“I’d better deliver this first,” she said to his back.
Just outside the healers’ tent, a woman was doing triage. “Great, thanks,” she said as she took the packet. “Now go sit down a bit.”
Did she look so terrible, that everyone told her to go sit down? Well then, she would. For a miracle, the folding stool was still unoccupied. Melisendra had a small leather bottle of water at her waist. She drank some of it down, grimacing at the taste of leather. People popped up over the edge of the ledge like puppets in a show, hauling their burdens of water and food and medical supplies. The firefighting chemicals had been exhausted a week ago. No one knew how long it would take to get more.
The man who’d helped her pulled several others up that last difficult pitch. When he wasn’t doing that, he directed supplies and personnel. He never seemed to stop moving.
At last a quiet moment came. “Whew!” He grinned at Melisendra. “No, no, don’t get up. I’m used to sitting on a log, whenever I get a chance to sit at all.”
“You don’t get that often, I think.”
“Not often. I’m in charge of logistics here–name’s Alaric, by the way. This fire’s a brute, the way it keeps popping up small ones well away from the main blaze.”
“I’m Melisendra.” Since he gave no family name, it seemed rude to add hers. Anyway, she’d probably never see him again. He must be from one of the farther valleys; she’d remember if she’d seen him before. “I sew for the family, mostly embroidery.”
“That’s delicate work,” he commented. He moved to push his hair off his forehead, and she saw that his shirt was torn at the collar.
“I wish I had needle and thread with me. I could fix that.” Then she blushed to have looked at a man closely enough to notice the state of his shirt.
Politely, he looked away. “That’s kind of you,” he said, and fidgeted the pieces together as best he could. Neither of them looked at the other for the next few minutes. They spoke of common things, the barley harvest and the rumors of strange new people in Caer Donn. Both thought it wildly unlikely that they had come from the stars.
It was oddly relaxing to sit here beside this stranger who seemed not to care for any of the posturing and struggle for position that plagued even so small a court as Caer Anailh. She felt as though she could talk with him of more serious things, and be heard. Everyone else here was much too busy to stare at them and wonder.
A man so covered in soot that Melisendra couldn’t have said what he looked like loped into the camp. “Alaric! Have those diggers shown up yet?”
He rose. “This was a welcome respite, damisela, but I must get back to my work.” He hesitated, then, “When the fire’s been beaten back, my men and I will rest at the castle. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
“That would please me.” Would it? Could it be the same, back in the castle with all those other people? One could hope. For now, she had that trek down the mountain before her, and no doubt she’d be needed somewhere after that.
“Evanda and Avarra bless your work, Alaric,” she said.
He was right about it being trickier to go down. It was much harder to keep her balance on the steep trail when her feet wanted to follow it down just as fast as she could–no, faster than that. She heard a shout and a crash. “Slow down up there!” called a man’s voice below her.
Word passed up the line that a boy had fallen. He was hobbling down with the help of two others, one before and one behind.
“Could’ve been worse,” said a gray-haired woman in shortened skirts who was next in line to Melisendra. “Saw a man break his leg on a hill like this once. The work it was to get him down in a litter, and how the poor thing screamed!” She seemed to know where to put her feet without even looking. That calf-length skirt might help, thought Melisendra. She kilted her own skirts up higher, and crept on down the mountainside.
The man at the bottom of the trail took one look at her and said, “Thank you, damisela. Go rest now. Arravant’s sent us some help.” She limped away, feeling grateful and ashamed at the same time. One trip. That granny she’d spoken with was probably on her way back up by now.
Someone handed her a bread roll with cheese in it, and to her surprise she found she was hungry. Someone else handed around a bowl of apples, the first of the year. The sweet tang tasted better than anything else she had ever eaten.
