All pertinent information is posted at the beginning of this series. The Black Dragon was written for the real M'chell. Comments welcome at quasito_cat@yahoo.com or quasito_cat@hotmail.com.
M.C. Gordon
Chapter 15
D'vis returned three seven-days later to check on the flyer's progress. "I brought firestone and these charts with me," he told M'chell. "I had to ask the Weyrleader to help me figure out how to chart Threadfall across this continent. Told him I need the practice and `cause you're here. Besides you never know when it might be important to know how Thread falls here. By the way, he wants to know when you'll be coming home."
M'chell wasn't sure how to answer. He didn't want to leave the flyer, or ask the being he had come to love so much in so short a time to leave his only home for the confines of a northern weyr. But he knew his first loyalty had to be to Pern, and he was a wing-leader.
"When I can," he answered.
"I'll keep covering for you," D'vis said. "But I don't think I can convince anyone for much longer that your hands haven't healed yet. I brought some firestone with me. If my charts are right you'll have Threadfall tomorrow."
...
His hands completely healed, M'chell fastened his fighting straps and faced Thread, his first time with Raganth in Southern. Dragon and rider both knew what they were supposed to do, but the only fighting-wing available now was several fairs of fire lizards.
The flyer watched as flames, large and small, burst into the sky above him. He wanted to help his love but knew he would be useless. Even if he could fly, he would never be able to chew firestone and breathe flame to char the mindless enemy.
Very little was in danger from this Threadfall; most of Pern's ancient enemy fell over the endless water or high, rocky cliffs. But Raganth and the fire lizards, answering to an instinct older than time, charred Thread to protect what vegetation might have been destroyed.
Thread seldom fell over the area where the flyer had made his home so most of the time he enjoyed riding behind his beloved on the great golden queen's back. The mighty dragon flew across great expanses of the southern continent and, although it was never said, they were constantly on the watch for clutches of flyer eggs. The flyer had long ago given up any hope of finding more of his kind; had resolved himself to an eternity of heartbreaking loneliness; and knew that his love, so recently found, would stop at nothing to help him.
...
The night was crisp. Ragged clouds drifted lazily across the sky, playing a game of hide-and-seek with the multitude of stars against the ink-black night. The flyer held out his hand to his mate, beckoning him. He knew that it was now or never. And he called his friends to him; asked them to ask the great golden queen for help.
M'chell, unaware that anything of great importance was about to happen, grasped his lover's hand carefully for the sharp talons could inflict pain and it was something the flyer was seldom aware of.
The two lay watching the night, listening to the sounds of small insects that scurried hither and yon about their business. The sound of distant thunder rumbled ... a sudden storm moving away from them. The night stars were brilliant around them.
Raganth, convinced that these fire lizards had greater imagination than any he had known before, relaxed in the late twilight and enjoyed fanciful tales of falling objects and people dancing for no reason at all. These southern fire lizards were a silly bunch but he enjoyed their fancies and didn't question the wild stores they imaged to him.
When the fire lizards told Raganth that the flyer wanted him the great male queen awakened from his comfortable rock bed. Silly flits didn't need to tell him anything; he knew what the being wanted ... and why.
The flyer grasped more closely at his beloved's hand and thought harder than he had ever done. The fire lizards were confused, didn't understand what was being asked of them, but Raganth understood and let the flyer into his mind.
M'chell was suddenly overwhelmed by the images he received from his queen and the thoughts the great dragon projected.
"Look above you," the flyer's thoughts told him. "I am all that you can see. I am the clear blue of day, and the gentle fall of rain. I am the wind that causes leaves in more colors than I can describe to spring into the air and twist about madly before falling to the wayside. I am the blackest night and brightest day. I surround you; support you on your great queen; I am what I was created to be. I am Skye."
The name was not a thought ... it was a name, a word the flyer had thought hard to say.
Skye.
Chapter 16
"This klah is terrible," L'Noth said to Lurah as the Weyrleaders and wingleaders met for an informal council early one morning. He grimaced and pushed the cup of offending liquid aside.
"This is third pot Cook brewed this morning," Lurah replied. "The first two were even worse so she threw them out."
