Dragongirl

TEN

Bekka prescribed fellis juice and a long rest as it became clear that fatigue and sorrow had overwhelmed Lorana—she did not stop crying for ten minutes, after which, wracked with exhaustion and coaxed to lie next to the resting Jeila, she curled up into a ball and fell asleep. Kindan held her close while M’tal and Fiona looked on helplessly.

“I’ll stay with them,” Bekka declared, pushing at Fiona and gesturing to M’tal. “You two should go to the Dining Cavern and see Shaneese.”

“Terin—”

“I’ll handle her,” Bekka declared firmly, pulling a chair close to Fiona’s bed and settling herself in as guard. M’tal glanced at her and then at Fiona in surprise. Fiona smiled at him and shook her head, gesturing for him to follow her toward the Dining Cavern.

“She doesn’t sleep,” Fiona explained as they walked across the Bowl. “They’ll be in good hands.”

“But what if she needs help?”

“I’ll ask Talenth to check in with her periodically,” Fiona told him.

“Does your queen talk to everyone?” M’tal asked.

“That’s not normal?” Fiona shook her head, frowning as she admitted, “I know so little about being a proper Weyrwoman—”

M’tal grabbed her hand and laid it on his arm, bowing toward her with a flourish. “No, Weyrwoman, you are an example to us all!”

Fiona felt her face flush and looked away hurriedly. She maintained her silence until she and M’tal sat themselves at the high table and Shaneese bustled over to them.

“So?” she demanded of Fiona, “have you got everything the way you like it once more? All jumbled, rattled, and running just your way?”

Fiona grinned and she nodded in agreement. “Next, I’ll send you back in time to Igen: It needs a good cleaning.”

M’tal, who seemed torn between rising to Fiona’s defense and jumping in on Shaneese’s side, choked on his klah. Fiona gestured to him. “This is M’tal. He’s been to Igen, so he knows how dirty it is.”

“My lord,” Shaneese said, inclining her head, her manner sobering abruptly, her next words directed equally to M’tal and Fiona, “I hope you’ll forgive my banter. You brought news we never expected to hear.”

“And wouldn’t have, if it were not for D’gan,” M’tal said, raising his mug in a half-salute to the late Weyrleader.

“How is that?” Fiona and Shaneese asked, nearly in unison. Fiona cocked her head firmly toward a vacant chair, ordering the headwoman to be seated. Shaneese glanced around the Dining Cavern and, deciding that nothing needed her immediate attention, complied with her Weyrwoman’s demand.

“It’s a sad story,” M’tal said with a shake of his head, “and I don’t know if we’ll ever hear the full of it.”

“Perhaps I should get Norik?” Shaneese suggested to Fiona. The Weyrwoman frowned, then relayed the request to Talenth.

He comes, her queen replied drowsily, in a tone that made Fiona resolve not to disturb her again.

“I’ve asked for him,” Fiona said.

“And your dragon scolded you for waking her,” M’tal said. “My Gaminth did the same with me, the day he got the injection.”

Oddly, Fiona found his words a relief. Gaminth seemed completely healthy.

“Anyway,” M’tal said, “as I understand it from Kindan, Lorana needed a word to open the door to the Teaching Rooms.”

“The Ancient Rooms at Benden?” Fiona asked.

The bronze rider nodded, but Shaneese looked perplexed. “We’ve heard nothing of this here,” she said.

“When the illness first started affecting dragons, we started examining the Records,” M’tal said.

“I think Lina did that,” Shaneese said in the late Weyrwoman’s defense.

“We found nothing and so Lorana decided that we should check the Records at Fort Weyr.”

Shaneese nodded. “It’s the oldest—most likely to have ancient Records.”

“The only reference found was to Ancient Rooms at Benden Weyr,” M’tal continued. Shaneese raised her eyebrows in surprise and M’tal nodded in agreement. “We all thought it odd but discovered a section of corridor off the Hatching Grounds—an Ancient corridor—that was blocked by a rockslide.

“We got help from miners to dig the fall out and found a room, but it was the wrong room.”

“Wrong room?”

“We didn’t know it at first,” M’tal said, his eyes going bleak with sadness, “and by then Lorana’s Arith had caught the illness.” He took a deep breath before he continued. “We found four glass vials, each filled with different colored powders.

“Lorana was desperate, her Arith was near to death, she thought to mix some of each of the vials and inject it into her.”

“She killed her dragon?” Shaneese asked anxiously.

M’tal nodded.

“The mix was wrong—we only discovered that much later,” he said. “Arith went between. It wasn’t until Lorana recovered that we realized there were other rooms and she thought that perhaps the answer lay in them.”

