Dragonflight

by Anne McCaffrey

  You are to return by the same route to the Lake, he ordered, and before the thought had finished, Ramoth took off.

  Mnementh was beside them above the lake, fuming with his own and F’lar’s anger. You did not visualize before transferring. Don’t think a first successful trip makes you perfect. You have no conception of the dangers inherent in between. Never fail to picture your arrival point again.

  Lessa glanced down at F’lar. Even two wingspans apart, she could see the vivid anger on his face, almost feel the fury flashing from his eyes. And laced through the wrath, a terrible sinking fearfulness for her safety that was a more effective reprimand than his wrath. Lessa’s safety, she wondered bitterly, or Ramoth’s?

  You are to follow us, Mnementh was saying in a calmer tone, rehearsing in your mind the two reference points you have already learned. We shall jump to and from them this morning gradually learning other points around Benden.

  They did. Flying as far away as Benden Hold itself, nestled against the foothills above Benden Valley, the Weyr Peak a far point against the noonday sky, Lessa did not neglect to visualize a clearly detailed impression each time.

  This was as marvelously exciting as she had hoped it would be, Lessa confided to Ramoth. Ramoth replied: yes, it was certainly preferable to the time-consuming methods others had to use, but she didn’t think it was exciting at all to jump between from Benden Weyr to Benden Hold and back to Benden Weyr again. It was dull.

  They had met with Mnementh above the Star Stone again. The bronze dragon sent Lessa the message that this was a very satisfactory initial session. They would practice some distant jumping tomorrow.

  Tomorrow, thought Lessa glumly, some emergency will occur or our hard-working Weyrleader will decide today’s session constitutes keeping his promise and that will be that.

  There was one jump she could make between, from anywhere on Pern, and not miss her mark.

  She visualized Ruatha for Ramoth as seen from the heights above the Hold . . . to satisfy that requirement. To be scrupulously clear, Lessa projected the pattern of the firepits. Before Fax invaded and she had had to manipulate its decline, Ruatha had been such a lovely, prosperous valley. She told Ramoth to jump between.

  The cold was intense and seemed to last for many heartbeats. Just as Lessa began to fear that she had somehow lost them between, they exploded into the air above the Hold. Elation filled her. That for F’lar and his excessive caution! With Ramoth she could jump anywhere! For there was the distinctive pattern of Ruatha’s fire-guttered heights. It was just before dawn, the Breast Pass between Crom and Ruatha, black cones against the lightening gray sky. Fleetingly she noticed the absence of the Red Star that now blazed in the dawn sky. And fleetingly she noticed a difference in the air. Chill, yes, but not wintry . . . the air held that moist coolness of early spring.

  Startled, she glanced downward, wondering if she could have, for all her assurance, erred in some fashion. But no, this was Ruath Hold. The Tower, the inner Court, the aspect of the broad avenue leading down to the crafthold were just as they should be. Wisps of smoke from distant chimneys indicated people were making ready for the day.

  Ramoth caught the tenor of her insecurity and began to press for an explanation.

  This is Ruatha, Lessa replied stoutly. It can be no other. Circle the heights. See, there are the firepit lines I gave you. . . .

  Lessa gasped, the coldness in her stomach freezing her muscles.

  Below her in the slowly lifting predawn gloom, she saw the figures of many men toiling over the breast of the cliff from the hills beyond Ruatha, men moving with quiet stealth like criminals.

  She ordered Ramoth to keep as still as possible in the air so as not to direct their attention upward. The dragon was curious but obedient.

  Who would be attacking Ruatha? It seemed incredible. Lytol was, after all, a former dragonman and had savagely repelled one attack already. Could there possibly be a thought of aggression among the Holds now that F’lar was Weyrleader? And what Hold Lord would be foolish enough to mount a territorial war in the winter?

  No, not winter. The air was definitely springlike.

  The men crept on, over the firepits to the edge of the heights. Suddenly Lessa realized they were lowering rope ladders over the face of the cliff, down toward the open shutters of the Inner Hold.

  Wildly she clutched at Ramoth’s neck, certain of what she saw.

