Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne; Todd J. Mccaffrey Mccaffrey

  “You will have to keep your fire-lizards from them,” Lorana said, continuing her train of thought. Moments later she was finished, having recalled all she could. As she waited for them to digest her proposal, certain looks and movements that had occured amongst them while she’d talked took on a new meaning, and she said, “You’ve been using Igen as a depot, right?”

  Tenniz chuckled at the expressions of surprise on Azeez’s and Mother Karina’s faces. “Beacon!”

  “We have,” Azeez agreed. “Do we need to stop?”

  “It would help if you could clean the quarters somewhat,” Lorana said. “When they arrive, they’ll have injuries and younglings.”

  “I see you didn’t answer the question,” Azeez said, eyes twinkling. “But we will do as you ask.”

  “Thank you,” Lorana said. “And when you see them, say nothing of me.”

  “Of course,” Karina agreed. “But it is getting later, we’ve had our meal, our custom is to rest in the shade before nightfall and then move on.”

  Lorana yawned at the notion.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Javissa offered. “You can sleep here, or in the caravan.”

  “Here would be cooler,” Azeez noted. “A nap would be good,” Lorana agreed.

  It took a while to settle, partly because Jeriz was fussy. Lorana held her arms out in offer to Javissa, who passed the baby over shyly and with only a trace of reluctance. Jeriz whimpered at first in the taller woman’s arms, but then smiled and drifted to sleep, rocked quickly to drowsiness by Lorana’s greater height, which gave her rocking motions greater sway.

  “He never does that with strangers,” Javissa said in an awed whisper as she took him back and lay next to him on the pile of cushions that the other traders had set out.

  “He’s nearing two, isn’t he?” Lorana asked, eyeing the boy. He was not large, his bones thin and small like his mother’s.

  “People think he is younger,” Javissa said, with past affronts remembered.

  “You are hoping for another?” Lorana said, just turning her words into a question at the last moment. Javissa nodded shyly. “A girl?” Javissa smiled. “Is that a seeing?”

  “Most mothers want at least one girl if they’ve got a boy,” Lorana said, dodging the question. She yawned once more and closed her eyes, easing her breathing. Beside her she heard Javissa yawn in sympathy and then the ligher sounds of her breathing and the faster, much lighter sound of the baby.

  It was near dark when she woke and she looked up suddenly, startled. Tenniz was staring down at her.

  “I have seen you like this,” he said in a low voice laced with wonder and fear.

  “You have,” Lorana agreed.

  “You were sick, you needed help,” Tenniz said. “And I had everything I needed.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an image of you crying, cold hard rocks, a flat high place,” Tenniz continued. Lorana lowered her chin in a nod, and sighed deeply, near a sob. “This is when we first met?”

  “Yes,” Lorana said.

  “And it makes you sad,” Tenniz observed with an expression of apology on his face.

  “It was a good thing,” she assured him. “You helped more than you know.”

  “Be careful when you say that to a seer!” Tenniz told her with a chuckle.

  Lorana’s lips twitched upward in agreement.

  “I couldn’t tell you at the time,” Lorana said, rolling to her side and propping herself on one arm. “I want you to know now that you helped me a great deal.”

  “Thank you,” Tenniz said. “That’s a comfort.”

  Lorana moved and pushed herself into a squatting position. Her head was slightly above Tenniz’s, but she met his eyes. “What do you know of that future?”

  “That I can tell you?” Tenniz asked. Lorana nodded. “You’ve been there already.” Lorana nodded again. Tenniz shook his head in wonder at the notion. “Is it hard to travel through time?”

  “Not so much physically as it is emotionally,” Lorana said, “at least, for me.”

  Tenniz’s eyes took on a slightly wistful look, but he shook his head and cleared them before saying, “I know that I die before my daughter is born.”

  “Is Javissa pregnant already?”

  Tenniz shook his head. “We’re trying; soon.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “How do I know that I won’t tell you something you don’t know already?”

  “I’ll stop you if you try,” Lorana swore. “And will you tell me things I don’t know?”

  “Perhaps,” Lorana said. “If it seems right.”

