Dragonsblood

by Todd McCaffrey

  “Ah, but while we were sunning ourselves, Lorana was doubtless being fried in the heat or was bitten by one of her subjects, or—it’s turned so cold, Talith!” J’trel said, pulling his riding helmet back on. “Almost as cold as between. What if—”

  She is down there, Talith said, tightening into a steeper dive. J’trel craned his head out over Talith’s neck and saw a small fire below on the beach.

  “She’s probably half frozen,” J’trel chided. “This will never do.”

  Lorana leapt from her place at the fire and rushed to greet the old rider as Talith settled. Grenn and Garth chirped cheerful greetings to Talith, who rumbled back.

  We fell asleep in the warm sun, the dragon told Lorana, and now J’trel is afraid that you are cold.

  “The fire’s warm, J’trel,” Lorana said, beckoning eagerly, “and there should be enough light to see by.”

  “See what?” J’trel asked, his earlier excuses forgotten in the heat of Lorana’s excitement.

  Lorana held up a hand. “I can’t tell you, I have to show you.”

  “Well then, let’s get to that fire.”

  When he was settled by the fire, angled so that its warmth was on his back and its light good for reading, Lorana opened her sketchbook and passed it to him.

  “Look at this one for a moment,” she said, pointing to one of her earlier drawings.

  J’trel took the book and peered at it. His eyes weren’t good close up anymore; he moved the book farther away until the image came into focus.

  “Hmm, ugly little beastie,” he muttered to himself, then hastily added, “but you drew it well.”

  With a polite nod, Lorana took the book, flipped the pages to one of her more recent drawings, and thrust it back in the dragonrider’s hands.

  “Now look at this, please.”

  J’trel frowned, and examined the drawing more carefully. “Why it’s almost the same—but different! I can’t quite see what, though.”

  Lorana leaned forward and pointed. “Here—the back legs have none of the fur of the other ones.” She flipped back to the first drawing. “But see how the front digger legs are much thinner on this one than on the other? I think that this northern one needs the thinner diggers to burrow in the wet earth, while this little beastie needs wider diggers to push the sand away. See?”

  “Almost,” J’trel said with a frown. He shook his head. “My eyes are too old, and it’s too dark.”

  Lorana laughed. “I suppose the light is too bad! But I’ve been looking at these pictures for hours.” Catching J’trel’s grim face, she added hastily, “Oh, don’t worry, J’trel, I was quite safe—Garth and Grenn kept watch.”

  She glanced back at her drawing and then eagerly back to J’trel. “Did you have any luck finding a ship? I’d love to see if there are any different sorts of scatids in Tillek, not to mention the other beasties I’ve found.”

  “A ship, she asks!” J’trel exclaimed. “Oh, Lorana, did I find the most beautiful vessel for you! Fit for a Holder this one is—in fact it’s meant for a Holder—none other than the Lord Holder of Tillek, the Masterfisher himself, designed it, and it was built—ah, it’s just finished in the yards and will sail with the tide!”

  His beaming smile suddenly vanished.

  “J’trel, what’s wrong?” Lorana asked.

  “The tide!” J’trel wailed. “Oh, Lorana, that dratted dragon of mine—we’ve missed the tide!” He turned to his dragon. “Talith, why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I’m sure you were both tired,” Lorana said in a reasonable voice. “But, J’trel, what does it matter that we’ve missed the tide?”

  “Wind Rider sailed with the tide, Lorana. The ship’s gone!”

  There is plenty of time, Talith said soothingly. I know when we should meet the sailing master. You have given me a very clear image.

  J’trel brightened. “Of course!” he agreed. “Lorana, gather your gear and I’ll have you on the good ship Wind Rider before she sails!”

  Between only lasts as long as it takes to cough three times, Lorana reminded herself silently as Talith rose high above the Igen shoreline and the faint traces of her campfire blended into the darkness far below them.

  Since meeting J’trel and his blue dragon, Lorana had been between several times as they had gone from their unmarked camp to various points on Pern. She had become mostly used to the chill and dead silence of the nothingness that was between one place and another.

