With a nod, she accepted his apology.
“So how’d your haunting go today?” Marco asked when they had landed back at Paradise River Cove.
“Haunting?”
“That’s a word we used on my homeworld to describe what you’re trying to do. ”
“Oh, I see,” she replied, and proceeded to fill him in. He was highly amused by her tale of saying “boo” to Rusty and chided her for being so mean to a poor old runnerbeast.
“Right now, I’m glad that anything sees me.” She rubbed at her face. “If only I could just give Thaniel a message. ”
They were both watching their dragons sprawling in the hot white sands. He gestured for her to sit on the rocks surrounding the fire pit, where, he told her, he lit a fire every night because it was comforting.
“If I could just get him to see me once, Marco, I might get him to see me as a message of some sort,” she said as she jabbed aimlessly at the sand with a charred, broken stick.
“I wonder what will work. ”
“Something has to. I can’t keep ‘haunting’ him forever. Thaniel is supposed to be smarter than Rusty. ”
Marco leaned across and took the stick from her hand. With the end of it, he wrote a large M in the sand. “I’ve never experienced anything like this before. No rider has ever been stuckbetweenwith the wrong dragon.” He rubbed his eyes, and continued. “I really don’t know if it’ll work, but you could try writing a message for Thaniel in the dirt. What do you want to tell him?”
“Get Leri. Moreta. ”
“That’s short, sweet, and to the point. Let’s hope he sees it,” Marco said.
And so Moreta returned again and again, every evening at the same time, until it became such a routine that Thaniel came out of his hold to stand by Rusty’s enclosure as if he were waiting for her. And each evening Moreta performed the same scare tactics with Rusty and then scratched her message in the ground. It was obvious to Moreta that the runnerbeast saw her, stared straight at her, while she gouged her message in the dirt, but Thaniel still looked through her, oblivious to the message she wanted him to see.
She was at her wit’s end by the fifth evening when the full moon suddenly burst from behind windswept clouds, outlining her form just long enough for Thaniel to see her as she scratched her message in the dirt.
“Moreta!” the old man gasped, then ran, shrieking as loudly as Rusty ever had, back to his hold and slammed the door shut.
“Now I think I’ve got him,” she said with great satisfaction as she remounted Holth.
How long are we going to have to keep doing this, Moreta? Holth asked plaintively.
Not for much longer, Holth. She caressed the old dragon’s neck affectionately. Let’s go back to Marco in between.
After Marco had guided them back to Paradise River Cove, she told him of her progress.
“You probably scared him so much he thinks he’s going as mad as his runnerbeast.” Marco grinned. “I think you’re nearly there. ”
It was the Runner Stationmaster himself who carried the message immediately to the Weyr, for Leri from Thaniel of Waterhole Hold. Everyone read it: “She comes every evening at the same time, just after sundown, when it’s growing dark. She asks for Leri. What can I do?”
“Ha! We are stupid folk!” Leri said scathingly. “Orlith! Aren’t your eggs hard enough yet?”
A grumble echoed back from the Hatching Ground from Orlith, who was still fussing over a proper little mound of sand to raise her queen egg higher than the rest. She moved so slowly and carefully that it seemed as if she were putting each grain of sand in place individually. This, however, made her task seem too sadly pathetic to watch for very long.
“It’s her way of passing time,” Leri had remarked when this was pointed out to her.
Now she thanked the Runner Stationmaster graciously for the personal delivery and slipped him a full Harper Hall credit for his trouble.
“My pleasure, Weyrwoman. May I send back a message for you?”
“That would be most kind of you,” Leri said with great dignity, and hastily the Stationmaster took out a small pad and writer.
“Give him my thanks and say we shall be there soon. He can do nothing, like us, but wait until Orlith decides the eggs are ready to hatch. My thanks for your trouble. ”
The Stationmaster bowed himself out of the Weyr.
It was before dawn one morning not long after, that Orlith informed Leri that her eggs would undoubtedly hatch that day. With gentle wing strokes, she rolled the queen egg to its special mound, while Leri waited in her Weyr, dressed in her warmest clothing.
“Not that warm clothing will do much good in between,” she remarked in her acerbic way, and hobbled to the entrance to her Weyr without a backward glance. She looked up toward the skies; a magnificent dawn would soon break. “Just the day to start the rest of my journey,” she said.
I hope this day is not marred by any unnecessary sadness, Orlith. A Hatching Day is to look to the future, not to regret the past.
Thaniel had remained at Waterhole Hold that day to bake bread. He needed to keep busy. The whole affair had already turned his hair white but, nonetheless, when the Stationmaster brought back Leri’s reply, he felt his ordeal might soon be over. Ignoring his children’s pleas to join them on their rounds to check the herds, Thaniel was determined to remain by his hold waiting for Leri. At his father’s suggestion, Maynar saddled Rusty and rode off with his siblings.
With Rusty gone, Thaniel was not aware that a dragon and rider had landed at the nearby waterhole. But when he looked up from his work, he saw the great gold queen, and Leri, huddled in furs, on the dragon’s back. Quickly he took a piece of fresh, hot bread and a cup of klah to the waiting Weyrwoman, who thanked him and ate willingly. He was sorry to see how gnarled the old woman’s fingers were and how awkwardly she held her body.
“If there is aught else I may do for you, Weyrwoman, you have but to call me and I will come,” Thaniel said.
“I am well enough as I am,” Leri replied in her brisk way, returning the empty plate to the holder.
Thaniel went back to his work, but kept an eye on the pair from the window as he kneaded the second batch of dough. He was clearing off the last of the flour from the worktop when he noticed that the sun was beginning to sink. So he poured himself another cup of klah, wondering whether he should bring more out to the old rider before he realized he had already poured two. He took one out to Leri, who thanked him for his thoughtfulness but sipped so slowly that Thaniel, whose bad leg was aching after the day’s baking, returned to his house, to rest himself for what else might happen on this unusual day.
It was about an hour later when the second dragon appeared. Thaniel let out a deep sigh when he heard the glad cries from the women, and the loud trumpeting of the dragons.
The reunions brought tears to Thaniel’s eyes as he looked on from the doorway. Moreta leapt from the back of Holth and ran to Orlith. She caressed her queen’s head, touching the pale gold neck with great tenderness as she gazed adoringly into faceted eyes that whirled bright blue with happiness. Leri dropped her cup and walked as quickly as she was able to meet Holth; she hugged her dragon’s neck fervently, as a newly Impressed weyrling would. Thaniel later said that he thought his heart would break at the old Weyrwoman’s joy.
“I never thought I’d see you again, dear heart,” Leri said amid tears of joy, while her fingers remembered the texture of Holth’s wattling hide.