“Go! Help them!” Cisca’s bellow echoed throughout the Weyr. Fiona and Xhinna rushed to T’mar and his bronze. Just as they neared, T’mar rolled dramatically off his perch and fell to the ground.
“Catch him!” Xhinna shrieked. Fiona caught him just in time and crumpled painfully under his weight. When she managed to get out from underneath him, she saw that his face was covered in a hideous red.
“He’s been Threadscored.” Cisca’s voice reached her ears. “Quick, what are you going to do?”
Fiona wrenched her distraction over his face aside as she reached into her training; more into what she’d learned at Fort Hold over several Turns than what she’d learned today at the Weyr.
“Is he breathing?” she asked herself aloud, leaning forward to cup her ear over his mouth while simultaneously pressing his neck with two fingers to feel for a pulse. “Yes, he’s breathing,” she called aloud as she’d been trained.
“What’s your assessment?” Cisca demanded.
“Threadscore of the face, possible involvement of the eyes,” Fiona said, suddenly realizing that she’d pressed her ear against his “wounds” and berating herself silently for the error.
“What about the dragon?” Cisca asked sharply. Fiona looked up, aghast that she had forgotten to examine Zirenth. She was furious with herself for her mistakes—it wasn’t like her to be so unclearheaded.
“The right mainsail is shredded,” Xhinna called from the far side. “He’ll need stitching.”
“Assess!” Cisca bellowed at Fiona. All around her the shouting and quick movements were repeated as older weyrfolk demanded diagnoses and assessments from the young weyrlings and weyrfolk.
“T’mar’s wounds are superficial—numbweed and fellis for the moment, first aid later,” Fiona said, rising to her feet while being careful not to jar T’mar’s head as she lowered it to the ground. “Numbweed and sutures for Zirenth’s wing.”
“Do it!” Cisca shouted right next to Fiona. Fiona was momentarily startled by her intensity until she realized that it was part of the process of the drill: The Weyrwoman was shouting in order to create the stress that would be present in a real emergency. Fiona scampered around to the far side of Zirenth and found Xhinna.
“Have we got the sutures?” she asked, examining the “wound,” which was really an old torn sheet.
“Here,” Xhinna said, lifting up a large needle and a spool of suture material.
“You do it!” Cisca shouted to Fiona. “Now!”
Fiona took two tries to get the suture material through the eye of the needle, all the while being berated by Cisca, and then carefully she began the process of joining the two torn halves of the “wound” together. She became totally absorbed in the task, imagining how much harder it would be to work up to the wing, worrying about any sudden flinches by the injured dragon that might further tear the injury. Finally, she was done.
She sat back on her heels for a moment, pleased with her work.
“What did you forget?” Cisca asked in a more normal voice.
Fiona furrowed her brow in thought, then groaned. “The numbweed!”
“Not to mention the rider,” Cisca added tartly. Behind her stood T’mar, his face still dripping with his artificial injury. “The moment you are done tending the dragon you should . . .”
“Consult with the rider, tell him what you’ve done, and check him for shock,” Fiona said, ruefully reciting the drill she’d been taught that morning. She looked at T’mar. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll live,” T’mar replied with a grin, wiping the “injury” off his face with a hand and licking it. “It’s just sauce.”
Fiona woke, suddenly. She reached out a tendril of thought to Talenth. The young gold seemed fitful in her sleep, as though she might wake at any moment. Fiona spent a moment in comfortable contact with her dragon, then focused her thoughts outward, listening.
A dragon and rider were moving quietly in the Weyr Bowl outside. The dragon coughed.
Fiona threw off her covers, eliciting a sleepy cry from Xhinna. She carefully pushed the covers up against Xhinna’s exposed side and gingerly crawled out of bed, her mouth set tight to muffle any involuntary exclamations as her feet hit the cold weyr floor.
Quickly she found her slippers and gladly slipped into them, then paused long enough to pull on a nightrobe before moving into Talenth’s lair.
“Maybe I should let you sleep on the outside.” The voice made her jump with fright. Xhinna. Fiona raised two fingers, cautioning her to silence even as she gave the younger girl a thankful look. It was good to have company.