"I've asked Lurah to check our supplies in case things have begun to spoil," Adelmisa added. "We've had an unusual amount of rain recently and could have mold in the storage caverns." The Weyrwoman knew Lurah was an excellent headwoman but her own authority would assure that the weyr supplies were checked, and checked again.
"I've noticed an odd smell to the air this last seven-day," added M'Sel, the Weyrlingmaster.
"As have I," said M'rin, one of the wingleaders. "It diminishes away from the weyr and I notice it only when I return. It's almost like the stench of firestone."
"Now that you mention it, I think you're right," L'Noth replied. "I'll order a search of the abandoned caverns," he added. "We don't need anything else escaping into the air." His reference to the plague that had almost decimated Pern a decade earlier wasn't lost on anyone.
The search lasted several days and all of the weyrfolk were involved except during Threadfall. The supplies were in excellent condition and no hidden menace was discovered in any of the abandoned caverns.
As the days passed, the offending smell disappeared and L'Noth's klah was once again enjoyable.
. . .
"Your wing is completely healed," D'vis informed Skye. "All you needed was ichor and M'chell's good care." Turning to his foster-father he added, "And your hands have been healed this last four seven-days.
L'Noth and Adelmisa have been asking when you'll return to the weyr. You're greatly missed as a wingleader, M'chell."
The thought had troubled M'chell much of late. He knew he had to return to his duties, but he didn't know what to do about Skye. The thought of leaving his lover was more than he could bear, and he was unsure if the flyer would want to go with him. Even more uncertain in his mind was if Skye would be accepted by weyrfolk. He didn't even want to imagine the reaction of crafters and holders.
Skye himself had often had much the same thoughts. He buried them deep in his mind until the great queen and fire lizards were sleeping for he knew they would feel his thoughts and convey them to M'chell. The time they were spending together was too precious to him to have it disturbed by his questioning. Through Raganth and Trelanth he knew he would be accepted by other great dragons, but his first encounter with the dragon rider made him question what others of mankind would think of him. Torn between his desire to keep M'chell with him forever, and the knowledge that his beloved must return to his own home, Skye had lain awake many nights.
"Tell L'Noth I will return soon," M'chell finally answered D'vis.
The young healer nodded his understanding and wondered if he would one day find the deep love that existed between the dragon rider and flyer. "I'd better get back to the weyr," he said. "Julani and Andren are worrying themselves over something and they're starting to get on everyone's nerves. I promised Lurah that I'll try to distract them for a while."
The two lovers made no reference to M'chell's statement to D'vis after the healer left. Each was unsure what the other would say, and so they left many things unsaid between them. Instead, Raganth flew them down to the beach where he enjoyed the scrubbing the happy fair of fire lizards gave him.
M'chell and Skye both stripped and waded into the ocean. Without the use of his wings Skye had become a strong swimmer, and it showed in the rippling of his muscles as he matched M'chell stroke for stroke in the strong waves that crashed toward the beach. With Raganth bathed clean and their own arms beginning to feel the strain of fighting against the tide, the two lovers slept in each other's arms on the warm sand the rest of the afternoon.
"The tide was stronger than usual," M'chell told Skye as they ate their evening meal.
"As if far-distant waters pulled the ocean," Skye replied, his conversation still a mixture of images and spoken words. "It happened before, many Turns back."
"Did it last long?" M'chell asked.
"No," Skye replied, "but later I saw great rocks in the water when I was flying far from here. The rocks were new," he added, "for I had never seen them before in that place."
. . .
"And I'm telling you that something's wrong," Julani repeated to Andren, his voice full of exasperation. He paced nervously around their cavern, the floor of which was covered with scrolls. "First it was the odd smell and foul tasting water. Now the level of water in the weyr wells is falling. The old records mention disasters but don't explain what kind."
"And you think we're going to have a disaster?" Andren asked. The healer had been deeply devoted to the harper for many Turns, but sometimes Julani got an idea in his mind and refused to let it go, frustrating Andren. He had only recently given up on recreating the music they had heard in the ancient cave in their childhood, although Andren seriously doubted Julani had completely forgotten it.
"I think it's a possibility," Julani replied. "As soon as D'vis gets back from visiting M'chell I'm going to ask him to fly me to HarperHall. I want to ask the MasterHarper if he recalls reading anything in the archives."
Andren didn't reply but lowered his head and pretended to be interested in the buckle on his shoe. He knew his lover would cling to the idea until Thread ceased to fall forever.
