Dragon's Time

ONE

Cold. Black. Silent. Deadly.

Between. That strange nothingness where dragons can go that can only be described as “between one place and another.”

“Between only lasts as long as it takes to cough three times.” For a short journey, yes. For a journey from one place to another, anywhere on Pern—yes, three coughs is enough. But when traveling between one time and another—it takes longer. A cold, silent, freezing longer that saps life.

Lorana felt nothing, not the warmth of the queen dragon beneath her, not even the tiny, tender presence that warmed her womb.

I’m sorry! Lorana cried, her hand going to her belly. There was no other way!

No response.

Pern was dying, there were too few dragons and riders to protect it from Thread. Slowly, steadily, inexorably, the protection of Pern was being eroded, was dying out. The dragonriders, including Weyrleader T’mar, Weyrwoman Fiona, and all the Weyrleaders of the four other Weyrs, had tried their best, had developed new tactics, had kept adapting, kept striving, kept searching for some way out of their trap. But the problem was that there were too few dragons, less than a third the number required, and more were being lost each Fall.

The dragons’ numbers were so few because of the strange sickness that had come upon them just before the start of this new Pass of the Red Star. Lorana, with Kindan’s stout aid, had succeeded in finding help from the distant past and that help had led them to a cure for the sickness. In the meantime, however, too many dragons had succumbed to the sickness—and more to Thread—leaving too few dragons to protect the planet. In desperation, because no one could conceive of getting further help from the past, Lorana had decided to jump forward in time, to jump ahead to a time after the Third Pass and beg for aid from the future.

She was the only one with a sure sense of time and place—a gift, she thought, from her special link with all the dragons of Pern—and only she could make the journey forward to such an unknown, unseen time. She used the Red Star to guide her, picturing it and the stars in their stations where they would be fifty Turns from her present.

Using her gift came at a price, however. A jump of this length would be a terrible strain on her and gold Minith. But it would be fatal to the life stirring inside her.

Lorana wailed silently. Go back! she urged herself. Go back before it’s too late.

I can’t, she decided a moment later. It’s too late. I’m all alone.

I’m here! Minith called to her feebly, her touch full of support. You are not alone.

Lorana made no reply. She knew she couldn’t explain herself to the gold dragon, to a queen who laid eggs.

Everything I’ve loved, I’ve lost, Lorana thought to herself, letting her hand slip, unfelt, unfeeling, from her belly.

I’ve lost my own queen, my beloved fire-lizards, and now … She couldn’t finish the thought.

Tears froze on her cheeks, her heart beat at a slow, glacial pace, as the cold of between sapped her strength, her life.

And stilled the life of the other inside her.

A dragon gold is only the first price …

The cold between gripped her and she knew no more.

Lorana closed her eyes in a spasm of pain. She was in a bed, in a nightgown. Fearful, her hands went to her belly—it was flat, lifeless.

“You lost the baby,” a voice said. It was old, hoarse with age, but somehow familiar. “But you knew that. You planned on it.”

Tullea. Benden’s Weyrwoman, Minith’s rightful rider.

Minith? Lorana called.

I am here, the queen responded quickly. There was no echo to her voice: no sign that an older Minith—a Minith of this future time—had heard her call.

“Don’t,” Tullea warned harshly. “You are still too weak. I wasn’t sure that you wanted to live yourself.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Perhaps you didn’t, really.”

“Where am I? Is the Pass over?” Lorana asked, her eyes still closed. Her mouth was dry; her voice was slurred and felt awkward.

“The Pass is over,” Tullea affirmed. “That much I’ll tell you and no more.”

“Help?” Lorana said. She realized that word wasn’t enough and, after another breath, asked, “Will you send help?”

“Dragons from the future?” Tullea said. “Simple, quick, efficient! Oh, yes, no worries for those left behind.” She snorted and added viciously, “Oh, no! No, dragon-stealer, you won’t find any dragons in the future.”

“None?” Lorana opened her eyes only to find the room completely dark.

“None for you,” Tullea snapped back. “You were always meddling when you should have left things alone.”

“Where’s B’nik?” Lorana asked.

“Where’s his jacket?” Tullea retorted. She barked a bitter laugh. “Between, that’s where! Where you left it!”

Lorana wondered for a moment if the old queen rider had gone insane.

“Where you must go, now!” Tullea went on, and Lorana gasped as, abruptly, the blankets were pulled off her. “Get up, your things are over there!”