  It may take a bit longer this time, Talith warned her. And then they were between.

  The warming comfort of Talith’s presence steadied her. Lorana counted slowly to herself: one, two, three, fo—

  The sun shone high in the sky as Talith appeared over Ista Sea Hold. Garth and Grenn arrived moments later right above the dragon, chittering their pride in following the larger dragon between.

  Talith nimbly deposited his riders before the main entrance to Ista Sea Hold and told J’trel he was going to look for a nice warm resting spot.

  “Just don’t fall asleep again,” J’trel warned, slapping the blue dragon’s neck affectionately. As the blue dragon became airborne, he gave a soft cough.

  Lorana looked at J’trel, with her brows raised. “I don’t recall him coughing like that before.”

  J’trel waved a hand. “He’s old. Sometimes a thick lungful of air will make a dragon cough. His lungs aren’t like they used to be.”

  “Do dragons cough often?” Lorana asked, with natural curiosity—her father had been a beastmaster and had even tended people in emergencies, and she had learned much of his craft.

  J’trel shrugged. “Dragons are very healthy. Sometimes they seem to get a bit of a bug, and sometimes a cough.” He made a throwaway gesture, saying, “It doesn’t last long.”

  “What about the Plague?” Lorana asked with a faint shudder.

  “The Plague affected people, not dragons, and the dragonriders were careful to keep safe.” J’trel’s face took on a clouded look. “Some say we were too careful.”

  Lorana shook her head emphatically. “We have to have dragons to fight Thread, and they have to have riders to help them.”

  J’trel smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulder for a brief hug. “That’s the spirit.”

  Because she was with a dragonrider, Lorana was not jostled by the crowd: People cleared out of their path. J’trel took this deference by the seaholders as a dragonrider’s just due and set a brisk pace to make up for his earlier tardiness.

  Lorana struggled to keep up with him. J’trel noticed and gave her a worried look. “Are you all right?”

  Lorana flushed and waved his courteous inquiry aside. “I’m just a bit tired, is all. Maybe I’ve been walking too long.”

  You have never gone between times before, Talith told her with a yawn of his own.

  “Between times?” Lorana asked aloud.

  “Shh,” J’trel said suddenly, holding a hand up warningly. Then his eyes narrowed as he considered what she’d said. “Why did you say that?”

  “Talith told me,” Lorana said.

  J’trel sighed. “We had to get here before Wind Rider sailed,” he explained.

  Lorana motioned for him to continue. Leaning closer to her, he lowered his voice. “Dragons can not only go between from one place to another, but from one time to another,” he explained. “When we jumped between we also jumped back in time. In time for you to catch the Wind Rider.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “It has its price, though,” J’trel added, wearily rubbing the back of his neck. “It takes a toll on dragon and rider—and any passengers.”

  Lorana gave him an inquiring look.

  “Right now you’re here at Ista Sea Hold and also on the Igen seashore,” J’trel explained. “How do you feel?”

  Lorana thought about it. “I’m tired,” she said after a moment. “But I thought that was from all the excitement.”

  “That, and timing it,” J’trel said. “Some people fe
el stretched and irritable after they’ve timed it. It gets worse the longer the jump, the more a person’s in two places at once.”

  “So dragons don’t time it that often?” Lorana asked.

  “Dragonriders are never supposed to time it,” J’trel replied. He wagged a finger at her. “Let it be our secret.”

  Lorana nodded, but she had a distracted look on her face. J’trel had seen that look before on others and had worn it himself when first confronted by the dragons’ amazing ability, so he waited patiently for the question he knew she would ask.

  “J’trel,” Lorana began slowly, her expression guarded but hopeful, “could we go between time to when my father was with that herdbeast and warn him?”

  J’trel shook his head and said sadly, “If we could have, we already would have.”

  Lorana raised her brows in confusion.

  “You can’t alter the past,” he told her. “As long as it never happened in the past, it never can happen in the past.”

  “Why not?”

  It cannot be done, Talith said. A dragon cannot go to a place that is not.

  Lorana looked puzzled.

