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Well, he had been right this morning about the appearance of Threads at Nerat, so his exhaustive study of those old Records had proved worthwhile.
No, that wasn’t quite accurate. He had forgotten to have the men alert for signs of black dust as well as warming weather. As he had put the matter right by going between times, she would graciously allow him that minor error. But he did have an infuriating habit of guessing correctly. Lessa corrected herself again. He didn’t guess. He studied. He planned. He thought and then he used common good sense. Like figuring out where and when Threads would strike according to entries in those smelly Records. Lessa began to feel better about their future.
Now, if he would just make the riders learn to trust their dragons’ sure instinct in battle, they would keep casualties down, too.
A shriek pierced air and ear as a blue dragon emerged above the Star Stone.
Ramoth! Lessa screamed in an instinctive reaction, hardly knowing why. The queen was a-wing before the echo of her command had died. For the careening blue was obviously in grave trouble. He was trying to brake his forward speed, yet one wing would not function. His rider had slipped forward over the great shoulder, precariously clinging to his dragon’s neck with one hand.
Lessa, her hands clapped over her mouth, watched fearfully. There wasn’t a sound in the Bowl but the flapping of Ramoth’s immense wings. The queen rose swiftly to position herself against the desperate blue, lending him wing support on the crippled side.
The watchers gasped as the rider slipped, lost his hold, and fell—landing on Ramoth’s wide shoulders.
The blue dropped like a stone. Ramoth came to a gentle stop near him, crouching low to allow the weyrfolk to remove her passenger.
It was C’gan.
Lessa felt her stomach heave as she saw the ruin the Threads had made of the old harper’s face. She dropped beside him, pillowing his head in her lap. The weyrfolk gathered in a respectful, silent circle.
Manora, her face, as always, serene, had tears in her eyes. She knelt and placed her hand on the old rider’s heart. Concern flickered in her eyes as she looked up at Lessa. Slowly she shook her head. Then, setting her lips in a thin line, she began to apply the numbing salve.
“Too toothless old to flame and too slow to get between,” C’gan mumbled, rolling his head from side to side. “Too old. But ‘Dragonmen must fly/ when Threads are in the sky. . . .’ ” His voice trailed off into a sigh. His eyes closed.
Lessa and Manora looked at each other in anguish. A terrible, ear-shattering note cut the silence. Tagath sprang aloft in a tremendous leap. C’gan’s eyes rolled slowly open, sightless. Lessa, breath suspended, watched the blue dragon, trying to deny the inevitable as Tagath disappeared in mid-air.
A low moan sprang up around the Weyr, like the torn, lonely cry of a keening wind. The dragons uttered tribute.
“Is he . . . gone?” Lessa asked, although she knew. Manora nodded slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached over to close C’gan’s dead eyes.
Lessa rose slowly to her feet, motioning to some of the women to remove the old rider’s body. Absently she rubbed her bloody hands dry on her skirts, trying to concentrate on what might be needed next.
Yet her mind turned back to what had just happened. A dragonrider had died. His dragon, too. The Threads had claimed one pair already. How many more would die this cruel Turn? How long could the Weyr survive? Even after Ramoth’s forty matured, and the ones she soon would conceive, and her queen-daughters, too?
Lessa walked apart to quiet her uncertainties and ease her grief. She saw Ramoth wheel and glide aloft, to land on the Peak. One day soon would Lessa see those golden wings laced red and black from Thread marks? Would Ramoth . . . disappear?
No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.
F’lar had told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under his tutelage, she had further learned that living was more than raising dragons and Spring Games. Living was struggling to do something impossible—to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!
Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman and as mate, to help F’lar shape men and events for many Turns to come—to secure Pern against the Threads.
Lessa threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin high.
Old C’gan had had the right of it.
Dragonmen must fly
When Threads are in the sky!
Worlds are lost or worlds are saved
By those dangers dragon-braved.
AS F’LAR HAD predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and riders were welcomed by Ramoth’s high-pitched trumpeting from the Peak.
Once Lessa assured herself that F’lar had taken no additional injury, that F’nor’s were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the comfort of the worried.
As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyr—the quiet of minds and bodies too tired or too hurtful to talk. Lessa’s own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread battle. C’gan was the only fatality, but there had been four more seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action entirely for months to come.
Lessa crossed the Bowl to her Weyr, reluctant but resigned to giving F’lar this unsettling news.
She expected to find him in the sleeping room, but it was vacant. Ramoth was asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Room—also empty. Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records Room, to find F’lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily. “You ought to be asleep.”
“So should you,” he drawled, amused.
“I was helping Manora settle the wounded . . .”
“Each to his own craft.” But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, “so I thought I’d see what answers I might turn up in the Records.”
“More answers? To what?” Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern’s defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After all, there had been the stress of the first battle, not to mention the drain of the traveling between time itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.
F’lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.
