Brekke entered, smiling apologetically. «I'm sorry, Lord Lytol, but Jaxom tires easily.»
Lytol obediently rose, glancing anxiously at Jaxom.
«Brekke, after Lytol has come all this distance, on dragonback, he must be allowed to..»
«No, lad, I can return.» Lytol's smile startled Brekke. «I'd rather not take a risk with him.» He gave Brekke a second surprise then as he embraced Jaxom with awkward affection before striding from the room.
Brekke stared at Jaxom, who shrugged to indicate she could put her own interpretation on his guardian's behavior. She quickly left to escort the visitors back to the beach.
He was very glad to see you, Ruth said. He is smiling.
Jaxom lay back, wriggling his shoulders into the rushes to get comfortable. He closed his eyes, chuckling to himself. He had got Lytol to see his beautiful mountain.
Lytol wasn't the only one to come to see the mountain, and Jaxom. Lord Groghe arrived the next afternoon, grunting and puffing from the heat, shouting at his little queen not to get lost with all those strangers, and not to get completely soaked because he didn't want a wet shoulder on the way back.
«Heard you'd got ill of that fire head stuff like the harper girl,» Lord Groghe said, swinging into Jaxom's room with a vigor that produced instant fatigue in the convalescent.
More unnerving was Lord Groghe's scrutiny. Jaxom was certain the man counted his ribs, he had looked at them so long. «Can't you feed him up better than this, Brekke? Thought you were a top flight healer. Boy's a rake! Can't have that. Must say you picked a beautiful place to fall ill in. Must have a look about me since I'm down here. Not that it took all that long to come. Hmmm. Yes, must have a look about.» Groghe stuck his chin out at Jaxom, frowning again. «Did you? Before that sickness got hold of you?»
Jaxom realized that Lord Groghe's totally unexpected visit might have several objectives: one, to assure the Lord Holders that the Lord of Ruatha was in the land of the living, all rumor to the contrary. The second purpose made Jaxom a little uneasy when he could so clearly recall Lessa's remark about wanting «the best part of it.»
When Brekke tactfully reminded the blustering and genial Lord Holder that he mustn't tire her patient, Jaxom nearly cheered.
«Don't worry, lad. I'll be back again, never fear.» Lord Groghe waved cheerfully to him from the doorway. «Beautiful spot. Envy you.»
«Does everyone in the North know where I am?» Jaxom asked when Brekke returned.
«D'ram brought him,» she said, sighing heavily and frowning.
«D'ram ought to have known better,» Sharra said, collapsing on the bench and plying a tree frond as a fan in exaggerated relief at the Lord's departure. «The man's enough to wear the healthy down, much less the convalescent.»
«I would guess,» Brekke continued, ignoring Sharra's remarks, «that the Lord Holders needed verification of Jaxom's recovery.»
«He looked Jaxom over like a herdsman. Did you show him your teeth?»
«Don't let Lord Groghe's manner fool you, Sharra,» Jaxom said. «He's got a mind as sharp as Master Robinton's. And if D'ram brought him, then F'lar and Lessa must have known he was coming. I don't think they'll like him returning or scouting around here.»
«If Lessa did permit Lord Groghe to come, she'll hear from me about it, you may be sure,» Brekke replied, thinning her lips in disapproval. «He is not an easy visitor for a convalescent. You might as well know now, Jaxom, that you were ill of that fever for sixteen days…»
«What?» Jaxom sat upright in the bed, stunned.
«But… but…»
«Fire head is a dangerous disease for an adult,» Sharra said. She glanced at Brekke, who nodded, «You nearly died.»
«I did?» Appalled, Jaxom put his hand to his head.
Brekke nodded again. «So, if we seem to be restricting you to a very slow recovery, you will agree that we have cause.»
«I nearly died?» Jaxom couldn't absorb that news.
«So we will go slowly to ensure your health. Now, I think it's time you had something to eat,» Brekke said as she left the room.
«I nearly died?» Jaxom turned to Sharra.
«I'm afraid so.» She sounded more amused by his reaction than concerned. «The important thing is that you didn't die.» Involuntarily she glanced toward the beach and sighed, a quick exhalation of relief. She smiled, a brief one, but Jaxom noticed that her expressive eyes were dark with remembered sorrow. «Who died of fire head that saddens you, Sharra?»
«No one you know, Jaxom, and no one I knew very well. It's just… just that no healer likes to lose a patient.»
