And then, with a dozen brilliant memories of Kisk, of Valla, of all who had gone before, K’dan looked into the eyes of his dragon and knew that there would be nothing so marvelous, so wonderful, so right as that one moment when he realized that Fiona and Lorana were absolutely correct—there was a dragon for him and his name was—“Lurenth, I greet you.”
And I you, the small one said with grave dignity. The moment was fractured when Lurenth burped and added plaintively, I’m hungry.
“That’s the last of them,” J’gerd reported woodenly to T’mar late that evening. “We’ve thrown the eggs into the sea and as many tunnel snakes as we could kill.”
“And?”
J’gerd shook his head. T’mar had been there when the avenging dragons had dug through the sand to the huge tunnel that the snakes had excavated, a tunnel so large that a man could almost stand up in it.
“This ground’s too soft, all we can do is hope to fill the tunnels in for a time,” the brown rider told him.
“We should leave this place,” Shaneese said. “It has brought us nothing but sorrow.”
“Not all was sorrow,” T’mar said, stretching out a hand to stroke her forearm soothingly. “But we should leave.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” Fiona spoke for the first time since settling K’dan and Lurenth on the upper deck of their ship. “The new hatchlings are too young to go between and there are things here we should preserve.”
“Leave them behind with a guard and take the rest,” Indeera said, her eyes still red from crying.
“How many did we save?” T’mar asked, turning toward Fiona.
“None of the green eggs,” Fiona said, grimacing. “Partly because their shells were thinner, partly because I don’t think the greens are as good at guarding their eggs, and partly because—well, I think the greens let the queens tell them where to put their eggs and that meant the green eggs were more likely to be in the most exposed locations.”
T’mar nodded wearily and gave her another look.
“Of the two hundred and fifty-three eggs, all queen eggs hatched, including Bekka’s Pinorth, and most of the bronzes.” Fiona sighed. “Twenty-three.”
“Bronzes?” T’mar frowned, trying to recall that many.
“No, twenty-three hatched altogether,” Fiona said. “Jeriz—no, J’riz—saved the only green.” She did not need to add that J’riz’s Qinth was badly injured by an assault of tunnel snakes that had pierced the poor dragonet’s shell before she’d even managed to crack it. They all heard J’riz’s pained cry; in all her reading, Fiona had never heard of a dragon Impressing through her shell, but her need was great and J’riz had risen to it, smashing the egg open, pulling her out, and had single-handedly throttled two tunnel snakes before others rushed to his aid.
“Anything,” he’d cried pitifully, “I’ll do anything if you can help her! Save her, please, Weyrwomen!”
Fiona, Terin, and Lorana had rushed to the hatchling’s side. She had a nasty gash in her chest and it looked as though a tunnel snake had started to gnaw her innards before she’d been rescued.
“Shouldn’t we then say twenty-two?” T’mar asked grimly. “She can’t make it through the night.”
“Oh yes, she can,” Fiona said firmly. “Lorana’s with them now, then Terin, Bekka’s got her queen bedded with them, and I’ll be there as soon as I’m done here.” She flashed her eyes at him. “We’re not losing her.”
“There isn’t enough firestone on all Pern for those tunnel snakes,” T’mar growled. “In one stroke we’ve lost a Weyr’s strength.”
“Well, we have to work with what we have, not what we want,” Fiona said, reaching out a hand toward him. He smiled and took it.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “And what do we have?”
“We have nearly three hundred and forty-one fighting dragons, six full-grown queens, six hatchling queens, and seventeen other weyrlings,” Fiona told him.
“So with our strength we’ll nearly double the fighting strength of the Weyrs,” T’mar said, his eyes glowing. “When can we leave?”
“The better question is when can we get there?” Fiona reminded him. She turned toward the headwoman and said, “Shaneese and I are still working out detailed plans, but there’s no reason that all the fighting dragons—save one wing for protection—couldn’t go back to the future tomorrow.”
