Everyone agreed: that mid-air rescue had been a sheer triumph. Both the rider and his blue dragon were still serving the Weyr.
Leri fretted at her bed linens, fresh tears in her eyes. “Will I forever be lost to Holth, and Orlith to Moreta?” The beseeching look the old queen rider cast about her was too much for the assembled group to bear. The men shuffled their feet and the women hastily dabbed at their eyes; Kamiana was not the only person trying hard not to weep.
“It is something I have thought often about,” Sh’gall said quietly. “When our lives as dragonriders are over, do we go on with our dragons to something else, or is this all we are?”
“I like to think that there is more for us, somewhere else,” Leri said wistfully, through her unchecked tears. “Another part to this life. But I am just a foolish old woman, hoping I’ll find my belovedbetween .”
“As to that,” Master Tirone cleared his throat, rocking back on his heels as he assumed an academic stance, “we know only that it is an area of nothingness separating here from there. But there is—” He paused dramatically. “—more to it than we will ever know. Another dimension, perhaps, through which only the dragons may travel.”
“Another dimension?” Lidora looked startled.
“As height and width and depth are dimensions.Between may be another such.”
“But we don’t know, do we?” Levalla, the Benden Weyrwoman, said in a puzzled tone.
“No, we don’t and I’m not sure how that applies to this . . . situation,” said Sh’gall.
“Has Orlith heard Moreta?” Tirone asked hopefully, whipping his head around to stare in the direction of the Hatching Ground.
“She says not,” Leri replied. “I asked her first,” she added in a tone that suggested Tirone shouldn’t have intimated that Orlith hadn’t been asked. “She is devastated.” Then Leri drew a deep breath. “Orlith and I shall gobetween as soon as the eggs are ready to hatch.”
There was a furious dispute from everyone in the room.
“And why should I stay?” Leri demanded when Sh’gall had waved for silence. “I had planned to leave anyway. Without my own dragon, I have no reason to stay, and much more for going.”
“Dear Leri, if your pain has worsened, I can increase the dose of fellis juice in your cup,” Desdra said, but Leri met her eyes.
“You haven’t a palliative strong enough to ease my loss of Holth,” she said, almost angrily. “It is no time to mourn,” she added, glancing at Lidora, who was weeping openly. “There is a queen egg to hatch, and twenty-four others. They are our future and deserve all our care and devotion. Your care and devotion.” She stared hard at Kamiana, whose eyes were dimmed by the tears she did not shed. The younger Weyrwoman gently folded sympathetic arms about the old woman, careful not to squeeze her sore body.
“You have more courage than the rest of us, dear Leri.”
The second night Moreta and Holth returned to Waterhole, she tried a new tactic. Dismounting, she made her way directly to Rusty’s paddock, where he was standing, front legs splayed, as he trumpeted his usual announcement about the proximity of a dragon.
“Boo!” Moreta shouted, leaning over the fence toward the runner.
Letting out a piercing squeal that made Moreta grab tightly to the top rail, Rusty kicked away from her, shooting pieces of dirt in all directions in his haste to flee.
Hearing the commotion, Thaniel appeared in the doorway. Rusty was rearing on his hind legs and striking out at some menace only he could see.
Now that Moreta had an audience, she took several steps backward and then stood very still, waiting for Rusty to calm down. Then, aware that Thaniel might go back inside the house, she ran forward again until she was right under Rusty’s nose.
“Boo!” she shouted again. He screeched, backing up as fast as he could move his feet. Then Moreta stepped back, which so confused the trembling old runner that he just watched her intently, evidently afraid of what she might do next.
He pawed the ground in front of him, as if daring her to come closer. But it was Thaniel who came closer, and he beckoned the mount over.
“G’wan. Rusty, do your stuff!” Moreta shouted loudly. “Can’t you see Holth over there? You always shriek when there are dragons about. Let’s hear it for old Holth!”
Quite willing to oblige, Holth moved from where she was standing. That did it. Rusty almost sat on his hindquarters in an effort to put distance between him and what his instincts told him was the bane of his existence. He cut some very fancy shapes on the ground and above it as he protested the dragon’s presence.
Moreta saw Thaniel’s incredulous expression.
But with that, he turned and walked back into his hold.
