Энн Маккефри - Dragonsong стр 4.

Menolly? Her mother came to the classhall door, the carrying thong of an empty skin in her hand. You dismissed them early? Is that wise Her mother stopped abruptly and stared at her daughter. An expression of anger and disgust crossed her face. So youve been the fool after all? With so much at stake, and you had to tune

I didnt do it on purpose, Mavi. The songjust came into my mind. Id played no more than a measure

There wasnt any point in trying to justify the incident to her mother. Not now. The desolation Menolly had felt when she realized her father had taken the gitar intensified in the face of her mothers cold displeasure.

Take the sack. We need fresh greens, Mavi said in an expressionless voice. And any of the yellow-veined grass that might be up. There should be some.

Resignedly, Menolly took the sack and, without thinking, looped the thong over her shoulder. She caught her breath as the unwieldy sack banged against her scored back.

Before Menolly could avoid it, her mother had flipped up the loose tunic. She gave an inarticulate exclamation. Youll need numbweed on some of those.

Menolly pulled away. What goods a beating then, if its numbed away first chance? And she dashed out of the Hall.

Much Mavi cared if she hurt, anyhow, except that a sound body works harder and longer and faster.

Her thoughts and her misery spurred her out of the Hold, every swinging stride she took jarring her sore back. She didnt slow down because shed the whole long track in front of the Hold to go. The faster she went, the better, before some auntie wanted to know why the children were out of lessons so soon, or why Menolly was going green-picking instead of Teaching.

Fortunately she encountered no one. Everyone was either down at the Dock Cave, unloading, or making themselves scarce to the Sea Holders eyes so they wouldnt have to. Menolly charged past the smaller holds, down aways on the marshroad, then up the righthand track, south of the Half-Circle. Shed put as much distance between herself and Sea Hold as she could: all perfectly legitimate, in search of greenery.

As she jogged along the sandy footpath, she kept her eyes open for fresh growth, trying to ignore the occasional rough going when shed jar her whole body. Her back began to smart. She gritted her teeth and paced on.

Her brother, Alemi, had once said that she could run as well as any boy of the Hold and outdistance the half of them on a long race. If only she had been a boyThen it wouldnt have mattered if Petiron had died and left them Harperless. Nor would Yanus have beaten a boy for being brave enough to sing his own songs.

The first of the low marsh valleys was pink and yellow with blooming seabeachplum and marshberry, slightly blackened here and there: more from the low-flying queens catching the odd Thread that escaped the main wings. Yes, and there was the patch that the flamethrower had charred: the one Thread infestation that had gotten through. One day, Menolly told herself, shed just throw open a windows steel shutters and see the dragons charring Thread in the sky. What a sight that must be for certain!

Fearful, too, she reckoned, having seen her mother treat men for Threadburn. Why, the mark looked as if someone had drawn a point deep groove with a red-hot poker on the mans arm, leaving the edges black with singed skin. Torly would always bear that straight scar, puckered and red. Threadscore never healed neatly.

She had to stop running. Shed begun to sweat heavily and her back was stinging. She loosened her tunic belt, flapping the soft runner-beast hide to send cooling draughts up between her shoulder blades.

Past the first marsh valley, up over the rocky hump hill into the next valley. Cautious going here: this was one of the deep, boggy places. No sign of yellow-veined grasses. There had been a stand last summer two humpy hills over.

She heard them first, glancing up with a stab of terror at the unexpected sounds above. Dragons? She glanced wildly about for the tell tale gray glitter of sky-borne Thread in the east. The greeny blue sky was clear of that dreaded fogging, but not of dragonwings. She heard dragons? It couldnt be! They didnt swarm like that. Dragons always flew in ordered wings, a pattern against the sky. These were darting, dodging, then swooping and climbing. She shaded her eyes. Blue flashes, green, the odd brown and thenOf course, sun glinted golden off the leading, dartlike body. A queen! A queen that tiny?

She expelled the breath shed been holding in her amazement. A fire lizard queen? It had to be. Only fire lizards could be that small and look like dragons. Whers certainly didnt. And whers didnt mate midair. And thats what Menolly was seeing: the mating flight of a fire lizard queen, with her bronzes in close pursuit.

