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 Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:35 am
The waves came in, the waves went out.
The waves came in, the waves went out.
Linfon was shaken to the core by everything she had seen and heard since the death of Brakiheth. The suicide spectacle, the oppression of Candidates...the ultimate fiasco that was the Hatching. She had heard about that, about C'ross and M'onk and everything that had happened. Warden's was swarming with Watchmen now (some of them no doubt knew her mother) and yet it didn't seem like any hands at all were pointing toward M'onk. She knew it was him, though. She could feel his evil in her very core, the sheer certainty that he was the one they needed to remove. And Linfon hated contemplating loss of life, but if it would save more in the future...
Still. Linfon had taken an oath to protect Pern, and she would not lift her hand against someone without a trial.
But she knew someone who would be more willing to try. Someone who had cried out against the injustice, someone she had known since she was quite young, who had always seemed both steady and right. He understood, even if he was a bit...well, himself.
So she had left a note in his quarters, asking nothing but that he meet her at the beach. It was easier to have privacy on the long stretches of dark sand, especially on days where the seas were rougher. Not all of the Southern Continent was a tropical paradise, and when the winds were harsh, the waves kicked up noise against the lonely rock outcroppings where Linfon and her wher had jammed themselves. She knew they would be visible - it was still light enough to see color, and Linfonsk's hide was bright enough that it couldn't possibly be stone - but she had no interest in looking around. Better that any observers thought she was brooding in private, rather than waiting to talk to someone about a potentially treasonous future.
When he get here? Linfonsk demanded, yawning tremendously and thumping her tail against stone. Linfonsk not wait all night.
"He'll get here when he gets here," Linfon answered, barely audible over the waves.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:50 am
Some men (men like C’ross, M’ska now understood) saw the law as an end in and of itself. Codes of governments, codes of justice, codes of honor, they dictated what was right and wrong. Even if it was imperfect, even if it was fallible, the law – and the system of power and authority that upheld it – needed to be protected by good men.
M’ska did not have a code. He cared very little for them. The law did not determine what was right, what was right determined what the law ought to be. And when a system failed so thoroughly, it needed to be torn down and built anew
There would be consequences. He understood them. People would get hurt. Weakening the power structure of Warden’s would open opportunities for dangerous, even violent criminals to make their own coup. It was a massive undertaking, this terrible piece of treason he was considering. It would require evil to bring about change, and if he were less resolute, he would have balked at the idea. Perhaps once, when he was a young and frightened man, new to the Watch, if he had been the one guarding the clutch and standing there with the crossbow when M’onk gave the order –
No, said Descanth. Not even then.
Not even then, M’ska agreed.
Linfon was with him, he was sure. But Linfon was shackled by honor. M’ska was not. If a knife in the sleeping dark was what Pern’s future required, then he would lose no sleep over it.
He walked with a hand on Descanth’s shoulder, slow and easy as he approached the wherhandler and her green. He’d tucked the note she sent away in a pocket; if he left it behind, there was a risk that someone would read it. Better to bring it, destroy it, then throw the remains in the ocean to be washed away beyond all recognition. “You wanted to speak to me?”
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:01 pm
There he was.
Linfon lifted her head when M'ska spoke, giving him a thin-lipped, grim smile. There was nothing to be happy about right now, nothing to make that smile any more than a brief, impermanent flicker across her lips. But she still made the effort before turning away and casting her gaze back out to sea. The last of the sun was disappearing below the rough horizon. It might rain later. Linfon didn't care. None of that mattered right now.
"M'ska." It was polite but guarded. Linfon trusted M'ska's instincts, but still wasn't sure whether the words she was about to say would fall on ears that kept her thoughts confidential. "What gets said tonight doesn't go past us, unless we find...other sympathetic ears. You understand?"
Descanth. Descanth's. Linfonsk snorted, twisting her head to watch the crippled green. She liked greens better than most dragons, and Descanth better than most greens, because she ran rather than flew. But there was little enough else to catch her attention besides knowing that her handler needed to talk to this man because of something concerning M'onk. Linfonsk's go crazy trying to find way to fix boss problem, she remarked offhandedly, yawning in a way that exposed every one of her teeth.
Linfonsk offered to crush bad man's head at night, but Linfonsk's say no, she added cryptically, regarding both M'ska and Descanth with eyes that gleamed red in the dying light.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:08 pm
There was a flicker of amusement, grim but genuine, in M’ska’s expression as Linfon asked for his silence. Oh, she had no idea how well he could keep a secret. No one at Warden’s did. “Naturally,” he told her. “You have my confidence. And regardless, no one would believe anything out of the mouth of the daft old conspiracy theorist.”
Sometimes it was downright useful to be the crazy old man. He sat down on a sturdy boulder, washed smooth by time and waves, and stretched out his stiff legs in front of him. “I assume this has to do with what happened at the Hatching.”
I would, said Descanth. If I were capable of harming humans. But my rider has said that he will do it, if the need comes to it. If we cannot find someone younger and stronger.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:31 pm
"And Brakiheth's death. And T'di's disappearance." Linfon shrugged, not making eye-contact with M'ska as she spoke in a voice just barely loud enough to be heard over the waves. "We both know it's not right, what's going on here. And it needs to be stopped."