Moreta believed that Rusty had felt her presence and had lookedat her, not through her. So there had to be some way to get Thaniel to understand what she wanted.
This time Marco wasn’t waiting for herbetween . She took a few deep breaths to stifle her concern, but a twinge of fear added to the cold she was already feeling.
Holth, do you sense Duluth anywhere near?
Holth’s concern doubled Moreta’s. What would happen to them if they were forced to remainbetween ? Where was Marco?
Holth, can you get us back to Paradise River?Moreta asked, already knowing the answer.
No,was the glum reply.If I could go betweenas I used to do with no trouble, I could take us there by flying straight, but it’s a long way from Waterhole.
Moreta began to shiver, earnestly wanting the warmth at Paradise River to revive her. What would she and Holth do if Marco didn’t come?
Then abruptly, she sensed movement in the air to her right, and a dark shape loomed toward them.
“Sorry. You didn’t take as long as I thought you would,” Marco said.
“Where were you?” she demanded. Then, contritely, she added: “I was scared.”
“Ah, now, Moreta, you know I wouldn’t leave you here.” Marco gestured expansively at the darkness around them. “I went to check on some movement I saw.” He pointed over his shoulder in the direction from which he had come. “Nothing.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry for giving you and Holth a fright.”
With a nod, she accepted his apology.
“So how’d your haunting go today?” Marco asked when they had landed back at Paradise River Cove.
“Haunting?”
“That’s a word we used on my homeworld to describe what you’re trying to do.”
“Oh, I see,” she replied, and proceeded to fill him in. He was highly amused by her tale of saying “boo” to Rusty and chided her for being so mean to a poor old runnerbeast.
“Right now, I’m glad that anything sees me.” She rubbed at her face. “If only I could just give Thaniel a message.”
They were both watching their dragons sprawling in the hot white sands. He gestured for her to sit on the rocks surrounding the fire pit, where, he told her, he lit a fire every night because it was comforting.
“If I could just get him to see me once, Marco, I might get him to see me as a message of some sort,” she said as she jabbed aimlessly at the sand with a charred, broken stick.
“I wonder what will work.”
“Something has to. I can’t keep ‘haunting’ him forever. Thaniel is supposed to be smarter than Rusty.”
Marco leaned across and took the stick from her hand. With the end of it, he wrote a large M in the sand. “I’ve never experienced anything like this before. No rider has ever been stuckbetween with the wrong dragon.” He rubbed his eyes, and continued. “I really don’t know if it’ll work, but youcould try writing a message for Thaniel in the dirt. What do you want to tell him?”
“Get Leri. Moreta.”
“That’s short, sweet, and to the point. Let’s hope he sees it,” Marco said.
And so Moreta returned again and again, every evening at the same time, until it became such a routine that Thaniel came out of his hold to stand by Rusty’s enclosure as if he were waiti
ng for her. And each evening Moreta performed the same scare tactics with Rusty and then scratched her message in the ground. It was obvious to Moreta that the runnerbeast saw her, stared straight at her, while she gouged her message in the dirt, but Thaniel still looked through her, oblivious to the message she wanted him to see.
She was at her wit’s end by the fifth evening when the full moon suddenly burst from behind windswept clouds, outlining her form just long enough for Thaniel to see her as she scratched her message in the dirt.
“Moreta!” the old man gasped, then ran, shrieking as loudly as Rusty ever had, back to his hold and slammed the door shut.
“Now I think I’ve got him,” she said with great satisfaction as she remounted Holth.
How long are we going to have to keep doing this, Moreta?Holth asked plaintively.
Not for much longer, Holth.She caressed the old dragon’s neck affectionately.Let’s go back to Marco in between.
After Marco had guided them back to Paradise River Cove, she told him of her progress.
“You probably scared him so much he thinks he’s going as mad as his runnerbeast.” Marco grinned. “I think you’re nearly there.”
It was the Runner Stationmaster himself who carried the message immediately to the Weyr, for Leri from Thaniel of Waterhole Hold. Everyone read it: “She comes every evening at the same time, just after sundown, when it’s growing dark. She asks for Leri. What can I do?”
“Ha! Weare stupid folk!” Leri said scathingly. “Orlith! Aren’t your eggs hard enough yet?”
