Dragonflight (3 page)

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

F’lar nodded acknowledgment.

“You would be F’lar,” Lytol said, “and you F’nor. You both have 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 laid a female.”

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

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 taking up the constant movement. “You have 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.” His tone expressed utmost disdain. He eased himself down to the heavy table that half-filled one corner of the small room. His hands were clenched so tightly around the wide belt that secured the loose tunic to his body that the heavy leather was doubled.

“You would almost expect the opposite, wouldn’t you?” Lytol continued. He was talking too much and too fast. It would have been insultingly rude in another, lesser man. It was the terrible loneliness of the man’s exile from the Weyr that drove him to garrulity. Lytol skimmed the surfaces with hurried questions he himself answered, rather than dip once into matters too tender to be touched—such as his insatiable need for those of his kind. Yet he was giving the dragonmen exactly the information they needed. “But 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’s laughter grated unpleasantly.

“When Fax came to power, any man with wit sent his daughters down from the High Reaches or drew a brand across their faces.” He paused, his countenance dark and bitter memory, his eyes slits of hatred. “I was a fool and thought my position gave me immunity.”

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, dragonmen, 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? The best either died under Fax or were sent away. What remains is nothing, nothing. Weak-minded, ignorant, foolish, vapid. You had that with Jora. She—” His jaw snapped shut over his next words. He shook his head, scrubbing his face to ease his anguish and despair.

“In the other Holds?”

Lytol shook his head, frowning darkly. “The same. Either dead or fled.”

“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, bronze rider, all of Ruathan 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, unwilling to deprive the man of such a sop to his self-esteem.

“No, there is little, very little left in Ruatha Valley.” Lytol chuckled softly. “Fax gets nothing from that Hold but trouble.” This reflection restored Lytol to a semblance of normal behavior, and his face twisted into a better humor. “We of this Hold are now the best clothmen in all Pern. And our smithies turn out a better tempered weapon.” His eyes sparkled with pride in his adopted community. “The conscripts from Ruatha tend to die of curious diseases or accidents. And the women Fax used to take . . .” His laugh was nasty. “It is rumored he was impotent for months after.”

F’lar’s active mind jumped to a curious conclusion. “There are none of the Blood left?”

“None!”

“Any families in the holdings with Weyr blood?”

Lytol frowned, glanced in surprise 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. “There was such resistance at the invasion and no quarter given. At the Hold Fax beheaded ladies as well as babes. And he imprisoned or executed any known to have carried arms for Ruatha.”

F’lar shrugged. The idea had been a probability only. With such severe reprisals, Fax undoubtedly had eliminated the resistance as well as the best craftsmen. That would account for the poor quality of Ruathan products and the emergence of the High Reaches’ clothmen as the best in their trade.

“I wish I had better news for you, dragonman,” 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 about Fax’s ambitions. Force R’gul, or whoever is Weyrleader next, to keep watch on the High Reaches.”

“Is Fax aware of your leanings?”

The haunted, hungry yearning crossed Lytol’s face. He swallowed nervously, answering with no emotion in his voice.

“That would not signify if it suited the Lord of the High Reaches, but my guild protects me from persecution. I am safe enough in the craft. He is dependent on the proceeds of our industy.” He snorted, mocking. “I am the best weaver of battle scenes. To be sure,” he added, cocking one eyebrow waggishly, “dragons are no longer woven in the fabric as the comrades of heroes. You noticed, of course, the prevalence of growing greens?”

F’lar grimaced his distaste. “That is not all we have noted, either. But Fax keeps the other traditions. . . .”

Lytol waved this consideration aside. “He does that because it is basic military sense. His neighbors armed after he took Ruatha, for he did it by treachery, let me tell you. And let me warn you also”—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 not surprised to hear that on top of Lytol’s other disclosures, although it disturbed him more than anything else he had heard. Other men, too, denied the verbal transmissions of historic events, accounting them no more than the maunderings of harpers. Yet the Red Star pulsed in the sky, and the time was drawing near when they would hysterically re-avow 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 leather-men’s device.

Honor those the dragons heed,

In thought and favor, word and deed.

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved

From those dangers dragon-braved.

Dragonman, avoid excess;

Greed will bring the Weyr distress;

To the ancient Laws adhere,

Prospers thus the Dragonweyr.

F’
LAR WAS AMUSED
 . . . and unamused. This was their fourth day in Fax’s company, and only F’lar’s firm control on self and wing was keeping the situation from exploding into violence.

