Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern Read online

  “Yes, you are!” K’dan had called back, laughing at his dragon’s joy. “Don’t go too far, or Tazith will have to bring you back.”

  I won’t, the little bronze affirmed.

  “Well, that’s excellent,” Xhinna said, sending a thought to Tazith instructing the blue to keep a close eye just the same. “We can get them all down and exercising.”

  “That’ll help with their muscles and growth,” K’dan said. “But it’ll make them hungrier.”

  “I think better hungrier than flabby,” X’lerin said as he moved down the sands to approach them. “I’ll have W’vin arrange for the rest to be brought down in rotation.”

  K’dan nodded. “Until we’re sure they’re safe, it’s best not to have too many in the water at once.”

  X’lerin frowned. “I’ve never heard of anything like a sea tunnel snake.”

  “No,” K’dan agreed. “And I checked with Colfet. He says that he’s never heard of anything in the sea that would attack a dragonet.”

  X’lerin nodded, turning around to glance at the distant eggs that lay on the sands.

  “It’s nothing like the Weyrs,” K’dan said as he followed the other bronze rider’s gaze.

  “We’re going to need Candidates soon,” Xhinna said.

  K’dan turned back to face her. “What do you propose?”

  Xhinna shrugged, turning a questioning look to X’lerin, who gestured for her to continue. She told K’dan, “I can’t see any choice but—”

  “Hold on,” K’dan said, raising a hand. “I was thinking about this …” He jerked his head for them to follow him. X’lerin raised his eyebrows toward Xhinna, who shook her head to show that she knew no more than he.

  “It’s over here,” K’dan said, leading the way. “I made sure to draw it above the high tide line.”

  “Draw what?” X’lerin asked.

  “This,” K’dan said, pointing to a series of lines and squiggles on the sand before them. He bent down and picked up the stick that clearly had been his writing instrument.

  “And what is this, harper?” X’lerin wondered.

  “Well …,” K’dan began slowly, “I can’t claim to know more than anyone else on this, but I’ve been thinking about what happened to Fiona and the others—”

  “That’s why you’ve been asking me!” X’lerin exclaimed.

  K’dan nodded. He glanced over to Xhinna. “And Xhinna tried to go forward to Telgar—”

  “And nearly died for her pains!” X’lerin put in.

  “But none of the Records ever mention something like this,” K’dan said, “at least as far as I recall.”

  X’lerin nodded. “In that, you are our master.”

  K’dan’s lips twitched even as he shook his head in disagreement.

  “Anyway,” he said, gesturing to the drawing on the sand, “I was thinking that perhaps between has a shape to it.”

  “A shape?”

  “Well, perhaps not a ‘shape’ so much as something that defines it,” K’dan said. “That between is a way through both space and time, so I thought that time and space have a meaning in between.”

  “I don’t understand,” X’lerin said. Beside him, Xhinna nodded vigorously in agreement.

  “I don’t know if it can be put into words,” K’dan said, pointing again to the drawing, “which is why I tried to draw it.”

  “And this drawing shows?”

  K’dan pointed with the stick to the part of the drawing farthest from them. “Let’s say that that line represents where Fiona and everyone else went. Our ‘present’ if you will.”

  “About three Turns from now,” X’lerin said by way of agreement.

  “A bit more, I think,” K’dan said. “I’ve checked with Colfet. He’s been looking at the stars and he thinks we’re back in the summer three Turns before the Third Pass.”

  He pointed to a spot on the drawing. “That dotted line represents the time when D’gan and the old Telgars jumped between.”

  “And that other line?” X’lerin said, pointing to the line that ran from some point in the future to the top line of the drawing, the “present” line.

  “That’s the line representing Fiona’s jump between times,” K’dan said. He pointed at the big hole where the two lines met. “And that hole is the knot that formed when they crossed paths.”

  “And?” X’lerin prompted.

  “We know from Xhinna that the knot was still there when she tried to jump,” K’dan said. “And we know from your arrival that the knot doesn’t prevent people from jumping back in time, only from jumping forward.”

  “Or we were just lucky,” X’lerin said.