He could tease no more from her on the subject and stopped trying to when he saw that she had felt that death so keenly.
The next morning, cursing with embarrassment at the unreliability of his legs, Jaxom was assisted to the beach by Brekke and Sharra. Ruth came charging up the sands, almost dangerous in his delight at seeing his friend. Brekke sternly ordered Ruth to stand still lest he knock Jaxom off his unsteady feet. Ruth's eyes rolled with concern and he crooned with apology as he extended his head very carefully toward Jaxom, almost afraid to muzzle him in greeting. Jaxom flung his arms about his dragon's neck, Ruth tightening his muscles to take the drag of his friend's body, almost thrumming with encouragement. Tears flowed down his cheeks which he quickly dried against his friend's soft hide. Dear Ruth. Marvelous Ruth. Unbidden came the thought to Jaxom's mind: «If I had died of fire head…»
You did not, Ruth said. You stayed. I told you to. And you are much stronger now. You will get stronger every day and we will swim and sun and it will be good.
Ruth sounded so fierce that Jaxom had to soothe him with words and caresses until Brekke and Sharra insisted that he had better sit down before he fell. They had arranged a matting of woven streamer fronds against a landward leaning trunk, well back from the shore, to avoid full exposure to the sun. To this couch they assisted him. Ruth stretched out so that his head rested by Jaxom's side, the jeweled eyes whirling with the lavenders of stress.
F'lar and Lessa arrived at midday, after Jaxom had had a short nap. He was surprised to find that Lessa, for all her abrasiveness on other occasions, made a soothing visitor, quiet and soft voiced.
«We had to let Lord Groghe come in person, Jaxom, though I'm sure you didn't appreciate the visit. Rumor had you dead and Ruth, too.» Lessa shrugged expressively. «Bad news needs no harper.»
«Lord Groghe was more interested in where I was than how I was, wasn't he?» Jaxom asked pointedly.
F'lar nodded and grinned at him. «That is why we had D'ram bring him. The Fort Hold watchdragon is too old to take a placement from Lord Groghe's mind.»
«He also had his fire lizard with him,» Jaxom said.
«Those pesky creatures,» Lessa said, her eyes sparkling with annoyance.
«These same pesky creatures came in very handy saving Jaxom's life, Lessa,» Brekke said firmly.
«All right, they have uses but, as far as I'm concerned, their bad habits still outweigh the good ones.»
«Lord Groghe's little queen may be intelligent,» Brekke went on, «but not clever enough to get him back here on his own.»
«That isn't the real problem,» F'lar grimaced. «He's now seen that mountain. And the scope of the land.»
«So, we put in our claim here first,» Lessa replied decisively. «I don't care how many sons Groghe wants to settle, the dragonriders of Pern have first choice.
«Jaxom can help «
«Jaxom has some time to go before he can do very much of anything,» Brekke said, breaking in so smoothly that Jaxom wondered if he'd misinterpreted the surprise on Lessa's face.
«Don't worry, I'll think of some way to stall Lord Groghe's ambitions,» F'lar added.
«If one gets in, the others will follow,» Brekke said thoughtfully, «and I can hardly blame them. This part of the Southern Continent is so much more beautiful than our original settlement.»
«I have a yearning to get closer to tha
t mountain,» F'lar said, turning his head to the south. «Jaxom, I know you've not been very active yet, but how many of those fire lizards about Ruth are Southerners?»
«They're not from the Southern Weyr, if that's what you're worried about,» Sharra said.
«How can you tell?» Lessa asked.
Sharra shrugged. «They won't be handled. They go between if anyone gets close to them. It's Ruth that fascinates them. Not us.»
«We are not their men,» Jaxom said. «Now that I can get to Ruth, I'll see what I can find out about them from him.»
«I wish you would,» Lessa said. «And if there are any from the Southern Weyr…» She let her sentence trail off.
«I think we ought to let Jaxom rest,» Brekke said. F'lar chuckled, gesturing for Lessa to precede him.
«Fine guests we are. Come to see the man and never let him talk.»
«I've done nothing lately to talk about,» and Jaxom shot a fierce look at Brekke and Sharra. «When you come back, I will.»
«If anything interesting occurs, have Ruth bespeak Mnementh or Ramoth.»