“She lost her dragon and she didn’t give up,” Shaneese said in awe. She sniffed once, dabbed at her eyes, then motioned politely for M’tal to continue.

“The miners returned and excavated another section above the rooms that led to a different entrance,” M’tal said. “This was the entrance we should have found first, because when we entered, we were greeted by a voice.”

“A voice?” Fiona asked, thinking of the voice that she’d been hearing in her head. “Did you recognize it?”

“More than that: It introduced itself to us,” M’tal said. “It said it was a recording—almost like playing music on an instrument from a written score—and the voice was Wind Blossom’s.”

“Wind Blossom?” Shaneese repeated. “Two people? Or one person with two names?”

“Two names,” Fiona told her. She glanced at M’tal as she continued, “I learned about her from Kindan. He’d been trying to find the words to a song that he’d read just before—”

“Just before the fire at the Harper Hall,” M’tal interrupted her quietly. “He found the title; he remembered the song.”

“It was important,” Fiona said, recalling how often Kindan had striven to remember the song when she was growing up, how much it had driven him.

“The song saved Pern,” M’tal said. He saw a man in harper’s blue approach and waved him to a seat. “You must be Norik.”

Norik nodded but said nothing.

“I was just saying that a song saved Pern,” M’tal explained. “It is called ‘Wind Blossom’s Song’ and it contained a question that Lorana had to answer to open the door to the final Teaching Room, the one where we learned how to defeat the illness.”

He paused, silent for a moment, turning his head toward the queens’ quarters. “But it wasn’t enough to cure just one dragon. So Minith and Tullea went back in time to High Reaches Weyr, where she clutched and her dragonets grew to full size. With them—including Jeila’s Tolarth—we had enough serum to cure all the dragons. And now, with Telgar here, we have done so.”

“So that’s why High Reaches was being so aloof!” Fiona exclaimed. “I remember Cisca talking about it, saying that they’d not had any contact for three Turns.”

“They couldn’t let anyone know,” M’tal said with a grimace, “because no one did know.”

“By the First Egg, I don’t think I’ll ever understand all the twitchiness in timing it!”

“And yet, timing it saved Pern,” M’tal replied. A moment later he added, “And High Reaches’ isolation, and Tullea’s pluck.”

He shook his head, with a sad look, before saying to Norik, “You’ll have to ask Kindan for the full words, but as I was saying, the song recalled the loss of Telgar—”

“Recalled?” Norik interrupted. When M’tal nodded in confirmation, the harper persisted, “Was not the song written before the event?”

“Hundred of Turns before and yet after,” M’tal replied. “It seems that the loss of Telgar opened a bridge back in time, a bridge across which Lorana could send one word—”

“A word?” Norik asked in disbelief.

“Why don’t you let Lord M’tal finish, then you can ask questions,” Fiona said firmly to the harper. Norik spared her a glance, then lowered his eyes as Fiona out-glared him. She turned back to M’tal. “My lord?”

“The words were clearly written by a harper—”

“A Masterharper, I think,” Kindan spoke up from the entrance.

“Kindan, are you all right?” Fiona asked, rising from her chair.

Kindan gave her a smile and a nod. “I’m so well, in fact, that your Bekka sent me here.”

Fiona laughed at the image his words invoked. She gestured for him to join them.

“You found the words to the song!” she exclaimed in delight.

“I did,” Kindan replied gravely as he sat down. He turned to Norik and began to sing softly in a minor chord:A thousand voices keen at night,

Kindan spared nothing of his craft in his singing and when he was done, Norik had dropped his head in his hands, tears falling freely. Shaneese, Fiona, and M’tal were no better.

It was a long time before the Telgar harper recovered and when he did, he lifted his head to be met by Shaneese’s bright eyes as she assured him, “Their loss was not in vain.”

“Please sing this song again, Kindan,” Norik said. “I must teach it to the Weyr.”

“If you like, we could sing it tonight, together,” Kindan offered.

“It would be an honor.”

Softly, with all the strength he could still muster, tears rolling down his cheeks, Kindan began once more to sing “Wind Blossom’s Song.”

He was surprised and relieved to feel warm hands on his back, massaging him, comforting him as he relived the grief of the moments still fresh and bitter in his memory. It was only when he’d repeated the last, heartfelt phrase—“Who paid with dragon gold”—that he realized the hands were Fiona’s.

“I knew you’d remember it when you needed,” she whispered to him as she wrapped her arms around him and buried her head against his shoulder. “I just knew it.”

She felt his gratitude at her praise, and was filled with a special warmth. She knew that she was the only person who truly understood what it meant to him.

“Vaxoram would be proud of you,” she told him, hugging him tightly. “You didn’t give up … again!”

