Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan

  He forced himself to trace in memory the insidious changes. The Records, which each Weyrwoman kept, were proof of the gradual, but perceptible, decline, traceable through the past two hundred full Turns. Knowing the facts did not alleviate the condition. And F’lar was of that scant handful in the Weyr itself who did credit Records and Ballad alike. The situation might shortly reverse itself radically if the old tales were to be believed.

  There was a reason, an explanation, a purpose, F’lar felt, for every one of the Weyr laws from First Impression to the Firestone: from the grass-free heights to ridge-running gutters. For elements as minor as controlling the appetite of a dragon to limiting the inhabitants of the Weyr. Although why the other five Weyrs had been abandoned, F’lar did not know. Idly he wondered if there were records, dusty and crumbling, lodged in the disused Weyrs. He must contrive to check when next his wings flew patrol. Certainly there was no explanation in Benden Weyr.

  “There is industry but no enthusiasm,” F’nor was saying, drawing F’lar’s attention back to their tour of the crafthold.

  They had descended the guttered ramp from the Hold into the crafthold proper, the broad roadway lined with cottages up to the imposing stone crafthalls. Silently F’lar noted moss-clogged gutters on the roofs, the vines clasping the walls. It was painful for one of his calling to witness the flagrant disregard of simple safety precautions. Growing things were forbidden near the habitations of mankind.

  “News travels fast,” F’nor chuckled, nodding at a hurrying craftsman, in the smock of a baker, who gave them a mumbled good day. “Not a female in sight.”

  His observation was accurate. Women should be abroad at this hour, bringing in supplies from the storehouses, washing in the river on such a bright warm day, or going out to the farmholds to help with planting. Not a gowned figure in sight.

  “We used to be preferred mates,” F’nor remarked caustically.

  “We’ll visit the Clothmen’s Hall first. If my memory serves me right…”

  “As it always does…” F’nor interjected wryly. He took no advantage of their blood relationship but he was more at ease with the bronze rider than most of the dragonmen, the other bronze riders included. F’lar was reserved in a close-knit society of easy equality. He flew a tightly disciplined wing but men maneuvered to serve under him. His wing always excelled in the Games. None ever floundered in between to disappear forever and no beast in his wing sickened, leaving a man in dragonless exile from the Weyr, a part of him numb forever.

  “L’tol came this way and settled in one of the High Reaches,” F’lar continued.

  “L’tol?”

  “Yes, a green rider from S’lel’s wing. You remember.”

  An ill-timed swerve during the Spring Games had brought L’tol and his beast into the full blast of a phosphene emission from S’lel’s bronze Tuenth. L’tol had been thrown from his beast’s neck as the dragon tried to evade the blast. Another wingmate had swooped to catch the rider but the green dragon, his left wing crisped, his body scorched, had died of shock and phosphene poisoning.

  “L’tol would aid our Search,” F’nor agreed as the two dragonmen walked up to the bronze doors of the Clothmen’s Hall. They paused on the threshold, adjusting their eyes to the dimmer light within. Glows punctuated the wall recesses and hung in clusters above the larger looms where the finer tapestries and fabrics were woven by master craftsmen. The pervading mood was one of quiet, purposeful industry.

  Before their eyes had adapted, however, a figure glided to them, with a polite, if curt, request for them to follow him.

  They were led to the right of the entrance, to a small office, curtained from the main hall. Their guide turned to them, his face visible in the wallglows. There was that air about him that marked him indefinably as a dragonman. But his face was lined deeply, one side seamed with old burn marks. His eyes, sick with a hungry yearning, dominated his face. He blinked constantly.

  “I am now Lytol,” he said in a harsh voice.

  F’lar nodded acknowledgment.

  “You would be F’lar,” Lytol said, “and you, F’nor. You’ve both the look of your sire.”

  F’lar nodded again.

  Lytol swallowed convulsively, the muscles in his face twitching as the presence of dragonmen revived his awareness of exile. He essayed a smile.

  “Dragons in the sky! The news spread faster than Threads.”

  “Nemorth has a new queen.”

