She felt the other queens surround Talenth, their love enveloping them even as the queens touched them and pulled them out from between.
“NO!” Lorana shouted as they burst forth over the cold Telgar heights. “No, let me go back! I can find her! You have to let me go!”
But the queens held fast and pulled dragon and rider down into the Weyr bowl.
T’mar and the Weyrleaders raced over to her as Talenth touched the ground.
“Let me go back!” Lorana cried, writhing on her mount above Talenth who creeled just as piteously. “Let us go back, we have to find her!”
“Lorana, she’s gone,” T’mar called up to her, tears streaming from his eyes. “She’s gone,” he repeated as his eyes met hers. “You must stay here, with Talenth. We need all our queens to save Pern.”
“No,” Lorana repeated feebly, her energy sapped, her heart shattered, her will gone.
“Come on down,” T’mar urged, reaching a hand up to her. Others climbed up beside him and between them, Weyrleaders all, they carried Lorana back to the ground where Cisca, Sonia, Lin, Dalia, and even Tullea embraced her in a tight, comforting hug.
“Cisca,” Lorana said in a small voice as she caught the taller woman’s brown eyes. “Let me go find her, please?”
“Shh,” Cisca said, pulling Lorana’s head under hers. “She’s gone, love, she’s gone.”
“You can’t break time,” Tullea added, patting her softly on the back, tears streaming down her face. “You know that.”
Lorana looked up as she heard steps rushing toward her. It was Terin.
“Terin?” Lorana called out, her voice breaking mid-syllable.
Terin pushed her way through the other Weyrwoman, grabbed Lorana’s hand, and pulled her free.
“You can’t break time,” Terin told her as she urged Lorana into a sprint back toward Talenth. “But you can cheat it!”
“Cheat it?” Lorana repeated, a faint glow of hope warming her voice. “But she’s gone!”
“And she would be, if you went back and got her!” Terin glared at T’mar and the Weyrleaders still grouped protectively around Talenth and called, “Get out of the way!”
She barreled through them and pushed Lorana back up on Talenth’s neck before they could react. Dropping back down to the ground, Terin called up to her, “Go! Bring her back!”
With a triumphant cry, Talenth went between just after she’d cleared the grasp of the other dragons.
Find Fiona, Talenth, Lorana called even as she reached out with her senses and called, Fiona? Fiona, we’re coming for you!
She felt a faint answer, as if distant in time, and Lorana grabbed at it with her will and pulled—she pulled hard, pulled herself and the great queen through the nothing of between to the time when she heard Fiona’s voice.
We’re here! Lorana called.
I knew you’d come! Fiona replied, her voice weak with exhaustion.
The others?
We’ve got them, Lorana replied, guiding Talenth closer and closer to the small living mote in the vast void of nothing.
No, Fiona said anxiously, pushing back at Lorana urgently. No, no they’re still here! I can feel them! We can’t leave them, no one will find them if I’m not here!
We already found them, Lorana said. We’ve brought them back, now we’ve come for you.
Now?
Now, Lorana assured her. We’re cheating time. She felt Fiona’s acquiescence, felt the blond rider reach out toward her and Talenth, providing a slim flicker of thought to guide them.
A foot struck Lorana gently in the cheek and she reached up and grabbed with all her strength, pulling the younger woman into her arms.
Let’s go, Talenth!
A gold burst back into the sky over Telgar, bugling in triumph, racing down to the ground even as the other queens darted up toward her, their cries full of surprise and glee.
Talenth fell until the last minute then brutally cupped her wings, beat once, and hit the ground hard. A dust cloud settled around her.
“Help her!” Lorana called to the throng racing toward her. “She’s cold.”
Ready hands reached up to guide Fiona down, but they received a limp, unresponsive, cold body.
“She’s not breathing!” Lorana heard the cry rise up from beneath and jumped off Talenth’s neck.
She beat her way into the crowd surrounding Fiona. The blond Weyrwoman’s skin was blue and cold, her eyes closed, her chest still.
“No,” Lorana said fiercely, reaching forward to lift the base of Fiona’s neck and tilting it back.
“I’ll pump,” T’mar said as Lorana opened Fiona’s cold lips and leaned down to blow life-breath into the still form.
Lorana sealed her lips over Fiona’s, exhaling a deep breath and watching to see the younger woman’s chest rise. She repeated it twice and nodded to T’mar who started to pump Fiona’s chest, massaging her heart.
With a cough, Fiona’s eyes flew open and she looked up at Lorana. Feebly she reached up, dragged the older woman back down to her, and whispered fiercely, “I knew you’d come.”
Lorana encircled her with her arms and drew her close. “Of course.”
It will turn out all right.
Third Interval
“Terin?” F’jian called in surprise as he spotted the red-haired girl climbing up the ledge to the queen’s wing. The girl stopped and spun in place and he could see instantly that she wasn’t Terin.
“No, I’m Torina,” the girl said quickly, scowling at him with all the indignation of a woman just leaving childhood. Her eyes widened as she took him in and, in a whisper of surprise, said, “Grandfather?”
F’jian looked closely at the girl in front of him, with scarce more Turns than Terin had at Telgar Weyr, and saw the subtle differences in her face. He could see Terin’s features—and even his own—reflected and melded with other, unknown features to produce someone who was undoubtedly both Terin’s and his own granddaughter.
