“Perhaps we ought to get T’bor to issue an order that lizard-watching has now become a Weyr duty,” F’nor suggested, grinning slyly at Brekke.

“That’ll show Kylara,” someone murmured very softly from Mirrim’s direction.

CHAPTER V

Midmorning at Ruatha Hold

Early Evening at Benden Weyr

JAXOM’S PLEASURE IN riding a dragon, in being summoned to Benden Weyr, was severely diminished by his guardian’s glowering disapproval. Jaxom had yet to learn that most of Lord Warder Lytol’s irritation was for a far larger concern than his ward’s mischievous habit of getting lost in the unused and dangerous corridors of Ruatha Hold. As it was, Jaxom was quite downcast. He didn’t mean to irritate Lytol, but he never seemed able to please him, no matter how hard he tried. There was such an unconscionable number of things that he, Jaxom, Lord of Ruatha Hold, must know, must do, must understand, that his head swam until he had to run away, to be by himself, to think. And the only empty places to think in Ruatha, where no one ever went or would bother you, were in the back portions of the hollowed-out cliff that was Ruatha Hold. And while he could, just possibly, get lost or trapped behind a rockfall (there hadn’t been a cave-in at Ruatha in the memory of living man or the Hold Records as far back as they were still legible), Jaxom hadn’t got into trouble or danger. He knew his way around perfectly. Who could tell? His investigations might someday save Ruatha Hold from another invader like Fax, his father. Here Jaxom’s thoughts faltered. A father he had never seen, a mother who died bearing him, had made him Lord of Ruatha, though his mother had been of Crom Hold and Fax, his father, of the High Reaches. It was Lessa, who was now Weyrwoman at Benden, who had been the last of Ruathan Blood. These were contradictions he didn’t understand and must.

He had changed his clothes now, from the dirty everyday ones to his finest tunic and trousers, with a wherhide over-tunic and knee boots. Not that even they could stop the horrible cold of between. Jaxom shuddered with delighted terror. It was like being suspended nowhere, until your throat closed and your bowels knotted and you were scared silly that you’d never again see the light of day, or even night’s darkness, depending on local time of day where you were supposed to emerge. He was very jealous of Felessan, despite the fact that it was by no means sure his friend would be a dragonrider. But Felessan lived at Benden Weyr, and he had a mother and a father, and dragonriders all around him, and…

“Lord Jaxom!” Lytol’s call from the Great Courtyard broke through the boy’s reverie and he ran, suddenly afraid that they’d leave without him.