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 great, 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.
Fandarel motioned forward the two craftsmen who had accompanied him. They were burdened with an odd contraption: a large cylinder of metal to which was attached a wand with a wide nozzle. At the other end of the cylinder was another short pipe-length and then a short cylinder with an inner plunger. One craftsman worked the plunger vigorously, while the second, barely keeping his hands steady, pointed the nozzle end toward the Thread burrow. At a nod from this pumper, the man released a small knob on the nozzle, extending it carefully away from him and over the burrow. A thin spray danced from the nozzle and drifted down into the burrow. No sooner had the spray motes contacted the Thread tangles than steam hissed out of the burrow. Before long, all that remained of the pallid writhing tendrils was a smoking mass of blackened strands. Long after Fandarel had waved the craftsmen back, he stared at the grave. Finally he grunted and found himself a long stick with which he poked and prodded the remains. Not one Thread wriggled.
«Humph,» he grunted with evident satisfaction. «However, we can scarcely go around digging up every burrow. I need another.»
With Lord Vincet a hand-wringing moaner in their wake, they were escorted by the junglemen to another undisturbed burrow on the sea-side of the rainforest. The Threads had entered the earth by the side of a huge tree that was already drooping.
With his prodding stick Fandarel made a tiny hole at the top of the burrow and then waved his craftsmen forward. The pumper made vigorous motions at his end, while the nozzle-holder adjusted his pipe before inserting it in the hole. Fandarel gave the sign to start and counted slowly before he waved a cutoff. Smoke oozed out of the tiny hole.
After a suitable lapse of time, Fandarel ordered the junglemen to dig, reminding them to be careful not to come in contact with the agenothree liquid. When the burrow was uncovered, the acid had done its work, leaving nothing but a thoroughly charred mass of tangles.
Fandarel grimaced but this time scratched his head in dissatisfaction.
«Takes too much time, either way. Best to get them still at the surface,» the Mastersmith grumbled.
«Best to get them in the air,» Lord Vincet chattered. «And what will that stuff do to my young orchards? What will it do?»
Fandarel swung around, apparently noticing the distressed Holder for the first time.
«Little man, agenothree in diluted form is what you use to fertilize your plants in the spring. True, this field has been burned out for a few years, but it is not Thread-full. It would be better if we could get the spray up high in the air. Then it would float down and dissipate harmlessly-fertilizing very evenly, too.» He paused, scratched his head gratingly. «Young dragons could carry a team aloft. . . . Hmmm. A possibility, but the apparatus is bulky yet.» He turned his back on the surprised Hold Lord then and asked F'lar if the tapestry had been returned. «I cannot yet discover how to make a tube throw flame. I got this mechanism from what we make for the orchard farmers.»
«I'm still waiting for word on the tapestry,» F'lar replied, «but this spray of yours is effective. The Thread burrow is dead.»
«The sandworms are effective too, but not really efficient,» Fandarel grunted in dissatisfaction. He beckoned abruptly to his assistants and stalked off into the increasing twilight to the dragons.
Robinton awaited their return at the Weyr, his outward calm barely masking his inner excitement. He inquired politely, however, of Fandarel's efforts. The Mastersmith grunted and shrugged. «I have all my craft at work.»
«The Mastersmith is entirely too modest,» F'lar put in. «He has already put together an ingenious device that sprays agenothree into Thread burrows and sears them into a black pulp.»
«Not efficient. I like the idea of flamethrowers,» the smith said, his eyes gleaming in his expressionless face. «A thrower of flame,» he repeated, his eyes unfocusing. He shook his heavy head with a bone-popping crack. «I go,» and with a curt nod to the harper and the Weyrleader, he left.
«I like that man's dedication to an idea,» Robinton observed. Despite his amusement with the man's eccentric behavior, there was a strong undercurrent of respect for the smith. «I must set my apprentices a task for an appropriate Saga on the Mastersmith. I understand,» he said, turning to F'lar, «that the southern venture has been inaugurated.»
F'lar nodded unhappily.
«Your doubts increase?»
«This between times travel takes its own toll,» he admitted, glancing anxiously toward the sleeping room.
«The Weyrwoman is ill?»
«Sleeping, but today's journey affected her. We need another, less dangerous answer!» and F'lar slammed one fist into the other palm.
«I came with no real answer,» Robinton said then, briskly, «but with what I believe to be another part of the puzzle. I have found an entry. Four hundred Turns ago the then Masterharper was called to Fort Weyr not long after the Red Star retreated away from Pern in the evening sky.»
