She returned and conveyed to Sebell that she couldn’t get close to Piemur. It was too dark and too full. When Sebell questioned her for details, she grew distressed and repeated the image of darkness and her inability to reach the boy.
The frenzy of the search mounted. Guards were now dispatched on fast runners up every road leading from the Hold to find any travelers journeying from the Gather. Sebell sent Kimi to the valley to warn N’ton away in case the bronze rider was awaiting them. When Tris accompanied her back, Sebell knew that his warning had been timely. Tris chittered at him and then settled beside Kimi, giving Sebell the opportunity to send the fire lizard to bring N’ton should he be needed.
Both moons had risen by now, adding their soft light to the glows, but despite the fact that the guards endlessly searched and researched the Hold and yards, their efforts proved vain. Delighted with Piemur’s elusiveness, Sebell settled himself to wait out the night in the shadowy corner of the first cot below the ramp. He had a good view of the guards and, by carefully looking over the ramp wall, could see most of the courtyard.
He was roused from a half-doze by the shouts and angry muttering as the guards prodded those who had lingered about the gates back down toward the Gather area.
“Go on now,” the guards kept saying. “Go to your cots or your allotments. You’ll be allowed to leave in the morning. No need to linger here. Go on with you, now!”
The moons had set, and gone, too, were all the glowbaskets that had illuminated the courtyards. Even the Hold was in darkness, though some light seeped through the shutters of the Lord Holder’s apartments on the first level. Curling himself into a tight ball in the shadows, Sebell hid his face and hands and ordered Kimi to tell Tris to be quiet and for both to keep their eyes closed.
When the guards disappeared, he wondered what was happening. The Hold was virtually unguarded as well as unlit. Was this some sort of trap to catch Piemur? Or should Sebell take advantage of this opportunity and sneak into the Hold? Kimi rattled her wings in alarm, and through narrow slits her eyes gleamed yellow with worry. Tris, too, stirred nervously.
Then Sebell picked up from Kimi’s mind the image of dragons; furthermore, dragons that neither fire lizard knew! Just as that image faded in his mind, Sebell heard the sound of dragon wings. Gliding from the northern shadows of the Hold cliff, he saw the black bulks of four dragons, wing on wing. Two settled neatly into the kitchen courtyard while the other pair landed in the main yard. Sebell heard hushed commands and then an unusual, muted hubbub. Grunts and muffled oaths punctuated the activity. Sebell was considering moving out of his protective shadows for a better view when he heard a heavy groan, the unmistakable scrabble of talons on stone, and the equally identifiable swhoosh of mighty wings making a powerful downstroke.
In the one band of light in the kitchen courtyard he saw the belly of a heavily laden bronze dragon struggling to rise, his sides bulging. No sooner had the first one cleared, than the second dragon launched himself skyward. The two in the main courtyard moved to the kitchen yard. More activity ensued, conducted with hoarse whispers and low voiced commands.
All during this, Kimi and Tris shivered, clinging to Sebell in a fashion they had never exhibited in the vicinity of other dragons. It took no great effort for Sebell to conclude that he had witnessed Lord Meron delivering goods to the Oldtimers from the Southern Weyr. That queen fire lizard egg had probably been prepayment for whatever the dragons had lugged away.
Sebell heard the sound of low voices coming from the direction of the Gather, and he hastily nipped back to his dark corner, warning the two fire lizards to close their eyes as he hid his face and hands again.
After moments of boot scuffing and muttered phrases, there was silence. Cautiously raising his head, he saw that the guards were back in position and that the glowbaskets again glowed on ramp and Hold walls, illuminating the roads leading up to the Hold. He was trapped in his shadowy corner. Nor did he dare to send Kimi or Tris from him, for their flight would surely be noticed when there wasn’t another fire lizard to be seen. With a sigh, he settled himself as comfortably as he could, Kimi draped warmingly about his shoulders, and Tris curled at his side.
He couldn’t have slept very long before he was rudely awakened by the boom of the message drums. “Urgent to the Healer! Lord Meron very ill. Masterharper required. Urgent! Urgent! Urgent!”
Had they then caught Piemur and, recognizing him, summoned Master Robinton to account for the misbehavior of one of his apprentices? Lord Meron would like nothing better than to be able to humiliate Master Robinton, for any censure of the Masterharper would also touch the Benden Weyrleaders, whom Lord Meron hated. Oh, well, if that were the case, at least the boy had been found. Sebell felt certain that Master Robinton could handle Lord Meron’s accusations. And yet, why was Master Oldive so urgently required? No Hold drummed that measure unless the emergency was critical.
The Hold’s fire lizards had been awakened by the boom of the big message drums and now wheeled about in the glowlight. Sebell unwrapped Kimi’s tail from his neck, and holding her slender body in his hands, compelled her to look at him while he gave her directions to Menolly. He thought hard about clean clothes and imaged himself dressed in harper blue. Kimi chirruped understandingly and, after stroking his chin with her head, launched herself up. Tris chirped questioningly, tugging at Sebell’s sleeve. N’ton would be a good ally, but strictly speaking the Fort Weyrleader had no genuine business here since Nabol was beholden to T’bor of the High Reaches Weyr. So Sebell looked deeply into Tris’s lightly whirling eyes, thought hard that N’ton need not come to the valley, and sent the little brown back to his friend at Fort Weyr.
The message drum boomed a repeat, emphasizing again the urgency. Sebell strained his ears for the relay drums at the next point, but a handful of guards quick-stepped down the road toward the Gather and their passing masked the distant sounds.
Dawn was just breaking when Sebell, scanning the lightening skies, saw a dragon emerge. As the creature circled gracefully down, Sebell was relieved to note the silhouettes of four riders. He was perplexed because the dragon’s spiraling descent would not put the party in the Hold’s courtyard, where logically they would be expected to land. Abruptly, Kimi appeared in the air above him, chittering excitedly and darting off toward the Gather meadow. Her mind pictured Menolly. When Sebell did not move quickly enough to please her, she hovered at his shoulder and tugged at his dirty tunic, darting off again-toward the meadow.
“I understand, of course. I’m tired, that’s why I’m slow, Kimi,” he said. Sticking to the shadows, he skirted the cot and started down the deserted road until he was far enough away from the guards. Then he picked up his feet and ran down the deserted road toward the new arrivals. He reached them just as the blue dragon left.
“Ah, Sebell,” said the Masterharper, for all the world as if he were welcoming his journeyman into his rooms at the Harper Hall instead of surreptitiously meeting on a dark meadow in early dawn. “Menolly, hand him his clothes. He can tell us what has been happening while he changes. Is Lord Meron so desperately ill?”
“Probably. Of temper if nothing else,” replied Sebell, stripping off his tunic and getting a shower of dust and grit in his hair and face. “He walked the Gather last evening…”
“He what!” exclaimed Master Oldive, cocking his head up at Sebell in surprise.
“He had to. And then someone stole a fire lizard queen egg from the hearth of his bedroom…”