Dragongirl

by Todd J. McCaffrey

  “I noticed it more after the time passed that I’d Impressed Zirenth,” T’mar said. “Up until then, I felt like I’d been in a room with bad air but after that I felt like I was always just too far away to listen on a conversation that I was straining to hear.”

  “Yes,” Fiona said in agreement. “It was as though someone was calling to me but I could never find them.”

  “It strained the nerves,” H’nez surmised.

  “More than that,” T’mar said. “It was like a fingernail running down a slate—every moment of every day.”

  H’nez winced appreciatively. “Not a pleasant experience,” he decided. “And not something we’d like to recover from just before a Fall.”

  “Which leaves us with the issue of firestone,” T’mar agreed.

  A dragon’s sudden warble from outside the Weyr Bowl caused Fiona to turn her head sharply, first surprised, then amused.

  “Bekka has decided that Talenth needs to eat,” she informed the concerned wingleaders with a grin.

  “Seban was a good rider,” H’nez said as if in consolation. “I’m sure that Bekka has Talenth’s best interests at heart.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” Fiona agreed. “Apparently Talenth was surprised at just how much she’s learned from her father.”

  A distant cough caused Fiona’s grin to slip and she turned, stricken, toward F’jian.

  “That wasn’t yours,” Shaneese said to Fiona as she approached; following the Weyrwoman’s gaze, she groaned, “Oh, no!”

  “It’s spreading,” Fiona said grimly, watching as Terin wrapped her arms around the young bronze rider who sat, stunned with fear.

  Norik strode over quickly from the entrance at the far side of the Cavern leading from the storerooms and dormitories.

  “That’s two in as many days,” he said as he approached. He looked consolingly toward Fiona. “As near as I can tell—with Bekka’s help—Healer V’gin recorded that there was no pattern in the spread of the disease.”

  He pursed his lips sourly as he glanced toward Fiona. “But we did discover that the longest a dragon lasted from the onset of the illness was no more than three sevendays.”

  “That agrees with what we’ve seen at Fort,” H’nez said. He grimaced as he added, “Two sevendays is the average.”

  “Then our time is set,” Fiona said, rising from her chair, anxious to be doing something. “Either we find a cure in the next twelve days or Telgar will lose her queen.”

  Shaneese put out a hand toward her, gesturing for her to sit again. “You haven’t finished eating and from what I’ve heard, neither has your dragon.”

  Fiona opened her mouth, ready to argue, but Shaneese gave her an imperious look that was so reminiscent of her late grandmother, Mother Karina, that Fiona found herself obeying automatically.

  “You can’t handle the work you put on your plate until you’ve finished the food you’ve put there first,” Shaneese told her sternly, before turning back to H’nez, saying, “I understand that there’s an issue with the firestone?”

  Fiona swallowed hard, crying in surprise, “How did you know?”

  “I’m headwoman, it’s my duty,” Shaneese said, waving Fiona back to her meal, adding to H’nez, “Besides, it was obvious from the Weyrwoman’s surprise and your sudden return.”

  Fiona felt Talenth pounce on a small sheep out in the pens at the same moment that she heard the queen’s triumphant whistling. She got the distinct impression that her queen was not all that hungry but had dispatched the sheep merely to placate Bekka.

  Eating is important, Fiona chided her dragon and was chagrined to hear Talenth’s sardonic agreement, As you say.

  After that, the Weyrwoman concentrated on her food.

  She kept a half ear on the conversation and was relieved to discover that Shaneese and her assistants had already devised a plan to dispose of the old firestone. And, Shaneese assured them, there were plenty of hands ready to do the work.

  “After all, there are nearly fifteen hundred weyrfolk,” Shaneese pointed out with a sense of pride. She raised a hand and made another one of her now all-too-familiar peremptory gestures, which was met with the prompt appearance of another woman, several Turns Shaneese’s senior who was introduced as Bevorra, Shaneese’s other assistant headwoman.

  “She and the storemaster will arrange everything,” Shaneese said as Bevorra hustled off toward another group of women. She turned to Fiona. “So you only have to meet with the Lord Holders.

