“So what is her watch-wher called?” Aleesa asked, eyeing Fiona carefully.
“Nuellask,” Fiona replied.
Aleesa mulled her response over silently for several moments as if debating with herself. Finally, she said to Fiona, “You speak of the future. I will tell you of the past. When Mikal passed away, he said several things, some of which sounded feverish.” She shook her head in reverence for the man and the memories. “I didn’t understand his last word because I thought it was two words, like a question, but he spoke it like a statement.”
“Nuellask,” Fiona guessed. “They say there are some who can travel to the future without a dragon or watch-wher.”
Aleesa heaved with dry, wheezing laughter. “They say!” she repeated, smiling and pointing at Fiona. “You know more than you let on, little weyrling. You know someone, but you don’t want to say who.”
“Craft secret,” Fiona admitted. She tossed her head up in apology. “If it were my craft, I would feel differently, but as it is not, I will respect their wishes.”
“Ha!” Aleesa snorted. “You have just declared them traders!” She smiled triumphantly as she observed the look on Fiona’s face. “I’ve a good idea who, even, but keep your secret, youngling.” She turned to Arella. “I like this one—she’s got nerve and she’s not afraid to use it.” Her gaze returned to Fiona. “Just be careful, weyrling, that you don’t stick your neck under any more knives.”
Fiona found herself rubbing her neck unconsciously, her eyes darting toward Jaythen and then to the knife still on the ground. Would she have talked him out of it if Aleesa hadn’t appeared? She wasn’t certain, but she thought so. Fiona swallowed as the import of her thoughts struck home. She could see how she’d be willing to risk all again, risk without thinking, simply because she was certain that she wouldn’t fail.
“Ah!” Aleesa chuckled, her eyes taking in Fiona’s reaction. “You do learn!”
“I’m stubborn and will fight for what I believe,” Fiona admitted. “But I am willing to listen, willing to reconsider.”
“Except in this,” Aleesa guessed.
“No, even in this,” Fiona replied. “Only in this, I have knowledge of what will be that compels me.”
“You know what will be but not how it will become,” Arella guessed, her lips pursed thoughtfully.
“I think I have the right idea of how it will become,” Fiona persisted.
“And that, my little weyrling, is your danger,” Aleesa told her, nodding firmly.
Fiona felt her face growing hot with embarrassment but she said nothing; there was nothing to say.
Aleesa seemed to sag where she stood; then with a small noise, she turned and started back into the cavern from which she’d appeared, saying faintly, “I am tired. I go to rest.”
Respectfully the others waited until the noise of her slow movements faded into silence. Then, Arella turned back to Fiona.
“What do you need?”
“If she won’t take the egg, weyrling, then our deal is done and we’re through with you,” Jaythen declared when Fiona had gone over her plan with them.
“Agreed.”
“And if you can’t get the wherhold, what then?” Arella asked.
“What would you like instead?” Fiona asked unconcernedly. She knew they would get the wherhold. She didn’t know quite when or how, but she knew that the wherhandlers would get the wherhold. What worried her was that, try as she might, she could remember no mention of Jaythen or Arella in all the conversations she’d heard about the place.
Arella shrugged, undecided. “Something just as good?”
“The best we can find,” Fiona countered. “I only saw one place on the charts where there was gold.”
Arella snorted in reply. “I doubt we’d need the gold ourselves.”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” Jaythen corrected her.
Trying to stifle a yawn, Fiona wracked her brains for anything else that needed resolving.
“You’ve nerves, I’ll grant you that,” Jaythen said, eyeing her approvingly. “But they’ve caught up with you now and you’ll be useless until you’ve slept.”
Fiona wondered if that was all the apology she would ever get from the wherhandler and decided, with another yawn, that at this particular moment she didn’t care.
“Come on,” Arella said, rising from her cross-legged position on the floor, “we’ll find you a place to sleep.” With a look of warning, she added, “I’m afraid it’ll probably be in a room full of squirming children and they’ll think nothing of using you as their pillow.”
