Dragonsblood (28 page)

between
forever. Counting those hatchlings old enough, there had been

over 370 fighting dragons at Benden Weyr. Now there were fewer than 340

fit to fly against Thread.

“It’s worse at Ista,” Kindan said. C’rion had had a brief chance to

commiserate with M’tal and Salina and exchange notes with K’tan on the

illness. Neither learned anything new, and C’rion had returned to his Weyr

as soon as he was able.

Before C’rion left, a messenger from Fort Weyr had arrived. His news

arrived before he did: The dragons keened for another four dead. C’rion,

M’tal, K’tan, Kindan, and Lorana—invited for her ability to talk to
any

dragon—had gathered in the Council Room for a hasty conference. They

agreed that the Weyrs should close themselves to outsiders, should banish

fire-lizards, and should communicate by telepathy as much as possible.

When it was revealed that Lorana could hear all the dragons, C’rion had

suggested that all communications go through her, as it would be quicker

than passing messages from rider to dragon and dragon back to rider.

Kindan had been doubtful. “I don’t know,” he’d said. “It seems that Lorana

not only hears dragons but
feels
them, too.”

C’rion was stunned. “Even when they die?” he asked gently. Lorana

nodded.

Memories of the death of the queen, and of all the dragons after her, came

at her like physical blows.

“I have Arith,” she said, looking toward the Bowl and their quarters, a wan

smile on her lips. “We comfort each other.”

“I’m glad of that,” C’rion had said feelingly. “This must be a very hard time

for you.”

“I think it’s harder for others,” Lorana had replied. “I still have my dragon.”

Something jarred Kindan back from his wool-gathering to the cold morning

air and the ominous view through the Star Stones. “Shouldn’t Tullea be

here?” he asked M’tal.

M’tal pursed his lips. “She decided that she needed her rest,” he said. It

was obvious that he was torn between disapproval and sympathy. Kindan

could understand that—the toll on all of them had been great.

“What about the other bronze riders?”

“B’nik said that he would trust my observation,” M’tal responded. “The

others agreed.”

With the death of Breth, Tullea’s Minith was the senior queen at Benden

Weyr. When she rose to mate, the leadership of the Weyr would pass to

the rider of the bronze she chose. Everyone expected it would be B’nik,

even though Tullea had already found the time to tease several of the other

riders. M’tal had pointedly not risen to any of her taunts, preferring to spend

all his spare time consoling Salina.

In fact, that was where Lorana was at the moment—with Salina. Kindan

thought he knew, through his bond with the watch-wher Kisk and later

through the bond he had had with his fire-lizard, some of the great pain

Salina and all the other newly dragonless must be feeling. The harpers’

laments captured that pain—a pain greater than the loss of a loved one,

greater than that of a parent losing a child. The pain was all that and the

tearing of a limb—half a heart, half a soul, and more.

Some never recovered. They refused to eat, refused comfort, and simply

wasted away. Others managed to find solace from loved ones and rebuilt

their lives. But Kindan had never heard of a dragonrider remaining in the

Weyr after losing a dragon.

K’tan and M’tal gave a start and headed toward their dragons.

“Lorana has asked us to return,” K’tan explained. “Arith is hungry and

Lorana needs to watch her.”

“I’ll stay here a bit more, if that’s all right,” Kindan said.

“It’s a long walk down,” K’tan cautioned. “Ten dragonlengths or more.”

“That’s all right,” Kindan said, waving them away. “I can use the exercise.”

“If you’re sure,” M’tal said.

“I’m sure,” Kindan said. M’tal mounted his dragon and waved farewell to

Kindan, and then the two glided away, back down to the Weyr Bowl.

“You’ll find me in the Records Room,” K’tan said from his perch on Drith’s

neck.

Drith leapt into the air and glided down to the Bowl below. After they had

receded from view, Kindan turned back toward the rising sun. It was just

over the horizon and its brilliance obscured his view eastward. Looking

southward away from the sun, Kindan could make out the Tunnel Road and

the plateau lake as the mountains fell away from high Benden Weyr to the

plains below.