  “You should probably visit Crom first: From what I’ve heard, Nerra’s more likely to listen to you than Lord Valpinar at Telgar.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” Norik spoke up from where he’d been standing, near Fiona. She glanced up toward him. “Given the history between D’gan and Lady Nerra, I can’t imagine how you’ll be received in Crom.”

  “D’gan was demanding,” Shaneese allowed, clearly reluctant to say more.

  “He demanded that his dragon and his Weyr die for his arrogance,” Norik observed icily.

  “As you say,” H’nez interposed smoothly, “he paid with his life. His deeds are done; you’ve written his eulogy and his dirge.”

  “I have,” Norik said flatly, directing a look of challenge and appraisal toward H’nez. The bronze rider met his eyes unflinchingly until Norik lowered them and sighed wearily. “I’ve written too many sad songs. Perhaps it is time I found different lodgings.”

  “No one is asking you to leave!” Fiona declared with an angry look toward H’nez. Suddenly she recalled the stories of H’nez’s long-ago feud with a different harper, a feud that had led to the death and the decline of Fort’s Weyrwoman. Would he, she wondered fleetingly, never stop bickering with harpers?

  Apparently H’nez must have guessed some of her thinking for he told Norik contritely, “My apologies, harper. Tempers are short, hearts chaffed.”

  “D’gan never would have apologized,” Norik said, obliquely accepting H’nez’s offering. He glanced at Fiona and said in an apparent decision, “Perhaps I could accompany you?”

  Fiona started to reply but Norik continued, with a gesture toward Seban, “I believe that Seban and Bekka should accompany us, as we’ve identified several gaps in our medicinal stores.”

  Seban smiled at the Weyrwoman. “That is, if your Talenth is up to four.”

  Are you up for a journey with four on your back? Fiona asked her dragon who she discovered was trundling back toward her weyr, obediently following Bekka. Fiona got the distinct impression that Talenth found the tiny girl amusing.

  Are we taking Bekka? Talenth asked. Fiona was surprised but not shocked to hear such a direct reference to another person. What shocked her was Talenth’s ready agreement, how eager she was to fly; Fiona had expected the queen to want to rest, not to risk exacerbating her cough. For a moment, Fiona felt torn between her need to protect her queen and her desire to enjoy the time they could together. She sensed the deep wistfulness in Talenth’s underlying emotions and knew there was only one answer:

  Of course!

  “Your little one weighs nothing,” Norik observed twenty minutes later as he hefted Bekka up toward Seban.

  “If you can get her to eat, perhaps she’ll get heavier,” Seban answered easily, settling Bekka and reaching a hand down for the harper. Norik took it and flexed his legs to hop up from his position on the top of Talenth’s foreleg and climb up to the gold dragon’s neck. Fiona followed quickly, her enthusiasm for her beautiful, marvelous, huge dragon undimmed by her fear for her health.

  Talenth made a pleased noise as she rose to her full height, took a few quick steps forward to gain momentum and leaped on her back legs into the air.

  Fiona let out a shout of pure glee as Talenth climbed as strongly as ever toward the watch heights, circled the Star Stones, returned the watch dragon’s greeting, and took them smoothly between to the distant Crom Hold.

  “D’gan was a difficult man,” Norik said as they circled above the watch heights of Crom
Hold scant moments later. “He used Lord Fenner harshly and provided no aid when the Plague struck.”

  “He supported Fenner’s son, Fenril, didn’t he?” Fiona asked.

  “He did,” Norik agreed blandly. “His concerns were the Weyr and its proper tithe. He felt that Fenril would provide that.”

  “Was Fenril the man who let his people starve while he drank his cellar?” Bekka asked Seban.

  “He was,” Norik said.

  “I wouldn’t have done that,” Bekka said. “If I were Lord Holder, I’d make certain to take care of my people first.”

  Seban hugged her tightly.

  “So, Lady Nerra has no call to love our Weyr,” Fiona said in surmise.

  “No, my lady, she does not,” Norik agreed.

  Fiona felt the loathing emanating from the sullen holders around her the moment Talenth settled on the ground, long before she set foot on the clean cobblestones of the courtyard and had a moment to scan the surrounding walls.

  Seban, who had been concerned with getting Bekka off Talenth’s neck without injury to child or dragon, noticed only when his daughter found herself pressed tight against him in unfocused fear.