“But—I want to talk—”

“You’ve talked enough!” Tullea snapped, grabbing Lorana’s hand and feebly pulling on it. “You’re well enough to travel; it’s time—long time—you were gone.” Tullea seemed to think her last comment funny and let out another bitter laugh.

The faintest of glows, smaller than any Lorana had ever seen, was turned. It provided only a dim light, which revealed bare stone walls, the rude blanket thrown over her, and the rough, reed bed beneath her. And Tullea—old, bent, white-haired, almost unrecognizable.

“Take my dragon with you, dragon-stealer!” Tullea said, throwing clothes toward her.

“Can’t I talk to anyone?”

“What makes you think there’s anyone to talk to?” Tullea asked sharply.

Lorana started to answer, then stretched her senses, searching for someone, for a dragon or even a watch-wher, but—

Slap! Her cheek was suddenly aflame with stinging pain.

“Don’t do that!” Tullea barked. “Don’t make me remember!” She shoved Lorana. “Get dressed, get going! Now!”

Shocked and depressed, Lorana wordlessly slipped back into her riding clothes. Her undergarments were unwashed; they smelled of sweat and the fear she’d felt when she’d made this journey to the future.

So far. She’d come so far. She’d given so much.

“Get moving!” Tullea hustled her along. “Time enough to think later.”

“Please, we need help,” Lorana said even as Tullea nudged her. They walked down a slope on a cloudy, starless night. She heard more then saw Minith in the distance.

“You’ll have to fly high and south to get above the clouds and see the Red Star,” Tullea told her as she tried to push Lorana up onto the gold dragon. “Be quick about it! I want to have as much time with my dragon as I can!”

Lorana found herself perched on Minith, wondering if the poor gold queen had been wearing the riding harness the whole time Lorana had been a babbling wreck in bed. Had she even been fed?

“Of course she was fed!” Tullea declared irritably. “Now, go! Go back where you belong!” She barked another dry laugh. “The Red Star will guide you, just as it did when you came here!”

Without another word, Tullea turned away, heading back up toward the cave from which they’d emerged. Lorana watched her in the dim light, frowning. Wasn’t there anything she could do?

“Go!” Tullea wailed.

Come on, Minith, let’s go, Lorana said sadly to the queen. In a moment they were airborne, climbing toward the clouds. As they rose higher, the clouds thinned and she could see the Red Star faintly through the breaks.

She brought the image of Red Butte into her mind with stars, moons, and the Red Star to mark the time, thankful for the very small favor of Tullea’s, and gave Minith the coordinates.

All this way, she thought to herself as they entered the cold of between. Involuntarily her hands went to her belly. Her cold, flat, lifeless belly. All for nothing!

Tullea turned back when she heard the sound of Minith going between. Her shoulders slumped and she let out a deep, regretful sigh.

Minith, tell her it’s done, Tullea thought, stretching her mind into between in the special way she’d been taught.

A moment later the air was full of the sound of dragon wings. A pale yellow specter, a ghost of the young fertile queen who’d been here just moments before, landed daintily in front of her with the grace of long years.

Beside her, another queen landed. And another.

“Stay there!” Tullea called up to the two queen riders. “I want to get back to the Weyr and feel some warmth in my bones.”

“How did she take it?” the older of the two riders asked, her face bleak with sorrow.

“Just like you said she would,” Tullea snapped waspishly. For a moment her habitual mask slipped and she asked, “Why couldn’t I have told her? Why did I have to be a monster to her?”

“Because that’s what she said,” the woman replied. Her hair was mostly white with only a few streaks of blond left in it, but her eyes were still the sea green blue they’d always been. “She said that you were horrible to her, gave her not one moment’s kindness.” She paused and added, “Nor one clue.”

“So she’ll never know,” Tullea mused to herself. “She never found out.”

“No,” Fiona replied sadly. “She never had a chance to learn how you’d changed.” She smiled at the older woman. “But I did.” Tullea snorted in disbelief.

“Why do you think I insisted on that glow?” Fiona asked.

“Because Lorana said that’s what there was,” Tullea said.

“Because if there’d been more light, she would have seen your face clearly,” Fiona told her.

“So?” Tullea barked. “It’s old, it’s creased.” Her tone changed as the feeble spark of anger in her dimmed. “I’ve lived a long life; I’m ready for my rest. We go back to the Weyr, I say my farewells, and you keep your part of the bargain.”