As they made their way out onto the queens’ ledge, Fiona looked toward the entrance to the Hatching Grounds to judge the time. She could dimly make out four glows on either side of the entrance: it was just passing midnight.
Then something obscured one of the glows: Someone was entering the Hatching Grounds. Fiona frowned, wondering who would want to enter the Hatching Grounds this late at night.
A noise from the other end of the Bowl distracted her: the sound of a rider and dragon rising into the thick midnight air. The sounds ended abruptly as rider and dragon went between.
Fiona bowed her head. Another dragon and rider lost to the illness. A cough echoed around the Weyr in the night—still more dragons were ill, but they were not yet so desperate as to go between forever.
Beside her, Xhinna gasped as she realized what had happened. Fiona saw the shadow pass a dimmer glow—the person was going further in. She took a step forward and leapt off the ledge to the ground below her, heading toward the Hatching Grounds.
A moment later, she heard Xhinna jump down and trot up beside her. Together they made their way into the Hatching Grounds. Once inside the entrance and past the glows, it was pitch black.
Fiona paused to let her eyes adjust. Ahead, she heard the sound of feet moving slowly ahead and saw a faint light—someone was carrying a small glow ahead of them. The glow grew brighter as the person turned to face them.
It was Tajen. He waited and Fiona took it as an invitation, so she caught up with him, Xhinna at her side. He nodded wordlessly to each, then turned once more, heading deeper into the Hatching Grounds. She had never realized before quite how large the Hatching Grounds were.
Feeling that she was being invited to participate in something deeply personal, Fiona followed reverently, silently.
It wasn’t until they reached the sands on the far side of the Hatching Grounds, where a queen would lay her eggs, that Fiona began to understand. Beside her, Xhinna’s breath caught, and Fiona was certain that the young weyrgirl had reached the same realization at the same time.
It was not something that could be put into words. It was a feeling, a thought, a shiver.
In this great chamber was the fate of Pern decided. Here and in the Hatching Grounds of the other five Weyrs—four, now that Igen was abandoned—were boys made into dragonriders and girls made into Weyrwomen.
Fiona could practically feel all the Turns of fear and excitement from countless Hatchings radiate around her. There was something special about this place, and her skin tingled with the power she felt in it.
She remembered once more the excited feelings of her first visit to the Hatching Grounds Turns earlier, and even more felt the awe of the Impression that had just so recently changed her life forever. Her lips curved upward in a smile as she reached tenderly for her dragon, still sleeping in her lair. She remembered once more her surprise, fright, and pure pleasure as Talenth had first spoken in her mind.
“This cannot end.” She was surprised at hearing the words: She thought she had not spoken aloud. And then she realized that she hadn’t, that it had been Tajen’s voice that had broken the respectful silence. “Not after hundreds of Turns, not after all the pain, the blood, the effort—” The glow’s light dimmed and brightened again as it was obscured by Tajen’s shaking head. “No. It cannot happen.”
The glow’s light became visible again as Tajen stoo
d taller, shoulders back, spine braced defiantly.
“The creators of the dragons would never have allowed this,” he said to himself. “They would have realized that the dragons could get ill; they would have provided a solution.”
“Maybe they didn’t know,” Xhinna protested quietly, as though afraid to voice such a painful thought.
Tajen was silent for a long while, his shoulders slumping back down until he raised them again and protested, “But—the dragons!”
Fiona nodded in understanding and agreement. If the settlers of Pern, hundreds of Turns past, had been surprised by Thread, they had recovered quickly and developed the dragons as their defense. Having been surprised once, would they not have worked their hardest to avoid any future surprises? They had depended upon the dragons to save all of Pern; would they not have done everything in their power to ensure that that protection was never lost?
Still . . . perhaps their ancestors had felt certain that the dragons could never get ill.
The silence of the Hatching Grounds answered her. She felt once again all the hundreds of Turns of Impressions, of excitement, love, hope—
“No,” she said loudly, firmly. “Even if our ancestors didn’t think of this, we’ll find a way to survive.” She met Xhinna’s eyes. “We must.”
