The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [57]
Peaceful but different. F’lar, through Mnementh’s eyes and senses, perceived this instantly. There was an overnight change in the Weyr. F’lar permitted himself a satisfied grin at the previous day’s tumultuous events. Something might have gone wrong.
Something nearly did, Mnementh reminded him.
Who had called K’net and himself back? F’lar mused again. Mnementh only repeated that he had been called back. Why wouldn’t he identify the informer?
A nagging worry intruded on F’lar’s waking ruminations.
“Did F’nor remember to . . .” he began aloud.
F’nor never forgets your orders, Mnementh reassured him testily. Canth told me that the sighting at dawn today puts the Red Star at the top of the Eye Rock. The sun is still off, too.
F’lar ran impatient fingers through his hair. “At the top of the Eye Rock. Closer, and closer the Red Star came,” just as the Old Records predicted. And that dawn when the Star gleamed scarlet at the watcher through the Eye Rock heralded a dangerous passing and . . . the Threads.
There was certainly no other explanation for that careful arrangement of gigantic stones and special rocks on Benden Peak. Nor for its counterpart on the eastern walls of each of the five abandoned Weyrs.
First, the Finger Rock on which the rising sun balanced briefly at dawn at the winter solstice. Then, two dragon lengths behind it, the rectangular, enormous Star Stone, chest-high to a tall man, its polished surface incised by two arrows, one pointing due east toward the Finger Rock, the other slightly north of due east, aimed directly at the Eye Rock, so ingeniously and immovably set into the Star Stone.
One dawn, in the not too distant future, he would look through the Eye Rock and meet the baleful blink of the Red Star. And then . . .
Sounds of vigorous splashing interrupted F’lar’s reflections. He grinned again as he realized it was the girl bathing. She certainly cleaned up pretty, and undressed . . . He stretched with leisurely recollection, reviewing what his reception from that quarter might be. She ought to have no complaints at all. What a flight! He chuckled softly.
Mnementh commented from the safety of his ledge that F’lar had better watch his step with Lessa.
Lessa, is it? thought F’lar back to his dragon.
Mnementh enigmatically repeated his caution. F’lar chuckled his self-confidence.
Suddenly Mnementh was alert to an alarm.
Watchers were sending out a rider to identify the unusually persistent dust clouds on the plateau below Benden Lake, Mnementh informed his wingleader crisply.
F’lar rose hastily, gathered up his scattered clothes, and dressed. He was buckling the wide rider’s belt when the curtain to the bathing room was flipped aside. Lessa confronted him, fully clothed.
He was always surprised to see how slight she was, an incongruous physical vessel for such strength of mind. Her newly washed hair framed her narrow face with a dark cloud. There was no hint in her composed eyes of the dragon-roused passion they had experienced together yesterday. There was no friendliness about her at all. No warmth. Was this what Mnementh meant? What was the matter with the girl?
Mnementh gave an additional alarming report, and F’lar set his jaw. He would have to postpone the understanding they must reach intellectually until after this emergency. To himself he damned R’gul’s green handling of her. The man had all but ruined the Weyrwoman, as he had all but destroyed the Weyr.
Well, F’lar, bronze Mnementh’s rider, was now Weyrleader, and changes were long overdue.
Long overdue, Mnementh confirmed dryly. The Lords of the Holds gather in force on the lake plateau.
“There’s trouble,” F’lar announced to Lessa by way of greeting. His announcement did not appear to alarm her.
“The Lords of the Hold come to protest?” she asked coolly.
He admired her composure even as he decried her part in this development.
“You’d have done better to let me handle the raiding. K’net’s still boy enough to be carried away with the joy of it all.”
Her slight smile was secretive.