“Of course,” Fiona agreed.

Tullea mounted, moving slowly with care for her old bones even as she cursed her age. It was time, she thought to herself. She’d seen enough, lived enough. It was time.

Before she urged Minith back to the Weyr, she turned to Fiona. “What about the light?”

“The lines in your face,” Fiona said by way of explanation. “They’re not lines of sorrow. If she’d seen them, she’d have known.”

“Oh,” Tullea replied. Her face grew brighter and she shot the younger woman a smile as she added more emphatically, “Oh!”

It was only when they were back in the Weyr, when Fiona was helping Tullea down off the aged Minith, that the older Weyrwoman had time again to think of what she’d done.

“Will you ever tell her?” she asked without hope.

“About you?” Fiona asked sadly. At the old woman’s nod, she shook her head. “No, I never knew. Never knew until it was too late.”

“Pity,” Tullea said. She glanced toward the clouds and the night sky, which threatened rain later. “I would have liked for her to know.” She snorted. “It’s the least I could do, for all that she’s done.”

Above them, the sky was torn open as wing after wing of dragons appeared overhead and spiraled down gracefully into the Weyr below.

“Don’t tell him at least,” Tullea pleaded as she glanced upward at the returning dragons, with Benden’s Weyrleader in the vanguard.

“That his mother was here tonight?” Fiona asked, looking over toward the Benden Weyrleader. “Or how surprised she’d be to know that he’s partnered with your daughter?”

A streak of light burst from the Dining Cavern and a young form raced into sight, stopping with sudden concern for Tullea’s old bones.

The dark-haired little boy looked up at Tullea and she knelt down.

“I’m too old to pick you up, you know,” she said as she drew him into a great hug. “I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

The boy looked at her in confusion, his dark brown eyes were deep and thoughtful, slanted just slightly and shrouded by the thick dark hair that made him the near-twin of his great-grandmother.

“He’d be proud, you know,” Fiona spoke up quietly from Tullea’s side, with a brief tilt of her head toward Benden’s Weyrleader.

“I’ll have to be proud enough for all of them,” Tullea replied, her eyes spangled with tears.

Again Lorana was numb, voiceless, shocked by the length of the cold between. She had followed Tullea’s image blindly, and so it came as a shock to realize that she and Minith seemed to be between for even longer than on their jump forward. Where was Tullea sending her?

Suddenly, as if in a clear instant, Lorana froze, thinking that she heard voices. She strained her senses, reached out, and caught—panic, fear, despair!

A man’s voice cried out. And a woman’s, too. Fiona?

Lorana started to worry that she had jumped blindly between forever, like D’gan and the Telgar riders, and that perhaps she was hearing Fiona’s voice calling for her. She tried to reach out, to touch Fiona, to find her and then—

She burst forth into a cold night sky. It felt as cold as between, and as dark—except she could see a spattering of stars in the sky and a small light below.

She realized suddenly where she was—she had drawn a picture of it once long ago—Red Butte, the massive uprising of rock in the center of the Keroon Plains. Minith, without urging, began a slow, steady spiral down toward the light.

It was a campfire, warm and inviting. Lorana saw one figure rise from beside it before exhaustion overtook her once more and even that small light went dark.

“The soup is warm, you should sip it slowly,” a young man’s voice said. A hand covered her eyes briefly as he added quickly, “Don’t open your eyes until you’ve sat up, or you’ll stare straight into the sun!”

Lorana was lying on the ground, its rock-hardness eased by a layer of soft cushions, perhaps a pile of reeds. She sat up slowly and opened her eyes.

An earnest young man smiled at her, proffering a steaming bowl of soup.

Thirsty, cold, and fatigued, Lorana took the bowl and drank a quick, small sip.

“It’s good!” she said, taking a longer drink.

“Finish it, I’ll get more,” the young man offered, pointing at a large cauldron resting on the side of a neat ring of rocks.

Lorana gladly complied. At the man’s gesture, she handed him the bowl and he scooted over to the cauldron to dip out another serving. He coughed once and shook his head with a frown.

As he handed the bowl back to her, Lorana looked at him closely. Had she come back to the time of the Plague?