«An entry? What is it?»
«Mind you, the Thread attacks had just lifted and the Masterharper was called one late evening to Fort Weyr. An unusual summons. However,» and Robinton emphasized the distinction by pointing a long, callous-tipped finger at F'lar, «no further mention is ever made of that visit. There ought to have been, for all such summonses have a purpose. All such meetings are recorded, yet no explanation of this one is given. The record is taken up several weeks later by the Masterharper as though he had not left his crafthall at all. Some ten months afterward, the Question Song was added to compulsory Teaching Ballads.»
«You believe the two are connected with the abandonment of the five Weyrs?»
«I do, but I could not say why. I only feel that the events, the visit, the disappearances, the Question Song, are connected.»
F'lar poured them both cups of wine.
«I have checked back, too, seeking some indications.» He shrugged. «All must have been normal right up to the point they disappeared. There are Records of tithing trains received, supplies stored, the list of injured dragons and men returning to active patrols. And then the Records cease at full Cold, leaving only Benden Weyr occupied.»
«And why that one Weyr of the six to choose from?» Robinton demanded. «Island Ista would be a better choice if only one Weyr was to be left. Benden so far north is not a likely place to pass four hundred Turns.»
«Benden is high and isolated. A disease that struck the others and was prevented from reaching Benden?»
«And no explanation of it? They can't all-dragons, riders, weyrfolk-have dropped dead on the same instant and left no carcasses rotting in the sun.»
«Then let us ask ourselves, why was the harper called? Was he told to construct a Teaching Ballad covering this disappearance?»
«Well,» Robinton snorted, «it certainly wasn't meant to reassure us, not with that tune-if one cares to call it a tune at all, and I don't-nor does it answer any questions! It poses them.»
«For us to answer?» suggested F'lar softly.
«Aye.» Robinton's eyes shone. «For us to answer, indeed, for it is a difficult song to forget. Which means it was meant to be remembered. Those questions are important, F'lar!»
«Which questions are important?» demanded Lessa, who had entered quietly.
Both men were on their feet. F'lar, with unusual attentiveness, held a chair for Lessa and poured her wine.
«I'm not going to break apart,» she said tartly, almost annoyed at the excess of courtesy. Then she smiled up at F'lar to take the sting out of her words. «I slept and I feel much better. What were you two getting so intense about?»
F'lar quickly outlined what he and the Masterharper had been discussing. When he mentioned the Question Song, Lessa shuddered.
«That's one I can't forget, either. Which, I've always been told,» and she grimaced, remembering the hateful lessons with R'gul, «means it's important. But why? It only asked questions.» Then she bunked, her eyes went wide with amazement
» 'Gone away, gone . . . ahead!'» she cried, on her feet. «That's it! All five Weyrs went . . . ahead. But to when?»
F'lar turned to her, speechless.
«They came ahead to our time! Five Weyrs full of dragons,» she repeated in an awed voice.
«No, that's impossible,» F'lar contradicted.
«Why?» Robinton demanded excitedly. «Doesn't that solve the problem we're facing? The need for fighting dragons? Doesn't it explain why they left so suddenly with no explanation except that Question Song?»
F'lar brushed back the heavy lock of hair that overhung his eyes.
«It would explain their actions in leaving,» he admitted, «because they couldn't leave any clues saying where they went, or it would cancel the whole thing. Just as I couldn't tell F'nor I knew the southern venture would have problems. But how do they get here-if here is when they came? They aren't here now. How would they have known they were needed-or when they were needed? And this is the real problem-how can you conceivably give a dragon references to a when that has not yet occurred?»
«Someone here must go back to give them the proper references,» Lessa replied in a very quiet voice.
«You're mad, Lessa,» F'lar shouted at her, alarm written on his face. «You know what happened to you today. How can you consider going back to a when you can't remotely imagine? To a when four hundred Turns ago? Going back ten Turns left you fainting and half-ill.»
«Wouldn't it be worth it?» she asked him, her eyes grave. «Isn't Pern worth it?»
F'lar grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, his eyes wild with fear.
«Not even Pern is worth losing you, or Ramoth. Lessa, Lessa, don't you dare disobey me in this.» His voice dropped to an intense, icy whisper, shaking with anger.
«Ah, there may be a way of effecting that solution, momentarily beyond us, Weyrwoman,» Robinton put in adroitly. «Who knows what tomorrow holds? It certainly is not something one does without considering every angle.»