  “Jora dead?” Lytol asked concernedly, his face cleared of its nervous movement for a second.

  F’lar nodded.

  Lytol grimaced bitterly. “R’gul again, huh.” He stared off in the middle distance, his eyelids quiet but the muscles along his jaw took up the constant movement. “You’ve the High Reaches? All of them?” Lytol asked, turning back to the dragonman, a slight emphasis on “all.”

  F’lar gave an affirmative nod again.

  “You’ve seen the women.” Lytol’s disgust showed through the words. It was a statement, not a question, for he hurried on. “Well, there are no better in all the High Reaches,” and his tone expressed utmost disdain.

  “Fax likes his women comfortably fleshed and docile,” Lytol rattled on. “Even the Lady Gemma has learned. It’d be different if he didn’t need her family’s support. Ah, it would be different indeed. So he keeps her pregnant, hoping to kill her in childbed one day. And he will. He will.”

  Lytol drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, turning full to the two dragonmen. His expression was vindictive, his voice low and tense.

  “Kill that tyrant, for the sake and safety of Pern. Of the Weyr. Of the queen. He only bides his time. He spreads discontent among the other lords. He”…Lytol’s laughter had an hysterical edge to it now… “he fancies himself as good as dragonmen.”

  “There are no candidates then in this Hold?” F’lar said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the man’s preoccupation with his curious theory.

  Lytol stared at the bronze rider. “Did I not say it?”

  “What of Ruath Hold?”

  Lytol stopped shaking his head and looked sharply at F’lar, his lips curling in a cunning smile. He laughed mirthlessly.

  “You think to find a Torene, or a Moreta, hidden at Ruath Hold in these times? Well, all of that Blood are dead. Fax’s blade was thirsty that day. He knew the truth of those harpers’ tales, that Ruathan lords gave full measure of hospitality to dragonmen and the Ruathan were a breed apart. There were, you know,” Lytol’s voice dropped to a confiding whisper, “exiled Weyrmen like myself in that Line.”

  F’lar nodded gravely, unable to contradict the man’s pitiful attempt at self-esteem.

  “No,” and Lytol chuckled softly. “Fax gets nothing from that Hold but trouble. And the women Fax used to take…” his laugh turned nasty in tone. “It is rumored he was impotent for months afterward.”

  “Any families in the holdings with Weyr blood?”

  Lytol frowned, glanced surprised at F’lar. He rubbed the scarred side of his face thoughtfully.

  “There were,” he admitted slowly. “There were. But I doubt if any live on.” He thought a moment longer, then shook his head emphatically.

  F’lar shrugged.

  “I wish I had better news for you,” Lytol murmured.

  “No matter,” F’lar reassured him, one hand poised to part the hanging in the doorway.

  Lytol came up to him swiftly, his voice urgent.

  “Heed what I say, Fax is ambitious. Force R’gul, or whoever is Weyrleader next, to keep watch on the High Reaches.”

  Lytol jabbed a finger in the direction of the Hold. “He scoffs openly at tales of the Threads. He taunts the harpers for the stupid nonsense of the old ballads and has banned from their repertoire all dragonlore. The new generation will grow up totally ignorant of duty, tradition and precaution.”

  F’lar was surprised to hear that on top of Lytol’s other disclosures. Yet the Red Star pulsed in the sky and the time was drawing near whe
n they would hysterically reavow the old allegiances in fear for their very lives.

  “Have you been abroad in the early morning of late?” asked F’nor, grinning maliciously.

  “I have,” Lytol breathed out in a hushed, choked whisper. “I have…” A groan was wrenched from his guts and he whirled away from the dragonmen, his head bowed between hunched shoulders. “Go,” he said, gritting his teeth. And, as they hesitated, he pleaded, “Go!”

  F’lar walked quickly from the room, followed by F’nor. The bronze rider crossed the quiet dim Hall with long strides and exploded into the startling sunlight. His momentum took him into the center of the square. There he stopped so abruptly that F’nor, hard on his heels, nearly collided with him.