“Good,” T’mar agreed. “And when we will return?”
“They’ve got a Fall over High Reaches tip next,” Fiona said.
“Then we’ll fly with High Reaches and send our wings home from there,” T’mar declared.
“We haven’t enough firestone,” Fiona reminded him.
“The sun rises earlier at Telgar,” T’mar said. “We’ll go there first, load up, and fly on.”
“You’ll be all right?” Fiona asked Lorana worriedly the next morning.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured her friend.
“You’ll come straight back, you won’t go off to the future or anything?” Fiona persisted.
Lorana laughed, sobering immediately at Fiona’s worried gaze. “I won’t be going anywhere unless you send Talenth for me.”
“And you’ll keep an eye on K’dan?” It was both very hard and very easy to remember to contract Kindan’s name with the honorific. She’d called him by his longer name for so long she sometimes stumbled, but she always smiled when she got it right.
“And Xhinna and Taria and R’ney and all the other new weyrlings until they’re old enough to go between,” Lorana said. R’ney, who had been Raney before he’d Impressed his brown, had been the astute smither lad who’d run to warn Fiona of the tunnel snakes. He’d managed to Impress the very last hatchling—a brown—after having found a shovel he’d used both as a hammer with which to shatter shells and as an ax with which he severed the heads of a dozen tunnel snakes, his rage rising to berserk levels.
When his rage had cooled, he had been one of the first of the new weyrlings to bring his dragonet and set up his camp beside the injured Qinth. Xhinna and Taria were already there, quiet sentinels who slept not a wink the whole night. Taria had smiled shyly at the brown-eyed, rusty-haired lad, and they’d quickly struck up a conversation into which Xhinna had occasionally wandered, seeming surprised that her shy mate would find the smithcrafter’s company so enjoyable.
Fiona rushed over to Xhinna, who was holding Kimar for her, and hugged her tight even as Kimar cried, “Mommy, you’re crushing me!”
Taria plucked the boy from between the two women and set him on her shoulders. Tiona raced up and demanded the same attention only to be diverted by R’ney, who was a head taller than Taria.
“Take care of her,” Fiona whispered to Xhinna, so that Taria wouldn’t hear. “Take care of them all.”
“My word on it, Weyrwoman,” Xhinna said.
“Blue rider,” Fiona said, touching the dark-haired woman on the shoulder as they parted. “Come on, kids, we’ve got to get you up on Talenth, we’re going home!”
“But this is home,” Tiona cried. “And I want Xhinna.”
“You’ll have me soon enough,” Xhinna said, waving her away. “Now be off with you and mind your mother until I get back.”
“She minds us,” Tiona declared, finding one of Fiona’s legs and wrapping her arms around it possessively. “I’m only little, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Yes it is,” Fiona agreed. “And now it’s supposed to be that you go with me back to Telgar.”
The wings and flights arrayed themselves behind T’mar and his impromptu wing of bronzes. Between them and the rest, Fiona had arrayed the queen’s wing, insisting that they return in all their glory.
Three hundred and forty-one fighting dragons and six mature queens circled their home of three Turns once and then winked between.
One, two, three—The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Fiona felt T’mar’s confusion, felt the bronze rider begin to doubt, felt something pullin
g at them, holding them, leeching from them, angry, scared, confused.
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Those words! Fiona remembered them. She’d heard them before. D’gan?
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Suddenly a fear welled up in Fiona. In front of her, strapped securely in their own harnesses were her children, her babies. She couldn’t lose them.
In the dead silence of between, Fiona screamed: Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
And she heard it again: The Weyrs! They must be warned!
And again she screamed, Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
Trapped. They were trapped.
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
I can’t lose the babies, Fiona told herself. She knew what she had to do, her fingers worked furiously at her clips, unhooked them, and with one final, anxious cry, she stood and leapt—into the nothing of between.
