Mnementh aloft. The wings rose behind him with spectacular trumpetings and dartings so that there appeared to be thousands of dragons in the air instead of the scant two hundred Benden Weyr boasted.

Assured that that part of his strategy was proceeding in order, he bade Mnementh fly after the Weyrwoman, who was now dipping and gliding high above the Weyr.

When he got his hands on that girl, he would tell her a thing or two….

Mnementh informed him caustically that telling her a thing or two might be a very good idea. Much better than flying so vengefully after a pair who were only trying their wings out. Mnementh reminded his irate rider that, after all, the golden dragon had flown far and wide yesterday, having blooded four, but had not eaten since. She'd be neither capable of nor interested in any protracted flying until she had eaten fully. However, if F'lar insisted on this ill-considered and completely unnecessary pursuit, he might just antagonize Ramoth into jumping between to escape him.

The very thought of that untutored pair going between cooled F'lar instantly. Controlling himself, he realized that Mnementh's judgment was more reliable than his at the moment. He'd let anger and anxiety influence his decisions, but…

Mnementh circled in to land at the Star Stone, the tip of Benden Peak being a fine vantage point from which F'lar could observe both the decamping army and the queen.

Mnementh's great eyes gave the appearance of whirling as the dragon adjusted his vision to its farthest reach.

He reported to F'lar that Piyanth's rider felt the dragons' supervision of the retreat was causing hysteria among the men and beasts. Injuries were occurring in the resultant stampedes.

F'lar immediately ordered K'net to assume surveillance altitude until the army camped for the night. He was to keep close watch on the Nabolese contingent at all times, however.

Even as F'lar had Mnementh relay these orders, he realized his mind had dismissed the matter. All his attention was really on that high-flying pair.

You had better teach her to fly between, Mnementh remarked, one great eye shining directly over F'lar's shoulder. She's quick enough to figure it out for herself, and then where are we?

F'lar let the sharp retort die on his lips as he watched, breathless. Ramoth suddenly folded her wings, a golden streak diving through the sky. Effortlessly she pulled out at the critical point and soared upward again.

Mnementh deliberately called to mind their first wildly acrobatic flight. A tender smile crossed F'lar's face, and suddenly he knew how much Lessa must have longed to fly, how bitter it must have been for her to watch the dragonets practice when she was forbidden to try.

Well, he was no R'gul, torn by indecision and doubt.

And she is no Jora, Mnementh reminded him pungently. I'm calling them in, the dragon added. Ramoth has turned a dull orange.

F'lar watched as the flyers obediently began a downward glide, the queen's wings arching and curving as she slowed her tremendous forward speed. Unfed or not, she could fly!

He mounted Mnementh, waving them on, down toward the feeding grounds. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Lessa, her face vivid with elation and rebellion.

Ramoth landed, and Lessa dropped to the ground, gesturing the dragon on to eat.

The girl turned then, watching Mnementh glide in and hover to let F'lar dismount. She straightened her shoulders, her chin lifted belligerently as her slender body gathered itself to face his censure. Her behavior was like that of any weyrling, anticipating punishment and determined to endure it, soundless. She was not the least bit repentant!

Admiration for this indomitable personality replaced the last trace of F'lar's anger. He smiled as he closed the distance between them.

Startled by his completely unexpected behavior, she took a half-step backward.

«Queens can, too, fly,» she blurted out, daring him.

His grin broadening to suffuse his face, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her an affectionate shake.

«Of course they can fly,» he assured her, his voice full of pride and respect. «That's why they have wings!»