It seemed to be only a heartbeat before Andova awoke. She lay in the darkness wondered what had woken her, and realised it must be the next day, although the closed shutters made it seem so dark.
She pulled them open and the door opened at the same instant. Andova grabbed for the blanket as a woman came in with a tray of food and klah.
"You're awake, then," she said unnecessarily. "Master Oldive said you were to sleep all you could, and wake naturally. Eat this up and come through when you're dressed."
Andova thanked her and uncovered the dish of cereal with a spoon of stewed fruit in it, the pitcher of klah, eating quickly and then dressing, finding her own bag in a corner of the room. Feeling better, she picked up the tray and went out into the corridor, wanting to find the kitchens, but a healer apprentice was stationed by the door and took the tray, waving her to go through into the Hall.
Coming into the main Hall, Andova was aware of people moving purposefully around, and the familiar smell of some of the medicine they brewed at home.
To her astonishment her father was seated at the big table in the Hall, with her uncle Porgrun standing watchfully by his shoulder. Piled in front of him were the Record Books from the Muniment Room. The Master Harper sat across from him, and with him was the tall bronze rider B'den.
Porgrun saw her and gestured her over, and Andova came to stand by the table.
"The bronze rider came to fetch us," Porgrun told her. "And to take a good look around our hold whilst he was about it."
Master Harper Robinton smiled up at her.
"And is this the final verse, my dear? The one you were so reluctant to tell us?
Free and high, free and high,
Fly over time to guard us all.
With wings of power and guiding mind,
Fly here, this Pass's Thread to defy."
Andova looked instinctively at her father who nodded.
"That one, and several similar ending verses, Master Robinton, kept in our family records."
"Young journeyman Viman didn't seem to know them?"
"His grandfather doesn't think there's any truth in the stories," Porgrun said. "Regretfully, I have to say that my great uncle is not a very thinking person."
"If he's Viman's grandfather, doesn't that make you his brother?"
"No, he's a generation back from us, and quarrelled very successfully with our grandfather Danva. They divided the wealth of the hold and made their own way."
"And you kept the records."
Kaval nodded, laying his hand on the records.
"We always knew we'd see the dragon riders return, even though the chain was broken. It was no surprise to us when the tithe arrived from Fort Weyr, and we had sufficient put by to pay it immediately."
"Not many did," Robinton said in a neutral voice.
"But they did not have prior knowledge, did they?"
"You didn't share this particular morsel of knowledge?"
Kaval gave a mirthless smile.
"I've been called a great many things in my life, and never aimed to have madman added to the list," he said coldly. "I travelled to Ruatha to see the tapestry in Lord Fax's day. The one that was new when Dansovik was alive at High Reaches. And I tried to mend the chain, but to try and fix one night was impossible."
"We came down into High Reaches and I knew at once that something was wrong," B'den said. "There were no welcoming fires, no pitchers of klah to warm us from such a long time between. We could spare no time to look, but I took one swing over the land, and saw the graves, and that Danvik's hold was abandoned." He shrugged, shaking his head. "We needed to get on, so I couldn't find out, and then we landed here in this time, with Thread to fight, and weyrs to clean and refurnish. Danvik's hold was completely gone, overgrown and turned to woodland."
"The family came south to Vikna's ancestral lands when illness swept away those who knew," Kaval said. "There are records to show that as well, but of course no one wrote down the exact times."
"Her name was Andoya," B'den said, looking directly at Andova. "Your name, but shifted with time, they tell me."
"Yes, I am named after her."
"She came twice more, the last time as an old lady, with her son, and Kvaloy had died the previous Turn, she told me, and that she would nevermore see me in this life. He had written me a few lines, and I keep them always."
He fell silent, and Kaval turned the pages of the record book.
"Here, in her own hand. This is the last time I have seen him, B'den, dear Auntie Smola's love, the most handsome dragon rider, the best dancer she had ever met. You and I, Auntie, will dance together for long ages before he joins us to dance again."
Robinton traced the letters of the name of that long-dead person, the faithfully kept records of a family across the Turns.
"To have come forward in such a leap of faith is - astonishing," Kaval continued. "As Vikna himself wrote - here - they came out of the darkness and gave us a sense of time ever flowing on this world of ours, and the reassurance that deeds of great daring will still be done by heroes and heroines of every age."
"Yes, Andoya did say that when he settled, Vikna lost that ugly accent and pretence that he was anything but an educated man," B'den said dryly. "And I have for you the words that Kvaloy wrote to me."
He reached into an inner pocket and took out a leather folder, and handed over a folded piece of parchment.
Master Robinton cleared his throat and read the lines B'den carried next to his heart.
"B'den my friend, my dragon rider friend,
Take me with you on your journey.
Take me onwards to our destiny
Through Turns and Turns and Turns
Your dragon calls, he waits to fly,
Both of you journeying onward.
