Dragonheart

“Always, Weyrwoman.” With a last respectful nod, T’mar turned back to climb onto his dragon.

Let’s go,  he told his dragon. Zirenth flexed his hind legs and leapt into the air. He beat his wings once, twice, and was gone between.

Cisca turned at a sound behind her and spotted Fiona rushing from the Kitchen Cavern, looking distraught. “I wanted to say good flying!”

“Did you, now?” Cisca murmured to herself, giving the young rider a probing look. Louder, she responded, “He’ll be back soon enough.”

Fiona spent the next several days with Xhinna and Cisca, with the Weyrwoman constantly presenting her with new and often arduous tasks that left her too tired to think — even with plenty of klah.  After the first day, she realized that that was part of Cisca’s purpose — to exhaust her.

That obvious ploy didn’t bother her as much as it might have under other circumstances. Fiona realized how numb and useless she felt. The loss of Tannaz and Kelsanth was magnified by the losses of all the other riders and ill dragons that had gone with her — particularly those whom Fiona had visited for hours on end. No one knew of a cure for the illness. As far as Fiona knew, it was only a matter of time before all the dragons succumbed, including her own lovely, marvelous — and so young! — Talenth.

If the loss of her own dragon wasn’t enough to terrify her, Fiona also realized that without the dragons of Pern, soon all the planet would be covered in burrows, with Thread sucking all life from the soil — and those Pernese that didn’t succumb quickly to the falling Thread would slowly starve.

So she was secretly glad that Cisca kept her too busy to think and that Xhinna never left her alone for more than the barest few minutes.

Fiona knew, from the dreaded sounds of coughing, that more dragons had fallen ill, but she purposely did not try to discover who they were, preferring to concentrate on T’jen’s Salith, the last of the original sick dragons.

T’jen was as tough as they came, as befit a Weyrlingmaster, even if he had relinquished his responsibilities when Salith took ill.

“You’ll see,” he had declared the day after Tannaz and the others went between.  “We’ll find a cure.”

He was constantly consulting with Kentai about possible remedies and was dosing Salith with so many different herbals that it was a wonder the dragon was willing to put up with it.

“He knows we’re trying,” T’jen explained when Fiona was helping the dragonrider give his dragon a particularly noxious infusion. With a wry grin, he added, “Perhaps the smell alone will drive out the illness.”

T’jen kept a steady eye on his weyrlings, even if he was no longer involved in their daily activities.

“See down there?” He pointed out from his place beside Salith, who was dozing on his ledge in the warm afternoon sun. “See the lads all lined up like that?”

“Yes,” Fiona said, peering down at the strange assortment of youngsters. From her high vantage point, they looked more like dots than people.

“They’re practicing drill,” T’jen told her. “They learn to line up and move as a group, then they learn how to spread out like they will with their dragons when they start flying.”

Curiosity caused Fiona to screw up her face as she asked, “How come I don’t do that?”

“I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t,” T’jen replied with a shrug. “Those in the queen’s wing should also know how to work together.” But, of course, Fiona reflected sadly, there was only Melirth and Talenth. And not only was Talenth too young, but Fiona and Cisca were too busy to devote any time to drill.

One evening her task came from Kentai — though Fiona didn’t doubt that even this was a piece of Cisca’s efforts to keep her busy. “Weyrwoman,” the harper said to her at dinner. “Tomorrow I’d like to spend some time with you going over the medical procedures. We’ve scheduled training for the morning, and a drill in the afternoon.”

“A drill?” Fiona asked.

“T’mar’s wing and the weyrlings will play the sick and injured,” Cisca informed her, her eyes twinkling as she mentioned the bronze rider.

“The drills are a lot of fun,” Xhinna told Fiona. When Fiona looked at her, surprised, she added, “We’ve been doing them at least once a month for the past Turn.”

“All because your Weyrwoman believes in being prepared,” K’lior remarked, casting a fond look at Cisca.

After dinner, Fiona went to check on T’jen and Salith, and Xhinna, as usual, accompanied her.

T’jen’s weyr was on the fifth level, on the east side of the Weyr, toward the southern end, almost above the lake. To get to it, they took the east stairwell and walked halfway around the corridor south to his lair.

“It’s a good workout,” T’jen had noted when Xhinna had arrived breathless on their first visit. “But worth the view.”

He didn’t exaggerate: T’jen’s quarters had a magnificent view of the entire Weyr, with the Tooth Crag nearly straight ahead of him, and the Star Stones and Landing just at the limit of vision on his right.

It had become a habit, in the short time since they’d started their visits, that before entering, Fiona and Xhinna would stop for a brief rest so that T’jen wouldn’t twit them about being out of shape — the ex- Weyrlingmaster was a stickler for exercise.

“You’re going to be riding a dragon, young lady, you shouldn’t be out of breath just climbing five flights of stairs and walking a quarter of the way around the Weyr,” he had observed sharply when Fiona had commented on the distance.

Until now, however, they hadn’t realized that their heavy breathing was audible to T’jen from their halting point near his weyr.

“Don’t come in,” he called wearily as they stood catching their breath.

“T’jen,” Fiona repeated in surprise, “are you all right?”

“No, I’m not,” he replied mournfully. “Send for the Weyrleader.”

Fiona was surprised by the request, knowing that T’jen’s Salith could more easily alert K’lior, and then —

Talenth,  Fiona thought even as her eyes filled with tears, please tell Melirth that we need Cisca and K’lior at Salith’s weyr.

Melirth asks — Talenth halted and continued, They come.

Thank you,  Fiona responded. Aloud, she said, “They’re coming.” Xhinna gave her a quizzical look that slowly drained away as she figured it out. “How come the dragons didn’t keen?” she asked Fiona.

“He passed away in his sleep,” T’jen — who would from now on be known by his birth name, Tajen — said in answer. “I don’t think the dragons know yet.”

Fiona beckoned to Xhinna, and together they entered the brown dragon’s lair.

“Oh!” Xhinna murmured in anguish as she saw Salith lying lifeless, a final trickle of green mucus still snaking down his snout to puddle on the floor.

“I don’t know what we’ll do with the body,” Tajen said sadly. Fiona could tell by his stance that the brown rider had followed their journey across the floor of the Weyr Bowl from his vantage point at Salith’s ledge and, she guessed, had turned to Salith only to find the brown dead. Tears were flowing freely, ignored, down his cheeks. “I thought he’d go between. ”

“Weren’t you going to go with him?” Fiona asked quietly, moving forward to stand beside him and pat Salith’s huge head, idly moving her hand to his eye ridge as though in some half-formed hope that the dragon might revive with her ministrations.

“No,” Tajen replied firmly, “we’d talked it over, Salith and I.” He paused, his lips screwing up into a grimace. “I didn’t want to set such an example for the weyrlings, even though I never wanted to lose Salith. Sometimes, all you have are bad choices.”

The sound of feet rushing around the corridor alerted them to the approach of Cisca, K’lior, H’nez, T’mar, and M’kury. Cisca entered first, something in her stance and the way she moved making it clear that the others were to wait for her.

“Tajen,” Cisca said quietly, “I grieve for your loss.”

K’lior entered, bowed to the ex-dragonrider, and repeated her words. “Tajen, I grieve for your loss.”