  Norik joined them, caught their feeling, and quickly noted the stance of the guards on the walls above.

  “Crom hospitality leaves much to be desired if those are arrows I see pointing toward us!” the harper declared in a booming, angry voice.

  “Go back to your Weyr!” a voice growled back, echoing around the walls, ominously.

  “I am Fiona, formerly of Fort Weyr, now of Telgar Weyr,” Fiona called. “I have news for the Lord of this Hold.”

  A huge burly man confronted her as Fiona stepped over the threshold, his arms crossed with his shield raised in front.

  Fiona glanced up at him once and immediately had his measure: He was one of the faithful guards who had stood with Nerra against Fenril after the Plague.

  “You must be Jefric,” she declared. She felt the man’s surprise. “We heard about you at Fort Hold.”

  “You are holder bred?” a woman’s voice called from the far end of the hall.

  “Yes, Lady Nerra,” Fiona replied. “My father is Lord Bemin. I am Fiona, last of his line.”

  “You ride a Telgar queen?” Nerra asked in surprise, rising from her chair and moving down the hall toward Fiona.

  “The only queen now at Telgar,” Norik called out from his position beyond the guard Jefric. Nerra jerked her head toward him in surprise. Sensing her wishes, Jefric stood to one side, allowing her to look directly at the rest of the group. Norik started forward, stopping to bow on one knee in front of Nerra.

  “My Lady,” he said, his voice full of sorrow. “I am Norik, the last harper of Telgar Weyr.” He glanced up at her, then down again in shame. “Lord D’gan is no more.”

  “He died fighting to save Pern,” Fiona said, glancing down sympathetically toward the harper. “He and all the riders and dragons of Telgar Weyr.”

  Nerra’s face drained of color and she raised a hand to her eyes. “All?”

  “K’lior dispatched myself and forty dragons—all we could spare,” Fiona explained. “High Reaches Weyr flew the last Fall.”

  “The illness took them,” Seban said, stepping forward and sketching a quick nod toward Nerra. “I am Seban, once rider of blue Serth.”

  “Jefric,” Nerra called softly, “have the men stand down.”

  As if the words released her as well, Nerra suddenly seemed to shed her tension and she gestured gracefully to Fiona and her party, indicating the head table.

  “Please,” she said, as she moved toward it, “join me.”

  Nerra insisted upon accompanying Fiona when she went to Lord Valpinar at Telgar, while offering Seban and Bekka free run of her herbal stores.

  “I’m told he is not well-disposed to dragonriders at the moment,” the Lady Holder said by way of explanation.

  “Dragonriders? All of them?”

  “His experience has only been with D’gan’s old riders,” Nerra replied, “but …”

  “Once bitten, twice shy.”

  “Exactly,” Nerra agreed. She craned her neck up toward Talenth’s shoulders and gulped at the distance. The sky above was partly cloudy, the weather cool. Nerra had on her warmest clothes.

  “Let me help you up,” Fiona offered, bending down and cupping her fingers together to provide a lift. The courtesy seemed to surprise Nerra, which caused Fiona a moment’s anger at the old Telgar riders: Had they not shown such simple courtesies to their Holders?

  Once Nerra was safely perched, Fiona scrambled up behind her and strapped them both in safely.

  “Are you ready to fly, my lady?”

  Nerra hesitated, then nodded.

  Talenth, take us up, Fiona said. The queen rose easily into the air, her upward spiral marred only by a cough just before they reached the cliff heights.

  “Is she okay?” Nerra asked in concern.

  “She’s got the sickness,” Fiona told her. “But she insisted on coming.”

  “The same sickness that took Telgar?”

  “The same.”

  “Does that worry you?”

  “Very much,” Fiona said, fighting back a sob.

  “What will happen if she succumbs?”

  “I don’t know,” Fiona said. “For now, though, we’ll do what we have to do.”

  “Well, I can see why you came rather than your H’nez,” Nerra said.

  “You can?”

  “And brought your entourage,” Nerra added, turning back to show Fiona her smile. “A Weyrwoman must know how to be charming and diplomatic; a Weyrleader need only know how to lead.”

  “Weyrleaders can be diplomatic.”

