Dragonheart

by Todd J. McCaffrey

  “—an adult would accept the realities of being a queen rider,” K’lior finished.

  “And let someone else die?” Fiona demanded in anguish and fury, her eyes filling with tears.

  “If need be,” Cisca answered softly. She gestured to herself and Fiona. “Without us, there would be no queens. And without the queens, there will be no Pern.”

  “So our queens are nothing but brood mothers?” Fiona demanded sourly. “And you and I are—” She found she couldn’t finish the sentence and so said instead, “But what about Tannaz? Why did you let her go between?”

  “It wasn’t my choice,” Cisca told her. She shook her head sadly. “You know that it wasn’t really Tannaz’s choice, either. Kelsanth was dying; there was no cure.”

  “There’s no cure now,” Fiona reminded them grimly. But she remembered the words she’d heard: It will be all right. The words had been spoken with such faith that she couldn’t set them aside. “We can’t give up,” K’lior told her firmly.

  “Why not?” Fiona demanded petulantly. “Tannaz did. There’s still no cure.”

  “We can’t give up because we are dragonriders,” K’lior told her.

  “Did your father give up during the Plague?” Cisca demanded.

  “Yes, he did,” Fiona replied, her voice a near whisper. “After my mother and my brothers all died, he kept hope, but when Koriana . . .” She trailed off, remembering her father telling her about the Plague, about how Kindan had refused to give up even when Lord Holder Bemin himself had surrendered to despair.

  It will be all right. Was it Kindan who had spoken to her? No, the voice had sounded different. But the words had Kindan’s faith, his surety, his steadfast refusal to admit despair . . .

  “Kindan didn’t, though,” Fiona said out loud, raising her head and glancing first to Cisca and then to K’lior. “He never gave up.”

  “Nor will I,” K’lior vowed.

  “Nor I,” Cisca said. She lifted her chin up challengingly to Fiona. “So, Weyrwoman, daughter of a Lord Holder, Plague survivor, who will you follow: your father in his despair, or Kindan?”

  Stung by the question, Fiona loyally declared, “My father vowed never again to give in to despair.” She met Cisca’s brown eyes. “He has never failed his Hold.”

  “And you, Weyrwoman? What of your Weyr?” K’lior asked softly.

  Before Fiona could answer, Cisca raised a hand and cautioned her, “Since Impression, you’ve been a Weyrwoman—that is unquestionable. The question is: What sort of Weyrwoman will you be? Will you be a leader and an inspiration, or will you be a whiner and an embarrassment? Will you bear your responsibilities, or bow under them?”

  “But—to let her fall!” Fiona wailed. A torrent of emotions broke over her and she began to cry.

  Realization dawned on K’lior’s face. “You aren’t angry at T’mar—you’re angry because you would have let her go!”

  “I held on!” Fiona declared, holding up her aching arm as proof. “Of course you did,” Cisca replied proudly. “You’re a Weyrwoman.” She glanced to K’lior. “We’ve never questioned that.”

  “But,” K’lior persisted, “if it had come to letting her go or falling with her—”

  “I would have let her go!” Fiona cried, dropping her head into her hands and shaking it in shame and sorrow. “I would have let her go.”

  Strong arms wrapped around her and she was pulled tight against Cisca’s tall body. “Of course you would,” Cisca agreed with her, “because that’s what you would have had to do to protect Pern. You would have hated yourself for it, probably never have forgiven yourself, but you would have done it.” Cisca pushed her away and put a finger under Fiona’s chin, gently raising it so she could see the girl’s eyes. “And that’s what makes a great Weyrwoman: doing what has to be done even when she hates it.”

  “That’s why you let Tannaz go,” Fiona said with sudden understanding.

  “Yes,” Cisca replied, the words torn out of her, and again she crushed Fiona in a tight embrace, the sort of embrace a mother gives her daughter; the sort of embrace Fiona had always longed for. A short moment later, however, Fiona pushed herself away and glanced toward K’lior. “And that’s why you called me in here.”

  The Weyrleader nodded, a corner of his lips turned up in a bitter smile. “Better to know your mettle now than when we are in worse straits.”