No sooner had Julani spoken than D'vis joined them. "I'm back," he announced.
"How is M'chell?" Andren asked.
"Well enough that he'll be back soon," D'vis replied. "He's been doing a little exploring and I think he's interested in bringing back some of the more exotic things he's discovered."
"Like what?" Julani asked, his interest suddenly shifting away from the possibility of impending doom.
"I think I'll let him surprise you," D'vis answered, for the young healer journeyman knew full well that M'chell and Skye would never part from each other even if they didn't realize it yet. One way or another, they would find a way to be together. "Did I hear you say that you want to visit HarperHall?" he asked Julani, turning the pair's curiosity away from their childhood friend's discoveries.
. . .
The moon was high when Skye eased himself away from M'chell. His rainbow-hued eyes gazed tenderly at the man he loved ... the man who had become the most important part of himself. He knew that M'chell felt responsible for the injuries he had suffered and had stayed with him in the beginning to nurse him until those wounds had healed. And he knew that M'chell loved him, their many matings told him that. But he also knew that the dragon rider must return home. Thread, as he now knew the evil rain was named, was a much greater threat to other men than it was his own solitary home, for this part of Pern healed itself. He had tried to tell his beloved this, yet M'chell still mounted golden Raganth and fought against Thread when it fell here.
"I need to fight Thread," M'chell answered one evening when Skye had asked him why. "Dragonmen always have."
"He will not return to his own until he knows I am completely healed," Skye told himself as he put on his loincloth and walked silently to the opening of their cavern. Something deep within his soul told him that there would one day be bitterness between them if he sought to keep M'chell with him forever. He knew that their love would wither and die unless he let him go.
The flyer walked quickly to the edge of a high precipice. His own natural instinct to fly was bound up with his need to prove that his body had mended. "If I can fly," he thought, "he will be able to leave.
I will go with him if he asks me, or I will stay if he does not."
The absence of Skye's warmth against him crept into M'chell's consciousness and woke him. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes just as Skye left the cavern. He didn't want to intrude on his lover's privacy, for Skye had been accustomed to being alone all but the past few seven-days, but something felt wrong. Quickly slipping on his tunic and breeches, he followed the flyer.
Skye stood at the edge of the precipice, clearly outlined by the gentle glow of moonlight. He stood straight, his wings pulled back, his face turned upward as if he were looking directly at the moon. His arms hung by his sides, talon-tipped fingers flexing. His face was serene, and his chest rose and fell evenly. M'chell thought he looked like the most perfect being that had ever existed.
Suddenly, Skye lifted his arms and flexed his wings. M'chell, frozen in place for fear of what he knew was about to happen, stared helplessly as Skye spread his wings and used the powerful muscles in his legs to jump from the precipice.
The dragon rider shook off his shock and ran to the edge, afraid he would see the body of his lover broken on the crags below. Instead he saw Skye's powerful wings rise and fall as he flew out over the ocean. M'chell sat and watched the flyer as he glided on air currents or tested the strength of his newly healed wing by surging upward, as if his wings were climbing the wind. His heart stopped when he say the flyer suddenly plunge into the warm water of the ocean, wings lain back along his body. And then, just as suddenly, Skye burst from the water into the air again flying higher than before. From the corner of his eye, M'chell saw his golden queen, far enough away to give Skye freedom to fly but close enough to come to his rescue if the newly healed wing failed.
"You didn't tell me you were well enough to fly," he said when Skye joined him.
"I didn't know until tonight," Skye answered. "You watched?" he asked.
"Yes," M'chell replied, "and you were beautiful."
"I did not want you to watch tonight," Skye responded, "for if I had fallen you would have seen me die."
"I would not have let you fall," Raganth told him.
"Enough for tonight," M'chell said, laughing at the look of surprise on the flyer's face at Raganth's remark. "The air is cool and you're wet."
Barely two hours had passed when the silence of the early morning was shattered by the unexpected sound of Raganth's keening. A dragon had just died. The great queen's anguish reverberated again as the shock of more dragon deaths hit M'chell's mind. Skye gathered his lover to him, wrapped him in the protection of his wings, and held him. He leaned his head back and began his own keening, for he remembered his own pain when his clutch mates died and felt it only right that he let the dragons know he understood their loss.
