Dragon’s Time: Dragonriders of Pern Read online

  Tenniz chuckled. “I’m not certain that’s wise, my lady,” he said. Lorana started to protest, but he raised a hand, gently forestalling her. “Fortunately, Javissa is much prettier and I hope our Jirana will take after her.”

  “She must be quite a person, your wife,” Lorana said.

  “Kind and wise beyond her years,” Tenniz agreed, his expression dreamy. “And patient, very patient. She’ll need it with my son.”

  “So, your son will get the Sight?” Lorana asked.

  “No,” Tenniz said with a sigh, shaking his head. “I’m afraid that will go to Jirana.”

  “Are you afraid it will be a burden for her?”

  Tenniz gave her a small smile, shaking his head. “I am sure that she’ll thrive.”

  “Does it hurt a lot,” Lorana asked, “knowing that you’ll never hold her in your arms?”

  Tenniz shot her a startled look and took a deep steady breath as he shook his head once more and said, eyes downcast, “No, no, I’ve seen enough to be content.”

  Lorana nodded, rising from her cross-legged squat to move out from the awning toward the fire. With a stick, she lifted the lid and looked inside. She sniffed the fragrant steam wafting up and turned back to Tenniz. “If you’re ready to eat, it’s done.”

  At Tenniz’s urging, she left the stew to cool while they opened the wine that the trader had wisely placed in the shade along with them.

  “Benden white!” Lorana exclaimed as he displayed the bottle to her. “Your friends know how to treat you.”

  “I am blessed in my friends,” Tenniz agreed, nodding to include her among them.

  Two small but clean stone goblets had been packed for the wine and Lorana was surprised to realize how relaxed she felt as she savored the taste of the liquid in her mouth before swallowing. After she swallowed, she lifted her goblet higher and gestured to Tenniz, “To Pern!”

  “To Pern!” The trader raised his goblet and inclined his head as he repeated the toast. Sipping his drink, Tenniz raised it once more and added, “And to the women who guard it!”

  Lorana raised her goblet once more, but before she could drink, Tenniz’s words startled her, “Don’t drink, I was toasting you.”

  “And who else?” Lorana asked as she recovered from her confusion.

  “Those who guard Pern,” Tenniz returned cryptically, seeming annoyed with himself. Lorana glanced at him shrewdly for a moment, thinking how thin the man was and how strong wine could inspire loose lips.

  “To Fiona, then!” Lorana said, raising her goblet and deliberately taking a small sip, while tipping her drink far back. Tenniz followed her toast and Lorana reached forward for the wine.

  “I need more,” she said, pretending to top off her goblet and pouring a generous amount into Tenniz’s. She raised her goblet again, saying, “To J’trel!”

  Tenniz did not follow her, saying instead, “I never met him.”

  “He was a good man,” Lorana said, masking her annoyance at his reluctance to follow her toast. “If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here now.” She raised her goblet once more, repeating, “To J’trel!”

  Reluctantly, Tenniz followed with his drink.

  “You have mentioned your wife,” Lorana said, trying a different tack, “tell me about her.”

  Tenniz thought for a moment before answering. “She has the prettiest green eyes,” he said. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw them.” He glanced at her wryly. “Green is such a dangerous color here on Pern, I suppose it seems strange of me to admire it so.”

  “We need green to grow,” Lorana said with a flick of her fingers. “Just as Thread needs it to survive.”

  “And sucks the land dry,” Tenniz said, his voice suddenly cold and hollow. Lorana met his eyes, but the trader lowered them.

  “To the dragonriders of Pern!” Lorana said, raising her goblet once more and taking a deep drink.

  Tenniz followed her action wordlessly. After a moment, he searched for a flat place and carefully placed his goblet on it, rising and heading toward the stew.

  “If we keep drinking, we’ll get light-headed,” Tenniz said, as he reached for one of the bowls and the stirring ladle. He turned back to Lorana. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Lorana admitted. Tenniz smiled at her and passed her the first bowl. “Whoever picked your herbs knew my tastes perfectly.”

