"Stop her, you buffoon!" Amarast screamed, "get her away from me!"
"He's not coming any closer," Bequet brandished the almost-surgically sharp tool before the guard could come near. "And you... Scream all you want. But no one will come down here for you. You've sent them away, they won't be back."
Amarast's face grew white. When the torch had struck the bottom of the cavern, it remained lit, and its light brightened the whole of the area beyond its normal sooty-black. Bequet forced Amarast's face around, to look down.
"Don't like what you see, down there, do you?" She hissed. "It's a long way down. Deadly drop. And even if you lived, your back or legs would be broken, and no one goes down there. Not even to retrieve bodies."
She pushed Amarast's head down, sitting on him with all her weight and occasionally glancing back at the guard, who remained at a fair distance. He didn't notice the dark shape behind him.
Bequet sneered, grimacing with a faint pleasure as the guard dropped down to the floor, his head would hurt in the morning when he woke, but he would live. Collins stood with a flat bar in his hands, one they'd have worked into a prybar like that they'd made the day or so before. He stood unsteadily behind the man's unconscious form.
"Now, you filthy little man," Bequet hissed again at Amarast, "I want an apology. I want my pin back, and I want my family's mine."
She pressed the sharp point of the blade into Amarast's side, and he could surely feel it. It tore through his silken shirt and his over-jacket easily, and rested against bare skin. It was cold, that blade.
But he laughed. Quietly at first, but then louder as he realized that she was not going to kill him. "You sweet moronic hick..." He said, "You can't threaten me! I'm only one of ten owners of this piece of dirt. Your family won't get anything back, and for threatening me you'll be put to death."
"Not if you go first," Bequet pushed him gently toward the edge of the pit. He dangled, and his right arm flailed about trying to reach the barrier bars which they were pressed up against. But still, he did not stop laughing. It was almost morbid, his laugh.
Collins stood near them, a bit of a swagger to his step told Bequet's parents that he'd surely been roughed up, but his big burly frame could take a few hits. The lump on the guard's head matched his own -- they had come upon him while he was busy cleaning up the scattered mess in his office, and he was naturally distracted by his new assistant Journeywoman's promotion.
"Bequet, Journeywoman Bequet," he said, and Amarast stopped laughing abruptly. A sputtering came from his lips, instead. "I think we can head back to the forge now, and keep it lit. It's gone out you know."
He held out his hand for her, and only after a long and aching pause, did she reach up and take it.
Once she was lifted from Amarast's body, he spun onto his back and glowered at the Master smith. "You can't be alive... I had you --"
"You had me what?" Collins asked, rubbing the back of his head. He booted Amarast's leg, nudging the Lord just that much closer to the edge of the pit. Amarast clung on with both hands, to the bar that kept him apart from certain death.
"You know, I already sent word to the smith's council about her promotion. Two weeks ago, actually. I knew it was a matter of days before she'd produce some remarkable piece or other. Not that her work was ever in doubt." Collins said, matter of factly. "So if you dare bring charges against her -- for stealing her badge, or for trying to kill me, or taking the purse *I gave her*," he said, menacingly, "you'll have to deal with the whole of the smithy council and all the Master Miners. And this place will be closed. What use will it be to you and your nine cronies then, Lord Holder Amarast?"
The speech made Bequet proud to have been around this man as long as she had. He was so much better at this than she was! Even with her precious knife in her hand, still clutched there and with the taint of red at its end, she seemed to be a slip of a child when he spoke.
And Amarast knew that his words were true. There weren't enough ways to get around this: he'd been too intent on his goal of embarrassing the girl, to realize that she had powerful friends. And power herself, now that she was part of the Smithy guild.
He was allowed to crawl away, dragging his unconscious guard along with him. Things wouldn't change all that much, in the mine, but they would certainly not get this bad ever again.
Bequet sobbed with her mother, as they picked up and left the mine, straight to their home.
In time, things went back to reasonably normal. Bequet tried but was not able to get herself a stall at the town square's merchant area. It was a twist of the holder's power that she simply was placed on the black list and was not to be given any treatment beyond as a customer.
But that was all right with her. She could concentrate then, on getting her wares sent elsewhere. The smithy guild had it in their head that in fact, she ought to be on the move, as a proper Journeyman would be. So... They found a weyr.
A new one, which needed her working arm, and was definitely in need of inhabitants. Opal Moon was an odd place, they insisted that the dragons there had new colors they weren't sure how to relate to.
