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Flew a gold and a sturdy brown in spring,
Searching if a land be dead.
AS RAMOTH AND Canth bore Lessa and F’nor up to the Star Stone, they saw the first of the Hold Lords and Craftmasters arriving for the Council.
In order to get back to the Southern Continent of ten Turns ago, Lessa and F’nor had decided it was easiest to transfer first between times to the Weyr of ten Turns back which F’nor remembered. Then they would go between places to a seapoint just off the coast of the neglected Southern Continent which was as close to it as the Records gave any references.
F’nor put Canth in mind of a particular day he remembered ten Turns back, and Ramoth picked up the references from the brown’s mind. The awesome cold of between times took Lessa’s breath away, and it was with intense relief that she caught a glimpse of the normal weyr activity before the dragons took them between places to hover over the turgid sea.
Beyond them, smudged purple on this overcast and gloomy day, lurked the Southern Continent. Lessa felt a new anxiety replace the uncertainty of the temporal displacement. Ramoth beat forward with great sweeps of her wings, making for the distant coast. Canth gallantly tried to maintain a matching speed.
He’s only a brown, Lessa scolded her golden queen.
If he is flying with me, Ramoth replied coolly, he must stretch his wings a little.
Lessa grinned, thinking very privately that Ramoth was still piqued that she had not been able to fight with her weyrmates. All the males would have a hard time with her for a while.
They saw the flock of wherries first and realized that there would have to be some vegetation on the Continent. Wherries needed greens to live, although they could subsist on little else besides occasional grubs if necessary.
Lessa had Canth relay questions to his rider. If the Southern Continent was rendered barren by the Threads, how did new growth start? Where did the wherries come from?
Ever notice the seed pods split open and the flakes carried away by the winds? Ever notice that wherries fly south after the autumn solstice?
Yes, but . . .
Yes, but!
But the land was Thread-bared!
In less than four hundred Turns even the scorched hilltops of our Continent begin to sprout in the springtime, F’nor replied by way of Canth, so it is easy to assume the Southern Continent could revive, too.
Even at the pace Ramoth set, it took time to reach the jagged shoreline with its forbidding cliffs, stark stone in the sullen light. Lessa groaned inwardly but urged Ramoth higher to see over the masking highlands. All seemed gray and desolate from that altitude.
Suddenly the sun broke through the cloud cover and the gray dissolved into dense greens and browns, living colors, the live greens of lush tropical growth, the browns of vigorous trees and vines. Lessa’s cry of triumph was echoed by F’nor’s hurrah and the brass voices of the dragons. Wherries, startled by the unusual sound, rose in squeaking alarm from their perches.
Beyond the headland, the land sloped away to jungle and grassy plateau, similar to mid-Boll. Though they searched all morning, they found no hospitable cliffs wherein to found a new Weyr. Was that a contributing factor in the southern venture’s failure, Lessa wondered.
Discouraged, they landed on a high plateau by a small lake. The weather was warm but not oppressive, and while F’nor and Lessa ate their noonday meal, the two dragons wallowed in the water, refreshing themselves.
Lessa felt uneasy and had little appetite for the meat and bread. She noticed that F’nor was restless, too, shooting surreptitious glances around the lake and the jungle verge.
“What under the sun are we expecting? Wherries don’t charge, and wild whers would come nowhere near a dragon. We’re ten Turns before the Red Star, so there can’t be any Threads.”
F’nor shrugged, grimacing sheepishly as he tossed his unfinished bread back into the food pouch.
“Place feels so empty, I guess,” he tendered, glancing around. He spotted ripe fruit hanging from a moonflower vine. “Now that looks familiar and good enough to eat, without tasting like dust in the mouth.”
He climbed nimbly and snagged the orange-red fruit.
“Smells right, feels ripe, looks ripe,” he announced and deftly sliced the fruit open. Grinning, he handed Lessa the first slice, carving another for himself. He lifted it challengingly. “Let us eat and die together!”
She couldn’t help but laugh and saluted him back. They bit into the succulent flesh simultaneously. Sweet juices dribbled from the corners of her mouth, and Lessa hurriedly licked her lips to capture the least drop of the delicious liquid.
