Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne; Todd J. Mccaffrey Mccaffrey

  “I didn’t ask her,” Lorana confessed.

  Talenth, did you hear voices? Fiona asked her dragon.

  Yes.

  “Talenth heard them,” Fiona said. “What did they say?”

  “The woman’s said something like: ‘Can’t lose the babies!’ ” Lorana said. “And the man said: ‘The Weyrs! They must be warned!’ ”

  “That was D’gan,” Kindan said instantly, looking at Lorana. “Don’t you remember? He said that when Telgar went between forever.”

  “Could they still be there?” Fiona asked, horrified at the thought.

  “We didn’t hear them when we came forward from Igen,” Terin said.

  “We came back in time before they were lost,” Fiona reminded her. Abashed, Terin nodded in recollection.

  “Why didn’t we hear them coming back?” T’mar wondered. “And what about the other voice?” Kindan asked. “A woman’s.”

  Lorana looked at Fiona. “I thought it was you.”

  “Me?” Fiona asked as a chill of fear swept over her. She shook it off angrily. “After all we’ve been through, I’m going to be certain that I’ll have my babies here.”

  “Babies?” Lorana repeated in surprise.

  “Bekka thinks I’m having twins,” Fiona told her.

  “Which is why as soon as you eat, you’ll take some rest,” Shaneese told her. “And Jirana will keep an eye on you.”

  “I don’t know how I can sleep in this heat,” Fiona said. She saw Terin start to speak and rushed on, “It’s not like Igen. I’m sticky all the time.”

  Terin nodded in understanding. “There’s too much water in the air, I feel like a fish.”

  “It feels like home to me,” Jassi confessed.

  “In the desert, we learned the ways of the desert folk,” T’mar said, nodding at Shaneese and Jirana. “What advice, sea person, do you have for us?”

  “Wide windows, lots of fans, dress loose and cool,” Jassi said, ticking each point off on a finger.

  Lorana’s eyes narrowed and she looked at Kindan and T’mar, asking, “I’m curious, why did you choose this location?”

  “We found a rocky promonitory, but it was too small,” Kindan said with a shrug. “This is slightly better.”

  “When we start building,” T’mar added, “we’ll build more inland, clearing the trees and undergrowth.”

  “You’ll have to keep trimming it,” Jassi cautioned. “This island is wetter than Ista and it takes constant effort there to keep the brush back.”

  “Are you familiar with any of the vegetation here?” Lorana asked the blonde.

  “Is there anything we can eat?” Shaneese added.

  Jassi frowned. “I haven’t seen much, yet.”

  “We’ve been busy just settling in,” Fiona explained. “We’ve only been here two days; this is just a camp until we figure out where to settle.”

  Lorana nodded. Fiona grinned at her. “Perhaps you and Jassi would be willing to scout around?”

  “I can come,” Kindan offered. Fiona glanced toward T’mar, who frowned for a moment in thought. “I can make and shoot a bow,” Kindan added as he saw the Weyrleader’s hesitation.

  “Very well,” T’mar agreed. As they started to move, he held up a cautioning hand. “But you’ve got to turn over your Weyrlingmaster duties to someone while you’re gone.” Kindan nodded readily, but T’mar wasn’t finished. “And then you’ve got to teach everyone what you know of woodcraft.”

  “I know some, too,” Lorana added.

  “Good, then you can teach together,” T’mar said with a grin. To Kindan he said, “Who should take over as weyrlingmaster?”

  “Terin,” Fiona said immediately. The young weyrwoman made a startled sound, but Fiona waved a finger at her peremptorily. “And Lin, and Jassi, and—who are the other queen riders?”

  “Oh,” T’mar said, his eyes widening in delight. “Very good, well said, Weyrwoman.”

  Jassi and Terin both looked perplexed. It was Lorana who spoke first. “That way none of the weyrlings will feel confused, seeing their own queen riders, and you will all get experience in leading—which will stand you in good stead later.”

  Fiona nodded and smiled at the older woman. “If you get confused or need help, look to Xhinna and her mate, Taria. They’re good at organizing younguns, they’ll handle the weyrlings just as easily.”

