Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 18:29:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Corrinne S <quasito_cat@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Black Dragon of Pern Part 6

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.