“Die happy—I will,” F’nor cried, cutting more fruit. Both were subtly reassured by the experiment and were able to discuss their discomposure.
“I think,” F’nor suggested, “it is the lack of cliff and cavern and the still, still quality of the place, the knowing that there are no other men or beasts about but us.”
Lessa nodded her head in agreement. “Ramoth, Canth, would having no Weyr upset you?”
We didn’t always live in caves, Ramoth replied, somewhat haughtily as she rolled over in the lake. Sizable waves rushed up the shore almost to where Lessa and F’nor were seated on a fallen tree trunk. The sun here is warm and pleasant, the water cooling. I would enjoy it here, but I am not to come.
“She is out of sorts,” Lessa whispered to F’nor. “Let Pridith have it, dear one,” she called soothingly to the golden queen. “You’ve the Weyr and all!”
Ramoth ducked under the water, blowing up a froth in disgruntled reply.
Canth admitted that he had no reservations at all about living Weyrless. The dry earth would be warmer than stone to sleep on, once a suitably comfortable hollow had been achieved. No, he couldn’t object to the lack of the cave as long as there was enough to eat.
“Well have to bring herdbeasts in,” F’nor mused. “Enough to start a good-sized herd. Of course, the wherries here are huge. Come to think of it, I believe this plateau has no exits. We wouldn’t need to pasture it off. I’d better check. Otherwise, this plateau with the lake and enough clear space for Holds seems ideal. Walk out and pick breakfast from the tree.”
“It might be wise to choose those who were not Hold-reared,” Lessa added. “They would not feel so uneasy away from protecting heights and stone-security.” She gave a short laugh. “I’m more a creature of habit than I suspected. All these open spaces, untenanted and quiet, seem . . . indecent.” She gave a delicate shudder, scanning the broad and open plain beyond the lake.
“Fruitful and lovely,” F’nor amended, leaping up to secure more of the orange-red succulents. “This tastes uncommonly good to me. Can’t remember anything this sweet and juicy from Nerat, and yet it’s the same variety.”
“Undeniably superior to what the Weyr gets. I suspect Nerat serves home first, Weyr last.”
They both stuffed themselves greedily.
Further investigation proved that the plateau was isolated, and ample to pasture a huge herd of food-beasts for the dragons. It ended in a sheer drop of several dragonlengths into denser jungle on one side, the sea-side escarpment on the other. The timber stands would provide raw material from which dwellings could be made for the Weyrfolk. Ramoth and Canth stoutly agreed dragonkind would be comfortable enough under the heavy foliage of the dense jungle. As this part of the continent was similar, weatherwise, to Upper Nerat, there would be neither intense heat nor cold to give distress.
However, if Lessa was glad enough to leave, F’nor seemed reluctant to start back.
“We can go between time and place on the way back,” Lessa insisted finally, “and be in the Weyr by late afternoon. The Lords will surely be gone by then.”
F’nor concurred, and Lessa steeled herself for the trip between. She wondered why the when between bothered her more than the where, for it had no effect on the dragons at all. Ramoth, sensing Lessa’s depression, crooned encouragingly. The long, long black suspension of the utter
cold of between where and when ended suddenly in sunlight above the Weyr.
Somewhat startled, Lessa saw bundles and sacks spread out before the Lower Caverns as dragonriders supervised the loading of their beasts.
“What has been happening?” F’nor exclaimed.
“Oh, F’lar’s been anticipating success,” she assured him glibly.
Mnementh, who was watching the bustle from the ledge of the queen’s weyr, sent a greeting to the travelers and the information that F’lar wished them to join him in the weyr as soon as they returned.
They found F’lar, as usual, bent over some of the oldest and least legible Record skins that he had had brought to the Council Room.
“And?” he asked, grinning a broad welcome at them.
“Green, lush, and livable,” Lessa declared, watching him intently. He knew something else, too. Well, she hoped he’d watch his words. F’nor was no fool, and this foreknowledge was dangerous.