“As you see, Kindan,” M’tal spoke up approvingly, “I’m not the only one to acknowledge your virtues.”

Fiona glanced up at the older dragonrider and smiled. The look in his eyes left her feeling a bit awkward and she released Kindan and, resuming her seat, sought out a new topic. “With the illness cured, how long do you think it will be before things return to normal?”

M’tal pursed his lips in a frown. “I’m not sure that normal has much meaning, Weyrwoman, during a Pass.”

“I want to meet with Master Archivist Verilan soon and check the Records,” Kindan said, glancing toward M’tal first, then Fiona. “We have less than three Flights of dragons at Benden—”

“Not even two wings here,” Fiona added, her brows meeting in a frown as she followed the thrust of his words. “None at Igen, only five wings at Fort …” Her words trailed off and she bit her lip before looking up at Kindan once more. “We don’t have enough dragons, do we?”

“Enough dragons for what?” asked Lorana, standing at the entrance to the Dining Cavern, a desperate Bekka following her in train.

“My lady, you need rest!” Bekka said.

Lorana turned back to her and smiled gently, reaching a hand down toward the younger girl who took it shyly, as Lorana told her, “As do you.”

Bekka glanced apologetically in Fiona’s direction, saying, “I fell asleep, Weyrwoman.”

“Well, that’s a first!” Fiona said, waving off Bekka’s anxiety and asking solicitously, “Are you still tired? I’d like someone with weyrwoman Jeila when she wakes.”

“Terin’s with her,” Bekka said, trying her best to stifle a yawn.

“Terin asked me if you’d mentioned anything about the box,” Lorana said. She smiled shyly as she added, with her glance sliding toward Kindan before returning to Fiona, “She showed me her note and offered me her dragon.”

“She would,” Fiona said, as moved by Terin’s offer as by Lorana’s obvious refusal. “If you’re not tired, we were eating, and Kindan was filling us in on events at Benden Weyr—”

“And you’d just discovered that we don’t have enough dragons,” Lorana said, stepping toward them. Bekka glanced at Lorana, then at Fiona for direction and when Fiona nodded for her to join them, she followed beside Lorana, her grip on the older woman’s hand tightening just a bit.

“You’ll think of something,” Bekka told her confidently. “You saved the dragons of Pern; there’s nothing you can’t do.”

Lorana kept her gaze on Fiona and only she shared the great pain in her eyes as they both recognized the error in Bekka’s statement.

“I’ll get some klah,” Shaneese said hastily, putting actions to words with the air of one grateful for an excuse to avoid an awkward exchange.

“It needs warming,” Fiona agreed.

At Kindan’s beckoning, Lorana sat next to him and he drew her head to his shoulder and rested his against hers for a moment.

“Terin told me that you met Mother Karina when you were back in time at Igen Weyr,” Lorana said, even as Kindan pushed a roll toward her suggestively.

“We did,” Fiona said. “I learned a lot from her.”

Lorana glanced at Kindan. “One of the traders had the gift of the Sight, they said.” His eyebrows went up in surprise but he said nothing. “He left notes for Fiona and Terin here.”

“Did he?” Kindan asked, impressed.

Lorana nodded and continued, but Fiona was sure she felt anxiety growing in the other Weyrwoman. “Yes, he left Terin a harness fitting made of gold in the shape of a soaring dragon.”

Fiona suddenly stared at the twin of her own brooch gleaming on Kindan’s breast. Tenniz had said, “It will all turn out right.” What had he meant by that? Why had he arranged for her to get a brooch identical to Kindan’s?

“Tenniz’s note to Terin said: ‘This is yours and no other’s,’” Fiona quoted. She glanced toward Kindan. “The queens will be rising soon.”

“You think perhaps your friend Terin will Impress?” M’tal asked.

“She’s got the makings,” Lorana said. “Her heart is in the right place.”

Kindan turned toward Lorana, glanced quickly toward Fiona, then back at Lorana with a question forming on his lips.

Fiona beat him to it. “Will you stand on the Hatching Grounds again, Lorana?”

Lorana held her breath for a long moment before letting it out again to say, “Perhaps I should see what Tenniz wanted to say to me.”

Fiona turned to Kindan. She knew that he’d been left on the Hatching Grounds for over ten Turns and that he was far too old for tradition, but all the same she felt a sense of rightness in his riding a dragon and she could feel M’tal steeling himself to say the same.

Lorana beat them to it. “No matter whether I do or not, Kindan of Pern, you will be a Candidate.”

Fiona met her eyes and they exchanged a look of firm agreement.

“No queen of my Weyr—” Fiona began only to be interrupted by Lorana who declared, “No queen of Pern will keep you from the Hatching Grounds.”