And while she wanted to stay, she really did, she knew that she would be able to send money back to her parents better if she had a steady income. A weyr was a perfect place for that! They would need so much! Riding gear that she'd be able to help set up with the local leather crafter -- if they even had one... So many things raced through her mind that she was rather able to forget the distance she'd be traveling to get there!
A tearful farewell, and another promise that if she eventually found her brother she'd make sure that Quian knew about him, and Bequet left her family home on her first real trip away.
And while she did so, it was a strange sensation. The dragon which took her and her tools, posessions and such out to this new weyr, brown Sylenth, noticed something quite strange as they traveled between-places. When their teleport ended, the big brown helped his rider F'ran down, and placed the baskets of Bequet's items on the ground near the weyr's entrance.
Bequet was too in awe of the whole place, she stood and looked up, and up and up! It was a beautiful weyr, she decided. And the dragons were strong and healthy -- she'd only seen a few, and certainly this had been her very first ride upon one. But she decided that she liked it here a lot, already. It was fresh, it almost smelled like fresh paint had been applied -- probably had, inside the weyr's walls!
But when she turned and looked back to thank F'ran and his dragon, they were peering oddly at one another, in concentrated private speech. The dragon's eyes had spun into a strangely angry looking color, red dappled with bits of creamy-orange confusion.
"Sylenth says that something... quite odd has happened. I don't know what to tell you." The rider said, and Bequet's first inclination was to panic.
"Are my parents all right? Was there a cave-in? Did the lords come back to the--" She blurted out, but the rider waved his hand and tried to calm her.
"The mine is there, it's fine... But he says that ... parts of it, and people in it, have just... vanished. Not like they've been carted off and kidnapped," he said, obviously aware that her family had been the focus of such things recently. "But that... Well, Sylenth, just tell her!"
The dragon's mind entered the pale-haired woman's, and for the very first time she felt the touch of a foreign thought.
The Protectorate, which your friend the master smith, and your family belong to... It has gone. There are some who know where it is... This weyr seems oddly close to it, but perhaps that is becuase our kind are more flexible in rank than other places.
"I don't -- I don't understand, how can the Protectorate be gone? The Kshau Protectorate?" She queried, suddenly at ease with the brown's mind in hers. "Gone? I mean, it wasn't even a PLACE! It was a bunch of places!"
I know, that is why I say something. Those places just... are not there any more. They have moved, left no forwarding address.
"What an odd thing to say," Bequet muttered. "But you seem to think they're safe, whereever they are?"
She gathered that from my mind, rider. The dragon spoke to F'ran. Yes, he replied to Bequet, I believe that if you are able to concentrate hard enough on a person or their locale, perhaps you may visit them. But that would only be if you became a rider. Dragons do not often take instruction on where to teleport from people they are not bonded to.
"But I'm not a rider!" Bequet wailed, "I'm a smithy! I can't --"
"You can," F'ran said, "if you're searched. You can stand. We're a new weyr, we've got a fine clutch on the sands. Sired and laid by two very unusual dragons. Perhaps there is one there for you, you're a mighty unusual girl."
He ruffled her short hair, and turned back to the weyr, as the dragon watched him leave. Bequet looked at the dragon, begging for more instructions, or some bit of information beyond what she'd gotten.
Perhaps you should just settle in. The weyr is a good place. You will be needed. And you are strong, I can tell that. You have been through many things. And come through just fine. My rider thinks that blade at your side is a bit confusing though.
"Oh, it... I could tell him about it later. But... I guess you're right. I need to get settled. I would be here away from my family anyway, I guess it's just... farther to get to them now, right?"
Yes, but perhaps not too far for you. Now... There is that little cat-creature. Perhaps she will help you get settled properly. I do not think you should be alone, girl-human, so go fetch yourself an egg.
"An egg?" Bequet said, "an egg? Eggs are good, but I'm not hungr--"
A flitter egg! The dragon corrected, you can have one, there are many eggs around here. And just as many colors on their hides as we have. Now go...
The dragon nudged her toward a strange white winged feline, the likes of which Bequet had never even dreamed of. She retrieved an egg from the cat, and over the course of the next few days, it finally hatched into a beautiful bronze flitter!
She was at a loss as to what to call it, but then when she finally got settled in and went to work, he almost got squished below her hammer!
"Hammerstrike!" She called out, "that's your name! I hope to see my parents again, and you'll be with me!" The hungry little flit scooted onto her arm, and balanced while she made a new tool for one of the few crafters in the weyr.
She would fit in here just fine. Then, perhaps... She might even ride a dragon home!