“That is what I had so hoped to hear you say,” F’lar went on smoothly. “Come tell me in detail what you observed and discovered. It’ll be good to fill in the blank spaces on the chart.”
Lessa let F’nor give most of the account, to which F’lar listened with sincere attention, making notes.
“On the chance that it would be practical, I started packing supplies and alerting the riders to go with you,” he told F’nor when the account was finished. “Remember, we’ve only three days in this time in which to start you back ten Turns ago. We have no moments to spare. And we must have many more mature dragons ready to fight at Telgar in three days’ time. So, though ten Turns will have passed for you, three days only will elapse here. Lessa, your thought that the farm-bred might do better is well-taken. We’re lucky that our recent Search for rider candidates for the dragons Pridith will have come mainly from the crafts and farms. No problem there. And most of the thirty-two are in their early teens.”
“Thirty-two?” F’nor exclaimed. “We should have fifty. The dragonets must have some choice, even if we get the candidates used to the dragonets before they’re hatched.”
F’lar shrugged negligently. “Send back for more. You’ll have time, remember,” and F’lar chuckled as though he had started to add something and decided against it.
F’nor had no time to debate with the Weyrleader, for F’lar immediately launched on other rapid instructions.
F’nor was to take his own wingriders to help train the weyrlings. They would also take the forty young dragons of Ramoth’s first clutch: Kylara with her queen Pridith, T’bor and his bronze Piyanth. N’ton’s young bronze might also be ready to fly and mate by the time Pridith was, so that gave the young queen two bronzes at least.
“Suppose we’d found the continent barren?” F’nor asked, still puzzled by F’lar’s assurance. “What then?”
“Oh, we’d’ve sent them back to, say, the High Reaches,” F’lar replied far too glibly, but quickly went on. “I should send on other bronzes, but I’ll need everyone else here to ride burrow-search on Keroon and Nerat. They’ve already unearthed several at Nerat. Vincet, I’m told, is close to heart attack from fright.”
Lessa made a short comment on that Hold Lord.
“What of the meeting this morning?” F’nor asked, remembering.
“Never mind that now. You’ve got to start shifting between by evening, F’nor.”
Lessa gave the Weyrleader a long hard look and decided she would have to find out what had happened in detail very soon.
“Sketch me some references, will you, Lessa?” F’lar asked.
There was a definite plea in his eyes as he drew clean hide and a stylus to her. He wanted no questions from her now that would alarm F’nor. She sighed and picked up the drawing tool.
She sketched quickly, with one or two details added by F’nor until she had rendered a reasonable map of the plateau they had chosen. Then, abruptly, she had trouble focusing her eyes. She felt light-headed.
“Lessa?” F’lar bent to her.
“Everything’s . . . moving . . . circling . . .” and she collapsed backward into his arms.
As F’lar raised her slight body into his arms, he exchanged an alarmed look with his half brother.
“How do you feel?” the Weyrleader called after his brother.
“Tired but no more than that,” F’nor assured him as he shouted down the service shaft to the kitchens for Manora to come and for hot klah. He needed that, and no doubt of it.
F’lar laid the Weyrwoman on the sleeping couch, covering her gently.
“I don’t like this,” he muttered, rapidly recalling what F’nor had said of Kylara’s decline, which F’nor could not know was yet to come in his future. Why should it start so swiftly with Lessa?
“Time-jumping makes one feel slightly—” F’nor paused, groping for the exact wording. “Not entirely . . . whole. You fought between times at Nerat yesterday. . . .”
“I fought,” F’lar reminded him, “but neither you nor Lessa battled anything today. There may be some inner . . . mental . . . stress simply to going between times. Look, F’nor, I’d rather only you came back once you reach the southern Weyr. I’ll make it an order and get Ramoth to inhibit the dragons. That way no rider can take it into his head to come back even if he wants to. There is some factor that may be more serious than we can guess. Let’s take no unnecessary risks.”
“Agreed.”
“One other detail, F’nor. Be very careful which times you pick to come back to see me. I wouldn’t jump between too close to any time you were actually here. I can’t imagine what would happen if you walked into your own self in the passageway, and I can’t lose you.”
