“There are thirty dragons that are very sick,” K’rem said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think they should be moved. Another dozen or so are only showing the first signs of a cough—”
“Move them! Move them all,” D’gan commanded. “I told you that already—why did you delay?”
“Do you want to lose more dragons?” K’rem asked. When D’gan’s brows stormed together he continued quickly, “If we move them, they may die. Do you want their deaths on your hands?”
“Do you?” D’gan replied. The healer dropped his gaze and D’gan snorted. “I didn’t think so. Move the sick ones!”
“You will have to break up the wings,” D’nal pointed out.
“Then do it,” D’gan said. He looked at K’rem. “Isn’t this the way the herders isolate sick beasts and save their herds?”
“But these are dragons, D’gan,” L’rat protested. “We don’t know how they are getting sick, how the illness spreads.”
“And we won’t begin to find out until we isolate the sick ones,” D’gan responded with a pointed look at K’rem.
Reluctantly, K’rem nodded. “If we isolate them, who will look after them?” he asked. “My Darth is not ill.”
“Hmm. Good point,” D’gan agreed. He bent his head to his hand in thought. Finally he looked up, decisive. “Have some of the weyrfolk help them.”
He gestured to the others.
“Let’s go to the Star Stones and see how much time we have before the Fall starts,” he said in a suddenly cheerful voice. “Things will sort themselves out when Thread comes, you’ll see.”
M’tal stood back from his observation at the Star Stones of Benden Weyr, grim-faced.
“The Eye Rock has bracketed the Red Star,” he told K’tan and Kindan, gesturing for them to look for themselves.
Kindan told the Weyr healer to go first. K’tan stepped forward and looked through the Eye Rock, aligning his view with the Finger Rock beyond. There, just above the Finger Rock, as the Records had warned, was the Red Star.
They were all warmly bundled against the morning chill, M’tal and K’tan in their riding gear, and even Kindan in a thick wher-hide jacket. M’tal’s Gaminth and K’tan’s Drith lounged on a ledge near the plateau that held the Star Stones, unperturbed by the chill in the air. As the sun rose further into the sky, Kindan could see patches of fog along the coastline to the east. He turned around, looking down into the darkened Bowl far below. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he found he could spot a fog-diffused glow at the entrance to the Kitchen Cavern, but nothing more.
“How much time do we have before the first Threadfall?” he asked, turning back to the other two. He had been invited to the morning gathering by the Weyrleader himself.
M’tal shook his head. His face was gaunt with fatigue. “Less than a month, I’d guess.”
“We’ll be flying wing light,” K’tan said, stepping back from the Star Stones. His breath fogged in the chilly air.
Another three dragons had started coughing just that morning, bringing the total to eighteen. Twelve had died in the fortnight since Breth had gone between forever. Counting those hatchlings old enough, there had been over 370 fighting dragons at Benden Weyr. Now there were fewer than 340 fit to fly against Thread.
“It’s worse at Ista,” Kindan said. C’rion had had a brief chance to commiserate with M’tal and Salina and exchange notes with K’tan on the illness. Neither learned anything new, and C’rion had returned to his Weyr as soon as he was able.
Before C’rion left, a messenger from Fort Weyr had arrived. His news arrived before he did: The dragons keened for another four dead. C’rion, M’tal, K’tan, Kindan, and Lorana—invited for her ability to talk to any dragon—had gathered in the Council Room for a hasty conference. They agreed that the Weyrs should close themselves to outsiders, should banish fire-lizards, and should communicate by telepathy as much as possible. When it was revealed that Lorana could hear all the dragons, C’rion had suggested that all communications go through her, as it would be quicker than passing messages from rider to dragon and dragon back to rider.
Kindan had been doubtful. “I don’t know,” he’d said. “It seems that Lorana not only hears dragons but feels them, too.”
C’rion was stunned. “Even when they die?” he asked gently. Lorana nodded.
Memories of the death of the queen, and of all the dragons after her, came at her like physical blows.
