Still in this time span, with quite a lot to cover. Thank you, all of you, for your reviews, they do a lot to encourage me to carry on with the story, although we know the ending and H'ric does not.
1.3 - 1.4.199
H'ric was sketching the island's shore line, comfortably propped by Galanath's bulk, when his dragon huffed into the sand by his foot.
- the big man with the big voice comes
H'ric had no difficulty in interpreting this as the Lord Holder Jamas of Ista, and quickly tidied himself and stood up.
"My lord."
"Weyrleader. You look a lot better, and probably feel better, I suspect?"
"Thank you, I do. Thank you for loaning us the island."
"The least I could do, when the Masterhealer asked me if I could take some sick people. You'll not mind that I didn't want you on Ista itself?"
"Not at all. I'm told you had no touch of this fever?"
"It seems to have burned its way through Nerat and Benden, touching Keroon, but nothing came further west this time. There have been world-wide plagues, I've records of them. I've been told by my daughter to come and offer you my records room."
H'ric smiled involuntarily at Lord Jamas's tone, and the Lord Holder laughed, a hearty boom of sound.
"Yes. Quite. Once the Masterhealer declares you fit, you can come and read through what I could find about the beginnings of the various Passes. Like everyone else, I can't say it makes a lot of sense - Ista is so warm and damp records seem to decay very quickly."
"Thank you. I want to compare the starts of the last seven Passes if I can get records going back that far."
"Fort would be your best bet, but of course he ain't likely to let you look! What were you doing, sitting there, staring across the island?"
"Drawing," H'ric said, and produced his sketch book. He used leaves stiffened with starch, and then coated in varnish, and although they did not last long he could draw with charcoal and chalk on them.
"Very nice. I expect you could get paints and properly sized canvas from the Painters, but I doubt if they'd let you have any. It's the same with all the Crafts, they hold onto their things as if - as if they own them! When it should be for the good of all. Nasty inward looking creatures, most of them. The Masterhealer excepted, of course."
"The Masterminer at Crom is another exception."
"Is he? That's where you grew up, of course. As Jiverny did on our island home. I'll expect you, then, will I?"
"Thank you, my lord, I'll come as soon as the Masterhealer deems me fit. We should, all of us, be leaving this lovely place very soon."
"Will you miss it?"
H'ric looked around the beautiful scenery.
"Benden Weyr is made out of an extinct volcano," he said. "It's black rock, stark lines, jagged edges, with no greenery, and the dark mouths of weyrs dotting it."
"And you love it," Lord Jamas said with a laugh. "Each to his own, Weyrleader, and it is given to us to love the place where we live, otherwise we would all be footloose wanderers on this world."
"Except during a Pass."
"Ah, even then, it could be done! With a nice handy cave for shelter, and clean sweet water, and some means of getting food, fishing or the like, you could survive Holdless. But of course we don't, because we are taught that life is not like that on this world, here we have the dragons to protect us, and to them we give honour."
He gave a half bow to Galanath and strode off, and H'ric watched him go.
- he is nicer than some of them
- he isn't bothered with boundary disputes. No one comes and says - that field is too big - part of it is my field
- he has all the big island for a home
- would you like to live here?
- Therenth is to overfly Ista
H'ric took that as a negative, and went back to finishing his sketch before the light changed and the shadows moved from his initial impression of the vista in front of him. He then folded up his sketch book and went in search of food and drink.
"You're looking much better," Master Perera said, coming to sit with him. "I'm going to close most of this hospital in the next few days, send everyone back to their own homes. The Weyrwoman is going to organise some dragonflights to take people back."
"Yes, that would be better than expecting them to walk. I can go, then?"
"Of course. I understand Lord Jamas asked you to visit?"
"Yes. I'll have a look through his records, and try to discern a pattern."
"What pattern are you seeking?"
"As to why the Pass seems to be delayed," H'ric replied. "I've been over and over the calculations of Turns past, but I can only think there has been some miscounting somewhere, and that we are not quite as far advanced as I once thought."
"Will that be better or worse?"
H'ric drained his drink and sighed out, shaking his head.
"I don't know, Master Perera. I'd like to think we have another few Turns to get more dragons bonded to their riders, because the junior queens seem - indifferent - to breeding. Which is very strange, because approaching a Pass, their fertility is triggered by the approach of the Red Star. It's big enough, in all conscience, to be seen by day and by night, but it's not approaching in the way the songs tell it."
"Songs," the Masterhealer murmured. "Why is all of Pern so tied up with these songs? Are there no records, anywhere, that are not based upon some song or another that a Harper has composed?"
"Songs are the way knowledge is dispersed," Grance said from the other side of the table where he had set down a jug of fresh fruit juice. "By learning and reiterating the songs, we keep the knowledge, Masterhealer."