Brekke and Sharra left with the Weyrleaders, and Jaxom was grateful for the respite. He could hear Ruth talking to the two Benden dragons and he chuckled when Ruth told Ramoth firmly that there were no fire lizards from the Southern Weyr among his new friends. Jaxom wondered why it hadn't occurred to him sooner to ask Ruth's acquaintances about their men. He sighed. He hadn't been thinking about much lately except his extraordinary brush with death, and that occupied his mind too morbidly. Much better for him to explore a living puzzle.
He had several. The most worrisome was still what he might have said in his delirium. Brekke's rejoinder had been no real assurance. He tried to force his thought back to that time but all he remembered was heat and cold, vivid but vague nightmares.
He thought about his guardian's visit. So Lytol did like him! Shells! He'd forgotten to ask Lytol about Corana. He ought to have sent her some kind of word. She must have heard of his illness. Not but what this didn't make it easier for him to complete the break in their relationship. Now that he'd seen Sharra, he couldn't have continued with Corana. He must remember to ask Lytol.
What had he said when he was fevered? How did a fever patient talk? In bits and snatches? Whole phrases? Maybe he needn't worry. Not about what he could have said in fever.
He didn't like Lord Groghe just appearing like that, to check up on him. And, if he hadn't taken ill. Lord Groghe would never have known about this part of Southern. At least, until the dragonriders wanted him to know. And that mountain! Too unusual a feature to forget. Any dragon would be able to find it. Or would they? Unless the rider had a very clear picture, the dragon did not always see vividly enough to jump between. And a secondhand vision? D'ram and Tiroth had done so from Master Robinton's description. But D'ram and Tiroth were experienced.
Jaxom wanted to be well. He wanted to get closer to that mountain. He wanted to be first. How long would it take him to recover?
He was allowed to swim a bit the next day, an exercise which Brekke said would tone his muscles but which succeeded in proving he had none left. Exhausted, he was no sooner on his beachside couch than he fell deeply asleep.
Roused by Sharra's touch, he cried out and sat bolt upright, looking about him.
«What's the matter, Jaxom?»
«A dream! A nightmare!» He was sure something was wrong. Then he saw Ruth, stretched out, fast asleep, his muzzle only a handsbreadth from his feet, at least a dozen fire lizards curled on and about him, twitching in their own dreams.
«Well, you're awake now. What's wrong?»
«That dream was so vivid… and yet it's all gone. I wanted so much to remember it.»
Sharra placed a cool hand on his forehead. He pushed it away.
«I'm not fevered,» he said, cranky.
«No, you're not. Any headache? Spots?»
Impatient and angry, he denied them, then sighed and smiled an apology at her. «Bad tempered, aren't I?»
«Rarely.» She grinned, then eased to the sand beside him.
«If I swim a little longer and further every day, how long will it take me to recover fully?»
«What makes you so anxious?»
Jaxom grinned, jerking his head back in the direction of the mountain. «I want to get there before Lord Groghe does.»
«Oh, I think you'll manage that quite easily.» Sharra's expression was mischievous. «You will get stronger every day now. We just don't want you to push yourself too quickly. Better a few more days now, than suffer a relapse and go through all this again.»
«A relapse? How would I know if I was having one?»
«Easy. Spots and headaches. Do please do it our way, Jaxom.»
The appeal in her blue eyes was genuine, and Jaxom liked to think it was for him, Jaxom, not for him, the patient. Not taking his eyes from hers, he nodded slowly in acquiescence and was rewarded by her slow smile.
F'nor and D'ram arrived late that afternoon, in fighting gear, with full firestone sacks draped across their dragons.
«Thread tomorrow,» Sharra told Jaxom as she caught his look of inquiry.
«Thread?»
«It falls on all Pern, and has fallen here in this cove three times since you took ill. In fact, the day after you took ill!» She grinned at his openmouthed consternation. «It's been a rare treat to watch dragons in the sky. We'd only to keep the shelter area free. Grub takes care of the rest,» She chuckled. «Tiroth complains that he's not fighting full when he doesn't follow the Fall to its end. Just wait till you see Ruth in action. Oh, yes, nothing could keep him out of the sky. Brekke keeps her ear open for him and, of course, Tiroth and Canth are directing. He's so proud of himself, protecting you!»
Jaxom swallowed against a variety of emotions, chagrin being foremost as he heard Sharra's casual explanation.