Fiona smiled. “I think I’d like that, actually.”
Moments later, Fiona was the center of attention for a group of sleepy-eyed children.
Wake me if Aleesk stirs, Fiona reminded Talenth drowsily.
I will, Talenth promised, sounding tired but intrigued.
Not long after that, with a smile on her lips, Fiona drifted off to sleep in the warmth of massed bodies.
It seemed to Fiona that she had slept for hours but it was still pitch black when she opened her eyes to Talenth’s urgent call: Fiona!
Aleesk? Fiona responded, moving carefully around the children, snagging her shoes as she left and slipping into them just outside the room.
She is outside, Talenth told her. Her rider is with her.
It’s their time, Fiona replied with a dread certainty. Aleesa had reminded her too much of Melanwy, particularly in the way she seemed so tired, so pained by living.
Wake Arella and Jaythen, Fiona told Talenth. Tell them to come outside.
Fiona increased her pace, her hands outstretched to protect her from any walls she might not remember as she retraced her steps to the wherhold’s main entrance, taking a spare moment to marvel at how much she’d learned from her times hunting tunnel snakes.
The smaller moon provided a sliver of illumination that lit the small bowl outside the wherhold. Fiona had no trouble spotting the gold watch-wher as she ambled into the clearing.
“You need to say good-bye,” Fiona called out softly in the night. She heard a groan from the dark shadow beside Aleesk.
“I had hoped to go in peace,” Aleesa replied, turning around, her face now visible in the moonlight.
“First you must say good-bye to your daughter,” Fiona told her. She sensed Aleesa’s annoyance and added, “That’s one thing I still miss with my mother, that I never got to say good-bye.”
“You had only two Turns when the Plague took her!”
“Less, and yet I still wish it,” Fiona said.
A noise from behind her announced the arrival of Arella and Jaythen.
“Mother,” Arella said as soon as she identified Aleesk in the distance.
“It’s time for me to rest,” Aleesa said. “I wanted to try Nuella’s trick and go between with my Aleesk.” She patted the gold watch-wher affectionately. Aleesk gave a quiet noise in agreement.
“But—” Arella’s pleading voice broke off.
“It’s my time,” Aleesa said. “Mikal told me—that was my secret.” Fiona felt the old woman smiling toward her. “He said I’d be seen off by a Weyrwoman, with all honor.”
Fiona felt tears welling in her eyes as she clasped her hands together and bowed low to the old woman and her watch-wher.
“WherMaster, on behalf of all Pern, I honor you,” she said, her voice catching on the word “honor.”
“Arella,” Aleesa said, looking toward her daughter, “I’m sorry I was such a hard mother. You deserved better.”
Arella could make no reply, her eyes streaming with tears. She shook her head helplessly.
“Jaythen,” Aleesa went on, then shook her head in exasperation. “You are the most difficult, stubborn, angry excuse for a man I’ve ever known.” She paused long enough for him to react, before adding, “But I love you like you were part of my heart.” She continued sadly, “You should not be the leader of the wherhold but its hunter and protector.”
“I think I’d like that,” Jaythen
admitted. “I’m not good with people.”
Arella snorted in agreement before turning back to Fiona. “Now, I’ve said my good-byes. It’s time for me to leave.”
Fiona rushed forward beyond Aleesa and knelt at Aleesk’s side, her hands cupped together. “Let me help you mount.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t have more time together,” Aleesa said as she accepted Fiona’s aid and climbed up on the back of her gold. “I’m sure our fights would have been legendary.”
Fiona stepped back as Arella and Jaythen strode up to stand beside Aleesk, Arella still crying wordlessly. Jaythen raised his hand in a stern salute.
“Fly well!” he called.
And in that moment, Aleesk leapt in the air, her wings beating once, twice, and then she was gone, between, leaving only a bitterly cold wind behind in her place.
Arella wailed, burying her head in Jaythen’s chest.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Fiona’s promise rang in her ears as she watched Zirenth spiral upward and blink once more between.