“I need the answer to the very pressing question of how one understrength Weyr can do the fighting of six.”
Lessa fought the panic that rose, a cold flood, from her guts.
“Oh, your time schedules will take care of that,” she replied gallantly. “You’ll be able to conserve the dragon-power until the new forty can join the ranks.”
F’lar raised a mocking eyebrow.
“Let us be honest between ourselves, Lessa.”
“But there have been Long Intervals before,” she argued, “and since Pern survived them, Pern can again.”
“Before there were always six Weyrs. And twenty or so Turns before the Red Star was due to begin its Pass, the queens would start to produce enormous clutches. All the queens, not just one faithful golden Ramoth. Oh, how I curse Jora!” He slammed to his feet and started pacing, irritably brushing the lock of black hair that fell across his eyes.
Lessa was torn with the desire to comfort him and the sinking, choking fear in her belly that made it difficult to think at all.
“You were not so doubtful . . .”
He whirled back to her. “Not until I had actually had an encounter with the Threads and reckoned up the numbers of injuries. That sets the odds against us. Even supposing we can mount other rider
s to uninjured dragons, we will be hard put to keep a continuously effective force in the air and still maintain a ground guard.” He caught her puzzled frown. “There’s Nerat to be gone over on foot tomorrow. I’d be a fool indeed if I thought we’d caught and seared every Thread in mid-air.”
“Get the Holders to do that. They can’t just immure themselves safely in their Inner Holds and let us do all. If they hadn’t been so miserly and stupid . . .”
He cut off her complaint with an abrupt gesture. “They’ll do their part all right,” he assured her. “I’m sending for a full Council tomorrow, all Hold Lords and all Craftmasters. But there’s more to it than just marking where Threads fall. How do you destroy a burrow that’s gone deep under the surface? A dragon’s breath is fine for the air and surface work but no good three feet down.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that aspect. But the firepits . . .”
“. . . are only on the heights and around human habitations, not on the meadowlands of Keroon or on Nerat’s so green rainforests.”
This consideration was daunting indeed. She gave a rueful little laugh.
“Shortsighted of me to suppose our dragons are all poor Pern needs to dispatch the Threads. Yet . . .” She shrugged expressively.
“There are other methods,” F’lar said, “or there were. There must have been. I have run across frequent mention that the Holds were organizing ground groups and that they were armed with fire. What kind is never mentioned because it was so well-known.” He threw up his hands in disgust and sagged back down on the bench. “Not even five hundred dragons could have seared all the Threads that fell today. Yet they managed to keep Pern Thread-free.”
“Pern, yes, but wasn’t the Southern Continent lost? Or did they just have their hands too full with Pern itself?”
“No one’s bothered with the Southern Continent in a hundred thousand Turns,” F’lar snorted.
“It’s on the maps,” Lessa reminded him.
He scowled disgustedly at the Records, piled in uncommunicative stacks on the long table.
“The answer must be there. Somewhere.”
There was an edge of desperation in his voice, the hint that he held himself to blame for not having discovered those elusive facts.
“Half those things couldn’t be read by the man who wrote them,” Lessa said tartly. “Besides that, it’s been your own ideas that have helped us most so far. You compiled the time maps, and look how valuable they have been already.”
“I’m getting too hidebound again, huh?” he asked, a half smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“Undoubtedly,” she assured him with more confidence than she felt. “We both know the Records are guilty of the most ridiculous omissions.”
“Well said, Lessa. So let us forget these misguiding and antiquated precepts and think up our own guides. First, we need more dragons. Second, we need them now. Third, we need something as effective as a flaming dragon to destroy Threads which have burrowed.”
“Fourth, we need sleep, or we won’t be able to think of anything,” she added with a touch of her usual asperity.
F’lar laughed outright, hugging her.
“You’ve got your mind on one thing, haven’t you?” he teased, his hands caressing her eagerly.
She pushed ineffectually at him, trying to escape. For a wounded, tired man, he was remarkably amorous. One with that Kylara. Imagine that woman’s presumption, dressing his wounds.
“My responsibility as Weyrwoman includes care of you, the Weyrleader.”
“But you spend hours with blue dragonriders and leave me to Kylara’s tender ministrations.”
“You didn’t look as if you objected.”
F’lar threw back his head and roared. “Should I open Fort Weyr and send Kylara on?” he taunted her.
“I’d as soon Kylara were Turns as well as miles away from here,” Lessa snapped, thoroughly irritated.
F’lar’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He leaped to his feet with an astonished cry.
“You’ve said it!”
“Said what?”
“Turns away! That’s it. We’ll send Kylara back, between times, with her queen and the new dragonets.” F’lar excitedly paced the room while Lessa tried to follow his reasoning. “No, I’d better send at least one of the older bronzes. F’nor, too . . . I’d rather have F’nor in charge. . . . Discreetly, of course—”
“Send Kylara back . . . where to? When to?” Lessa interrupted him.
