Chap. 52 Tracking the gold

Chap. 52  tracking the gold

Lindea contemplated the ocean and the late afternoon sun peeking out through the cloud cover. Her queen fire lizard, Zeta, on her lap. She scratched the gold lizard in her favorite spots.

K'ndar and Glyena, his sister, were oiling Raventh. Siskin, his blue fire lizard, was flitting about, alternately trying to get Zeta to pay attention to him and hunting the little creatures that darted at the sea's edge.

"It's been so…stressful. Such a horrible week we've had," she said. "This is the first time all week I've been able to not think about Danelle. And now I am," she said, glumly.

K'ndar nodded, working hard to keep from ruminating on the events of the past week. He, like everyone else, was finally accepting that Danelle, their Weyrwoman..and her gold Elanath were dead. 

"I'm out of oil, could you hand me yours, sis?" Glyena walked around a somnolent Raventh to hand her oil pot to her brother. 

"Want me to run and get some more?" she asked.

He gave the level of oil in the pot a quick glance. "No, I think this will be enough. Thank you, you are such a big help to me," he said. 

Glyena smiled. She ran a bit of sand through her hands to remove oil from them, then sat down next to Lindea. Zeta chirped at her. 

"So, Glyena, how do you like living here at the weyr?" Lindea asked. 

"It was just what you and K'ndar said. I was homesick. I did what you said…oops, it's a secret, right?"

"It's okay. I think K'ndar knows. You cried at night, under a blanket, right?"

"I DID. But only at night because in the daytime I'm in school or doing chores.  But then my foster mum heard me and came into my room and put her arms around me and taught me a song. It was about a foal who lost his mum and got lost and was so scared and then a little girl found him and made friends with him. Want to hear it?"

Despite Lindea knowing the song very well, she said, 'Sure'. Glyena began to sing. She'd gotten half way through when she suddenly stopped. 

"I can't sing it anymore. It makes me sad, but it's because of Danelle."

"I understand. Everyone is sad this week."

K'ndar straightened up, looking Raventh over for any spots he'd missed.

Did I miss any spots on you?

Raventh was almost asleep. It took him a moment to run a scan over himself.

No. I am very comfortable. I'm going back to sleep.

Oh. Wait. This is interesting  Raventh said

Oh??

The oldtimer is harnessing Jianath. They are going somewhere. 

That was odd, K'ndar thought, middle of the afternoon? But she goes off on her own often. Even more so, now, that Danelle was gone. Where does she go?

He remembered Siena telling him about the confrontation she and the two other junior gold riders had had with Jenmay. If anything, Jenmay had become even more cantankerous and confrontational, acting as if she had been made Weyrwoman, without benefit of a mating flight.

Do you know where she goes?

No. 

"Jenmay is harnessing Jianath to 'go somewhere'," he said to Lindea. 

"No surprise there," Lindea said, "She's always coming into the dining hall, wanting a meal in between serving times 'before she goes to harvest herbs 'for the kitchen', but we never see a one! Then she'll say, ' oh I found some for the healers.' The healers have asked her to show them where she gets them, but she refuses. Say's it's a secret that only Oldtimers are supposed to know."

"She is MEAN," Glyena said, "she yells at the kids when we are playing. She calls us 'moderns' and says girls aren't supposed to do things like go to school. I LOVE school."

"You know that's silly, don't you?" Lindea asked her.

"Of COURSE," Glyena said, scornfully. "But she is happy Danelle is dead. She likes it because now she's Weyrwoman."

"She's not, you know," K'ndar said, resenting how one woman had upset the entire weyr.

"But she pretends she is. That's why she is happy that Danelle is gone but she hides it from you grownups. She pretends to be sad but when no one is looking she acts happy. She thinks us kids are too stupid to see it, but we know. So sometimes we see that she's singing when everyone else is sad and crying. She's happy that Danelle is gone."

Lindea and K'ndar exchanged more looks.

They turned to look at the Oldtimer's weyr. Jianath, standing on the ledge jutting from their weyr, was fully harnessed and Jenmay was in the process of mounting her…a bit slower and more carefully than most. She was, after all, in her 70's.

"I'd love to follow her, but she'd know," K'ndar said, suddenly,"Jianath would tell her Raventh was behind her."

Glyena looked at him.

"So tell Siskin to follow her."

DUH.

He scrubbed her head, loving her intensely.

"Sometimes, little sis, I wonder what I'd do without you," he said. 

"And Zeta. What a great idea, Glyena, you are one smart lassie!" Lindea said.

K'ndar immediately said to Raventh,

Tell Siskin and Zeta to follow the gold. Tell them to not let Jenmay the Oldtimer see them.  We just want to know where she goes and watch what she does. Then have them return and tell us and you.

You don't want me to go?

No. You are too handsome, she would see you immediately.

Good, because I am too sleepy. I have told them.

Zeta and Siskin both straightened up, eyes awhirl. They watched as Jenmay's dragon launched from the ledge and laboriously flapped to gain altitude. The two fire lizards flew to a spot above and behind the queen…and all three vanished between.

They were beginning to worry. The fire lizards had been gone for almost an hour, when they suddenly appeared. Both were quite happy, zipping about in the sky. They were very proud of themselves.

