The Masterharper of Pern

CHAPTER FOUR

Of Halanna's family, only the second brother, Landon, was able to attend the TurnOver performance since Halibran had unavoidable hold obligations.She was glad enough to see her brother, and he seemed more affectionately inclined towards her.Patently impressed by her demeanour as well as her singing, he remarked several times that he didn't recognize his own sister, she'd changed so much for the better.

Merelan took him to one side after his third loud pronouncement.

"I wouldn't make so much of her…good behaviour, Landon," she said kindly.

"But she has improved," he protested.

"Yes, but do you have to rub it in?"

"Oh, yes." He rubbed his tanned chin and gave Merelan a charmingly penitent smile."I see what you mean.But she's certainly turned inside out, and not before time, if you ask me, though you didn't.When she was a toddler, she was such a sweet thing…" His voice trailed off."Who's that?" he asked, suddenly suspicious as he noticed a young man in elegant TurnOver finery leading his sister on to the dance floor.

Merelan recognized one of the younger Ruathan nephews, Donkin, who was currently fostering with Lord Grogellan.As he had a good strong tenor voice, he usually joined the Harper Hall chorus.He'd been no more attentive to Halanna than half a dozen others brought in for the TurnOver performance.But, being from Ruathan Bloodlines, he'd be quite acceptable to the most particular of fathers as a possible spouse.

"Ruathan, you say?" Landon echoed, quite able to recognize

Donkin's suitability."Is she showing any preference?"

"Not that we've observed."

"Still keeping your eye on her?"

"No more than we keep our eyes on any of the young women in our care," Merelan replied pointedly.

"She has learned her lesson, then?"

Merelan thought his attitude was a shade arch, but he was himself young and had spoken to and treated his sister kindly since his arrival."She has learned a good deal more about the mechanics of both producing her voice and music in general.She has proved a good student."

"My father said she may stay on, if you think she should." Now he sounded less self-confident, and there was a hint of a plea in his tone.

"She has scarcely begun to learn the repertoire suitable for her range," Merelan told him willingly."And she has learned to play flute and gitar well enough to do ensemble work.We would certainly like to train her as far as she is willing to go."

"She'll be willing, I fancy," said Landon, his eyes watching Halanna going through the steps of the dance with the agile Donkin.The two were obviously enjoying themselves.

Halanna was smiling more tonight than she had done since her father's disciplining.And about time, too, Merelan thought.

"Come, Landon, you can't spend all your time as observer.I'd be happy to introduce you to any number of girls here."

"I'd like to dance with you, if you'd permit it, MasterSinger." He managed not only a charming smile but a graceful bow.

Merelan glanced about to check on Robie, playing with some other children his own age at the edge of the dance floor, and Petiron, who was explaining something, with considerable Gesturing, to one of the harpers home for TurnOver.Eventually he would remember that she loved to dance and oblige her, but she was quite willing to start with Landon.

"I'd love to dance, Holder Landon," she said and took his offered hand.

One of the features of the TurnOver celebrations was that everyone got a chance to play or sing, even those as young as Robinton and the other nursery children.They performed a song on the second day, each of them using a percussion instrument: tambourine, chimes, triangles, tom-toms, cymbals and the hand-bells.Robie had been chosen to beat the tempo on the small drum with the knucklebone, and Merelan glowed with pride at the fine and complex rhythm he managed.

She was disappointed that Petiron was too deep in discussion with Bristol, the Telgar harper, to notice Robinton's performance.

Bristol, like Petiron, was a composer, though his interests lay more in balladic works for the gitar than in full chorus and orchestra.His work was easy to remember and enjoyable to sing, though Merelan grimaced even to think so disloyally.

She was rather surprised, and certainly gratified, to see Bristol speaking to Robie later that afternoon.Robinton, his little face serious, was explaining something to the harper, who paid him the courtesy of attentive listening.If only Petiron would do the same…

She reminded herself that this was TurnOver and the new Turn was nearly on them.Just one more day of freedom from the usual routine.She was pleased with her hour's recital of the old traditional airs which had been part of these festivities since Fort Hold was founded.She'd had no trouble holding her audience, and the applause had been generously prolonged though she had kept her encores to three.As MasterSinger she knew when enough was enough.There were plenty of other performers to take the TurnOver stage.