So fire lizards werent boy talk! Awed, Menolly watched the swift, graceful flight. The queen had led her swarm so high that the smaller ones, the blues and greens and browns, had been forced down. They circled now at a lower altitude, struggling to keep the same direction as the high fliers. They dipped and dashed in mimicry of the queen and bronzes.

They had to be fire lizards! thought Menolly, her heart almost stopping at the beauty and thrill of the sight. Fire lizards! And they were like dragons. Only much, much smaller. She didnt know all the Teachings for nothing. A queen dragon was gold: she mated with the bronze who could outfly her. Which was exactly what was happening right now with the fire lizards.

Oh, they were beautiful to behold! The queen had turned sunward and Menolly, for all her eyes were very longsighted, could barely pick out that black mote and trailing cluster.

She walked on, following the main group of fire lizards. Shed bet anything that shed end up on the coastline near the Dragon Stones. Last fall her brother Alemi had claimed hed seen fire lizards there at dawn, feeding on fingertails in the shallows. His report had set off another rash of what Petiron had called lizard-fever. Every lad in the Sea Hold had burned with plans to trap a fire lizard. Theyd plagued Alemi to repeat his sighting.

It was just as well that the crags were unapproachable. Not even an experienced boatman would brave those treacherous currents. But, if anyone had been sure there were fire lizards thereWell, no one would know from her.

Even if Petiron had been alive, Menolly decided, she would not have told him. Hed never seen a fire lizard, though hed admitted to the children that the Records allowed that fire lizards did exist.

Theyre seen, Petiron had told her later, but they cant be captured. He gave a wheezing chuckle. Peopleve been trying to since the first shell was cracked.

Why cant they be caught?

They dont want to. Theyre smart. They just disappear

They go between like dragons?

Theres no proof of that, said Petiron, a trifle cross, as if shed been too presumptuous in suggesting a comparison between fire lizards and the great dragons of Pern.

Where else can you disappear to? Menolly had wanted to know. What is between?

Some place that isnt. Petiron had shuddered. Youre neither here nor there, and he gestured first to one corner of the Hall and then towards the Sea Dock on the other side of the Harbor. Its cold, and its nothing. No sight, no sound, no sensations.

Youve ridden dragonback?Menolly had been impressed.

Once. Many Turns ago. He shuddered again in remembrance. Now, since were touching on the subject, sing me the Riddle Song.

Its been solved. Why do we have to know it now?

Sing it for me so Ill know that you know it, girl, Petiron had said testily. Which was no reason at all.

But Petiron had been very kind to her, Menolly knew, and her throat tightened with remembered regret for his passing. (Had he gone between? The way dragons did when they lost their riders or grew too infirm to fly? No, one left nothing behind, going between. Petiron had left his body to be slipped into the deeps.) And Petiron had left more behind than his body. Hed left her every song hed ever known, every lay, every ballad, saga, every fingering, chord and strum, every rhythm. There wasnt any way a stringed instrument could be played that she didnt know, nor any cadence on the drums at which she wasnt time-perfect. She could whistle double-trills as well as any wherry with her tongue or on the reeds. But there had been some things Petiron wouldntor perhaps couldnttell her about her world. Menolly wondered if this was because she was a girl and there were mysteries that only the male mind could understand.

Well, as Mavi had once told Menolly and Sella, there are feminine puzzles that no mere man could sort, so that score is even.

And one more for the feminine side, said Menolly as she followed the fire lizards. A mere girl had seen what all the boysand menof the Sea Hold had only dreamed of seeing, fire lizards at play.

Theyd ceased following the queen and her bronzes and now indulged in mock air battles, swooping now and then to the land itself. And seemingly under it. Until Menolly realized that they must be over the beaches. The sand was slipping under her feet. An unwary step could plunge her into the holes and dips. She could hear the sea. She changed her course, keeping to the thicker patches of coarse marsh grasses. The ground would be firmer there, and shed be less visible to the fire lizards.

