"Kori!" someone hissed in her ear, causing the journeywoman to snap her head up off the table in front of her, nearly hitting the apprentice in the mouth. "You're supposed to be awake when you're on the nightshift, last time I checked," the apprentice, who Ulikori now recognized as Kivven, one of the two apprentices also assigned the nightshift tonight.
"It's at night," Ulikori mumbled, "what do they expect?" Nevertheless, she sat up, leaning her elbows on the table and cradling her head in her hands. She noticed a stack of hides on the table in front of her. "What're these?" she asked Kivven, who shrugged blankly. Unrolling them, a note from the hold's healer fell out, saying that she should read these to keep her awake on the night shift. "Like that'd happen," she muttured under her breath as she scanned the hides, which looked to be another boring case description.
Ulikori stared blankly at the hides in front of her. How could he possibly give her the night shift and ask her to read through all this on the same night? Sometimes Ulikori was sure Ragnil, Tranza Hold's senior healer, was crazy. He said reading about this case would help her deal with one of the patients in the infirmary more and more often lately, but she didn't see what a man losing his entire family to Thread at one time had anything to do with a man who had lost his dragon. Both were huge losses, but a dragon and rider's bond was more important than that between a man and his family. Mylol, formally M'lol, stirred in his sleep on one of the many cots lining the walls of the hold's infirmary. For some reason, the man had taken a liking to Ulikori, so she found herself on duty in the infirmary quite often.
Most dragonless riders didn't like to talk about their dead lifemates, and, so his chart had said, Mylol, was no exception. As he got older and began to develop heart troubles and was finally confined to the infirmary, he began to talk to Ulikori, who was on duty when he first came to the infirmary, about his dragon, bronze Gorsath. Ulikori, in her youth, had desperately wanted to be a dragonrider. As the turns passed, she realized that she would not be Searched and turned her attentions towards the healing craft. Now Mylol had brought these longings back, though Ulikori knew she was too old to hope for Search, and Mylol delightedly found an eager listener in the journeywoman.
"Ulikori!" someone whispered, breaking the journeywoman's reflective thoughts. She turned to see Mylol raised up by his elbows in his cot. She shivered unconciously. The man was getting so weak, his harsh, raspy voice wasn't even recognizeable as his own. Yet there was still that same youthful yet painfully sad smile as he beckoned for her to come over to him. Glad for an excuse from reading, Ulikori got up and walked over, kicking one of the apprentices on duty awake as she went. She smiled at him as she sat down in the usual rickety chair by his bed. "What is it, Mylol?"
"I need to talk about Gorsath," he whispered. "My heart hurts more and more every day, and I don't want you or any of the other healers to do anything about it beyond listening to me. And don't you even think of sending that brown rodent of yours to Ragnil, I'll have nothing to do with treatment, I am old, I've lived my life, lost a dragon and a wife and a child, and I deserve some Sharding rest." Ulikori swallowed and nodded, though she'd be sure to put something extra in his klah the next morning.
"If that is what you wish," Ulikori replied, taking his hand in hers. "But please, tell me about Gorsath." Everytime he talked about the long-dead bronze, Mylol seemed to be overwhelmed by the pain of remembering, yet he didn't want to stop talking. He would always close his eyes for a few minutes before he would speak, as if to figure out how to say what he wanted to say in the least amount of words possible. Ulikori waited, nearly dozing off herself, until Mylol began talking. Today he told of his weyrlinghood, something he rarely did, for it had been a painful time for the rider. Tonight he told her why.
Mylol finished with his story and promptly fell asleep, making Ulikori long to do the same herself. Getting up, she walked back over to the little table and chair provided for the on duty journeyman or woman near the front of the infirmary. The hide was still there, unfortunately, still needing to be read. Ulikori read a few more pages before she felt her head drooping and aloud herself to doze off. She'd only sleep for a little while...
"Ulikori! Ulikori! Wake up!" some one was shaking her. Ulikori brushed the hands away, she deserved some rest too, there were apprentices to handle any patients. "Shard it, wake up! Mylol is dying!" that got her attention. The frantic apprentice looked helplessly towards Mylol, whose face, she could tell even from this distance, was horribly distorted with pain. Springing from her chair, Ulikori practically flew down the infirmary rows to Mylol's side.
