We begin to reach the realisation of what is happening. I do feel there should have been some better way of keeping records, but I am restricted by canon, and haven't "invented" anything extra, I hope.
1.2.200
"Counting!"
H'ric sat bolt upright, staring around the weyr. He had been dreaming of something, with counting in it, something he had heard, a song, or perhaps a chant, and he knew it was important.
Jiverny jumped back and nearly spilled the tray of klah and sweet rolls she had brought into the weyr.
"Goodness! Were you dreaming, H'ric?"
He blinked up at her, and then around at the weyr.
"You let me sleep in? When did you arrive home?"
"About an hour ago. You were still sleeping, and they told me you'd been drinking and carousing for the last three days at Benden Hold."
H'ric laughed and winced. Jiverny had been to Ista, where her mother had been ill, not with any fever, but some sort of insect bite that had festered.
"The Lord Holder of Benden sent his kind regards to you," H'ric continued as Jiverny set down the tray and poured two mugs of klah.
"As did the Lord Holder of Ista to you," she replied smartly, smiling at him.
"Yes. Counting. There's a counting song the children use - it's been on my mind, all mixed up with the passage of the Red Star and its wrong position."
"It's still visible."
"But unless there's been earth movements all over Pern that moved the Star Stones out of position in each Weyr, something's wrong with our counting."
"Father sent watchers up to Ista Weyr, and they marked down the position, as your man did as well," Jiverny replied. "It's really strange, H'ric, and I worry we've missed something in looking through the old records of the last Pass."
"I think the answer is further back than that. I'm not going to push at it. Something stirred last night, and I want to leave it for a while."
"No one's going anywhere for a while anyway," Jiverny replied. "We had snowfall in the early hours of the morning, I'm told, and there's ice and snow everywhere. Dangerous for man and beast."
"I was planning to go down to the beastholds and help out."
"That would be nice and warm," she agreed. "I've brought fresh fruit from Ista, so there's a generous piece for everyone with their morning cereal."
"And for me?"
She laughed and agreed, and slipped into the bed with him as they finished the klah and talked about things other than the one thing on their minds, the erratic behaviour of the Red Star.
H'ric paused at the children's classrooms later in the day to listen to them learning their numbers. Jerenic had found him and was walking with him, and now looked up at his father.
"Unto free," he said. "Dinner winner berit tru."
"Who said that?"
"D'wan."
H'ric picked the boy up and headed for the weyrling barracks. "Let's go and find D'wan."
"Ganz! See Ganz!"
H'ric had already seen the harper hurrying towards him, waving a piece of parchment.
"Weyrleader! I think I've found some of the answer!"
"And Jerenic's given me another clue. Come with me."
They crossed the bowl with Jerenic trying to catch the snowflakes whirling out of the grey skies.
"How was the Masterharper?" H'ric asked G'ance, who had been visiting his family and taken the chance to go to the Harperhall.
"As ever," G'ance replied. "I've brought back a couple of new songs, but they seem overly fluffy and romantic to me, but some of the riders might like them, and the tunes are at least danceable."
"And your family?"
"Pleased to see me. I was able to do some work for my father, shifting some heavy lumber brought down in the winter storms. F'sil and Caranth helped out and took some new reference points as well."
"That's good."
They reached the warmth of the weyrling barracks and K'mar, promoted to Weyrlingmaster, greeted them.
"D'wan? They're in the hall, I think, playing some sort of game of tag. It's too dangerous for them to be running around in the bowl."
"They can still knock themselves silly in the hall," H'ric said.
K'mar shrugged. "It's a danger every rider faces, and I grant you some young dragons can be panicked all too easily by damage to their rider. Those are traits I watch out for, I can assure you of that."
H'ric nodded. "I well remember the lectures, K'mar, in my time."
They came into the hall to find D'wan who came over at K'mar's call, and joined them in a smaller room.
