Lessa clutched at Ramoth’s neck for support as past acts and mysteries became devastatingly clear. She herself had warned herself, just as it was her presence on the queen dragon that had kept the watchwher from giving alarm. For as she watched, stunned and speechless, she saw the small, gray-robed figure that could only be herself as a youngster, burst from the Hold Hall door, race uncertainly down the cold stone steps into the Court, and disappear into the watchwher’s stinking den. Faintly she heard it crying in piteous confusion.
Just as Lessa-the-giri reached that doubtful sanctuary, Fax’s invaders swooped into the open window embrasures and began the slaughter of her sleeping family.
“Back-back to the Star Stone!” Lessa cried. In her wide and staring eyes she held the image of the guiding rocks like a rudder for her sanity as well as Ramoth’s direction. The intense cold acted as a restorative. And then they were above the quiet, peaceful wintry Weyr as if they had never paradoxically visited Ruatha.
F’lar and Mnementh were nowhere to be seen. Ramoth, however, was unshaken by the experience. She had only gone where she had been told to go and had not quite understood that going where she had been told to go had shocked Lessa. She suggested to her rider that Mnementh had probably followed them to Ruatha so if Lessa would give her the proper references, she’d take her there. Ramoth’s sensible attitude was comforting.
Lessa carefully drew for Ramoth not the child’s memory of a long-vanished, idyllic Ruatha but her more recent recollection of the Hold, gray, sullen, at dawning, with a Red Star pulsing on the horizon. And there they were again, hovering over the valley, the Hold below them on the right. The grasses grew untended on the heights, clogging firepit and brickwork; the scene showed all the deterioration she had encouraged in her effort to thwart Fax of any profit from conquering Ruath Hold.
But, as she watched, vaguely disturbed, she saw a figure emerge from the kitchen, saw the watchwher creep from its lair and follow the raggedly dressed figure as far across the Court as the chain permitted. She saw the figure ascend the Tower, gaze first eastward, then northeastward. This was still not Ruatha of today and now! Lessa’s mind reeled, disoriented. This time she had come back to visit herself of three Turns ago, to see the filthy drudge plotting revenge on Fax.
She felt the absolute cold of between as Ramoth snatched them back, emerging once more above the Star Stone. Lessa was shuddering, her eyes frantically taking in the reassuring sight of the Weyr Bowl, hoping she had not somehow shifted backward in time yet again. Mnementh suddenly erupted into the air a few lengths below and beyond Ramoth. Lessa greeted him with a cry of intense relief.
Back to your weyr! There was no disguising the white fury in Mnementh’s tone. Lessa was too unnerved to respond in any way other than instant compliance. Ramoth glided swiftly to their ledge, quickly clearing the perch for Mnementh to land.
The rage on F’lar’s face as he leaped from Mnementh and advanced on Lessa brought her wits back abruptly. She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.
“How dare you risk yourself and Ramoth? Why must you defy me at every opportunity? Do you realize what would happen to all Pern if we lost Ramoth? Where did you go?”
He was spitting with anger, punctuating each question that tumbled from his lips by giving her a head-wrenching shake.
“Ruatha,” she managed to say, trying to keep herself erect. She reached out to catch at his arms, but he shook her again.
“Ruatha? We were there. You weren’t. Where did you go?”
“Ruatha!” Lessa cried louder, clutching at him distractedly because he kept jerking her off balance. She couldn’t organize her thoughts with him jolting her around.
She was at Ruatha, Mnementh said firmly.
We were there twice, Ramoth added.
As the dragons’ calmer words penetrated F’lar’s fury, he stopped shaking Lessa. She hung limply in his grasp, her hands weakly plucking at his arms, her eyes closed, her face gray. He picked her up and strode rapidly into the queen’s weyr, the dragons following. He placed her upon the couch, wrapping her tightly in the fur cover. He called down the service shaft for the duty cook to send up hot klah. “All right, what happened?” he demanded.