“I have Arith,” she said, looking toward the Bowl and their quarters, a wan smile on her lips. “We comfort each other.”
“I’m glad of that,” C’rion had said feelingly. “This must be a very hard time for you.”
“I think it’s harder for others,” Lorana had replied. “I still have my dragon.”
Something jarred Kindan back from his wool-gathering to the cold morning air and the ominous view through the Star Stones. “Shouldn’t Tullea be here?” he asked M’tal.
M’tal pursed his lips. “She decided that she needed her rest,” he said. It was obvious that he was torn between disapproval and sympathy. Kindan could understand that—the toll on all of them had been great.
“What about the other bronze riders?”
“B’nik said that he would trust my observation,” M’tal responded. “The others agreed.”
With the death of Breth, Tullea’s Minith was the senior queen at Benden Weyr. When she rose to mate, the leadership of the Weyr would pass to the rider of the bronze she chose. Everyone expected it would be B’nik, even though Tullea had already found the time to tease several of the other riders. M’tal had pointedly not risen to any of her taunts, preferring to spend all his spare time consoling Salina.
In fact, that was where Lorana was at the moment—with Salina. Kindan thought he knew, through his bond with the watch-wher Kisk and later through the bond he had had with his fire-lizard, some of the great pain Salina and all the other newly dragonless must be feeling. The harpers’ laments captured that pain—a pain greater than the loss of a loved one, greater than that of a parent losing a child. The pain was all that and the tearing of a limb—half a heart, half a soul, and more.
Some never recovered. They refused to eat, refused comfort, and simply wasted away. Others managed to find solace from loved ones and rebuilt their lives. But Kindan had never heard of a dragonrider remaining in the Weyr after losing a dragon.
K’tan and M’tal gave a start and headed toward their dragons.
“Lorana has asked us to return,” K’tan explained. “Arith is hungry and Lorana needs to watch her.”
“I’ll stay here a bit more, if that’s all right,” Kindan said.
“It’s a long walk down,” K’tan cautioned. “Ten dragonlengths or more.”
“That’s all right,” Kindan said, waving them away. “I can use the exercise.”
“If you’re sure,” M’tal said.
“I’m sure,” Kindan said. M’tal mounted his dragon and waved farewell to Kindan, and then the two glided away, back down to the Weyr Bowl.
“You’ll find me in the Records Room,” K’tan said from his perch on Drith’s neck.
Drith leapt into the air and glided down to the Bowl below. After they had receded from view, Kindan turned back toward the rising sun. It was just over the horizon and its brilliance obscured his view eastward. Looking southward away from the sun, Kindan could make out the Tunnel Road and the plateau lake as the mountains fell away from high Benden Weyr to the plains below.
Kindan was a miner’s child, so to him, Benden Weyr was a special marvel, one that the dragonriders and weyrfolk who had grown up there took for granted. But for him, with his trained eye, the Weyr was an engineering miracle. He turned around, northward, toward the artfully constructed reservoir even higher than the Star Stones. Over its sluices came a constant stream of water, guided into channels that spilled northward and southward into the rock of the Weyr. The streams ran centrally through the Weyr, servicing each of the nine different le
vels of individual weyrs—living quarters—carved into the walls of the Weyr before falling down to the next level and down again until the waste stream finally plunged deep into a huge septic dome way beneath a lush field far below and south of the Weyr itself.
The weyrs on each level all adjoined a long corridor toward the outside edge of the Weyr. The corridors were punctuated by wide flights of stairs leading down to the Bowl. Each weyr, or those that were finished—there were many partially made weyrs still unused and unfurnished—had a bedroom, a meeting room, and a lavatory for the rider, and a large cavernous weyr proper for a dragon. The walls of the finished weyrs were usually whitewashed with lime, although several had been treated with dyes in marvelous shades of blue, green, bronze, gold; some occupants had even opted for accents of purple, pink, and tan.