She fell silent, then, staring back out over the water. "And if I thought telling the Watch would do something, I'd have done that already. But I think we both know, you and I, that it won't help. We need to go further than that."
Plenty of whers ready to bite heads off whenever, Linfonsk pointed out with a low rumble. Plenty of whers not think stupid bronze good boss. She looked up at Descanth, cocked her head to one side, and snorted. Can't bite heads, what about fire? If M'onk's hut were to mysteriously go up in flames...well, no one could be blamed for that. There were plenty of criminals who could have done it.
Shards, if Linfon weren't so bleeding honorable, it would have been so easy to simply pick up one of their 'dismissed' offenders and slip a few marks into their hands. But that wasn't what Linfon was like. Linfon believed in fairness and justice - but she knew when the one would never be upheld because of a lack of the other. And she wasn't C'ross. If she needed to go outside the book, she would. She just couldn't do it herself. "I want to end this before anyone else gets hurt," she growled.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:45 pm
“The Watch is only interested in justice when it doesn’t involve one of their own,” said M’ska flatly. “As soon as a rider becomes involved... They would prefer for their leaders to be beyond reproach.”
He had learned this the hard way. It was something he remembered with bitter clarity every time he looked at the awful scarred place where Descanth’s wing used to be, and every time he thought of the home he would not see again. No. There would be no Watchriders involved in this. They would just ruin it by demanding things like due process and a fair trial. Things that M’ska approved of in theory, when they were protecting the innocent rather than letting the guilty walk free.
“I want it ended too. But we’re going to need help. Bless your heart, I can’t see you killing anyone, and I’m not capable of taking on more than a few guards at once if it all goes sour and someone raises the alarm.” Perhaps someone else might have thought that a sixty-three-year-old man taking on ‘a few’ guards was a gross exaggeration... But those who thought that had probably not seen M’ska fight before. Whenever possible, he aimed for soft vulnerable parts.
We think that Secondary Warden C’tis might be amenable. I could try to speak to Malcarreth – but discreetly.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:51 pm
M'ska was right about the Watch, of course. It was one of the reasons Linfon had mistrusted it. In many ways, this entire mess made her glad that she had never Impressed. Idly, she wondered what her mother would have to say about all of this. No doubt B'fon would be furious, but women in the Watch were women in the Watch. They would be ignored.
No, this was up to her and M'ska and whoever they chose to bring in.
Like C'tis and Malcarreth.
Linfon didn't like the idea of the further involvement of dragonriders...but she had seen C'tis's face that day on the Sands. She didn't like it...but she knew that of all the riders at Warden's, he would be the most amenable to the things they were suggesting.
"No. Not you two," she said quietly. "You've openly defied M'onk in public, and C'tis isn't exactly known for his stalwart obedience. If you two talk..." she shook her head. "M'onk isn't stupid. The opposite, really. If he sees you two talking, you'd both disappear before we even knew he had found out." She shook her head. "Although I guess...it wouldn't work for me, either. If either of us talk to him, it'll be the same thing." Suspicious.
"Descanth's right. That's probably our best bet. Dragons talking to dragons - that's impossible to police." As far as Linfon could tell, dragons shared very few of the petty rivalries their riders often maintained. They were social animals, as a whole. It wouldn't be strange if the two of them interacted.
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Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:41 pm
“I don’t intend to be talking to anyone. Not where M’onk’s people can see… but let’s be honest, here: there’s not much he can do to me. I don’t have anything left he can take away from me – except my life, and I intend to kick up a hell of a lot more fuss than T’di if it comes to that.”
M’ska wasn’t sure how a bluerider could simply be made to disappear. But he and Descanth both knew what to do if someone came for them in the middle of the night. Descanth knew quite a few dragons in the weyr that she could psychically scream between coordinates to, if necessary. They weren’t going to go quietly, and they weren’t going to let M’onk get away with it.
“I’m more worried about you, Lin. You’ve still got a possible future ahead of you… That’s why I think Descanth should talk to Malcarreth. C’tis may be just a bluerider to M’onk, but he’s got some degree of power here."
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Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2013 7:39 pm
"You're really not that much older than me, you know."
Linfon's voice was soft, barely audible above the waves as she looked over at M'ska and Descanth. Really, there wasn't that much difference in age. It wasn't like M'ska was old enough to be her father, or anything. An older brother, at best. "I don't know what kind of a future you're talking about," she added, a little louder. "I challenged M'onk openly. Almost let Linfonsk go after dragonriders on the Sands. I'm counting the days til it all goes dark," she said. She shrugged.
"I'll see what I can do about the handlers. We're...stronger, in numbers. And whers can do things dragons can't." Whers could hurt. They could kill. Whers could do what needed to be done, if it came to an open mutiny. Linfon still hoped against hope that such a thing would never happen. But with the swarm of Watchriders and the general unease...Linfon wasn't sure. She didn't want to kill anyone if she could avoid it.
"Talk to him, and I'll talk to the handlers. We'll see."
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