“And for what you’ve done, they would be glad to see you ride bronze,” M’tal added solemnly.

Kindan sighed heavily, signaling his defeat.

Fiona, however, ignored him; her attention was focused on Lorana. Her voice when making that declaration had sounded so startlingly familiar.

“Did you bring us back in time?” Fiona asked her suddenly.

“Me?” Lorana repeated in surprise. “Lorana?” M’tal said at the same time, giving Fiona an odd look. “She was at Benden the whole time.”

“The whole time,” Fiona repeated. Lorana looked no less confused and Fiona dropped the notion with a frown, explaining by way of apology, “Someone brought Talenth and me back in time to Igen—a gold rider.”

“You mean a weyrwoman,” Kindan corrected absently, his attention directed toward Lorana.

I don’t know, Fiona said to herself with some surprise. Why is it that I always say “queen rider” or “gold rider” but never “weyrwoman”?

“We wouldn’t have gone if she hadn’t urged us,” she said. “If she hadn’t made it sound like we’d already done it.” She glanced toward Lorana. “Her voice sounded something like yours.”

“Arith was too young to go between,” Lorana told her sadly.

“I’m not so sure,” Fiona replied. “Talenth was not much older than Arith and she went.”

Kindan shot her an angry look that Fiona understood all too well: The loss of Lorana’s queen weighed heavily on the both of them.

“Would you,” Fiona said softly to Lorana, “at least consider standing on the Hatching Grounds again?”

“I might,” Lorana said with a small smile. “It would be good to hear the hatchlings; I’ve never tried that.”

“She hears all dragons,” M’tal explained.

“She feels them,” Kindan corrected him, his hand unconsciously rising to pat Lorana’s shoulder in comfort.

“Before you have a Hatching, you’ve got to have a mating flight,” M’tal said, his gaze leveled at Fiona.

Fiona felt herself reddening and she ducked her head in embarrassment before answering, “Talenth is old enough to rise any day now.”

“Who will be the lucky dragon to catch her?” Fiona shook her head.

“The first queen to rise here will be senior, won’t she?” Kindan asked with a quick, apologetic glance toward Lorana.

“Jeila’s Tolarth is just as ready,” M’tal said.

“But she’ll be going back to Benden, won’t she?” Fiona asked.

“Not if she’s any sense,” M’tal said with a chuckle. Fiona looked at him, confused, and he explained. “Tullea can be … a little difficult.”

“I imagine she’ll be better now,” Lorana opined diplomatically. She told Fiona, “She’d been timing it back at High Reaches Weyr so her temper was difficult.”

“But you weren’t like that, were you, Weyrwoman?” Bekka asked Fiona, bristling with loyalty.

“No, I felt different,” Fiona said. She glanced toward M’tal and Lorana. “I wasn’t the only one. T’mar and several of the weyrlings felt much the same way. We were tired even before we went to Igen—all except Terin.”

“Hmm,” M’tal murmured thoughtfully. He glanced inquiringly toward Kindan.

The harper shook his head, lips pursed in a frown. “I recall nothing like that in the Records.”

“But there wasn’t much mention of timing,” Lorana said. She glanced toward Fiona as she added, “I think the Weyrs were trying to keep it a secret.”

“With good reason, if Tullea is anything to go by!” M’tal agreed.

“Speaking of secrets,” Lorana said, glancing toward Kindan and M’tal, “when were you going to tell me that we don’t have enough dragons?”

“Lorana, that’s not fair,” Fiona rebuked her gently. “You’ve only just discovered the cure! Before that there was no point in worrying about our numbers.”

Lorana ducked her head in acknowledgment.

“So how many do we have?” Kindan asked.

“We’ve forty plus two here,” Fiona said, looking around for a slate and, not finding one, gesturing for Bekka to get one. The young girl grinned at her, glad to be involved in the discussion, and raced off and back with the first slate she found. Fiona handed it back, saying, “This one has a recipe on it; I don’t think Shaneese will thank you if it’s erased.”

Bekka’s next sojourn was longer but more productive: She returned followed by a small procession of weyrkids towing a large teaching slate.

“Much better!” Fiona agreed as she erased the board with the duster and wrote down the names of the weyrs with columns for fighting strength and queens. She filled in Telgar first with 40 and 2.

She had arranged the chart from northeast to southwest, so Telgar was in the middle. With Lorana’s aid they soon had it filled out:High Reaches 328 2 Fort 156 1 Telgar 40 2 Igen 0 0 Ista 307 2 Benden 197 1 Total 1028 8

“We should have three thousand fighting dragons for a Pass,” Kindan said sourly. “And as many as thirty queens.”

He turned to M’tal. “As soon as possible, I’d like to visit Master Zist and Verilan.”