  Fiona nodded. She stood as tall as she could and said to K’lior, “Weyrleader, I apologize for my outburst at Wingleader T’mar. I was distressed and took my temper out on him. I regret it.”

  “Perhaps not all that much,” Cisca said, eyes dancing. “I know that it’s sometimes tempting to see bronze riders cringe at the lash of a harsh tongue.”

  “Cisca!” K’lior said reprovingly. “Not everyone has your evil sense of humor.”

  Cisca shook her head, catching Fiona’s eyes. “Remember Melanwy?” Fiona nodded glumly, remembering how she’d influenced Melanwy’s actions. “As Weyrwomen, we have incredible power. The best way to guard against abusing it is to be honest and listen to our fellow Weyrwomen.”

  “So if I think you are being unfair, I should tell you?” Fiona replied.

  “Of course,” Cisca agreed forcefully. Then she smiled. “I reserve the right to ignore you, of course.”

  “In which case,” K’lior said with an evil grin at his Weyrwoman, “come to me and I’ll handle her!”

  Cisca snorted derisively. “And Melirth will deal with you!”

  “But of course,” K’lior agreed.

  “Seriously,” Cisca said, turning again to Fiona, “it is often hard for a young Weyrwoman to accept the realities of her position.”

  “To let healers die that I might live,” Fiona said by way of example.

  “If that is what is needed to protect your queen and the future of Pern,” Cisca responded emphatically.

  “It just doesn’t seem fair,” Fiona said softly.

  “It isn’t fair,” Cisca agreed. “It’s up to us—Weyrwomen and Weyrleaders—to make it as fair as we can.”

  “And when we can’t,” K’lior added, “it’s our responsibility to make certain that no sacrifice is in vain.”

  Fiona nodded; K’lior’s words sounded like something her father would say in similar circumstances.

  “So,” Cisca said, “are we ready to greet our new healer?”

  “I think we are,” K’lior said, heading toward the doorway.

  “I expect you to deal with T’mar on your own,” Cisca murmured in Fiona’s ear as they made their way back in to the Weyr Bowl.

  The reason Fiona gave Cisca and K’lior for insisting on showing Tintoval around the Weyr was to make up for her previous behavior, and she was glad that they didn’t question her, particularly as they exchanged dubious looks that made it clear to her that they guessed her other reason—to avoid T’mar as long as possible.

  “There are at least fifty dragons with the illness,” Fiona said as Tintoval startled at the coughs echoing around the Weyr Bowl.

  “My training is with people,” Tintoval remarked worriedly.

  “With Thread injuries such training works for both dragons and riders,” Fiona assured her.

  “And the sickness?”

  Fiona made a face. “Maybe you can help.”

  Tintoval shook her head. “I think our best hope is still at Benden.”

  “Maybe,” Fiona agreed, “but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.”

  “No,” the healer agreed wholeheartedly. She paused as Fiona turned toward a stairway. “Are we going to visit the sick dragons now?”

  “Not all of them,” Fiona told her. “I doubt we’ll get to see more than ten before dinner.”

  “Dinner doesn’t matter to me if that’ll help,” Tintoval offered.

  “If only it were that easy,” Fiona replied, shaking her head. “But my father always says that ‘hungry stomachs make dull minds.’ ”

  “Does he?” Tintoval replied. “I t
hought that came from Master Zist.”

  Fiona stepped out of the stairwell and turned right, heading toward the third weyr.

  “S’ban’s blue Serth started coughing about a fortnight back,” she murmured to the healer as they slowed at the entrance. She shook her head sadly, raised a warning hand to Tintoval, then called out, “S’ban, it’s Fiona with the new healer!”

  “A new healer,” the voice inside began hopefully. “Does he—”

  He broke off as they entered. S’ban was dressed elegantly in wherhide breeches and a thick blue sweater accented with a gold chain around his neck. For a moment his face showed his surprise at Tintoval, and then it darkened.

  “I’m not sure that Serth will tolerate a woman’s touch,” he warned them. When Fiona opened her mouth to argue, the blue rider amended quickly, “I mean, a woman who is not a queen rider.”

