The White Dragon

CHAPTER VI

THE HOLD DAY began by sending out fire lizards with messages to all the smaller holds and craftcottages, ordering that every fire lizard be appropriately marked and individually warned about approaching any Weyr. Some of the nearby holders had ridden in during the morning for reassurances about the garbled accounts the fire lizards had given. So Lytol, Jaxom and Brand were kept busy all day. The next day, Thread was due to fall, and it fell at precisely the moment Lytol had calculated. This gave him great pleasure and reassured the more nervous holders.

Jaxom good naturedly took his place with the flamethrower crew, not that any Thread escaped the Fort Weyr dragons. It amused Jaxom to think that at the next Threadfall, he too might be above ground on a fire breathing Ruth.

The third day after the egg was stolen, Ruth was famished and wanted to hunt. But the fire lizards came in such droves to accompany him that he killed only once and ate the beast up, bones and hide.

I will not kill for them, Ruth told Jaxom so fiercely that he wondered if Ruth might eventually flame the fire lizards.

«What's the matter? I thought you liked them!»

Jaxom met his dragon on the grassy slope and caressed him soothingly.

They remember me doing something I do not remember doing. I did not do it. Ruth's eyes whirled with red sparks.

«What do they remember you doing?»

I haven't done it. And there was a tinge of fearful uncertainty to Ruth's mental tone. I know I haven't done it. I couldn't do such a thing. I am a dragon. I am Ruth. I am of Benden! His last words sounded in a despairing tone.

«What do they remember you doing, Ruth? You've got to tell me.»

Ruth ducked his head, as if he wished he could hide, but he turned back to Jaxom, his eyes wheeling piteously. I wouldn't take Ramoth's egg. 1 know I didn't take Ramoth's egg. I was there by the lake all the time with you. I remember that. You remember that. They know where I was. But somehow they remember that I took Ramoth's egg too.

Jaxom clung to Ruth's neck to keep from falling. Then he took several very deep breaths.

«Show me the images they've been giving you, Ruth!»

And Ruth did, the projections growing more clear and vivid as Ruth calmed in response to his rider's encouragement.

That's what they remember, he said finally with a deep sigh of relief.

Jaxom told himself to think logically so he said out loud, «Fire lizards can only tell what they've seen. You say they remember. Do you know when they remember seeing you take Ramoth's egg?»

I could take you to that when.

«Are you sure?»

There are two queens they've bothered me most because they remember best.

«They wouldn't just happen to remember it at night, when the stars are out, would they?»

Ruth shook his head. Fire lizards are not big enough to see enough stars. And that's when they got flamed. The bronzes who guard the egg chew firestone. They don't want any fire lizards near.

«That's smart of them.»

None of the dragons like fire lizards anymore. And if they knew what the fire lizards remember about me, they won't like me, either.

«Then it's just as well that you're the only dragon who'll listen to fire lizards, isn't it?» That observation wasn't much comfort to either Ruth or Jaxom. «But why, if the egg is already back in Benden Weyr, are the fire lizards bothering you about it?»

Because they don't remember me going yet.

Jaxom felt he'd better sit down. This last statement would take a lot of thinking. No, he contradicted himself. F'lessan had been right. We think and talk things to death. He wondered briefly if Lessa and F'nor had been seized by this same sort of irrational compulsion at the moment of their decisions. He decided he'd better not think about that either.

«You're sure you know when we have to go?» he asked Ruth once more.

Two queens flitted up, crooning lovingly: one even bold enough to light on Jaxom's arm, her eyes wheeling with joy.

They know. I know.

«Well, I'm glad they're willing to take us. I sure wish they'd seen stars!»

Jaxom permitted himself one more deep breath and then he swung to Ruth's neck and told him to take them home.

Once he'd made his decision to act, it was amazing how easy it was to go ahead, just as long as he didn't think about it. He assembled his flying gear, the rope, a fur robe to cover the egg. He gobbled down some meatrolls, casually winked at Brand as he sauntered out of the Hall, overwhelmingly glad that he had a handy excuse in his suspected affair with Corana.

It took longer to persuade Ruth to roll in the black tidal mud of the Telgar River delta, but Jaxom managed to persuade his weyrmate that a white hide was remarkably visible against the black tropical night or in full daylight inside the Hatching Ground where he planned for them to stay in the shadows.