«You were aware of Thread, by the way. Once a dragonrider, one evidently doesn't forget even in fever. You kept moaning about Thread coming and not being able to get off the ground.» Fortunately she was looking at the dragons as they glided to a landing on the beach because Jaxom was certain that his expression gave him away. «Master Oldive says that we humans have instincts, too, hidden deep in our minds, to which we respond automatically. As you reacted to Threadfall, sick as you were. Ruth is such a dote. I made much of him after each Fall, I assure you, and I made sure that the fire lizards got all firestone stink out of his hide.»
She waved a greeting to F'nor and D'ram as they strolled up the beach, loosening their fighting gear. Canth and Tiroth had already shrugged off the firestone sacks on the beach and, wings extended high, waddled with groans of pleasure into the soft warm water. Ruth came slithering through the water to join them. A great fair of fire lizards chittered above the three dragons, overjoyed with such company.
«You've more color, Jaxom, you look better!» F'nor said, grasping Jaxom's arm in greeting.
D'ram nodded his head, agreeing with F'nor.
Aware of his indebtedness to both riders, Jaxom stammered out his gratitude.
«Tell you something, Jaxom,» F'nor said, squatting on his haunches, «it's been a rare treat to watch your little fellow work in the air. He's a superb chop and change artist. Caught three times as much Thread as our big fellows could. You trained him well!»
«I don't suppose I'll be considered strong enough to fight Thread tomorrow?»
«No, nor for some time to come,» F'nor replied firmly. «Know how you're feeling, Jaxom,» he continued as he dropped beside him on the mats. «Felt the same way when I was wounded and not allowed to fly Thread. But now, your only responsibility to Hold and Weyr is to get fit. Fit enough to take a good look about this country! I envy you that chance, Jaxom. Indeed I do!» F'nor's grin was candidly envious. «Haven't had the time to fly far, even after Thread, down here. Forest extends a long way on either side.» F'nor gestured broadly with one arm. «You'll see. Shall I bring you writing materials next trip down so you can make a Record? You may not fl
y Thread yet awhile, Jaxom, but you'll be working hard enough to make that a treat!»
«You're only saying that. .» Jaxom broke off, surprised at the bitterness in his voice.
«Yes, because you need something to look forward to since you can't do what you want most,» F'nor said. He reached out and gripped Jaxom's arm. «I understand, Jaxom. Ruth's been giving Canth a full report. Sorry. Awkward for you, but Ruth worries when you're upset, or didn't you know that?» He chuckled.
«I appreciate what you're trying to do, F'nor,» Jaxom said.
Just then Brekke and Sharra emerged from the trees, Brekke walking quickly to her weyrmate. She did not, as Jaxom half expected, embrace the brown rider. But the way she regarded him, the gentle, almost hesitant way she rested her hand on his arm, spoke more tellingly of the love between the two than any more demonstrative welcome. A bit embarrassed, Jaxom turned his head and saw Sharra watching Brekke and F'nor, a peculiar expression on her face which she erased the moment she realized that Jaxom was looking at her.
«Drinks all round,» she said in a brisk tone, handing a mug to D'ram as Brekke served F'nor.
It was a pleasant evening and they ate on the beach, Jaxom managing to suppress his frustration in the face of the morning's Threadfall. The three dragons made nests in the still warm sands above the high tide lines, their eyes glistening like jewels in the dark beyond the firelight.
Brekke and Sharra sang one of Menolly's tunes while D'ram added a rough bass line. When Brekke noticed Jaxom's head lolling to one side, he didn't resist her ordering him back to the shelter. He drifted to sleep, face turned toward the fireglow, lulled by the singing voices.
Ruth's excitement roused him and he blinked without comprehension as the dragon's voice penetrated his sleep. Thread! Ruth was going to fight Thread today with D'ram's Tiroth and F'nor's Canth. Jaxom threw aside the blanket, struggled into his trousers, and strode quickly from the shelter to the beach. Brekke and Sharra were helping the two dragonriders load their beasts with the firestone sacks. With the four fire lizards on the ground at his feet, Ruth was industriously chewing away at the pile of stone on the beach. Dawn was just breaking in the east. Jaxom peered through the dim light, straining to see the filmy discoloration that meant Thread. The three Dawn Sisters winked with unexpected brilliance high above him, paling to insignificance the other morning stars in the west. Jaxom frowned at their display. He hadn't realized how bright they were, how close they seemed. In Ruatha, they were duller, barely visible points on the southeastern horizon at dawn. He reminded himself to ask if F'nor could have the use of a long distance viewer, and if Lytol would send down his star equations and maps. Then Jaxom noticed the absence of the fairs of Southern fire lizards which haunted Ruth day and night.
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