He shrugged into the cloak, found the second glove under the bed and raced down into the Great Court where the blue dragon waited.
Sight of the blue, however, inevitably reminded Jaxom that Groghe’s eldest son had been given one of the fire-lizard eggs, Lytol had deliberately refused the pair to which Ruatha Hold was entitled. That, too, was a rankling injustice. Jaxom should have had a fire-lizard egg, even if Lytol couldn’t bear to Impress one. Jaxom was Lord of Ruatha and an egg had been his due. Lytol had no right to refuse him that perquisite.
“Be a good day for Ruatha if your Talina Impresses, won’t it?” D’wer, the blue’s rider, greeted him.
“Yes,” Jaxom replied, and he sounded sullen even to himself.
“Cheer up, lad,” D’wer said. “Things could be worse.”
“How?”
D’wer chuckled and, while it offended Jaxom, he couldn’t very well call a dragonman to task.
“Good morning, Trebith,” Jaxom said to the blue, who turned his head, the large eye whirling with color.
They both heard Lytol’s voice, dull-toned but clear as he gave instructions for the day’s work to the stewards.
“For every field that gets scored, we plant two more as long as we can get seed in the ground. There’s plenty of fallow land in the northeast. Move the Holders.”
“But, Lord Lytol . . “
“Don’t give me the old wail about temporary dwellings. There’ll be temporary eating if we aren’t farsighted, and that’s harder to endure than a draught or two.”
Lytol gave Jaxom a cursory inspection and an absent good morning. The tic started in the Lord Holder’s face the moment he climbed up Trebith’s shoulder to take his seat against the neck ridges. He motioned curtly to his ward to get in front of him and then nodded to D’wer.
The blue dragonman gave a slight smile of response, as if he expected no more notice from Lytol, and suddenly they were aloft. Aloft, with Ruatha’s fire height dwindling below. And between with Jaxom holding his breath against the frightening cold. Then above Benden’s Star Stones, so close to other dragons also wincing into the Weyr that Jaxom feared collision at any moment.
“How – how do they know where they are?” he asked D’wer.
The rider grinned at him. “They know. Dragons never collide – ” And a shadow of memory crossed D’wer’s usually cheerful face.
Jaxom groaned. How stupid of him to make any reference to the queens’ battle.
“ – Lad, everything reminds us of that,” the blue rider said. “Even the dragons are off color. But,” he continued more briskly, “the Impression will help.”
Jaxom hoped so but, pessimistically, he was sure something would go wrong today, too. Then he clutched wildly at D’wer’s riding tunic for it seemed as if they were flying straight into the rock face of the Weyr Bowl. Or worse, despite D’wer’s reassurance, right into the green dragon also veering in that direction.
But suddenly they were inside the wide mouth of the upper entrance, a dark core that led into the immense Hatching Ground. The whir of wings, a concentration of the musty scent of dragons, and then they were poised above the slightly steaming sands, in the great circle theatre with its tiers of perches for men and beasts.
Jaxom had a dizzying view of the eggs on the Hatching Ground, of the colored robes of those already assembled, and the array of dragon bodies, gleaming eyes and furled wings, the great, graceful, blue, green and brown hides.
Where were the bronzes?
“They’ll bring in the candidates, Lord Jaxom. Ah, there’s the young scamp.” D’wer said, and suddenly Jaxom’s neck was jerked as Trebith backwinged to land neatly on a ledge. “Off you go.”
“Jaxom! You did come!”
And Felessan was thumping him, his clothes so new they smelled of dye and were harsh against Jaxom’s hands as he pounded his friend’s back.
“Thanks so much for bringing him, D’wer. Good day to you, Lord Warder Lytol. The Weyrleader and the Weyrwoman said to give you their greetings and to ask you to stay to eat after Impression, if you would give them a moment of your time.”
It all came out in such a rush that the blue rider grinned. Lytol bowed in such solemn acknowledgment that Jaxom felt a surge of irritation for his stuffy guardian.
Felessan was impervious to such nuances and pulled Jaxom eagerly away from the adults. Having achieved a certain physical distance, the boy chattered away in so loud a whisper that everyone two ledges up could hear him distinctly.
“I was sure you wouldn’t be allowed to come. Everything’s been so sour and horrible since the – you know – happened.”
“Don’t you know anything, Felessan?” Jaxom said in a rebuking hiss that startled his friend into wide-eyed silence.
“Huh? What’d I do wrong?” he demanded, this time in a more circumspect tone, glancing around him apprehensively. “Don’t tell me something’s gone wrong at Ruatha Hold?”
Jaxom pulled his friend as far from Lytol as they could go on that row of seats and then sat the younger boy down so hard that Felessan let out a yip of protest which he instantly muffled behind both hands. Jaxom glanced surreptitiously back at Lytol but the man was responding to the greetings of those in the level above. People were still arriving, both by dragonwing and by a climb up the flight of stairs from the hot sands. Felessan giggled suddenly, pointing toward a portly man and woman now crossing the Hatching Ground. They obviously wore thin-soled shoes for they kept picking their feet up and putting them down in a curious mincing motion, totally at variance with their physical appearance.
“Didn’t think so many people would come what with all that’s been happening,” Felessan murmured excitedly, his eyes dancing. “Look at them!” and he pointed out three boys, all with the Nerat device on their chests. “They look as if they smelled something unpleasant. You don’t think dragons smell, do you?”
“No, of course not. Only a little and it’s pleasant. They aren’t candidates, are they?” Jaxom asked, disgusted.
“Nooo. Candidates wear white.” Felessan made a grimace for Jaxom’s ignorance. “They don’t come in till later. Ooops! And later may he sooner. Didja see that egg rock?”
The motion had been observed, for the dragons began to hum. There were excited cries from late arrivals who now scurried for places. And Jaxom could scarcely see the rest of the eggs for the sudden flutter of dragon wings in the air. Just as suddenly, there were no more impediments to vision and all the eggs seemed to be rocking. Almost as if they finally found the hot sands underneath too much. Only one egg was motionless. The little one, still off by itself against the far wall.
“What’s wrong with that one?” Jaxom asked, pointing.
“That smallest one?” Felessan swallowed, keeping his face averted.
“We didn’t do anything to it.”
I didn’t,” Felessan said firmly, glaring at Jaxom. “You touched it “
“I may have touched it but that doesn’t mean I hurt it,” the young Lord Holder begged for reassurance.
“No, touching ‘em doesn’t hurt ‘em. The candidates’ve been touching ‘em for weeks and they’re rocking.”
“Why isn’t that one then?”
Jaxom had difficulty making Felessan understand him for the humming had increased until it was a constant, exciting thrum reverberating back and forth across the Hatching Ground.
“I dunno,” Felessan shrugged diffidently. “It may not even Hatch. That’s what they say, at any rate.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Jaxom insisted, mostly for his own comfort.
“I told you that! Look, here come the candidates.” Then Felessan leaned over, his lips right at Jaxom’s ear, whispering something so unintelligible that he had to repeat it three times before Jaxom did hear him.