“So I must suffer uncomforted?” But he put an arm around her shoulders and matched his long stride to hers as they crossed the distance to Terry.

“You are indeed well come,” Terry said, bowing continuously and grinning from ear to ear.

“Fandarel’s already developed a long-distance glass?” asked F’lar.

“Not quite yet,” and the Craft-second’s merry eyes danced in his tired face, “but not for want of trying all night.”

Lessa laughed sympathetically but Terry quickly demurred.

“I don’t mind, really. It’s fascinating what the fine-viewer can make visible. Wansor is jubilant and depressed by turns. He’s been raving all night to the point of tears for his own inadequacy.”

They were almost at the door of the small hall when Terry turned, his face solemn.

“I wanted to tell you how terribly I feel about F’nor. If I’d only given them that rackety knife in the first place, but it had been commissioned as a wedding gift for Lord Asgenar from Lord Larad and I simply…”

“You had every right to prevent its appropriation,” F’lar replied, gripping the Craft-second’s shoulder for emphasis.

“Still, if I had relinquished it…”

“If the skies fell, we’d not be bothered by Thread,” Lessa said so tartly that Terry was obliged to desist from his apologies.

The Hall, though apparently two-storied to judge by the windows, was in fact a vast single room. There was a small forge at one of the two hearths that were centered in each end. The black stone walls, smoothed and apparently seamless, were covered with diagrams and numbers. A long table dominated the center of the room, its wide ends deep sand trays, the rest a conglomerate of Record skins, leaves of paper and a variety of bizarre equipment. The Smith was standing to one side of the door, spread-legged, fists jammed against the wide waist belt, chin jutting out, a deep frown scoring his brow. His bellicose mood was directed toward a sketch on the black stone before him.

“It must be a question of the visual angle, Wansor,” he muttered in an aggrieved tone, as if the sketch were defying his will. “Wansor?”

“Wansor is as good as between, Craftmaster,” Terry said gently, gesturing toward the sleeping body all but invisible under skins on the outsized couch in one corner.

F’lar had always wondered where Fandarel slept, since the main Hall had long ago been given over to working space. No ordinary craftcot would be spacious enough to house the Craftmaster. Now he remembered seeing couches like this in most of the major buildings. Undoubtedly Fandarel slept anywhere and anytime he could no longer stay awake. The Smith thrived on what could burn out another man.

The Smith glanced crossly at the sleeper, grunted with resignation and only then noticed Lessa and F’lar. He smiled down at the Weyrwoman with real pleasure.