  “Garra is from Fort, Indeera from High Reaches,” Lorana told Fiona. “Their queens are Niloth and Morurth.”

  “Oh, yes!” Fiona said, smiling again. “If you get really lost, have your dragons bespeak Lorana. All the dragons talk to her.”

  As Lorana started away, leading Kindan toward Talenth, she paused and glanced around. “Where’s Seban?”

  “Father stayed behind,” Bekka said with a sniff. “He said that we’d be gone a long time here, but only a wink for the rest; he was afraid that he’d be too old when we got back.”

  “That makes sense,” Lorana agreed. She looked at Bekka’s shoulder, and pointed to the journeyman knot. “And we’ve clearly got all the healers we need.”

  Bekka’s lips curved upward in pleasure at the compliment.

  By the end of the month, they’d staked a location, sketched out and designed by Fiona and Jassi, who both had the most experience in setting up living quarters, and had laid out a ring of stakes from the trees they’d removed, set close together to provide protection from the marauding Mrreows. Inside the Weyrhold, as Fiona had taken to calling it, they had finished some crude buildings and were starting on a more complex stone building.

  The dragons had to weather the rains that swept in frequently, which pleased no one, but all their scouting had revealed no location any better than the one they’d chosen—nothing at all like a proper weyr or a even a decent mountainside.

  “I suppose, if we can figure it, we can build into the ground,” T’mar had suggested. Jassi shook her head. “If the weather’s like it is in Ista, the ground will be too wet and it would flood in a heavy rain.”

  “So how are we going to protect the dragons?” Fiona wondered.

  “We could build large houses for them,” Jassi suggested.

  “If we could get enough canvas, we could rig tents,” Javissa said.

  “How much canvas would we need?”

  “About four dragonlengths long by one dragonlength wide for each dragon,” Terin said. “Assuming you’re willing to put up with openings at each end and a height just high enough for a dragon to stand under.”

  “The weyrlings won’t need that much space,” Kindan said.

  “They will when they get bigger,” Fiona said.

  “Then we’ll need seven hundred and eight square dragonlengths of canvas,” Terin said.

  “I doubt all the Masterfisherman’s crafters make more than fifty dragonlengths of canvas a Turn,” Jassi said.

  “I think I understand why our ancestors chose to use the Weyrs,” Fiona said with feeling.

  “And perhaps also why they chose not to come here,” Kindan said.

  “If we went back in time to the time of Igen, and the clothmakers doubled their work, they could make seven hundred dragonlengths in those seven Turns,” Terin suggested.

  “They’d need half of that for the ships,” Jassi pointed out. She shook her head, adding, “I don’t recall any order like that, or anything close in the past seven Turns.”

  “And it’s not something that wouldn’t be noticed,” Kindan agreed grimly.

  “So we need a different solution,” Fiona said. She looked at Kindan. “Could we quarry enough rock?”

  “How would you make the roof?” T’mar challenged.

  “We use leaves,” Jassi said, eyes going wide. “The shore is full of palms, and sailors have used them for ages to make quick shelters.”

  “They’d dry out,” Kindan objected.

  “So we replace them,” Fiona said with a dismissive shrug. She turned back to Jassi. “How many would we need?”

  “I’m n
ot sure,” Jassi admitted. “There’s an art to making that sort of covering.”

  “Are there any among your weyrlings who might know?” T’mar asked.

  “We should ask them,” Fiona said, gesturing outside their shelter.

  “It’s nearly dinner,” Shaneese said. They’d had luck enough in finding several patches of tubers, some of which they’d transplanted into their compound, and Jassi had located several edible vegetables, but they were running low on spices and had yet to find a decent stand of klah trees. Fiona didn’t mind that nearly as much as the others, content to drink the plentiful juice from the various succulent fruits that had been found scattered readily throughout the island.

  “Maybe tomorrow we should scout the western half,” Lorana suggested, “maybe we’ll find a better place there.”

