directly.
He noticed the light reflected off Arith’s whirling eyes as the dragon looked
in worriedly from her lair toward her rider.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Lorana lying in her bed. He went
over and sat on the edge. She was lying on her stomach, face in her pillow,
her upper arms and back uncovered. For a moment he sat there, silent. He
started to put a hand on her shoulder, paused, and pulled it back.
“Do you have any lotion?” he asked.
“What?” Lorana turned over to face him. In the dim light, Kindan could see
her blotchy face and the streaks where tears had washed down her face.
He had seen people like this before, worn out with pain, bodies tight with
grief and sorrow.
“Lotion,” Kindan repeated. “Or scented oil?”
“There’s some oil by the bath,” she answered, sounding quizzical.
Kindan went to the bathing room, found the oil and returned. He placed it
close to the bed.
He took some oil into his hands and rubbed it until it was warm. Then he
leaned forward and gently began to massage the tight muscles of her
neck.
“Turn over, I need to do your hands,” he ordered her softly. He could sense
her puzzled look. “You can’t have done all those drawings without cramping
your hands,” he explained. “Turn over.”
He gathered more lotion and, gently grasping her left hand in his right, he
stroked over it with the oil, teasing out the kinks in her fingers and working
the tight muscle at the base of her thumb. Slowly he worked up her arm,
relieving tension in the forearm, biceps, and shoulder.
Lorana let out a deep sigh of contentment.
Kindan allowed himself a small smile, then returned to his work. He worked
her other shoulder and arm.
He spent a great deal of time working the kinks out of the arch of her foot
and her heel, knowing how much tension got wound into the balls of the
feet. He repeated his efforts on the other leg.
At last Kindan let out a deep breath and looked down at Lorana, lying
relaxed beneath him. Quietly he stood up and tiptoed out of the room.
In the morning, Lorana awoke suddenly with a burning passion, fierce and
nearly frightening in its intensity.
Kindan ducked his head in, eyes snapping with emotion. “Tullea’s Minith
has blooded her kills.”
“She will mate soon,” Lorana said, stretching her senses and feeling the
young queen’s passion. She looked up at Kindan, her eyes warm but also
challenging. “Stay with me?”
Kindan gave her a surprised, half-hoping look. Lorana sat up in her bed and
patted it.
“I’ve never been near a dragon’s mating flight,” she explained.
Kindan moved to her and, at her beckoning, sat on the bed beside her.
“The emotions from dragons mating are very strong,” he said, his voice
low.
At that moment, Lorana gasped as she felt Minith being caught in her
mating flight and—
When she could speak again, she leaned up and captured Kindan’s mouth
with hers, kissing him deeply.
Kindan responded by clutching her more tightly, returning her kiss as
ardently as she had given it. Like dragons entwined, they drew together,
burning with a passion born on dragonwings.
Afterward, they broke apart, still touching each other loosely. Lorana looked
at him as he lay beside her and traced the line of his jaw lovingly. Kindan
turned his head, caught her hand, kissed it, and released it again, all with a
gentle smile.
“Who was it?” he asked, referring to the mating flight.
“B’nik’s Caranth flew her,” Lorana told him immediately. She had known the
dragon’s touch instantly.
Kindan sighed and Lorana heard a world of unspoken thoughts in that sigh.
Things would change at Benden Weyr. She reached for his hand, grabbed
it, brought it to her lips, and kissed it.
Such a union of disparates, K’tan thought to himself as he watched Lorana
and Kindan enter the Main Cavern later that evening, not too far from Tullea
and B’nik. M’tal and Salina were already seated.
Tullea walked with the obvious soreness of a woman recovering from her
dragon’s mating. B’nik looked equally uncomfortable.
Lorana, on the other hand, moved
through
her pain, a smile close to her
lips, her hand entwined in Kindan’s, projecting the sense that the pain
served a purpose that she accepted and welcomed.
She and the harper made a good pair, he reflected, and he was glad that
some were happy with the day’s events.