  “These herbs are common in the desert,” Tenniz said, his back to her as he filled his bowl. He put the ladle back in the pot, spun on his heel, and quickly sat once more under the awning, a small pinch of herbs in his free hand, which he crumbled into his stew as he added, “Although I prefer it a bit spicier.”

  “If that’s spark pepper, you like it a lot hotter,” Lorana replied, her eyes wide as she took in the sprinkling of bright red-orange spice flakes on top of Tenniz’s serving. “You’d best top your glass.”

  Tenniz shook his head. “Water first, then wine, with this mix.” He jabbed his spoon into his bowl, took a large portion and wrapped his mouth around it, his eyes closing blissfully.

  Lorana took a bite of her stew, and quickly sought out her wine goblet to cut down the spicy heat that assailed her. The stew itself was nearly cool, but the spices caused her to break into a sweat. “This wasn’t hot enough for you?”

  “Heat helps in hot climes,” Tenniz said in the singsong tones of someone repeating a proverb. He helped himself to another large spoonful of the stew before adding, “They do say it’s an acquired taste, though.”

  “I can see that,” Lorana agreed firmly. Actually, now that her mouth was used to the spicy heat, she found the stew only pleasantly hot and the overall taste full of complex flavors. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the stew as she chewed. She opened them again when Tenniz chuckled at her. “See, a few days in the desert and you’d be ready for robes!”

  “Ready for robes?” Lorana repeated in confusion.

  “People who aren’t used to the desert spend a lot of time wearing clothes suited to cooler climes,” he told her. “We say someone is ready for robes when they’ve learned to respect the desert and seek ways to keep cool.”

  “Fiona and Shaneese mentioned—”

  “Shaneese? You met Shaneese?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did she spit in your stew, too?” Tenniz asked with a grin. Lorana shook her head and the trader laughed. The laugh lurched into a long hacking cough and Tenniz turned an alarming shade of puce before he managed to find another breath. “Another good thing about spices,” he said weakly when he could speak again, “they keep the lungs clear.”

  “Have you seen a healer?” Lorana asked.

  “Several,” Tenniz agreed. “Some think it’s left over from the Plague, but others say it is something I was born with.” He waved the issue aside. “It is not important now.”

  “I can’t imagine Shaneese spitting in anyone’s soup,” Lorana said.

  “Ah, but she was much younger—she is much younger now,” he said. “You met her when she was a grown woman, correct?”

  Lorana nodded.

  “At this moment she is even younger than I,” Tenniz told her. “And she didn’t like what I had to say.”

  “And what did you say to her that made her spit in your soup?”

  “I told her that she would gladly share her man,” Tenniz said. He shook his head at the memory. “I should not have spoken, but I was in the grips of a seeing and it was a good thing.” He cocked his head at her questioningly. “Do you know of it?”

  “You’ve met Fiona?”

  “Fiona!” Tenniz said, his eyes suddenly going wide. “But—” he cut himself off, shaking his head fiercely as if to drive the words out of his head. “So I was right to think she was lucky.”

  “Perhaps,” Lorana agreed. “The relationship is still new, still—”

  “It has something to do with you, too,” Tenniz said, with more than just a guess. He smiled fondly as he added, “She is a special person,
and special to you, isn’t our Fiona?”

  “She is,” Lorana agreed. A moment later, she added in a different tone, “Although I don’t think she can ever forgive me—”

  “For the baby?” Tenniz guessed.

  Shakily, Lorana nodded. She piled her spoon high with spicy stew and shoved it into her mouth, allowing the heat to distract her and provide her with a moment’s silence. When she spoke again it was in a small, troubled voice. “Was it worth it?”

  “Your price?” Tenniz asked.

  Eyes bright with tears, Lorana nodded. Again, she said, “Because I don’t think Fiona would forgive me—”

  “No,” Tenniz cut her off. She glanced at him in shock. In a hard voice, he continued: “You know better. She’s no stranger to hard choices. Tell the truth.”

  Lorana let out a small sob and lowered her eyes. “I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”

  “Yes,” Tenniz agreed. “That’s the truth.”

  “And?” Lorana prompted, her tone pleading.

  “And that’s the question only you can answer,” he said, pursing his lips in a grimace. “Always, in the end, only we can answer our own questions.”