  They had stopped at the great river that stretched nearly the whole length of the Great Isle, splitting it into western and eastern halves. The explored eastern half was nearly as large as all the Telgar plain. In all of it, mysteriously, they had spotted no animals larger than the herdbeasts they’d imported Turns before. They’d found several clutches of wherry eggs, but had found few wherries themselves. Half the wherry eggs Kindan had tried proved to have been already eaten by the ever-present tunnel snakes. He’d only managed to find two in all their exploration that were unhatched and had brought them, triumphantly, back to be cooked and served to Fiona, who craved them with a passion that surprised her.

  In fact, if Fiona hadn’t thought herself properly pregnant before, she was making up for it now in her ninth week of pregnancy. Smells began to affect her and foods she’d never liked she now craved, while those she’d adored she found she could no longer stomach.

  “And I think they’re fighting in there,” Fiona had complained to an amused Bekka after one night of terrible heartburn.

  Unbeknownst to her, Bekka had spoken with Lorana, Kindan, and T’mar. She’d invited Javissa to join them, as the older trader had the most recent practical experience with growing children.

  “We’re beginning to run out of medicines,” Bekka told them. “I’m worried about what Fiona’s eating, she’ll start to get cravings—as will Shaneese—and we may not have what she needs on hand.”

  “We need something to trade,” T’mar said. “And we need to do it in such a way that no one will notice.”

  “There’s no one here to trade with,” Bekka reminded him.

  “I know that, child.” T’mar smiled at her and shook his head. “So we’ll have to trade with the Northern Continent, discreetly.”

  “Those brightfish might fetch a fair mark,” Lorana said. The brightfish were the catch of choice amongst both rider and dragon. The meat was not fishy, being pink in color and tasting tantalizingly of the best meat—with just a little something different and spicy. Jirana had said it best when she’d said that it tasted like a smoked meat. But the fish itself was bright and easily spotted from the air, so the name brightfish was given to it and quickly stuck. “And we could maybe work with the fishermen or traders to the fishermen so there’ll be no questions.” She frowned for a moment as she remembered Colfet, the man who had saved her when the sailship Wind Rider had foundered. What had happened to him?

  “Whitefish, too,” Bekka said. “It’s less tasty, but it goes well with the tubers.”

  “When fried and served with vinegar,” Kindan agreed, his eyes going wide with pleasure.

  “Cromcoal would help,” Shaneese pointed out. “And we’ll need some wine or we’ll have to make it ourselves if we want more vinegar.”

  They’d found some wild grapes growing, but had only harvested them as fruit as they were too few for a decent batch of wine.

  Fellis they’d found in plenty and numbweed, too.

  “We need something small that we can trade,” T’mar mused.

  “What about ice, from the Snowy Wastes?” Kindan suggested. “That worked well before.”

  “There’s a thriving ice trade already,” T’mar said.

  “How do you know that’s not us?” Lorana asked with a ghost of a smile.

  T’mar frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head. “It might even be, when the weyrlings are old enough to fly, but not now—we’ve got too much work for our grown dragons as it is.”

  “I’m beginning to understand tithing much better,” Javissa said grudgingly. The others looked at her. “Even without Thread falling, it’s too much work to raise dragons and provide for them at the same time.”

  “We did it in Igen,” T’mar said with a shrug. “Fiona figured out a way.”

  “Maybe we should ask her again,” Bekka said. The others stared at her and she shrugged. “It’s not like others don’t need these supplies and she’s still got her wits, even when pregnant.”

  “Why don’t we wait until we’ve checked out the western half before we ask her?” Kindan asked. “Maybe we won’t have to worry her.”

  “Very well,” T’mar agreed.

  Fiona’s shriek startled them all out of bed before dawn the next morning. T’mar and Shaneese rushed in to find Kindan, Lorana, and Jirana anxiously consoling the Weyrwoman. Bekka dashed in a moment later.

  “What is it?” Bekka asked, looking from one person to the next for an answer.

  “We got a message,” Fiona said, gesturing to Kindan, who passed a slate over to the healer.

  “ ‘Stay east of the great river,’ ” Bekka read. She glanced sharply at Fiona. “That’s your writing.”

  “It is,” Fiona agreed. “But I don’t recall writing it.”