“It’s not the Plague,” he said, as if guessing her thoughts. “This is my own doom.” Another cough rattled through him and it was a long moment before he could take another breath. Once his breathing eased, he told her conversationally, “I won’t have it much longer. I’m going to die tomorrow.”

Startled, Lorana made to rise, saying, “We can get help! Minith will take us—”

“That won’t be necessary,” he told her, shaking his head. “There is nothing that can be done.”

“But you’re so young!”

“I’ve had my Turns, now it’s my time,” he said. He held a hand out to her. “Until now, you’ve never met me, but I’ve already seen you several times.”

“Seen me?” Lorana asked, bewildered. “At a Gather?”

“No,” he said, smiling sadly and raising a hand to his head. “In here. And in the flesh.” Another cough wracked his body. “My name is Tenniz; I think you’ve heard of me.”

“Tenniz?” Lorana repeated. “The trader?” Her hand went to her chest, where she wore the unusual brooch that had been left for her at Telgar Weyr—a strange gift with an even stranger message. “You sent me this.”

“I did,” the young man said with a grimace. “I wish it were not so.” He cocked an eye at her. “You’ve returned from the future?”

“You knew?” Lorana said, surprised. “The way forward is dark and long. A dragon gold is only the first price you’ll pay for Pern,” she went on, quoting the note that had accompanied the brooch.

Tenniz shook his head. “I only knew a little,” he told her, tapping his head. “I see the future only in glimpses.”

“Please,” Lorana said, “what did you see?”

“I saw a long, cold darkness,” Tenniz said. “I saw a face you knew, but older. I felt a loss, a numbness, a warmth gone cold.” He looked up at her, his eyes troubled. “What was it?”

“My baby,” Lorana replied softly.

“Oh!” Tenniz cried, “I didn’t know! I’m sorry!”

His expression so unnerved her that Lorana found herself sobbing as she saw the sympathy in the eyes of the young man who would die the next day.

It was a long time before she could draw a shuddering breath and ease the pain in her heart. “Have I paid enough?”

Tenniz shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Lorana looked at him, examining his face carefully for the first time. The face was not that old, certainly younger than her, but older than Fiona. The thought of the irrepressible younger woman brought a slight smile to her lips and instinctively she reached out—

“I can feel her!” Lorana said in surprise. “Twice!” She explained, “I can feel her baby self at Fort Hold and her older teen self, here now in Igen Weyr.” Her smile slipped as she added, “Baby Fiona is so cute!”

She felt the slim child’s mind start to turn questioningly toward her, heard Talenth at Igen Weyr respond to her dreamily, and felt, behind the dragon’s query, a more tenuous strand of thought from the teen Fiona and abruptly pulled herself away from them. Neither baby nor teen had yet met Lorana and she didn’t want to frighten them.

“You brought her back to Igen,” Tenniz guessed.

Lorana shook her head. “I haven’t.”

“Yet.”

Lorana considered that for a moment, then nodded. “I suppose at some point, I could do it.”

“Either you or someone else from her future must do it,” Tenniz said.

“Must?”

“It is said that there is no way to break time.”

“There are ways to cheat it,” Lorana said.

“Cheat it?”

She gave him a sad nod. “Yes,” she said. She told him about Ketan—the ex-dragonrider who had lost his brown to the sickness—and how, at Tullea’s urging, Lorana had taken Minith back in time with the older Ketan to give the dragonrider one last chance to ride his beautiful brown dragon and, at the same time, save Weyrleader B’nik from death by taking his place.

“That’s amazing,” Tenniz said. “But, of course, it had always been that way, hadn’t it?”

“I suppose you could look at it that way,” Lorana replied.

“I see it differently.”

“Things that happen differently?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “What I see happens. It’s just that it may not happen the way I see.”

Lorana was growing more confused.

“For example, I saw that you would suffer another loss, but I did not see what it was.”

“You said you see glimpses.”

“Yes,” Tenniz agreed.

“Did you see me coming here?”

“It was one of the first things I ever saw,” he replied. “Among those born with this gift, it is common that the first thing they see is their own death.”

“Your death?” Lorana asked, wide-eyed. “Here? With me?”

Tenniz nodded twice. “That must be horrible!”

“Not really,” Tenniz said. “I first started seeing around my eleventh Turn, and so seeing myself all ‘grown up’—as I thought then—seeing myself talk to someone whom I was really pleased to meet, was quite an enjoyable image.” He shook his head and smiled fondly at the memory of his younger self. After a moment he added, “It’s almost easier to see things about myself than others.”