The same could not be said from the looks of Tullea and B’nik. They had
been lovers, and passionately so, for many Turns, so K’tan would have
expected Minith’s mating to be a great pleasure to them. But from Tullea’s
red-rimmed eyes and the way she winced as she strode, he got the
impression that it had not been so.
The mating flight had taken place early in the morning, just after Minith
awoke. K’tan could not remember how many bronze riders had gathered
around Tullea as the enraged queen started blooding her kills. He
remembered B’nik screaming at Tullea not to let her gorge, and Tullea
looking back at him with a smirk in her eyes. Whether it was from Tullea’s
contrariness or her inability to control her dragon, Minith managed to eat two
whole herdbeasts before a bellow from Caranth and more loud shouts from
B’nik got her under control. She blooded only two more kills before leaping
into the air, chased by the lusty bronzes.
The mating flight had not been that long. Indeed, all the bronzes were still
flying strongly when Minith dove into them and was snared by Caranth. K’tan
sighed, shaking his head at the memory. A short mating flight, gorging on
her food—those spoke of a small clutch and more problems for the Weyr
with a Weyrwoman who would not control her dragon.
M’tal and Salina rose as they caught sight of Tullea and B’nik. The new
Weyrwoman noticed their movement but deliberately turned toward a
different table. Obviously not accepting the affront, M’tal gestured to Salina
and they walked over to the table Tullea had chosen.
“Congratulations Weyrwoman, Weyrleader on your mating flight,” M’tal
began the traditional greeting. “May your hatchlings be many.”
Tullea glowered at him. B’nik looked pained at that part of the traditional
salutation but nodded politely to M’tal and Salina.
“I want you out of B’nik’s quarters by tomorrow,” Tullea told M’tal. “The
Weyrleader needs to be close to the Records Room.” She glanced at
Kindan and Lorana, who had stopped in their tracks. “Lorana, you and
Kindan will conduct your research elsewhere.”
It was an obvious taunt. Lorana deflected it with a polite nod. “If you wish,
we could continue our research in my quarters.”
Tullea sniffed. “I don’t care where, as long as it’s not in the Records
Room.” A new thought entered her mind and she turned to M’tal, a sly smile
on her face. “As Weyrwoman, it is my duty to arrange assignment of
quarters,” she declared. “I think, Wingleader M’tal, that your wing would be
best up on the highest level. You may move there immediately. B’nik’s wing
will occupy the quarters yours vacates.”
M’tal accepted the order with a nod and a smile. “Thank you, Weyrwoman,”
he said. “I have heard it said that the higher levels are more likely to be free
of the sickness.”
Tullea’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed again as she decided he
was toying with her.
“Weyrleader, your wing may begin moving tomorrow,” she told B’nik with a
purr.
B’nik looked nonplussed. He told M’tal, “My men won’t be ready by then.
Please ask yours to move at their convenience.”
“Yes, Weyrleader,” M’tal replied. He gestured to Salina and they departed,
leaving Tullea no happier than she had been.
The night air was broken by the sound of a dragon coughing. Startled looks
went around the Cavern as they tried to identify the dragon, only to change
to looks of anguish as everyone realized that yet another dragon had fallen
ill. B’nik bent his head toward Tullea, engaging her in a rapid conversation.
M’tal’s wing had moved to the upper levels before noon the next day,
although they were left with a lot of cleaning still to do.
“It’s our due for having it so easy in the training,” he teased them. They
responded in kind, but there was a marked strain in their humor.
Lorana and Kindan decided to move their research to the harper’s quarters,
as they were on the Lower Caverns and closer to the Records Room than
Lorana’s rooms. They took only as many Records as they felt they could
sort through in a sevenday. The smaller piles gave them a false sense that
the task would be easier.
K’tan stopped in to check on them late in the afternoon.
“I went to the weyrwomen’s quarters first, thinking you’d be there,” he told
them as he ducked inside the doorway. He glanced around Kindan’s cozy
rooms and nodded approvingly. “This makes more sense.”
