CHAPTER X
From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4
AS RUTH FLEW upward from the meadow, Jaxom experienced a tremendous sense of relief and excitement as well as the usual tension that gripped him when making a long jump between. Beauty and Diver were perched on Menolly's shoulders, tails twined about her neck. He had given shoulder room to Poll and Rocky since these four had accompanied the Harper and Menolly on that initial trip. Jaxom would have liked to ask what they'd been doing sailing in the Southern Continent. The boat made some sense since Menolly, being SeaHold-bred, was a good sailor. But there'd been a challenging gleam in Menolly's eyes that had kept him from asking. He was wondering, too, if she had told the Harper anything of her suspicions about his part in returning the egg.
They went between first to Nerat's tip, circling again while Menolly and her fire-lizards concentrated on imagining the cove far to the southeast. Jaxom had wanted to time it to the night before; he'd spent hours working out star positions in the Southern Hemisphere. Menolly and Robinton had overruled him unless Ruth couldn't get a vivid enough picture of the cove from the combination of Menolly and the fire-lizards.
Somewhat to Jaxom's disgruntlement, Ruth announced that he could clearly see where he was to go. Menolly makes very sharp pictures, he added.
Jaxom had no option but to ask him to change.
The quality of the air was Jaxom's first impression of the new location: sorter, cleaner, less humid. Ruth was gliding toward the little cove, expressing pleasure in anticipation of a good swim. Their guiding mountain peak glistened in the sun, distant, serene and unusually symmetrical.
"I'd forgotten how lovely it was," Menolly said, breathing out a sigh in his ear.
The water had a clarity that made the sandy bottom of the cove quite visible, though Jaxom was sure that the water was by no means shallow. He noticed the brilliant reflection of yellowtails and the darting movements of whitefingers in the clear waters. Ahead of them was the perfect crescent of a white-sanded cove, trees of all sizes, some bearing yellow and red fruits, forming a shady border. As Ruth descended to the beach, Jaxom could see dense forest extending unbroken toward the low range of foothills that culminated m that magnificent mountain. Just beyond this cove, on both flanks, were other little bays, not perhaps as symmetrically shaped, but equally peaceful and untouched.
Ruth came to a back-winging halt on the sands, urging his passengers to disembark as he intended to have a proper bath.
"Go ahead, then," Jaxom said, patting Ruth's muzzle affectionately and laughing as the white dragon, too eager to dive, waddled ungracefully into the sea.
"These sands are as hot as at Hatching Grounds," Menolly explained, picking up her feet in fast order and heading toward the shaded area.
"They're not that hot," Jaxom said, following her.
"My feet are sensitive," she replied, casting herself down on the beach. She glanced up and down and then grimaced.
"No signs, huh?" Jaxom asked.
"Of D'ram?"
"No, fire-lizard."
She unslung the pack with their provisions.
"They're likely sleeping off their early-morning feed. You're still on your feet. See if there're some ripe redfruits in that tree there, would you, Jaxom? Meatroll makes dry eating."
Jaxom found sufficient ripe fruit to feed a Hold and brought as much as he could carry back to Menolly. He knew her fondness for them. Ruth was disporting himself in the water, diving and surfacing to tail length before crashing down with great splashings and wave-makings, the fire-lizards encouraging him with shriek and buglings.
"Tide's full in," Menolly said as she bit into redfruit peel, tearing off a large hunk and squeezing the pulp for the juice. "Oh, this is heavenly! Why does everything Southern taste so good?"
"Forbidden, I guess. Does the tide make a difference to the fire-lizards' appearing?"
"Not that I know of. Ruth will make the difference, I think."
"So we have to wait until they notice Ruth?"
"That's the easiest way."
"Do we actually know there are fire-lizards in this part of the South?"
"Oh, yes, didn't I mention?" Menolly pretended to be contrite. "We saw a queen mating, and I nearly lost Rocky and Diver to her. Beauty was furious."
"Anything else that hasn't been mentioned that I should know?"
Menolly grinned at him. "I need to have the old memory jogged by association. You'll know what is needed when the time comes."
Jaxom decided that two could play that word game and grinned back at her, before choosing a redfruit to eat. It was so warm that he set aside his riding jacket and helmet. Ruth continued to enjoy a leisurely and lengthy bath as Menolly's fire-lizards performed alongside him, their combined show affording their indulgent audience considerable amusement.
It got hotter, the white sands reflecting the sun's rays and baking the cove even where they were in shade. The clear water and the fun the beasts were having was too much for Jaxom to watch any longer. He unlaced his boots, wriggled out of his trousers, whipped off his shirt and raced for the water. Menolly was soon splashing beside him before he was a dragonlength from the shore.
"We'd better not take too much sun," she told him. "I got a colossal burning the last time." She grimaced in recollection. "Peeled like a tunnel snake."
Ruth erupted beside them, blowing out water, all but swamping them with strokes from his wings, and then, solicitously extending a helping tail as the two choked and spluttered from the water they'd swallowed.
Menolly's body was trimmer than Corana's, Jaxom noticed as they waded out, happily exhausted by their swim with Ruth. She was longer in the leg and not nearly as rounded in the hip. A bit too flat in the breast, but she moved with a grace that fascinated Jaxom more than courtesy allowed. When he looked back, she had put on pants and overtunic, so that her slim bare arms were exposed to the sun as she dried her hair. He preferred long hair in a girl though, with all the dragonriding Menolly did, he could see why she'd keep it short enough to wear under a helmet.
They shared a yellow fruit which Jaxom had never eaten before. Its mild taste was well seasoned by the salt in his mouth.
Ruth emerged from the water, shaking water all over Jaxom and Menolly.
The sun is warm, he said when they complained of the shower. Your clothes will dry quickly. They always do at Keroon.
Jaxom shot a glance at Menolly but she evidently hadn't caught the significance of the remark. She was resettling herself, disgusted by the wet sand that now speckled her clothes and bare arms.
"It's not the wet that bothers," Jaxom told Ruth, as he brushed his face before lying down again, "it's the gritty sand."
Ruth worked himself into a good wallow of dry sand and the fire-lizards, giving little tired cheeps, nestled down against him.
Jaxom thought that one of them should stay awake to see if local fire-lizards responded to the lure of the white dragon, but the combination of exercise, food, sun and the limpid air of the cove were too much.