“What about Pern?”

“I see glimpses of the future, people in them,” Tenniz said. “It’s like dreaming but different; there’s a sense of purpose to these dreams, like they’re important.”

“So you don’t know what will happen?”

Tenniz sat silently for a moment before answering, “Even before I met Fiona, I knew the dangers of talking too much about the future.”

“What does it matter?” Lorana asked. “You say the future can’t be changed.”

“And you say that it can be cheated,” Tenniz replied. “Just like Fiona, I learned that telling too much can be harmful.”

“How?”

“By making it harder to cheat,” he said. “Pardon?”

“If you think you know how things will go, then why would you try anything different?” he replied. “Consider your friend Ketan.”

“Well, what I know right now is that no one survives,” Lorana said bitterly.

“How do you know that?”

“I told you, I met Tullea, I couldn’t hear any dragons—”

“I thought you said that she slapped you,” Tenniz interjected.

“She did,” Lorana said dismissively.

“Just when you were reaching out, right?”

“Yes,” Lorana replied, wondering suddenly how Tullea would have known that she was reaching out. How could she know that unless … Her eyes widened. “And she sent me here, to you.” She looked at him quizzically. “Why?”

“Why indeed?” Tenniz said. “I didn’t tell her that I was coming here.”

“But now I would know, I could tell her in the future,” she said.

Tenniz frowned while he considered her notion. “But why send you back here, then?”

“So you think she had something in mind?” Lorana asked. “And she slapped me so that I wouldn’t reach out to find dragons?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She could have slapped you just because she was mad.”

“She was very angry,” Lorana agreed.

“She might also have been mad, too,” Tenniz added with a bleak expression.

“Mad enough to send me back here?” she wondered. “You have another thought?”

“Perhaps she wanted me to find you,” she said. “In which case …”

“Nothing,” Tenniz said, shaking his head gently. “It would seem that Benden’s Weyrwoman, in her old age, has grown more cunning than I would have expected.”

“Or someone else suggested it to her,” Lorana said. The image of a smiling blond-haired, green-eyed young woman came readily to mind. “They could all have hidden between,” she added. “I wouldn’t have been able to find them, then.”

“How would they know when to come back?”

“There are several ways,” Lorana said after a moment. “Because this happened to me already, anyone I tell would know what happened and could tell Tullea in the future.”

“Or you could be grasping at straws,” Tenniz said.

“I could,” Lorana agreed, “but that’s better than what I thought before.”

“So you get my point,” Tenniz said with a grin. “It’s important not to give away too much so that we can cheat time.”

“It still doesn’t solve our problem now,” she said with a grim look.

“You mean then,” Tenniz corrected. Lorana made to answer but he held up a hand, adding, “Your ‘then’ is ten Turns in our future, when the dragons have stopped dying of this sickness, but are too few to protect Pern.”

“Yes, that then,” Lorana agreed.

“Time-travel must be very confusing,” Tenniz said.

“It is,” she agreed. “And tiring.”

“And dangerous,” he said, blowing out a sigh that turned into another hacking cough. He held up a restraining hand as Lorana moved to his aid, and in a few moments the cough subsided. When he recovered, he gestured for her to get up. “I must show you some things while I still can.”

Bemused, Lorana rose, only to reach out to the thin man for support. Tenniz gave her an apologetic look and a firm grab, helping her to steady herself on her wobbly legs.

“Not far,” he said. “I hope you’ll have your energy back soon.”

“You didn’t see that?”

“What I saw was that you came from a dark, cold place, through a darker, colder place, suffering a great loss, feeling a great sadness and despair,” he told her. He smiled for a moment. “I saw us laughing together and looking up at the stars—” He glanced up at the daylight surrounding them. “I expect that will happen later.” He paused as he steered her toward his destination. It was a pile of rocks. “And, I’m sorry to say, I saw you crying as you piled the rocks.”

“Piled the rocks?” Lorana repeated, looking at the neat pile. And then, beyond it, she saw the small depression carved out of the unrelenting stone of the Red Butte.

“Well, it took me a while, but I figured it out, I think,” Tenniz said pursing his lips in a quick grimace before adding, “I always liked being out among the stars.” He paused, took a quick step in front of her, and, still holding her hand, knelt, looking up beseechingly. “Would you bury me when the time comes?”