“You’re right.” The silence that often grips fishermen settled comfortably in the boat.
“Yellow-stripe, if anything,” Alemi finally said in answer to the question that Elgion had almost forgotten he’d asked. “Yellow-stripe or a very hungry packtail. They’ll eat anything.”
“Packtail? That’s good eating.”
“Line’ll break. Packtail’s too heavy for this.”
The current was inexorably drawing them closer to the Dragon Stones. But, although he wanted to get Alemi talking about them, Elgion couldn’t find the proper opening. At about the point where Elgion felt he’d better speak or they’d be pulled by the current into the Stones, Alemi casually glanced around. They were only several dragon lengths from the most seaward of the great crags. The water now lapped peacefully against the base, exposing occasionally the jagged points of submerged rock, eddying around others. Alemi unfurled the sail and hauled on the sheet line.
“We need more sea room near those. Dangerous with sunken rock. When the tide’s making, current can pull you right in. If you sail this way by yourself, and you’ll soon be able to, make sure you keep your distance.”
“The lads say you saw fire lizards there once.” Elgion found the words out of his mouth before he could censor them.
Alemi shot him a long amused look. “Let’s say I can’t think what else it could’ve been. They weren’t wherries: too fast, too small, and wherries can’t maneuver that way. But fire lizards?” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders, indicating his own skepticism.
“What if I told you that there are such things? That F’nor, Canth’s rider, Impressed one in Southern and so did five or six other riders? That the Weyrs are looking for more fire lizard clutches, and I’ve been asked to search the beaches?”
Alemi stared at the Harper. Then the skiff rocked in the subtle cross currents. “Mind now, pull the tiller hard aport. No, to your left, man!”
They had the looming Dragon Stone comfortably abaft before further conversation.
“You can Impress fire lizards?” If Alemi’s voice was incredulous, an eager light sparkled in his eyes, and Elgion knew he’d made an ally; he told as much as he, himself, knew.
“Well, that would explain why you rarely see grown ones, and why they evade capture so cleverly. They hear you coming.” Alemi laughed, shaking his head. “When I think of the times…”
“Me, too.” Elgion grinned broadly, remembering his boyhood attempts to rig a successful trap.
“We’re to look on beaches?”
“That’s what N’ton suggested. Sandy beaches, sheltered places, preferably hard for small active boys to find. There’s plenty of places where a fire lizard queen could hide a clutch around here.”
“Not with the tides so high this season.”
“There must be some beaches deep enough.” Elgion felt impatient with Alemi’s arguments.
The Sea Man motioned Elgion out of the tiller seat, and deftly tacked about.
“I saw fire lizards about the Dragon Stones. And those crags’d be right good weyrs. Not that I think we’d have a chance of seeing them today. They feed at dawn: that’s when I saw them. Only,” and Alemi chuckled, “I thought my eyes were deceiving me since it was the end of a long watch and a man’s eyes can play tricks with him at dawn.”
Alemi sailed the little skiff far closer to the Dragon Stones than Elgion would have dared. In fact the Harper found himself gripping the weatherboard very hard and edging his body away from the towering crags as the skiff breezed lightly by. There was no doubt that the crags were riddled with holes, likely weyrs for fire lizards.
“I wouldn’t try this tack except when the tide is full, Elgion,” said Alemi as they sailed between the innermost crag and the tide-washed land. “There’s a right mess of bottom-reaming rocks here even at half-tide.”
It was quiet, too, with the waves softly caressing the narrow verge of sand between sea and cliff. Quiet enough for the unmistakable sound of piping to carry across the water to Elgion.
“Did you hear that?” Elgion grabbed Alemi’s arm.
“Hear what?”
“The music!”
“What music?” Alemi wondered briefly if the sun were strong enough to give the Harper a stroke. But he sharpened his ears for any unusual sound, following the line of Elgion’s stare to the cliffs. His heart leaped for a moment, but he said, “Music? Nonsense! Those cliffs are riddled with caves and holes. All you hear is the wind…”
“There isn’t any wind now…”
Alemi had to admit that because he’d let the boom out and was even beginning to wonder if they had enough wind to come about on a tack that would clear the northern side of the stones.
“And look,” said Elgion, “there’s a hole in the cliff face. Big enough for a person to get into, I’d wager. Alemi, can’t we go inshore?”
“Not unless we walk home, or wait for high tide again.”
“Alemi! That’s music! Not wind over blow holes! That’s someone playing pipes.”
An unhappy furtive thought crossed Alemi’s face so plainly that Elgion jumped to a conclusion. All at once, all the pieces fell into place.
“Your sister, the one who’s missing. She wrote those songs. She taught the children, not that conveniently dismissed fosterling!”
“Menolly’s not playing any pipes, Elgion. She sliced her left hand, gutting packtail, and she can’t open or close her fingers.”
Elgion sank back to the deck, stunned but still hearing the clear tone of pipes. Pipes? You’d need two whole hands to play multiple pipes. The music ceased and the wind, rising as they tacked past the Dragon Stones, covered his memory of that illusive melody. It could have been the land breeze, sweeping down over the cliffs, sounding into holes.
“Menolly did teach the children, didn’t she?”
Slowly Alemi nodded. “Yanus believed the Sea Hold disgraced to have a girl taking the place of a Harper.”
“Disgraced?” Once again Elgion was appalled at the obtuseness of the Sea Holder. “When she taught so well? When she can turn a tune like the ones I’ve seen?”
“She can play no more, Elgion. It would be cruel to ask now. She wouldn’t even sing in the evenings. She’d leave as soon as you started to play.”
So he’d been right, thought Elgion, the tall girl had been Menolly.
“If she’s alive, she’s happier away from the Hold! If she’s dead…” Alemi didn’t continue.
In silence they sailed on, the Dragon Stones falling away, back into violet indefiniteness as each man avoided the other’s gaze.
Now Elgion could understand many things about Menolly’s disappearance and the general reluctance at the Hold to discuss her or find her. There was no doubt in his mind that her disappearance was deliberate. Anyone sensitive enough to compose such melodies must have found life in the Sea Hold intolerable: doubly so with Yanus as Sea Holder and father. And then to be considered a disgrace! Elgion cursed Petiron for not making the matter plain. If only he had told Robinton that the promising musician were a girl, she might have been at the Harperhall before that knife had a chance to slip.
“There’d be no clutches on the Dragon Stones’ cove,” Alemi said, breaking into Elgion’s rueful thoughts. “Water’s right up to the bluff at high tide. There is one place…I’ll take you there after the next Threadfall is past. A good long day’s sail down the coast. You can Impress a fire lizard, you say?”
“I’ll set the signal for N’ton to talk to you after Fall.” Elgion was happy enough to use any subject to break the restraint that had fallen between them. “Evidently you or I can Impress, though lowly Harpers and young Sea Men may be far down on the list for available eggs.”
“By the dawn star, when I think of the hours I spent as a small fellow…”
“Who hasn’t?” Elgion grinned back, eager too for the chance.