Thella had been crouched under the rock overhang since before sunrise, observing the mouth of the cave across the ravine. Danger came from above. She hadn't been discovered because she was smarter. But she was hungry, tired and alone; thanks to the dragonriders. Neither Dushik nor Redis had arrived at the rendezvous and she could not risk waiting or searching to find out what had happened. They hadn't been trustworthy since the ambush.
From her observations of the past four seven-day, she knew a dragon arrived the day after restday. It never stayed long, just long enough to re-supply then lift off and wink out. She was waiting for the green or blue to arrive then leave. Then she'd have half the day to slink over to the cave. It had been fitted with a metal door. The path she chose would put her atop the keystone. When they came out to sit in the afternoon sun she'd jump between them and the safety of the cave.
/
Rannelly listened for the sweep of dragonwings as she bolted the door and rechecked the shutters of the sole window. The pounding on the inner door and strangled cries would subside in about an hour, which was fine by her. She needed to store the supplies. The blue rider, D'Lon, wouldn't bring the sacks of blackstone further in than the doorway because his Plinath was crying like he was threadscored out on the landing. No dragon nor rider wanted this supply duty, not with the queen-less crazed ex-weyrewoman screaming at them through the rock. Rannelly hefted a basket of fruits and tsked at their puny state. How she missed Southern, how she missed Weyrelife, how she missed being the nurse of somebody of importance.
In her youth, Rannelly had the opportunity to be somebody of consequence, as much as a woman could have. She had turned Lord Tarathel head when he had been fostered to her father's hold in Keroon. When he chose his first bride, he chose her sister, Nerana, instead then sent for her to keep his lonely wife company. She had delivered him a fine son, Tanrel, a month before Nerana died birthing Thella. She had begun nursing her niece along with her son expecting to become the next Lady of the Hold. To her shock, Tarathel installed mousy Lira as his Lady. She produced a son before her own was a full turn. Lira was quick to foster Tanrel so Rannelly made the most of her position as Thella's nurse. Thella was a lovely toddler by then delighting her father with Nerana's eyes. None of Lira's children, including her only son Larad, touched their father like Thella.
Rannelly believed it was her duty to instill in this girl child the ambition to be more than the lady of a holder. Women had the intelligence to be more than a consort to a Lord Holder and deliver children until she died. Tarathel fell into this philosophy as far as allowing his eldest to ride runners, hunt with various weapons and accompany him on ventures to outlying farms and mines.
For such a virile man, Tarathel had only the one legitimate son. Tanrel was raised away from Telgar Hold proper, not allowed to return to her or his grandfather's hold. She had no idea where her son was now. Not that it mattered. She did have an idea where her second charge, Thella was. She was close by. It made sense. So while sweepriders and mercenaries searched for her niece in the east, she knew Thella would eventually arrive at the lonely mountains of the High Reaches in the West. This time, Rannelly decided, she will seize this opportunity and escape her lunatic charge. This time; timing. Rannelly was adept at biding her time.
/
After arranging the poles to the clasps at Kylara's wrists and ankles, Rannelly added the band around her neck and secured her to the blank wall. With a sigh, she approached the outer door. "How will she announce her presence?" Rannelly mused, "Sidle up to the door? Jump from the keystone or merely appear from behind the outcrop? I guess it is time to find out."
Rannelly opened the door which swung in, then waited. "The shadow betrays you, Lala. Jump down now; I'll make some klah and feed you your first decent meal in a year."
Thella sprang to the doorway, securing a wicked knife into her boot, "I detest that nickname, Aunti."
Rannelly's heart stuttered. Since the incident in Benden she had crafted that guessing game before opening her door. Thella rarely left her hosts alive and she wasn't sure if a blood bond would be enough to save her.
Clinking from the back wall alerted Thella to her half sister.
"Do not look directly at her, Thella" warned Rannelly. "It will set her off." But the warning was too late. Kylara lunged forward with a piercing scream that cut off in a choking grunt at the band about her neck kept her from advancing.
"I'll claw your eyes, you cheap, common harlot. How dare you look upon me?"
"Where's Pridith, poppet?" cooed Rannelly. The ragged woman secured to the wall by three-foot stick affixed to her manacles, couldn't fall to her knees or bring her hands to her face but her features crumpled to reflect a desperate pain and a keen in a spine-shivering key emitted from her throat.
"Gone; she's gone." Kylara wailed. "They're gone. Why do you keep me from her? Why, old woman? Let me go to her. Why? WHY?"
"In good time, poppet," she responded as she turned to the hearth fire to pull away the pot of klah with her skirt and filled a mug for Thella. "Here you go, Lady La, sit at the table and I'll bring you some sup."