Kindan was a miner’s child, so to him, Benden Weyr was a special marvel,

one that the dragonriders and weyrfolk who had grown up there took for

granted. But for him, with his trained eye, the Weyr was an engineering

miracle. He turned around, northward, toward the artfully constructed

reservoir even higher than the Star Stones. Over its sluices came a

constant stream of water, guided into channels that spilled northward and

southward into the rock of the Weyr. The streams ran centrally through the

Weyr, servicing each of the nine different levels of individual weyrs—living

quarters—carved into the walls of the Weyr before falling down to the next

level and down again until the waste stream finally plunged deep into a

huge septic dome way beneath a lush field far below and south of the Weyr

itself.

The weyrs on each level all adjoined a long corridor toward the outside

edge of the Weyr. The corridors were punctuated by wide flights of stairs

leading down to the Bowl. Each weyr, or those that were finished—there

were many partially made weyrs still unused and unfurnished—had a

bedroom, a meeting room, and a lavatory for the rider, and a large

cavernous weyr proper for a dragon. The walls of the finished weyrs were

usually whitewashed with lime, although several had been treated with dyes

in marvelous shades of blue, green, bronze, gold; some occupants had

even opted for accents of purple, pink, and tan.

Kindan could always tell newer stonework from the original—while there

was clear craftsmanship in every bit of rock carving done in the Weyr, the

new work was never as smooth or as clean as the original. The stairs

leading from the top level of the Weyr up to the Standing Stones were a

case in point. Instead of a handrail of smooth-melted rock, a rope had been

bolted at intervals into the wall. The stairs themselves were nearly perfect,

but Kindan’s legs noted a subtle unevenness as he descended to the

Weyr.

Kindan wondered if the original settlers, who had created the dragons from

the fire-lizards, could have come up with a cure for whatever was killing both

fire-lizard and dragon alike. The problem seemed more than the people of

his time could handle, given the skills available at the end of the Second

Interval and the start of the Third Pass. How would the original settlers have

felt if they realized that their great weapon against Thread would be

annihilated scarcely five hundred Turns later, all their amazing

craftsmanship and effort undone by disease and Thread, and the Weyrs

left as lifeless, empty shells, ghostly monuments to a failed past?

Kindan made his way to the First Stairs, those on the south nearest the

Hatching Grounds, climbed down to the Second Level, turned right, and

entered the second opening, into the Records Room.

“Find anything?” he asked as he spied K’tan. The Weyr healer was

propped against one side of the opening to the Bowl below, an old

parchment angled toward it to get more light. Kindan realized that the

healer’s head was on his chest and his eyes closed at the same moment

that his words startled the dozing man into wakefulness.

“Huh? Ah, Kindan,” K’tan said, shaking himself and gesturing with the

parchment to the light outside. “I was trying to get more light and must have

dozed off.”

“I’m not surprised,” Kindan replied. “You haven’t slept in a sevenday and

you practically live here. Does your dragon know you still exist?”

K’tan gave him a sour look at the gibe. “Drith, at least, has manners.”

Kindan saw the pitcher of
klah
on the table in the center of the room, felt

the side of it—cold—and shook his head.

“At the very least you should be drinking warm
klah,
” he rebuked the

healer.

“It was warm,” K’tan replied absently, placing another Record on one stack

and pulling a new one in front of him.

“When? Yesterday?” Kindan grabbed the tray with the pitcher and carried it

and the half-empty mugs back down the corridor to the service shaft. He

placed the tray in the down shaft, rang the service bell, and shouted, “
Klah

and snacks for two!”

A moment later he heard Kiyary’s muffled voice drift back up to him: “On

the way, Kindan! I’ve sent extra, just in case.”

Kindan waited until a fresh tray arrived on the up shaft, grabbed it, and

shouted down, “Thank you!”

Back in the Records Room, he poured a fresh mug of
klah
and handed it to

K’tan, who had moved from the window to a chair but was still nodding off.

