“Don’t tell me!” D’gan roared again. “I don’t care.” He jabbed a finger upward, pointing to the sky. “Thread is coming. I won’t have any shirkers. ‘Dragonmen must fly when Thread is in the sky.’ ”
It had taken hard work-more work, D’gan was certain, than old Telgar riders would have required-for D’gan to win respect at his new Weyr, and finally to win the senior queen and become Weyrleader. Since then he’d shown them, every day, what sort of riders came from Igen Weyr.
“I know my duty,” D’gan growled. “And all the riders in my Weyr will do theirs.”
“Thread is not in the sky today,” K’rem protested. “Perhaps if we let Jalith rest…”
“No!” Veins stood out in the side of D’gan’s neck. “Not today, not tomorrow, not any day. All my wings will fly with all their dragons. We will train to fight Thread. There will be no shirkers.” He pointed at the wilting blue rider. “Mount your dragon, join your wing.”
The blue rider blanched.
“Maybe if I could give Jalith something-” K’rem suggested.
D’gan cut him off. “You may do anything you like, Healer-after we fly our pattern.” He took two quick strides toward his bronze, leapt onto the great neck, and drove his dragon skyward.
The next several sevendays were a blur of feeding and oiling Arith, occasionally catching food for herself and snatches of sleep where she could. Lorana naturally assumed that young dragons were awake at all hours-just like young children-so it was not until K’tan explained that she realized there was anything out of the ordinary.
“Normally things wouldn’t be this disrupted,” the Weyr Healer told her as he met her on her way to the Food Cavern, “except for Breth’s problems. When the queen doesn’t sleep, the Weyr doesn’t sleep.”
“Does Arith wake the others, too?” Lorana asked, worriedly.
K’tan shook his head. “Only a little,” he assured her. “All the bronzes and most of the browns are attuned to the Senior Queen, so…”
Lorana nodded in understanding.
“And then there are the fire-lizards,” Kindan chimed in from behind them.
Lorana whirled, and Kindan gave her an apologetic wave, all the while smiling most unapologetically.
“ ‘A harper’s best instrument is his ears,’ ” K’tan said, quoting the old saying.
Kindan shook his head, grinning and pointing to his forehead. “Ears are second, brains are first.”
“Then mouth is third,” K’tan said with a snort.
“Of course,” Kindan agreed, grinning. His mood sobered. “As I was saying, the fire-lizards.”
“What about them?” Lorana asked.
“We’re trying to understand how they got sick and how long before…” Kindan’s voice trailed off.
“They die?” Lorana finished. Kindan nodded, lips drawn tight.
They reached the Cavern and sat near the fire. Kindan waved cheerfully to Kiyary, who smiled back and brought over a plate of cheese and a pitcher of klah. Mugs and plates were already laid out on the table in anticipation of the midday meal. Kindan grabbed a roll out of the basket in the center of the table, tore it open, and deftly spread it with the soft cheese. With a raised eyebrow, he tilted the basket toward Lorana, who grabbed a roll with a nod of thanks, and then Kindan repeated the performance with K’tan.
For a moment the three were silent, intent on preparing and eating their rolls. Kindan finished his first, then reached for the pitcher of klah and filled his glass and the glasses of the other two. He drank deeply before continuing. “If we can understand how the illness progresses in fire-lizards, then maybe we can gain some understanding about how the illness will affect dragons.”
“I can’t help you,” Lorana told them, shaking her head sadly. “I don’t know quite when my two got sick-I’m not even sure if they did.”
“And you sent your two between?” K’tan asked, eyes narrowed in thought.
“Valla went between, too,” Kindan added.
“To die?” K’tan wondered.
“Valla was hot and feverish,” Lorana said.
“Maybe the cold of between is too much for them when they’re sick,” K’tan suggested.
“Or they got disoriented,” Kindan said.
“Lost between?” Lorana shuddered. Then she thought for a moment. “So the first thing to do would be to prevent a sick fire-lizard-”
“Or dragon,” Kindan interjected.
“-or dragon,” she continued, “from going between.”
“But that doesn’t answer whether the disease itself is deadly,” K’tan objected.
“True,” Kindan agreed with a shrug.
“On the other hand,” K’tan noted, “we’ll never know if the disease itself is fatal if we can’t keep a fire-lizard from going between.”
“Or a dragon,” Kindan added darkly.
“I hope,” K’tan said fervently, “that it doesn’t come to that.”
“Someone’s coming,” Lorana said suddenly, eyes wide.
The other two looked around. “Where?”
“Between,” she said. She looked pained. “The dragon is unhappy; so is the rider.”
“You can feel them?” K’tan asked.
Lorana nodded. “They’re very distressed.”
Outside came the sound of a dragon popping out of between. The watch dragon bugled a challenge.
Nidanth and C’rion from Ista, was the response Lorana heard from the arriving dragon.
“Come on,” K’tan called as he started out toward the Bowl.
A wave of emotion swept Lorana off her feet. Kindan grabbed her before she could fall.
Dragons keened mournfully. Kamenth of Ista is no more, Gaminth reported. Then the noise redoubled. Jalith of Telgar has gone between, Salina’s queen, Breth, added.
“Here, lean on me,” Kindan told Lorana. She pushed away from him. The pain of the dragons’ loss tore her heart.
“No! I must get up-Arith will be worried.”
“Then let me help you,” Kindan repeated firmly.
Lorana forced herself to recognize his logic and, with an angry sigh, wrapped her arms around him. “Be quick,” she told him.
In the Bowl, a bronze dragon was just landing. The rider looked shaken. Other riders, no less shaken than he, were gathering about him. Lorana recognized M’tal and Salina. Tullea was clinging unnaturally to B’nik.
K’tan was beside the bronze rider, supporting him while the bronze dragon curved its head down close beside, eyes whirling in distress.
“I’d heard you had some cure,” C’rion, Weyrleader of Ista Weyr, said hoarsely to K’tan.
A loud, gurgling cough from high above startled them all.
“Breth, no!” Salina shouted as her queen leaped off her ledge and into the air. “No! Stop!”
Lorana took a hasty breath, looked up just as the queen went between, and closed her eyes. In her mind she leapt after the queen, calling, Breth, come back! Come back!
She bent her will to holding onto the queen, but Breth was stronger. Slowly, Lorana felt the queen draw away from her, farther between than Lorana had ever been before. In a frightened instant, she lost the queen, and then felt herself become lost.
Arith! She called out desperately in her mind, groping to find her way back. She heard no answer. Frantically, she thrashed, lost in an aloneness more vast than between. Then, at the edge of her being, she felt some “other.” She grabbed at it, was rebuffed by it, and felt no more.