Lessa did not shrug off F'lar's viselike grip on her shoulders as she gazed at Robinton.
«Wine?» the Masterharper suggested, pouring a mug for her. His diversionary action broke the tableau of Lessa and F'lar.
«Ramoth is not afraid to try,» Lessa said, her mouth set in a determined line.
F'lar glared at the golden dragon who was regarding the humans, her neck curled around almost to the shoulder joint of her great wing.
«Ramoth is young,» F'lar snapped and then caught Mnementh's wry thought even as Lessa did.
She threw her head back, her peal of laughter echoing in the vaulting chamber,
«I'm badly in need of a good joke myself,» Robinton remarked pointedly.
«Mnementh told F'lar that he was neither young nor afraid to try, either. It was just a long step,» Lessa explained, wiping tears from her eyes.
F'lar glanced dourly at the passageway, at the end of which Mnementh lounged on his customary ledge.
A laden dragon comes, the bronze warned those in the Weyr. It is Lytol behind young B'rant on brown Fanth.
«Now he brings his own bad news?» Lessa asked sourly.
«It is hard enough for Lytol to ride another's dragon or come here at all, Lessa of Ruatha. Do not increase his torment one jot with your childishness,» F'lar said sternly.
Lessa dropped her eyes, furious with F'lar for speaking so to her in front of Robinton.
Lytol stumped into the queen's weyr, carrying one end of a large rolled rug. Young B'rant, struggling to uphold the other end, was sweating with the effort. Lytol bowed respectfully toward Ramoth and gestured the young brown rider to help him unroll their burden. As the immense tapestry uncoiled, F'lar could understand why Masterweaver Zurg had remembered it. The colors, ancient though they undoubtedly were, remained vibrant and undimmed. The subject matter was even more interesting.
«Mnementh, send for Fandarel. Here's the model he needs for his flamethrower,» F'lar said.
«That tapestry is Ruatha's,» Lessa cried indignantly. «I remember it from my childhood. It hung in the Great Hall and was the most cherished of my Bloodline's possessions. Where has it been?» Her eyes were flashing.
«Lady, it is being returned to where it belongs,» Lytol said stolidly, avoiding her gaze. «A masterweaver's work, this,» he went on, touching the heavy fabric with reverent fingers. «Such colors, such patterning. It took a man's life to set up the loom, a craft's whole effort to complete, or I am no judge of true craftsmanship.»
F'lar walked along the edge of the immense arras, wishing it could be hung to afford the proper perspective of the heroic scene. A flying formation of three wings of dragons dominated the upper portion of half the hanging. They were breathing flame as they dove upon gray, falling clumps of Threads in the brilliant sky. A sky just that perfect autumnal blue, F'lar decided, that cannot occur in warmer weather. Upon the lower slopes of the hills, foliage was depicted as turning yellow from chilly nights. The slatey rocks suggested Ruathan country. Was that why the tapestry had hung in Ruatha Hall? Below, men had left the protecting Hold, cut into the cliff itself. The men were burdened with the curious cylinders of which Zurg had spoken. The tubes in their hands belched brilliant tongues of flame in long streams, aimed at the writhing Threads that attempted to burrow in the ground.
Lessa gave a startled exclamation, walking right onto the tapestry, staring down at the woven outline of the Hold, its massive door ajar, the details of its bronze ornamentation painstakingly rendered in fine yams.
«I believe that's the design on the Ruatha Hold door,» F'lar remarked.
«It isand it isn't,» Lessa replied in a puzzled voice.
Lytol glowered at her and then at the woven door. «True. It isn't and yet it is, and I went through that door a scant hour ago.» He scowled down at the door before his toes.
«Well, here are the designs Fandarel wants to study,» F'lar said with relief, as he peered at the flamethrowers.
Whether or not the smith could produce a working model from this woven one in time to help them three days hence F'lar couldn't guess. But if Fandarel could not, no man could.
The Mastersmith was, for him, jubilant over the presence of the tapestry. He lay upon the rug, his nose tickled by the nap as he studied the details. He grumbled, moaned, and muttered as he sat cross-legged to sketch and peer.
«Has been done. Can be done. Must be done,» he was heard to rumble.