She came to a slight rise, before the bluff broke off into a steep dive onto the beaches. The Dragon Stones were beyond in the sea, slightly hidden by a heat haze. She could hear fire lizards chirping and chattering. She crouched in the grasses and then, dropping to her full length, crept to the bluff edge, hoping for another glimpse of the fire lizards.

They were quite visibledelightfully so. The tide was out, and they were exceedingly busy in the shallows, picking rockmites from the tumbled exposed boulders, or wallowing on the narrow edging of red and white sand, bathing themselves with great enthusiasm in the little pools, spreading their delicate wings to dry. There were several flurries as two fire lizards vied for the same choice morsel. In that alone, she decided, they must differ from dragons, shed never heard of dragons fighting amongst themselves for anything. Shed heard that dragons feeding among herds of runner-beasts and wherries were something horrible to behold. Dragons didnt eat that frequently, which was as well or not all the resources of Pern could keep the dragons fed.

Did dragons like fish? Menolly giggled, wondering if there were any fish in the sea big enough to satisfy a dragons appetite. Probably those legendary fish that always eluded the Sea Hold nets. Her Sea Hold sent their tithe of sea produce, salted, pickled or smoked, to Benden Weyr. Occasionally a dragonrider came asking for fresh fish for a special feasting, like a Hatching. And the women of the Weyr came every spring and fall to berry or cut withies and grasses. Menolly had once served Manora, the headwoman of Benden Lower Caverns, and a very pleasant gentle woman shed been, too. Menolly hadnt been allowed to stay in the room long because Mavi shooed her daughters out, saying that she had things to discuss with Manora. But Menolly had seen enough to know she liked her.

The whole flock of lizards suddenly went aloft, startled by the return of the queen and the bronze who had flown her. The pair settled wearily in the warm shallow waters, wings spread as if both were too exhausted to fold them back. The bronze tenderly twined his neck about his queens and they floated so, while blues excitedly offered the resting pair fingertails and rock mites.

Entranced, Menolly watched from her screen of sea-grass. She was utterly engrossed by the small doings of eating, cleaning and resting. By and by, singly or in pairs, the lesser fire lizards winged up to the first of the sea-surrounded bluffs, lost quickly from Menollys sight as they secreted themselves in tiny creviced weyrs.

With graceful dignity, the queen and her bronze rose from their bathing. How they managed to fly with their glistening wings so close together, Menolly didnt know. As one, they seemed to dart aloft, then glided in a slow spiral down to the Dragon Stones, disappearing on the seaside and out of Menollys vision.

Only then did she become conscious of discomfort; of the hot sun on her welted back, sand in the waist-band of her trousers, seeping into her shoes, dried as sweaty grit on her face and hands.

Cautiously, she wriggled back from the edge of the bluff. If the fire lizards knew theyd been overseen, they might not return to this cove. When she felt shed crawled far enough, she got to a crouching position and ran for a way.

She felt as rarely privileged as if shed been asked to Benden Weyr. She kicked up her heels in an excess of joy and then, spotting some thick marsh grass canes in the bog, snicked one off at the waterline. Her father may have taken her gitar away, but there were more materials than strings over a sounding box to make music.

She measured the proper length barrel and cut off the rest. She deftly made six holes top and two bottom, as Petiron had taught her, and in moments, she was playing her reed pipe. A saucy tune, bright and gay because she was happy inside. A tune about a little fire lizard queen, sitting on a rock in the lapping sea, preening herself for her adoring bronze.

Shed a bit of trouble with the obligatory runs and found herself changing keys, but when shed rehearsed the tune several times, she decided she liked it. It sounded so different from the sort of melody Petiron had taught her, different from the traditional form. Furthermore, it sounded like a fire lizard song: sprightly, cunning, secretive.

She stopped her piping, puzzled. Did the dragons know about fire lizards?

Chapter 3

When Menolly finally got back to the Sea Hold, the sky was darkening. The Hall was bustling with the usual end of day activity. The oldsters were setting the dinner tables, tidying the great Hall and chattering away as if they hadnt met for Turns instead of only that morning.