She counted to herself: one, two, three, four … she knew it would be a longer jump than normal as she was moving forward through time as well as halfway around the planet.
Suddenly she tensed. Did she hear something?
Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
Fiona? Xhinna thought, hearing the woman’s fear and panic, feeling it grip her just as she heard another voice, a man’s:
The Weyrs! They must be warned!
But they were saved! They were warned, Xhinna thought desperately. This time made no sense, it was a pocket of fear and panic—
And it threatened to overwhelm her. Her fear for the weyrlings, for injured Qinth, her fear of losing Tazith, of losing—
Go back, a voice said, breaking through the others. Go back, now!
Fiona? Xhinna cried in fear and hope.
Go back! Beneath Fiona’s voice, Xhinna felt an echo, another voice: Lorana’s. Go back! Free yourself!
I can’t! Xhinna wailed as the sounds of the panicked voices seemed to grow louder.
Can’t lose the babies! Can’t lose the babies!
The Weyrs! The Weyrs must be warned!
It is an echo, a glimmer of an instant, Fiona told her. Push back. You must go back now, while Tazith still has the strength.
But if Xhinna couldn’t get through, she wondered, how would they know at Telgar where to find the weyrlings in the Western Isle?
Red Butte! Lorana’s voice came to her. Leave us a message at Red Butte and we’ll find you!
Tazith? Xhinna thought with a whimper. She could feel his strength fading, feel the fatigue biting into him, compounded by the cold of between, by the fear and panic of the voices around them.
I will not lose you, Xhinna thought to herself. I will not lose you! I will not lose you!
Her determination burned fierce, hot, like a bonfire. She remembered the joy of flaming the plateau, of all that they’d done and—
She broke through.
The cold and nothingness of between disappeared and Xhinna found herself high in the air. Tazith gave a strange rumble, and they began to plummet toward the ground.
Tazith! She felt no response from the blue. Tazith!
FOUR
The Growl of a Mother
Xhinna woke with a start.
“Careful!” a man’s voice warned her.
“It’s not every day dragon and rider fall from the sky,” another man added with a chuckle. Xhinna’s brows furrowed. She knew that voice.
“J’keran?”
“The same,” the brown rider told her agreeably. “You were quite hard to catch, I’ll have you know.”
“It took a bronze and a brown both,” the other man added.
Xhinna opened her eyes as she realized the identity of the other man: X’lerin, rider of bronze Kivith.
“Is this Telgar?”
“No,” X’lerin replied, chuckling, “we’re here in your aptly named Sky Weyr.” He turned away from her and called out, “She’s awake, she’s all right.”
“As if I didn’t tell you that an hour ago!” Bekka’s voice came back dripping with irritation.
A hand gripped hers and Xhinna turned to see Taria’s tear-stained face.
“I was worried,” the green rider told her.
“And well you should have been,” J’keran rumbled. “It’s not every day someone tries a fool stunt like that.”
“The ‘stunt’ worked, didn’t it? Seeing as we’re here,” X’lerin reminded him.
“Indeed, here,” J’keran agreed, his voice sounding less than pleased.
“Fiona?” Xhinna asked.
J’keran barked a bitter laugh even as X’lerin shook his head. “She sent us.”
“We volunteered,” J’keran said, his voice a mixture of pride and bitterness.
“We’re all T’mar could spare,” X’lerin said by way of agreement.
“Two browns, five blues, four greens and, of course, X’lerin’s bronze,” J’keran enumerated. “With your blue and your friend’s green, that gives us just fourteen, barely half a proper wing.”
“Well, there’ll be no Thread to fight,” X’lerin said jaunitily.
“Tell us the rest, then,” K’dan spoke up from beyond Xhinna’s sight.
J’keran started to answer, but stopped at a glare from the younger X’lerin. Instead, with ill grace, he gestured for the bronze rider to explain.
“I’ve notes from Fiona, Lorana, T’mar, and Shaneese,” X’lerin said, gesturing toward his dragon in the distance. “T’mar told me that we would have to stay here until the danger of jumping into the time knot—”
“Hmph!” J’keran snorted.
“—until the danger has passed.” He glanced over at Xhinna. “So that means we’re here for the next three Turns or so.”
Xhinna looked stricken.
“It was the right choice,” K’dan told her. “Under the circumstances, it was the only choice.”
“We saw Thread,” Xhinna said.
“So we understand,” X’lerin said. “Did you remember what Fiona said to you?”
“About Red Butte?” Xhinna asked.
“What about Red Butte?” K’dan echoed.
“Fiona said that we could leave a message at Red Butte and they’d get it,” Xhinna told him. She frowned at X’lerin. “You got a note?”
“I can’t say,” X’lerin replied, his eyes twinkling. “Lorana was rather firm on the notion of not ‘breaking time.’ ”
“Xhinna, you’re not dead so your stomach’s going to start grumbling any moment now,” Bekka put in. “Mine already has, so why don’t we show our new riders some Sky hospitality and feed them?”
Xhinna sat up, was pleased to discover that she felt fine if, as Bekka had guessed, a little hungry, and, with one swift movement, rose to her feet. She felt Tazith’s presence and sent him a quick mental caress.
“It’s really springy up here, isn’t it?” X’lerin commented.
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” K’dan agreed, “but it’s not bad. Not bad at all.”
“I hope you brought supplies,” Xhinna said as she led the way through a tight gap in the upper branches of the broom trees and down toward their dining area. “We’ve enough herdbeasts and about the same sorts of fruits, but we’ve no grain or other such—”
“Fiona made sure we carried as much as was possible,” X’lerin assured her. “But that won’t be enough for three Turns.”
“Does it really have to be that long?” Taria asked, trailing along at the rear of the group.
“T’mar said that K’dan would probably know best,” X’lerin said, pausing in his efforts to follow the path Xhinna blazed through the branches as they descended. He glanced around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up this high in a broom tree before.”
“It is unusual, isn’t it?” K’dan responded. “Apparently Xhinna’s Tazith first tried it.”
“Is Kivith too heavy?” Xhinna wondered suddenly. “We hadn’t really planned on making it permanent, just until we could find a better location. The hatchlings—including K’dan’s Lurenth—all seem to enjoy the height.”
“Kivith assures me that he is quite pleased at the moment,” X’lerin said.
“Something to do with a whole flight of queens and he the only mature bronze,” J’keran quipped.
“I think it’s too early to consider such things, J’keran,” K’dan told him evenly.