  “Fair enough,” Tenniz said after a moment. “I know that when we meet, I will die.” Lorana nodded. “And you will bury me.” Lorana’s eyes clouded with tears even as she nodded, her lips trembling. “And that will be a great honor. No seer has been buried by a Beacon.”

  “It’s an honor I would prefer you avoid,” Lorana told him.

  “Yes,” Tenniz agreed. He gave a sad sigh, then continued, “But we cannot break time.”

  “J’trel tried; he failed,” Lorana agreed.

  “Rides a blue in Ista, correct?”

  Lorana nodded. “He saved my life.”

  “All honor to him.”

  The rest of the camp stirred. Jeriz was tetchy and calmed, once more, in Lorana’s arms. She passed him back reluctantly, saying, “I must go.”

  “Will we see you again?” Karina asked.

  Lorana shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. Then, with a grin, she pointed at Tenniz. “Ask him.”

  Where are we going? Minith asked as they rose above the clearing in the star-lit night.

  The Dawn Sisters, Lorana told her. Let’s see what they see. She formed the image in her mind, and Minith took them between.

  Lorana paid no attention to the great ships above and beside her, peering instantly over Minith’s neck to view the ground below. As she’d hoped, Tillek tip and the west coast of Pern were just barely visible as dark smudges on the horizon. Below her, bathed in sunlight—

  “I never heard of this!” Lorana said in astonishment. She was about to order Minith down to the new land spreading below them when she felt it.

  Something stirred nearby. She turned in her seat, craned her neck up, looking for movement. Only the three great ships, Yokohama nearest. The ship appeared no different but it felt different.

  Almost … Lorana tried to recall a memory of a similar feeling. Yes, almost but not quite like what she’d felt at Tillek when they’d returned the ancient artifacts to the sea. Something had been alive there, in the deeps off Tillek tip.

  Tentatively she stretched her senses. Nothing. Or perhaps … something sleeping, dreaming deep thoughts unlike any she’d felt before.

  Minith, do you feel something?

  Cold, the dragon replied instantly.

  Let’s go, Lorana said, setting in her mind a closer image of the lands she’d seen below.

  They arrived at a promontory and began a long, slow sweep of the land beneath them. It was lush, green, luxuriant. There were no clearings or any sign of the presence of man.

  This will do, Lorana said, urging Minith back between. She had work to do now. We have the place, let’s see if we can use it.

  Lorana patted Minith affectionately as they glided silently into Fort Weyr’s Bowl in the dark of night. The watch dragon had been happy to let her rider sleep and agreed to forget their arrival. It was cold, snow clung to the top of the heights, decorated the Weyr Bowl below, muffling all sound.

  Minith touched down with exquisite delicacy. Lorana stretched her senses and smiled. Fiona.

  She felt the much younger girl wake, even as she felt Talenth’s alert questioning mind, not all that much different from the full-grown queen she would meet in the future at Telgar Weyr. But now both rider and queen were young, untested.

  No one else arrived stealthily in the dead of night to join her, so Lorana knew that it was up to he
r to lead Fiona back in time to Igen Weyr.

  Lorana spoke to Talenth, heard Fiona’s question, the queen’s response even as she climbed down from the Benden queen and sent silent orders to the dragonets in the weyrling barracks. Presently, Lorana saw the small form of the new queen rider stick her head out of the queen’s weyr. Lorana, used to the slightly taller and much more self-possessed Fiona of Telgar times, was amused by the hesitancy she saw in this younger counterpart.

  She smiled to herself as Fiona came down the queens’ ledge and toward them.

  “Get dressed,” Lorana said, feeling tendrils of curiosity emanating from Melirth’s weyr. “We must be quick. We can’t wake the others.” Lorana restrained an urge to hug Fiona; to feel the kind heart and brilliance of the younger woman again would be almost like … home. She saw Fiona looking at her, trying to determine her features.

  “Why? Where are we going?” Fiona asked.

  “Igen,” Lorana said, challenging Fiona into action.

  “I can’t leave Talenth.”