“Well, it’s really harper’s work anyway,” Kindan said by way of agreement.
“How are the sick ones doing?”
K’tan grimaced, shaking his head. “Worse. And more of them,” he replied.
Kindan turned back to the piles of Records. “Then I guess we’d better get
to work.”
“We won’t find anything here,” Lorana protested, jumping out of her seat in
frustration. “We need to go to Fort.”
K’tan looked at her questioningly.
“That’s where the oldest Records are,” she explained. “And that’s where
every Weyrleader has gone when they couldn’t find an answer in their own
Records.”
“M’tal said that you can’t go,” Kindan told her reprovingly.
“M’tal’s not the Weyrleader anymore,” Lorana shot back rebelliously.
“Well, Arith’s too young to take you,” Kindan continued. “So how were you
planning on getting there?”
“I could take you.” Startled, they turned to see B’nik standing in the
doorway. “I need to see K’lior, anyway.”
“But—the sickness,” Kindan protested.
“They have it at Fort, as well,” B’nik said. “K’lior’s agreed.” He turned his
attention to Lorana. “When would you be ready to go?”
“I’d like to come also,” Kindan said.
B’nik shook his head. “I need you and K’tan to stay here, caring for the sick
and injured.”
Lorana pulled out a slate and stylus. “When can we go?”
“Whenever you’re ready,” he replied. “I believe that Tullea and Minith are
still sleeping,” he added disingenuously.
“Very well, then,” Lorana responded pertly. She glanced back at the others
and then to the new Weyrleader. “Arith still sleeps, but she’ll be hungry in
another hour or two.”
B’nik nodded thoughtfully. “Then we’ll be certain to return before she needs
to feed, no matter how long we’re gone,” he told her.
“Is it such a wise idea to time it, Weyrleader, just after the mating flight?”
K’tan asked solicitously. He knew how tiring going
between
times was on
both rider and dragon—and the mating flight had been no less exhausting.
“Caranth is up for it,” B’nik declared. “And I may need the practice,” he
added ambiguously. He gestured to Lorana. “Weyrwoman?”
As they were heading out of sight, Kindan turned to K’tan. “Do you think you
could hold things down without me?”
K’tan thought it over and shrugged. “Some of the weyrfolk will help, I’m
sure.”
“Thanks,” Kindan said, racing after the others.
“B’nik!” Kindan called when he caught sight of the new Weyrleader. B’nik
paused, turning back to watch Kindan as he raced up to them.
“I think it’d be a good idea if I stopped in at the Harper Hall. Could Caranth
carry another?” Kindan asked.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” B’nik said, after a moment’s consideration. “I’d
planned to bring the Masterharper up to date on our affairs—you could fill
him in for me. That will save time.”
He nodded toward the Bowl. “Come along, by all means. Caranth can carry
three.”
Lorana craned her neck over B’nik’s shoulders as they spiraled down into
Fort Weyr’s Bowl. The watch dragon’s bugle had already challenged them,
and Lorana had heard Caranth’s response and the watch dragon’s wary
greeting.
Kindan had been left at the Harper Hall, where B’nik had been congratulated
and had exchanged brief pleasantries with Masterharper Zist.
“We’re expected,” B’nik relayed unnecessarily but politely to Lorana. The
Weyrleader’s attitude during the whole trip puzzled and pleased Lorana,
who had been used to his silent obsequiousness with Tullea. The man was
displaying depths she had not seen before.
Caranth alighted lightly and then, after dropping off rider and passenger,
took to the air again to seek a place on the Weyr heights.
“Fort Weyr sees the sun six hours after we do at Benden,” B’nik
commented as he examined the early morning sun rising over them.
“Won’t we still have to time it on our return?” Lorana asked.
“Indeed we will,” B’nik told her. “Have you ever gone
between
times?”
“Once with J’trel,” she told him.
“Were you very tired afterward?”
Lorana nodded.
“That is the price of going
between
times,” B’nik said. “If it weren’t for our
pressing need, I’d never risk it.” He looked as if he were ready to say more