“We’ll give you a fortnight,” Jaythen had told her. “After that, we’ll be gone. You’ll never find us.”
“You’ll go faster with dragon help,” Fiona had told him.
“Yes, we would,” Jaythen had admitted dubiously.
Now, as Fiona trudged up the gravel road toward Mine Natalon, the bulk of a well-insulated egg thumping hard against her shoulders in the backpack she wore, she found herself wrapped in doubt. How could she be so sure that the queen in this gold egg was the one with which Nuella had bonded?
And why would Nuella want to leave this place, the mine of her father? And hadn’t Kindan said that she had a mate, Kindan’s childhood friend, Zenor? What would entice him to leave his home and family?
And why now? Only she—Fiona—and the dragonriders at Igen had any need for urgency. Nuella had Turns.
Fiona swore angrily to herself as she continued to trudge up to the coal mine. Stubborn! Why must you be so stubborn?
She was so certain that she was on the right course, had found the path from the now of this past to the then of her future. But the only way she’d know for certain was if she knew that the dragonriders at Igen had found their food, found their supplies, and had founded the wherhold—and that knowledge was in her future, and so unknown.
What, Fiona wondered irritatedly to herself, was the use of being able to go between times if you couldn’t be certain how the future came to be?
A smile crossed her lips as she realized how silly the notion was—and then the smile faded as she again tried to grapple with the complexities of traveling between times.
One day at a time, she told herself, repeating one of Kindan’s favorite sayings.
The sound of barking alerted her to her nearness to the mine hold. A thrill of excitement, mingled with the tang of dread, coursed through her veins as she realized that she was committed now, that there was no going back.
She recalled what she’d seen of Nuella, Threadscored, insisting that she had to lead the watch-whers in their night flight, and picked up her pace, anxious to meet the young girl who would become that brave, inspiring woman.
She was surprised to see many houses in the open, most of them in varying states of disrepair. Then she remembered: the Plague. Still, in two Turns, surely there would have been more recovery than this?
She looked upward, toward the mountains, and saw the flat face of a proper hold, carved into the mountainside. A faint wisp of smoke rose in the mid-morning air, her first sign that the place wasn’t totally abandoned.
A dog ran around her, its tail raised, barking happily.
“Hello,” Fiona said to it, trying to identify the breed. Her father had kept several varieties of dogs spread throughout Fort Hold: sheepdogs for the sheep, cattledogs for cattle, guard dogs, vermin hunters, fowl hunters, and pets.
This dog looked like it might be either a hunting dog or a guard dog. But something about it—
She was startled when the dog, circling around behind her, jumped on her back, knocking her over. Her start turned to fear as she heard its growl.
The sound of an arrow whizzing through the air ended in a sharp shriek from the dog.
“Run, girl!” someone shouted. “He’s injured—he’ll maul you for certain!”
Fiona needed no more urging. Scrabbling to her hands and knees, she staggered to her feet, the weight of the backpack with the queen egg packed in warm sand making her movements awkward.
Another arrow whizzed.
“Faster! Dump your pack!”
“I can’t!” Fiona cried in despair, her feet feeling leaden as she tried to pick up speed and set her course toward the stone stairs leading to the proper hold. She felt teeth bite into her calf and stumbled, nearly fell, then picked herself up again.
“I can’t shoot—I’ll hit you!” the archer shouted. “Drop the pack!”
“No!” Fiona shouted, unwilling to give up her mission even as she felt blood flowing down her leg and into her shoe. She had to get away! She had to get—
Talenth! Fiona cried. Send the dog away!
There was a moment of shock as Talenth recognized that something was horribly wrong with her rider, and then Fiona heard a loud wail and the dog let go. There was the thunk of an arrow hitting flesh, but Fiona barely heard it.
You’re hurt! Talenth cried in despair.
