I don't own Pern or the dragons, but I like to tinker at the edges!
Thank you for your reviews, and yes, Teneth might have said something before going between. He didn't, so the Weyrleader will have to struggle on with what he has before him. I also worried about the empty Weyrs and how Benden kept their numbers down during the interval, but hopefully I can explain that.
3.8.191
H'ric went into the Records room after he had studied the lists C'lin had handed him. He knew Jiverny, as Weyrwoman, kept the Records up to date, but he wanted to look through them to enable him to speak with some authority on the history of Benden.
He had learnt the basic timeline as a weyrling, as they all had, but he was looking for specific information about the change between the Eighth Pass and the Eighth Interval, as they looked forward to the Ninth Pass.
He found lists of names and lists of dragons, but very little else. Yet there should have been something more, because at the end of the last Pass, all the Weyrs, except for Benden, had been abandoned. H'ric sometimes wondered if there had been a dragon-specific plague, and all the survivors had come to Benden, but there was no hint of that. Or perhaps the riders had been struck down and the maddened dragons had gone between, but again there was no hint of that. One day the Weyrs had been full, the next they had been empty.
He looked up at a tap on the door and called an entry, and B'rnel came in, looking around at the hides and parchments on the table.
"Hullo. Can I come in?"
H'ric indicated a chair, smiling at his Wingsecond who was also his closest friend.
"Sit down."
B'rnel did so, easing himself onto a chair and picking up the hide in front of him, scanning it and reading aloud.
"Gone away, gone ahead, echoes roll unansweréd. Empty, open, dusty, dead. Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?"
"I was looking to see if there was any reason for their disappearance," H'ric said by way of explanation of the open scrolls. "The Red Star will be bracketed in the Eye Rock, if our information is correct, and we, the few hundred dragons of Benden, will have to overfly the whole planet."
"Perhaps those riders thought Thread would never return? That they had conquered it for all time?"
H'ric stared at him.
"Why would they think that? There's no hint in the Benden Weyr records of that conclusion, and you'd think the Weyrleaders would conference about it!"
"Well yes, you'd hope so, but don't forget it was two hundred or so Turns ago. Who's to say all the records were kept, or copied correctly?"
"You mean the riders might have taken their records?"
B'rnel shrugged. "It's possible, if they didn't want them falling into the hands of the Holders. Either that or they burned them all. Either way, it was remarkably short-sighted, seeing they abandoned Benden."
H'ric picked up a record he had been reading.
"There's absolutely no hint here of anything untoward! One day the Weyrwoman records a welcome gift of salt fish from Nerat, the next day she records that all the Weyrs are abandoned! With no comment!"
"I doubt if there was any comment to make," B'rnel responded with a rueful smile. "What would you have put? And those records you're holding are in a poor state as well."
H'ric frowned at the records. "These are very worn and dilapidated," he conceded. "None of the Lady Jiverny's fault, but as you say, two hundred Turns or more -"
"I thought the Craft Masters would have better quality parchment and hides by now," B'rnel said, pushing at the crumbling edge of a hide. "Look at this. A letter from a Lord Holder complaining about the level of tithe two hundred Turns before us, and it might be a thousand Turns by the state of this hide!"
"I know. And the level of tithes back then were - handsome."
B'rnel looked across at him.
"They had to sustain a fighting Weyr with no time to grow anything at all for itself," he said. "We've spread our Crafters out and farmed some of our land, haven't we?"
H'ric nodded.
"We have. But we're going to be reliant on tithes again for a long time. All our lifetimes."
The two young men stared soberly at each other and B'rnel indicated the area they were in.
"Are you moving into the Weyrleader's quarters?"
"Yes. What else can I do?"
B'rnel shrugged. "Nothing at all, about that. I've never seen a flight like that one, I can tell you, and I've seen as many as you have."
"More than I have, since I didn't get here until I was twelve Turns old."
They fell silent, recalling their youth. B'rnel was Mima's birth son, and he had been the one who had been detailed to take the young miner's boy into his care when he arrived, bewildered and totally disorientated. They had spent the last thirteen Turns brawling together, and now H'ric was Weyrleader.
"Mima asked about you," B'rnel said. "Wanted to make sure you weren't - injured - in that - all that - yesterday?"
H'ric shook his head. "I'm all right, but I'll come down and speak to her. I'm writing to the Lord Holders, I'll want to send a dragonrider out to the three Holds we look after, first."
"D'you want me to arrange that?"
"Would you?"
"I'm still your Wingsecond, until you say different," B'rnel replied. "Has C'lin suggested anything different?"
"No. He gave me the duty lists - he's probably made those up to the end of the Turn, he's so thorough. I want to move some of the riders around."
