Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne; Todd J. Mccaffrey Mccaffrey

  “And broke that promise,” Bekka rode over his words. She smiled at him for a moment. “We all make mistakes and Fiona knows that. She knows you meant the best, too. But you’ve got to show us now that you’ve learned the lesson and won’t make the mistake again.”

  Jeriz eyed her for a long time and then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said to Bekka, then Terin, then his mother. “She sounded so happy.”

  “And why wouldn’t I be?” Terin demanded. “I saw him again and he said he’d be there whenever I needed him.”

  “Most,” Javissa corrected absently.

  “Pardon?” Terin asked, goggling at her.

  “Didn’t he say that he’d be there when you needed him the most?”

  “Yes,” Terin agreed slowly, surprised that this new woman had known that. “How did you know?”

  “One day, I will tell you,” Javissa promised. “But for now, we cannot break time.”

  “You’ve met Lorana,” Terin, Jeila, and Bekka said in chorus. “When?” Jeila added accusingly.

  “Turns back,” Javissa told her. Her eyes took on a sad look as she added, “A lifetime ago.”

  Fiona woke to the sound of voices. A girl’s and a woman’s. She opened her eyes.

  “Fiona, would you sit for me?” the woman asked her.

  “Lorana?”

  “She looks older than the last time,” Jirana said by way of agreement.

  “Kindan says the colors are at Benden,” Fiona said drowsily.

  “They are,” Lorana agreed. “But I’ve got them here, too.” She paused and smiled at the younger woman. “If you could sit up for me, you don’t have to get out of bed.”

  “Can I lean on Jirana here?” Fiona asked even as the little girl prodded and pushed her into position.

  “She’s my sister,” Jirana said proudly.

  “Then I’m your sister, too,” Lorana said, her eyes suddenly wet with tears.

  “Really?” Jirana asked in surprise, her eyes going from the dark-haired almond-eyed woman to the blond Weyrwoman with the sea-green eyes and back in surprise.

  “Really,” Fiona agreed fervently. “We are sisters in heart.”

  “Father said that you would help her grow her heart back,” Jirana said, leaning against Fiona. “Can you do that?”

  “I’ll try,” Fiona said, glancing at the teary face of her friend. “Are you back for good?”

  Lorana shook her head, her tears coming more freely and reaching out a hand imploringly toward Fiona. Fiona took it and leaned forward, stroking it against her cheek. Softly, Lorana tugged it free. “Let me draw you now, so that we have this memory.”

  “Frozen in time,” Fiona agreed, leaning against Jirana and cupping the child closer toward her with her free hand. She did not bother to question why Lorana wanted to draw her again because she knew she would get no answer. There was something tragic in Lorana’s actions, like she was feeling pain or a compulsion to draw Fiona now.

  Lorana sketched quickly, glancing up at them for a moment, then down to her work as she drew with bold, strong strokes.

  “What happened to your face?” Fiona asked, eyes narrowing critically. She noticed a line on her cheek, a thin scar. Threadscore? A knife cut?

  “Nothing,” Lorana assured her.

  “You didn’t look like that the last time—” Jirana hushed when Lorana raised a finger toward her in caution.

  “What did I say?” Lorana reminded the youngster.

  “You cannot break time,” Jirana said in depressed tones. But she lifted her eyes once more and added, “But sometimes you can cheat it.”

  “Shh,” Lorana said, with a wink, even as her other hand sketched more quick strokes. “And remember.”

  Lorana finished quickly, kissed Fiona on the forehead, did the same with Jirana and had them lie back down.

  “Sleep!” Lorana said when Fiona protested. “You need your rest.”

  “They think you’re dead,” Fiona told her in a troubled voice. “They think I’m imagining you like Terin’s imagining F’jian.”

  “You’re not,” Lorana said. “And she’s not.”

  She was gone before her words registered with Fiona. When they did, Fiona cried out, “What do you mean?”

  “She’s gone, Fiona,” Jirana said, trying out the Weyrwoman’s name with some trepidation.

  “Do you know what she meant by that?”

  “I’m only little,” Jirana said. “She talks like my father sometimes.”

  “Your father died before you were born,” Fiona reminded her absently.