  “She comes, too,” Lorana said. “And the weyrlings.” She glanced at the barracks, urged the dragonets to speed. “They’re coming now.” She saw doubt in Fiona’s eyes. “We have to hurry. They need to see you and Talenth go or they won’t follow.”

  “Follow?”

  “They need to come with you to Igen.”

  “How do you know?” Fiona asked. “It’s already happened,” Lorana told her. “You’re from the future!”

  “You must hurry,” Lorana said, suddenly worried that something would go wrong, something Fiona hadn’t mentioned.

  “Xhinna,” Fiona cried, turning back toward her weyr. “I need to—”

  “She stays.” Lorana turned, alerted by Minith, toward a figure racing from the Living Caverns. Again, she had to keep herself from calling out with joy as Terin, much younger, still a child, raced toward them. “You may come.”

  Talenth crept out of her weyr, glancing furtively at Melirth’s quarters, and hopped from her ledge onto the soft snow below.

  “We can’t go between,” Fiona protested. “And Talenth is too young to carry my weight.”

  “You’ll ride with me,” Lorana said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of this beforehand. “As for between … you’ll have to trust me.”

  Lorana turned as she heard noise from the weyrling barracks and spotted two boys.

  “Hurry!” she told Fiona, charging back to Minith and climbing quickly to her neck. She leaned down and held a hand out to Fiona. “I know when we’re going!”

  “Talenth will be safe, won’t she?”

  “My word on it,” Lorana said, grasping Fiona’s hand and pulling her up. It was strange having the weyrwoman riding behind her. “Quickly, they must see us go between.”

  Talenth!

  I have the image, I can see where to go, Talenth responded calmly.

  “Doesn’t she have to be flying?” Fiona asked.

  Lorana smiled. “Talenth, jump!”

  They went between, Lorana feeling for and holding the little queen’s presence firmly in her mind. She heard Fiona call frantically, Talenth! and heard the queen’s unfazed response: I am here. We are fine.

  It will be longer than normal, we are going back in time, Lorana told Fiona to calm the girl.

  Don’t you need to go to Igen now first?

  I’ve already been there, Lorana said, surprised at how familiar and yet, how different, Fiona’s mind felt. She felt the young girl’s growing sense of wonder, felt her wonder to herself if perhaps Lorana was really Fiona, herself, from the future.

  In a way, Lorana thought, she’s right. It was strange, Lorana thought, how much of what Fiona is learning from me now, I learned from her later. She took heart in that, pulling forth Fiona’s unconquerable optimism and armoring herself with it.

  Whee! Look how high I am! Talenth exclaimed with joy as they burst out into the warm morning Igen air, slightly more than ten Turns back in time from when they’d started.

  Careful! Just glide down, Fiona cautioned.

  Okay, Talenth said, disappointed.

  “This is Igen Weyr,” Lorana called over her shoulder. “Your new home.”

  “It’s awfully warm. I thought it would be cold and windy, even here.”

  “We are slightly more than ten Turns back in time,” Lorana said, remembering Fiona’s exclamation when she’d recounted the tale Turns from now. “I thought you’d prefer to start with warmer weather. This is the second day of the seventh month of the four hundred and ninety-eighth Turn since Landing.”

  Minith landed lightly and Lorana turned to Fiona. “Get down.”

  As soon as Fiona touched the ground, Lorana urged Minith back into the air, eager for the next stage of the journey.

  Lorana and Minith returned to Fort Weyr and quickly arranged the weyrlings.

  “Fiona is waiting for you,” was her response to any objection. F’jian and J’nos rallied any waverers and soon they were following the strange queen between back in time to Igen Weyr and the lonely Fiona.

  F’jian spotted Fiona as she ordered Talenth out of the way of the swarm of weyrlings. “Did you see us?” he called as Ladirth came to a halt. “We flew!”

  “We only glided,” J’nos corrected as he slid down his brown’s foreleg. “But we went between!”

  Lorana was pleased when F’jian told Fiona, “If we hadn’t seen you do it, we wouldn’t have dared to try.”

  “Where is everyone else?” J’nos asked, looking around the Weyr expectantly.

  Lorana listened to Fiona and the weyrlings gabble in a distracted manner until Fiona steeled herself and came to her.