Halanna had given young Donkin quite a few dances each evening, but she also partnered other lads, and Merelan was glad to see the girl relaxing and enjoying herself.Maybe that would restore the vibrancy which had initially characterized her rich voice.

But Merelan had overheard Halanna saying something to her brother which puzzled and alarmed her.

"Petiron's very strict and makes you measure up to his standard," the girl told Landon with a little grimace.Then she added in an entirely different, almost spiteful tone, "I can't wait until he realizes that that kid of his has far more talent in his little finger than he's got in all his fancy notes and difficult tempo."

How had Halanna known of Robie's innate musicality?She'd never paid any attention to him: in fact, she had steadfastly ignored his existence when she knew the child was in the next room during her lessons with Merelan.And what satisfaction would Halanna take when the father discovered his son's talent?

That problem caused Merelan not a few anxious hours, though she kept telling herself that surely Petiron would be delighted to realize his son was musically inclined."Inclined' was an understatement: Robinton seemed to absorb music as some children absorbed food.She was also aware that the child kept a cache of meticulously written tunes and airs: Washell and Bosler had told her so, saying that the music was "delightful'.Then there were the glances they had exchanged.She had been so pleased to hear their good opinion of Robie's progress that perhaps she had failed to realize the significance of their exchange.That was when she first saw the drum he had made and used in the percussion orchestra at TurnOver.

"Master Gorazde helped," he had informed her when he brought the drum home, "but I painted…" He ran a rather dirty finger along the blue and red lines which not too raggedly decorated the rim.

"An' I cutted the skin oh so careful." His eyes had rounded as he used a pretend knife in his hand to demonstrate how hard it had been to cut the hide."An' I nailed it." His mother did note that the brass nails were well aligned."Master Gorazde had me make dots where the nails go so they'd look even." He ran a finger along the shiny line."Hard work." And he grinned up at her.

"Lovey, I don't know when I've seen a better one.I'll bet you could sell it at the Harper Gather stall!"

He clutched the drum to him, which took some doing because it overlapped his chest."No, not this one, my first "stument, and I gotta improve a lot before Master Gorazde'll put a Harper stamp on it for sale."

With a pang to her heart, Merelan said nothing as he put it carefully on the shelf near his father's worktop.Maybe Petiron would notice and comment on it.

Two days later it was no longer in view, and she looked for the drum and finally found it hidden in his clothes chest.He never played it again.

"drum?What drum?" Petiron asked, surprised when she casually mentioned it.

"The one Robie made for the percussion group at TurnOver." Petiron frowned, and she was so distressed by his genuine puzzlement that she wished she hadn't asked.That the little drum, so lovingly constructed, had been so carefully concealed ought to have been warning enough.

"Oh, that one," Petiron said, turning back to checking apprentice papers."If Robinton really did have a hand in making it, I wouldn't have passed it for a Harper stamp."

Merelan abruptly rose and, murmuring that she must see Lorra, left the room before she either burst into tears or threw something at her insensitive spouse.

As she stormed downstairs and out into the crisp evening air, pausing only to throw a jacket over her shoulders, she knew that she would never, ever, mention Robie's efforts to Petiron again.He didn't deserve to have such a talented child.

"He's far ahead of the other youngsters," Kubisa told Merelan during the teacher's usual spring evaluation."He's poring over any Record Bosler lets him see.In fact, Bosler's having him copy some of the more legible documents from the last Fall.Also, I don't think it's wise to isolate him from his own age group.He needs their companionship.All children do.But I'll say this for him: he won't stand for any teasing or bullying."

"You don't have any problems with that, do you?"

Merelan knew that the apprentices were often apt to pick on a lad who tried to push himself forward, and occasionally they would taunt a slower boy, but the Masters kept a tight rein on any physical violence and chastised culprits for verbal harangue.Some of the final-year apprentices were apt to take grudges against one another, but those were generally settled by a wrestling match overseen by a journeyman.To be a harper conferred sufficient dignity and privilege so that few would jeopardize their chance to achieve journeyman status by gross misconduct.Inevitably, there were subtle competitions among the fourth-Turn students.