Kindan could always tell newer stonework from the original—while there was clear craftsmanship in every bit of rock carving done in the Weyr, the new work was never as smooth or as clean as the original. The stairs leading from the top level of the Weyr up to the Standing Stones were a case in point. Instead of a handrail of smooth-melted rock, a rope had been bolted at intervals into the wall. The stairs themselves were nearly perfect, but Kindan’s legs noted a subtle unevenness as he descended to the Weyr.
Kindan wondered if the original settlers, who had created the dragons from the fire-lizards, could have come up with a cure for whatever was killing both fire-lizard and dragon alike. The problem seemed more than the people of his time could handle, given the skills available at the end of the Second Interval and the start of the Third Pass. How would the original settlers have felt if they realized that their great weapon against Thread would be annihilated scarcely five hundred Turns later, all their amazing craftsmanship and effort undone by disease and Thread, and the Weyrs left as lifeless, empty shells, ghostly monuments to a failed past?
Kindan made his way to the First Stairs, those on the south nearest the Hatching Grounds, climbed down to the Second Level, turned right, and entered the second opening, into the Records Room.
“Find anything?” he asked as he spied K’tan. The Weyr healer was propped against one side of the opening to the Bowl below, an old parchment angled toward it to get more light. Kindan realized that the healer’s head was on his chest and his eyes closed at the same moment that his words startled the dozing man into wakefulness.
“Huh? Ah, Kindan,” K’tan said, shaking himself and gesturing with the parchment to the light outside. “I was trying to get more light and must have dozed off.”
“I’m not surprised,” Kindan replied. “You haven’t slept in a sevenday and you practically live here. Does your dragon know you still exist?”
K’tan gave him a sour look at the gibe. “Drith, at least, has manners.”
Kindan saw the pitcher of klah on the table in the center of the room, felt the side of it—cold—and shook his head.
“At the very least you should be drinking warm klah,” he rebuked the healer.
“It was warm,” K’tan replied absently, placing another Record on one stack and pulling a new one in front of him.
“When? Yesterday?” Kindan grabbed the tray with the pitcher and carried it and the half-empty mugs back down the corridor to the service shaft. He placed the tray in the down shaft, rang the service bell, and shouted, “Klah and snacks for two!”
A moment later he heard Kiyary’s muffled voice drift back up to him: “On the way, Kindan! I’ve sent extra, just in case.”
Kindan waited until a fresh tray arrived on the up shaft, grabbed it, and shouted down, “Thank you!”
Back in the Records Room, he poured a fresh mug of klah and handed it to K’tan, who had moved from the window to a chair but was still nodding off.
“Thanks,” K’tan said. He took a sip from the mug, eyes widening as he tasted the fresh, hot klah, and said again with more enthusiasm, “Thanks!”
“Did you find anything?” Kindan asked after pouring himself a mug and choosing a snack.
“Nothing,” the healer said, frowning. He reached for a snack. For a moment the two chewed in silence.
“I did notice that the holders seem to get sick much more often than weyrfolk,” K’tan said at last.
Kindan cocked his head at him encouragingly, still chewing.
“Yes,” K’tan went on. “I made notes. It seems that there’s some sort of illness among the holders and crafters once every twenty Turns.”
“Well, we’re good for another four or five Turns at least, what with the Plague behind us,” Kindan commented.
“It didn’t affect the dragonfolk,” K’tan said.
“You dragonfolk are a hearty lot,” Kindan agreed. “I wonder if it’s the thin air—”
He cut himself off, as his words sunk in. K’tan’s eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully.
“Are you thinking that if thin air is good for riders, thinner air might be better for dragons?” the healer asked.
“Or worse for whatever ails them,” Kindan suggested. He mulled the idea over and then shrugged it off. “Well, it’s a thought.”
“Worth keeping,” K’tan replied, finding a stylus and making a note on his slate.
“If thin air is good, what about between?” Kindan mused.
K’tan shook his head. “The illness seems to disorient the dragons—they would never come back from between.”
Kindan frowned and gestured to the records. “You’ve seen nothing about dragon illnesses?”