There was no shortage of work to take the place of her usual embroidery. She could help clean herbs and strip the leaves sitting down, and she did. No need to know one herb from another, she was assured. That was a good thing, Melisendra thought. She could tell hairy from shiny, but that was about it. Then they began to run short of some of those, also, and where was more calendula to come from, this time of the year? Some must be left to set seed.
Her head felt stuffed with dry leaves. “Get some water, and a nap,” said one of the healers. “This will go on for more than today. And if the fire flares up, you may be needed in the night.”
The women’s dormitory was still empty when she reached it. She stripped down, bundled her filthy clothes off into the corner by her bed, and got a quick wash with the water from the common pitcher. Her hair would just have to wait–maybe quite awhile. There were more urgent needs for water. Then, clothed in her spare shift, she lay down and was instantly asleep.
Melisendra never knew what woke her, early the next morning. Did she smell the fire coming closer, or was that only the stink of her own hair? She’d wrapped a scarf over it–not tightly enough, evidently. The fire couldn’t be as close as it smelled. The entire castle would have been rousted out to help pull water from the wells as long as it lasted. She turned over again, trying to find a place where the sheets weren’t sweaty.
A sleepy voice from one of the beds near the door asked, “What’s the matter with you?”
“Sorry,” she said. Maybe if she got up and went to the solarium, she could see where the fire was. If she for herself that the fire was no closer, she’d believe it.
But it was closer. Somehow, unlike any fire she’d ever heard of, it had moved downhill. As she watched, a resin-tree on the edge of the forest exploded into a moving cloud of sparks. A flurry of new fires began where they landed. “Oh, Evarra,” she murmured. Had the fighters been able to escape? What of the granny?
In the distance, lines of falling rain glinted blood-red in the first light. They were surely no more than one valley over. But they’re not here.
Melisendra could feel the storm moving towards her. It strained against...something. The flames, roaring upward above the line of the hills themselves?
People would die if the fire spread more. It was likely that some already had, just from the smoke. A strange calm flowed into her mind. Was her life more precious than theirs?
No. And I might not die. I am no delicate lady of impeccable ancestry, only Melisendra of nowhere in particular.
She hauled a chair with arms over to the window. The scrape of its legs against the stone floor sounded very loud. Someone had left a shawl behind; she wrapped it around herself . The old leronis had told her about the care that Tower workers took to make their bodies as comfortable as possible when they did demanding work.
They had monitors. She had no one. Who could she possibly ask to take this risk with her? Who could she trust believe that she could do it, and not just summon help to keep her from trying? She wasn’t at all sure that she could do it.
Something in the storm called, “Now!” The river of wind wanted to flow down into the valley; she could sense that. Something was blocking the notch in the valley wall.
She was. Somehow, she was keeping the rain from the valley. Had her fear done this?
She said aloud, “I am sorry, vai leronis, most humbly sorry. I must take back my pledge.”
She felt the old wall of her promise give way in her mind, much as the wall around the castle had collapsed that day of the lightning. The day she’d thought, “Why not try?” but flinched from the attempt. Today sh
e would not flinch.
The first thing was to know what she had to deal with. How could she tell where to stop? She felt a stretch and pull as if she were still climbing the mountain, still trying to reach farther than her body was willing to go. A roar of wind filled her ears and light flared behind her closed eyelids. It was all too much! She had no words to think of this, no pattern to make sense of it.
Too much. She sat clutching her shawl around her in spite of the rising heat. There seemed to be two shawls now, how strange! She’d worry about that later.
Gently, now.
Slowly, delicately, like a seamstress untangling a skein of spidersilk floss, she found the places where only a few lines of the storm’s pattern tangled with farther-flung nets of other storms. The winds flowed on the lines, tracing their curves. The clouds sailed on the winds like great birds.
And birds could be guided.
Or birds could bite you, if you came too close.
She pictured the clouds as great white geese on a river of wind. Could she picture a stick? But what would be large enough? She tried to imagine it. Lightning sizzled between the clouds. The cloud-geese flapped their wings and pecked. Melisendra could feel blood bead up on the skin of her arms.