“Good point.” F’lar dragged out the ubiquitous charts. “Very good point. Where can we send them around here without causing anomalies by being present at one of the other Weyrs? The High Reaches are remote. No, we’ve found remains of fires there, you know, still warm, and no inkling as to who built them or why. And if we had already sent them back, they’d’ve been ready for today, and they weren’t. So they can’t have been in two places already. . . .” He shook his head, dazed by the paradoxes.
Lessa’s eyes were drawn to the blank outline of the neglected Southern Continent.
“Send them there,” she suggested sweetly, pointing.
“There’s nothing there.”
“They bring in what they need. There must be water, for Threads can’t devour that. We fly in whatever else is needed, fodder for the herdbeasts, grain. . . .”
F’lar drew his brows together in concentration, his eyes sparkling with thought, the depression and defeat of a few moments ago forgotten.
“Threads wouldn’t be there ten Turns ago. And haven’t been there for close to four hundred. Ten Turns would give Pridith time to mature and have several clutches. Maybe more queens.”
Then he frowned and shook his head dubiously. “No, there’s no Weyr there. No Hatching Ground, no . . .”
“How do we know that?” Lessa caught him up sharply, too delighted with many aspects of this project to give it up easily. “The Records don’t mention the Southern Continent, true, but they omit a great deal. How do we know it isn’t green again in the four hundred Turns since the Threads last spun? We do know that Threads can’t last long unless there is something organic on which to feed and that once they’ve devoured all, they dry up and blow away.”
F’lar looked at her admiringly. “Now, why hasn’t someone wondered about that before?”
“Too hidebound.” Lessa wagged her finger at him. “Besides, there’s been no need to bother with it.”
“Necessity—or is it jealousy?—hatches many a tough shell.” There was a smile of pure malice on his face, and Lessa whirled away as he reached for her.
“The good of the Weyr,” she retorted.
“Furthermore, I’ll send you along with F’nor tomorrow to look. Only fair, since it is your idea.”
Lessa stood still. “You’re not going?”
“I feel confident I can leave this project in your very capable, interested hands.” He laughed and caught her against his uninjured side, smiling down at her, his eyes glowing. “I must play ruthless Weyrleader and keep the Hold Lords from slamming shut their Inner Doors. And I’m hoping”—he raised his head, frowning slightly—“one of the Craftmasters may know the solution to the third problem—getting rid of Thread burrows.”
“But . . .”
“The trip will give Ramoth something to stop her fuming.” He pressed the girl’s slender body more closely to him, his full attention at last on her odd, delicate face. “Lessa, you are my fourth problem.” He bent to kiss her.
At the sound of hurried steps in the passageway, F’lar scowled irritably, releasing her.
“At this hour?” he muttered, ready to reprove the intruder scathingly. “Who goes there?”
“F’lar?” It was F’nor’s voice, anxious, hoarse.
The look on F’lar’s face told Lessa that not even his half brother would be spared a reprimand, and it pleased her irrationally. But the moment F’nor burst into the room, both Weyrleader and Weyrwoman were stunned silent. There was something subtly wrong with the brown ri
der. And as the man blurted out his incoherent message, the difference suddenly registered in Lessa’s mind. He was tanned! He wore no bandages and hadn’t the slightest trace of the Thread-mark along his cheek that she had tended this evening!
“F’lar, it’s not working out! You can’t be alive in two times at once!” F’nor was exclaiming distractedly. He staggered against the wall, grabbing the sheer rock to hold himself upright. There were deep circles under his eyes, visible despite the tan. “I don’t know how much longer we can last like this. We’re all affected. Some days not as badly as others.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your dragons are all right,” F’nor assured the Weyrleader with a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t bother them. They keep all their wits about them. But their riders . . . all the weyrfolk . . . we’re shadows, half alive, like dragonless men, part of us gone forever. Except Kylara.” His face contorted with intense dislike. “All she wants to do is go back and watch herself. The woman’s egomania will destroy us all, I’m afraid.”
His eyes suddenly lost focus, and he swayed wildly. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “I can’t stay. I’m here already. Too close. Makes it twice as bad. But I had to warn you. I promise, F’lar, we’ll stay as long as we can, but it won’t be much longer . . . so it won’t be long enough, but we tried. We tried!”
Before F’lar could move, the brown rider whirled and ran, half-crouched, from the room.
“But he hasn’t gone yet!” Lessa gasped. “He hasn’t even gone yet!”
PART IV
The Cold Between
F’LAR STARED AFTER his half brother, his brows contracting with the keen anxiety he felt.
“What can have happened?” Lessa demanded of the Weyrleader. “We haven’t even told F’nor. We ourselves just finished considering the idea.” Her hand flew to her own cheek. “And the Thread-mark—I dressed it myself tonight—it’s gone. Gone. So he’s been gone a long while.” She sank down to the bench.