"I have to be truthful, Merelan.Some of them are jealous of his quick mind."

"Well, I can scarcely punish him for that," Merelan said, trying to suppress a spurt of outrage.

Kubisa held up both hands in simulated defence."Easy, Mother, and I won't tell you who, either," she added before Merelan could open her mouth."That's for me to know and handle.And I have.I ask Rob to take one of the slower ones off to hear their lesson.He's actually very patient, more so than I would be with that rascal, Lexey."

"Lexey?Bosler's youngest?"

"I realize you know that Lexey has learning difficulties, but Rob has him repeat his lessons until he knows them by heart." Kubisa sighed."Sometimes late-life babies are a little…backward.And Rob made up another tune, one that Lexey can actually remember, to help him with place names." She reached into the folder and brought out a scrap of hide, cleaned so often that it was almost transparent, and handed it to Merelan."Robie's a caring child and a born teacher."

The MasterSinger had no trouble identifying the writer of the tiny, precisely placed notes, and she hummed the tune.Simple and very easy, up the C scale and down by thirds.

Fort was first, South Boll then Ruatha came and Tillek, too.

Benden next and north Telgar…

Easy enough for a child to sing, but effective with the tune itself as an aid to memory.

"That's not bad," Merelan said.

"Not bad?" Kubisa stared at her in disgust."For a child five turns old?It's incredible.Washell wants me to use it in class as a Teaching Ballad."

"He does?"

"He does, and we don't intend to tell Petiron either." Kubisa's tone was almost defensive."I never ask Rob to do these.He just does them.Should I discourage him, Merelan?" She couldn't quite keep her expression neutral.

"No, don't discourage him Kubisa.And thank you for your understanding."

The interview troubled Merelan for several days, but she could see no way to mention Robie's abilities to Petiron.As usual, he had music he had to compose, this time for an espousal at Nerat.He planned a duet between Merelan and Halanna, and a very ambitious quartet, making use of a fine young tenor who would soon be walking the tables to become a journeyman.Petiron was always bemoaning the loss of any good tenor voice, and Merelan entertained the wry hope that Robie might end up in the tenor range as an adult.At least he sang on key in his childish treble.Even if his father never noticed.These were the times when she was very glad that she wasn't able to bear more children, or foster them.

That spring young Robinton had a revelation which made a tremendous impact on his mind: he met dragons.

He'd always known they existed, and once in a while a wing would be seen flying in formation high overhead.He knew that Fort Weyr had been empty for several hundred turns, and that no one knew why.He knew, from Teaching Songs and Ballads, why there were dragons: that they kept Thread away, though he didn't understand why Thread was so dangerous.People's clothes were made of thread, and they wouldn't wear something that was dangerous to them, would they?When he asked Kubisa about it, she said that Thread was a living organism, not spun and woven as was the undangerous thread that went into clothing.This bad Thread fell from the sky and hungrily ate anything living that it touched, from grass to runner and herd-beasts, and even people.Her listeners got very still at that, and no one even squirmed when she went on to explain how dragons kept Thread away from Halls and Holds.However, she ended on a bright and pleasant note: that bad Thread was not likely to bother them, and they might live their whole lives without seeing it fall from the skies.

"Then why', the logical Robie asked, "do we keep singing about it?"

"In appreciation of those times when the dragons did keep the danger away," she said, at her most reassuring.

Robinton asked his mother about Thread and got much the same answer, which really wasn't sufficient to satisfy his curiosity.If the dragons were so important, and they were still flying the skies of Pern, they were there to keep Thread away.They were keeping it away, but there weren't as many as there used to be, not with five Weyrs empty.Would they be enough if Thread came?

Lexey had told him once, Lexey talked a lot to Rob because he would listen to him, that his mother kept telling him that if he didn't behave better, they'd leave him out for Thread to get.

"You know so much, Rob.Would it?" Lexey asked plaintively, sufficiently scared of the threat that most times it achieved the object of making him more obedient, at least for a few days.

