Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold, 15.5.27-15.6.2

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.