11
Bitra swallowed a mouthful of salt water before he realised, and coughing and choking flailed around. His hand encountered something to grip and he hauled himself up to the air again, and found he was draped across the back of the one of the swimmers. Fortran was dancing up and down on the raft, and Bitra raised a hand in reassurance, hearing the snout-hounds yipping and yapping. Bitra shook his head and flung his hair back, looking around at the great creatures all around him. He felt no fear, only wonder, and laid his cheek on the rough skin, wondering if these were the creatures he heard singing.
To his astonishment, with the increase of his headache he "heard" not the singing, but a distinct voice.
- are you safe, my own?
- Wavehover? No - not Wavehover - Taranath - is that you?
- it is! We speak again! I can hear you!
- and I you, but very faintly.
- this will need practice. Are you far from me?
Bitra raised his head and immediately lost the thread. Cursing, he laid his head down, but the link was gone. He gave a frustrated sob and clutched at the creature beneath him as he was drawn onwards towards the raft, and with a convulsive heave, threw himself onto the deck. He rolled over and then stuck his head below the surface and shouted "thank you" into the waters, and then, feeling sick and headachy, rolled over onto the deck, blinking salt water from his sight.
"Friend Bitra! I thought you were dead!"
Fortran hurried to fetch water and Bitra sat up, staring out at the group of swimmers.
"They - helped me speak to Taranath. That's Wavehover's real name. We spoke - in the mind - like we used to."
"And the grey ones helped you? They're the ones who sing? Yes, if you can speak to a dragon, why not to a grey one?"
"But I spoke to Taranath and understood her. I didn't understand the grey ones - their singing - was like you and Pirest talking and laughing together."
Fortran sat back and stared over the choppy waters and then pointed into the sky.
"She comes," he said simply, and Bitra stood up, grabbing the edge of the cabin as he peered into the blueness, and Taranath was backwinging beside the raft, making it rock, and Bitra shook his head in desperate frustration.
"I can't hear you, Taranath!" he shouted. "Not now - not without help from the grey ones - we'll be at the island soon - "
Taranath swooped and caught the anchor rope in her talons, her wings snapped open and she flew outwards and began towing the raft. Fortran shouted in fear and dropped to hands and knees, and Bitra grabbed at loose gear, thrusting it into the cabin.
"Hold on, friend Fortran! Hold on!"
The wild ride took them a fraction of the time it would have done under sail. Taranath let go as they approached the beach, the anchor splashed down and held, and the raft swung around to come to rest. Bitra plunged off the raft and swam the last few strokes to the beach and stumbled up onto the sand, flinging his arms around the neck of his dragon.
"We spoke," he sobbed. "We'll speak again - I know we will - "
The third snout-hound had been yipping at his feet, and Bitra crouched and rubbed his rough hair.
"Yes, I know, you kept her safe for me. Thank you."
He swam back out to the raft and hauled himself on board. One of the things they had traded for had been a small boat, just large enough for both of them, with oars, and Fortran had unlashed it and was readying it.
"We need water," he said. "Since we're here before nightfall we might as well make camp on the beach. The tide is on the in, so the raft will be safe."
"All right. Sorry - I didn't mean - it was dangerous to swim off like that."
"Yes, but no harm done. Take these containers, will you?"
"Fortran - "
Fortran looked up. "It's all right, friend Bitra, we will make sense of this together. I was so frightened, that's all."
Bitra grimaced. "So was I. All my past life flashed in front of me, I can tell you - " he broke off and stared at Fortran who stared back.
"In truth? In truth, you saw all your past life?"
Bitra nodded slowly. "I come from a sea hold, I was Searched at a young age to go to High Reaches Weyr, about as far from the sea as you can get, I lived there for six years before Impression, I've flown Taranath for - oh - ten or twelve Turns."
"Amazing! More than all your fellows know! And your name?"
"I am called R'card."
"Difficult to say. Ricard?"