The young woman recovered before him and reached out, grabbing his hand and tugging. “Come on! Mother’s waiting!”
“Mother?” F’jian repeated dully, allowing himself to be led in a way that was so heart-breakingly similar to Terin’s marvelous, brilliant, brisk manner.
Torina shot a look over her shoulder, still tugging him behind her. “You know, your daughter.”
F’jian had a moment of panic. “Am I too late?”
“You’ll see,” Torina said, sounding all too much like her grand-dame. She craned her neck back once more, catching his eye and adding honestly, “I’m so glad you came, I was afraid I’d never get to meet you.”
The weyr they entered was not the same one that Terin and Kurinth had occupied so many Turns ago, and F’jian was surprised as the dim gold queen raised her head wistfully to greet him.
Greetings, Kurinth said. She was hoping you’d come.
“Father?” a silver-haired woman of later years said and rushed over, wrapping her arms tightly around him. F’jian hugged her back, as surprised at her frail bones as at the fierce love he found in her embrace. As if not to be outdone, Torina turned back and hugged her grandfather as soon as her mother had stepped aside.
“Come on,” Torina said, regaining F’jian’s hand and dragging him behind her once more into the weyrwoman’s quarters. F’jian shot her mother a bemused look, but she just smiled at her daughter’s staunch possession of her too-young grandfather.
With all the bustle F’jian had come to expect from Fiona or Terin herself, his granddaughter broke through the large throng gathered quietly around the weyrwoman’s bed.
A silver-haired man, his face lined with age and Threadscore, caught F’jian’s eye and nodded to him in greeting. “C’tov?”
C’tov smiled and reached over. “We’ve missed you,” the old bronze rider said. His lips twitched up as he added, “She and I would argue sometimes over who missed you more.”
“I’m sorry,” F’jian apologized.
“
Don’t be,” C’tov told him firmly. F’jian thought to say something more, but his old friend shook his head once more and gestured toward the bed.
“Terin?” F’jian said as he knelt down at the edge of the bed.
“You’re still beautiful,” an age-strained voice spoke back, and he heard others reach out to help his only love sit up in her bed.
F’jian lifted his eyes to meet the green eyes of the age-wrinkled, white-haired woman in front of him. “So are you!”
Much later, after the toasts were drunk and elderly weyrwoman and elderly bronze rider took their dragons between on their last journey, F’jian returned to Ladirth and the rider astride him.
Quietly he climbed up and took his position.
“Are you ready?” Lorana asked him softly.
F’jian nodded. “I am.”
As Ladirth circled the Star Stones, Lorana said, “It will be a long cold journey between.”
“No it won’t,” F’jian corrected her. “Not with all these memories.”
As the blackness of between gripped them, Ladirth relayed a message from F’jian to Lorana: We might not be able to break time but we can cheat it!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No one truly labors alone, authors in particular, and we’d like to acknowledge those who helped bring this book to fruition.
We’d like to thank Don Maass, Todd’s agent, for asking us to think outside of the box—it allowed us to take Pern in a direction we had never before considered. We’d also like to thank Diana Tyler, Mum’s agent, for her untiring enthusiasm and support in the writing of not only this book but its sequel, Dragonrider.
Angelina Adams, Margaret Johnson, Susan Martin, and Pam Bennett-Skinner were our brilliant first readers.
Shelly Shapiro, once again editor par excellence at Del Rey, did not shy from her role of demanding the very best we could give, and Martha Trachtenberg performed a marvelous job of copyediting. They are definitely a great team and we know how lucky we are to have them!
Judith Welsh, our editor at Transworld, once again provided her insights and support, working seamlessly with the editors at Del Rey to allow us to produce one consistent editorial voice.
Despite everyone’s efforts, there are probably some errors in this book—that’s just the nature of the beast. When two authors work together, it is usual to “let” one handle the final edits, copyedits, and proof edits. In this case, I, Todd McCaffrey, was given the job. As a consequence, all errors not uncovered rest solely upon my shoulders. (Don’t worry, Mum won’t beat me up too much over them as she knows how mistakes get by the best of us.)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ANNE MCCAFFREY, the Hugo Award–winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® novels, is one of science fiction’s most popular authors. She recently collaborated with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough on the Tale of the Barque Cats books: Catalyst and Catacombs. She lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.
TODD MCCAFFREY is the bestselling author of the Pern novels Dragonsblood, Dragonheart, and Dragongirl, and the co-author, with his mother, Anne McCaffrey, of Dragon’s Kin, Dragon’s Fire, and Dragon Harper. A computer engineer, he currently lives in Los Angeles. Having grown up in Ireland with the epic of the Dragonriders of Pern,® he is bursting with ideas for new stories of that world, its people, and its dragons.
pernhome.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by These Authors
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
L ETTER TO R EADERS
F OR R EADERS N EW TO P ERN
C HRONOLOGY OF THE S ECOND I NTERVAL /T HIRD P ASS
Map
C HAPTER O NE
C HAPTER T WO
C HAPTER T HREE
C HAPTER F OUR
C HAPTER F IVE
C HAPTER S IX
C HAPTER S EVEN
C HAPTER E IGHT
C HAPTER N INE
C HAPTER T EN
C HAPTER E LEVEN
E PILOGUE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern Page 34