"We could be digging until the Pass is done," Lessa said, slapping her riding gloves against her thigh as she, too, did a slow thoughtful survey of the sprawl of anonymous earthen lumps.
"A vast area," Fandarel said, "vast! A larger settlement than the combined Holds at Fort and Telgar." He glanced up in the direction of the Dawn Sisters. "They all came from those?" He shook his head, staggered by the concept. "Where to start to best effect?"
"Is everyone on Pern coming here today?" Lessa asked as a bronze dragon burst into the air over their heads. "D'ram's Tiroth! With Toric?"
"I doubt we could exclude him if we wished, and it would be unwise to try," F'lar remarked in a droll tone.
"True," she replied and then smiled at her weyrmate. "I rather like him," she added, surprised at her own verdict.
"My brother makes himself likable," Sharra said quietly to Jaxom, a curious smile on her lips. "But to trust him?" She shook her head slowly, watching Jaxom's face. "He is a very ambitious man!"
"He's taking a good look, isn't he?" N'ton remarked, watching the circling dragon's lazy downward glide.
"It's worth looking at," F'nor replied, scanning the broad, mounded expanse.
"Is that Toric aloft?" Master Nicat asked, digging his boot toe into the large mound. "Glad he's here. He sent for me when he found those mine shafts in the Western Range."
"I'd forgot he's already had some experience with the ancients' handiwork," F'lar said.
"He's also got experienced men to help us without having to go back to the Lord Holders," N'ton said with a knowing grin.
"Whom I don't want too interested in these eastern lands," Lessa said firmly.
When D'ram and Toric had dismounted, Tiroth glided down the grassy plain to where the other dragons were lounging on an outcropping of sun-warmed rock. As Toric and the bronze rider walked toward them, Jaxom regarded the Southerner with Sharra's remarks in his mind. Toric was a big man, as big as Master Fandarel in build and height. His hair was sun-streaked, his skin a deep brown and, while his smile was broad, there was a certain arrogant self-possession in the very way he strode that suggested he felt himself the equal of any awaiting him. Jaxom wondered just how that attitude would strike the Benden Weyrleaders.
"You certainly have discovered the Southern Continent, haven't you, Benden?" he said, gripping F'lar's arm in greeting and bowing as he smiled at Lessa. He nodded and murmured the name of the other leaders and masters present, glancing beyond them with a raking look at the younger people. When Toric's eyes came back to his face, just briefly, Jaxom knew he'd been identified. Resenting the way Toric's glance slid from him, as if he were negligible, he stiffened. Then he felt Sharra's hand lightly on his arm.
"He does that to irritate," she said in a very soft voice, with a ripple of her rich laughter in it. "Most of the time it's effective."
"It puts me in mind of the way my milk-brother used to tease me in front of Lytol, when he knew I couldn't retaliate," Jaxom said, surprising himself with such an unexpected comparison. He saw her approval in her dancing eyes.
"Trouble is," Toric was saying, his voice carrying to them, "that the ancients didn't leave much behind. Not if they could move it elsewhere and use it. Saving people they were!"
"Oh?" F'lar's exclamation invited Toric to explain.
The Southerner shrugged. "We've been through the mine shafts they left. They'd even pulled up the rails for their ore carts, and' the brackets where they must have hung lights. One place had a largish shelter at the mouth," he gestured toward the smallest nearby mound, "about that size, carefully shut against the weather and totally bare inside. Again, you could see where things had been bolted to the floor. They'd prized the bolts out, too."
"If this thriftiness applies here," Fandarel said, "then if anything is likely to be found, it will be in those mounds." He pointed to a smaller cluster on the edge of the settlement nearest the lava flow. "They would have been too hot or too dangerous to approach for a long time."
"And if too hot to approach, what makes you think anything survived the heat?" Toric demanded.
"Because the mound has survived to this time," Fandarel replied as if he were only being logical.
Toric regarded him for a moment and then clouted the Smith on the shoulder. He was oblivious to the startled look awarded him by Fandarel, whom men tended to treat with distant respect.
"Point in your favor, Mastersmith," Toric said. "I'll dig gladly with you and hope you're right."
"I'd like to see what's in the smaller humps," Lessa said, wheeling and indicating one. "There are such a lot of them. Maybe they were used as small holds. Surely something would be left behind in the rush to leave."
"What would they have had in such big places?" F'lar asked, kicking at the grassy roundness of the large one nearest him.
"There're hands enough and…" Toric took three long strides to the pile of digging implements, "plenty of shovels and picks for everyone to take a dig at the mound of his choice." He picked up a long-handled shovel and tossed it to the Mastersmith, who caught it in a reflex action as he stared, bemused, at the big Southerner. Toric shouldered another shovel, selected two picks and with no more discussion strode toward the cluster of mounds that were the Smith's choice.
"Presuming Toric's theory is correct, is it worth digging here?" F'lar asked his weyrmate.
"What we found in that long-forgotten room at Benden Weyr was obviously a discard of the ancients. And after all, mining equipment they could have used elsewhere. Besides, I want to see what's inside." Lessa said that with such determination that F'lar laughed.
"I guess I do, too. And I do wonder what they'd do in this size place! It's big enough to weyr a dragon or two!"
"We'll help you, Lessa," Sharra said, urging Jaxom to pick a tool.
"Menolly, shall we assist F'lar?" F'nor directed the Harper girl toward the tools.
N'ton shook his head as he hefted spade and pick. "Master Nicat, what's your preference?"
The Masterminer looked about him dubiously but his eyes kept returning to the mounds nearest the mountain toward which Toric and Fandarel moved purposefully. "I think our good Mastersmith might have the right of it. But we'll spread the effort. And try those." He pointed with sudden decision toward the sea side of the Plateau, where six smallish mounds made a loose circle.
It was not work to which any of them were accustomed despite the fact that Master Nicat had begun as an apprentice miner in the pits, and Master Fandarel still took long turns at the forges when he worked on something particularly intricate.
Jaxom, sweat pouring from his face and body, had the distinct feeling that he was under surveillance. But when he leaned on the pick for an occasional breather, or lifted colonies of grubs safely to one side, he could see no one looking in his direction. The sensation bothered him.
The big one watches you, Ruth said suddenly.
Jaxom shot a glance under his arm at the mound where Toric and Master Fandarel were working and, sure enough, Toric was looking in his direction. Beside him, Lessa groaned suddenly, jamming her shovel blade into the rough-rooted grass of the mound. She examined her hands, reddened and beginning to blister.
"It's a long time since these have worked so hard," she said.
"Use your flying gloves?" Sharra suggested.
"A few moments in them and my hands would swim in sweat," Lessa replied, grimacing. She glanced at the other work parties and, chuckling to herself, sank gracefully to the mound. "Much as I dislike revealing this site to more people than necessary, I think we shall have to recruit strong hands and backs." She deftly captured a tangle of grubs and deposited them to one side, watching them tunnel back into the rich gray-black soil. She rubbed particles between her thumbs and forefinger. "Like ash. Gritty. Never thought I'd be dealing in ashes again. Did I ever tell you, Jaxom, that I was cleaning the fireplace in Ruatha Hold the day your mother arrived?"