The stick clung to her hand, searing along her palm. Yet it was her invention, this stick. No. I began you and I can end you. She knew well enough what her hand looked like, after seeing it during all those hours of stitching! She need only hold it clear in her mind, in spite of the wind and the trembling lines of storm–she must just focus. Just!
And yet, it worked. Melisendra grinned as the stick faded. The pain didn’t, but never mind that.
If she could guide the river, the birds would follow. The winds poured down into the valley. Rain clouds came tumbling with them, racing to be first.
Now she saw both with her eyes and her laran. Rain was falling on the village and the mountains alike. Shouts of delight and fear mingled as people scrambled to get under cover. Someone yelled “Move, damnit!” and a chervine belled. The village streets were becoming streams.
Torrents of rain pounded the remaining unharvested barley flat. A cowshed sagged and tumbled down; cows bellowed in panic. A tangle of nut trees rolled up against a bridge and lodged against its supports. Water surged behind them. Underneath what her eyes saw, Melisendra sensed the struggle between the water and the bridge. The lines that bound the bridge together convulsed.
She reached out towards the bridge, nudging at the trees. Pick, pull, slide–yes, like the children’s game. One tree raced downstream, followed by two others. Yes, she could do this! The currents of the storm thrummed along her nerves like low notes of music.
A line of copper arched along the mountainside. The path hacked up to the fire had become a stream–no, a waterfall. It shone in the slight of fire and rising sun. And in it someone’s body tumbled helplessly.
A slurry of mud and water raced down the mountain. Please, she thought without being at all sure who she pleaded with, Please, I need to control it. I called it; I must guide it. This is too much rain for our little valley.
Her imagined geese were gone now. There was only a roiling gray mass of rain too dense to see through, too convoluted to guide.
There, a swath of storm-lines curved down from the notch in the ridge. She reached out to push them along it instead.
Years ago, a cousin had let her ride his prize mare. They all three had cause to regret that. The mare had been far stronger than her delicate lines made her look. The storm fought Melisendra in much the same way as she strove to pull it off to one side, to make it flow along the crest of the valley wall.
~o0o~
“Melisendra!” Someone shook her shoulder. “Melisendra, wake up.”
What nonsense. I’m wide awake. I just have to get out of the rain.
Small hands grabbed her arms and yanked her forward, out of the chair.
Stupid, don’t distract me. I must focus. Is it moving away? A long roll of thunder echoed into the next valley. Yes. But she was tangled in the storm-skeins now, and she could not get enough breath to break free. She gasped for air, and felt water instead. Rain entered her mouth and her nose. There was no air, yet wind tore through the room. Cold, so cold!
Melisendra felt a stabbing pain in one hand.
Stabbing, indeed. A bone needle protruded from her thumb. Melisendra choked, and gasped. The horrible feeling of drowning receded.
Carla stood in front of her, holding both Melisendra’s wrists. The girl let out a squeak as Melisendra toppled forward.
The window sill was just within reach. Melisendra clung to it as Carla scampered back. “I’m awake now,” Melisendra said through chattering teeth. “Could you just push that chair over here?”
Carla did so. “Here, you’ll be warm now,” she said as she bundled both shawls around Melisendra’s shoulders. “Just sit still while I fetch food and drink.”
She did not return alone. Domna Adrianna followed her, bearing a steaming pitcher of sweetened cider and a slab of nut-bread soaked in honey.
“First, you eat and drink.” She hauled a low table over, one-handed. “Drink,” she repeated, and placed the cup in Melisendra’s shaking hand. She braced it with her own hand.
“We will have to discuss this later,” Adrianna said. “Preferably with a leronis present. In fact, I hope milord will insist on it.”
Melisendra drank, ate a hunk of the gooey bread, and drank again. “Is it bad?”
“Depends on what you mean by that. The fire’s out, I’ll say that for you. Chiya, why did you not ask for help?”