Lessa called for klah, bread, and meat when she learned from young B'rant that neither he nor Lytol had eaten yet. She served all the men, her manner gay and teasing. F'lar was relieved for Lytol's sake. Lessa even pressed food and klah on Fandarel, a tiny figure beside the mammoth man, insisting that he come away from the tapestry and eat and drink before he could return to his mumbling and drawing.
Fandarel finally decided that he had enough sketches and disappeared, to be flown back to his crafthold.
«No point in asking him when he'll be back. He's too deep in thought to hear,» F'lar remarked, amused.
«If you don't mind, I shall excuse myself as well,» Lessa said, smiling graciously to the four remaining around the table. «Good Warder Lytol, young B'rant should soon be excused, too. He's half asleep.»
«I most certainly am not, Weyrlady,» B'rant assured her hastily, widening his eyes with stimulated alertness.
Lessa merely laughed as she retreated into the sleeping chamber. F'lar stared thoughtfully after her.
«I mistrust the Weyrwoman when she uses that particularly docile tone of voice,» he said slowly.
«Well, we must all depart,» Robinton suggested, rising.
«Ramoth is young but not that foolish,» F'lar murmured after the others had left.
Ramoth slept, oblivious of his scrutiny. He reached for the consolation Mnementh could give him, without response. The big bronze was dozing on his ledge.
CHAPTER IV
Black, blacker, blackest,
And cold beyond frozen things.
Where is between when there is naught
To Life but fragile dragon wings?
«I just want to see that tapestry back on the wall at Ruatha,» Lessa insisted to F'lar the next day. «I want it where it belongs.»
They had gone to check on the injured and had had one argument already over F'lar's having sent N'ton along with the southern venture. Lessa had wanted him to try riding another's dragon. F'lar had preferred for him to learn to lead a wing of his own in the south, given the Turns to mature in. He had reminded Lessa, in the hope that it might prove inhibiting to any ideas she had about going four hundred Turns back, about F'nor's return trips, and he had borne down hard on the difficulties she had already experienced.
She had become very thoughtful, although she had said nothing.
Therefore, when Fandarel sent word that he would like to show F'lar a new mechanism, the Weyrleader felt reasonably safe in allowing Lessa the triumph of returning the purloined tapestry to Ruatha. She went to have the arras rolled and strapped to Ramoth's back.
He watched Ramoth rise with great sweeps of her wide wings, up to the Star Stone before going between to Ruatha. R'gul appeared on the ledge just then, reporting that a huge train of firestone was entering the Tunnel. Consequently, busy with such details, it was midmorning before he could get to see Fandarel's crude and not yet effective flamethrower . . . the fire did not «throw» from the nozzle of the tube with any force at all. It was late afternoon before he reached the Weyr again.
R'gul announced sourly that F'nor had been looking for him-twice, in fact.
«Twice?»
«Twice, as I said. He would not leave a message with me for you.» R'gul was clearly insulted by F'nor's refusal.
By the evening meal, when there was still no sign of Lessa, F'lar sent to Ruatha to learn that she had indeed brought the tapestry. She had badgered and bothered the entire Hold until the thing was properly hung. For upward of several hours she had sat and looked at it, pacing its length occasionally.
She and Ramoth had then taken to the sky above the Great Tower and disappeared. Lytol had assumed, as had everyone at Ruatha, that she had returned to Benden Weyr.
«Mnementh,» F'lar bellowed when the messenger had finished. «Mnementh, where are they?»
Mnementh's answer was a long time in coming. I cannot hear them, he said finally, his mental voice soft and as full of worry as a dragon's could be.
F'lar gripped the table with both hands, staring at the queen's empty weyr. He knew, in the anguished privacy of his mind, where Lessa had tried to go.
CHAPTER V
Cold as death, death'bearing,
Stay and die, unguided.
Brave and braving, linger.
This way was twice decided.
Below them was Ruatha's Great Tower. Lessa coaxed Ramoth slightly to the left, ignoring the dragon's acid comments, knowing that she was excited, too.
That's right, dear, this is exactly the angle at which the tapestry illustrates the Hold door. Only when that tapestry was designed, no one had carved the lintels or capped the door. And there was no Tower, no inner Court, no gate. She stroked the surprisingly soft skin of the curving neck, laughing to hide her own tense nervousness and apprehension at what she was about to attempt.
