Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Twenty Four - Double Grip

I needed to really concentrate as we set off along the coast and I settled into Nero's mind, feeling the wind across his wings and seeing the world through his sharp eyes.

"Wasty, look what you're doing!" Llynnonda's quiet, bossy voice rang out across the wing.

So I slipped out of Nero's mind and, when I looked across, I saw that Wastnonda had slipped away from his position at the end of the other arm of the chevron and was now drifting backwards.

"Sorry!" he answered. "For some reason I've been given Taloon and you know what she's like. It's a constant battle to get her to do anything." He dropped in behind the chevron for a few wing-strokes and used the slip-stream to pull himself back into his place in the line.

The night before, I'd heard Geraint and Carodoc talking about how important the crenels were in precisely controlling a dragon's position and speed so I sank deep down into Nero's mind once more and cautiously experimented with shaping the wind around our bodies.

"You too, Rhianadoc!" Llynnonda called to me. I looked round and saw that I'd let my attention wander and that I'd drifted out of position too. I sharply pulled Nero back into our place in the wing and got my mind back on business.

I was concentrating so hard that I was a bit shocked when I felt the touch of a mind on mine. I reached round and found, as I'd suspected, that Psion was gliding along behind us.

"Good morning, Young Mistress," he said when he noticed me noticing.

"Erm, there are other people around. Don't you think they might spot you?"

"As I've told you on numerous occasions, I am something of an expert in the fine arts of concealment. The day I fail to elude the attention of half a dozen of Zalibar's transitors is the day I retire."

"Fair enough, I suppose! I see you've remembered how to fly."

"Memory was never the problem. It was, rather, the inadequate diet which restricted my ability to enjoy success in that particular domain. Now, however, thanks to your most gracious ministrations, I am once more able to cope with the rigours of flight."

"You're welcome."

"If I might make so bold, I cannot help but observe that you are holding that unfortunate creature in an extremely tight grip."

"That's the way Zalibar taught us to do it."

"I cannot claim to be astonished by that particular revelation. It is in Zalibar's nature to wish to control every facet of every situation down to the least detail."

"You know Zalibar then?"

"Of course I know him. Zalibar's School of Dragonology has been in existence for years and, in that time, his brutally competent and uninspiring training methods have turned out armies of brutally competent and uninspiring riders. Your mother trained with him and had many of the same characteristics until..." he paused and managed to do his false modesty preening thing without doing the actual preening, "until I was able to add a couple of touches of subtlety to her armoury."

I thought about his 'extremely tight grip' thing for a moment. "You can't be suggesting that I just let go!"

"Should you make that mistake, you would not have the opportunity to regret it for long for, should the nag not kill you, Zalibar would. But, up here, amongst the cliffs and the wind, I'd recommend that you loosen your grip somewhat and let the dragon handle the details. Try as you might, you will never have the instinctive feel for flight that a dragon has."

"How do I go about doing that?"

"Pray, allow me to demonstrate..."

The funny little dragon slipped deeper into my mind. "Instead of grasping the wretched beast with a grip like a cumbersome fist, so..." he started popping pictures into my head, "you grasp its crux firmly as if between a finger and thumb... so... With this more precise grip, you can release the pressure a little, allowing the creature's lowest level flight instincts to take over, so... while you can hook into these instincts and provide overall guidance and control, so..."