“Nobody’s supposed to know,” Melisendra said, somewhat thickly. “And who could I ask for help?”
“A child, evidently.”
“She didn’t ask me! I just knew.” Carla drew herself erect. “Everybody thinks I’m just a child and don’t know anything. I knew Melisendra needed help.” She nodded briskly.
“Yes,” said Melisendra. “Yes, you did. You are wise beyond your years.”
Over Carla’s head, she met Adrianna’s eyes. “Will you speak of this?”
“Only to Dom Marcus. You know I must tell him.”
Melisendra nodded silently.
“Don’t look so sad, chiya. He’ll know you meant to save us. And perhaps a leronis can help you with this gift.”
“The last one didn’t.”
“Ah? Well, they’re not all alike either.”
One could hope.
~o0o~
Melisendra had not meant to enter the audience chamber at the same time as Dom Marcus and his son Stefan, only to cross it as a short cut between the solar and the kitchens. She knew that the old lord had sent for a leronis. Until the messenger had time to go to Corandolis, and return with someone willing to make the journey, she could avoid his notice.
She was glad of the delay. He had been more merciful than she had any right to expect, but she couldn’t expect him to forgive her for causing such ruinous floods. Now she walked softly along the far wall of the room, hoping to escape notice.
The coridom was with them, giving his report. “All in all, vai dom, it could have been worse,” he said. “We’ll be short on barley before the next harvest, but if we can keep the early harvest from rot, no one will starve. Mestre Derek means to hold a giant cattle-roast to use up all the beef that can’t be turned into jerky before it spoils. And for a miracle, there was only one death.”
Melisendra slowed her steps, stopped, and reached out to touch the wall. She had seen someone’s body fall from the mountainside, too far away to be certain whether it was a man or a woman. She had spent the last two days not thinking about who it might have been. Fear and dread arose in her mind like the roar of the storm.
Dom Marcus sighed. “Even one is a great loss. Who was it?”
“The fire crew chief, Alaric from West Cliff.”
Melisendra turned her face to the wall and silently wept.
THE DRAGON HUNTER
by Robin R
owland
In all the years I’ve edited Darkover anthologies (and read the ones that came before), I have never encountered a story that involved Darkovan paleontology. I love dinosaurs, as does every Darkover fan I know. The combination is so magical, I wonder why no one wrote about them before. (Of course, maybe someone has and I just never came across it.) I was delighted to receive this tale from Robin Rowland, who adds his own particular twist.
Robin Rowland lives in Kitimat, British Columbia, a town in a northern mountain valley, which he says has a microclimate that closely resembles Darkover. Before retiring to his old home town, he spent 30 years as a news producer and photographer for Canada's television networks. In 1995, he co-wrote Researching on the Internet, the first computer manual on how to search the internet. He is mostly a non-fiction author, specializing in historical investigation, including two books on Canada's Prohibition gangsters.
“There are no dinosaurs on Darkover nor—what are those giant fossil lobsters on Hawkesbury’s Planet?”
“Hawkesburia exocrustacea duodecapoda hosnioia agnusdei,” I replied.
“Yeah. Right. The eight-clawed bone crusher. Nor are there any dragons.”
It had taken me seven days after I landed to get a ten-minute late afternoon appointment with Fletcher Giblin, Deputy Legate for Scientific and Engineering Affairs, at Terran Empire Headquarters. The windows in his eleventh-floor office overlooked the landing field, the concrete glowing purplish in the Bloody Sun.
“A contractor for the Leonard Bowey Foundation for Planetary Evolution.” Giblin snorted. “You’re on a fools’ errand, Owens.” He looked at his com-tab and shook his head. “You have a Master’s degree but no Ph.D. Why not, young man?”
“The budget at Empire University cut the number of grad students,” I said. “Exo-paleontology is not a high priority. The contract means I get to work in my field, then send out more applications.”
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