  “He did,” Jirana agreed, sounding sad. “But I’ve seen him several times since then.”

  Fiona closed her eyes, confused, wondering why a child’s imagination should be so full of strange things. Slowly, mind still churning, she drifted off to sleep, secure in knowing that she was comforting her “sister.”

  “Fiona, you were fellis-drugged, there was no way you’d wake up,” Bekka assured her irritably for the third time at lunch the next day. “Ask Jirana,” Fiona said.

  “Jirana has seven Turns,” Bekka reminded her. “She’s a lovely child, and certain to be like her father, but at the moment you’re lucky she’s not collecting tunnel snakes for pets.”

  Fiona fumed at the healer.

  “Look,” Bekka said, “I’ve got to tell you how I feel and what I know. And what I know is that you were fellis-drugged, you were exhausted, worried, and tired. It’s far more likely that you imagined all this than that it really happened.” She paused, seeing the fire in Fiona’s eyes. “Besides,” she added with sympathy, “I asked Jirana and she said she didn’t remember.”

  “She didn’t?” Fiona hadn’t seen the child since she’d woken that morning.

  “No,” Bekka said, shaking her head. “She seemed rather shy about the whole thing.” Bekka made a face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have forced you on her the first night in a new place.”

  “We’re sisters,” Fiona said.

  “You’re sisters with all the women on Pern,” Bekka said, her voice full of mixed condescension and love. “You’ve got a big heart, you are never upset, and always hopeful.” She took another breath and patted the Weyrwoman’s hand. “And you’re pregnant and likely to imagine the most amazing things, even when not fellis-drowsy.”

  “Isn’t the fellis bad for the babies?”

  Bekka shook her head. “Your worry is worse and the dose was low.”

  “So I could have woken up, couldn’t I?” Fiona asked, pouncing on this information.

  Bekka pursed her lips in thought, then shook her head. “Possible,” she admitted. “But really unlikely.”

  Fiona found Terin with Jeriz, watching the weyrlings drill across the Bowl.

  “Aren’t you two supposed to be working with them?” Fiona asked.

  They both gave her looks of surprise.

  “Aren’t we all supposed to be working with them?” she added ruefully, glancing around. “Where’s Jeila?”

  When neither had an answer, Fiona said, “Terin, please have Kurinth ask Jeila if she and Tolarth would like to join us in a bit of flying.” She saw their looks and explained, “I’m going to look for Jirana. Then we’ll tack up Talenth and give these weyrlings some inspiration.”

  “Can I ride with you?” Terin asked.

  “No, I’d like you to ride with Jeila,” Fiona said, shaking her head apologetically. She turned to Jeriz. “I’d like to bring you and your sister with me.”

  “If it pleases you, Weyrwoman, my duty is with Terin,” Jeriz said with stiff formality.

  Fiona pouted, then sighed. “Jeriz, I apologize for my outburst yesterday.”

  “You were tired,” Terin said. “Bekka was right, you were overdue for a meltdown.”

  “ ‘Meltdown’?”

  “Like when Ellor destroyed that pot she’d set empty over the fire,” Terin said, mimicking molten metal sprinkling over a fire. “Meltdown.”

  “Thanks,” Fiona said. “So now I’m an empty
pot that’s sitting on a fire.”

  “Nah,” Terin said, glancing toward Jeriz and winking. “Jeriz here took you off before you got too hot.”

  To their surprise, the boy giggled at the notion. Fiona reached forward and tousled his hair.

  “Thank you, young trader, for the gift of release,” Fiona intoned in mock formality.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Jeriz apologized.

  “We all make mistakes,” Fiona said dismissively. “But you are right, your place is with Terin.” Jeriz nodded even though it was obvious that he regretted missing out on his chance to ride on a queen. “So we’ll ask Jeila if Tolarth can carry you both, and ask Talenth if she’ll take me, my sister, and your mother.”

  “Your sister?” Jeriz asked, looking around in surprise.

  “I’m sorry, did I tell you I was borrowing your sister as my own?”

  “You can have her,” Jeriz said emphatically.

  Terin and Fiona shared a laugh.

  Fiona found Javissa with Bekka. She saw the trader’s eyes widen and how she braced herself, but Fiona bowed her head low, saying, “Javissa, I ask forgiveness for the offense I gave you yesterday.”

