And still the excavation of Landing continued. Fandarel’s mound, the last of the original choices to be excavated, had added to the frustration. He had been correct that the heat of the volcano had kept the building from being cleared by the ancient refugees, but whatever had been in it had been so badly damaged—or, in some cases, completely destroyed—that it was impossible to identify. A flurry of further digging in that sector proved unenlightening: the buildings thus found seemed to have been used as beastholds.
That raised the questions of how so many beasts could have been accommodated in the Dawn Sisters, how many people had made the voyage, how far they had come, and how long had Landing been inhabited. The fire-lizards’ peculiarly tenacious memory evidently contained only unusual occasions: the initial landing, the volcanic eruption, and the far more recent incident of the retrieval of Ramoth’s stolen egg, when dragons had actually flamed at fire-lizards. It was still not common knowledge that Jaxom and Ruth had stolen back the egg for the North—all most people knew was that the miraculous return of the egg had made it unnecessary for the Northern dragon wings to exact retribution from Southern Oldtimers and prevented the worst catastrophe anyone could imagine: dragon fighting dragon.
There was a certain contentment on both sides of the sea now that the Southern Continent had been opened up, leaving those interested in the ancients free to pursue the puzzles posed by the excavations. One rainy week, the frustration level of those kept holdbound at the cove was particularly high, and even Piemur, racking his brain, could not come up with a diversion.
“It may well be, Robinton,” Lytol suggested, “that we shall never know the answers.”
“Now that I won’t accept!” The Harper propelled himself out of his chair, pausing the tiniest bit as his joints prevented a smooth rising. “Bloody rain always seizes me up.” He straightened his back, stood on one leg to jiggle the other, then repeated the process with his right leg. “What was I going to do?”
“Pace with frustration,” Piemur said, looking up from the object he was studying under an enlarging glass. “I’ll join you. There is no way this—thing—was useful.” He flicked the rectangular board away from him. “‘Beads and wires and tiny joins!”
“Decorative?” D’ram asked.
“Unlikely. It’s more of the same sort of thing we found in the forward portion of the flying ship.”
“What was I going to do?” Robinton demanded of no one in particular, one hand on his forehead, the other propped at his belt. “And I’ve got enough wine.”
“I was talking about generations,” Lytol patiently cued him. “You wouldn’t accept the delay…”
“Ah, yes, thank you.” Robinton went over to the map stand that stood across one window. He leafed through the charts until he found the one he wanted and then pulled it up to hook it to the top of the frame. “Has anyone done anything about these?” He indicated the symbols in red, blue, and green, positioned like miniature flags between the landing strip and the far southern edge of the settlement.
Piemur swiveled in his chair to look.
“No, sir. There doesn’t seem to be anything there now.”
“But caves were discovered in that general area, weren’t they?”
“Yes, caves that had obviously been adapted for use as living quarters,” Piemur admitted. “Probably for greens, since the dragon couches were very small.”
“What if—what if the caves here,” Robinton said excitedly, tapping the flags, “had concealed entrances?”
“Master, haven’t we found enough junk?” Piemur’s sweeping gesture took in the entire Cove Hold complex.
“But no answers!” Robinton shook his head. “There have to be some answers, so that we can understand more than what we’ve gleaned from fire-lizards!” Roused from his sleep on the back of Robinton’s chair, Zair chirped in reassurance. “And that’s enough from you, impudence with wings. As I’ve said before, people who could execute the wonders we have seen would have kept records!”
“They did, and they’re the dust in the back corridors of Fort Hold and Benden Weyr,” Piemur broke in. “And we’re none the wiser.”
“They can’t have kept so few copies!” the Harper insisted. “And we have the maps as examples of the durability of their materials—so where are the rest?”
“There were lapses in record-keeping,” Lytol agreed solemnly. “We now know there must have been a terrible fire in one portion of Fort Hold’s lowest level; we are also agreed that plague decimated Hall, Hold, and Weyr on three separate occasions. We may never learn our history.” He seemed as resigned to that possibility as the Harper was resistant to it.
“So, when the rain decides to stop,” Piemur asked on a long-suffering note, “do you want me to take some rodmen and find these caves for you?”
When the next day brought a clearing of the heavy rains, Piemur sent Farli to Eastern Weyr for a dragon to convey himself and the Harper to the Plateau. V’line, a young bronze rider, arrived and duly transported them. Once at the Plateau, the Harper requested V’line and Clarinath to circle over the site. So often an aerial search produced visual clues not apparent on the surface. Carefully scrutinizing the terrain below, neither Piemur nor Robinton noticed the absence of fire-lizards.
But as the wide circling brought them to face north, they could not fail to notice the map building, which had been completely unearthed, visibly tremble and slowly, almost majestically, collapse. Then people were erupting from the Plateau buildings in panic.
“Clarinath says the ground isn’t steady,” V’line exclaimed.
“Earthshake?” Piemur suggested.
“Can we land?” V’line asked.
“I don’t see why not,” the Harper said. “There’s nothing out here to fall on us. Pity about the ‘hill.’ Perhaps we shouldn’t have uncovered it.”
“Perhaps you should have let Master Esselin shore up the weak section,” Piemur replied.
“Shall we land?” V’line was dubious, and Clarinath was swinging his head anxiously, peering down at the unreliable surface. “Is it still rocking?”
“How can we tell up here?” Piemur demanded. “Tell Clarinath the Harper says it’s all right to land.”
“I’m glad you’re so certain about it,” the Harper said, his expression reflecting his qualms. “But I feel we ought to proceed first to Plateau and see if all is well.”
The rest of that day was spent in establishing that there had been little damage, with the exception of the old “hill,” at the Plateau. The earthshake had been more noticeable at Monaco Bay and Eastern Weyr, but had been the merest shiver at Cove Hold, noticed only because of the disappearance of the fire-lizards.
Masters Nicat and Fandarel were sent for—Piemur thought it a waste of their valuable time, since it was his experience that shakes were common in the South—to look into the phenomenon and figure out what precautions could be taken for the future. Earthshakes were exceedingly rare in the North, and no one knew what to expect.
“It’s really rather simple,” Piemur muttered to the girl who was passing around soup and klah. “The next time all the fire-lizards flick off in a storm, you can expect another shake.”
“Are you certain of your facts?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes, on the basis of personal observation,” Piemur replied, not certain if he liked being challenged so quickly. Then he noticed the twinkle in her eye. She was not unattractive, with a mop of very curly black hair, gray eyes, and a fine long nose—he always noticed noses, since he regretted his own snub of a nose. “I’ve been in the South nearly ten Turns and that shock was nothing.”
“I’ve been here ten days, and I found that shock unsettling, journeyman. I don’t recognize your colors,” she added, nodding at his shoulder knots.
He winked at her and assumed an arrogant pose. “Cove Hold!” He was extremely proud to be one of a half dozen entitled to wear those colors.