  “I tried once,” J’trel said, shaking his head at some sad memory. “I couldn’t picture my destination in my mind.”

  It is like trying to fly through rock, Talith added.

  “I wanted to go back to when my mother was still alive,” J’trel said. “I wanted her to see that I’d Impressed, that I’d become a dragonrider. I thought it’d make her happy.” He shook his head. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see her and the place clearly enough in my mind to give Talith the image.”

  You had not done it, so you could not, Talith explained with draconic logic.

  Lorana shook her head, mystified. “Maybe if I think about it long enough, it’ll make sense,” she said, but her attention was already caught by the tall masts of the ships docked just ahead. Swarms of seamen and landsmen bustled about, loading and unloading carts, ships, and conveyances. “Which one is it?” she asked J’trel.

  “The shiny new one!” he told her, gesturing with a flourish. “The good ship Wind Rider, readying for her maiden voyage.”

  Eyes widening, Lorana grabbed her book and stylus from her carisak and began sketching furiously.

  A sea voyage would do her good, J’trel mused, watching her draw. It would give her a chance to take stock, see more of the world, and maybe learn to see herself as she really was. She thought too poorly of herself.

  He remembered how he had first met Lorana. It had been late and dark, and he and Talith had been cold and feeling old . . . lost.

  His partner, K’nad, had succumbed to his ailment, and K’nad’s green Narith had departed forever between a sevenday before. J’trel had summoned his courage and done everything to make K’nad’s passing easier for everyone in the Weyr.

  Then he had gone to tell K’nad’s kinsfolk, at the Hold where he had been born and raised. Carel, Lord Holder of Lemose and K’nad’s younger brother, took the news silently, inured to death from the great losses of the Plague twelve Turns before.

  After an uncomfortable dinner, Lady Munori saw J’trel to the great Hold doors.

  “He has buried his grief so deep that it no longer shows,” she said of her husband, as an apology to the dragonrider. She touched his arm consolingly. “He was always proud of K’nad.”

  J’trel nodded and turned to leave.

  “Dragonrider! My lord!” someone called out of the night. “A moment, please.” There was a note of panic in the voice.

  J’trel turned to see a young woman rushing toward him. She was tall, still gangly in her youth, and not very pretty.

  “Your pardon, my lord,” she said. “I was hoping to speak with you before you left.”

  “This is Lorana,” Munori said to J’trel, her voice tinged with sadness. “Her father, Sannel, was a beastmaster who bred for us, as well as Benden and Bitra.” She grimaced. “One of our beasts got crazed and kicked him in the head.”

  “To be in demand by three Holds—your father must be sorely missed,” J’trel said, looking at Lorana more closely. He revised his first impression. Her dark hair and almond eyes were set in an expressive face that was, at the moment, quite somber. He wondered what she would look like when she smiled.

  Lorana nodded. “I was wondering if I could ask your advice,” she said after a moment. “The beast that killed my father also snapped the wing on Grenn, one of my fire-lizards.”

  “I’m sorry,” J’trel replied, guessing at the nature of her request. “I’m afraid I haven’t heard of any new clutches recently. But if I do, I’ll be sure to put your name in for a replacement egg.”

  Lorana shook her head. “He still lives.”

  J’trel was amazed. “Usually a fire-lizard suffering such a wound will go between,” he remarked. “Often forever.”

  A brilliant spark of determination flared in Lorana’s eyes. “I wouldn’t let him.”

  “It was the most amazing sight,” Lady Munori added. “You could even see them breathing together, her and her fire-lizard, as she fought to keep him here.”

  Intrigued, J’trel said, “I should like to see this fire-lizard.”

  “Thank you,” Lorana said, dipping a slight curtsy to the dragon-rider.

  Lady Munori accompanied them. “You should see her drawings, too, J’trel,” she said. “Lord Carel has two hanging in his chambers.”

  J’trel cocked an eye at the young woman. “A healer and a harper! You are a woman of many talents.”

  Embarrassed, Lorana ducked her head.

  Silently, she led them to one of the guest rooms and gestured politely for J’trel and Munori to precede her.

  A fire-lizard’s chirp challenged them as they entered.