It had been a turn of chance, F’lar mused, as Mnementh held his leisurely glide toward the Breast Pass into Ruatha, that he, F’lar, had chosen the High Reaches. Fax’s tactics would have been successful with R’gul, who was very conscious of his honor, or S’lan or D’nol, who were too young to have developed much patience or discretion. S’lel would have retreated in confusion, a course nearly as disastrous for the Weyr as combat.

He should have correlated the indications long ago. The decay of the Weyr and its influence did not come solely from the Holding Lords and their folk. It came also from within the Weyr, a result of inferior queens and incompetent Weyrwomen. It came from R’gul’s inexplicable insistence on not “bothering” the Holders, on keeping dragonmen within the Weyr. And yet within the Weyr there had been too much emphasis on preparation for the Games until the internal competition between wings had become the be-all and end-all of Weyr activity.

The encroachment of grass had not come overnight, nor had the Lords awakened one morning recently and decided in a flash not to give all their traditional tithe to the Weyr. It had happened gradually and had been allowed, by the Weyr, to continue, until the purpose and reason of the Weyr and dragonkind had reached this low ebb, where an upstart, collateral heir to an ancient Hold could be so contemptuous of dragon men and the simple basic precautions that kept Pern free of Threads.

F’lar doubted that Fax would have attempted such a program of aggression against neighboring Holds if the Weyr had maintained its old prominence. Each Hold must have its Lord to protect valley and folk from the Threads. One Hold, one Lord—not one Lord claiming seven Holds. That was against ancient tradition, and evil besides, for how well can one man protect seven valleys at once? Man, except for dragon-man, can be in only one place at a time. And unless a man was dragon-mounted, it took hours to get from one Hold to another. No Weyrman of old would have permitted such flagrant disregard of ancient ways.

F’lar saw the gouts of flame along the barren heights of the Pass, and Mnementh obediently altered his glide for a better view. F’lar had sent half the wing ahead of the main cavalcade. It was good training for them to skim irregular terrain. He had issued small pieces of firestone with instructions to sear any growths as practice. It would do to remind Fax, as well as his troops, of the awesome ability of dragon-kind, a phenomenon the common folk of Pern appeared to have all but forgotten.

The fiery phosphine emissions as the dragons belched forth gasses showed the pattern well flown. R’gul could argue against the necessity of firestone drills, he could cite such incidents as that which had exiled Lytol, but F’lar kept the tradition—and so did every man who flew with him, or they left the wing. None failed him.

F’lar knew that the men reveled as much as he did in the fierce joy of riding a flaming dragon; the fumes of phosphine were exhilarating in their own way, and the feeling of power that surged through the man who controlled the might and majesty of a dragon had no parallel in human experience. Dragon-riders were forever men apart once First Impression had been made. And to ride a fighting dragon, blue, green, brown, or bronze, was worth the risks, the unending alertness, the isolation from the rest of mankind.

Mnementh dipped his wings obliquely to slide through the narrow cleft of the Pass that led from Crom to Ruatha. No sooner had they emerged from the cut than the difference between the two Holds was patent.

F’lar was stunned. Through the last four Holds he had been sure that the end of the Search lay within Ruatha.

There had been that little brunette whose father was a clothman in Nabol, but . . . And a tall, willowy girl with enormous eyes, the daughter of a minor Warder in Crom, yet . . . These were possibilities, and had F’lar been S’lel or K’net or D’nol, he might have taken the two in as potential mates, although not likely Weyrwomen.

But throughout he had reassured himself that the real choice would be found to the south. Now he gazed on the ruin that was Ruatha, his hopes dispersed. Below him, he saw Fax’s banner dip in the sequence that requested his presence.

Mastering the crushing disappointment he felt, he directed Mnementh to descend. Fax, roughly controlling the terrified plunging of his earthbound mount, waved down into the abandoned-looking valley.

“Behold great Ruatha of which you had such hopes,” he enjoined sarcastically.

F’lar smiled coolly back, wondering how Fax had divined that. Had F’lar been so transparent when he had suggested Searching the other Holds? Or was it a lucky guess on Fax’s part?

“One sees at a glance why goods from the High Reaches are now preferred,” F’lar made himself reply. Mnementh rumbled, and F’lar called him sharply to order. The bronze one had developed a distaste bordering on hatred for Fax. Such antipathy in a dragon was most unusual and of no small concern to F’lar. Not that he would have in the least regretted Fax’s demise, but not at Mnementh’s breath.