  “Have you answered all your questions, then?”

  “No,” Tenniz admitted. He raised his eyes to meet hers, his lips curving upward. “I have many questions I think I’ll never get answered.”

  “But you’ve got more answered than most,” Lorana said with a touch of anger in her voice. Tenniz raised his brows questioningly. “You know that the dragons survived the sickness, for example. So you know that your daughter will have her eighth Turn.”

  “No,” Tenniz said with a quick shake of his head, “that is not given to me.”

  A breath of cold air whipped over her and Lorana jerked upright. The sun was setting, the evening winds had picked up. Lorana’s surprise faded as she remembered lying down, her lunch warm in her stomach, the last sip of wine, Tenniz’s companionable silence. It had been all too easy for her to just close her eyes and drift without effort into a heat-induced sleep.

  “Tenniz, I’m sorry!” Lorana said, turning toward the now-shadowed spot where’d she last seen the trader.

  “Sorry for what?” Tenniz asked, accompanied by sounds of stretching.

  “For falling asleep,” Lorana said. “If this really is your last day …”

  “Traders nap in the heat of the sun,” Tenniz said, dismissing her concern gently. “Anyway, I think I was asleep before you.” Another cough shook him and it was a long while before he recovered. So long, in fact, that Lorana went over to him only to see the darker shadow of his hand waving her away.

  She turned to the outdoors and went to the fire, carefully finding more kindling and building the last of the embers back into flickering flames, all the while keeping her hearing stretched painfully to the sounds of the young man behind her. She turned when his coughs ceased, worried that she had heard his last breath. The sound of rustling blankets and of Tenniz rising came to her ears before her eyes could make out his movements in the shadows. She let out a quick sigh of relief, unaware that she’d been holding her own breath in sympathy.

  “The stars will be out,” Tenniz said, glancing up at the darkening horizon as he approached her. He dropped his gaze toward her, adding with a smile, “They’ll be beautiful.”

  “When I was with J’trel,” Lorana said, “we had time to look at the stars.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve done it since.”

  “Well, then, it’s certainly past time that you did again!” Tenniz glanced around, wandering over to the supplies and rustling among them. “Tonight,” he said, as he saw Lorana eyeing him, “I cook for you.” He raised a hand as she started to protest. “It is a special meal and it would honor me if you would take of it.”

  “Gladly,” Lorana said, moving toward him. “How can I help?”

  “Clear the old pots, see to the fire, get it hot again,” he said. “We won’t be eating until we see the right stars, so you won’t want to freeze.”

  “And what about you, won’t you want to stay warm?” Lorana asked. Tenniz opened his mouth, closed it again and shook his head. “Is it possible that you see too much of tomorrow? That seeing what you see causes you to give in? That you might die because you catch your death of cold tonight?”

  Tenniz was silent for a long moment. “That is the greatest danger of knowing too much of the future.”

  Lorana absorbed his words thoughtfully, lowering her eyes. For a long moment her mind churned on his meaning, on all that it meant and then—“You tricked me!” she shouted with a laugh. “You just wanted to teach me the lesson you’ve already learned Turns before!”

  “Yes, my lady,” Tenniz agreed with a light chuckle, “I did.”

  “How can you be so happy at a time like this?” Lorana asked him, suddenly serious and angry, really angry in a way that embarrassed her, made her feel small and vindictive.

  “If I thought being somber and serious would give me another day with my wife, I wouldn’t be here,” Tenniz replied. He stood up with his supplies and moved toward the fire. “But I’ve known for Turns that this day would come, I’ve had Turns to adjust to the notion that I would die before my daughter was born, would never live to see my son a man.” He turned back to her. “I cannot see how being angry or solemn would make it any easier for me.”

  He gestured around the plateau and beyond to the beauty that was unfolding in the setting sun; the promise of a brilliant night of stars. “I choose not to wrap myself up in grief over things I cannot change, cannot control, and, instead, take joy in all the gifts I’ve been presented. Rather than rail against the moments I cannot have, I will cherish those I do—instead of squandering them in useless rage.”

  There was a long silence.

  “It is strange,” Tenniz began again, in a softer, less emotional tone, “how those who expect to see tomorrow have so little appreciation for it.”