“This distribution is very uneven,” M’tal agreed. “We should have more dragons at Telgar; it’s central to Pern and has the extra burden of the Falls it inherited when Igen was abandoned.”

“Fort’s weak, as well,” Fiona added in fairness to her old Weyr.

“Perhaps we can get the Weyrleaders to meet soon and discuss this,” M’tal said thoughtfully.

“I think that would be an excellent idea,” H’nez said. They turned to see him approaching from the Weyr Bowl, pulling off his wher-hide gloves and scarf. Behind him, in the Bowl, other riders returned from drill were dismounting and sending their dragons to their weyrs. He gave the group a tight smile as he continued, “I was thinking much the same thing myself.”

He found a seat opposite M’tal and examined the chart silently for a long while.

“Harper Kindan, Norik, am I right in recalling that the queens can be expected to rise twice a Turn and produce an average of twenty-eight eggs?” H’nez said, steepling his hands thoughtfully.

“That sounds right from Records I’ve read,” Fiona told him, glancing at Norik and Kindan for any disagreement.

“So this Turn we can expect—” H’nez paused as he did the sum in his head. “—the queens to produce at most four hundred and thirty-two weyrlings.”

“I think—” Bekka piped up hesitantly, then spoke with greater speed as H’nez nodded for her to continue. “I think it’s four hundred and forty-eight, my lord.”

“Yes, you’re right,” H’nez said after a moment’s thought. “Well summed.”

“I did a lot of sums for my mother,” Bekka explained.

“Four hundred and forty-eight,” H’nez repeated, absently waving Bekka back to silence.

“And at least two Turns before they’re large enough to fight,” Fiona added warningly.

“We could send them back to the past,” H’nez countered.

“Where?” Fiona asked. “We’ve already used all the time at Igen.”

H’nez frowned. “Well, couldn’t we just send them again?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” M’tal told him. “If we would do it, then it would already have happened at Igen back in time and we’d know that we’d done it already.”

H’nez’s eyes widened in confusion.

“It could only happen in a place where we wouldn’t have seen it already, H’nez,” Fiona told him. “It didn’t happen at Igen, or I would have met those riders from the future.” She added, “There’s only one past to go to.”

“So we didn’t do it at Igen,” H’nez conceded with a mild irritation. “Where else could we do it?”

“It’s not just location, it’s supplies,” Fiona said. H’nez gave her an inquiring look. “Three Turns, four hundred and forty-eight dragonets, riders, and there’d have to be others to care for them—that adds up to a lot of supplies. Where would they come from?”

“You managed.”

“That’s my point,” Fiona said. “We did manage and we were noticeable. Another group, nearly three times as large, would be even more noticeable. The only decent place to hide them would be a Weyr.”

“Tullea hid at High Reaches,” H’nez pointed out.

“Which means they couldn’t be there,” Fiona said. “Nor could they be at Benden, nor Fort, nor Igen, nor Telgar.”

“That leaves Ista?”

“I think that we can safely discount Ista, too,” M’tal said. “The island can only support so much, and Ista Weyr’s never been all that shorthanded. The difference would be observed, particularly by the traders.”

“Traders can keep secrets,” H’nez pointed out, with a nod toward Shaneese and another for Fiona.

“We could just ask them,” Lorana said. “If they’d done so, now’s the right time to tell us.”

“Good point,” M’tal agreed, his face taking on the abstracted look of a rider communing with his dragon. “C’rion’s Nidanth tells me no.”

He shrugged and said to H’nez, “Well, never mind, it was a good thought.”

H’nez frowned. “Even with those extra four hundred fighting dragons, we’d still have only about half the dragons we’d need.”

“And that’s ignoring casualties,” Norik added glumly. He looked at Kindan. “I don’t suppose you’ve determined the sort of casualties we can expect?”

“I’ve an idea,” Kindan replied, “but most of our experience has been with the added danger of the illness.” He turned to M’tal. “I’d like to get with Verilan and see what the Records say.”

“We have Records here,” Fiona reminded him. “And, in fact, I suspect our Records are more complete with regards to Weyr details—”

“You’d be surprised, Fiona,” Kindan interrupted her with a grin. It was a moment before he noticed the reproachful looks of both M’tal and H’nez, and even then, it took him longer to realize their cause.

“I mean, Weyrwoman,” he corrected himself, flushing in surprise. To Fiona, he apologized, “I’m sorry, but I still remember you as someone whose diapers I changed.”

Fiona’s eyes flashed angrily even as the warmth seemed to vanish from the room.

“Thank you, harper,” she told him coldly. “I still remember you as the one who couldn’t save my sister’s life.”

