Permanence (part 2)

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 7th March 2006

Characters: Mariss, Cyrek
Description: Cyrek searches for his daughter amid the ruins of the Hold
Location: Amber Hills Hold, Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 11, day 2 of Turn 3

Mariss.

_Mariss_.

Cyrek was running, running toward the looming ruins of a once-proud Hold. An ovine crossed his path, he could barely see it for the tears that blurred his vision and the tightness in his chest. The smooth flagstones that lined the courtyard were crooked and cracked; he fell to his knees, his palms were cut by rubble cast down by the blond sandstone arch that once stood over the main doors even though his gloves. They were thin leather; good for very little.

Mariss. He struggled to his feet and ran the rest of the way to the Hold.
Some walls still stood, but swayed alarmingly. Some were completely reduced to rubble; piles of sandstone and blue slate and plaster and the gold wood that lined the inner halls and rooms. Glass crunched underfoot; he stepped on a lost child's mitten and picked it up. It was knitted carefully of purple wool and stained with mud, and he stuck it into his pocket, suddenly unable to breathe.

Mariss, four turns old, with her dark hair streaming out behind her like a banner in the wind as she ran amidst the blossoming trees in the orchard. Her face glowing in the firelight as she climbed onto his lap and fell asleep, the way she laughed, the way she'd danced at the last Gather, her bright blue skirts spinning around her legs like bits of sky. Shards, how the boys had stared... that was _his_ little girl, all grown up and looking so much like her mother. How proud he'd been, how much he loved her - he couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't lose her.

He took a tentative step toward the Hold, unsure where to go. Where would she be? What if- his mind shied away from the thought. Not possible. "Sir? What- what do we do?" Someone tugged at his elbow, he turned and dimly recognized one of the stable boys. White-faced, freckled and muddied, his eyes wide and scared. Just a kid. He turned away and stepped into the remains of the front hall as rubble fell in a light shower on his shoulders.

It had stopped raining.

A light popped, fizzled and exploded in a shower of sparks to his left. He could feel the stable boy's presence close behind him, hear his shallow breathing. Someone was screaming. He turned to see a young woman in torn skirts standing in the corner, her mouth wide and her eyes blank. One of the Ladies. He ignored her too.

The way to his office was still clear and standing, and he took that hall more out of habit than anything. Where was his daughter? Someone ran past, stopped, and turned toward him. One of his assistants, balding, his head dusted with plaster. "There's people trapped toward the cliffside, in the classrooms and workrooms. I can hear them calling out, sir."

"Where is Mariss?" Cyrek asked.

The bald man hesitated. Cyrek noticed that he had a small cut above his eyebrow; blood beaded there, bright and thick. Jewel toned. "I-
I'm sorry. I don't know."

"I have to find my daughter," Cyrek told him, and continued down the hall, the stable boy at his heels. Above them something shifted, something crashed down, shaking the floor. The understeward caught his arm. "Sir - wait! What about those people trapped? They need to be dug out! I need help."

The tightness in Cyrek's chest increased - shards, his daughter. He shook his head dimly and broke free of the understeward's grip. "Take the boy, and send him for help. To the Hall. I have to find Mariss."

If the man replied, Cyrek didn't hear it. He strode off into the dark hall, feeling his way when it got too dark to see. The walls were cracked, crazed. Unpredictable. He tripped over something in the dark: a mop. The drudge who'd stopped him before he'd gotten out -
what happened to her?

He'd gotten out. Trouble. White hot rage blossomed in his chest - why hadn't the flit _told_ him?! **I could have gotten her out!** he shrieked in his mind, then realized he'd said it aloud. "I could have gotten her out!"

The last word was broken, a sob. He took a deep breath and continued down the darkened hall until the way was blocked by rubble. He tripped over something smooth - a table leg, he thought, and banged his knee on a sharp bit of stone. The drudge with the mop lay only a few feet away, her eyes wide and staring and her mouth open. A small scattering of stones lay across her tongue and a thick, black pool of blood pooled beneath her head and curled through her hair. There was a pebble resting serenely on the white of her left eye. He looked away, feeling nauseated and horrified, and was distantly surprised to see that his hands were shaking like leaves in the wind. Like the Hold had shaken. His mouth felt thick with plaster. She had dark hair, like his daughter. Like Mariss. Mariss.

Someone was screaming. The sound felt like fingernails against a chalkboard, grating, irritating. He wished they'd shut up. He needed to find his daughter. He wiped his eyes and his hand came away wet with tears. Shards... where was she?!

Despair weighed him down and stole his breath. If she was dead, then he was too. She couldn't be - the thought of her buried underneath the cliff, the life crushed from her fragile body... or worse, trapped and unable to move, broken and calling for help but he couldn't hear her because of that infernal _screaming_...! "SHUT UP!"
he roared, but they didn't.

He didn't know what to do.

The air was suddenly stirred by fragile bronze wings and Trouble settled himself on Cyrek's shoulders, crooning comfortingly in the dark. Cyrek began to weep in earnest, his hands shaking as he reached up to touch the little bronze's back and wings, as Trouble rubbed his head against his jaw. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm so sorry..."

Trouble crooned, his voice echoing weirdly in the gloom and off the broken remains of the Hold. Up ahead, someone shouted. There was a sharp *crack!* and the screaming stopped. The hall he'd just come down was stained red by torchlight; someone shouted, "Anyone down there?"