  This was the invader Fax, now dead nearly three Turns—Fax and his men as they began their attack on Ruatha nearly thirteen Turns ago.

  Yes, there was the Tower guard, his face a white blot turned toward the Cliff itself, watching. He had been paid his bribe to stand silent this morning.

  But the watch-wher, trained to give alarm for any intrusion—why was it not trumpeting its warning? Why was it silent?

  Because, Ramoth informed her rider with calm logic, it senses your presence as well as mine, so how could the Hold be in danger?

  No, No! Lessa moaned. What can I do now? How can I wake them? Where is the girl I was? I was asleep, and then I woke. I remember. I dashed from my room. I was so scared. I went down the steps and nearly fell. I knew I had to get to the watch-wher’s kennel. . . . I knew. . . .

  Lessa clutched at Ramoth’s neck for support as past acts and mysteries became devastatingly clear.

  She herself had warned herself, just as it was her presence on the queen dragon that had kept the watch-wher from giving alarm. For as she watched, stunned and speechless, she saw the small, gray-robed figure that could only be herself as a youngster, burst from the Hold Hall door, race uncertainly down the cold stone steps into the Court, and disappear into the watch-wher’s stinking den. Faintly she heard it crying in piteous confusion.

  Just as Lessa-the-girl reached that doubtful sanctuary, Fax’s invaders swooped into the open window embrasures and began the slaughter of her sleeping family.

  “Back—back to the Star Stone!” Lessa cried. In her wide and staring eyes she held the image of the guiding rocks like a rudder for her sanity as well as Ramoth’s direction.

  The intense cold acted as a restorative. And then they were above the quiet, peaceful wintry Weyr as if they had never paradoxically visited Ruatha.

  F’lar and Mnementh were nowhere to be seen.

  Ramoth, however, was unshaken by the experience. She had only gone where she had been told to go and had not quite understood that going where she had been told to go had shocked Lessa. She suggested to her rider that Mnementh had probably followed them to Ruatha so if Lessa would give her the proper references, she’d take her there. Ramoth’s sensible attitude was comforting.

  Lessa carefully drew for Ramoth not the child’s memory of a long-vanished, idyllic Ruatha but her more recent recollection of the Hold, gray, sullen, at dawning, with a Red Star pulsing on the horizon.

  And there they were again, hovering over the Valley, the Hold below them on the right. The grasses grew untended on the heights, dogging firepit and brickwork; the scene showed all the deterioration she had encouraged in her effort to thwart Fax of any profit from conquering Ruath Hold

  But, as she watched, vaguely disturbed, she saw a figure emerge from the kitchen, saw the watch-wher creep from its lair and follow the raggedly dressed figure as far across the Court as the chain permitted. She saw the figure ascend the Tower, gaze first eastward, then northeastward. This was still not Ruatha of today and now! Lessa’s mind reeled, disoriented. This time she had come back to visit herself of three Turns ago, to see the filthy drudge plotting revenge on Fax.

  She felt the absolute cold of between as Ramoth snatched them back, emerging once more above the Star Stone. Lessa was shuddering, her eyes frantically taking in the reassuring sight of the Weyr Bowl, hoping she had not somehow shifted backward in time yet again. Mnementh suddenly erupted into the air a few lengths below and beyond Ramoth. Lessa greeted him with a cry of intense relief.

  Back to your weyr! There was no disguising the white fury in Mnementh’s
tone. Lessa was too unnerved to respond in any way other than instant compliance. Ramoth glided swiftly to their ledge, quickly clearing the perch for Mnementh to land.

  The rage on F’lar’s face as he leaped from Mnementh and advanced on Lessa brought her wits back abruptly. She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.

  “How dare you risk yourself and Ramoth? Why must you defy me at every opportunity? Do you realize what would happen to all Pern if we lost Ramoth? Where did you go?” He was spitting with anger, punctuating each question that tumbled from his lips by giving her a head-wrenching shake.

  “Ruatha,” she managed to say, trying to keep herself erect. She reached out to catch at his arms, but he shook her again.