A grumble echoed back from the Hatching Ground from Orlith, who was still fussing over a proper little mound of sand to raise her queen egg higher than the rest. She moved so slowly and carefully that it seemed as if she were putting each grain of sand in place individually. This, however, made her task seem too sadly pathetic to watch for very long.
“It’s her way of passing time,” Leri had remarked when this was pointed out to her.
Now she thanked the Runner Stationmaster graciously for the personal delivery and slipped him a full Harper Hall credit for his trouble.
“My pleasure, Weyrwoman. May I send back a message for you?”
“That would be most kind of you,” Leri said with great dignity, and hastily the Stationmaster took out a small pad and writer.
“Give him my thanks and say we shall be there soon. He can do nothing, like us, but wait until Orlith decides the eggs are ready to hatch. My thanks for your trouble.”
The Stationmaster bowed himself out of the Weyr.
It was before dawn one morning not long after, that Orlith informed Leri that her eggs would undoubtedly hatch that day. With gentle wing strokes, she rolled the queen egg to its special mound, while Leri waited in her Weyr, dressed in her warmest clothing.
“Not that warm clothing will do much good inbetween ,” she remarked in her acerbic way, and hobbled to the entrance to her Weyr without a backward glance. She looked up toward the skies; a magnificent dawn would soon break. “Just the day to start the rest of my journey,” she said.
I hope this day is not marred by any unnecessary sadness, Orlith. A Hatching Day is to look to the future, not to regret the past.
Thaniel had remained at Waterhole Hold that day to bake bread. He needed to keep busy. The whole affair had already turned his hair white but, nonetheless, when the Stationmaster brought back Leri’s reply, he felt his ordeal might soon be over. Ignoring his children’s pleas to join them on their rounds to check the herds, Thaniel was determined to remain by his hold waiting for Leri. At his father’s suggestion, Maynar saddled Rusty and rode off with his siblings.
With Rusty gone, Thaniel was not aware that a dragon and rider had landed at the nearby waterhole. But when he looked up from his work, he saw the great gold queen, and Leri, huddled in furs, on the dragon’s back. Quickly he took a piece of fresh, hot bread and a cup of klah to the waiting Weyrwoman, who thanked him and ate willingly. He was sorry to see how gnarled the old woman’s fingers were and how awkwardly she held her body.
“If there is aught else I may do for you, Weyrwoman, you have but to call me and I will come,” Thaniel said.
“I am well enough as I am,” Leri replied in her brisk way, returning the empty plate to the holder.
Thaniel went back to his work, but kept an eye on the pair from the window as he kneaded the second batch of dough. He was clearing off the last of the flour from the worktop when he noticed that the sun was beginning to sink. So he poured himself another cup of klah, wondering whether he should bring more out to the old rider before he realized he had already poured two. He took one out to Leri, who thanked him for his thoughtfulness but sipped so slowly that Thaniel, whose bad leg was aching after the day’s baking, returned to his house, to rest himself for what else might happen on this unusual day.
It was about an hour later when the second dragon appeared. Thaniel let out a deep sigh when he heard the glad cries from the women, and the loud trumpeting of the dragons.
The reunions brought tears to Thaniel’s eyes as he looked on from the doorway. Moreta leapt from the back of Holth and ran to Orlith. She caressed her queen’s head, touching the pale gold neck with great tenderness as she gazed adoringly into faceted eyes that whirled bright blue with happiness. Leri dropped her cup and walked as quickly as she was able to meet Holth; she hugged her dragon’s neck fervently, as a newly Impressed weyrling would. Thaniel later said that he thought his heart would break at the old Weyrwoman’s joy.
“I never thought I’d see you again, dear heart,” Leri said amid tears of joy, while her fingers remembered the texture of Holth’s wattling hide.
The two weyrwomen spoke quietly to each other in the first light of the rising moon. What they said Thaniel would never know, but when he saw Leri settled, with some difficulty, on her dragon, he hurried out to them.
“Thank you, Holder Thaniel, for having the wit to know what we needed. The Weyrs will always be grateful to you and your family, as will Orlith and I.” Moreta’s voice, though faint, was full of warmth as she spoke to the old holder, regarding him intently. Then she turned her attention back to Leri.
“Now, we are matched correctly,” she said with an air of intense satisfaction.