She told herself there were good reasons prompting her action in this matter. The ballad's opening phrase, «Gone away, gone ahead,» was clearly a reference to between times. And the tapestry gave the required reference points for the jump between whens. Oh, how she thanked the Masterweaver who had woven that doorway. She must remember to tell him how well he had wrought. She hoped she'd be able to. Enough of that. Of course, she'd be able to. For hadn't the Weyrs disappeared? Knowing they had gone ahead, knowing how to go back to bring them ahead, it was she, obviously, who must go back and lead them. It was very simple, and only she and Ramoth could do it. Because they already had.
She laughed again, nervously, and took several deep, shuddering breaths.
«All right, my golden love,» she murmured. «You have the reference. You know when I want to go. Take me between, Ramoth, between four hundred Turns.»
The cold was intense, even more penetrating than she had imagined. Yet it was not a physical cold. It was the awareness of the absence of everything. No light. No sound. No touch. As they hovered, longer, and longer, in this nothingness, Lessa recognized full-blown panic of a kind that threatened to overwhelm her reason. She knew she sat on Ramoth's neck, yet she could not feel the great beast under her thighs, under her hands. She tried to cry out inadvertently and opened her mouth tonothing . . . no sound in her own ears. She could not even feel the hands that she knew she had raised to her own cheeks.
I am here, she heard Ramoth say in her mind. We are together, and this reassurance was all that kept her from losing her grasp on sanity in that terrifying aeon of unpassing, timeless nothingness.
Someone had sense enough to call for Robinton. The Masterharper found F'lar sitting at the table, his face deathly pale, his eyes staring at the empty weyr. The craftmaster's entrance, his calm voice, reached F'lar in his shocked numbness. He sent the others out with a peremptory wave.
«She's gone. She tried to go back four hundred Turns,» F'lar said in a tight, hard voice.
The Masterharper sank into the chair opposite the Weyrleader.
«She took the tapestry back to Ruatha,» F'lar continued in that same choked voice. «I'd told her about F'nor's returns. I told her how dangerous this was. She didn't argue very much, and I know going between times had frightened her, if anything could frighten Lessa.» He banged the table with an important fist. «I should have suspected her. When she thinks she's right, she doesn't stop to analyze, to consider. She just does it!»
«But she's not a foolish woman,» Robinton reminded him slowly. «Not even she would jump between times without a reference point. Would she?»
«'Gone away, gone ahead'-that's the only clue we have!»
«Now wait a moment,» Robinton cautioned him, then snapped his fingers. «Last night, when she walked upon the tapestry, she was uncommonly interested in the Hall door. Remember, she discussed it with Lytol.»
F'lar was on his feet and halfway down the passageway.
«Come on, man, we've got to get to Ruatha.»
Lytol lit every glow in the Hold for F'lar and Robinton to examine the tapestry clearly.
«She spent the afternoon just looking at it,» the Warder said, shaking his head. «You're sure she has tried this incredible jump?»
«She must have. Mnementh can't hear either her or Ramoth anywhere. Yet he says he can get an echo from Canth many Turns away and in the Southern Continent.» F'lar stalked past the tapestry. «What is it about the door, Lytol? Think, man!»
«It is much as it is now, save that there are no carved lintels, there is no outer Court or Tower . . .»
«That's it. Oh, by the first Egg, it is so simple. Zurg said this tapestry is old. Lessa must have decided it was four hundred Turns, and she has used it as the reference point to go back between times.»
«Why, then, she's there and safe,» Robinton cried, sinking with relief in a chair.
«Oh, no, harper. It is not as easy as that,» F'lar murmured, and Robinton caught his stricken look and the despair echoed in Lytol's face.
«What's the matter?»
«There is nothing between,» F'lar said in a dead voice. «To go between places takes only as much time as for a man to cough three times. Between four hundred Turns.» His voice trailed off.
CHAPTER VI
Who wills, Can.
Who tries, Does.
Who loves, Lives.
There were voices that first were roars in her aching ears and then hushed beyond the threshold of sound. She gasped as the whirling, nauseating sensation apparently spun her, and the bed which she felt beneath her, around and around. She clung to the sides of the bed as pain jabbed through her head, from somewhere directly in the middle of her skull. She screamed, as much in protest at the pain as from the terrifying, rolling, whirling, dropping lack of a solid ground.
Yet some frightening necessity kept her trying to gabble out the message she had come to give. Sometimes she felt Ramoth trying to reach her in that vast swooping darkness that enveloped her. She would try to cling to Ramoth's mind, hoping the golden queen could lead her out of this torturing nowhere. Exhausted, she would sink down, down, only to be torn from oblivion by the desperate need to communicate.