From the images given Ruth by the two queens, Jaxom felt he could safely assume that the Oldtimers had taken the egg back in time but lodged it in the most logical and fitting spot for an egg, in the warm sands of the old volcano that would eventually become Southern Weyr in the appropriate time. He had already memorized the positions of Southern night stars so he'd probably be able to tell when he was, within a Turn or two. He'd have to count heavily on Ruth's boast that he always knew when he was.

The fire lizards arrived in full fair at the delta and enthusiastically helped him sully Ruth's white coat with the clinging black mud. Jaxom dabbed it on his hands and face, and the shiny parts of his accoutrements. The fur robe was already dark enough.

Somehow Jaxom wasn't quite sure that all this was happening to him, that he could be mixed up in such a wild venture. But he had to be. He was moving in inexorable steps toward a predestined event and nothing could stop him now. So he mounted Ruth calmly, trusting as he had never done before in his dragon's abilities. Jaxom took two deep breaths. «You know when, Ruth. We'd better get there!»

It was without doubt the longest, coldest jump he had ever made. He had one advantage over Lessa, he expected it. But that didn't keep the jump from being frighteningly dark, or relieve a silence that was a noisy pressure in his ears, or keep the cold from striking his bones. He couldn't come straight back with the egg; he'd have to take several steps to warm it.

Then they were above a darkened moist warm world that smelled of lush greenery and slightly decaying fruit. For a moment Jaxom had the hideous feeling that this was all a sun dream of the fire lizards. But something in the eerie way that Ruth glided as noiselessly as possible, a part of the gentle night breeze, made it real and immediate. Then he saw the egg below, a luminescent spot slightly to the right of Ruth's searching head.

Jaxom let him glide a little farther to catch a glimpse of the Weyr's eastern edge, the point from which he wanted to enter at all possible speed, at early dawn. Then he told Ruth to change and there seemed to be no time spent between. All at once the rising sun was warm on their backs. Ruth arrowed in, winging low and fast, over the backs of the drowsy bronzes and their napping riders. A quick deft swoop, Ruth grabbing the egg in his sturdy forearms, a lunge up and, before the startled bronzes could rise to their feet, the little white dragon had enough free air to go between again.

Ruth was still only a winglength above the Weyr when they came out of between, a Turn in time ahead of Ruth's sunrise plunge.

Ruth had just enough strength left in his forearms and wings to let the egg down carefully into the warm sands. Jaxom dropped from the dragon's neck to check the egg for any cracks, but it looked all right. Certainly it was hard enough and still warm. With his gloved hands, he shoveled sun hot sand over the egg and then, like Ruth, collapsed to catch his breath.

«We can't stay long. They might just try it day by day. They'd know we can't take the egg far at once.»

Ruth nodded, his breath still coming in ragged gasps. Then he stopped, taut until Jaxom started with alarm. Two fire lizards, a gold and a bronze, were watching them from the edge of the Weyr. In the brief glimpse Jaxom had of them before they winked out, he saw no colored bands about they necks.

«Do we know them?»

No.

«Where're those two queens?»

They showed me when. That's all you wanted.

Jaxom felt bereft of their fragile guidance and stupid because he hadn't insisted they stay.

There's firestone, Ruth said. And flame scar. The bronzes did flame at the fire lizards here! A long time ago. The scar is growing weed.

«Dragon against dragon!» Apprehension nagged at Jaxom. He didn't feel safe here. He wouldn't feel safe until they actually had that egg back in Benden where it belonged.

«We've got to make another jump, Ruth. We don't dare wait here.»

Resolutely he unlooped the rope from about his waist and started making a rough sling with the fur rug. There'd be less strain on Ruth if the egg were strapped between his forelegs. Jaxom had completed the comers when he heard a loud crunching.

«Ruth! You're not going to flame dragons!»

No, of course I'm not. But will they dare approach me if I am flaming?

Jaxom was unsettled enough not to protest. When Ruth had a gulletful, he called him over and got the sling around the egg. He looped the rope comfortably over Ruth's shoulders to take the weight. He started to check the knots again and then, some inner caution prompting him, he just mounted.

«We'll go five Turns more into Keroon, to our place there. Do you know when?»

Ruth thought a moment and then said he knew when.

In between Jaxom had time to worry if he was making the jumps too long to keep the egg warm. It hadn't actually Hatched before he'd left. Maybe he should have waited, to find out if the egg had Hatched properly: then they'd've known how to judge the forward jumps. Maybe he'd even killed the little queen trying to save her. No, his mind reeled with between and paradoxes; the most important act, returning the queen egg, was in process. And dragon had not fought dragon not yet.