Just then, Orlith jerked her head upright, swinging her eyes around in the direction of Fort Weyr. She gave a triumphant bugle, which Holth echoed.
“The queen egg has hatched; her name is Hannath and her rider is Oklina! Oh, I am pleased! Good news makes even the longest journey easier.”
“Young Alessan’s sister has Impressed?” Leri said. “I told you there was rider blood in Ruatha Hold.”
“Well, I am glad,” Moreta repeated. She squared her shoulders, putting all other thoughts from her head. She could not think of Alessan now. She turned to Leri. “We can go now, together, you and I, Orlith and Holth.”
She urged her dragon into motion. “Just the one more tripbetween , Orlith,” she said. “And I mean that.”
The dragon nodded her head once and, wheeling away from Holth, trotted a few paces to spring upward. Holth was right behind her, a front foot clipping the klah mug that Leri had dropped, scattering the pieces about. The tired old queen just managed to clear the ground and was into the air, urged on by her own eager rider. Both dragons were soon high enough so that their wings could sweep downward in a magnificent ascent. Emblazoned in the full moonlight, the two queen riders raised their right arms high above their heads, punching the air with clenched fists. Thaniel held his breath as suddenly both dragons disappearedbetween .
Thaniel wished them well, as his tears at last brimmed over. He bent to pick up the handle that was all that remained of the mug. He suddenly felt reassured for the first time in many years. Perhaps there was some other place he would go eventually; some place he did not yet know. Some place where he might even see his beloved wife again. He slipped the broken handle into his apron pocket and patted it—a keepsake by which to remember Moreta.
THERIFTWAR
RAYMOND E. FEIST
THE RIFTWAR SAGA:
MAGICIAN(1982, revised edition 1992)
SILVERTHORN(1985)
A DARKNESS INSETHANON(1986)
THE EMPIRE TRILOGY (with Janny Wurts):
DAUGHTER OF THEEMPIRE(1989)
SERVANT OF THEEMPIRE(1990)
MISTRESS OF THEEMPIRE(1992)
STAND-ALONE RIFTWAR-RELATED BOOKS:
PRINCE OF THEBLOOD(1989)
THEKING’SBUCCANEER(1992)
THE SERPENTWAR SAGA:
SHADOW OF ADARKQUEEN(1994)
RISE OF AMERCHANTPRINCE(1995)
RAGE OF ADEMONKING(1997)
SHARDS OF ABROKENCROWN(1998)
THE RIFTWAR LEGACY:
KRONDOR: THEBETRAYAL(1998)
KRONDOR: THEASSASSINS(1999)
KRONDOR: TEAR OF THEGODS(2000)
CONCLAVE OF SHADOWS:
TALES OF THESILVERHAWK(2003)
KING OFFOXES(2004)
MAGICIAN’SSON(2005)
Raymond E. Feist’sRiftwar fantasy series begins with the adventures of two boys, Pug and Tomas, each wishing to rise above his lowly station in life. Pug desires to become a magician, Tomas a great warrior. Each achieves his dream through outside agencies and his own natural abilities. Pug is kidnapped during the Riftwar, discovered to have magic abilities, and is trained to greatness. Tomas stumbles upon a dying dragon who gives him a suit of armor imbued with an ancient magic, turning him into a warrior of legendary might.
As Pug and Tomas undergo their transformations and become more adept at controlling the powers that have been granted them, the scope of the novel expands to reveal more about the two worlds upon which the conflict known as the Riftwar takes place: Midkemia and Kelewan. Midkemia is a young world, vibrant and conflict-ridden, while Kelewan is ancient and tradition-bound, but no freer of conflict. The militaristic Tsurani, from Kelewan, have invaded the Kingdom of the Isles on Midkemia to expand their domain and seize metals common on Midkemia but rare at home. The only way open between these worlds is a magic Rift, and through that portal in space-time the invaders have established a foothold in the Kingdom. Gradually Tomas learns that he has become invested with the power of a Valheru, one of the mystical creatures who are legends in Midkemia. The Dragon Lords were near-godlike beings who once warred with the gods themselves. The action in the first trilogy comes to a climax inA Darkness at Sethanon , with the resolution of the war between the Kingdom and the invading Tsurani, Tomas gaining control over the ancient magic that sought to conquer him, and Pug returning to the homeland of his youth.
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