With a rare demonstration of affection, F’lar gripped his half brother’s shoulder tightly.
“Remember, F’nor. I was here all morning and you did not arrive back from the first trip till midafternoon. And remember, too, we have only three days. You have ten Turns.”
F’nor left, passing Manora in the hall.
The woman could find nothing obviously the matter with Lessa, and they finally decided it might be simple fatigue; yesterday’s strain when Lessa had to relay messages between dragons and fighters followed by the disjointing between times trip today.
When F’lar went to wish the southern venturers a good trip, Lessa was in a normal sleep, her face pale, but her breathing easy.
F’lar had Mnementh relay to Ramoth the prohibition he wished the queen to instill in all dragonkind assigned to the venture. Ramoth obliged, but added in an aside to bronze Mnementh, which he passed on to F’lar, that everyone else had adventures while she, the Weyr queen, was forced to stay behind.
No sooner had the laden dragons, one by one, winked out of the sky above the Star Stone than the young weyrling assigned to Nerat Hold as messenger came gliding down, his face white with fear.
“Weyrleader, many more burrows have been found, and they cannot be burned out with fire alone. Lord Vincet wants you.”
F’lar could well imagine that Vincet did.
“Get yourself some dinner, boy, before you start back. I’ll go shortly.”
As he passed through to the sleeping quarters, he heard Ramoth rumbling in her throat. She had settled herself down to rest.
Lessa still slept, one hand curled under her cheek, her dark hair trailing over the edge of the bed. She looked fragile, childlike, and very precious to him. F’lar smiled to himself. So she was jealous of Kylara’s attentions yesterday. He was pleased and flattered. Never would Lessa learn from him that Kylara, for all her bold beauty and sensuous nature, did not have one tenth the attraction for him that the unpredictable, dark, and delicate Lessa held. Even her stubborn intractableness, her keen and malicious humor, added zest to their relationship. With a tenderness he would never show her awake, F’lar bent and kissed her lips. She stirred and smiled, sighing lightly in her sleep.
Reluctantly returning to what must be done, F’lar left her so. As he paused by the queen, Ramoth raised her gr
eat, wedge-shaped head; her many-faceted eyes gleamed with bright luminescence as she regarded the Weyrleader.
“Mnementh, please ask Ramoth to get in touch with the dragonet at Fandarel’s crafthall, I’d like the Mastersmith to come with me to Nerat. I want to see what his agenothree does to Threads.”
Ramoth nodded her head as the bronze dragon relayed the message to her.
She has done so, and the green dragon comes as soon as he can. Mnementh reported to his rider. It is easier to do, this talking about, when Lessa is awake, he grumbled.
F’lar agreed heartily. It had been quite an advantage yesterday in the battle and would be more and more of an asset.
Maybe it would be better if she tried to speak, across time, to F’nor . . . but no, F’nor had come back.
F’lar strode into the Council Room, still hopeful that somewhere within the illegible portions of the old Records was the one clue he so desperately needed. There must be a way out of this impasse. If not the southern venture, then something else. Something!
Fandarel showed himself a man of iron will as well as sinew; he looked calmly at the exposed tangle of perceptibly growing Threads that writhed and intertwined obscenely.
“Hundreds and thousands in this one burrow,” Lord Vincet of Nerat was exclaiming in a frantic tone of voice. He waved his hands distractedly around the plantation of young trees in which the burrow had been discovered. “These stalks are already withering even as you hesitate. Do something! How many more young trees will die in this one field alone? How many more burrows escaped dragon’s breath yesterday? Where is a dragon to sear them? Why are you just standing there?”
F’lar and Fandarel paid no attention to the man’s raving, both fascinated as well as revolted by their first sight of the burrowing stage of their ancient foe. Despite Vincet’s panicky accusations, it was the only burrow on this particular slope. F’lar did not like to contemplate how many more might have slipped through the dragons’ efforts and had reached Nerat’s warm and fertile soil. If they had only had time enough to set out watchmen to track the fall of stray clumps. They could, at least, remedy that error in Telgar, Crom, and Ruatha in three days. But it was not enough. Not enough.