  “Did you feel like you were stuck, unable to move?” Xhinna asked him, a shiver going down her spine as the memory of that horrible moment flowed once again in her mind.

  “No,” X’lerin said. “As I told you, it was like a normal jump between times.”

  “Nothing like when you were caught going forward with Fiona,” K’dan observed.

  “No, not at all,” X’lerin said. “You know how relieved we were.” He pursed his lips tightly and turned to Xhinna. “We were all afraid.”

  “Shh!” K’dan snapped. X’lerin gave him a surprised look. “You’re referring to the message Xhinna sent but hasn’t written yet.”

  “Yes,” X’lerin admitted, his shoulders slumping.

  “I can leave that message when I go in Search,” Xhinna said.

  K’dan raised his stick and drew a new line close to them. “I think you’d be safest if you went back in time from here and then came forward once more.” He drew connecting lines from the “now” position to some place back in time and then back again.

  “Yes,” Xhinna said, frowning at the drawing. “That could work.”

  “It would be safest if you didn’t change times at all,” X’lerin protested.

  “Safest, but we’re going to have to time it at some point,” K’dan said. X’lerin raised an eyebrow. “Weyrleader, in the next three Turns, we’re going to need firestone and the only place we can get that is back in time.”

  “At the Igen mine?” Xhinna asked.

  “Yes,” K’dan agreed. “It’s the only place that’s large enough where our presence might be kept a secret.”

  “And we need to keep it a secret because no one back in time knew about us,” X’lerin guessed.

  “Perhaps because we didn’t go back in time?” Xhinna suggested.

  “If we didn’t go back in time, then we don’t get firestone,” X’lerin reminded her. “And we’ll need it if we have to stay here until we’re beyond the time of the knot between.”

  “And if you go back in time, maybe some of those who were missing after the Plague could be saved,” K’dan added.

  “But, K’dan, aren’t they already dead?”

  “Not if you rescued them!”

  “I should come with you. You’re weyrbred—you won’t know what to say,” Jepara said when Xhinna explained her plans to her gold riders. Xhinna couldn’t hide her surprise at the other’s offer. Jepara pressed on, “As a Lord Holder’s daughter, it’s my right.”

  “We don’t know if this will work,” Xhinna told her, shaking her head. “If we fail—” Her words trailed off as she heard Taria gasp. She nodded toward her, then continued, “If we fail, we don’t need to lose two dragons—yours would not survive your loss.”

  “Two?” Jepara repeated in confusion. And then she caught Xhinna’s meaning and her eyes turned involuntarily toward where her Sarurth lay sleeping. “Well, then who’s going to take over if you don’t come back?”

  Taria hissed, too angry to form words.

  “Just as long as it’s not you,” Meeya chimed in.

  “No one’s asking you, Meeyu,” Jepara snarled back. “Shouldn’t you be milking milchbeasts for your kin?”

  Meeya glared at her, but before she could respond, Xhinna intervened, “That’s enough!” She cut her glare between Jepara, Taria, and Meeya.
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  “Bekka will take over—”

  “Me?” Bekka cried in protest.

  “—until I get back,” Xhinna continued, ignoring the interjection. “It won’t be long—this whole conversation has probably dragged on longer than the trip will take.”

  “You need to take me.”

  Everyone turned toward the sound of the small voice. It was Jirana. Seeing her, Jepara snorted derisively.

  “I have to go, to show you the way, to help with Laspanth.”

  “Laspanth?” Xhinna asked.

  “My queen,” Jirana replied, sounding sleepy. “The green queen.”

  “Sweetie, you should get to bed,” Xhinna told her in a kindly voice. “You sound all worn out.”

  “She sounds addled,” Jepara said. She turned back to Xhinna. “But she’s right in a way. There are eighteen eggs on the beach. How are you going to carry enough Candidates on one tiny blue?”

  Xhinna ignored the jab implied in “tiny” and started to answer when Jirana responded dreamily: “Only five are needed. Five will hatch: three greens and two blues.”

  Xhinna shook her head, stood up from where she sat, and moved toward Jirana. “Come on, little one, I’m taking you to your mother.”

