“Have you some ships out now?” asked Sebell, because he had thought it odd to see so few at anchor when the sun was high.

Toric smiled again, his good humor completely restored by Sebell’s observation. “You are well come, Harper, since the ships have sailed on your account. Or, I should say, Master Oldive’s. It’s harvest time for the numbweed, and for certain other herbs, grasses and such like that Sharra says the good man requires. If you stay until they return, then you can sail home full laden.”

“Good news, Toric, but we’d best sail home laden with Piemur as well.”

The southerner clicked his tongue pessimistically. “As I said, there’ve been three, maybe four Threadfalls since that queen egg shell was found.”

“You don’t know our Piemur,” said Menolly, so insistent that Toric raised his eyebrows in surprise at her fervor. “Maybe, but I know how other Northerners act in Threadfall!” Toric was plainly contemptuous.

“You’re having trouble with their adaptation here?” asked Sebell, worrying that the Harper’s masterful solution of sending holdless men south to Toric in unobtrusive numbers was in jeopardy.

“No trouble,” said Toric, dismissing that consideration with a wave of his hand. “They learn to cope holdless, or stay holdbound without the additional privileges of being ranked as holders here. Some have adapted rather well,” he admitted grudgingly. Then he noticed Menolly’s anxious glances toward the entrance. “Oh, I told her to give the forests a good raking, too. The fire lizards’ll take a while if my queen has followed her orders. Now that drink is not enough to soothe a sea thirst; there’s sure to be ripe fruit cooling in the tanks.” He rose and went to the kitchen area of the cavern where he scooped a huge green-rinded fruit from a tank set in the wall. “Generally we save heavier eating for the evening, when the heat has eased.” He sectioned the fruit and carried a platter of the pink-fleshed slices to the table. “Best fruit in the world for quenching thirst. It’s mainly water.”

Sebell and Menolly were licking their fingers for the last of the succulent juices when a twittering fair of fire lizards swooped in. Beauty and Kimi made immediately for their friends’ shoulders, Rocky and Diver settled near Menolly on the table, but Toric’s queen hovered, chirping out a message, her eyes whirling with the orange-red of distress.

“I told you he might not survive,” said Toric. “My queen really looked for any trace of a human, too.”

Menolly hid her face on the pretext of reassuring her fire lizards, who were imaging to her endless distances of forest and deserted stretches of beach and sandy wastes.

“You sent them west,” said Sebell, grasping at any theory that would give them hope, “to the place where the egg shells were discovered. If I know Piemur, he wouldn’t have stayed anywhere that he had left clues. Could he have worked his way east? And be further down this side of the Southern Weyr?”

Toric gave a snort of laughter. “He could be any bloody where in the whole great southlands, but I doubt it. You Northerners don’t like to be holdless in Threadfall.”

“I managed quite well, thank you,” said Menolly, her face bleak despite the sharpness of her reminder.

“There are undeniably exceptions,” said Toric smoothly, inclining his head to indicate he meant her no insult.

“Piemur avoided discovery by fire lizards at Nabol, he told me, by thinking of between,” said Sebell. “He could have tried that trick again today. He’d have no way of knowing they were our friends. But there’s one call he won’t ignore or hide from.”

“And what would that be?” asked the skeptical holder.

Sebell caught Menolly’s suddenly hopeful expression. “Drums! Piemur will answer a call on drums!”

“Drums?” Toric threw back his head in an honest guffaw of surprise.

“Yes, drums,” said Sebell, beginning to find Toric’s attitude offensive. “Where’s your drumheights?”

“Why would we need drumheights in Southern?”

It took the astounded harpers a little while to understand that drumheights, traditional in every hold in the north, had never been installed in the Southern’s single hold. Granted, there were now small holdings established as far to the east as the Island River, but messages came back and forth either by fire lizard or by ship.

To Sebell’s impatient query for any sort of drums in the hold, Toric said that they had a few to aid rhythm in dances. These were found in the quarters of Saneter, the hold’s harper, who roused from his midday rest to show them to Sebell and Menolly. They were, as Sebell sadly found, no better than dance drums, with no resonance to speak of.

“Still and all, message drums would be handy to have nowadays, Toric,” Saneter said. “Easier than sailing down the coast to discuss something. Just drum ’em up here. Safer, too. Those Oldtimers never learned drum measures. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how much I remember myself.” Saneter regarded the journeymen harpers with an abashed surprise. “Haven’t had to use drum talk since I came here with F’nor.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to refresh your memory, Saneter, but we must have proper drums. And that would take time with all the Master Smith has on his plate right now,” said Sebell, shaking his head with the disappointment he felt. He’d been so sure…

“Must drums be made of metal?” asked Toric. “These have wooden frames.” He tapped the stretched hide across the larger drum, and it rattled in response.

“The metal message drums are large, to resound—” Sebell began.

“But not necessarily metal; just something big enough, hollow enough over which to stretch your hide, and resonate?” asked Toric, ignoring the interruption. “What about a tree trunk…say…” and he began to hold out his arms, widening the circle while Sebell stared in disbelief at the area he encompassed. “…about this big? That ought to make a bloody loud drum. Tree I’m thinking of came down in the last big storm.”

“I know things grow bigger here in the south, Toric,” said Sebell, skeptical in his own turn, “but a tree trunk as big as you suggest? Well, now, they don’t grow that big.”

Toric threw back his head, laughing at Sebell’s incredulity. He clapped Saneter on the shoulder. “We’ll show this disbelieving northerner, won’t we, Harper?”

Saneter grinned apologetically at his crafters, spreading his hands out to indicate that Toric was indeed telling the truth.

“Further, it’s not all that far from the hold. We could make it there and back before dinner,” said Toric, well pleased with himself, and strode out of the harper’s quarters ahead of the other three to rouse assistants.

While Sebell didn’t doubt that the fallen tree was “not far” from the Southern Hold, it was also not an easy trek through steamy hot forests where the trail had to be hacked out afresh. But, when they finally reached the tree, it was every bit as large in girth as Toric had promised. Sebell felt much like Menolly, awed, as they reached out to caress the smooth wood of the fallen giant. The insects that had burrowed out the monster’s core had also made meals of its bark until only a thin shell remained, the last skin of the once-living tree. Even that shell had begun to rot away in the steam and rain of its environment.

“Will this make you enough drums, harperman?” asked Toric, delighted to confound them.

“Enough for every holding you’ve got, with more left over,” said Sebell, running his eyes down the fallen trunk. Surely it must be several dragon lengths: queen dragons! It must be the biggest, oldest tree ever grown on Pern. How many Threadfalls had it survived?

“Well, how many shall we cut you today?” asked Toric, gesturing for the doubled-handed saw that had been carried by his holders.

“I’ll settle for one just now,” said Sebell, “from here…” and he marked the distance with an arm and his body, pointing to the limit with his right forefinger by his ribs,