  “I was talking to myself, wasn’t I?” Lorana said after a moment.

  “ ‘All the words we say aloud are heard by at least one pair of ears,’ ” Tenniz agreed with the tone that made it clear he was reciting another trader proverb. He took the largest flask of water, unstoppered it, and drank deeply.

  “Ah!” he said with pleasure. He twisted his body to offer it up to Lorana. “Tell me what you think.”

  Gratefully, Lorana accepted the flask and, sensing ritual, took a long drink herself. The water was perfect, not too cold, not too warm, full of the sort of satisfying flavor that only water can have when found at the end of a hot day or when thirsty from wine.

  “Perfect,” Lorana said, passing the flask back to him.

  “Only a parched man really knows water,” Tenniz said, again in the tone of a trader saying. He poured a generous amount into the pot, stoppered the flask and slid its strap over his shoulder so that it hung down at his side.

  “Only a dying man really knows life,” Lorana said, glancing at Tenniz.

  “So it is said,” Tenniz agreed quietly. “But just as it is the path of wisdom in the desert to bear water, so it is the path of wisdom to learn life.”

  “And cherish it,” Lorana said, her eyes suddenly wet with tears, her hands unconsciously moving toward her flat belly.

  “My wife was right,” Tenniz said huskily. Lorana glanced down at him and saw him looking up at her. “You are the right one for my last night.”

  “You could have spent it with her,” Lorana guessed.

  “One of the gifts of the Sighted is to know our last night,” Tenniz said. He gave her a crooked smile. “It’s more of a blessing to know of a certainty that this night, and no other, will be my last.”

  “I could see how, knowing that, you could have a very special night, one for the memory of all times with your wife,” Lorana agreed. She frowned as she added, “It would have been a great gift to her, to your son as well.”

  “And now you come to wonder why I spend it with you,” Tenniz sai
d, nodding. He reached into the pack and brought out some carrots, somewhat wilted from the earlier heat of the day but smelling ripe, fresh, and savory. A knife and a cutting board came out of the pack. He deftly chopped the carrots and put them in the pot, along with some fully ripe tubers, quickly chopped; fresh onions; crisp celery. He looked amused as he pulled out a small packet of herbs, sniffed appreciatively at the gorgeous scent wafting up, giving Lorana a strangely thankful look as he carefully chopped them finely and poured them in.

  “You are giving me a great gift,” Lorana said in awe.

  Tenniz gave a quick chuckle, rooting once more in the pack and drawing a bunch of fresh herbs. “As are you, me!”

  Lorana moved toward the fire, throwing on more kindling and working in silence to build it up to a proper size and heat.

  “Is there a shroud?” Lorana asked, looking across the now bright fire toward Tenniz, who was only visible as a shadow, with firelight gleaming in his eyes.

  “Pardon?”

  “Is there a shroud I should put you in,” Lorana said, taking a deep breath to finish, “for tomorrow?”

  “That would be awkward,” Tenniz said. “I’ve some robes I’ll put on tonight, before dinner; they’ll be fine.”

  “And we’ll drink more wine,” Lorana guessed.

  “Oh, no,” Tenniz corrected, “water only.”

  “For those crossing the desert,” Lorana guessed.

  “ ‘Parched, you shall drink,’ ” Tenniz quoted.

  “ ‘Hungry, you shall eat,’ ” Lorana said, hearing the catch in Tenniz’s voice confirm that she strangely knew the right words.

  “ ‘And—’ ”

  Lorana joined in with him—“ ‘the stars shall guide you to your sleep.’ ”

  “There’s another,” Lorana said, craning her neck up into the slowly darkening sky above her.

  “Three,” Tenniz agreed, the sound of his voice changing as he lowered his head. “It’s time.”

  The trader had long since changed into his robes. Lorana was not surprised at the fine fabric nor at the simplicity of the design; she could see the loving care that had gone into its making, the delicate darker embroidery along the cuffs, the care that had gone into the stitches. She guessed that more than one hand had prepared the outfit, that perhaps Tenniz’s mother or even Fiona’s friend, Mother Karina, had sewn parts of it, making the whole a covering of love.