Talenth! Go to Lorana! Go to Lorana, Talenth!
And then she was alone. All alone.
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
A dragon gold
Is not the only price
You’ll pay for Pern.
“Talenth!” Lorana cried as the queen burst forth, bugling anxiously, her cry disturbing the entire camp. “What are you doing here?”
The queen wheeled in for a landing in front of Lorana and turned, as if inviting her to climb aboard. Lorana heard the twins crying loudly in fear and panic. K’dan raced over to her even before Lorana had climbed up to calm the twins.
“Mommy’s all alone!” Tiona told Lorana through her tears. “She jumped off and left us!”
“I’m sure she had a good reason,” Lorana said even as she calmed them and lowered them to the waiting hands that reached upward.
“I’m here, little one,” K’dan said to his daughter as she met his arms.
“I’m scared, Daddy, I’m scared,” Tiona said, burying her small face into his shoulder. “Mommy was so scared and she jumped off Talenth.”
Kimar was sent down into Xhinna’s waiting arms and she held him tightly, shushing and soothing him even as he shook in her arms from the weight of his tears.
Talenth? Lorana asked.
She said to go to you, Talenth told her, clearly sounding torn between her rider’s orders and her own sense of duty.
You did right, Lorana assured her, even as she tried to imagine Fiona’s logic.
We could not get through, Talenth told her. Lorana turned back to K’dan. “They could not get through.”
“I’m not a baby,” Kimar murmured into Xhinna’s ear as his sobs lessened. “I’m not a baby.”
“No one said so,” Xhinna assured him. “You’re very brave.”
“Mommy said so,” Kimar replied. “I heard her, I heard her in my head.”
“In your head?” Lorana repeated, glancing toward K’dan. “Love, what did she say?”
“She said, ‘Can’t lose the babies!’ over and over,” Kimar said.
“She said that because she loves you more than life itself,” Lorana said with a sob. She turned to K’dan. “I must go,” she told him firmly. “On your word, take care of our children.”
“My word,” K’dan said, reaching forward to embrace her. “I love you, I always will.”
“I know,” Lorana whispered back softly, kissing his cheek once more. She climbed up Talenth and looked back down once more to her family, the one Fiona had built for her, had fought for, would always fight for.
The one Fiona had bet her life on.
Come on Talenth, let’s go.
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
Lorana heard both cries, heard the pain in them, felt the fight, the wills exerted.
Fiona? No response. She tried pulling against the voice of D’gan, lost so many months before but now here, in this same time, in this same sliver of between, trapped with Fiona, who was herself locked in her own moment, her own fear, her own leap of faith. Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
Fiona! It’s me, I’ve come to get you! Lorana shouted, trying to find her friend, her sister/daughter/mother/fellow-wife in all the torment, anguish, confusion, fear, and anger. She couldn’t. She needed to free them all, to break the logjam. She pulled, she reached to D’gan locked in the moment of his worst fear, his worst nightmare, and found that she could no more break through now than she could when she’d found the power of all the Weyrs—the Weyrs!
With a final push of will, Lorana pulled herself and Talenth through between, past the time when D’gan and old Telgar Weyr had collided with Fiona and the new riders.
She found her lungs heaving for air, never feeling so warm as when she broke out in the skies above Telgar. Beneath her, Talenth bugled an alert that was taken up instantly by all the dragons, who came out of their weyrs bellowing.
Lyrinth! Minith! Melirth! Bidenth! To Telgar! she ordered even as she urged Talenth down to the Weyr Bowl. The air was clean and warm, and Lorana drank it in, recovering her power as she urged Talenth to a quick descent and gentle landing.
Jeila rushed out of her weyr, with H’nez behind. C’tov came racing down the steps from an upper level and Birentir ran out of the Kitchen Cavern, aid bag in hand.
“What is it?”
“They’re trapped!” Lorana cried. “We must help them.” The air was alive suddenly with queens and bronzes as the Weyrleaders and Weyrwomen of the other Weyrs arrived.