“And what,” Xhinna began quietly, her voice shaking in sorrow, “if you lose Talenth?”
“I came here,” Tajen said a moment later, into the unsettled silence that had fallen, “to consider what I would say to others when asked the same question.” He gestured to Fiona for her answer.
“I told Talenth that I would go between with her when the time comes,” Fiona said. Xhinna made a sound: half-sob, half-exclamation. “But I told her it wouldn’t be for a long, long time.”
“But you can’t say that,” Tajen told her quietly. “You can’t be sure. You can never be sure that something won’t happen to separate the two of you.”
“You could have an accident,” Xhinna suggested.
“But then Talenth would follow me between, wouldn’t she?”
“No one really knows what between is,” Tajen replied. “If a rider dies with her dragon, does the dragon go between to the same place?”
“Is there a place?” Xhinna wondered.
“The only ones who could tell us never come back,” Tajen replied. He gestured toward the entrance and started them walking back out of the Hatching Grounds. “What does your heart tell you?”
Neither girl had an answer she could put into words.
TEN
Thread falls
Dragons rise.
Dragons flame,
Thread dies.
Fort Weyr, Morning, AL 508.1.13
“Wake up, Xhinna, wake up!” Fiona’s excited voice startled Xhinna from her groggy slumber. “Thread falls today!”
Xhinna was up and out of the bed in a trice, her exhaustion forgotten.
“The bath’s all yours,” Fiona told her. “I’ve already been.”
Xhinna paused on her way to the baths, wondering if Fiona could restrain her excitement long enough to wait for her before heading to breakfast. Clearly today was one of those good days when Fiona’s energy was at its fullest.
“I’m going to check on the Weryleaders,” Fiona said, turning decisively toward Talenth’s weyr. “Be ready when I come back?”
“Sure,” Xhinna murmured, her voice still morning-hoarse.
Thread! Xhinna thought as she stripped and lowered herself into the warm waters of the bathing pool. She had never thought that she would be eager for Thread to come, but she, like Fiona and everyone else in the Weyr, saw the arrival of Thread—of something dragons and riders could see, could flame, could destroy—as a relief from all the horror of the sickness that had claimed eighteen more dragons in the last nine days. At least thirty more were now sick.
More galling to the spirits of the riders and weyrfolk of Fort Weyr was the fact that Benden, Telgar, and Ista Weyrs had all already experienced their first Threadfalls. Xhinna and the other weyrfolk were all convinced that, as the oldest Weyr, the honor of the first Threadfall of the Third Pass should rightly have gone to Fort. It’s really a silly notion, she told herself as she rubbed off the night’s dirt in the warm waters.
After her bath, she dried herself as best she could, then brushed her teeth and returned to the living quarters to dress quickly.
Fiona burst into the room just then. “We’re to meet in the Dining Cavern for breakfast,” she blurted and, just as quickly, sprinted out again.
Quickening her pace, Xhinna finished tying on her shoes and sprinted out of their rooms, through Talenth’s weyr, and, with a flying leap that secretly thrilled her, off the ledge and into the Weyr Bowl behind.
“Careful! You don’t want to be the first casualty of the day!” Cisca called from behind her.
Xhinna waved in agreement but kept up her pace, hoping—and failing—to close the distance to Fiona with her shorter legs.
At least, Xhinna told herself as she arrived, gasping, at the entrance to the Dining Cavern and spotted Fiona beckoning to her eagerly, she’s saved me a place.
As Xhinna slid in gratefully beside Fiona, another person sat opposite her: H’nez. The bronze rider cast a dismissive glance her way, murmured, “Weyrwoman” to Fiona, and reached for the klah.
Fiona intercepted his reach, pulling the pitcher out of his way. “Let me pour for you, wingleader,” she offered politely.
“It’s flightleader,” H’nez responded, raising his mug. “I lead a Flight this day.”
“I’m sure you’ll do well,” Fiona said.
“And who would doubt it?” H’nez demanded.