"When will she stop that howling?" Thella responded as she sat and cradled the mug in her chapped hands.
"When she tires, I suppose. She tires easily on supply day and the sticks help. See? She can only stand. It helps keep her from injuring herself as well. Rannelly looked up on her charge with pride. She brought a wooden plate with stew and a hunk of bread to the table and set it before Thella.
"And where is your plate, Aunti? Do you expect me to eat alone?" Thella scowled.
Rannelly chuckled. "I taught you well, child. Here's my cup and plate. Now serve me up with a portion of your food and we shall eat. Give me either plate. What advantage to me are you if you are poisoned?"
Thella chuckled as well and dug into her plate of food. It was at Ranelly's knee that she learned the means of incapacitating adversaries in the hold. "So tell me, Rannelly, how you aspired to these grand accommodations?" She waved her spoon about the oblong room. A cot heaped with double rushes was below the sole window which was shuttered. A press was at its head. The recently deposited supplies were at the near end in orderly stacks next to a work table on which was neatly organized kitchen tools. Situated next to the table on the outside wall was a hearth with a low-burning coal fire. It heated the room adequately. Three wooden barrels perhaps filled with water stool next to the hearth. Suspended from the high ceiling were skins of wine and a few sides of cured meat. In the center of the room were bags of blackstone. The back wall was devoid of tapestries or any other ornamentations save her crazed sister. In the corner was a second door, made of the same metal as the front. It was shut. The ceiling was higher at the near end than it was at the end with the door. It gave the illusion that the room was shrinking. All the while, Kylara keened but the volume was lowering.
Rannelly followed her niece's gaze and smiled rapturously. "Yes, our aspirations reflect our surroundings. I could not be more content. And your garb matches your station. The blood of Keroon and Telgar shines proudly in this great hall."
"Telgar," Kylara whimpered, as she tried to sit or lean. However, she was secured in a standing position with her arms and legs apart. If she leaned forward the band about her neck would dig into her throat. If she leaned back, the sticks at her wrists and ankles pressed painfully. Her dress was a deep red bodice over a faded red dress, the skirt hung in rags, blackened. The sleeves, as well, were ripped in places. Once it was grand garb for a Lady of the hold and even for a Weyrewoman. Now it was appropriate for what Kylara had become, a madwoman.
Thella spooned the last of the stew from her plate and swallowed it down with klah. She walked to her half sister and observed the once-proud beauty. She still towered over her as they did as children. While her blond locks were secured in a braid down her back, Kylara's head was shorn. There were scrapes and healed scars upon it. Part of her right eyebrow sported a perpendicular scar that traveled up to her hairline. Most startling was her thin countenance. While Thella's natural endowments and curves had long since become sinuously muscular, Kylara's had withered.
"Is she so difficult to subdue that you shackle her?" Thella said with little inflection.
"Ah," sighed Rannelly, rising painfully from the bench, "This is how I keep her from harm, from suicide. The weyrefolk insist she live this half life without, well … you know." She neglected to state that Kylara couldn't reach her with fists or fingernails in that position.
"But why let her live in such base standards and why are you her keeper?"
"My lot has been with her since you left the nursery, my Lady. Where else am I to go? Larad? Pah." She spat. "His lady was pleased to remove me when Kylara summoned me to the weyre and now, no weyre would have me thanks to this one's stupidity. She received no intelligence from our master, only his lusts."
"Hmmm," was Thella's reply. "Rannelly, you know several ways to render the end of natural life. Why would you leave my father's child in such…"
"Believe me La, I would. Every dragon on Pern can feel her presence and wait for it to be over. I wait for it. As long as she lives I will be here in this hole in the rocks." Rannelly stopped before she said too much and watched her dangerous niece for signs of her own insanity.
She turned from her sister abruptly and said, "I need supplies and time to make repairs to my kit but mostly I want a bath."
"As do I, Thella." Rannelly gestured about the room. "There are no thermals in these mountains and our only water is those three barrels."
"What's beyond that door?"
"That is Kylara's chambers but please keep it closed. It stinks, especially after a, … well you know, was present. And I assure you, no bathing room is beyond that door."
"Put her back in."
"I must feed her first then air her… and the room needs to be cleaned too."
Thella took a step closer to Rannelly and scowled down with Nerana's eyes at the rotund woman, "Put her back in."
"Routine is necessary to the crazed, Thella. You must understand that I," She stopped as Thella's hand came around to slap her cheek holding up a stick that caught her on her wrist. In a flash the stick was under Thella's chin. "Yes, Lala, there is a blade on the end of the stick and I will drive it into your throat if you think you can treat me as you do your ruffians. You will honor one of your blood. Now, I am eager to help you but I must administer to my charge. Do we understand each other?"
