Part 32 (1/2)
Charanth's eyes whirled, the yellow of anxiety coloring the blue.
His tone was remorseful. I will not fail you again.
If they had been in real danger, I would have warned them off, Meranath said, entering the conversation.
I didn't ask you! K'vin was so irate he didn't really care if he offended Meranath, or her rider. But he was not going to lose riders from foolish and vainglorious actions. There were fifty years of Thread fighting ahead of them, and he was not going to lose partners or risk their injuries due to some c.o.c.kamamie notion of what comprises courageous actions.
If you think that I would jeopardize a single rider...
K'vin took the stairs up to the queen's weyr three at a time, trying to work out his rage before he had to confront Zulaya and explain why he thought he could speak to her queen in such a peremptory fas.h.i.+on.
I should be informed of ANY unfit rider or dragon, at any time, anywhere. Meranath and you should know that or, by the first egg, why are you senior queen?
”Because I am her rider!” Zulaya came storming out on to the weyr ledge, her eyes sparkling with indignation.
”How dare you address my queen?”
”How dare she withhold information from ME?” Zulaya stared at him, surprised, for K'vin had never reprimanded either her or Meranath, though she had to admit privately that he could have legitimately done so on several occasions she would be embarra.s.sed to admit.
”Did you know about P'tero's condition?” he demanded, and she backed into the weyr, away from him. He was rather magnificently furious, eyes blazing, face stern, the epitome of indignation.
”Tisha remarked that Maranis wasn't pleased with him a.s.suming duty. The scar tissue is thin.”
”And you said nothing to me?”
”He's only a blue rider.”
”EVERY ONE OF MY RIDERS IS IMPORTANT TO ME!” K'vin roared, clenching his fists at his sides because they wanted to grab something to release the pent-up fury in him.
”Threadfall is two days away. I need to have a Weyr in full readiness. I need to be sure of everyone I ask to face Thread in two days' time. I don't need secrets or evasions or...”
”K'vin,” Zulaya began, reaching out a hand to him, ”Kev, it's all right. The Weyr is ready perhaps tuned a little too tight, but that's all to the good.”
”ALL TO THE GOOD?” and K'vin batted her hand away, ”when we have unfit riders taking positions they couldn't possibly manage in their condition?” He began pacing now and Zulaya watched him, smiling with relief and pride. He was going to be a splendid Weyrleader, much better than B'ner would have been.
He halted just short of where she stood - his eyes, brilliant with his anger and frustration, fixed on her face.
”What on earth can you find to grin about right now?” he demanded - suspiciously, for there was a quality in her smile that he'd never seen before.
”That you're in full control,” she said, leaving her smile in place.
”Oh, I am, am I?” Then, as she had always hoped he would, he took her in his arms and began kissing her with the full authority of his masculinity and his position as her Weyrleader, without a trace of hesitation or deference. Just what she had always hoped she'd provoke him to do.
K'vin was still very much in complete control even very early the next morning, before dawn in fact, when Meranath told them that B'nurrin and Shanna were waiting for them.
”Waiting for what?” K'vin asked, pulling himself reluctantly away from Zulaya to reach for his pants.
It is time to go, Charanth added.
”Go where?” asked K'vin in a querulous tone of voice.
”Go where?” Zulaya echoed sleepily.
South, they say, Meranath and Charanth echoed.
Suddenly K'vin remembered. Today was the day they would go to see Thread. He said that very, very quietly in the back of his mind where Charanth might not hear it. Both dragons had been asleep when B'nurrin had made his visit.
Which was just as well, or the whole Weyr might have been privy to the notion of a pre-viewing of Thread.
”B'nurrin wants us to join him,” K'vin said, giving Zulaya a cautionary look.
She frowned for a moment, then her face cleared abruptly as she said, ”Oh.” With a conspiratorial grin, she was out of the bed, trailing the sheet on her way to her riding gear.
When they pa.s.sed each other once in the course of dressing, she pulled his head down to her mouth. ”I could bring my flame-thrower.”
”Might as well paint your destination on your forehead,” he murmured back. ”We're only going to watch.”
”Yes, watch.” Then she asked more loudly, ”Where do we meet B'nurrin, Meranath?”
”We know that, too, remember?” K'vin said, grabbing Zulaya and giving her arm a little shake. Then he mouthed ”Landing.”
”Yes, how could I forget?”
If the dragon and rider on watch on the Rim wondered why the two Weyrleaders were slipping away long before dawn, neither asked and the rider gave a cheery swing of his arm as they pa.s.sed over him.
Ianath says to count to three and then go, Charanth told his rider, still mystified.
Landing is where we're going, K'vin replied, glancing across the s.p.a.ce between his dragon and Meranath. Zulaya showed him a thumb's-up signal to signify she had had the same message. Visualizing the arid sweep of desolate volcanic ash from Mount Garben down to Monaco Bay, K'vin nodded his head three times.
GO!.
Abruptly Charanth rumbled deep in his belly while his mind said in surprised shock OH! K'vin felt him s.h.i.+ft. Consequently he was perhaps not as surprised as he might have been to realize that the airs.p.a.ce around them, and Meranath and Zulaya, was well occupied. With that extra sense dragons had, the two had averted a collision. In fact, as K'vin swiveled about to check, the only two Weyrleaders he didn't see were S'nan and Sarrai, although they might well have been among those who winked out of sight between so as not to be recognized.
K'vin caught flashes of blue, brown and even one or two green hides in the southern sun before they disappeared. Nor was this meeting composed now only of Weyrleaders and dragons; some thirty or so bronzes and browns were present.
The sight was too much for K'vin's sense of the ridiculous and it was a good thing that he was clipped into his safety harness. He was seized with such a laughing fit that he reeled back and forth against Charanth's neck ridges.
Had every rider on Pern been possessed of the compulsion to come here this morning? Of course, the particular site of Landing was well known to all riders. But for so many to decide independently to come here... Probably every one certain he or she'd be the only ones daring enough!
Nor was K'vin the only one laughing hard. Right now he was more in danger of wetting his breeches from mirth - not fright at seeing Thread for the first time. Which reminded him why he was here. Again that realization became universal.
Laughter faded as every dragon and rider irresistibly turned north-eastward.
It was there, too, the much-described silvery-grey haze on the upper levels of the blue sky. Not a dragon wing moved, not a rider recoiled as the silver stuff began to drop on to the sea. THREAD! And so aptly called. THREAD!
The word seemed to rumble from dragon to dragon and K'vin had to grab hold of the neck ridge as Charanth started to lurch towards what he had known all his life as his adversary.
I have no firestone! How can I flame it? What is wrong?