Then Holth propelled herself from her ledge and was barely airborne before she went between. Moreta gasped at the audacity and hadn't time to think of her verse before the darkness around them was relieved by the glows surrounding the High Reaches Bowl.

Tamianth is below but it is easier for me to take off from a ledge, said Holth, neatly landing on one. Tamianth will not object to my tenancy. Then she added gently, Orlith sleeps. And so does Leri.

"The pair of you!" Moreta's exasperation was goodnatured.

Holth turned gleaming eyes toward her and huffed softly.

"Is that you? Moreta?" a quavering voice asked.

"It's Moreta."

"Oh, bless you, bless you. I'm so sorry to drag you here but I simply can't do it. I'm afraid of hurting Kilanath. Hitting a nerve or something. They tried to explain to me how simple it all is but I can't believe them. Oh, do wake up, Kilanath. Moreta's come."

A pair of dragon eyes lit the darkness below the ledge. Moreta put her hand on the wall, her left foot seeking for the top step. Light spilled from the weyrling quarters now occupied by Tamianth but the stairs were still in confusing shadow.

"Oh, do hurry, please, Moreta!" Diona's plea was more wail.

"I would if I could see where I'm going." Moreta spoke sharply, irritated by Diona's ineffectuality.

"Oh, yes, of course. I didn't think. You don't know where anything is in this Weyr." Dutifully Diona opened a glowbasket but, before she held it up, she turned its illumination away from Moreta. "Yes, Pressen, she's here. Oh, do hurry, Moreta. Oh, yes, sorry." Then she remembered to hold the basket high enough to show Moreta the steps.

Moreta skipped down them as fast as she could before something else could distract Diona. Kilanath dipped her head close to Moreta and sniffed, as if testing the quality of the visitor.

"Now, don't fret, Kilanath," Diona crooned in a saccharine voice that Moreta thought ought to irritate a queen. "You know she came here just to help." Diona turned apologetically to Moreta. "She really will behave because she's terribly worried about Tamianth."

As Moreta entered the weyrling quarters, she could see why. Tamianth looked more green than gold except for the gray wing and grayspread score on her side. The wing had been propped at the shoulder and put in a sling so that the queen could relax, but her hide twitched constantly from stress. Tamianth opened one lid of her eyes, which were gray with pain.

"Water! Water, please, water!" Falga's voice rose in feverish complaint.

"That's all she says." Diona was wringing her hands. Pressen, the bright-eyed healer, ran to Falga's side and offered her water, but she pushed it away before falling back into her restless tossing.

Muttering an oath, Moreta strode to the queen, picked up a fold of hide on the neck, and cursed. The dragon was dehydrated, her skin parched.

"Water. Of course, it's Tamianth who needs the water! Has no one offered the queen water?" Moreta looked about for a water tank, for anything resembling a container.

"Oh, I never thought of that!" Diona snatched her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with dismay. "Kilanath kept telling me about water but we all thought Falga . . ." She waved feebly at the fevered woman.

"Then, by the Egg of Faranth, get some!"

"Please, water. Water!" Falga moaned, restlessly trying to rise. "Don't stand there, Diona. Are there weyrlings in the next building? Well, rout them out! Use a cauldron from the kitchen but get water for this poor beast. It's a wonder she's not dead! Of all the irresponsible, ineffectual, dithering idiots I have ever encountered-" Moreta saw the startled expression on Pressen's face as he rose from Falga's side. She pulled herself together, breathing deeply to dispel the impotent anger and dismay that boiled within her. "I can't keep coming here for oversights!"

"No, no, of course not!" Pressen's reply was conciliatory, anxious. The poor beast was too weak to reach farther than her rider who had, even in her pain-wracked daze, tried to communicate! Fuming at Diona's ineptitude, Moreta snatched down the nearest glowbasket to examine Tamianth's wing. Two days without any lubrication and the wing fragments might not reconstruct. The glowlight glistened ominously on a stain on the floor, under Tamianth's injured side. With a muffled cry of despair, Moreta dropped to one knee, dipped her fingers in the moisture, sniffing it.

"Pressen! Bring me your kit-redwort and oil! This dragon's bleeding to death!"

"What?"

Pressen stumbled toward her and she held the basket high, at Tamianth's side. Grimly she recalled the instructions she had given Pressen, unused to dragon injuries: Keep the side wound covered with numbweed. Why hadn't she checked it? How could she have assumed, given the chaotic conditions at High Reaches, the inexperienced healers, and the tired riders, that the wound had been properly attended? Instead she had blithely flitted off, smugly pleased with her wing repair.

"The fault is mine, Pressen. I ought to have seen to the side as well. What has happened is that Threadscore ruptured veins along the side and shoulders. Numbweed covered the ooze. Ichor isn't reaching the wing. We'll need to repair the veins. The surgery is much the same sort you'd do on a human. Color is the main difference. "

"Surgery is not my speciality, Lady, but," he added, seeing her desperate expression, "I have assisted and can do so now." "I'll need surgical clamps, oil, redwort, threaded needle . . ." Pressen was pouring oil and redwort into bowls. "I have all the instruments we'd need. Barly's effects were handed over to me when I arrived."

Dreading what she might find, Moreta examined the injured wing. Some ichor beaded the joints but far less than was required. Tamianth would have to be very lucky; stupidity had already worked against the poor beast. Possibly, with application of Kilanath's ichor at crucial points, the damage could still be reversed. Liberal and frequent dressings of numbweed had, at least, kept the fragments moist. Once Tamianth's veins had been mended and water brought the poor thirsty beast . . .

Moreta scrubbed her hands in the redwort, hissing at the sting in half-healed scratches. Then she oiled her hands thoroughly while Pressen made the same preparation.

"First we must clean the numbweed away from the wound. I'd say the stoppage is here . . . and here, and perhaps, even down hear near the hearts." She lightly indicated the areas, then with oil-soaked pads, she and Pressen cleaned away the numbweed. Tamianth shuddered. "With all this numbweed, she can't feel any pain. Here! See where the ichor is oozing . . ." Her father had always talked as he worked on injured runners. Much of what she had heard from her earliest years she had been able to apply to dragons. She oughtn't to think of her father at a time like this, but his habit would help her teach Pressen. Someone in the Weyr had to know. "Ah, here's the first one. Just below your left hand, Pressen, should be another. Yes, and a third, a major vein leading to the hearts, and the belly vein." Moreta reached for the fine needle and the treated thread Pressen had made ready.

"Yes, the colors are different!" Pressen saw the greenish flesh and the darker green ichor that was dragon blood, the curious shining fiber that was dragon muscle. He was absorbed. "Has she had any supply to the wing at all?" His nimble fingers were suturing the first severed vein.

"Not really enough."

"Thirsty! Thirsty. Water, please, water!" Falga raved.

"Can't that idiotic woman do anything? There's a lake full of water out there!"

There was suddenly a great amount of noise, the hollow sound of metal banging against another object, the sleepy complaints of young voices. The smell of desperately desired water roused the dragon from her stupor.