Cyrek took a breath, but couldn't find the words. There was nobody to answer, not unless he had his daughter.

Not unless he found Mariss.

Found Mariss.

"Trouble - find Mariss!" The crooning abruptly stopped, and Trouble shifted on his shoulders. His claw caught the soft side of Cyrek's neck; a short, sharp pain that echoed the one in his knee from when he'd fallen. "Find Mariss!" He send images of her, a thousand of them, a lifetime of them - Mariss laughing, the way she looked when she slept, when she held a pen, or read a book by the fireside.
Mariss, broken and bleeding beneath a tonne of fallen rock and splintered wood, thick crimson twining through her hair and spilling down her cheeks like tears- no! Not that. Trouble pushed off from his shoulder and as suddenly as he had appeared, was gone. Cyrek felt bereft, found himself holding his breath as he climbed to his feet. Please... if Trouble could find Mariss, then... Trouble was back. He landed on Cyrek's shoulder unerringly in the dark, hissing and sending images of the kitchens in flames, and rubble blocking the door down the hall from it where they kept winter preserves. The steward was running before he realized that he was moving at all, stumbling blindly until the hall turned a corner and he had to squint in the light coming from between the massive stones that made up the walls. He burst out back into the main entrance hall where several people had gathered. A drudge was holding the screaming Lady in her arms, patting her head, and the new Harper tried to wave him down as he passed. "Steward. Cyrek! Stop - we need help!"

Cyrek ignored them and headed toward the kitchens. Several men had started a fire brigade and were handing buckets of well water down a line to throw on the flames. Thick black smoke choked the hallway and stung his eyes as he hurtled through the passage and into the kitchens. They were mostly intact, although pots and pans littered the floor. Embers had spilled out of the massive fireplace in the back wall and the chimney had collapsed in a pile of soot and rubble.
Food was spilled across the floor - wasted - and a girl about Mariss' age stepped in front of him, holding a broom in her hands determinedly as she attacked the flames. The ruddy light had turned her hair red and her face was smudged with soot as she beat at the fire that licked the floor. "Sharding idiots! Tell them to stop throwing water over here - this is a grease fire! Tell them to wet down the doors and tables!"

He dodged past her and headed for the door set off to one side, that led down the hall that contained the store rooms. Not cellars - thank the Egg. Rooms for canned preserves, for barrels and sacks of grains and flour and-- shards. Flour was flammable. The hot air sucked his breath from his lungs as he skidded to a halt in front of the door that Trouble had sent him a picture of. The end of the hall was lost in a pile of rubble and broken wood; an arm extended gracefully from between two boulders, thin and pale and smeared with blood. His heart stopped. "MARISS!"

"Da!"

He turned toward the blocked door as Trouble hissed in his ear and wrapped his tail tighter around Cyrek's neck. "Mariss! Can you hear me?!"

"Da! I'm stuck!" She coughed, her voice sounding thin and fragile as it soared up from between the cracks in the rocks that blocked the door.

"I'm coming!" He began attacking the rubble with his hands, and the thin gloves that he wore were soon shredded to bits. The smoke from the kitchens made his lungs burn. "Stay still, sweetheart. Are you okay?"

"I'm- I think so. The roof caved in and the shelves fell over - what happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He could have cried in relief, but he couldn't let himself break down. The pile of rubble was disappearing before him as he tossed broken planks of wood and fallen stones from the ceiling off to either side. It suddenly shifted and fell in, and Mariss shrieked. "Mariss!"

"I- I'm okay!" she called, but her voice was shaking.

"Hang on. I've almost got you." He picked up a stone as large as his head, studded with splinters and shattered plaster, and heaved it aside. It rolled against the arm that extended from the rubble down the hall - Cyrek dimly noticed that it was smeared with his own blood. His hands were torn and bleeding. He threw aside a pair of planks and suddenly realized that a small, dark opening had appeared before him. "Mariss! Can you see me?"

"I..." There was a long pause, then he could hear her pick daintily over the broken shards of shattered glass jars and sticky preserves.
From what he could see, the storeroom had half fallen in, but the shelves had fallen against the wall and created a neat triangle.
Mariss' face was suddenly bathed in light as she leaned forward and stuck her hands through the hole. She was pale, her hazel eyes wide and dark and tearstained. "Da! Get me out!" Panic made her voice high and child-like. He threw aside a little more rubble to widen the hole before grasping her forearms and tugging. Her brown bodice ripped as she was pulled through the hole, and there was a long gash on her forearm where she'd been cut by a splinter, but she was all right. A darkening bruise on her forehead, cuts on her legs and hands where she'd fallen into broken jars, and her skirts stained with blood and jam, but she was all right. Cyrek began to cry as he buried his face in her hair, messy and sticky and sharp with glass, and tightened his arms around her middle. Mariss was crying too. "Da- Da?"

"Shards, I thought- thought-" He couldn't say it. Nightmare images of his little girl flashed through his mind; broken, bleeding, burned, crushed, lifeless. But she was alive, warm, and in his arms -
everything would be all right. "Da- you're hurting me," she said breathlessly, but Cyrek couldn't let go. Not ever again.

Last updated on the March 9th 2006

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Permanence (part 2)