  When Xhinna picked her up, the little girl shook and her eyes opened wide. “Xhinna?” She seemed surprised. “Did I really say all that? About a queen and five hatchlings?”

  “What, don’t you remember?” Jepara called.

  “It was like a dream,” Jirana said, “I thought maybe I was just sleeping.”

  “Let’s get you to your mother,” Xhinna repeated, not surprised to find that Taria had joined her.

  Taria leaned closer to Xhinna and said for her ears alone, “Was that the Sight?”

  “Yes,” Jirana replied, having better ears than Taria had imagined. The little girl yawned and leaned against Xhinna’s chest. “That was the Sight.”

  “It’s early,” Javissa said when Xhinna recounted the events to her later. She glanced down at Jirana, who was deep in sleep; she’d nodded off during the short walk from the meeting and couldn’t be stirred, even when Javissa bundled her up in a blanket. “The first Sight usually comes with adolescence.”

  “So do you believe it?”

  “I don’t know.” Javissa shook her head. “It’s possible, but it’s also possible that she’s imagining it.”

  “I need to go soon,” Xhinna said.

  “There’s danger?”

  “Yes,” Xhinna said, recalling her conversation with K’dan and X’lerin. “We can’t be sure if timing it won’t get us trapped.”

  “She said she’d get a queen?”

  “And that only five Candidates were needed for Coranth’s clutch,” Xhinna said.

  “And what of the others?”

  “She didn’t say,” Xhinna told her.

  Javissa looked up to the stars that were just peeping through the night sky. When she lowered her gaze, her eyes met Xhinna’s. “I never expected this.”

  “You say she’s too young?”

  “I do,” Javissa agreed, her lips pinching together in a quick frown. “But the way you described her, she behaved just like her father when he saw the future.”

  “Could she be pretending?”

  “No, she never saw her father when he had a Sight,” Javissa replied. A smile touched her lips briefly. “And she’s an honest child, mostly. I don’t think she’d scheme up something like this.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “If you can wait until morning, when she’s awake,” Javissa said, “I’ll ask her if she still wants to go.”

  “It doesn’t matter so much when I go as when I go to.”

  “Well, then,” Javissa said, turning to glance down tenderly at her only daughter, “let’s see what the dawn brings.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to listen to a little girl,” Taria chided her the next morning when they met on the beach. “There are eighteen eggs on the sands, not five.”

  “I know,” Xhinna agreed. “But we’ve got to start somewhere and Tazith can only carry so many—”

  “He could carry one more if she didn’t go,” Taria sniffed. She shivered as a cold breeze blew in from offshore where clouds were gathering and threatening a misty, perhaps even damp, morning.

  She is very light, Tazith said to Xhinna.

  “What?” Taria demanded, catching the distracted look in Xhinna’s eyes.

  “Tazith says she’s very light,” Xhinna reported.

  “Huh, he would!”

  “Look, Taria, K’dan agrees that it makes sense to scout out for Candidates back in time,” Xhinna said. She made a face. “To be honest, if I could, I’d prefer to leave Jirana behind—”

  “What?” Taria exclaimed. “Why?”

  “Because K’dan could be wrong,” Xhinna told her. “It could be that no one can go between times.”

  “X’lerin and the others—”

  “I should have said, can go forward between times,” Xhinna corrected herself with a wave of her hand.

  “But you’re not,” Taria said, “you’re going back—” She broke off.

  “And then I’ve got to come back,” Xhinna said, nodding to affirm Taria’s unspoken conclusion. “That’s where the problems will come, if any.”

  “Why can’t X’lerin go?” Taria asked. “He’s the Weyrleader.”

  “It makes more sense for me to go,” Xhinna said. She said nothing, waiting for Taria to think of the reasons herself.

  “You’re expendable,” Taria said at last.

  “It’s my fault we’re in this mess—it was my decision to come here,” Xhinna said, not quite disagreeing.

  “That’s unfair!” Taria said. She half-turned to glance at the distant broom trees that housed Sky Weyr. “Did X’lerin say that to you?”