The shimmering heat of Keroon desert warmed his failing spirit as well as his body. Ruth looked a ghastly shade under the caking black mud. Jaxom released the rope and lowered the egg to the sand. Ruth helped him cover it. It was midmorning, and not far from the hour when the egg must be back but at least six Turns in time distance.

Ruth asked if he couldn't wash off the mud in the sea but Jaxom told him they'd have to wait until they'd got the egg safely back. No one had known who'd done it then: no one should know, and the safest way was not to have a white hide showing.

The fire lizards?

That had worried Jaxom but he thought he had the answer. «They didn't know who brought the egg back that day. There weren't any in the Hatching Ground, so they don't know what they haven't seen.» Jaxom decided not to think further on that subject.

He was very tired as he leaned back against Ruth's warm flank. They'd rest a little while and let the egg warm up well in the midmorning sun before they'd make that last and trickiest jump. They had to position themselves to land just inside the Hatching Ground, where the arch of the entrance sloped abruptly down and obscured the view of anyone looking from the Bowl into the Ground. In fact, directly opposite the peephole and slit that F'lessan and Jaxom had used so many Turns ago. It was just luck that Ruth was small enough to risk going between inside the Ground but it'd been his own Hatching place so his feeling was innate. Thus far he'd lived up to his boast that he always knew when he was going….

Even in the hot desert plains of Keroon there was some noise: infinitesimal rustlings of insect life, hot breezes riming through dead grasses, snakes burrowing in the sand, the distant rush of water on the beach. The cessation of such sounds can be as remarkable as a thunderclap, and so it was the utter stillness and a minute change of air pressure that roused Jaxom and Ruth from somnolence to alarm.

Jaxom glanced up, expecting bronze dragons to appear and reclaim their prize. The sky above was clear and hot. Jaxom glanced around and saw the danger, the silver mist of descending Thread raining down across the desert. He slithered and scrambled to the egg. Ruth right beside him, both digging it free, pushing it into the sling, frantically trying to judge the leading edge of Fall, wondering and worrying that the skies weren't full of fighting dragons.

As fast as they worked to secure the precious burden to Ruth for flight, they were not quite quick enough. The leading edge of Threadfall fell hissing to the sand around them as Jaxom got to Ruth's neck and directed him upward. Ruth, giving a belch of flame, vaulted skyward, trying to sear a path far enough above the ground to go between.

A ribbon of fire sliced Jaxom's cheek, his right shoulder through the wherhide tunic, his forearm, his thigh. He felt, rather than heard, Ruth's bellow of pain, lost in the black of between.

Somehow Jaxom kept his mind on where and when they should be. They were finally in the Hatching Ground, Ramoth bellowing outside. Ruth could not quite suppress his cry as the hot sand rubbed the raw Threadscore on his hind foot. Jaxom bit his lips against his pain as he struggled with the rope. There was so little time and it seemed to take ages to release the sling. Ruth lowered the egg to the sand but it rolled down the slight incline from their shadowy corner of the Ground. They couldn't wait. Ruth sprang up toward the high ceiling and went between.

Dragon would not now fight dragon!

It was no surprise to Jaxom that Ruth came out of between above the little mountain lake. In what relative when, Jaxom was too concerned for his dragon to care at that moment. Ruth was whimpering with the pain in his foot and leg; all he wanted was to cool that Threadfire. Jaxom leaped from his neck to the shallows and splashed water on the sweaty gray hide, cursing himself that the nearest numbweed was at Ruatha Hold. He was so clever, he was, that he never thought one of them might get hurt.

The cool lake water was taking the sting from the Threadscores but Jaxom worried now about the mud causing an infection. Surely he could have used something less dangerous for camouflage than river mud. He didn't dare scour the wounds with sand: it would be too painful for Ruth and might just rub the cursed mud deeper into the wounds. For the first time in many days, Jaxom regretted the total absence of fire lizards who could have helped him scrub his very dirty dragon. Once again he briefly wondered when, besides high noon of the day, they were.

It is the day after the evening we left, Ruth announced. I always know when I am, he added with justifiable pride in his ability. Along the left dorsal, a terrible itch. You've left some mud.

Jaxom could and did use sand on the rest of Ruth's hide and managed to ignore the way it smarted in his own scores. He was dead weary and aching by the time Ruth allowed that he was clean enough for a last plunge in the deeper part of the lake.

The ripples lapping around his soaked ankles brought Jaxom's memory back to that not so distant day of his rebellion.