"Perfectly," replied Thella as she fought to relax herself. Rannelly lowered her stick.
Thella walked through the outer door and soon returned with a worn pack. Rannelly had removed Kylara from the wall and had her seated at the table. The sticks now secured her to the bench. Kylara obediently opened her mouth to be spooned stew. Rannelly nodded toward the window. "The sewing kit is in the press. Look for the blue wherehide bundle."
Thella began evaluating the content of her pack by first removing her tattered clothing. She unrolled the bundle and picked up a punch to make new holes for patches on the worn knees and sleeves.
The women continued their tasks in silence. Thella continued working with her pack eventually stepping over to the hearth to burn the scraps of her afternoon's work. Rannelly finished feeding her charge then washed her face from a small basin on the table. She then stripped the woman of her clothing and dropped them into a pot of steaming water set over the coals. Thella noted that the manacles about her sister's ankles and wrists were removed. Rannelly babbled a constant one-sided conversation with her charge while she washed and dressed her, this time in a light blue wool dress.
In the next moment Rannelly had secured Kylara's wrists and ankles once again this time using a length of heavy chain after clasping a band about the woman's waist. "Come now, poppet; time to get some air." Kylara sprang through the door intent on leaping from the outcrop but the chain, now secured to the bolt on the heavy metal door, stopped her directly before the edge. She screeched in anger and turned back toward the door but Rannelly shut it. After a few lunges at the door, Kylara leapt to the shuttered window and flung her body against it then sat on the outer sill and moaned.
Thella neither rose nor spoke. Rannelly put a cloth over her lower face and proffered one to Thella. When Rannelly opened the inner door, Thella quickly understood and covered her nose too. The reek hurt her eyes. Rannelly quickly returned with a pitchfork of soiled rushes which she dumped in the hearth and moved the pot and kettle away from the smoke. The fire quickly ate the fetid rushes as she returned with more to burn. Next she dumped spent ashes from a metal can on the floor and picked up a heavy bristled broom and worked the ash around the floor and lower walls. Returning to the hearth, she pulled the wet red dress from the pot and gave it a few twists to remove the water. She hung it from a hook suspended from the ceiling then lugged the pot over to the room and dumps the hot wash water on the floor. With a huff, she donned heavy wherhide boots, picked up her broom and began scrubbing the ash and water into the rock. After swishing the gritty solution around the floor and lower walls she swept it to one side. All this time, she continued a monolog that Thella increasingly found difficult to ignore.
Rannelly picked up the sticks and stepped up onto the press releasing one catch of the shutter. Immediately Klyara was pounding on it. With speed that defied her dumpy body, Rannelly threw open the door. As Kylara ran through she tripped her and jumped to the woman's back. Soon both sticks were back on her manacles and by the time Kylara regained her feet, Rannelly had affixed the sticks to her ankles too. In no time, Kylara was in the same contained position against the bare wall except the band was still about her waist and not her neck.
"What kind of sticks are those," asked Thella.
"The Mastersmith designed them for me. After Kylara broke the inner door he came to fit and install this one." She replied pointing to it.
"Whooh. I couldn't imagine Fanderel fitting through that opening less so move to that shrinking stink hole." Thella said first pointing to the outer then inner door. "How long ago was that?"
"I had him when he came here. He had wanted me from the first day he saw me." Kylara stated.
"About two years ago," said Rannelly, ignoring her charge's acclamation. "Do not concern yourself, Lala, nobody visits us unless compelled." She had returned from the second room with another shovel-full of damp ash and debris which she carried through the door and dumped down the cliff. Her bun had come partially undone and sweat beaded on her brow. She put back the shovel and retrieved the pitchfork to heft about the third of the rushes on her cot. She flung it into the room without looking in. When Thella looked in she found a small round room with an even lower ceiling. Kylara was not able to stand in it.
"Stand aside, please, La," said Rannelly. She had the ankle sticks removed along with the bands and only the ones around her wrists remained. She was pushing the woman via the sticks and as she cleared the door she pressed them downward and together until Kylara was on her knees with her hands behind her. Thella heard a muffled click as the sticks and bands came away and Rannelly slammed the door and locked it. "There now," she smiled, "Let us have a proper meal."