  “Hello!” Fiona called up. “Can you bring back the other injured dragons and riders?”

  Yes, Lorana thought. Instead, she said, “For that I’ll need help.”

  “I don’t think we could give you any help,” Fiona said reluctantly, gesturing to the dragonets. “They’re too small; it’s a wonder they managed to get here at all.”

  “Oh, it’s no wonder,” Lorana said with a laugh. “And I’m sure you’ll be able to help with what needs doing.”

  Lorana urged Minith upward and between once more.

  She arrived again in Fort Weyr. This was the moment she had been waiting for, ever since she realized who it was who brought Fiona back in time to Igen Weyr. Now she would get the answer to the question: Who had helped her with the injured dragons and riders? Who was the other mystery queen rider?

  As Minith sloped her way toward the ground, Lorana saw that the bowl was full of activity, all quiet, all muffled by the night and the snow.

  Her heart leaped when she felt Talenth’s touch and she cried with joy when she saw Fiona look up and wave at her. She landed right beside the queen and rider, racing to give her a hug.

  “It’s so good to see you!” the two women said simultaneously, falling into each other’s arms with relief and tears. It did not last long. Fiona broke the embrace first. “We have to hurry.”

  “So it was you,” Lorana said. “The second queen rider.”

  “And did you notice our accomplices?” Fiona asked, waving a hand toward the others. Lorana recognized J’nos and J’gerd.

  “Where’s F’jian?” Lorana asked in surprise.

  “I can’t tell you,” Fiona said, her face abruptly void of expression. Then her humor slipped back into her and she grinned. “But when you find out, you’ll be pleased.”

  Quickly they arranged for the injured riders to be carried, the injured dragons to be escorted, and, with the merest leap, all went between to the warmer climes of Igen, to rest, recover, and grow.

  They stayed only long enough to deposit their charges and for Lorana to see young Fiona waver, wobble, even as the older one seemed to shrink in on herself. Too many me in the same time, Fiona apologized, jumping between with the others as soon as she could. Lorana followed suit, but did not follow them.

  It was a merry meeting, Lorana told herself as she consider
ed her next steps now that she knew that she could bring young weyrlings safely through time.

  Weyrwoman, to your duty hew

  With honors many and comforts few

  Bronzes may your queen outfly

  As you soar about the sky.

  They made Jeila as comfortable as they could and Fiona insisted on staying with her until H’nez was free from his duties.

  “How is she?” the gaunt dragonrider, eyes hollow with fatigue and worry, asked when he relieved her.

  “The bleeding’s stopped,” Fiona said. “Bekka’s sure there’s no lasting harm.” She met H’nez’s eyes. “She could get pregnant again.”

  “But—just a fall!”

  “It was exactly the wrong type of fall,” Fiona said. “It put too much stress on an already stressed body.” She grimaced. “Bekka says that sometimes a person will miscarry because stresses are too great, times too hard.”

  “I see,” H’nez said. He looked down tenderly at the sleeping weyrwoman, then glanced questioningly at Fiona.

  “She’s still concussed,” Fiona said. “She’ll feel awful in the morning, but we can’t give her any fellis until we’re sure she’s recovered.”

  H’nez nodded. “Thank you, Weyrwoman.”

  “Call me if you need anything,” Fiona said, rising from her bedside seat. At the exit into Ginirth’s weyr, she turned back. “H’nez, I’m sorry.”

  The tall rider had already taken Fiona’s seat beside Jeila and was gently stroking the unconscious weyrwoman’s hair. He waved a hand in acknowledgment. With a sigh, Fiona left.

  The injured were all tended, the task ably handled by Birentir and Bekka. Kindan was shepherding the weyrlings back to their quarters. T’mar was in Shaneese’s care; Fiona suspected a lot of wine was involved.

  Having run down her list of responsibilities, Fiona turned toward Terin’s quarters.

  Jeriz sat beside Terin’s bed, much the same as Fiona had sat with Jeila earlier. He started when Fiona laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “How is she?”

  “Sleeping,” Jeriz said. He looked up at Fiona with worried eyes. “And Jeila?”

  “The same,” Fiona told him.