  “Fiona—” Bekka began with a trace of exasperation in her voice.

  “Your husband was a valued friend of ours and I am ashamed at how poorly I returned his kindness,” Fiona continued, ignoring the healer. “I offer my apology, the courtesy of the Weyr, and my heart in penance.”

  “Shards, Fiona, you really go overboard, sometimes,” Bekka said. She was rewarded with the glare of a piercing set of sea-green eyes. Bekka shook her head and groaned. “Javissa, this is Fiona. Fiona, this is Javissa, she’s had two children, she understands about pregnancy, and she’s heard all about you.”

  “And my meltdowns?” Fiona asked, feeling somewhat chagrined.

  “Tenniz spoke highly of you,” Javissa said, reaching out her hand once more. Fiona took it gratefully.

  “I came to apologize and to offer you a ride on Talenth,” Fiona said. “Also, I came to ask if you would let me adopt your daughter as my sister.” She dimpled as she added, “I suppose that’d make you my mother.”

  “Oh!” Javissa exclaimed, slumping against the wall. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Javissa said, recovering and standing up. Her lips quirked upward.

  “Tenniz?” Fiona asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  Javissa nodded, barely suppressing a laugh. “He said that I would be mother to a Weyrwoman taller than I am.”

  “He had a terrible sense of humor,” Fiona observed.

  “Oh, Weyrwoman, you don’t know the half of it,” Javissa said in fervent agreement. “As for your offer, I’d love to ride with you.”

  “And my request?”

  “Bekka’s already told me all about it,” Javissa said. She cocked an eye toward Fiona consideringly. “You know she squirms.”

  “Not as much as Jeriz,” Fiona countered. She lowered her voice as she added, “And she’s scared.”

  “About her gift?”

  Fiona nodded. “I don’t know what I can do to help, except be there for her, and offer ‘sisterly’ support.”

  “That’s more than Jeriz can offer,” Javissa said. She lifted her head to meet Fiona’s eyes. The taller Weyrwoman met them frankly, still startled at how amazingly green they were. Javissa nodded as she made her decision. “I’m sure that Jirana will be happy to be sisters with you.”

  “Thank you!” Fiona said. “Now, if you’ll follow me, we need to get you some riding gear.”

  It took longer than Fiona had hoped, especially as Javissa was a conscientious mother who made certain that both her children were properly garbed before allowing them to mount.

  “We nearly froze the last time,” Javissa apologized to Fiona.

  “Part of that was between,” Fiona assured her. “It gets cold, flying, but not that cold.”

  The two queens rose into the air with their properly attired, properly strapped-on passengers and circled upward, climbing gently toward the watch heights. The watch dragon bugled at them and Fiona was delighted to see how Jeila returned the formal salute. And then, coordinating with Kindan through Xhinna’s Tazith, they began a series of steep glides into and out of the Weyr Bowl, banking up sharply as the sheer face of the cliff came toward them and twirling on wing tip to repeat the circuit.

  Fiona was surprised to see the whole Bowl fill with weyrfolk, young and old, looking up and pointing as the two queens worked in sequence from east to west across the Bowl, up to the heights, back around to the Star Stones, and diving again for another pass.

  When Kindan told them they were done, the weyrfolk below clapped in admiration of the maneuvers.

  “They like us!” Jirana exclaimed from her place in front of Fiona and behind her mother.

  “Yes, they do!” Fiona agreed, laughing. With a stroke of praise, she asked Talenth to bring them back to the ground.

  The queen obliged, landing daintily with not even the slightest jolt.

  Well done! Fiona thought.

  That was like a weyrling drill, Talenth thought wistfully.

  Maybe we should talk to T’mar and see if we can’t do it again, Fiona thought. Talenth agreed wholeheartedly as she ambled over to the queens’ ledge.

  The next three days passed with a slowly building sense of dread for the impending Threadfall at Fort Weyr. Fiona heard from Ista’s senior queen rider, Dalia, that Ista would fly the Fall with Fort. She and T’mar talked about it in private.

  “They’re almost as strong as Benden,” T’mar said.

  “But their leadership is weak after the loss of C’rion and M’tal.”