I’m fine now, thanks to you, Fiona assured her. I’ve got a scratch but I’ll be fine. Even as she said the words, she wasn’t certain. A wave of nausea overwhelmed her, and she just had time to realize that she didn’t know if she would survive to return to the future before she stumbled. Instead of rolling, she took her full weight on her hands and felt the shock spread up through her arms and into her shoulders even as her strength gave and she collapsed, burying her face in the cold hard dirt, and then she remembered no more.
FIFTEEN
Rider to your dragon hew
Lest any harm should come to you.
Igen Weyr, Morning, AL 498.8.12
Talenth! Fiona’s first thoughts were for her dragon.
I am here. Talenth sounded calm, but her voice carried an undertone of relief. You are all right! She said you would be.
Fiona wondered briefly if her dragon meant Nuella or the voice that they had heard before, the voice of the mysterious Weyrwoman.
The egg?
It will hatch soon, Talenth told her. It is good you are better.
“Lie still,” a voice—male—ordered her firmly.
Fiona groaned and struggled to get up.
“Lie still or I’ll dose you with more fellis juice,” the voice ordered with a hint of exasperation.
“I don’t like sleeping face down,” Fiona said, her words muffled by the pillow under her.
“Then you should have thought of that before you got mangled,” she was told. She heard someone move in a chair beside her, heard the rasp of a glow stone being turned, and from the corner of her eye she could tell that the room filled with a soft blue glow. “Don’t move your leg,” the man cautioned her, “but tell me how you feel.”
“Fine,” Fiona responded irritably. “I’ve got to get up, I’ve got to—”
“Rest,” the man interjected. “You’ve got to rest.”
“But the egg!”
The man’s breath stilled chillingly.
“The egg is all right, isn’t it?” Fiona asked, worried by the silence. “Talenth told me—”
“She did, did she?” the man asked, sounding amused. “You spoke of her a lot in your sleep but no one here has ever heard of a Talenth.”
“What else did I say?” Fiona asked, wondering how much she might have to tell and how much she might have revealed already. “How long—”
“You’ve been here two days,” the man told her. “Most of it dosed with fellis juice to keep you from jumping up and tearing your leg irreparably.”
“The dog bit me,” Fiona said, her tone calculating. “His teeth
dug in but I don’t think he got a tendon. I think he only mangled the calf.” She paused, considering the wound critically. “It should heal in a sevenday, maybe two.”
“It should, if it’s not infected,” the man agreed, sounding impressed with her diagnosis. “Are you a healer, too?”
“I’ve had to tend the sick and injured,” Fiona replied, carefully guarding her words as she realized that the man still hadn’t answered her question.
“Ah, yes,” the man said in a tone that sounded agreeable but was tinged with lingering doubt, “part of your duties as Weyrwoman, no doubt.”
Fiona stifled a groan. “You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t put much credence in words murmured in delirium,” the man corrected her. She got the impression that he hadn’t altered his opinion now that she was awake.
“Do you think I’m still delirious?” Fiona asked, then added, “Was I delirious?”
“You certainly sounded like it,” the man told her. “But now that you seem to be awake and—” His hand touched her brow quickly, professionally. “—not fevered, I may have to alter my opinion.”
“What did I say?” Fiona repeated her original question. “And,” she added tetchily, “who did I say it to?”
“You said it mostly to me, Zenor,” the man replied.
“Mostly?”
“There were others earlier,” Zenor told her calmly.
“Well, Zenor—wait a moment!—you’re Kindan’s friend!”
“Yes,” the man said. “You mentioned him in your sleep, too.” There was something odd in his tone, humorous but somewhat more than that—Fiona couldn’t place it. “And the mystery Weyrwoman. Is that you?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona confessed.
“You were most urgent,” Zenor said. “You said that you were from the future, that you had to see Nuella, that you hoped you weren’t too late and—”
Fiona groaned loudly, furious with her indiscretion.
“You did seem worried about the future—you kept saying you had to get back.”
“Shards!”
“And something about gold, which aroused quite a lot of interest, particularly mine,” Zenor told her.
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