"Well done, lad! There's my Siskin!" K'ndar called. The blue whirred about his head, chirping in joy. Zeta was a bit more sedate but she, too, was immensely pleased with herself. 

Jianath re-appeared in the sky. She flew immediately to their weyr high up in the cliff. 

Siskin says there are a great many fire lizards where they went. Wild ones. 

And?

They watched the gold. The oldtimer got off the gold and began to cut flowers. There were no other humans around, not even dragons. Just her. 

What else did they see? Can you see where they were?

Raventh was quiet.

I can see mountains, but not like ours here. There is white stuff on them. It is cold. The grasses are dry. The sun is in a different spot than here. It is just a little past sunrise there.

This is odd. Zeta showed me the oldtimer putting some flowers in the queen's mouth and she ate it.  She shows me fire lizards eating it, too. She took some bites of the flowers.

I never heard of a dragon eating a plant

I've never eaten a plant. But usually the herdbeasts have plants in their stomachs and we get it that way. It doesn't hurt us. 

That made sense. Cattle were herbivores, after all. The dragons ate them, innards and all. 

Do you think you could find the place?

Now? Of course. And Siskin knows, too.

Lindea looked at K'ndar.

"I can see what Zeta saw. What does Raventh say?"

"Snowy mountains, different time zone, dry grasses, wild fire lizards."

"That's what I'm seeing."

"She went Northwest.  WAY Northwest."

They both had the same idea at the same time.

"Are you up for it?"

"She's been doing nothing but harm. Let's see what she's harvesting. I'll try to identify it and we can give it to the healers and see what they say."

Glyena tugged on K'ndar. 

"Can I go?"

K'ndar was torn. He didn't want to overburden Raventh, or…for that matter, risk his sister's life. Accidents had happened in the past.

"Can I promise you a trip in the future? Someone needs to know where we went," he said, trying hard to not let her begging eyes affect his heart.

Her face fell.

"I promise, Glyena, but for this trip, it has to be just me and Lindea. OK?"

She knew her puppy eyes wouldn't work this time.

"But…"

"No buts. For egg's sake, do NOT let Jenmay know. This is OUR secret, unless we don't come back. We're going to the northern mountains on the Northern continent. There are no people there. There are wild fire lizards, snow on the mountains, it's in an earlier time zone, and the grasses are dry, meaning it's been cold and dry. We've never been there. Siskin and Zeta know where we are and where it is. OK? For now, ONLY if we don't come back do you tell anyone, and then it has to be the Weyrleader first. Not a word to Jenmay. OK?"

She threw her shoulders back, impressed with the responsibility he was laying on them.

"I wouldn't tell her if she stabbed me," Glyena said, "She's mean and I hate her. But you better come back." 

Would you like to take a little trip?

I've had a nice nap. Yes. To where Jianath went to?

Yes.

Siskin goes too. He knows where it is.

Yes. Is he up to it?

He is. It was fun. He liked it.

Let's go.

It was a wild and beautiful place. He was amazed something like it existed, considering how long the northern continent had been occupied. In the distance he saw wherries in large flocks.  Here by his feet was wher dung. A lot of it. It looked like they'd been digging. 

It was colder than he'd expected. The snow on the mountaintops was almost blinding in the brilliant sunshine. 

"This has GOT to be farther north and west than High Reaches Weyr," he said. 

Siskin and Zeta's coordinates were exact. They could see where Jenmay had cut and harvested plants.  

The two fire lizards roosted on Raventh as they worked.

Lindea found two sets of plants growing together. Not knowing a thing about them, she just took handfuls of both. 

K'ndar looked around for any evidence of human habitation. If it existed, it hadn't been for a thousand years. He found several odd looking stones and built a cairn atop a large, flat topped boulder. He noticed one of the stones had an odd looking….thing embedded in it. That one, he put in his pocket. 

He'd had the foresight to bring his new notebook and a pencil when he'd picked up Raventh's harness. 

He turned it to the second page and began to annotate the aspects of the site. He drew the cairn, the aspects of the terrain, the cardinal points, where the sun was, and the mountains. He wrote a note about what the plants looked like and the conditions it grew in. He drew a fairly accurate drawing of the plants themselves. This is how science is done, he thought. This is how the DR Plank made the book.  It gave him a feeling of importance, of…pioneering. This, he felt, was what he was meant to do: find a new place, a forgotten corner of Pern, and document it in a notebook. 

Then he stood and memorized the cairn.

Here is our very first cairn/dragonstone. Memorize it, we'll be back.

I will. I would like to come back, there are a lot of beasts here to hunt.

"I think I have enough, K'ndar."  Lindea called, her bandana stuffed with the samples.The wind had picked up, blowing off the snow covered mountains, chilling them to their southern climate accustomed bones.

"Raventh said Zeta watched Jenmay put some of the flowers in Jianath's mouth and she ate it. He also showed Zeta eating some flowers herself."

"That's odd, but…we don't know everything about dragons, do we?"

"You'd think by this time, we would. But …"

"What shall we do with these plants?" she asked.

"I have a book from the library," he said, proudly, "it has descriptions and drawings of all the plants and animals on Pern. I'll look at the plants tonight or..well, it's getting late back home, so maybe tomorrow after my watch duty. I'll see if there's a description of them. And then I'll take them to Billek. But in the meantime, let's go home. I’m getting hungry."