“No!” Xhinna said. “Jirana, that yellow flag is the Plague flag. We’ve gone back to the time of the Plague, we’ve gone back too far.”
We’ve gone back only seven Turns, Tazith assured her.
“Then why is the Plague flag still flying?”
“Why don’t you ask them?” Jirana said, pointing to a small group of tents in the distance.
At Xhinna’s urging, Tazith turned and winged his way toward the tents. Xhinna could tell that even from the high towers of Crom, the tents would be obscured by the knoll in front of them.
Drop down, Xhinna told Tazith and soon the blue was behind the knoll, equally obscured from Crom.
“They’re flying the same flag,” Jirana said, pointing toward one of the nearest tents. “But not the yellow pennant.”
“Maybe they don’t have one to spare,” Xhinna said. “Jirana, we can’t risk the Plague—”
“They look like they’re starving,” Jirana said, referring to the small knot of people stretched out not far from the flagged tent. She turned and pointed east. “There, isn’t that the Red Star?”
Xhinna turned her head to follow the girl’s finger and picked up the dim light of a red orb nearly obscured by the brilliance of the morning light. Yes, it was the Red Star.
“How many Turns is it from our Pass?” Jirana asked, glancing back over her shoulder at Xhinna.
“Tazith says we’ve gone back seven Turns,” said Xhinna, who was beginning to catch on to the younger girl’s reasoning. Jirana nodded and smiled.
“Then we’re ten Turns before the start of the Pass, and the Plague ended two Turns before this.”
“So why is the fever pennant flying at the Hold?”
“Xhinna, this is where we need to be,” Jirana said. “You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
Xhinna pursed her lips tightly, sending a different image to Tazith even as she said, “Little one, I can’t.”
A moment later, dragon and riders were gone from the morning sky.
“Xhinna!” Jirana cried as soon as they burst back from between. “What did you do?”
“I have to leave a message,” Xhinna said as Tazith, at her request, started a lazy downward spiral.
Jirana spotted what was below them. “That’s the Red Butte, isn’t it?”
Xhinna nodded.
“You brought us forward in time,” Jirana said in surprise. She gestured down to the plateau. “My father is buried there. You brought us here to the time after he died.”
“I know,” Xhinna said. “I had to find out,” she added, more to herself than to the child in front of her. “I had to know that we could make the jump forward again.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“Little one, what good would it have done to tell you?”
“At least I’d have known.”
“I thought that if you knew, your fear might help trap us,” Xhinna told her.
“But there was no trap, was there?” Jirana said. “At least, I didn’t feel anything.”
“No, it was like a regular jump between times,” Xhinna agreed.
“So you know that K’dan’s right—that the knot is only at that one time, when D’gan’s Weyr jumped to fight Thread and Fiona’s Weyr jumped forward.”
“Yes,” Xhinna said, not hiding the relief in her voice. “And I can leave a message for Fiona in the future.”
Deftly, Tazith landed on the wide plateau and Xhinna jumped down. Immediately, she reached up for Jirana, who objected, “I can get down by myself.”
“You’ll take my help or you’ll stay up there,” Xhinna said. “I won’t bring you back to your mother with a broken leg.” As Jirana relented and threw her legs over the blue’s side, Xhinna added, “Beside, the ground is harder than you’d think.”
On the ground, Jirana took quick note of their surroundings. “It’s hot up here. And dry.”
Xhinna nodded. “We won’t stay long.”
“Over there,” Jirana said, pointing east.
The plateau was large and riddled with crevices. Xhinna looked at her doubtfully. “How can you know?”
“I was here, in my dreams,” Jirana said. She gave Xhinna a sad look. “I left an offering for my father.” Without another word, the youngster strode off, her face set in determination.
Xhinna followed after, raising a hand to her brow to better shield her eyes from the sun.
“It’s there!” Jirana shouted, breaking into a run just as Xhinna spotted a whiter patch among the rocks. Xhinna picked up her pace, not quite running—having a care for her footing and the heat—and soon saw the white rocks that Lorana had used to cover Tenniz’s shallow grave.
“I’m here, Father,” Jirana said, standing by the cairn. “I’ve Seen and I know what it’s like.” She made a small, sad noise. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have told you.” Oblivious to the sound of Xhinna approaching behind her, she continued, “Did it make you sad, too, knowing all those things?”
“Jirana?” Xhinna said, kneeling beside the young girl. “What is it that you Saw?”
“The first thing a person Sees is their death,” Jirana said.
“Oh.”
Jirana reached behind her and caught Xhinna’s hand in hers. “It’s not as bad as you think,” she said. “I was old—older than you.”
“What else?”
“I can’t say,” Jirana said stoutly. “I can’t break time any more than Fiona can.”
Xhinna wrapped her free arm around the child’s chest and hugged her tightly.
“Tell me what you can,” she suggested.
“I did,” Jirana said, turning suddenly in her arms and staring Xhinna in the face, her face grim, “and you didn’t believe me.”
“We have to be careful,” Xhinna said, a little defensively.
“You don’t trust people,” Jirana said. “You try to do it all yourself.” She shook her head and then turned back to her father, saying, “Maybe you can do it, but we can’t.”
“Are you talking to me or your father?” Xhinna asked in a soft, encouraging voice.
“Both of you,” Jirana said. “He’s dead, so he can’t hear me; you’re afraid, so you won’t hear me.”
She dropped Xhinna’s hand and moved out of reach, turning to say, “What message are you going to leave?”
“Once I leave the message, we can go back to Crom,” Xhinna said, trying to find a way to placate this suddenly too-strange child.
“Not to the same time,” Jirana said. “They’ll have seen Tazith and they’ll be scared.”
“Scared?”
“They’ll think he was scouting.”
“For whom?”
“For whoever is hiding in the Hold.”
“Dragons are beholden to the Weyrs, Jirana,” Xhinna said, trying to gently remind the child of the facts. “A dragon wouldn’t scout for a Hold.”
“Unless the Weyr ordered it.”
“But Crom’s beholden to Telgar and—” Xhinna broke off as Jirana nodded. Telgar, ten Turns in their past, was still led by D’gan.
“Nerra rules Crom,” Xhinna said.
“Now she does,” Jirana agreed, “in our time, Turns in the future.”
Xhinna pursed her lips tightly.
“Did you ever find out how she came to rule Crom?” Jirana asked.
“She took the Hold back from her brother, who had blockaded himself inside while the holders starved,” Xhinna recalled. And then her eyes went wide. “Oh!”
Stoutly Jirana declared, “I told you we were in the right time.”