Dragonheart

sudden flinches by the injured dragon that might further tear the injury. Finally, she was done.

She sat back on her heels for a moment, pleased with her work.

“What did you forget?” Cisca asked in a more normal voice.

Fiona furrowed her brow in thought, then groaned. “The numbweed!”

“Not to mention the rider,” Cisca added tartly. Behind her stood T’mar, his face still dripping with his artificial injury. “The moment you are done tending the dragon you should . . .”

“Consult with the rider, tell him what you’ve done, and check him for shock,” Fiona said, ruefully reciting the drill she’d been taught that morning. She looked at T’mar. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll live,” T’mar replied with a grin, wiping the “injury” off his face with a hand and licking it. “It’s just sauce.”

Fiona woke, suddenly. She reached out a tendril of thought to Talenth. The young gold seemed fitful in her sleep, as though she might wake at any moment. Fiona spent a moment in comfortable contact with her dragon, then focused her thoughts outward, listening.

A dragon and rider were moving quietly in the Weyr Bowl outside. The dragon coughed.

Fiona threw off her covers, eliciting a sleepy cry from Xhinna. She carefully pushed the covers up against Xhinna’s exposed side and gingerly crawled out of bed, her mouth set tight to muffle any involuntary exclamations as her feet hit the cold weyr floor.

Quickly she found her slippers and gladly slipped into them, then paused long enough to pull on a nightrobe before moving into Talenth’s lair.

“Maybe I should  let you sleep on the outside.” The voice made her jump with fright. Xhinna. Fiona raised two fingers, cautioning her to silence even as she gave the younger girl a thankful look. It was good to have company.

As they made their way out onto the queens’ ledge, Fiona looked toward the entrance to the Hatching Grounds to judge the time. She could dimly make out four glows on either side of the entrance: it was just passing midnight.

Then something obscured one of the glows: Someone was entering the Hatching Grounds. Fiona frowned, wondering who would want to enter the Hatching Grounds this late at night.

A noise from the other end of the Bowl distracted her: the sound of a rider and dragon rising into the thick midnight air. The sounds ended abruptly as rider and dragon went between.

Fiona bowed her head. Another dragon and rider lost to the illness. A cough echoed around the Weyr in the night — still more dragons were ill, but they were not yet so desperate as to go between  forever.

Beside her, Xhinna gasped as she realized what had happened. Fiona saw the shadow pass a dimmer glow — the person was going further in. She took a step forward and leapt off the ledge to the ground below her, heading toward the Hatching Grounds.

A moment later, she heard Xhinna jump down and trot up beside her. Together they made their way into the Hatching Grounds. Once inside the entrance and past the glows, it was pitch black.

Fiona paused to let her eyes adjust. Ahead, she heard the sound of feet moving slowly ahead and saw a faint light — someone was carrying a small glow ahead of them. The glow grew brighter as the person turned to face them.

It was Tajen. He waited and Fiona took it as an invitation, so she caught up with him, Xhinna at her side. He nodded wordlessly to each, then turned once more, heading deeper into the Hatching Grounds. She had never realized before quite how large the Hatching Grounds were.

Feeling that she was being invited to participate in something deeply personal, Fiona followed reverently, silently.

It wasn’t until they reached the sands on the far side of the Hatching Grounds, where a queen would lay her eggs, that Fiona began to understand. Beside her, Xhinna’s breath caught, and Fiona was certain that the young weyrgirl had reached the same realization at the same time.

It was not something that could be put into words. It was a feeling, a thought, a shiver.

In this great chamber was the fate of Pern decided. Here and in the Hatching Grounds of the other five Weyrs — four, now that Igen was abandoned — were boys made into dragonriders and girls made into Weyrwomen.

Fiona could practically feel all the Turns of fear and excitement from countless Hatchings radiate around her. There was something special about this place, and her skin tingled with the power she felt in it.

She remembered once more the excited feelings of her  first visit to the Hatching Grounds Turns earlier, and even more felt the awe of the Impression that had just so recently changed her life forever. Her lips curved upward in a smile as she reached tenderly for her dragon, still sleeping in her lair. She remembered once more her surprise, fright, and pure pleasure as Talenth had first spoken in her mind.

“This cannot end.” She was surprised at hearing the words: She thought she had not spoken aloud. And then she realized that she hadn’t, that it had been Tajen’s voice that had broken the respectful silence. “Not after hundreds of Turns, not after all the pain, the blood, the effort — ” The glow’s light dimmed and brightened again as it was obscured by Tajen’s shaking head. “No. It cannot happen.”

The glow’s light became visible again as Tajen stood taller, shoulders back, spine braced defiantly.

“The creators of the dragons would never have allowed this,” he said to himself. “They would have realized that the dragons could get ill; they would have provided a solution.”

“Maybe they didn’t know,” Xhinna protested quietly, as though afraid to voice such a painful thought.

Tajen was silent for a long while, his shoulders slumping back down until he raised them again and protested, “But — the dragons!”

Fiona nodded in understanding and agreement. If the settlers of Pern, hundreds of Turns past, had been surprised by Thread, they had recovered quickly and developed the dragons as their defense. Having been surprised once, would they not have worked their hardest to avoid any future surprises? They had depended upon the dragons to save all of Pern; would they not have done everything in their power to ensure that that protection was never lost?

Still . . . perhaps their ancestors had felt certain that the dragons could never get  ill.

The silence of the Hatching Grounds answered her. She felt once again all the hundreds of Turns of Impressions, of excitement, love, hope —

“No,” she said loudly, firmly. “Even if our ancestors didn’t think of this, we’ll find a way to survive.” She met Xhinna’s eyes. “We must.”

“And what,” Xhinna began quietly, her voice shaking in sorrow, “if you lose Talenth?”

“I came here,” Tajen said a moment later, into the unsettled silence that had fallen, “to consider what I would say to others when asked the same question.” He gestured to Fiona for her answer.

“I told Talenth that I would go between  with her when the time comes,” Fiona said. Xhinna made a sound: half-sob, half-exclamation. “But I told her it wouldn’t be for a long, long time.”

“But you can’t say that,” Tajen told her quietly. “You can’t be sure. You can never be sure that something won’t happen to separate the two of you.”

“You could have an accident,” Xhinna suggested.

“But then Talenth would follow me between,  wouldn’t she?”

“No one really knows what between  is,” Tajen replied. “If a rider dies with her dragon, does the dragon go between  to the same place?”

“Is  there a place?” Xhinna wondered.

“The only ones who could tell us never come back,” Tajen replied. He gestured toward the entrance and started them walking back out of the Hatching Grounds. “What does your heart tell you?”

Neither girl had an answer she could put into words.

TEN