But she was instantly contrite, even before M’tal’s exclamation: “By the First Egg, Kindan, it still surprises me that you can be such a dull-glow at times!”

Fiona made a face and placed a hand on Kindan’s arm. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” she said even as she flinched at the anguish in his eyes. “I will never forget that I owe you my life.”

“You’ve grown up,” Kindan said after a long, thoughtful silence. “I guess I haven’t adjusted to it, Weyrwoman.”

“I’ve lived three Turns that you don’t know,” Fiona said, hoping to put the incident behind them. “I’ve not just thirteen Turns, I’ve nearer seventeen.”

“I’ll try to remember,” Kindan said. He pursed his lips tightly in consideration before adding, “And I’ll try to remember that you’re not your sister.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” Fiona said. “I can only guess how much you loved her.”

“Perhaps,” H’nez suggested diplomatically, “we should examine the Records?”

Fiona could almost kiss the man for his tact.

They were surprised to hear voices as they climbed up the queens’ ledge and past the sleeping Talenth.

“So you were the only girl?” Jeila’s voice could be heard clearly.

“Fiona was there, too,” Terin said. “After a while, we had the traders staying with us—”

“Really? In the Weyr?” Jeila sounded surprised and impressed. “You know, I’ve trader blood.”

“Hush! Someone’s coming!”

“It’s just us,” Fiona called as they entered her quarters. “We didn’t mean to interrupt. We’re going to the Records Room.”

Terin groaned and explained to Jeila. “Anytime she goes into the Records Room it means trouble.”

“Can I come?” Jeila asked, throwing off her blankets and sitting up.

“Bekka?” Fiona said, cocking her head to the young weyrgirl. Bekka examined the older woman’s forehead for heat, took her pulse, and checked her eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked the young weyrwoman.

“I feel tired but otherwise fine and a bit fidgety,” Jeila confessed. Fiona glanced at her sharply: She felt fidgety herself.

“Well, you’re definitely not pregnant,” Bekka declared. Everyone turned to her in surprise. “It’s really all I know, now.”

“Whether someone’s pregnant?”

“My mother’s a midwife,” Bekka explained nonchalantly. “After a while, you just know.”

Fiona saw the way Bekka’s eyes lingered on Lorana and how the older woman’s lips tightened in surprise. Fiona glanced toward M’tal and the bronze rider met her eyes with a slight, confirming nod of his own. The air went out of Fiona’s lungs with a finality that surprised her. He’d told her that Kindan and Lorana had formed a bond; why did it bother her so much now to see the truth?

“Are the Rooms over there?” M’tal asked Fiona politely, rescuing her from another awkward moment.

“Yes,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to—”

“Shaneese had them cleaned the other day, my lady,” Terin told her.

“Perhaps I should stay here with Terin,” Lorana said. She glanced at Fiona. “I could see this box that your Tenniz left.”

“Why don’t you go on,” Fiona called to the others. “I’d like to see this as well.”

Kindan and Lorana exchanged a quick glance, after which Kindan nodded and followed the two bronze riders to the Records Room.

“The box is over here,” Terin called out cheerfully, pulling it down from the shelves. She continued breathlessly, even as she placed it on Fiona’s worktable, “I wonder what you’ll get and what your message will be. I hope yours makes more sense than ours.”

With an inquiring look at Fiona, Lorana opened the box and reached inside to pull out the final envelope, the one with her name on it.

“It’s heavy,” Lorana said nervously, and then she opened it and poured out its contents. Something golden and long, rod-like, dropped into her hands. She held it up and turned it until she made sense of the shape.

“That’s odd,” she said, as she held it up for the others to examine. It looked something like the twined serpents and staff symbol of a healer, but the top was shaped more like a dragon’s head. The workmanship was brilliant but seemed somewhat incomplete. Fiona wondered at the small holes at either side, one third of the way up and one third of the way down.

“It looks like something else should hook there,” Terin said, her eyes narrowing.

“What’s the note say?” Fiona asked.

Lorana smoothed the note out on the table, and as she read it, her face drained of all color. Anxiously, Fiona moved behind her to read over her shoulder: The way forward is dark and long. A dragon gold is only the first price you’ll pay for Pern.

“Mine said that it would turn out all right,” Fiona said, trying to reassure Lorana. “I’m certain it will.”

Lorana gave her a small smile.

“Perhaps he was wrong,” Terin said. “After all, he seems to think I’m going to be needing this.” She fingered her gold dragon fitting longingly.

“He must have felt he was right,” Lorana said, gesturing at the box, “to go through all this trouble.” Her lips pulled into a frown as she added, “And he did know that I was going to be here.”

“We can’t be certain of that,” Fiona said. “He could just have expected me to deliver this.”