"I never heard of it being done to anyone, no matter how bad you are.And "sides, there isn't any Thread in the skies right now."

"But, if I was bad enough, would it come to get me?"

"Hasn't yet, has it?" was Robinton's logical reply."You were awful bad yesterday, making a mess with the colours when you were told to clear them up."

"Yes, I was." Lexey grinned in retrospect, thoroughly pleased with himself."But it was so fun." He'd smeared every surface in the classroom while Kubisa was out on an errand.She'd made him clean it all up, which was almost as much fun for Lexey as doing it, but he'd had a real scolding from her and his mother for the state of his clothes."Mother was real mad at me last night." But that seemed to give him a satisfaction which Robie couldn't understand.

He always tried very hard not to upset either his mother or his father, especially his father.

Lexey's paint-smearing occurred the day before the dragons came, so they were at the forefront of Robie's mind when they came circling down into the big Harper Hall courtyard.His parents were busy packing for their trip to Nerat, so he'd been told to go outside and play.He always missed his mother, but it would be nice to stay with Kubisa and her daughter Libby, where he could sing and play his pipe or his drum without worrying about annoying his father.It was his turn to hop-it without smudging the chalk lines on the flags and his attention was utterly focused on the movement of his feet, until Libby made him miss the longest hop by suddenly pointing skywards in astonishment.

"Oh, look, Robie!" she cried.

"That's not fair…"

His complaint died as he realized that the dragons soaring above were coming closer to the Harper Hall, rather than the Hold where they usually landed.Half a wing of dragons, six of them.As they swept closer, backwinging, their hind legs stretched downwards to land in the Harper Hall rectangle, Robie, Libby and Lexey pressed themselves tightly against the wall to stay out of the way.As it was, two of the dragons had to land outside, since the four made the big quadrangle suddenly appear very small.

The ridged tail of a bronze was so close to Robie that he could reach out and touch it.Which he did, greatly daring, while Lexey regarded him with staring eyes, aghast at his impudence.

"You'll get left out for Thread for sure, Robie," Lexey whispered hoarsely, pressing his sturdy body as close to the stone wall as he could, well away from the dragon's tail.

"He's soft," Robie whispered back, surprised.Runner-beasts were soft, and the spit canines, but watchwhers had hard hides, sort of oily.At least the Harper Hall's ol' Nick did.Were watchwhers another kind of dragon, the way runner-beasts were another kind of herd-beast?

No, not precisely, a voice said in his mind.The dragon turned his huge head to see who had touched him, causing Lexey to hiss in alarm and Libby to whimper in terror.There are many differences.

"I do apologize.I didn't mean to insult you, bronze dragon," Robie said, giving a jerky little bow."I've never seen one of you up close before."

We do not come as often to the Harper Hall as we used to.It had to be the dragon speaking, Robie decided, because the deep voice couldn't have come from anyone else near by.The rider had dismounted and was standing on the steps talking to his mother and father.

"Are my mother and father going to ride on you to Nerat?" Robie knew that was why the dragons had come, to take all the harpers to Nerat for the espousal.His mother had told him that.Nerat Hold had asked the Weyrleader to provide dragon transport.Going a-dragonback meant they didn't have a long land journey to make, so they wouldn't be away long.And besides it was a great honour to go a-dragonback.

They are harpers?the dragon asked.

"Yes, my mother's MasterSinger Merelan and my father is Master Petiron.He writes the music they're going to sing."

We look forward to hearing it.

"I didn't know dragons liked music," Robie said, greatly surprised.

That had never been mentioned with all the other things he'd learned about dragonkind.

Well, we do.So does my rider, M' ridin.Robie could not miss the affection with which the dragon named his rider.He asked especially to convey your mother and father.It will be an honour for us to take a MasterSinger to Nerat.

"Who are you talking to?" Libby asked, her eyes still wide with fright for Robie's presumptuous behaviour towards the huge and powerful creature.

"The dragon, o' course," Robie said, having no real sense of doing something unusual."You'll be careful with them, won't you, dragon?"

Of course!

Robie was certain the dragon was laughing inside."What's so funny?"