“Thanks,” K’tan said. He took a sip from the mug, eyes widening as he

tasted the fresh, hot
klah,
and said again with more enthusiasm, “Thanks!”

“Did you find anything?” Kindan asked after pouring himself a mug and

choosing a snack.

“Nothing,” the healer said, frowning. He reached for a snack. For a moment

the two chewed in silence.

“I did notice that the holders seem to get sick much more often than

weyrfolk,” K’tan said at last.

Kindan cocked his head at him encouragingly, still chewing.

“Yes,” K’tan went on. “I made notes. It seems that there’s some sort of

illness among the holders and crafters once every twenty Turns.”

“Well, we’re good for another four or five Turns at least, what with the

Plague behind us,” Kindan commented.

“It didn’t affect the dragonfolk,” K’tan said.

“You dragonfolk are a hearty lot,” Kindan agreed. “I wonder if it’s the thin

air—”

He cut himself off, as his words sunk in. K’tan’s eyebrows furrowed

thoughtfully.

“Are you thinking that if thin air is good for riders, thinner air might be better

for dragons?” the healer asked.

“Or worse for whatever ails them,” Kindan suggested. He mulled the idea

over and then shrugged it off. “Well, it’s a thought.”

“Worth keeping,” K’tan replied, finding a stylus and making a note on his

slate.

“If thin air is good, what about
between
?” Kindan mused.

K’tan shook his head. “The illness seems to disorient the dragons—they

would never come back from
between.
”

Kindan frowned and gestured to the records. “You’ve seen nothing about

dragon illnesses?”

“I’ve only gone back fifty Turns, Kindan,” K’tan said. “There might be

something more.”

“At the Harper Hall, I found that Records over fifty Turns were very hard to

read.”

“And they’re probably better kept there than these here,” K’tan said with a

wave toward a stack of Records.

“Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to check the Records at the Harper Hall?”

Lorana asked from the doorway, startling the other two.

“I’m sorry,” she added, “but I heard you from the Weyrwoman’s quarters.”

“Were we too loud?” K’tan asked.

“No,” Lorana answered. “Not loud enough to wake Salina, at least.” She

smiled.

Kindan gestured to the table. “Come in, there’s hot
klah
and fresh snacks.”

“Did you hear much of our deliberations?” K’tan asked, adding, when

Lorana nodded, “And do you have any other insights?”

Lorana entered the room and took a seat at the table. Kindan passed her a

mug, which she cradled in her hands, enjoying the warmth.

“I thought Kindan’s idea about thin air might make some sense,” she said,

sipping her
klah.
“Also, cold kills germs, too.”

“So if we could get our sick dragons to cold high places—”

“Without killing them,” Kindan interjected.

“—without killing them,” K’tan agreed, accepting Kindan’s amendment with

a nod, “then perhaps . . .”

Lorana shrugged. “It depends on the infection.”

“We don’t know enough about this infection,” Kindan swore.

Kindan and Lorana sighed in dejected agreement.

“But what about the fire-lizards?” Lorana asked. “Have they ever gotten

sick?”

“Not according to those records,” K’tan said with a wave of his hand.

“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong Records,” Kindan suggested. “Maybe

we should be looking at the Harper Hall—”

“Or Fort Weyr,” Lorana interjected. When the other two responded with

questioning looks, she explained, “Isn’t Fort Weyr the oldest? Wouldn’t the

oldest Records of dragons—and fire-lizards—be there?”

K’tan and Kindan exchanged looks.

“She’s right, you know,” Kindan said.

“Mmph,” K’tan agreed. “But the Weyrs are closed to anyone but their own

now.”

Kindan pushed his mug away and reached for a Record. “Maybe we’ll find

our answers here,” he said dubiously.

The next day, M’tal dispatched watch riders to every Hold, major and minor,

with orders to report any signs of Thread. P’gul, the Weyrlingmaster, had

the weyrlings bag more sacks of firestone.