  “Ruatha? We were there. You weren’t. Where did you go?”

  “Ruatha!” Lessa cried louder, clutching at him distractedly because he kept jerking her off balance. She couldn’t organize her thoughts with him jolting her around.

  She was at Ruatha, Mnementh said firmly.

  We were there twice, Ramoth added.

  As the dragons’ calmer words penetrated F’lar’s fury, he stopped shaking Lessa. She hung limply in his grasp, her hands weakly plucking at his arms, her eyes closed, her face gray. He picked her up and strode rapidly into the queen’s Weyr, the dragons following. He placed her upon the couch, wrapping her tightly in the fur cover. He called down the service shaft for the duty cook to send up hot klah.

  “All right, what happened?” he demanded.

  She didn’t look at him, but he got a glimpse of her haunted eyes. She blinked constantly as if she longed to erase what she had just seen.

  Finally she got herself somewhat under control and said in a low, tired voice, “I did go to Ruatha. Only . . . I went back to Ruatha.”

  “Back to Ruatha?” F’lar repeated the words stupidly; the significance momentarily eluded him.

  It certainly does, Mnementh agreed and flashed to F’lar’s mind the two scenes he had picked out of Ramoth’s memory.

  Staggered by the import of the visualization, F’lar found himself slowly sinking to the edge of the bed.

  “You went between times?”

  She nodded slowly. The terror was beginning to leave her eyes.

  “Between times,” F’lar murmured. “I wonder . . .”

  His mind raced through the possibilities. It might well tip the scales of survival in the Weyr’s favor. He couldn’t think exactly how to use this extraordinary ability, but there must be an advantage in it for dragonfolk.

  The service shaft rumbled. He took the pitcher from the platform and poured two mugs.

  Lessa’s hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t get hers to her lips. He steadied it for her, wondering if going between times would regularly cause this kind of shock. If so, it wouldn’t be any advantage at all. If she’d had enough of a scare this day, she might not be so contemptuous of his orders the next time; which would be to his benefit.

  Outside in the weyr, Mnementh snorted his opinion on that. F’lar ignored him.

  Lessa was trembling violently now. He put an arm around her, pressing the fur against her slender body. He held the mug to her lips, forcing her to drink. He could feel the tremors ease off. She took long, slow, deep breaths between swallows, equally determined to get herself under control. The moment he felt her stiffen under his arm, he released her. He wondered if Lessa had ever had someone to turn to. Certainly not after Fax invaded her family Hold. She had been only eleven, a child. Had hate and revenge been the only emotions the growing girl had practiced?

  She lowered the mug, cradling it in her hands carefully as if it had assumed some undefinable importance to her.

  “Now. Tell me,” he ordered evenly.

  She took a long deep breath and began to speak, her hands tightening around the mug. Her inner turmoil had not lessened; it was merely under control now.

  “Ramoth and I were bored with the weyrling exercises,” she admitted candidly.

  Grimly F’lar recognized that, while the adventure might have taught her to be more circumspect, it had not scared her into obedience. He doubted that anything would.

  “I gave her the picture of Ruatha so we could go between there.” She did not look at him, but her profile was outlined against the dark fur of the rug. “The Ruatha I knew so well—I accidentally sent myself backward in time to the day Fax invaded.”

  Her shock was now comprehensible to him.

  “And . . .” he prompted her, his voice carefully neutral.

  “And I saw myself—” Her voice broke off. With an effort she continued. “I had visualized for Ramoth the designs of the firepits and the angle of the Hold if one looked down from the pits into the Inner Court. That was where we emerged. It was just dawn”—she lifted her chin with a nervous jerk—“and there was no Red Star in the sky.” She gave him a quick, defensive look as if she expected him to contest this detail. “And I saw men creeping over the firepits, lowering rope ladders to the top windows of the Hold. I saw the Tower guard watching. Just watching.” She clenched her teeth at such treachery, and her eyes gleamed malevolently. “And I saw myself run from the Hall into the watch-wher’s lair. And do you know why”—her voice lowered to a bitter whisper—“the watch-wher did not alarm the Hold?”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was a dragon in the sky, and I, Lessa of Ruatha, was on her.” She flung the mug from her as if she wished she could reject the knowledge, too. “Because I was there, the watch-wher did not alarm the Hold, thinking the intrusion legitimate, with one of the Blood on a dragon in the sky. So I”—her body grew rigid, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white—“I was the cause of my family’s massacre. Not Fax! If I had not acted the captious fool today, I would not have been there with Ramoth and the watch-wher would—”

  Her voice had risen to an hysterical pitch of recrimination. He slapped her sharply across the cheeks, grabbing her, robe and all, to shake her.