Flustered, Fiona could think of nothing to say in response and turned to Xhinna instead. “Would you like some, too?”
Xhinna noticed the angry look H’nez cast in her direction, as though it had been she who had cast doubts upon his prowess, and ducked her head, causing Fiona to miss her mug. The spill was minor and quickly mopped up, but Xhinna could feel her cheeks burning with shame.
“Good morning, Flightleader!” a cheerful voice called from the entrance. Xhinna recognized Tajen and was grateful when the exrider joined them at their table and occupied H’nez in conversation while she hastily ate.
“Slow down,” Fiona chided her. “You’ll need a good meal today.”
“And a strong stomach,” H’nez growled from across the table. “After what happened to Benden, I’m sure there’ll be a lot of injured for you to sew up.”
“H’nez!” Tajen protested. “That is no way to talk before a Fall.” The bronze rider’s mouth twitched into a frown and he lowered his eyes. “None of them will be in my wing, of course.”
“Pity about the rest of your Flight,” Xhinna snapped tartly and then flushed in embarrassment at her words. Instantly, contrite, she said, “I’m sorry, my lord, my nerves got the better of me.”
“As did mine,” H’nez replied, his voice suddenly under control. Xhinna was surprised to see him regarding her reflectively. “Please forgive me, I think I am more excited than I’d realized.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Tajen said to both of them. “Let us all forget this moment.”
“We’ve a Fall coming,” Fiona added by way of agreement. She rose and gestured for Xhinna to follow, saying to H’nez, “Good flying, dragonrider!”
As they made their way out of the Dining Cavern, Fiona spotted Cisca beckoning to her. Certain that the Weyrwoman had heard the entire exchange and fearful of Cisca’s ire, Fiona made her way reluctantly over to the Weyrleader’s table.
She was right. “I look to you to keep tempers even, not frayed,” Cisca chided her. Then she glanced over at H’nez and frowned, adding, “But I think in this instance, he needed someone to snap at.” She gave Xhinna a saturnine look. “And you held your own.”
“I was wrong,” Xhinna replied glumly.
“Yes, you were,” Cisca agreed. “And honest enough to admit it, which force
d a bronze rider to examine his own actions.” Xhinna’s brows furrowed as she considered this. With a chuckle, Cisca added, “Now you are beginning to understand politics.”
* * *
“Fly well!” Cisca called out later in the Weyr Bowl as K’lior mounted his bronze dragon. K’lior waved in acknowledgment and then Rineth leapt into the sky, followed immediately by P’der’s brown Leranth and the other dragons of the Weyrleader’s wing.
Farther in the distance, T’mar’s wing and H’nez’s wing lofted into the sky. Fiona’s heart leapt in her throat as she waved to the dragonriders, wondering which of them would come back. She hoped T’mar would. Nervously she glanced toward Cisca, wondering if the Weyrwoman had noticed her look, and was surprised to discover an expression of fear and sorrow on Cisca’s face.
“Weyrwoman?” Xhinna said from beside Fiona, obviously seeing the same thing.
Cisca forced herself into a smile and dabbed her eyes quickly before straightening once more. “Don’t tell anyone!”
“What, that you’re human?” Xhinna asked impetuously.
“I’m the Weyrwoman,” Cisca declared. “Everyone looks to me for leadership.”
“You’re still human, my lady,” Xhinna told her stubbornly.
“It’s good to set the example,” Fiona added in agreement, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t show your true feelings to me.”
“Or me,” Xhinna added. “I’ll keep your secrets.”
Cisca cocked her head at the younger girl consideringly, then nodded, saying, “Yes, you will, won’t you?”
Xhinna nodded, then turned to the now-empty Bowl. “And there is no one in this Weyr who isn’t worried about every dragonrider.”
“Yes,” Cisca agreed, her eyes scanning the empty skies above the Weyr. In the distance, near the Star Stones, she could see the watchdragon on his solitary patrol. She sketched a salute toward the rider and smiled when the dragon dipped its head in response. She turned back to the others. “Now, we need to get ready.”
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