dust, but mostly dragon. He went to sleep listening to the faint rustlings of tunnel snakes, but he doubted they would dare venture where dragons had lain.
It did him no harm with all the other apprentices that he had to be wakened in the dusk preceding dawn by some loud shouting. When Robinton emerged on the weyr ledge, Shonagar urgently waved him down.
'Where have you been, Rob? We gotta get back to the Hall before they know we've borrowed the runners. We've been all over the place looking for you.'
'It's warm in a weyr,' Robinton said, yawning.
'Sorry to disturb your slumbers. Mount up. We're going to have to move!' Shonagar had a respectful scowl on his face as he handed the initiate the reins. 'And remember, not a word to the others. They must do it themselves, too.'
'Oh, it's not so bad,' Rob said, grinning.
'Just don't let me hear you've warned 'em about anything,
Robinton!' Shonagar repeated, bailing his hand into a fist.
'No. I'll obey.'
Of course, Robinton realized he wouldn't actually tell them anything, but he'd show them the matches and tinder he'd put in their pockets.
As they cantered towards the tunnel, Robinton looked up at the Star Stones, immense black dolmens against a lightening eastern sky. He caught a flick of something and wondered if the ghosts of departed dragons still kept a watch on the heights. Looking again, he saw a wherry wheeling down, probably from its nest in one of the upper weyrs.
Robinton really liked being an apprentice. In this he astonished his room-mates and the other twenty in his class. They would come to him for his advice and, often, comfort, and he'd help the slow ones with their lessons.
'Going to take over from me, Rob?' Shonagar asked him once.
'Me?' Rob grinned back. 'You can keep the responsibility – for now. And I'm just one of them, so it's easier for them to ask me because I'm handy and know the place, that's all.'
Tor all of that, you've not had it that easy,' Shonagar said with a wry smile. They'd just finished a long rehearsal for the Turn's End concert: Rob, as usual, was singing the solo treble parts.
Halanna and Maizella were also soloists, but though Petiron remarked favourably on their performances, he had not so much as a nod for his son. The apprentices, being as astute as they were, did not fail to notice this. But if any complained, he'd shrug and remark that his father expected him to be note-perfect.
His mother kept up his vocal training, and he had now graduated to apprentice classes. He particularly enjoyed his stint in the Drum Tower, because at last he got to learn the meaning of the codes he had been hearing all his life. Like everyone else, he knew that the initial beats indicated the final destination of the message and who had sent it, but it took time to get the sense of the actual message.
In fact, he was on duty the day Feyrith, Carola's queen, produced her final clutch – though no one knew at the time that it would be her last. The best news was that there was a queen egg, and the drum message added the extra beats for excitement and major news. A large clutch, too, with nine bronzes.
Robinton spent a few seven-days hoping that there would be a Search and he'd be found acceptable, and become a harper-dragonrider.
But no dragons came on Search to Fort Hold or the Harper Hall, and no other Hold reported the arrival of dragons looking for candidates. Robinton was bitterly disappointed. He had been so sure that the dragons liked him. Didn't they like him enough to come and find him?
For fear of being ridiculed, he didn't tell anyone about his thwarted desire. He did ask a few questions of his Masters, in case they knew how Searches were conducted, but the answers he got did nothing to assuage his anxiety or hopes. 'That's always up to the Weyr, lad,' or 'Who knows what's in dragon minds?' 'Sometimes the dragons don't Search. Don't need to. Didn't you tell me there were lots of lads your age at Benden Weyr?' Which was true enough, but it still didn't keep him from searching the skies for a dragon, in case he could get one to speak to him. His distraction was noticed in class, and he was given extra duties to encourage him to 'pay proper attention to your lessons and stop daydreaming'. He had time, while sweeping down the main court, to see the folly of his disappointment.
He was on Drum Tower duty again when the news of the
Hatching came in. Swallowing the final vestige of his own disappointment, Robinton just had to find out if Falloner had been Impressed. After all, Falloner had a real right to be Impressed.
Greatly daring, he asked permission of the journeyman in charge of the tower to find out.
'You see, I met a couple of the possible candidates. Falloner, he's the weyrling who was at the Hold for Mother to teach.' Robinton was not above using what he needed to get to do something as important as this, and he knew that the journeyman liked his mother. 'I know she'd like to know if Falloner Impressed...' He let his voice trail off.
'Oh, go ahead,' the journeyman said with a smile. 'Only keep it short.'
Robinton worked out the message and the non-urgent coding, got approval, and beat it out himself. He hoped he'd hear back before his duty ended. But he didn't.
That evening, however, the journeyman sought him out at dinner and gave him a slip of hide and a wink.
Robinton could barely restrain his hurrah! Falloner had Impressed a bronze. So had Rangul and Sellel – though that draconic choice surprised Robinton – and six others whose names he recognized from his visits to the Weyr. The WeaverCraftHall lad from High Reaches, Lytonal, was now L'tol and rode brown Larth.
He caught his mother on her way to evening rehearsal and told her.
'I suspected that young rascal would make bronze,' she said.
'And Rangul. Nine bronzes is a good clutch. A queen egg is even better. It may well be that S'loner is right, after all.' She hurried away then without explaining her last cryptic remark.
Robinton wondered if Falloner, now F'lon, would remember his promise to him – that he'd come to the Harper Hall on his bronze so that Robinton could meet him. Wouldn't his dorm-mates be amazed! It was a fun thing to think about, but Robinton rather thought that F'lom now being above a mere Harper Hall apprentice, might not consider he had to honour that promise. Anyway, it took a while for a dragonet to learn to fly.
He did his lessons in the Archives with everyone else, but mostly he copied special files for Master Ogolly, since he was the fastest and most accurate of them all. He had already made some instruments that had received the Harper mark, which allowed his work to be sold at Gathers. Now he learned how to repair broken frets and stems, and drum frames, and to string harps and gitars and do fine marquetry. He was content in a way he had never known before, away from the tension which had become so stressful in his parents' rooms. His mother, too, smiled more frequently at the head tables or during her lessons with him. So his departure had indeed made life easier for her.
His treble voice lasted until the growth spurt in his thirteenth summer when his body, as well as his throat and speaking equipment, altered dramatically. He and his mother were rehearsing a Solstice duet when suddenly his voice made a dramatic octave drop.
'Well now, that's that, I guess, dear,' she said, resting her arm on the crook of her gitar. 'Now, love, it isn't really the end of the world, though I daresay your father will be annoyed to have to make changes in the soloist so close to Solstice. Your voice won't last until then.'
'But who'll -' and in his dismay, Robie's voice broke again '– sing it with you?'
'Recall that delicate-looking blond lad from Tillek who auditioned last week?' Merelan raised her eyebrows in a droll fashion.
'He's not the musician you are, and I'll have to work him hard, but he has the range, if not your skill and experience.'
'What's Father going to say?' Robinton asked fretfully. He really didn't want to be around to hear.
Merelan chuckled. 'He'll consider that you did this on purpose, of course, to disarrange his concert. He'll rant a bit about you letting him down at a critical time, and then require me to take the lad on for special sessions.' She regarded her son with a tilt to her head and an affectionate smile. 'You'll probably end up a baritone, you know. You've the right facial structure. And your father's a baritone.'
'I've never heard him sing,' Robie protested.
Merelan chuckled. 'Oh, he can. He just doesn't feel he sings well enough.' She gave a little chuckle. 'But, if you