  “No,” Xhinna replied, “I said it to myself.”

  “You take too much on,” Taria said.

  “Someone’s got to find the Candidates. Who better than Tazith?”

  Taria’s lips tightened; she couldn’t argue with that—it was well-known that blues were good at searching out Candidates and it was obvious that Sky Weyr couldn’t afford to risk X’lerin and Kivith, the only mature bronze.

  “But why take her?” Taria asked, pointing to the distance. Xhinna turned and saw Jirana rushing across the sands toward them, Javissa and X’lerin following farther behind.

  “Tazith says she gives good coordinates,” Xhinna said.

  “What do you say?”

  “If she really does See, then I have to take her with me.”

  “Xhinna, Xhinna!” Jirana called, nearly doubled over and out of breath as she reached them. “I’m ready!”

  “You should catch your breath first,” Taria told her absently.

  Jirana smiled up at her, her dark eyes flashing. “I can do that when we’re in the air.”

  “Only five?” Taria said to the girl.

  “That’s all I saw,” Jirana told her.

  “Could you be wrong?”

  “Oh, yes!” Jirana said. She saw Taria’s look and added, “That was my first time, so I can’t say that I’ve got everything right. And—” She shrugged her shoulders. “—I don’t quite remember all of it.”

  Taria cut her eyes to Xhinna imploringly.

  “So are you sure you need to come, little one?” Xhinna asked. She waved a hand toward Javissa. “I’m sure your mother would appreciate it if you stayed here.”

  “I have to go—it’s my duty,” Jirana said, shifting her gaze between Xhinna and her mother.

  Javissa pulled the little girl into her arms and hugged her tight. “If you’re certain, go.”

  Jirana pushed back far enough to peer up into her mother’s eyes. “I’m certain, Momma.”

  Javissa’s lips curled up and she bent down, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. Gently, she turned her around and pushed her toward Xhinna.

  “Weyrleader,” Xhinna said, nodding towa
rd X’lerin, giving him final say in the manner.

  “Good flying,” X’lerin said.

  “Come on,” Xhinna said to Jirana, motioning her toward Tazith who, in deference to the child’s scant height, lowered his forelegs and shoulders to the ground.

  “Thanks, Tazith!” Jirana said as she scampered up onto the blue’s neck.

  That was very kind, Xhinna added as she climbed up behind the little girl. She rigged the riding straps and gave Tazith a silent command.

  Hold on, Tazith cautioned as he righted himself. A moment later he took two steps forward, leapt with his back legs, and was airborne, clawing upward into the sky.

  In front of Xhinna, Jirana let out a cry of pure joy.

  I have the image, Tazith said, relaying it to Xhinna. She caught a flag at half-mast, realized it was the Crom Hold flag.

  Let’s go, she said, even as she tried to puzzle out one niggling color in the image.

  They were between when she realized what it was. Beneath the Crom Hold flag she’d seen another, smaller flag. Yellow. The Plague flag.

  SEVEN

  A Deed Redone

  “We need to go back,” Xhinna said as soon as they burst into the sky above Crom Hold. Dawn was just breaking: The sun had just crested the horizon, casting the inner walls of the Hold in sharp relief. “We’ve gone back too far—”

  “No, we haven’t,” Jirana said. “We’re right where we need to be.” She pointed down, behind them. “Tazith, turn around and go behind that hill. Land there.”

  “No!” Xhinna said. “Jirana, that yellow flag is the Plague flag. We’ve gone back to the time of the Plague, we’ve gone back too far.”

  We’ve gone back only seven Turns, Tazith assured her.

  “Then why is the Plague flag still flying?”

  “Why don’t you ask them?” Jirana said, pointing to a small group of tents in the distance.

  At Xhinna’s urging, Tazith turned and winged his way toward the tents. Xhinna could tell that even from the high towers of Crom, the tents would be obscured by the knoll in front of them.

  Drop down, Xhinna told Tazith and soon the blue was behind the knoll, equally obscured from Crom.

  “They’re flying the same flag,” Jirana said, pointing toward one of the nearest tents. “But not the yellow pennant.”