“Fiona,” Lorana turned to her bleakly, “he knew that I’d paid with dragon gold. How many others knew that?”

Fiona couldn’t argue her logic. “Whatever is needed, I’ll do,” she swore. She waved angrily at the note. “This will not be! You’ve paid enough already.”

“Have I?” Lorana asked her softly. She met Fiona’s blue eyes squarely with her almond-brown ones. “What price would you pay to save Pern?” She turned to Terin. “What price would you pay?”

“But it’s not fair!” Terin said. “You’ve paid more than anyone!”

“Have I?” Lorana asked, gesturing toward the Records Room and Kindan. “Hasn’t Kindan paid as much? Or Salina, or Seban? Or all those who have paid, even with dragon gold?”

“All the same, I agree with Terin,” Fiona said. “It’s not fair.”

“No,” Lorana said. “And as you’ve promised to help me, I’ll ask that you—both of you—say nothing of this to Kindan.” She met Fiona’s eyes. “He’s paid enough already.”

“Very well,” Fiona said. She chewed her lip thoughtfully before finding the courage to ask, “Does he know? About the child?”

Lorana shook her head. “It’s far too early for anyone to know.”

“Except Bekka,” Terin corrected with a giggle.

“You do seem to surround yourself with the most amazing people,” Lorana told Fiona.

“Just lucky,” Fiona said with a shrug.

“Luck?” Lorana said. “Or something more?”

Fiona shrugged again. “Whatever it is, I’m grateful for my friends.” She looked toward the Records Room. “We’d best join them unless you want Kindan to ask why we’ve been here so long.”

“What should I do about this?” Lorana asked, gesturing to the brooch.

Fiona thought quickly and pulled out her brooch, passing it to Lorana. “Here, wear this.”

“It looks just like Kindan’s!” Lorana exclaimed as she examined it.

“Which is why I think there must have been a mistake,” Fiona said. She felt Lorana’s reluctance and told her firmly, “Look, if you don’t wear it, Kindan will wonder.”

With a sigh Lorana took the harp brooch and attached it. “I don’t like lying to him.”

“You’re not lying,” Fiona assured her. “You’re wearing a brooch.”

“And if he asks about yours?”

“I’ll tell him it’s none of his business,” Fiona said waspishly. She shook her head and gave Lorana an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but I’ll handle it.”

“You probably will,” Lorana said. She grinned, then, and gestured for Fiona to lead the way. “Just as you’ll figure out what to tell him about the note.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” Terin piped up. “Just tell him that it said that you’d pay a dragon gold to save Pern.”

Lorana and Fiona turned back to face her, eyebrows raised.

“Well, it’s not a lie, is it?” Terin said.

Fortunately, when they entered the Records Room they found all the others deep in concentration as they combed the older Records.

“They’re mostly either too new or too faded to be useful,” Kindan said as he irritably replaced a stack of musty Records, shaking his head. “The weather here is harder on paper than it is at Benden.”

“Igen had clean Records,” Fiona said.

“Perhaps we should go there?” H’nez said.

“That might be a good idea,” Kindan said, his eyes slipping toward Fiona before returning quickly to the Records.

“But I’ve got some numbers to go by …” His words trailed off as he grimaced over a slate filled with numbers and terse lettering. He found another slate, glanced at its contents, and absently wiped it clean before transferring a cluster of numbers to it.

“Can someone check my numbers?” Kindan asked after a moment. Something in his tone alarmed Fiona. She reached for the slate, even as she said, “I’m not all that good with numbers.”

The numbers were dragons lost in a series of Threadfalls compared with Weyr strength. She did a quick tally of each, divided the total losses by the total strength and then glanced at Kindan. “My numbers say nearly three dragons in every hundred.”

“Three in one hundred?” H’nez asked, surprised.

“Per Fall,” Fiona added grimly.

“So a full-strength Weyr lost nearly fifteen dragons every Fall?” M’tal said, gesturing for Kindan’s slate and reading through it quickly. He put it down and glanced around. “Is there a clean slate about?”

Fiona passed him one and a stick of chalk. M’tal’s eyes narrowed in thought as he drew numbers on his slate. Finally, he glanced up at the others. “That’s better than Benden’s average; we’ve been losing five for every one hundred.”

“But we can’t be sure how much of that was due to the illness,” Kindan said.

“All the same, it lends credence to your number,” H’nez said.

Lorana had been working on a separate slate of her own. “It tallies with the queens’ clutches, too.”

The others looked at her in surprise, so she explained, “Well, it makes sense that the queens would have to replace the losses. So a quick tally of clutches should roughly match the losses … and it does.”

“With—what? Five queens in six Weyrs?” Kindan asked.