Again Rannelly bustled about the oblong room, hanging up the sticks, changing glows, stirring the stewpot and constantly talking. When she set the table, Thella joined her. They ate without discussion. When Rannelly asked her if she wanted the bed, Thella announced she would sleep outside the cave and return in the morning. This routine continued for the next few days as Thella repaired, resupplied and even took a bath in a barrel on rest day. She left in the early morning to her outcrop across the ravine stowing her supplies. She picked her way to another secured site that gave her a view of the cave mouth. This time a green came laden with supplies. It stayed longer than usual and Thella was becoming concerned. The rider looked feminine. Green riders, she thought, the rumors must be true.
/
Rannelly brightened as soon as the dainty green land. "Mirrim! How unexpected."
Mirrim regarded the woman from atop her dragon. She decided that anybody visiting would be unexpected. "Stand aside, Rannelly and I will drop this net at the doorstep." After dropping the supplies from one side she directed her Path to turn around to drop four barrels of water.
"Four barrels! Oh you do remember our needs. How is Brekke, oh!" Kylara began wailing and Path warbled angrily but Mirrim patted her neck and jumped down. Path's head rounded on her rider shimmering red. Rannelly watched Mirrim's unfocused eyes waiting for the intimate conversation to end.
"She thrives," Mirrim said quietly. "She is loved and she hears, Rannelly. I can hear that 'she' is still the same." Mirrim hoisted a basket of fruit and proceeded into the cave. She returned quickly holding her nose until she cleared the door then hoisted a bag of blackstone to her back. "And you, Rannelly, how do you hold up?" she asked.
They carried on a somewhat strained conversation. Rannelly, never did understand the dislike other women in the weyre had for her. At Benden, then Southern and lastly at High Reaches where she was an extension of Kylara's arrogance, she had always carried herself as one of superior breeding and expectations. Mirrim, who had pity for few, genuinely felt that no worse lot could have befallen this pompous nursemaid than to tend to a rider who lost her dragon in such a degrading manner. Brekke had told her often that Rannelly was a hard worker and had to deal first-hand with the Weyrewoman thus saving the rest of the woman from Kylara's temper. In part, Mirrim was pulling this hated duty on behalf of her former foster mother to deliver Rannelly a message.
She secured the supplies she brought and received Rannelly's list of needs while Kylara kept up a constant barrage of insults and shrieks. Path remained calm but Mirrim was ready to tend hundreds of injured without numbweed then extend her stay another minute.
"She clasped the old woman's hand and looked into her eyes. "Both Brekke and Manora extend an invitation to you once, after," she faltered. Rannelly's eyes watered and tears coursed down her cheeks.
"By the first egg, you tell them, tell them that I am grateful," she managed to say between sobs. "I am pleased to know there is a home for me." Rannelly glanced across the ravine then back to Mirrim then pulled her into great hug. "Give my thanks to them both."
Mirrim extracted herself and stepped up to her dragon. She waved as Path sprang into the air. With quick blasts of air shaking sand onto her, Rannelly stepped back then quickly into her cave bolting the door. Time! Timing. She leaned against its solidness then screamed "Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP, you brat!" Kylara halted her barrage for a moment then continued with more fervor. She was hoarse from screaming by the time Thella stepped back into the cave.
/
Larad glanced over the edge where F'lar stood without regard for its sheer drop. He felt the ache in his groin as he leaned forward. "That's her, you say," Larad pointed to the dark splotch among the rocks below.
"Mnementh could not negotiate the narrowness. Do you want a smaller dragon to fly down or you could send your firelizard." F'lar smiled when the small bronze alighted and winked out.
Larad sighed at the futility of sending his firelizard down. His sister was a pariah and no dragonkind would purposely near even her dead, broken body. "It's too dangerous to bring her body out. I suppose we could leave her there provided we cover her … let loose those rocks. I will call to the minercrafthold."
"What of her caretaker?" F'Lar asked gestering back to the cave opening. Rannelly laid facedown in the doorway. The back of her head had been bashed in and they figured that she had laid there for the better part of a seven-day. The pool of blood had dried and tunnel snakes had taken advantage of the food strewn about the rooms including the second door.
"Odd that both doors are open," remarked F'lar. His gaze swept the room trying to reconstruct the last scene. The sticks were gone and so was the chain. If Kylara had overpowered her shortly after the supply drop then there where was the food? Tunnel snakes could not have consumed all of it.
Larad shrugged. "Can she be put with my sister? They were close. Or, we could seal her within this cave. It has served out its purpose."
F'lar lost focus for a moment then nodded decisively. "The door will just clear her; we'll seal her within."
Moments later, Mnementh left his perch from across the ravine to pick up his rider and Telgar's Lord Holder, relieved to depart this haunted ravine in an inaccessible peak of the High Reaches Range. Before he blinked his passengers into the nothingness of between, Larad lamented, "Telgar blood does its women little good."
/