“I’ve only gone back fifty Turns, Kindan,” K’tan said. “There might be something more.”
“At the Harper Hall, I found that Records over fifty Turns were very hard to read.”
“And they’re probably better kept there than these here,” K’tan said with a wave toward a stack of Records.
“Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to check the Records at the Harper Hall?” Lorana asked from the doorway, startling the other two.
“I’m sorry,” she added, “but I heard you from the Weyrwoman’s quarters.”
“Were we too loud?” K’tan asked.
“No,” Lorana answered. “Not loud enough to wake Salina, at least.” She smiled.
Kindan gestured to the table. “Come in, there’s hot klah and fresh snacks.”
“Did you hear much of our deliberations?” K’tan asked, adding, when Lorana nodded, “And do you have any other insights?”
Lorana entered the room and took a seat at the table. Kindan passed her a mug, which she cradled in her hands, enjoying the warmth.
“I thought Kindan’s idea about thin air might make some sense,” she said, sipping her klah. “Also, cold kills germs, too.”
“So if we could get our sick dragons to cold high places—”
“Without killing them,” Kindan interjected.
“—without killing them,” K’tan agreed, accepting Kindan’s amendment with a nod, “then perhaps . . .”
Lorana shrugged. “It depends on the infection.”
“We don’t know enough about this infection,” Kindan swore.
Kindan and Lorana sighed in dejected agreement.
“But what about the fire-lizards?” Lorana asked. “Have they ever gotten sick?”
“Not according to those records,” K’tan said with a wave of his hand.
“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong Records,” Kindan suggested. “Maybe we should be looking at the Harper Hall—”
“Or Fort Weyr,” Lorana interjected. When the other two responded with questioning looks, she explained, “Isn’t Fort Weyr the oldest? Wouldn’t the oldest Records of dragons—and fire-lizards—be there?”
K’tan and Kindan exchanged looks.
“She’s right, you know,” Kindan said.
“Mmph,” K’tan agreed. “But the Weyrs are closed to anyone but their own now.”
Kindan pushed his mug away and reached for a Record. “Maybe we’ll find our answers here,” he said dubiously.
The next day, M’tal dispatc
hed watch riders to every Hold, major and minor, with orders to report any signs of Thread. P’gul, the Weyrlingmaster, had the weyrlings bag more sacks of firestone.
“With any luck, the weather will hold either too wet or too cold for the first Threadfalls,” M’tal told the watch riders. “Keep an eye out for drowned Thread or black dust, and let us know immediately.”
“We have Threadfall charts that should tell us when the next Threadfall will occur once we’ve charted the first,” Kindan added. “But at the beginning of a Pass, Thread often falls out of pattern.”
“So watch out for it,” M’tal concluded. “Report in to me or Lorana if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“And if you see fire-lizards, stay clear of them,” K’tan warned. “But let us know of any sightings, too,” he continued. His voice dropped as he added, “We’re not sure if there are any fire-lizards left.”
“Good flying!” M’tal called, making the arm gesture to disperse the watch riders. Eighteen riders and their dragons rose high above the Bowl and then blinked out, between, to their destinations.
Gaminth, M’tal said to his dragon, warn the watch-whers.
It is done, Gaminth reported. A few moments later the bronze dragon added, Lorana wonders if you will introduce her to the watch-whers.
M’tal picked Lorana out of the crowd and made his way over to her. “That’s a good idea,” he told her. “But I’m not sure if there’s time.”
“Could someone else train me?” Lorana asked. “From what Kindan has told me, it seems like it would be a good idea if the watch-whers knew me.”
M’tal rubbed a hand wearily across his forehead. “It would be a good idea,” he agreed. “But—”
“Perhaps Nuella would teach her,” Kindan suggested, stepping closer to join the conversation.
“Nuella is at Plains Hold,” M’tal said. “How are you proposing she teach Lorana?”
“She could come here,” Kindan said.
M’tal shook his head. “We don’t know if watch-whers can catch this illness; I don’t think it’s fair to ask her to risk it.”
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