I have a name, you know.

"Oh, I know that all dragons have names, but I've only just met you so I don't know your name." Robie turned his head ever so slightly to be sure his friends were observing how brave he was.

And courteous.

Cortath is my name.What is yours, little one?

"Robie…that is, Robinton, and you will fly my parents very carefully, won't you?"

Of course I will, young Robinton.

Greatly reassured by that, Robie took advantage of this unparalleled opportunity and asked, "Will you be fighting Thread when it comes back?"

The tail gave such a convulsive twitch that it nearly swept both Lexey and Robinton, who were nearest, off their feet.The dragon swerved his body around so that his great head, with its many-faceted eyes swirling with a variety of colours rapidly turning into orange and red, came closer to Robie.

Dragons always fly when Thread is in the sky, was the unequivocal answer.

"You know the song then?" Robie asked, delighted.

But, before Cortath could answer, his rider was at his head, turning it back so that he could introduce the bronze to Merelan and Petiron who were standing beside him.A nervous apprentice hovered discreetly behind them, carrying their various sacks.

"Robinton, what are you doing back there?" his father demanded, noticing him at last and gesturing for him to get out of the way.

"We were just playing hop-it, only Cortath landed in the middle…" At the boy's words, the great dragon Cortath courteously moved his feet."It's all right, Cortath.You smudged the lines a bit with your tail, but we can fix it when you leave."

"Robinton!” His father roared, scowling his amazement.

Robinton risked a nervous glance at his mother and saw her slight smile.Why was his father angry with him?He hadn't really been doing anything wrong, had he?

"Cortath says he's enjoyed conversing with your son, Master Petiron," M'ridin said with a reassuring chuckle."There aren't that many children these days who will, you know."

Robinton's sensitive ears caught the plaintive note in the tall bronze rider's voice.He opened his mouth to say that he'd be happy to talk to Cortath any time, when he saw his mother raise her finger in her signal for him to be silent and noticed the deepening scowl on his father's face.So he looked anywhere but at the adults.

"Out of the way now, boy," his father said, gesturing urgently.

Robinton scooted off towards the Hall, Libby and Lexey well in front of him, all too relieved to be allowed to leave.

"Goodbye, Cortath," Robinton said.Seeing the dragon turn his head to follow him, he waved his fingers in farewell.

We will meet again, young Robinton, Cortath said clearly.

"Shards, Rob, you were lucky," said Lexey enviously.

"And brave," Libby put in, her blue eyes still as wide as saucers in her freckled face.

Robie shrugged.He was probably lucky he hadn't been close enough to his father to get a smack for bothering a dragon, but he didn't think he'd been particularly brave.Though he should not, perhaps, have compared a dragon with a watchwher!

He'd caught the surprised note in the dragon's voice, and he guessed he was lucky Cortath had deigned to speak with him, instead of just lashing out with his tail at the presumptuous boy.

"Did you hear what Cortath told me?" he asked his friends.

"They're leaving," Lexey said, pointing as the dragons suddenly leaped skywards.As the great wings swirled up dust and grit from the courtyard, the children hastily turned away to protect their faces.When they turned back, rubbing dirt from their eyes, the dragons had already risen above the high, pitched roof of the quadrangle.

Robinton waved frantically, recognizing Cortath's bright bronze coat and his passengers, but he didn't think even his mother was looking down just then.The next moment, all had disappeared and the courtyard looked emptier than ever.He felt oddly sad that the dragon had gone, as if he had missed something very important, but didn't know what it was.He realized that he didn't really want to know if his friends had heard the dragon, too.After all, he had been the one who had done the talking, so it was his special encounter.He was not covetous by nature, but some things you kept to yourself, because they were yours, your doing and should be savoured quietly.

If, later, Lorra noticed that Robinton wasn't as talkative as he usually was with her, she chalked it up to his parents' absence.At least, his mother's absence.Though that didn't explain the odd little happy smile on his face, as if he were enjoying some secret thought.She liked taking care of young Rob.He was no trouble at all, especially when he would, as he did now, take himself to a corner in the kitchen and play on the pipe that was always tucked into his waistband.The tune he played wasn't familiar to her, but then he was always making up tunes.She didn't have the time, just then, to find out if he'd made up a new one.But later, as she put him to bed, she asked about it.