  “S’ban, this is Tintoval,” Fiona said by way of introduction. “She’s just been posted master and assigned here.” The blue rider looked, if anything, even more disturbed at the news.

  “I grew up at Benden,” Tintoval added, moving deftly around S’ban toward his dragon’s lair. When she spotted Serth curled up miserably with his head just barely free of a thick puddle of mucus, she called, “Why, aren’t you the biggest blue I’ve ever seen!” Over her shoulder to S’ban she remarked, “My father’s dragon was a blue—Talerinth.”

  “I met him!” S’ban exclaimed brightly. “T’val was his rider. We competed at the Games before—”

  “Yes,” Tintoval said shortly. “Talerinth was burned by a firestone explosion and they went between.” She grimaced at the memory, adding, “I had six Turns at the time. I was named Tintoval because father convinced my mother that I was going to be a boy—you know how mad blue riders are for sons!”

  “We like daughters, too,” S’ban replied consolingly, moving up to her and looking at her sideways as he continued, “Is that why you chose to be a healer?”

  Tintoval nodded faintly, confessing, “I didn’t know at the time that healers can’t mend broken hearts.”

  S’ban reached for her hand and patted it awkwardly. “I’m sure if anyone could, it would be you.”

  Tintoval smiled at him and, shaking her head to dismiss the issue, turned back to the ailing blue. “Serth, do you mind if I look at you? I can’t promise to help, but I’ll do my best not to hurt.”

  She strode forward to the listless blue’s head and forced herself to ignore the poorly stifled sob of his rider.

  Seeing that the healer was able to handle herself, Fiona quietly made her way past S’ban, found the bucket and mop she’d brought on an earlier visit, and quietly went to work cleaning up the green ooze near Serth’s head.

  “You don’t have to do that,” S’ban protested when he saw her. “I’ll do it later.”

  “I want to help,” Fiona told him, continuing undeterred. She gave him a lopsided smile. “Weyrwoman’s right.”

  Tintoval glanced up at her with a surprised look, then returned to her examination of the blue dragon.

  “His breathing is labored,” she noted. She glanced at his flanks. “And irregular.”

  “We tried some mint salve to ease the breathing,” Fiona told her.

  “And?”

  “It only helped for a short while,” Fiona replied. “I was afraid it could make things worse, open up the lungs to more infection.”

  “I use it at night, to help him sleep,” S’ban said worriedly. “Should I stop?”

  “Does he sleep easier when you do?” Tintoval asked.

  “He seems to,” S’ban replied cautiously.

  Tintoval glanced to Fiona, who shrugged. Then she turned to the blue rider. “I think that if it helps him to sleep, you should keep on doing it. Sleep is one of the body’s best defenses against illness.”

  S’ban nodded in acceptance, but cast a questioning glance toward Fiona.

  “It makes sense to me,” Fiona told him. “Besides, I learned Turns back never to argue with a healer.”

  “Or a harper, I’ll guess,” Tintoval added drolly.

  “I owe my life to a harper turned healer,” Fiona declared.

  “That’s right,” Tintoval said, nodding. “You were at Fort Hold when Kindan—”

  “And you can be certain, S’ban, that Kindan will do no less now to fight this illness than he did to fight the Plague,” Fiona cut in, building smoothly on the healer’s start.

  “He’ll need to be quick, if Serth is going to survive,” S’ban added, his expression bleakly honest.

  “Tintoval,” Fiona murmured to the healer five hours later as they checked in on their tenth sick dragon, “it’s time for dinner.”

  The healer nodded silently, her attention still on the sick brown dragon she was examining.

  “Go on, healer, you need to keep up your strength,” G’trek told her.

  “Will you come with us?” Tintoval asked respectfully.

  G’trek shook his head. “No, I think I’ll stay with Korth, in case he needs anything.”

  “Send word by Talenth if you have need,” Fiona said.

  The brown rider nodded. “You can be certain of it, Weyrwoman.”

  Outside, as they walked briskly toward the stairwell, Tintoval asked, “Wouldn’t he need his dragon to ask to talk to you?”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’ll ask Talenth to listen for him.”

  “And she’s old enough to remember that?”

  “Well, yes,” Fiona replied, surprised at the healer’s question and startled that she’d never considered Talenth’s memory remarkable.