"I wish I could believe it to be so, harper," Master Perera said with a sigh. "But I need more written information than a handy couplet can give me."
"Well, that one won't be solved easily! Are we singing tonight, Weyrleader? I've a new song composed, a farewell, I suppose you would call it, although I composed it not knowing we would be leaving in the next day or so."
"Yes, we'll hear it tonight, and I'll move on, Masterhealer, to Ista Hold?"
"Of course. Yes, I will be moving everyone out in the next day or so. Give us your song, then, Weyr harper! Has your Masterharper indicated he wants you returned, by the way?"
"Not as yet," Grance replied. "He sends me drum messages, requesting information, but I give him only the numbers and figures he wants, no speculations of my own."
"Like Yorus, you may never make Master under this man," H'ric warned, and Grance shrugged and smiled.
"I may not do so, but I have a place to live, and my arts to practice. I send back an occasional piece of music, but so far he's not acknowledged them."
They packed the meal away, and came out onto the veranda in the evening light, the last of the sunlight glinting across the bay and the cavorting dragons, diving and emerging in huge splashes of water.
Grance took up his usual position on the top step, leaning against the post, one leg down and supporting his gitar as he tuned it, staring out across the scene before starting to sing.
"Oh Ista, Ista, in the sun
Soft sand beaches, and rivers run
I may sail on many a sea
These shores will always give a welcome to me.
Oh Ista, Ista, in the sun
Held by me as my children's land
All my days I will come to praise
Your mountain peaks and your shining sand.
As morning breaks, dawn sisters high
I lift my eyes up to the sky
When the sun goes down in the western glow
I take my ease on the earth below.
Oh Ista, Ista, in the sun
Held by me as my children's land
All my days I will come to praise
Your mountain peaks and your shining sand.
I see people in fields around
Working the land and the fertile ground
I see the men at the waterside
Launching their boats at the surging tide
Oh Ista, Ista, in the sun
Held by me as my children's land
All my days I will come to praise
Your mountain peaks and your shining sand
I hope the day will never come
When I must leave this island home
Never to see its sun kissed shore
Or scent the breezes of days of yore.
Oh Ista, Ista, in the sun
Held by me as my children's land
All my days I will come to praise
Your mountain peaks and your shining sand."
H'ric was no singer, but he managed a creditable version of that song when he was dining at Ista's high table. He was applauded with vociferous cheers, and Jiverny smiled at him and squeezed his hand. They had been here for a day and a night, and H'ric had been up to inspect the Weyr with Galanath, examining the outward facing weyrs, the way the sun warmed the stone and prolonged the latent heat.
"Who's this Wingleader you're sending to me?" Lord Jamas asked above the clatter in the hall as the dining tables were cleared for dancing.
"W'rim, riding bronze Therenth. He's about ten or so Turns older than me, I think, a steady reliable man. He's been down here with his wing to learn the reference points."
"Amazing, that it should be so simple. I imagine a place, I put it in my mind, and - pfft - I am there!"
"I think you need a dragon, father, to aid you," Jiverny said dryly, and Lord Jamas laughed and agreed, and then there was dancing and singing, and during it H'ric and Jiverny slipped away to their own quarters, enquiring of their dragons if they were comfortable. Both agreed, from their comfortable ledge above the Hold, and H'ric peered out into the eastern sky.
"You can definitely see it's brighter," he said.
"Yes. But somehow - not nearer. I don't understand that. As if the sunlight was reflecting from its surface, somehow."
"Would that account for the redness of it? Thread is supposed to be grey, or silvery, when it reaches us. Perhaps - up there - it is red."
"That could be true. We'll look at the records tomorrow and see what there is to find out. Father says the Masterhealer has asked to come and consult with him as well, but I don't know what that's about."
"Perhaps just to check that none of that illness reached here?"
"It could be. That song of Grance's is still being sung below in the hall."
"He's better than Yorus," H'ric acknowledged as they came together in the bed, throwing the lightest of covers over themselves. "I thought Yorus was good, but his songs lack the - depth - the feeling - that Grance brings to his music."
"He wrote that piece for the children to sing, at Turnover Festival, and that was beautiful. I liked Yorus for himself, he was so open and cheerful, but Grance repays you if you are patient with him."
"Mm. Like L'rens."
He fell silent, staring into the darkness, and Jiverny put an arm over his chest and snuggled into his shoulder.
"I know," H'ric murmured. "Not the first, and certainly not the last, but it still hurts, and we will never find his body, because he never gave anyone the references for those far valleys."
"Unless Sicceth took him between for all time when he departed. We can't tell that, nor should it be something we should fret over."
H'ric leaned and kissed her, and they came together with something of joy and something of grief, and above all the thankfulness of their own lives spared.