  “We will spend exactly the same time within the other Halls,” he announced in a tight voice, his face averted from F’nor’s eyes. F’lar’s throat was constricted. It was difficult, suddenly, for him to speak. He swallowed hard, several times.

  “To be dragonless…” murmured F’nor, pityingly. The encounter with Lytol had roiled his depths in a mournful way to which he was unaccustomed. That F’lar appeared equally shaken went far to dispel F’nor’s private opinion that his half-brother was incapable of emotion.

  “There is no other way once First Impression has been made. You know that,” F’lar roused himself to say curtly. He strode off to the Hall bearing the Leathermen’s device.

  The Hold is barred

  The Hall is bare.

  And men vanish.

  The soil is barren,

  The rock is bald.

  All hope banish.

  Lessa was shoveling ashes from the hearth when the agitated messenger staggered into the Great Hall. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible so the Warder would not dismiss her. She had contrived to be sent to the Great Hall that morning, knowing that the Warder intended to brutalize the Head Clothman for the shoddy quality of the goods readied for shipment to Fax.

  “Fax is coming! With dragonmen!” the man gasped out as he plunged into the dim Great Hall.

  The Warder, who had been about to lash the Head Clothman, turned, stunned, from his victim. The courier, a farmholder from the edge of Ruatha, stumbled up to the Warder, so excited with his message that he grabbed the Warder’s arm.

  “How dare you leave your Hold?” and the Warder aimed his lash at the astonished holder. The force of the first blow knocked the man from his feet. Yelping, he scrambled out of reach of a second lashing. “Dragonmen indeed! Fax? Ha! He shuns Ruatha. There!” The Warder punctuated each denial with another blow, kicking the helpless wretch for good measure, before he turned breathless to glare at the clothman and the two underwarders. “How did he get in here with such a threadbare lie?” The Warder stalked to the great door. It was flung open just as he reached out for the iron handle. The ashenfaced guard officer rushed in, nearly toppling the Warder.

  “Dragonmen! Dragons! All over Ruatha!” the man gibbered, arms flailing wildly. He, too, pulled at the Warder’s arm, dragging the stupefied official toward the outer courtyard, to bear out the truth of his statement.

  Lessa scooped up the last pile of ashes. Picking up her equipment, she slipped out of the Great Hall. There was a very pleased smile on her face under the screen of matted hair.

  A dragonman at Ruatha! She must somehow contrive to get Fax so humiliated, or so infuriated, that he would renounce his claim to the Hold, in the presence of a dragonman. Then she could claim her birthright.

  But she would have to be extraordinarily wary. Dragonriders were men apart. Anger did not cloud their intelligence. Greed did not sully their judgment. Fear did not dull their reactions. Let the dense-witted believe human sacrifice, unnatural lusts, insane revel. She was not so gullible. And those stories went against her grain. Dragonmen were still human and there was Weyr blood in her veins. It was the same color as that of anyone else; enough of hers had been spilled to prove that.

  She halted for a moment, catching a sudden shallow breath. Was this the danger she had sensed four days ago at dawn? The final encounter in her struggle to regain the Hold? No… there had been more to that portent than revenge.

  The ash bucket banged against her shins as she shuffled down the low-ceilinged corridor to the stable door. Fax would find a cold welcome. She had laid no new fire on the hearth. Her laugh echoed back unpleasantly from the damp walls. She rested her bucket and propped her broom and shovel as she wrestled with the heavy bronze door that gave into the new stables.

  They had been built outside the cliff of Ruatha by Fax’s first Warder, a subtler man than all eight of his successors. He had achieved more than all others and Lessa had honestly regretted the necessity of his death. But he would have made her revenge impossible. He would have caught her out before she had learned how to camouflage herself and her little interferences. What had his name been? She could not recall. Well, she regretted his death.

