Piemur was proud of and impressed by Master Robinton’s continued insistence on small holdings. Paradise River Hold, rather than Southern, was constantly cited as the acceptable precedent. The Weyrleaders, besieged by petitioners, finally conceded that point, adding the provision that no one already in possession of a hold could expect to be granted one in the South. With greatly increased supplies of all raw materials available from the South, Craftmasters increased their numbers of apprentices and more walked the tables as journeymen to support broader holder requirements.

With no need any longer to limit mating flights to keep the dragon population down to that which the existing Weyrs could accommodate, there were soon sufficient weyrlings to populate a new Weyr in the thick forest between Landing and Monaco. T’gellan, rider of bronze Monarth, was appointed as Weyrleader to the Eighth Weyr, designated as Eastern until a suitable name could be agreed upon. T’gellan found his new position no sinecure, since he had to deal both with older dragons and riders, unable to fly full Falls, and weyrlings sent to Eighth for a season to perfect their fighting skills before being added to Northern wings.

Southern dragonriders turned out to be useful after all, despite the land’s defenses—in the form of those amazing grubs—against Thread. After a storm of nasty tangles ripped through some of the dense forests, Weyrleader T’gellan increased sweepriders, and even Lord Toric, once he had seen the damage done by a series of tangles, lost his complacence and organized ground crews.

A nearby Weyr, with an old friend as Weyrleader, provided Piemur and his master with any number of willing beasts to help them explore, far more extensively than perhaps Benden might realize. To their delight, they found more ruins along the river that flowed on Mount Garben’s western flank. And Master Robinton knew of suitable folk to move into those old holdings—ostensibly for onsite excavations.

D’ram passed his leadership on to K’van, whose Heth surprised complacent older bronze riders by flying Adrea’s Beljeth in her mating flight. D’ram retired to Cove Hold, where he was well received by Master Robinton and Lytol, the retired Lord Warder of Ruatha Hold.

The fears that another Toric, or worse yet, a second Fax, might emerge began to recede as more and more small holds were established along the coast and rivers. The sheer size of the Southern Continent, and the difficulty of communications—solving that problem was a major priority of the Smithcrafthall—served as inhibiting factors.

There were regular passages back and forth between the continents, both by sail and by dragon. The harbor facilities at Monaco Bay were still functional, though the dwelling at the point had been battered into ruins by storms. The harbor was superb, and several Masterfishermen vied with each other for Master Idarolan’s permission to take hold there. Paradise River Hold was thriving; it had its own seahold, Mastered by Alemi, formerly of Half Circle Seahold, who had command of two small coastal skiffs and one deep-water vessel.

During those Turns, excavations continued at the Plateau, though the work became somewhat slow and desultory during the long stretches during which little or nothing was found. Whenever minor finds were uncovered, interest would be temporarily revived, and Master Robinton would seize that renewal of energy to get other sites dug up, clinging to his belief that somewhere in the ruins would be the answers to his questions about the Dawn Sisters and the origin of their ancestors. The maps had only whetted his appetite.

Meanwhile Master Fandarel had assembled an astounding array of mechanical pieces, including the shell of what he insisted had to be one of the ancients’ small flying ships. The starboard side had been badly dented, the durable material fractured, stained, and mottled with tiny cracks. The stripped hull raised more questions than it answered, but encouraged the hopes of those who thought that a complete vessel might be found abandoned at one of the ancient sites.

To assist in the tagging and cataloging at Cove Hold, Menolly and Brekke sent a variety of young people, serving informal apprenticeships. Piemur suspected his friends of matchmaking, but there was no doubt that the girls were useful—and, Piemur conceded, decorative. They seemed to enjoy D’ram’s occasional teasing and were understanding of Lytol’s quiet introspection. Still, none of them caught Piemur’s fancy, especially since they had a tendency to moon over Master Robinton.

For the additional residents at Cove Hold, small private cots had been constructed, though most evenings everyone met for their meal in the main Hall. A large area adjacent to D’ram’s cot was cleared for Piroth’s weyr. A second guest house was constructed when the facilities in Cove Hall were constantly strained; then an archive hall—Lytol’s domain—was added as repository for the mass of records, sketches, charts, maps, ruin diagrams, and artifact samples. Soon an annex was required to allow space for the craftswomen determined to piece together some of the splinters and shards. Wansor’s large distance-viewer was housed on the eastern point, where he continued his observations of the Dawn Sisters, the baleful Red Star, and those other celestial bodies which, with the help of the ancients’ star maps, he managed to identify.

And still the excavation of Landing continued. Fandarel’s mound, the last of the original choices to be excavated, had added to the frustration. He had been correct that the heat of the volcano had kept the building from being cleared by the ancient refugees, but whatever had been in it had been so badly damaged—or, in some cases, completely destroyed—that it was impossible to identify. A flurry of further digging in that sector proved unenlightening: the buildings thus found seemed to have been used as beastholds.

That raised the questions of how so many beasts could have been accommodated in the Dawn Sisters, how many people had made the voyage, how far they had come, and how long had Landing been inhabited. The fire-lizards’ peculiarly tenacious memory evidently contained only unusual occasions: the initial landing, the volcanic eruption, and the far more recent incident of the retrieval of Ramoth’s stolen egg, when dragons had actually flamed at fire-lizards. It was still not common knowledge that Jaxom and Ruth had stolen back the egg for the North—all most people knew was that the miraculous return of the egg had made it unnecessary for the Northern dragon wings to exact retribution from Southern Oldtimers and prevented the worst catastrophe anyone could imagine: dragon fighting dragon.

There was a certain contentment on both sides of the sea now that the Southern Continent had been opened up, leaving those interested in the ancients free to pursue the puzzles posed by the excavations. One rainy week, the frustration level of those kept holdbound at the cove was particularly high, and even Piemur, racking his brain, could not come up with a diversion.

“It may well be, Robinton,” Lytol suggested, “that we shall never know the answers.”

“Now that I won’t accept!” The Harper propelled himself out of his chair, pausing the tiniest bit as his joints prevented a smooth rising. “Bloody rain always seizes me up.” He straightened his back, stood on one leg to jiggle the other, then repeated the process with his right leg. “What was I going to do?”

“Pace with frustration,” Piemur said, looking up from the object he was studying under an enlarging glass. “I’ll join you. There is no way this—thing—was useful.” He flicked the rectangular board away from him. “‘Beads and wires and tiny joins!”

“Decorative?” D’ram asked.

“Unlikely. It’s more of the same sort of thing we found in the forward portion of the flying ship.”