"Yes, about dragons," he said sleepily.

"You were in the courtyard when they came?Of course you were, saying goodbye to your parents," Lorra said.She snuggled his bed fur up against his chin."You must play it for me sometime."

"No, it's all mine," he mumbled, and Lorra wasn't sure if she had heard him right.He usually couldn't wait to play her a new tune… because, as she thought with some acidity, she listened even if his father did not.But he was asleep before she could ask him what he meant.

Late in the autumn, when everyone knew that there was a clutch of eggs on the Hatching Sands at Benden Weyr, Robinton met dragons for the second time.They came on Search.He already knew about Search, since it was the subject of a Teaching Ballad about the duty of Hall and Hold to allow any person the dragons chose to go to the Weyr.Most of those who went to a Weyr became dragonriders: a high honour.If dragons liked music, as Cortath had told him they did, maybe they'd like Robinton's tunes, and no one would object to having a dragonrider who had musical training.By the time he was old enough to be Searched, he'd be at least a second-year apprentice.

When the wing landed in Fort Hold's courtyard, he was playing hop-it again, actually with Lexey, Libby, Curtos and Barba.

Barba was not his favourite playmate, she was awful bossy, but the moment the dragons landed, she started shrieking and ran into the Hall.Robinton ran, too: right for the dragons.

"Cortath?" he called out, racing across the vast courtyard as fast as he could towards the three bronzes who had landed to one side.

He ducked in among the greens and blues, completely unaware that it was actually the greens and blues who were sensitive to those who might make good Impressions.

Cortath is not here today.

Robie stopped short, breathing hard as he realized that, indeed, his good friend was not there."But I wanted to talk to him," he said, almost in tears with disappointment.

I will tell him a harper boy regretted his absence.

"I'm not a harper…yet," Robinton admitted, identifying the not-so-bright bronze as the one who had spoken to him."Would you mind my talking to you?If you've nothing better to do for a moment?May I ask your name?" And he executed a half-bow to show he was being respectful.

You may.I call myself Kilminth and my rider is S'bran.What is your name?

As if you'll remember, said another dragon voice.It was the very dark bronze one.It is only a child.

Who hears dragons when they speak, so I will talk to him while our riders are busy.It is nice to talk to a child who hears.

He not old enough to be Searched.

Don't mind Calanuth, Kilminth told Robie in a somewhat supercilious tone.He too young to have much sense.

Who's talking about having some sense?

Oh, curl up in the sun, and then Kilminth lowered his head down to Robinton.

Robie was a touch nervous at the size of that head, but the eye nearest him, almost bigger than his sturdy little boy body was green and circling idly.He could see himself reflected over and over again in the facets closest to him, making him slightly dizzy.

The upper facets, however, reflected the sun and the sky.Did seeing all those different things make a dragon dizzy, too?

No, but it helps us to see Thread coming from above us when it falls.

“When is it going to?"

The dragon seemed to consider this question for such a long moment that Robinton wondered if he should have asked it.

The Star Stones tell us that.

"They talk?" Robinton didn't know about Star Stones yet.He knew about the Eye and Finger Rocks, but not Star Stones.

They are the Star Stones.

"Oh."

The dragon swung his head up, staring at a distant mountain-top.

The manoeuvre was a bit frightening to a small boy so close to the ground, but he wouldn't have budged just then for anything.

Talking to another dragon was too precious to be scared of.Have you not seen the Star Stones at Fort Weyr?

"No one's allowed up at the Weyr," Robinton said, eyes wide.

Ah.

"Why does that make you sad, Kilminth?" Robie asked.

The dragon lowered his head again, the eye closest to him tinged with darkness: sadness, Robinton thought.

The Weyr has been empty so long.

"Will anyone come back to it?" That's what Robinton thought the dragon wanted to know.

When Thread falls again.

"So, there's one brave lad here at Ford Hold, is there?" A tall rider, skinnier than Cortath's, came up and tousled Robinton's hair.