  “Queens grow quicker than other dragons,” Tintoval commented half to herself. “I just never realized quite how capable they are.”

  “I never thought that she couldn’t do that,” Fiona confessed.

  “Perhaps that’s why she can,” Tintoval replied. At Fiona’s surprised look the healer shrugged. “In trying times most people rise to the occasion.”

  Fiona shook her head ruefully, thinking again of Kindan and how he had risen above his despair to save everyone during the Plague. “Like Kindan.”

  “He was the first one to encourage me to consider becoming a healer,” Tintoval told her. “I had barely eight Turns, but he recommended me to K’tan as an understudy.” She shook her head in bemusement at the memory, continuing, “Two Turns later I was at the Harper Hall.”

  “I’m surprised we never met,” Fiona said.

  “We did,” Tintoval told her with a grin. “But you had all of five Turns and you spent all your time in Kindan’s lap.” She winked at Fiona. “I seem to recall it was your birthing day.”

  “It was! I fell asleep,” Fiona remembered. She had never felt more comfortable than curled up on Kindan’s lap.

  “Kindan had a smile on his face the whole time,” Tintoval recalled, adding, “I was quite jealous, of course. Even your father couldn’t prise you away.”

  “I never got to see much of him,” Fiona said, reminiscing. “And I knew on my birthday no one would make me go away.”

  “Wise of you,” Tintoval agreed. “I was never quite that bold.”

  Fiona suddenly found herself uncomfortable talking about Kindan like this. She felt as though her memories got tarnished by being shared so openly.

  “And now, neither of us have him,” Tintoval continued with a distant look in her eyes. “He has eyes only for Lorana, the new queen rider.”

  “So I heard,” Fiona said shortly.

  “But she was here!” Tintoval recalled. “Didn’t you meet her?”

  “No,” Fiona replied, heat rising to her cheeks as she remembered the reason.

  “You weren’t too jealous, were you?” Tintoval asked with a sly grin.

  Her taunt trapped Fiona into either replying or, by her silence, tacitly accepting the jibe. “Actually, I was suffering from a concussion,” she said finally. She told the healer the whole story of how she caught T’mar’s full weight, adding, “Perhaps you would have do
ne differently?”

  “For T’mar?” Tintoval asked with a broad smile. She shook her head. “No, for him I would have done the same thing.” She wagged a finger down at Fiona. “You’ve got quite an eye for the men, if you don’t mind my saying!”

  “I do mind!” Fiona retorted hotly. “I was only trying to save him!”

  Tintoval took a step back from the irate queen rider and spread her arms wide in apology. “Your pardon, Weyrwoman,” she said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Fiona shook her head and gestured for the healer to keep moving as they exited the stairwell and started across the Weyr Bowl. The way was dimly lit with glows and Fiona could make out small groups of riders and weyrfolk heading toward the Dining Cavern.

  “And, actually,” Tintoval continued a moment later, “you raised an interesting problem that I hadn’t considered.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes,” the healer agreed. “The issue of handling riders who are too injured to maintain their mount.”

  “I think it’s pretty rare,” Fiona said with a shrug. “Usually the fighting straps keep them secure, but T’mar was unlucky.”

  “Perhaps we could discover a better way to catch them,” Tintoval murmured thoughtfully. “Maybe something like Kindan’s parachutes?”

  “Wouldn’t they have to be awfully big?” Fiona wondered. They were entering the well-lit Dining Cavern and she paused, glancing around for sight of T’mar.

  “Oh, this feels just like home!” Tintoval exclaimed, her face brightening as she scanned the large room filled with dragonriders and weyrfolk.

  T’mar wasn’t at the Weyrleader’s table.

  “I’m sure that Cisca and K’lior will want to talk with you,” Fiona said, gesturing for the healer to follow her. As they made their way to the back of the cavern, she was pleased to see so many people she recognized and a bit surprised by their reaction to seeing Tintoval for the first time.

  “A woman healer!” “Who would have thought?” “I hear that she was weyrfolk at Benden.” “Benden, eh? So why is she here, then?” “Well, they’ve got a healer, haven’t they?”