B'rnel nodded. "Makes sense. D'you want me to come and help you sort your quarters?"
"I didn't ask the Weyrwoman if she'd cleared R'tin's things. I suppose she must have done."
B'rnel reached and squeezed H'ric's shoulder in mute sympathy. It was to B'rnel that H'ric had brought his grief at the death of the man he had thought of as a second father. R'tin had not been a demonstrative man, but he had always given a present to H'ric at the Turnover celebrations, and he had been strongly supportive of the boy at every Hatching until he Impressed Galanath at the relatively late age of 15.
The two young men tidied the scrolls and hides, rolling and securing them and putting them away, and then crossed to H'ric's old quarters. H'ric ran down to the kitchen quarters to speak to his foster mother Mima, assure her he was all right, accept some of her headache remedy, and agree with her he would be at the evening meal in the seat of the Weyrleader.
"Don't seem possible. But then R'tin, bless him, always said there was something more in you than just a miner's brat. Here - take this."
H'ric accepted the fruit pie and made his way back to his old weyr, smiling and shaking his head. He was sure that B'rnel was Mima's natural child, but he doubted if any other of the children who claimed her as a mother were such. Her large and loving spirit would take in any orphaned child, and she had nursed many an injured rider back to health as well. She would be invaluable during the Pass, he thought, and realised he was thinking as a Weyrleader already, weighing up the people of the Weyr, and finding places they would fit.
"I thought she'd give you that remedy," B'rnel said with a grin. "I've put your clothes into this chest - is that right?"
"Yes. That was my father's tool chest. I've clothes at the laundry, but they'll find their way to my new quarters. This fur is mine, but the rest of the bedding can stay. It'll need washing."
"I'll see it goes down to the laundry."
"Thanks. Flying gear - and these harnesses I was working on. This folder."
"What's that? Your sketches?"
"Yes. I expect the Weyrwoman threw out the ones I gave to R'tin at Turnover."
"No reason why she should have done that, surely?"
H'ric shrugged, and B'rnel did not press him.
"I've summoned Tweneth - he can fly us across the bowl."
The large brown dragon had perched on the ledge outside, and twisted his head to sniff at the bundles being secured to his back.
"Nosy!" B'rnel said with a grin. They climbed up onto Tweneth's back, holding onto the straps securing the bundles, and the brown dragon launched off the ledge, flapped twice, and was back on the ledge near the Weyrleader's quarters. H'ric unloaded, and B'rnel left him there, going to his own duties. H'ric watched him go.
- he is nice and he makes you feel good
H'ric started at the rich tones of the voice in his mind, and looked at the two dragons on the Queen's ledge. Haveneth was looking directly at him, her eyes whirling in green contentment.
"Thank you. I have known him a long time," he said aloud.
Haveneth put her head down again on Galanath's side, and H'ric began taking his bundles into the weyr. He had not been in here since R'tin's untimely death, and on very few occasions before that, but he saw that it had been renovated for a new Weyrleader.
The Weyr had been freshly plastered and painted, the floor was swept clean. H'ric found a table and upholstered chair, and in the bedding area the bed was a generous size, with new bedding folded neatly on it. Jiverny had been expecting a new mate, he realised, and had made sure the Weyrleader's quarters were ready for occupancy.
As he was putting things away, the Weyrwoman appeared from her own weyr.
"Is this satisfactory?"
"Thank you, yes."
"I found these amongst R'tin's belongings. You must have given them to him over the Turns, and he kept them, although I never saw them on the walls."
She handed over a bundle, and H'ric found the little gifts he had given to R'tin, the sketches and the carved wooden ornaments he had made.
"You have quite a gift in your hands, Weyrleader," Jiverny commented. "If you are sending people to the abandoned Weyrs, I suggest you go with them and draw them for future reference."
"That's a good idea. Yes."
"Did you find any clue in the Records about the abandoned Weyrs?"
"Nothing at all. Did R'tin say anything about it? Or L'vin? He was Weyrleader once, wasn't he?"
"Yes he was. He was nearly ninety when he died, long past his time as Weyrleader, and R'tin said - " she frowned, took a pace or two, and swung to face him again. "R'tin said L'vin had passed on the knowledge before his death, and he would do the same before he himself died."
"But he died unexpectedly? Was it written down anywhere, this knowledge? Knowledge of what?"
"I always assumed it was the answer to the abandonment. R'tin said he had written it down, but when I said it should be in the Records, he said the Benden Weyrleader always carried it on his person, and passed it on before his death, to the rider who was Weyrleader then."
They stared at each other.
"And Teneth picked up R'tin's body and took them both between for all time," H'ric said. "If R'tin carried the knowledge in his head or written down and kept on his person, it's gone. The chain is broken."