"I'm from the Harper Hall, bronze rider S'bran," Robie replied.

"Oh, my fine friend here's been chatting with you that you know my name?" S'bran hunkered down on a level with Robie.His blue eyes were twinkling."Hall or Hold, you're a right one.Want to be a dragonrider when you grow up?"

"I'd like to, S'bran, but I'm to be a harper."

"Are you now?"

Robinton nodded his head emphatically."My mother says I'll make the best harper ever.Can one be a harper and be a dragonrider, too?"

"C'gan is," S'bran laughed and Kilminth's eyes whirled slightly faster.Robinton's jaw dropped.Was that how dragons laughed?

No, we laugh like this, and the sound that came from Kilminth's throat was just like S'bran's.

Robinton was delighted and giggled."I didn't know dragons laugh."

The infectiousness of his giggle made both rider and dragon laugh again, the rider's a full third higher than the dragon's.

Robinton was charmed by the harmony.

"C'mon, S'bran," another rider yelled."We've three more stops to make today, you know."

"All right, all right, I'm coming," S'bran said.Unfolding from his crouch, he gave Robinton's hair a second friendly rubbing.

Then he leaped to the short forearm Kilminth raised and was lifted high enough to throw his leg over the next-to-last ridge on the dragon's neck."Best stand back, laddie.This big fellow of mine will raise a lot of dust."

Robinton scurried to one side, but swerved the instant he heard the sound of wings beating.Raising his forearm to protect his face from the sand and grit, he lifted his other arm in a farewell salute.

Another time, young Harper, he heard Kilminth say, and then they had all spiralled high enough to go between.Once again Robinton felt the same sort of odd emptiness that had followed Cortath's departure.He sighed deeply.They hadn't told him that he couldn't be a harper and a dragonrider, since they already had one.

Which would please his mother.She had set her heart on him being a harper, and that would take a lot of hard work and many years.

He might even be too old the next time there were eggs on the Hatching Ground.There was only the one queen, and she didn't clutch that often.

Scuffing his way through the neat drifts that the dragon wings had made of the dirt on the courtyard, he returned to the Hall but not to the game.He wanted to be by himself and recall every word Kilminth had said to him.And every word Cortath had said to him as well.Those two incidents were so very, very special to him, and truly his alone.

"Did I see you out in the Fort yard when the dragons were there?" his mother asked when she joined him for supper.She'd been teaching during the Search.

"Yes.The bronze calls himself Kilminth," he said, but that was as much as he intended to say.He filled his mouth with beans so that he wouldn't be able to answer another question.

"That's nice," she said, nodding in approval of his eating so well. Sometimes he didn't have much of an appetite, but he did tonight.

"Did you know they found two lads on Search?One from here and one from the Hold."

"Who went from here?" The sudden notion that a harper could be Searched startled Robinton so much that he spoke with his mouth full and his father reprimanded him.

"A second-year apprentice, Rulyar, from Nerat," his mother answered.

"He plays gitar and sings tenor," Robie said, secretly delighted.

Maybe he could be a dragonrider and a harper.

"Fancy Robinton knowing that," Petiron remarked, surprised.

"Oh, Rulyar's minded Rob a time or two during evening rehearsals," Merelan said off-handedly."Told me that he missed his small brothers," she added, glancing at her son with the look that meant he wasn't to mention that Rulyar had been teaching him gitar fingering for the last few months.Robie would miss Rulyar; he hoped that his mother could find someone else to teach him.

That night he dreamed of dragons, sad and tired ones who were trying to tell him something, only he couldn't hear them.It was as if his ears were clogged with the sands of the courtyard.And they wanted so very much for him to hear what they were saying, something especially for him to know!Then he saw Rulyar, clear as day, on a brown dragon, and Rulyar waved at him, urgently trying to say something too, but the distance between them was too great for Robinton to hear.

He was somewhat amazed, a seven-day later, when he heard that Rulyar had Impressed a brown dragon who called himself Garanath.The Fort Hold boy had Impressed a green.

"That was to be expected," he heard his father say, but he didn't dare ask why that was expected.