  “That happens sometimes in a pregnancy,” Bekka allowed with a shrug.

  “But look at the slate,” Fiona said, gesturing for her to examine it again. Bekka looked down at it and then up again, confused. “We don’t have slate here,” Fiona told her. “It has to have come from another place. Probably another time.”

  “So you sent yourself a note from the future?” Bekka guessed. “And why should we stay east of the great river?”

  Fiona shook her head, shrugging. “There must be a reason that we’ll find out in the future.”

  “So we need another solution,” Kindan said to T’mar.

  “For what?” Fiona demanded. With no preamble, Bekka told her. When she was finished, Fiona nodded. “We could trade brightfish and whitefish, if we were careful.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Probably with traders who are used to trading with fishermen, and don’t ask questions.”

  “We thought of that,” Kindan said.

  “It’s bulky, but we can catch it easily enough,” Fiona continued. She frowned thoughtfully. “The easiest thing to trade is information.”

  “Judging by this slate, telling anyone about where we are is not a good idea,” Bekka said. The others nodded.

  “Come along, we’re up, so’s half the camp,” Shaneese said, “we might as well break our fast.”

  They made their way to the firepits that had been set outside the wooden building. A weyrling was on watch, tending the fire and the warming brew stewing in a pot. They had not found klah, but they’d discovered several very large varieties of brewable herbs from which to make tea.

  Bekka and Shaneese both waved for Fiona to take the nearest seat while Shaneese and Lorana brought out one of the clean pots in which to start some breakfast cereals cooking.

  “Not information,” Fiona said, “but perhaps some of the plants here could be traded.” The others nodded. “What we really need is something valuable, something rare, something like … gems.”

  “What about that clay?” Bekka mused, thinking of the rich deposits of clay they’d found near all the riverbeds.

  “It’s good clay,” Fiona agreed, wishing she could get Mekiar’s opinion on it. “We could trade it, but it’s heavy, even for a dragon.”

  “Aren’t finished goods even better?” Kindan asked. Fiona nodded, her eyes narrowed questioningly. “Well, couldn’t we set up a pottery wheel and kiln and make finished goods?”
r />   “We’d need more than one pottery wheel to get a decent set of trade goods,” Fiona said. “And we’d want to find some decent glazes, too.”

  “We’d do better with leather from the herdbeasts,” Lorana said. “We’ve got plenty to spare.”

  “We could trade that for a lot of things,” Kindan agreed. He looked toward Bekka. “Could we use the leather for our coverings?”

  “You think we could get hundreds of dragonlengths of leather?” Bekka asked incredulously. Kindan thought on that for just a moment before letting go of the notion with a soft chuckle and a shake of his head.

  “There are greenstones in some clays, aren’t there?” Fiona asked, looking toward Kindan for confirmation.

  “Sapphires,” Kindan agreed. “But green’s not a popular color.”

  “What about that blue-green stone we found near the beach?” Lorana asked suddenly. “It was pretty.”

  “It certainly was,” Kindan agreed. “I’d never seen its like before.”

  “It could be used in jewelry,” Shaneese said. “I know several holders who would like it.”

  “Wait a moment,” Fiona said, her eyes going wide with amusement. “We’re talking about trading what’s rare, aren’t we?”

  Shaneese nodded.

  “And haven’t we been eating the best fruit we’ve ever tasted?” Fiona asked.

  “Fruit,” Kindan repeated dully. “You’d trade fruit?”

  “In winter,” Fiona said. “When it’s not available.”

  “Or where it’s not available,” Shaneese said, eyes widening.

  “And I know the perfect person to do our trading,” Fiona added, turning to Jirana. The girl was too sleepy to notice, but she perked up when Fiona said, “Sweetie, can you wake your mother for us? It’s important.”

  It was Jassi who came up with the ultimate solution to their housing problem.

  “Ships!” she declared one day as she raced toward Fiona. The Weyrwoman was dozing in the midday heat and feeling large and heavy with children.

  “What, are they here?” Fiona asked, trying to understand how ships could have come this close to their shore without being grounded.

  “We bring ships, my lady,” Jassi said, eyes full of excitement.