  “Queens command respect,” Nerra said. She glanced down at the scenery below and quickly up again. A moment later she looked down, scanning the fields of her Hold with interest.

  “Are you ready to go between, my Lady?”

  “Yes,” Nerra said with a firm nod. “I don’t want to tire your queen too much.”

  Fiona gave Talenth the image and they went between to Telgar Hold.

  EIGHT

  My heart is a dragon

  Soaring in the sky;

  My heart is a dragon

  Flaming from on high.

  My heart is a dragon

  Filling all with love;

  My heart is a dragon

  Protecting from above.

  Telgar Weyr, late evening, AL 508.2.9

  At dinner that evening, Fiona relayed the results of her meetings with Lord Valpinar and Lady Nerra to H’nez and the other wingleaders.

  “Apparently,” she recounted, “D’gan had once gone so far as to tell Valpinar that his attitude would buy him grief from the skies.”

  “He wasn’t threatening to let Thread burrow, was he?” H’nez asked in shock.

  “Lord Valpinar was left to draw his own conclusions,” Fiona said, her fury abated by the bronze rider’s appalled reaction.

  “You assured him—”

  “I told him that we would do our duty to Hold and Hall as long as we had breath to draw,” Fiona said. H’nez nodded approvingly and the other bronze riders added their fervent agreement. She smiled, adding, “And I’ve arranged that Tevora can go back to the Smithcrafthall.”

  Fiona’s attention was distracted when she saw Xhinna herding a group of small children toward a table, aided by a beautiful dark-skinned, dark-haired, aquiline-nosed girl near her age. Xhinna noticed her look and gave her a tremulous smile, carefully seating the children and getting them settled with their dinner before dragging the girl, who appeared quite reluctant, over to Fiona.

  Xhinna looked radiant, her eyes glowing, her whole being transformed. Her grip on the other girl’s hand was both shy and possessive.

  “Weyrwoman, this is Taria.”

  Fiona nodded toward the other girl. Taria was half a head shorter than Xhinna. They made a beautiful pair and Fiona beamed at her friend. “They’ve put you
in charge of the nursery?”

  Xhinna shook her head. “Taria’s been handling the older children for two Turns now.” She bent in close to Fiona’s ear. “She’s all on her own and she needs someone to help.”

  “You must be very good at your duties,” Fiona said to Taria. The girl nodded mutely, her eyes wide with fright. Fiona pulled Xhinna closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Tell her I don’t bite.”

  Xhinna smiled, her eyes dancing as she glanced back to Taria.

  “Does this mean that you’ll be in the dormitory from now on?” Fiona asked, adding hastily, “You’re still welcome with me—both of you—particularly on the colder nights.”

  “I told you, she uses her friends for blankets,” Xhinna murmured triumphantly.

  Taria spoke for the first time, just above a whisper. Her voice was deeper than Xhinna’s and richer, with husky overtones. Fiona wondered if she sang at all, thinking that her singing voice would be a treat to the ears. “I think it’s best if we stay with the children, my lady.”

  Fiona was pretty sure there was more to it than the girl’s words conveyed.

  “I suppose that’s so,” she said. “You could bring them along.” She saw Taria’s hesitation, her worried glance toward Xhinna and added, “The offer is always open.”

  Taria managed a nervous nod and glanced imploringly toward Xhinna. Fiona gave her friend a nod, which Xhinna returned with a smile before happily tugging Taria away with her back to the children’s table.

  So now it was just her and Terin. Fiona shivered, thinking that the nights at Telgar seemed colder than those at Fort even while she knew that wasn’t so; she was just spoiled by her time in hot, dry Igen.

  Back in her quarters, she had just changed into her nightgown when she heard the alarming sound of a dragon coughing. Her immediate relief that it wasn’t Talenth again was dashed when her own queen coughed not a moment later.

  Bekka rushed in just as Terin rushed out of the bathroom, her eyes wide with fright.

  “Is she okay?” Bekka asked.

  The other dragon coughed again, the echoes confirming Fiona’s first worried conclusion: It was Ladirth.

  Fiona sent Bekka off with Terin, who was clearly so upset by Ladirth’s illness that Fiona feared her worry alone would keep both rider and dragon awake all night.