  “They’re friends, Garth,” Lorana called out.

  “You’ve two!” J’trel exclaimed as he caught sight of the beautiful gold fire-lizard posting guard over the injured brown.

  “I tried to get Coriel . . .” Lorana began defensively.

  “How many times do we have to tell you that you’ve nothing to apologize for?” Munori asked in exasperation. She explained to the dragonrider, “Lorana was watching the eggs for my daughter when they hatched and, well . . .”

  The brown fire-lizard gave a plaintive sound. Seeing that his wing was splinted and immobilized, J’trel began crooning reassurances.

  “There, lad,” he said. “Let’s have a look at you.” He moved closer, but stopped when the little queen gave him a haughty and challenging look.

  “Talith, could you—?” J’trel said aloud to his dragon.

  The gold gave a startled squawk as the dragon spoke to her. Then, with a very dignified air, she moved away from her injured friend.

  “I’ve never seen the like,” J’trel said admiringly, examining the splint. “A break like this . . .”

  “I did my best,” Lorana said.

  “You did the best I’ve ever seen,” he told her. “Our Weyr healer could take lessons from you.”

  Gently he spread the wing, examined the splint, and then returned the wing to its original position. “How long ago did this occur?”

  “About a sevenday,” Lady Munori told him. “When we first came upon the three of them, we thought we’d lost them all, father, daughter, fire-lizard. But then that one—” She pointed at the gold. “—started squawking at us, and we realized that her Lorana was still alive.”

  “Will the wing heal?” Lorana asked, worried that she might have condemned her fire-lizard to a fate worse than death.

  “The bones are aligned properly,” J’trel judged. “And he seems well-fed,” he added, with a grin at the brown’s bulging stomach. “I’d say that his chances are good.” Privately, though, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Is there anything else I should do?” Lorana asked. “And when will it be safe for him to fly again?”

  J’trel pursed his lips thoughtfully. Something in the girl’s demeanor, in her worry and her
determination, sparked his compassion.

  “Why don’t you come with me and we’ll take him someplace safe and warm where he can rest until his wing is healed,” he suggested.

  Lorana’s eyes grew round with surprise.

  “But wouldn’t the dragons at the Weyr—”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the Weyr, lass,” J’trel interrupted. “I know a very nice warm place where dragons—and fire-lizards—can curl up and rest all day long.” He wagged a finger toward the brown fire-lizard. “I think the best thing we can do is encourage this one to rest and not to fly until his wing is healed.”

  Lady Munori beamed at Lorana. “You can’t go wrong with an offer like that.”

  Lorana smiled at the dragonrider, a smile that lit her face. “Thank you!”

  It took a month of careful attention for Grenn’s wing to heal in the warmth of a southern sun. During that time, J’trel was pleased to provide Lorana with pencil and paper to sketch upon—and amazed when he saw the results.

  They had been together in the sunny warmth for two sevendays before Lorana really opened up to the old dragonrider. It happened the evening after J’trel had announced that he was certain Grenn’s wing would heal. Lorana had just finished sketching the splint design she’d put on Grenn and started a new page. J’trel hadn’t been paying attention until he heard her stifle a sob. Looking over, he saw that she was drawing a face.

  “Is that your father?” he asked. He had guessed that, as soon as she knew her fire-lizard was safe, Lorana would allow herself to grieve.

  Lorana nodded. Haltingly, with J’trel’s gentle questioning, she told him her story.

  Lorana had been helping her father since she could toddle; indeed, since the Plague took the rest of her family—mother, brother, and sister—she had been his only helper.

  She recounted huddling amongst the cold bodies while her father stood in the doorway shielding them from the outraged holders who feared his roaming ways had brought the Plague with him. It was only when they discovered that nearly all the bodies beyond him had gone cold that they relented.

  Lorana had used all her wits—particularly her skill at drawing—to bring her distraught father out of the despair that overtook him after that fateful day. Since then, Sannel had used her ability in drawing, tasking her with registering all the marks and conformations of their various breedings, and taking her everywhere he went. When he died, she had been devastated.