He smiled weakly at her, though his smile was more heavily laced with pain and sorrow than it had been before. "Ulikori," he managed to gasp out, his breathing too shallow for him to talk, yet talk he did. Ulikori put a hand to her lips to silence him as she took his pulse and put a hand on his chest to feel his heartbeats, which were as shallow and far between as his breaths. Mylol slapped her hands away impatiently. "No use. I'm almost gone," he stated the obvious. "Don't waste any more time on the poor old dragonless man."
Ulikori sat back. Mylol was right, there was absolutely no helping him. Faranth, that was maddening. Before her lay a dying man, and she couldn't do a sharding thing about. There had to be something, an herb he could drink, anything, Ulikori searched her mind wildly but came up with nothing that could help fast enough. "Ulikori," Mylol whispered, "tell... tell Gorsath I'm sorry." His breath caught on the last word. His chest rose once more, and then stopped.
"Mylol?" she queried, putting trembling fingers to his throat. No pulse. None at all. He was dead. Takka appeared in the air beside her, keening a mourning cry. Ulikori supposed the brown was keening in place of the dragons who should have keened when M'lol and Gorsath died together; as they should have. Ulikori bit her lip against tears that threatened to fall. Why was she crying for a man she hardly knew?
Because any rider's passing is worth crying over, whether his dragon is many turns dead or not, a woman's voice answered, filling her mind.
"Who said that?" she demanded, whirling to find herself looking into eyes also wet with tears. She didn't know the woman, nor had she ever seen her before. "You knew Mylol?" she asked quietly.
The woman nodded. "He was my weyrlingmaster many turns ago," she replied, looking down sadly at Mylol. "M'lol's Gorsath went between when my Irrawath was only a jr.weyrling."
Her Irrawath? Ulikori wondered breifly before making the connnection between the woman's riding gear and the voice in her head. "How did you know he was here?" she asked.
"Irrawath and I were on transport duty when he decided to leave the weyr after two turns," the woman replied. "If my Irrawath went before I did, I don't think I could bare to stay in the weyr."
Ulikori nodded, gazing at Mylol's now peaceful face. "He looks like any rider now," she reflected, speaking mostly to herself, "his dragon gone between in death. Perhaps he's finally found his Gorsath after all these years."
"Perhaps," the rider agreed. There was a long, uncomfortable silence before the rider looked up from the body of her former weyrlingmaster. "Do you know how old he was when Gorsath died?" she asked. "Only a few turns into his fourth decade. He's lived over three decades without his bronze. He deserved the rest."
"More than anyone else who I've seen die here in this hall," Ulikori remarked, stooping to pull the sheet over Mylol's corpse. "You needn't stay up much longer mam," she said finally. "It's nearly the end of my shift, which means the morning meal is only in a few candlemarks. I'm sure there's a guest chamber somewhere if you'd like to stay."
The rider smiled. "Actually, there is one more reason for my being here than to see Mylol. In fact, it's the main reason for me coming. You see, I have transferred around many weyrs from the one I Impressed at, and I have ended up at Tarizal Weyr. Right now, we have a clutch on the Sands, and I am one of the Searchriders. I think Mylol must have known, he helped single out some of his weyr's weyrbrats for Candidates far before Searchrider's could, and that is why he chose to tell you about Gorsath. Irrawath has decided that he hasn't lost his touch. Unless you have any objections, my dear, you have been Searched to stand on Tarizal's Sands."
Ulikori stared at her dumbly. How could she be Searched? She was a journeywoman now, assigned to a hold and very good at what she did. In her youth, she would have had her things packed and be vaulting to the back of the Searchrider's dragon by now. Now she hesitated. Even if she stood, there was no gauruntee that she would Impress. She would only be able to stand for three turns, and then she would not be able to Impress any longer. Who could say? By then there might be other journeypeople replacing her, and she'd have to go back to the hall and wait to be assigned to another hold. But if she didn't go... she'd wonder her whole life if she would have Impressed. "I have no objections," she replied.