"When you Impress a dragon, when they hatch, a rider shortens his name. But Ricard is fine by me."
He bent and picked up the empty skins and climbed down into the boat, readied the oars, and Fortran followed him with the snout-hounds. They had been howling and yipping to each other and once on shore they indulged in a playfight up and down the beach. Fortran went over to the dragon.
"I must call you Taranath, now," he said, scratching the eye ridges. "We will look further into this speaking of minds. We met some more dragon riders at the markets."
Taranath followed them to the wells of fresh water. Generations ago, someone had bored these holes in the rock, Fortran had said, to provide a stopping point for people travelling around the seas. Taranath had found one of the huge shallow carapaces of a swimming creature, and nudged it along towards them. Ricard took the hint, wedged it securely, and filled it twice for her to drink, and then filled it again for the snout-hounds. Birds gathered in the trees around them, he could hear their soft twitterings.
"I'll fill it again," he promised, as Fortran lowered the skins into the wells and hauled them up filled for Ricard to stopper.
"Who are you talking to?" Fortran asked, staring around the empty island.
"The birds," Ricard admitted with a smile.
"Do you intend to learn how to speak to every creature on this world?"
"It might not be a bad idea. If the grey swimmers have intelligence, and the snout-hounds as well, who knows what other species might?"
"Species?"
Ricard frowned as he refilled the shell.
"I don't know - that word just came into my mind. It means - everything that belongs together - all of a kind."
"Oh, our word is keth-kon. Yes, I understand you."
Fortran carefully put the lids back over the wells to prevent fouling, and they moved away, glancing back to see the birds fluttering down for water in the refilled carapace.
"If you didn't set the sail, but put down the rudder, and if the balons didn't perish, would the currents carry you all around the world?" Ricard asked as he put the filled and stoppered skins on matting to pull down to the boat.
"Yes, so it's told. I don't know if the balons would last that long."
"But if you built a boat? Larger than your skin boat, built of wood?"
Fortran straightened. "This is not something you should mention out loud, friend Ricard, because of course lots of people don't want the trees used for such purposes."
"The dragon riders used hollowed out logs as canoes."
"My people allow that, I suppose. Five canoes - that is not a lot of wood."
"I understand. I'll go and refill the tanks and come back."
They spent the day refilling the tanks on the raft, and Ricard found more of the new fruits, and cut some fresh from the trees as well, their outer casing smoothly green and soft. Fortran foraged inland and brought green leaves to wrap around the fish Taranath caught for them, and they cooked them on the shore, taking the precaution of hiding the fire in a depression.
"You've done this before - this sand is burned right through," Ricard said thoughtfully.
"It's an island on a lot of maps," Fortran replied, sniffing the wind and glancing into the trees. "There may be rain before the end of the night."
Ricard dug in the sand at the site of other older fires, and brought several pieces of burned and solidified sand to their fire, holding them up to show the firelight gleaming through them.
"Burning glass," Fortran said. "I've a small piece of that - useful for lighting a fire."
"And to make windows."
"Windows? Another of your words?"
"We built in wood and stone, and windows keep out the cold and the rain. How do you keep those out?"
Fortran shrugged. "I turn the boat over, of course, and burrow underneath."
"Hmm."
They slept on shore, but woke in the night as a spat of rain came over the island, and pulled dragon hide coverings over themselves to keep dry. The wind picked up and blew harder and at first light they packed their goods and loaded them.
"The wind will be too strong for Taranath?"
"She'll be fine. We know where we're headed?"
Fortran was struggling with the smaller sail and Ricard went to speak to Taranath and point out the shape of the next island. He laid his head against hers, trying to find a way to speak to her, but there was only that headache-making darkness, and he sighed and shook his head and left her to take off and wing her way into the sky.
"Come, friend Ricard, with this wind we'll very probably beat her to the island!"
"Right you are. Let me clew this line up and haul the anchor."