Let me come with you, flying unknown
Through Turns and Turns and Turns.
We'll not meet again, my dragon rider friend,
In the future you'll live without me.
Do not forget me, B'den my friend,
Though Turns turn me to dust."
Andova was sure she was not the only one to be having trouble with tears, and then suddenly Master Healer Oldive was at Master Harper Robinton's side, a journeyman sliding a tray of drinks onto the table and then going again.
"I sense that this meeting is fairly fraught," Master Oldive said in his gentle voice. "Let us take a drink, each, of this refreshing brew, and order our thoughts, yes?"
In the very ordinariness of taking the mugs and adding sweetener, handing the spoon around, everyone calmed down, and B'den refolded his parchment and put it away.
"I understand you have brought me your books of herbal remedies," Master Oldive said to Kaval. "Kind of you, and perhaps anticipating the talk I would like to have with you about your daughter Andova."
"You want her to study here for a while?" Kaval sipped his drink, glancing at Andova. "It must be as she wishes, of course."
"I want to see Falla through her pregnancy," Andova replied. "Then yes - I would welcome the chance to study."
"That would be acceptable," Master Oldive replied. "This alarming illness seems to be under control, and I think we'll not be surprised by it again, so I can release my patients as they recover. You took no ill effects, bronze rider?"
"Thank you, no. Not in this time nor in the past."
Master Oldive nodded. "Difficult times for you, I understand that. Duty and obligation are all very well, but you must forge a new life. It is as well that the dragon riders as a group have such strong ties to each other and their dragons."
"My wing is my most pressing concern," B'den admitted.
"As it should be, certainly. I am working with the Weyr Leaders, however, to ensure there is adequate time and place for rest in this Pass, which I think you did not have in your original Pass?"
B'den frowned at him.
"Time and place for rest? We roster the wings, Master Healer, to enable us to rest."
"But if you could come ahead, could you not also go back? This Pass has lasted nine Turns. Before that, there was no Thread, and Southern Weyr was established. It is in my mind to make a place where dragons and their riders can rest with no hint of Thread to disturb their dreams."
B'den looked at the concerned faces around him.
"I have known nothing but Thread," he said slowly. "I was born when the Eighth Pass was at its height, and I will die before this one ends. I would accept your offer, if it can be done, Master Healer, and I'm sure a lot of dragon riders would also, under the agreement of our Weyr Leaders. Timing it there and back, with the interval of a few days, has much to commend it."
Master Oldive nodded, making a note for himself.
"That is well. This has been fortuitous, all of you, that we should meet like this on neutral ground. I must go - I will see you before you leave, Holder Kaval, and talk about your daughter?"
"I will be sure to do that, Master Healer, thank you."
They watched him walk away, a distinctive figure due to the hunch of his back, and Master Robinton closed the Record Books he had been perusing.
"This is an extraordinary record, Kaval. I would be pleased to study it further."
"I don't think it will be straying far from my hold in the future," Kaval responded. Master Robinton nodded as he stood up.
"I too have duties to be about. It has been a pleasure, all of you."
B'den looked around at them.
"I have to return to High Reaches. Tell me, Andova, do you wear her locket?"
Andova reached into the throat of her dress and extracted the fine golden chain, with the gold locket swinging on it, and he nodded with a smile at her, and time foreshortened so that she knew what that far distant ancestress had felt, and indeed all the girls who had danced with B'den in those times.
He gave her a small bow, including her father and uncle with a sweeping glance.
"I am pleased to know Danvik's line has lived and prospered," he said formally. "That gives me great comfort because as a dragon rider there is no telling if something might happen to snuff out my life. I have not been one to scatter children unthinkingly around this world, and I tell you - I am as sure in my own mind as I can be that your family are my descendants."
"I will make sure this is written up in the family records," Kaval responded. "You are welcome, always, to my hold, of course, and anyone else who is a friend of yours."
He stood up to clasp hands, as did Porgun, and with a grin, B'den kissed Andova and then he too was leaving the Hall.
"Bold, and over bold, these dragon riders," Kaval said with a smile. "And a young man by the name of Mendal was hanging around asking after you, daughter?"
"Oh - um - yes, father, we have spent some time together."
He gave her a hug and a kiss, an unexpected demonstration, and Porgrun gathered up the Record Books to carry them to their rooming house, and Andova followed them out into the sunshine of another day, a day when she would begin the rest of her life, she thought, and it had expanded vastly now, with the knowledge of what had gone before, and the bright hopes for the future of herself and all of Pern, guarded by the unselfish heroes of this age, those immortalised in the ballads.
"Brightest and best are the ones who will guard us,
Come from the darkness and lend us their aid,
Red Star in the East, you threaten our ending,
Riders and dragons, you safeguard our world."
So there we have it, and we bid farewell to this tale of Pern-between-the-cracks. Thank you for following the story, and for all your kind reviews.