Tomorrow, thought Lessa glumly, some emergency will occur or our hard-working Weyrleader will decide today’s session constitutes keeping his promise and that will be that.
There was one jump she could make between, from anywhere on Pern, and not miss her mark. She visualized Ruatha for Ramoth as seen from the heights above the Hold … to satisfy that requirement. To be scrupulously clear, Lessa projected the pattern of the firepits. Before Fax, invaded and she had had to manipulate its decline, Ruatha had been such a lovely, prosperous valley. She told Ramoth to jump between.
The cold was intense and seemed to last for many heartbeats. Just as Lessa began to fear that she had somehow lost them between, they exploded into the air above the Hold.
Elation filled her. That for F’lar and his excessive caution! With Ramoth she could jump anywhere! For there was the distinctive pattern of Ruatha’s fire-guttered heights. It was just before dawn, the Breast Pass between Crom and Ruatha, black cones against the lightening gray sky. Fleetingly she noticed the absence of the Red Star that now blazed in the dawn sky. And fleetingly she noticed a difference in the air.
Chill, yes, but not wintry … the air held that moist coolness of early spring.
Startled, she glanced downward, wondering if she could have, for all her assurance, erred in some fashion. But no, this was Ruath Hold. The Tower, the inner Court, the aspect of the broad avenue leading down to the crafthold were just as they should be. Wisps of smoke from distant chimneys indicated people were making ready for the day.
Ramoth caught the tenor of her insecurity and began to press for an explanation.
This is Ruatha, Lessa replied stoutly. It can be no other.
Circle the heights. See, there are the firepit lines I gave you….
Lessa gasped, the coldness in her stomach freezing her muscles.
Below her in the slowly lifting predawn gloom, she saw the figures of many men foiling over the breast of the cliff from the hills beyond Ruatha, men moving with quiet stealth like criminals.
She ordered Ramoth to keep as still as possible in the air so as not to direct their attention upward. The dragon was curious but obedient.
Who would be attacking Ruatha? It seemed incredible. Lytol was, after all, a former dragonman and had savagely repelled one attack already. Could there possibly be a thought of aggression among the Holds NOW that F’lar was Weyrleader? And what H6ld Lord would be foolish enough to mount a territorial war in the winter? No, not winter. The air was definitely springlike.
The men crept on, over the firepits to the edge of the heights. Suddenly Lessa realized they were lowering rope ladders over the face of the cliff, down toward the open shutters of the Inner Hold.
Wildly she clutched at Ramoth’s neck, certain of what she saw. This was the invader Fax, now dead nearly three Turns Fax and his men as they began their attack on Ruatha nearly thirteen Turns ago.
Yes, there was the Tower guard, his face a white blot turned toward the Cliff itself, watching. He had been paid his bribe to stand silent this morning.
But the watchwher, trained to give alarm for any intrusion why was it not trumpeting its warning? Why was it silent?
Because, Ramoth informed her rider with calm logic, it senses your presence as well as mine, so how could the Hold be in danger?
No, No! Lessa moaned. What can I do now? How can I wake them? Where is the girl I was? I was asleep, and then I woke. I remember. I dashed from my room. I was so scared. I went down the steps and nearly fell. I knew I had to get to the watchwher’s kennel… . I knew… .
Lessa clutched at Ramoth’s neck for support as past acts and mysteries became devastatingly clear. She herself had warned herself, just as it was her presence on the queen dragon that had kept the watchwher from giving alarm. For as she watched, stunned and speechless, she saw the small, gray-robed figure that could only be herself as a youngster, burst from the Hold Hall door, race uncertainly down the cold stone steps into the Court, and disappear into the watchwher’s stinking den. Faintly she heard it crying in piteous confusion.
Just as Lessa-the-giri reached that doubtful sanctuary, Fax’s invaders swooped into the open window embrasures and began the slaughter of her sleeping family.
“Back-back to the Star Stone!” Lessa cried. In her wide and staring eyes she held the image of the guiding rocks like a rudder for her sanity as well as Ramoth’s direction. The intense cold acted as a restorative. And then they were above the quiet, peaceful wintry Weyr as if they had never paradoxically visited Ruatha.
F’lar and Mnementh were nowhere to be seen. Ramoth, however, was unshaken by the experience. She had only gone where she had been told to go and had not quite understood that going where she had been told to go had shocked Lessa. She suggested to her rider that Mnementh had probably followed them to Ruatha so if Lessa would give her the proper references, she’d take her there. Ramoth’s sensible attitude was comforting.
Lessa carefully drew for Ramoth not the child’s memory of a long-vanished, idyllic Ruatha but her more recent recollection of the Hold, gray, sullen, at dawning, with a Red Star pulsing on the horizon. And there they were again, hovering over the valley, the Hold below them on the right. The grasses grew untended on the heights, clogging firepit and brickwork; the scene showed all the deterioration she had encouraged in her effort to thwart Fax of any profit from conquering Ruath Hold.
But, as she watched, vaguely disturbed, she saw a figure emerge from the kitchen, saw the watchwher creep from its lair and follow the raggedly dressed figure as far across the Court as the chain permitted. She saw the figure ascend the Tower, gaze first eastward, then northeastward. This was still not Ruatha of today and now! Lessa’s mind reeled, disoriented. This time she had come back to visit herself of three Turns ago, to see the filthy drudge plotting revenge on Fax.
She felt the absolute cold of between as Ramoth snatched them back, emerging once more above the Star Stone. Lessa was shuddering, her eyes frantically taking in the reassuring sight of the Weyr Bowl, hoping she had not somehow shifted backward in time yet again. Mnementh suddenly erupted into the air a few lengths below and beyond Ramoth. Lessa greeted him with a cry of intense relief.
Back to your weyr! There was no disguising the white fury in Mnementh’s tone. Lessa was too unnerved to respond in any way other than instant compliance. Ramoth glided swiftly to their ledge, quickly clearing the perch for Mnementh to land.
The rage on F’lar’s face as he leaped from Mnementh and advanced on Lessa brought her wits back abruptly. She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.
“How dare you risk yourself and Ramoth? Why must you defy me at every opportunity? Do you realize what would happen to all Pern if we lost Ramoth? Where did you go?”
He was spitting with anger, punctuating each question that tumbled from his lips by giving her a head-wrenching shake.
“Ruatha,” she managed to say, trying to keep herself erect. She reached out to catch at his arms, but he shook her again.
“Ruatha? We were there. You weren’t. Where did you go?”
“Ruatha!” Lessa cried louder, clutching at him distractedly because he kept jerking her off balance. She couldn’t organize her thoughts with him jolting her around.
She was at Ruatha, Mnementh said firmly.
We were there twice, Ramoth added.
As the dragons’ calmer words penetrated F’lar’s fury, he stopped shaking Lessa. She hung limply in his grasp, her hands weakly plucking at his arms, her eyes closed, her face gray. He picked her up and strode rapidly into the queen’s weyr, the dragons following. He placed her upon the couch, wrapping her tightly in the fur cover. He called down the service shaft for the duty cook to send up hot klah. “All right, what happened?” he demanded.