«Well,» he said with a self deprecatory chuckle, «among other things, we did get to fight Thread.» And what a dismal showing they'd made of it with proof patent on their hides.

We weren't exactly giving our complete attention to Thread, Ruth reminded him with a note of reproach. I know how now. We'll be much better at it next time. I'm faster than any of the big dragons. I can turn on my tail and go between in a single length from the ground.

Jaxom told Ruth fervently and gratefully that he was without doubt the best, fastest, cleverest beast in all Pern, North and South. Ruth's eyes whirled greenly with pleasure and he paddled to the shore, wings extended to dry.

You are cold and hungry and sore. My leg hurts. Let's go home.

Jaxom knew that was the wisest course; he had to get numbweed on Ruth's leg and on his own injuries. But scores they were and undeniably caused by Thread. How in the name of the First Shell was he ever going to explain all of this to Lytol?

Why explain anything? Ruth asked logically. We only did what we had to do.

«Think logically, huh?» Jaxom replied with a laugh, and patted Ruth's neck before he wearily pulled himself up. With understandable reluctance and apprehension, he told Ruth to take them home.

The watchdragon caroled a greeting and a mere half dozen fire lizards, all banded in Hold colors, swarmed up to escort Ruth down to his weyr courtyard.

One of the drudges came hurrying out of the kitchen entrance, eyes wide with excitement.

«Lord Jaxom, there's been a Hatching. The queen egg Hatched, it did. You were sent to come but no one could find you.»

«I had other business. Fetch me some numbweed!»

«Numbweed?» The drudge's eyes widened further with concern.

«Numbweed! I'm sunburned.»

Rather pleased with his resourcefulness considering he was shivering in wet clothes, Jaxom saw Ruth comfortably situated in his weyr, his injured leg propped up.

It hurt Jaxom to get the tunic over his shoulder because Thread had scored right down the muscle, caught him at the wrist and continued to cut a long furrow down his thigh.

A timid scratching on the door to the main Hold announced the incredibly speedy return of the drudge. Jaxom opened the door wide enough to get the jug of numbweed, and still keep his Threadscores from the curious eyes.

«Thanks, and I'll want something hot to eat, too. Soup, klah, whatever's on the fire.»

Jaxom closed the door, scooped up a bathing sheet which he knotted about his middle as he made his way to Ruth. He slathered a fistful of the numbweed on his dragon's leg and grinned at the sigh of intense relief that Ruth gave as the salve took immediate effect.

Jaxom gratefully echoed the sentiments as he smeared his own wounds. Blessed, blessed numbweed. Never again would he begrudge his labor in gathering the plaquey, thorny greenery from which this incredible balm was stewed. He peered into his looking glass as he daubed his face cut. It'd leave a finger long scar. No getting around that. Now if he could get around Lytol's wrath…

«Jaxom!»

Lytol strode into the room after the most perfunctory knock at the door. «You've missed the Hatching at Benden Weyr and «At the sight of Jaxom, Lytol stopped so quickly in midstride that he rocked back on his heels. Clad only in a bathing sheet, the marks on Jaxom's shoulder and face were quite visible.

«The egg Hatched all right then? Good,» Jaxom responded, picking up his tunic with a nonchalance he wasn't feeling. «I…» then he stopped, as much because his voice would be muffled in the fabric of his tunic as because he had been about to explain with his customary candor his bizarre night's work. He balked at the task. Ruth perhaps was right they had only done what they had to. It was sort of his and Ruth's private affair. You might even say his actions reflected his unconscious wish to atone for violating Ramoth's Hatching Ground as a boy. He pulled the shirt over his head, wincing as it caught the numbweed on his cheek. «I heard at Benden,» he said then, «that they were worried whether it would Hatch after all the coming and going between.»

Lytol approached Jaxom slowly, his eyes on the young man's face, begging the question.

Jaxom settled his tunic, belted it, then smoothed the numbweed into the cut again. He didn't know what to say.

«Oh, Lytol, would you mind taking a look at Ruth's leg? See if I doctored it right?» Jaxom waited then, facing Lytol calmly. He noticed, with a sadness for the inevitability of this moment of reserve, that Lytol's eyes were dark with emotion. He owed the man so much, never more than at this moment. He wondered that he had ever considered Lytol cold or hard and unfeeling.

«There's a trick of ducking Thread,» Lytol said quietly, «that you'd better teach Ruth, Lord Jaxom.»

«If you'd be kind enough to tell me how. Lord Lytol…»