Special thanks to Black Rook and Eclipse Bloodmoon for beta reading.
Kirana was slowly going down to the Lower Caverns of Benden when young blue rider who had recently taken off for patrol on the east rushed towards her. She was preparing to chide him for his untimely returning when the young man cried out:
"Lady Kirana, my lady..." he faltered, speechless with excitement. "A drum message has come from the Fort Hold: the Fort Weyr is empty! All dragons, all people have disappeared, as if they were not there at all! And the day before yesterday all were in place! Now only herdbeasts remained..." his voice broke. Kirana looked at him mistrustfully.
"G'tan, the drumrolls can contain errors, and..."
"My lady!" The blue rider was unable to restrain and brought her up short. "I didn't believe at first and flew to the Fort myself. There is nobody! They've disappeared!"
"No, it's not possible," Kirana denied. "I must make sure myself that it's not a joke. T'ron and Mardra aren't inclined to adventures. "Arinath!" - she called her queen. - "Talk to Loranth and learn what's happening there."
"I can't hear Loranth," - the answer from the golden queen came after a while. "And Fidranth doesn't answer! And nothing from known dragons in Fort!" Arinath screamed an indignant roar, the tone of which got a response from other Benden dragons.
"Call the Weyrleader!" Kirana ordered. "We should check up everything before informing other Weyrs..."
Arinath's call overtook T'rel and Palinth over the Lemos Hold, where the Weyrleader had flied out on training with a firestone for divert. Lately, he often went far away to avoid meeting Kirana, being afraid to let out the five Weyrs' plans about going to the future. Or maybe Palinth would let out. For bronze dragon it was especially heavy to evade questions of his golden mate who was interested very much in constant Weyrleader's visits to the Fort Weyr. Although T'rel refused to participate in the last meetings where details of the removal were discussed.
"Otherwise I won't manage to look surprised, when you'll disappear, "- he had told to the rest of the Weyrleaders. It was very difficult to accept the fact that he- and his Weyr- wouldn't go anywhere, no matter what the others would decide. The Weyrwoman from the future decided for all of them, definitely saying that only Benden Weyr would exist during the whole Long Interval. Fate and a lacking of choice made T'rel lose his temper. He almost envied the others, whose existence will gain significance in battles with the Threads, while he and his descendants were bound to vegetate for the next four hundred years.
"I wish I wouldn't have listened to Lessa!" he thought once again and Palinth bugled in agreement.
"But who could have known what exactly she would tell on the council in the Fort. T'ron, as always, hadn't warned any of us about anything..."
"Arinath says that a message came that the Fort Weyr has emptied. Kirana wishes to make sure of it and calls us back, to Benden," the bronze dragon told his rider. T'rel shuddered in understanding that the most difficult begins - it will be necessary to pretend to look surprised, as well as the others. Messages from the other holds will come soon. And all this time he will have to restrain, restrain up to the end and not admit to anybody that he was the only rider that knew what exactly had happened with the five Weyrs.
"Even to Kirana and Arinath? After all they've guessed that we were hiding something?" - Palinth asked. .
"Yes, even to them. Let's go home, to Benden!" T'rel decided that it had been impossible to delay more; it can seem suspiciously. The bronze habitually exhaled the rest of his flame remains upwards, in the sky clean from Threads, and transferred into black between.
Months passed by, rumors continued to increase, people made assumptions and didn't find any answer. Even searches on the Southern Continent, deserted since the second Pass, hadn't revealed anything. T'rel stubbornly kept silence, though the quarrel with Kirana had nearly cost him the Weyrleadership during the last mating flight, because the hostility of the rider had been transferred to her dragon. But Palinth had proved again that he was the fastest and the most agile bronze in the weyr Benden . Arinath had already laid three dozen eggs on Hatching Ground. Not so as many, as usual, but quite normally for the Interval.
"The Long Interval," Benden Weyrleader mentally corrected himself, preparing to fly.
The unsaid knowledge gave no rest, burnt down as a fire. T'rel became irritable, gloomy and unsociable, to the point where his own wingleaders avoided him. Kirana simply was could not stand him. Sometimes he amused himself with imaging how the future Benden Weyrleader was putting up with vainglorious T'ron and gloomy T'kul, how they again battled to the Threads, and maybe this time they'd get themselves killed... And his own existence, and existence of other weyrfolks, seemed to him more and more dreary and useless.
"Everything that I can do is nothing. Just to carry out routine duties of the Weyrleader as long as my destiny allows. Alas, Lessa didn't tell, how long I need to suffer. For sure there are names of Weyrleaders and dates of their life and death in the future Archives. Perhaps, it would be easier, if I knew..."
Palinth roared protestedingly his rider's gloomy thoughts. And the rider roused himself. They were going to the Fort - Fort Hold , he had to remember that- for the regular Turn's End, and he had to pull himself together.
T'rel went up to the main table where the Lords sat, leading Kirana hand in hand, and noticed that there were no unnecessary chairs this time. Last time, the holders still had forgotten that the only one Weyrleader would come, and it had been very awkwardly. The Weyrleaders of Benden sat down to table. Kirana smiled, and briskly started conversation with the Lady Fort, while T'rel kept silence.
After a while, the harpers playing music put aside their instruments, and the Masterharper, Varten, went on the stage. He raised up his hand, calling for attention. Conversations faded.
"I wish to present a new song to you. It will be included into the Teaching Ballads, and your children will begin learning it from tomorrow... But you, weyrleaders... Weyrleader T'rel," -– and here, the rider shuddered with understanding that the Masterharper had intentionally erred, and strained. - "And you, my dear Lords-holders, will hear this song the first".
A very awkward silence hung in the hall. Varten took a guitar, and strummed the first chords. These unusual chords, stirring up feelings, filled the room, weaving a disturbing spell of unease. And the words, too, were unsettling:
Gone away, gone ahead,
Echos roll unanswered.
Empty, open, dusty, dead.
Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?
Where have dragons gone together
Leaving weyrs to wind and weather,
Setting herdbeasts free of tether;
Gone, our safeguards, gone, but whither?
Have they flown to some new weyr
Where cruel Threads some others fear?
Are they worlds away from here?
Why, oh why the empty weyr?
T'rel listened to the Question Song, promised by Lessa, with clenched fists, and thought for the first time that he and the Masterharper should get drunk together somehow. Somewhere, where nobody will find them... Or somewhen... If the future was forbidden to them, it could possible to return to the past, at least for a short while. And to get drunk, with Benden wine, naturally. Let the others think of the Questions of the Song… It would be a long, long time before people found the Answers…
(c) Lyrics by Anne McCaffrey