F’lar walked along the edge of the immense arras, wishing it could be hung to get the proper perspective of the heroic scene. A flying formation of three wings of dragons dominated the upper portion of half the hanging. They were breathing flame as they dove upon gray, falling clumps of Threads in the brilliant sky. A sky, just that perfect autumnal blue, F’lar decided, that cannot occur in warmer weather. Upon the lower slopes of the hills depicted, foliage was turning yellow from chilly nights. The slaty rocks suggested Ruathan country. Was that why the tapestry had hung in Ruatha Hall? Below, men had left the protecting Hold, cut into the cliff itself. The men were burdened with the curious cylinders of which Zurg had spoken. The tubes in their hands belched brilliant tongues of flame in long streams, aimed at the writhing Threads that attempted to burrow in the ground.
Lessa gave a startled exclamation, walking right onto the tapestry, staring down at the woven outline of the Hold, its massive door ajar, the details of its bronze ornamentation painstakingly rendered in fine yarns.
“I believe that’s the design on the Ruatha Hold door,” F’lar remarked.
“It is…and it isn’t,” Lessa replied in a puzzled voice.
Lytol glowered at her, and then at the woven door. “True. It isn’t and yet it is and I went through that door a scant hour ago.” He scowled down at the door before his toes.
“Well, here are the designs Fandarel wants to study,” F’lar said with relief, as he peered at the flamethrowers.
Whether the Smith could produce a working model from this woven one in time to help them three days hence, F’lar couldn’t guess. But if Fandarel could not, no man could.
The Mastersmith was, for him, jubilant over the presence of the tapestry. He lay upon the rug, his nose tickled by the nap as he studied the details. He grumbled, moaned and muttered as he sat cross-legged to sketch and peer.
“Has been done. Can be done. Must be done,” he was heard to rumble.
Lessa called for klah, bread and meat when she learned from young B’rant that neither he nor Lytol had eaten yet. She served all the men, her manner gay and teasing. F’lar was relieved for Lytol’s sake. Lessa even pressed food and klah on Fandarel, a tiny figure beside the mammoth man, insisting that he come away from the tapestry and eat and drink. After taking nourishment he could return to his mumbling and drawing.
Fandarel finally decided he had enough sketches and disappeared, to be flown back to his Crafthold.
“No point in asking him when he’ll be back. He’s too deep in thought to hear,” F’lar remarked, amused.
“If you don’t mind, I shall excuse myself as well,” Lessa said, smiling graciously to the four remaining around the table. “Good Warder Lytol, young B’rant should soon be excused, too. He’s half asleep.”
“I most certainly am not, Weyrlady,” B’rant assured her hastily, widening his eyes with simulated alertness.
Lessa merely laughed as she retreated into the sleeping chamber. F’lar stared thoughtfully after her.
“I mistrust the Weyrwoman when she uses that particularly docile tone of voice,” he said slowly.
“Well, we must all depart…” Robinton suggested, rising.
“Ramoth is young but not that foolish,” F’lar murmured after the others had left.
Ramoth slept, oblivious of his scrutiny. He reached for the consolation Mnementh could give him, without response. The big bronze was dozing on his ledge.
Black, blacker, blackest
And cold beyond frozen things.
Where is between when there is naught
To Life but fragile dragon wings?
“I just want to see that tapestry back on the wall at Ruatha,” Lessa insisted to F’lar the next day. “I want it where it belongs.”
They had been to check on the injured, and had had one argument already over F’lar’s having sent N’ton along with the southern venture. Lessa had wanted him to try riding another’s dragon. F’lar had preferred for him to learn to lead a wing of his own in the south, given the years to mature in. He had reminded Lessa, in the hope that it might prove inhibiting to any ideas she had about going four hundred Turns back, about F’nor’s return trips and bore down hard on the difficulties she had already experienced.
She had become very thoughtful although she had said nothing.
Therefore, when Fandarel sent word he would like to show F’lar a new mechanism, the Weyrleader felt reasonably safe in allowing Lessa the triumph of returning the purloined tapestry to Ruatha. She went to have the arras rolled and strapped to Ramoth’s back.
He watched Ramoth rise with great sweeps of her wide wings, up to the Star Stone before going between to Ruatha. R’gul appeared at the ledge, just then, reporting that a huge train of firestone was entering the tunnel. Consequently, busy with such details, it was mid-morning before he could get to see Fandarel’s crude and not yet effective flamethrower…the fire did not “throw” from the nozzle of the tube with any force at all. It was late afternoon before he reached the Weyr again.
R’gul announced sourly that F’nor had been looking for him, twice, in fact.
“Twice?”
“Twice, as I said. He would not leave a message with me for you,” and R’gul was clearly insulted by F’nor’s refusal.
By the evening meal, when there was still no sign of Lessa, F’lar sent to Ruatha to learn that she had indeed brought the tapestry. She had badgered and bothered the entire Hold until the thing was properly hung. For upwards of several hours, she had sat and looked at it, pacing its length occasionally.
She and Ramoth had then taken to the sky above the Great Tower and disappeared. Lytol had assumed, as had everyone at Ruatha, that she had returned to Benden Weyr.
“Mnementh?” F’lar bellowed when the messenger had finished, “Mnementh, where are they?”
Mnementh’s answer was a long time in coming.
I cannot hear them, he said finally, his mental voice soft and as full of worry as a dragon’s could be.
F’lar gripped the table with both hands, staring at the queen’s empty weyr. He knew, in the anguished privacy of his mind, where Lessa had tried to go.
Cold as death, death-bearing,
Stay and die, unguided.
Brave and braving, linger.
This way was twice decided.
Below them was Ruatha’s Great Tower. Lessa coaxed Ramoth slightly to the left, ignoring the dragon’s acid comments, knowing that she was excited, too.
“That’s right, dear, this is exactly the angle at which the tapestry illustrates the Hold door. Only when that tapestry was designed, no one had carved the lintels or capped the door. And there was no Tower, no inner Court, no gate.” She stroked the surprisingly soft skin of the curving neck, laughing to hide her own tense nervousness and apprehension at what she was about to attempt.
She told herself there were good reasons prompting her action in this matter. The ballad’s opening phrase, “gone away, gone ahead” was clearly a reference to between times. And the tapestry gave the required reference points for the jump between whens. Oh, how she thanked the masterweaver who had woven that doorway. She must remember to tell him how well he had wrought. She hoped she’d be able to. Enough of that. Of course she’d be able to. For hadn’t the Weyrs disappeared? Knowing they had gone ahead, knowing how to go back to bring them ahead, it was she, obviously, who must go back and lead them. It was very simple and only she and Ramoth could do it. Because they already had.