“Lorana!” Tullea cried. “We thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Lorana said drolly. “But if we don’t move fast, six hundred dragons and riders will be lost forever.”
“What?” Cisca cried, looking around. “What happened?”
Quickly Lorana explained about the voices, about Fiona’s desperate maneuver, about Talenth’s warning, about her belief that the two Weyrs’ worth of strength were caught in some fragment of between, unable to move forward or backward, stuck repeating their moment of time over and over.
“What do you need?” B’nik asked, clearly convinced and prepared to offer all aid.
“I need all of us to go there and free them,” Lorana said.
“You couldn’t free D’gan before, why do you think you can now?” Sonia asked.
“Because now he’s locked with Fiona and the others,” Lorana replied. “I think I couldn’t move him until the time between when he was locked with her.” She paused as she glanced at the others. “We’ll be the key, the guide that breaks the hold of that moment and frees them.”
“They’ve been there for almost half a Turn,” K’lior said, “can anyone survive that long?”
“D’gan’s voice was still alive when I got here,” Lorana said.
“If you got here from your time, why couldn’t T’mar and the others?” D’vin asked.
“I broke free,” Lorana said. “I was the only one, I—” She stopped and shook her head wearily. “I don’t know. But I need your help.”
“Benden rides with you and always shall,” B’nik declared, sending the word to his Weyr.
“I will not leave them to die in the cold of between,” Sonia said, glancing at D’vin. The High Reaches Weyrleader nodded in agreement.
“Nor I,” Cisca told K’lior. He smiled at her. “Ours are on the way.”
“And Ista,” Dalia said quietly.
“And when they come, what then?” H’nez asked.
“Then we find them, break the binding, and bring them back home,” Lorana declared.
Wing by wing, pitifully small numbers of riders and dragons formed the ranks of the five remaining Weyrs of Pern.
At your command, Talenth relayed from the other queens.
Very well, let’s go, Lorana said.
And all the dragons of Pern winked out at once, between.
Lorana guided them through, back to the time when she’d found—
There! Lorana called, reaching out, feeling dragons and riders numb and cold with the shock of their entrapment between.
She spread her power out, felt the dragons that had come with her array and group themselves, gathering the trapped dragons and riders, physically touching them.
It wasn’t enough. They were still trapped, locked in a cycle of fear and panic. And it was spreading.
Can’t lose the babies!
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
They are warned! D’gan, you saved them! Come back. Come back, D’gan! Lorana eased Talenth over to D’gan’s bronze Kaloth and reached out in the darkness. She engulfed the dragon in a sense of calm and felt it spread to the rider.
They’re safe? Kaloth asked for his rider.
Safe, Lorana thought firmly. And now we must get back.
Can’t lose the babies!
The babies are safe! Lorana thought on the special link she had to Fiona. Instantly she felt the other calm, felt a surge of gratitude, joy, relief.
Lorana turned her energies toward the others who were slowly coming out of their fear, their worry. The dragons and riders of the other Weyrs followed her example, radiating calm, soothing thoughts, adding their mental voices to hers.
And the cycle broke.
They were ready to go back, free of the fears that had trapped them between. Lorana felt her heart ease as she realized that they had done it, they’d saved the lost dragons.
Fiona, we’re safe, Lorana called out. They’re all safe. Guide me to you and we’ll go home.
Silence.
Fiona? Lorana called again. Beneath her she felt Talenth rumble with unease.
We need to go, Cisca’s Melirth told her.
We’ve got everyone, Sonia’s Lyrinth added. We cannot tarry, they are cold from between.
No! Lorana roared back. No, we have to find Fiona!
She isn’t here, Melirth responded gently. None of us can hear her.
We can’t leave her! Lorana called back, her voice full of pain and tears. We can’t leave her here in this cold. We can’t!
Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern Page 33