“Thirty queens,” Lorana agreed.

“We’ve only eight.”

“We can make more,” Fiona reminded them, her lips quirked upward.

“But will we have the time?”

On H’nez’s suggestion, they agreed to say nothing of their findings to the rest of the Weyr.

“We’ve Threadfall tomorrow,” H’nez reminded them as they made their way back into Fiona’s quarters. He glanced at Lorana. “Will the dragons be fit to fly by then?”

“They could fly now,” M’tal said. “Tullea’s Minith had less time before she went back in time to High Reaches.”

“But it would be better if they rested as much as they could,” Lorana said.

“The Fall’s not until after noon,” H’nez said. “We wouldn’t have to start getting ready more than two hours before then.”

“That will be plenty of time for them to recover,” M’tal assured him.

H’nez regarded M’tal for a long moment before saying, “Thank you, bronze rider. I think we have relied on your kindness more than enough.”

M’tal looked at the rangy bronze rider with amusement in his eyes. “Are you dismissing me, H’nez?”

H’nez looked slightly flustered. “It’s just that I’m sure you have duties to your Weyr and I wouldn’t want to delay your return by imposing on your kindness.”

Lorana gave Fiona a sympathetic look.

“Lord M’tal,” Fiona said, “you are welcome to stay in Telgar as long as you’d like.” She gave H’nez her brightest smile as she added, smugly, “You might have heard that my Talenth will be rising soon and I’m sure she would be very pleased to have your great Gaminth as a suitor.”

“Fiona!” Terin murmured warningly under her breath.

M’tal inclined his head toward the Weyrwoman, his eyes twinkling as he glanced toward H’nez. “I shall certainly consider the offer, Weyrwoman.”

“I’d like to stay here,” Jeila added from where she sat in Fiona’s bed. “Tolarth will be rising soon”—she glanced toward H’nez—“and I think that Telgar would benefit from two queens.”

“But doesn’t Weyrwoman Tullea expect you back in Benden?” Fiona asked quickly, suddenly feeling less smug.

“I suspect that Weyrwoman Tullea would be glad to see Tolarth established here,” M’tal observed, inclining his head toward H’nez. “For the benefit of all Pern.”

“With two queens so close to rising—” Fiona began, feeling suddenly very outmaneuvered.

“Not to worry, Weyrwoman,” H’nez assured her. “As you know, it is easy for the other queen to take herself away temporarily.”

“You want the best for the Weyr, don’t you?” Jeila added.

“Of course,” Fiona said.

“Sonia’s Lyrinth has told me that High Reaches will fly this Fall with you,” Lorana said. She glanced toward Fiona. “If you want, you could form a queens’ wing.”

“With both queens ready to rise, that might not be wise,” M’tal said, his lips pursed tightly.

Dinner that evening was a subdued affair with undertones of tension that Fiona could not fail to notice. She was certain that some of the tension was from the spreading awareness that, although the dragon sickness had been cured, the Weyrs were still gravely understrength. Another part of the tension, Fiona guessed, was from the presence of so many new and different faces at the high table. Shaneese noticed it, too, and spent much of her time hovering near the Weyrleader’s table, eyeing Fiona anxiously.

At Fiona’s request, Mekiar was seated with them and she’d had him show some of his work to M’tal and Kindan, both of whom were impressed.

Still, Fiona found herself ceding most of the conversation to Jeila. The Benden weyrwoman was a thin-boned, animated person who charmed everyone around her, including Shaneese, who was thrilled to have another of the trader’s blood in the Weyr.

F’jian and Terin were seated nearby and locked in their own intimate conversation, only occasionally exchanging words with the others at their table. Before dinner, F’jian had made a special point to thank Lorana for her sacrifice and Kindan for his persistence—remarks that both pleased and nettled Fiona.

T’mar was seated at yet another table, a cluster of his riders mingled with the Telgar weyrfolk. Fiona glanced his way several times, but he never seemed to look at her during the whole meal. She couldn’t say why that irritated her so much. She shrugged. It seemed she was just a little touchy tonight.

“She’s going to rise soon,” Mekiar spoke up softly from his place beside her.

“Pardon?” Fiona asked, leaning politely toward the older man, remembering that he’d once ridden a brown dragon, Turns before she was born.

“Your queen,” he said, “she’s going to rise soon.” He nodded firmly. “I can see it in the way you’re acting.”

“Me?”

“Yes,” Mekiar replied. “You don’t quite know how to feel, you can’t concentrate, you’re irritated, happy, sad—”

“How did you know?” Fiona interrupted sharply.

“I’ve seen many a mating flight,” Mekiar told her. He gave her a grim smile. “Judging by you, I’d say you’re going to have your hands full when the time comes.”