  The stunned look in her eyes and the tragedy in her face alarmed him. His indignation over her willfulness disappeared. Her unruly independence of mind and spirit attracted him as much as her curious dark beauty. Infuriating as her fractious ways might be, they were too vital a part of her integrity to be exorcised. Her indomitable will had taken a grievous shock today, and her self-confidence had better be restored quickly.

  “On the contrary, Lessa,” he said sternly, “Fax would still have murdered your family. He had planned it very carefully, even to scheduling his attack on the morning when the Tower guard was one who could be bribed. Remember, too, it was dawn and the watch-wher, being a nocturnal beast, blind by daylight, is relieved of responsibility at dawn and knows it. Your presence, damnable as it may appear to you, was not the deciding factor by any means. It did, and I draw your attention to this very important fact, cause you to save yourself, by warning Lessa-the-child. Don’t you see that?”

  “I could have called out,” she murmured, but the frantic look had left her eyes and there was a faint hint of normal color in her lips.

  “If you wish to flail around in guilt, go right ahead,” he said with deliberate callousness.

  Ramoth interjected a thought that, since the two of them had been there that previous time as Fax’s men had prepared to invade, it had already happened, so how could it be changed? The act was inevitable both that day and today. For how else could Lessa have lived to come to the Weyr and impress Ramoth at the hatching?

  Mnementh relayed Ramoth’s message scrupulously, even to imitating Ramoth’s egocentric nuances. F’lar looked sharply at Lessa to see the effect of Ramoth’s astringent observation.

  “Just like Ramoth to have the final word,” she said with a hint of her former droll humor.

  F’lar felt the muscles along his neck and shoulders begin to relax. She’d be all right, he decided, but it might be wiser to make her talk it all out now, to put the whole experience into proper perspective.

&
nbsp; “You said you were there twice?” He leaned back on the couch, watching her closely. “When was the second time?”

  “Can’t you guess?” she asked sarcastically.

  “No,” he lied.

  “When else but the dawn I was awakened, feeling the Red Star was a menace to me? . . . Three days before you and Fax came out of the northeast.”

  “It would seem,” he remarked dryly, “that you were your own premonition both times.”

  She nodded.

  “Have you had any more of these presentiments . . . or should I say reinforced warnings?”

  She shuddered but answered him with more of her old spirit.

  “No, but if I should, you go. I don’t want to.”

  F’lar grinned maliciously.

  “I would, however,” she added, “like to know why and how it could happen.”

  “I’ve never run across a mention of it anywhere,” he told her candidly. “Of course, if you have done it—and you undeniably have,” he assured her hastily at her indignant protest, “it obviously can be done. You say you thought of Ruatha, but you thought of it as it was on that particular day. Certainly a day to be remembered. You thought of spring, before dawn, no Red Star—yes, I remember your mentioning that—so one would have to remember references peculiar to a significant day to return between times to the past.”

  She nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

  “You used the same method the second time, to get to the Ruatha of three Turns ago. Again, of course, it was spring.”

  He rubbed his palms together, then brought his hands down on his knees with an emphatic slap and rose to his feet.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and strode from the room, ignoring her half-articulated cry of warning.

  Ramoth was curling up in the Weyr as he passed her. He noticed that her color remained good in spite of the drain on her energies by the morning’s exercises. She glanced at him, her many-faceted eye already covered by the inner, protective lid.

  Mnementh awaited his rider on the ledge, and the moment F’lar leaped to his neck, took off. He circled upward, hovering above the Star Stone.