  “They’re only loaning a wing.” T’mar sounded no more certain than Fiona felt. “And it’s a morning Fall.”

  “True,” Fiona agreed, not bothering to point out how the sun could easily blind riders to Thread falling above and behind them, similar to the way that the evening Fall that T’mar had survived had so surprised them.

  “We need to conserve our strength,” T’mar said regretfully. “I’ve spoken with K’lior and he agrees.”

  “Cisca said the same to me,” Fiona admitted with a grimace. “It’s just that—”

  “It’d be nice to help our friends,” T’mar guessed.

  “And I hate to be always begging for help,” Fiona agreed.

  “It would be nice to be able to offer it,” T’mar said. “Especially as it seems so—”

  “Inept,” Fiona concluded, hastily adding, “And you’re not, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  T’mar shook his head ruefully. “I wish sometimes it didn’t feel so much like it, then.”

  “We started this Pass two thousand dragons short,” Fiona reminded him. “It could never be easy.”

  “Especially after we lost D’gan and Telgar,” T’mar agreed with a frown.

  “The weyrlings are doing well,” Fiona said, changing the topic in hopes of brightening the mood. T’mar nodded. “Kindan is handling them well.”

  “Yes,” T’mar agreed absently. He grinned as he added, “Are you and Jeila doing your circuits again today?”

  “I don’t know,” Fiona admitted. “I thought if things go badly at Fort, we might offer help.”

  T’mar tightened his lips and nodded. “It won’t be long now.”

  “Hours yet, Weyrleader.”

  “Hunh,” T’mar said, pushing himself from his seat. “Then I guess we’ve got time to do some drills.”

  “I’ll get Kindan to have the weyrlings practice with firestone,” Fiona said, rising to join him. When he gave her a look, she added, “It’ll keep their minds off the Fall.”

  “And how are their minds?” T’mar asked, pausing for her answer.

  “Muzzy,” Fiona replied. “All of them.”

  “Terin more than most.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  T’mar made a face, but shook his head, avoiding further conversation by moving
off with a parting wave.

  Fiona joined Jeila, Bekka, and Birentir on their rounds. They returned three more dragons and their riders to fighting duty. The three were glad for the release; they’d all been badly mauled and had had to wait at least sixty days watching their companions fight without them. They were all eager to get back into the air and do their part.

  Jeila seemed in better spirits, although Fiona felt she could detect some hidden melancholy in the older woman. Bekka had warned her that that was natural; it would take time for Jeila to work through her grief.

  They were finished looking at the last of the injured on the seventh level when Talenth reported that Fort had met the leading edge. They walked back down quietly, with Fiona and Jeila glancing at each other from time to time as the reports were relayed by Cisca’s queen, Melirth.

  The first dragon lost was Istan, and Fiona winced at the report.

  Back down in the Weyr Bowl, the weyrlings were stacking firestone while T’mar had the fighting wings drill in low passes, inspired, he’d admitted, by Fiona’s and Jeila’s tight flying in their circuits. “C’tov was particularly impressed,” T’mar had told Fiona when they’d discussed it. “He thinks it will build cohesion.”

  “It’ll certainly breed caution,” Fiona said, shaking her head ruefully. “If you’re not careful in timing when to pull up, you can easily find your dragon trying to run up the walls of the Weyr.”

  T’mar chuckled; he’d seen how Fiona had nearly misjudged one circuit the day before.

  Another casualty, this one from Fort, was reported by Melirth, and Fiona sucked in a breath in sorrow. Two lost, now one injured. Three ducked between with Thread. Fiona heard Jeila’s sigh of relief when all three returned to the fight unscathed.

  The difference in times meant that Fort’s morning Fall occured in the afternoon for Telgar and lasted through to early evening.

  Fiona found herself crawling into bed with Kindan and Jirana, exhausted by the stress and sorrow of the Fall. In the end, Fort had lost only two dragons outright, but Ista had lost three and between them the two Weyrs could count another eight dragons out of the fight. Fort now could call on only seventy-nine fighting dragons; Ista on ninety-four.

  The mood the next morning was grim. T’mar called his wingleaders to the Council Room. Fiona, Jeila, and Terin joined them, the young redhead insisting, “It’s my duty, too.”