Chapter 17
M'chell was in a near state of shock with the sound of the dragon's death knell reverberating through his mind. Raganth had taken to the sky in great agitation and sent his rider visions of heaving earth and spewing fire.
Skye felt his lover's shock, though not to the same degree for it was not his family and friends who were in danger. His fire lizard friends, feeding from the images in Raganth's mind, sent him feelings of overwhelming fear and confusion, as well as continued death.
Only a few precious seconds had passed from the time the weyr fell into danger until a green dragon appeared in the sky above the cliff where M'chell clung to Skye. M'chell recognized the young rider ... F'rness, a weyrling of less than a year and rider of blue Dagenth.
The lad was breathless and shaking when he reached M'chell, in such distress that he barely noticed the black-winged flyer. "D'vis sent me," he managed in a voice raspy from smoke, searing heat, and the cold of `between'. "He said you'd understand. He couldn't come because he's helping Andren with the injured. You're needed, M'chell! The weyr volcano is erupting. L'noth is using the dragons to evacuate the weyr and everyone has to help. D'vis said to bring the flyer, whatever that means."
Skye understood F'rness words and the urgent plea in his voice. His momentary hesitation to join his lover's world was quickly banished when he realized that D'vis would not have asked for him if the young healer thought he was in any danger from the weyrfolk.
He had flown high over other fiery mounts he now knew had the name `volcano' and had seen their destructive power. He could not begin to imagine how his lover's friends could escape from the ash and molten earth. But if it could be done, he would risk his own life to help save those whom M'chell loved.
He sent a quick mental message to the fire lizards to fetch as much of the oozy healing plant as they could and follow the dragons between. His memory was better than fire lizards or dragons and he knew that the fire in the weyr would leave those who lived with burns worse than his lover's hands. The fire lizards had winked out and back again with whole, uprooted plants in their talons before Skye joined M'chell on mighty Raganth's back and the golden queen rider directed his dragon homeward.
The weyr was in a state of confusion when Raganth and Dageth emerge from `between'. There seemed little in the way of organized rescue. But M'chell knew that part of the problem was because some of the rooms in the lower caverns were too small for the great dragons to enter. Many of the weyrfolk, mostly children, were trapped. Once again he felt the total helplessness he had known when the holder's family had died in the fire.
Skye understood M'chell's thoughts and said, "I am not so large as your dragons, and I am strong now. I will go."
Before M'chell could stop him, Skye went between.
The flyer was almost overwhelmed by the heat and deadly stench. The corridors leading from the great dining area were dark but Skye's eyesight was as good as any watchwher in the dark. He listened for signs of life and quickly sought out each feeble call for help. The first he found were two small children and he gathered them into his arms and went between. In the darkness the children couldn't see who was rescuing them.
While Skye moved as quickly as he could to save more in the lower caverns, M'chell located L'noth and Adelmisa. "Have the dragons take the uninjured to the southern continent," he told the Weyrleaders. "Raganth can show them where. There's safety, shelter, food and water."
Fire lizards are usually regarded as silly little chits, unable to do anything unless trained. But Skye's friends were so accustomed to his mind that they knew instantly what they needed to do to help. In and out they blinked, searching for signs of life.
It was dangerous to go between to an unknown place, but those trapped in the small lower caverns gave off such strong thoughts that Skye and his friends were able to locate most of them. Skye knew that time was short before the heaving mass of lava reached the small pockets of life, and knew that he had only one recourse. He reached out to touch Trelanth's mind for the exact time the volcano began to come alive.
Putting his life in even greater danger, Skye went between space and time to the rooms of the lower caverns and began to lift sleeping children from their beds. L'noth had organized the great weyr dragons to take the weyrfolk to M'chell's safety in the south and Skye placed the hatchlings, for thus he thought of them, with those waiting to be evacuated.
M'chell would have been frantic had he realized that dragons could go `between' times and that his lover was doing just that again and again. Instead he was helping send the weyrfolk and dragons to the south. The weyr healers identified those without injuries who were flown between by the swift green and blue dragons. The injured, once tended to, were to be flown slowly by the stronger brown, bronze and golden dragons. Freepointe Weyr's Weyrleaders willingly offered help and the weyr's healers were already prepared for the wounded.