As it turned out, Elgion didn’t have to signal for a dragonrider. The next day a bronze wingleader came circling down to the beach at Half-Circle, greeting Yanus affably and asking if he might have a few words with the Harper.

“You’ll be Elgion,” said the young man, raising his hand in greeting. “I’m N’ton, rider of Lioth. I heard you were settling in.”

“What can I do for you, N’ton?” and Elgion tactfully walked the bronze rider out of Yanus’s earshot.

“You’ve heard of fire lizards?”

Elgion stared at N’ton in surprise for a moment before he laughed. “That old myth!”

“Not really a myth, friend,” said N’ton. Despite the laughing mischief in his eyes, he was speaking in earnest.

“Not a myth?”

“Not at all. Would you know if the lads here have spotted any along the coast? They tend to leave their clutches in beach sands. It’s the eggs we want.”

“Really? Actually it isn’t the lads who’ve seen them, but the Sea Holder’s son, not the fanciful sort, although I didn’t really credit…he saw some around some rock crags known as the Dragon Stones. Down the coast some ways.” Elgion pointed the direction.

“I’ll go have a look myself. But this is what has happened. F’nor, brown Canth’s rider, has been injured.” N’ton paused. “He’s been convalescing at Southern Hold. He found, and Impressed,” and again N’ton paused significantly to emphasize his last word, “a fire lizard queen…”

“Impressed? I thought only dragons…”

“Fire lizards are much like dragons, only smaller.”

“But this would mean…” And Elgion was lost in the wonder of that meaning.

“Yes, precisely, Harper,” said N’ton with a wide grin. “And now everyone wants a fire lizard. I can’t imagine Yanus Sea Holder wasting the time and energy of his men looking for fire lizard clutches. But if fire lizards have been seen, any cove with warm sand might just hide a clutch.”

“The high tides this spring have been flooding most of the coves.”

“Too bad. See if you can’t organize the Hold youngsters to search. I don’t think you’d have much resistance…”

“None at all.” And Elgion realized that N’ton, dragonrider though he now was, must have been susceptible to the same boyhood designs on fire lizards that Elgion had once planned. “When we find a clutch, what do we do?”

“If you find one,” N’ton said, “fly the signal banner and the sweep rider will report. If the tide is threatening, put the clutch in either warm sand or warmed hides.”

“If they should hatch, you did mention they can be Impressed…”

“I hope you’re that lucky, Harper. Feed the fledglings. Stuff their faces with as much as they can eat, talking all the time. That’s how you Impress. But then, you’ve been to a Hatching, haven’t you? So, you know how to go about it. Same principle involved.”

“Fire lizards.” Elgion was enchanted with the prospect.

“Don’t Impress them all, Harper. I’d like one of the little beasties myself.”

“Greedy?”

“No, they’re engaging little pets. Nothing as intelligent as my Lioth there,” and N’ton grinned indulgently at his bronze who was scrubbing one cheek in the sand. As he turned back to Elgion, N’ton noticed the line of awed children, lining the seawall, all eyes on Lioth’s action. “You’ll have no lack of help, I suspect.”

“Speaking of help, Wingleader, a young girl of the Sea Hold is missing. She went out the morning of the last Fall and hasn’t been seen since.”

N’ton whistled softly and nodded sympathetically. “I’ll tell the sweep riders. She probably took shelter, if she’d any sense. Those palisades are riddled with caves. How far have you searched?”

“That’s it. No one has bothered to.”

N’ton scowled and glanced towards the Sea Holder. “How old a girl?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t know. His youngest daughter, I believe.”

N’ton snorted. “There are other things in life than fish.”

“So I used to believe.”

“Don’t be so sour so young, Elgion. I’ll see you come to the next Hatching at Benden.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I suspect so.” With a farewell wave, N’ton strode back to his bronze dragon, leaving Elgion with an easier conscience and the prospect of some relief from the monotony of the Sea Hold.

It took Menolly four days to find the right sort of rocks to spark a fire. She’d had plenty of time before that to dry seaweeds and gather dead marshberry bushes for fuel, and to build a little hearth in the side of the big cavern where a natural chimney took the smoke up. She’d gathered a generous pile of sweet marsh grasses for bedding and picked out the seam of the carry-sack to make herself a rug. It wasn’t quite long enough unless she curled up under it, but the fire lizards insisted on sleeping about and around her and their bodies made up the lack. In fact, she was quite comfortable at night.

With fire, she was very comfortable. She found a stand of young klahbark trees, and though the resultant brew was harsh, it woke her up very well. She went to the clay deposits that Half-Circle Hold used and got sufficient clay to make herself several cups, plates and rude containers for storage, which she hardened in the ashes of her fire. And she filled in the holes of a dish-like porous rock in which she could boil water. With all the fish she needed in the sea in front of her, she ate as well as, if not better than, she would have in the Hold. Although, she did miss bread.

She even made herself a sort of path down the cliff face. She carved out footrests and staked in some handholds, to make both ascent and descent safer.

And she had company. Nine fire lizards were constantly in attendance.

The morning after her hectic adventure, Menolly had been absolutely stunned to wake with the unaccustomed weight of warm bodies about her. Scared, too, until the little creatures roused, with strong thoughts of renewed hunger and love and affection for her. Driven by their need, she had climbed down the treacherous rock face to the sea and gathered fingertails, trapped in the shallow tidal pools. She wasn’t quite able to dig rockrnites, but when she showed her charges where they could get them out with their long, agile tongues, the creatures found their instinct adequate for the job. Having fed her friends, Menolly was too tired to go in search of sparking rocks and had eaten a flat fish raw. Then she and the fire lizards had crept back into the cavern and slept again.

As the days went by their appetite drove Menolly to lengths she wouldn’t have attempted for her own comfort. The result was that she was kept entirely too busy to feel either sorry for or apprehensive about herself. Her friends had to be fed, comforted and amused. She also had to supply her own needs—as far as she was able—and she was able to do a lot more than she’d suspected she could. In fact, she began to wonder about a lot of things the Hold took for granted.

She had automatically assumed, as she supposed everyone did, that to be caught without shelter during Threadfall was tantamount to dying. No one had ever correlated the fact that the dragonriders cleared most of the Thread from the skies before it fell—that was the whole point of having dragons—with the idea that as a result there was very little Thread to fall on the unsheltered. Hold thinking had hardened into an inflexible rule—to have no shelter during Threadfall was to experience death.

In spite of her increasing independence, however, had Menolly been alone, she might have regretted her foolishness and crept back to the Sea Hold. But the company and wonder of the fire lizards gave her all the diversion she needed. And they loved her music.