  The second man had been properly greedy and it had been easy to set up a pattern of misunderstanding between Warder and craftsmen. That one had been determined to squeeze all profit from Ruathan goods so that some of it would drop into his pocket before Fax suspected a shortage. The craftsmen who had begun to accept the skillful diplomacy of the first Warder bitterly resented the second’s grasping, high-handed ways. They resented the passing of the Old Line and, even more so, the way of its passing. They were unforgiving of insult to Ruatha, its now secondary position in the High Reaches, and they resented the individual indignities that holders, craftsmen and farmers alike suffered under the second Warder. It took little manipulation to arrange for matters at Ruatha to go from bad to worse.

  The second was replaced and his successor fared no better. He was caught diverting goods, the best of the goods at that. Fax had had him executed. His bony head still hung in the main firepit above the great Tower.

  The present incumbent had not been able to maintain the Hold in even the sorry condition in which he had assumed its management. Seemingly simple matters developed rapidly into disasters. Like the production of cloth… Contrary to his boasts to Fax, the quality had not improved, and the quantity had fallen off.

  Now Fax was here. And with dragonmen! Why dragonmen? The import of the question froze Lessa, and the heavy door closing behind her barked her heels painfully. Dragonmen used to be frequent visitors at Ruatha, that she knew, and even vaguely remembered. Those memories were like a harper’s tale, told of someone else, not something within her own experience. She had limited her fierce attention to Ruatha only. She could not even recall the name of Queen or Weyrwoman from the instructions of her childhood, nor could she recall hearing mention of any queen or weyrwoman by anyone in the Hold these past ten Turns.

  Perhaps the dragonmen were finally going to call the lords of the Holds to task for the disgraceful show of greenery about the Holds. Well, Lessa was to blame for much of that in Ruatha but she defied even a dragonman to confront her with her guilt. Did all Ruatha fall to the Threads it would be better than remaining dependent to Fax! The heresy shocked Lessa even as she thought it.

  Wishing she could as easily unburden her conscience of such blasphemy, she ditched the ashes on the stable midden. There was a sudden change in air pressure around her. Then a fleeting shadow caused her to glance up.

  From behind the cliff above glided a dragon, its enormous wings spread to their fullest as he caught the morning updraft. Turning effortlessly, he descended. A second, a third, a full wing of dragons followed in soundless flight and patterned descent, graceful and awesome. The claxon rang belatedly from the Tower and from within the kitchens there issued the screams and shrieks of the terrified drudges.

  Lessa took cover. She ducked into the kitchen where she was instantly seized by the assistant cook and thrust with a buffet and a kick toward the sinks. There she was put to scrubbing grease-encrusted serving bowls with cleansing sand.

  The yelping canines were already lashed to the spitrun, turning a scrawny herdbeast that had been s
et to roast. The cook was ladling seasonings on the carcass, swearing at having to offer so poor a meal to so many guests, and some of them high-rank. Winter-dried fruits from the last scanty harvest had been set to soak and two of the oldest drudges were scraping roots.

  An apprentice cook was kneading bread; another, carefully spicing a sauce. Looking fixedly at him, she diverted his hand from one spice box to a less appropriate one as he gave a final shake to the concoction. She added too much wood to the wall oven, insuring ruin for the breads. She controlled the canines deftly, slowing one and speeding the other so that the meat would be underdone on one side, burned on the other. That the feast should be a fast, the food presented found inedible, was her whole intention.

  Above in the Hold, she had no doubt that certain other measures, undertaken at different times for this exact contingency, were being discovered.

  Her fingers bloodied from a beating, one of the Warder’s women came shrieking into the kitchen, hopeful of refuge there.

  “Insects have eaten the best blankets to shreds! And a canine who had littered on the best linens snarled at me as she gave suck! And the rushes are noxious, the best chambers full of debris driven in by the winter wind. Somebody left the shutters ajar. Just a tiny bit, but it was enough…” the woman wailed, clutching her hand to her breast and rocking back and forth.

  Lessa bent with great industry to shine the plates.

  Watch-wher, watch-wher,

  In your lair,

  Watch well, watch-wher!

  Who goes there?

  “The watch-wher is hiding something,” F’lar told F’nor as they consulted in the hastily cleaned Great Hall. The room delighted to hold the wintry chill although a generous fire now burned on the hearth.