"Counting games? Yes, there's a counting game the trader kids use, the counting itself is very old, pa always reckoned it came from some old language from the first settlers. It doesn't make any sense now, but it's just part of the game."
"Dinner winner berit tru," Jerenic said, and D'wan laughed.
"That's the one, little 'un. It talks about a queen as well, but there've never been any kings and queens on Pern, have there?"
"Only the gold dragons," H'ric agreed. "C'lin reckoned every rider should know all the golds going back to Faranth, and he could recite a good few of them. I only remembered a few names, because they had a rhythm, Orolith, Pamalith, Isimith."
"Isimith! Was there a gold called Isimith?"
H'ric nodded. "Way back! C'lin reckoned that was - oh - almost back to the beginning. He said Isimith lived too long after the end of a Pass. I never understood that, because a dragon only lives to the end of its rider's life."
"Unless there are eggs hardening," K'mar put in. "Why would you know the name, D'wan? You were never around dragons before."
"It's in the game," D'wan said. "It must be the same name, although it's been distorted over time. A lot of time."
"What's the rhyme?" G'ance asked, and D'wan flushed up but chanted aloud.
"In the Turn Queen Isima died,
The Holders said the riders lied, dinahwin, bayret, truer
In the Turn Queen Isima died,
The Red Star passed a Starstone wide, karharah, cooeejer, shesher
In the Turn Queen Isima died,
No Thread came, it turned aside, shockter, uckter, nayner
In the Turn Queen Isima died,
Four hundred Turns and fifty beside, jayner."
H'ric stared blankly at him.
"It's nonsense," he said. "What sort of words are those? A Starstone wide - four hundred and fifty Turns?"
"The end words, the nonsense words, count to ten," G'ance said at once. "But take them off, Weyrleader, take them off and listen to the song!"
"A Starstone wide - yes, the Red Star is off by about that width."
G'ance waved his parchment.
"And listen to something I found at Harperhall - the Archivist was throwing out old stuff and I asked for some not too heavily used parchment. He gave me this block of parchment, telling me it was just rough copies people had made of older stuff before it was copied into the archives. A lot of it's been scraped back and reused, but I could distinguish this - we are going as they say Isimith went, too long - something something - an interval - I think this is part of the records they found at Fort Weyr."
"Too long an Interval - a Long Interval!" H'ric shouted. "Thread isn't coming!"
"Was there a Long Interval, before?" D'wan asked. "Is it in the records?"
"It's in the records at Harper Hall, and at Healer Hall, because I asked there as well," G'ance said. "They'd noted when there was plague, at Healer Hall, but they also noted that at the end of the Fourth Pass, the Red Star passed us by."
"Thread's not coming?" D'wan asked, in a bewildered voice.
a
"Not yet," K'mar reminded him. "It did come again, even if the people thought it was gone forever! The Lord Holders and Craftmasters will tell you this time it has gone forever because the riders took their dragons - wherever they went - but the Red Star is still in our skies, Weyrleader, and it will come around again, as sure as Faranth was hatched from the egg in the First Pass!"
"It would explain the way the Red Star isn't getting any bigger, and now seems to be moving to one side, back to wherever it comes from," H'ric said. "I need to have another look at the records."
"We need to try and put them in some sort of date order," G'ance said as they came into the Records room, Jiverny following them.
"What's the excitement? Have you found something new?"
H'ric rapidly recited D'wan's verse. "We think this must be the middle of a Long Interval - that there's another two hundred or so Turns before Thread comes again."
"A Long Interval? Yes, it would explain why the queens aren't rising as frequently as you'd expect. And perhaps why they aren't bothered about it. But - the empty Weyrs - they wouldn't have known - would they?"
G'ance read his few words again, and shook his head.
"This does seem to imply they knew they were at the beginning of a Long Interval. But with the Red Star fading, it wouldn't be obvious. Something else happened to tell them, to alert them which allowed them to go. What that was, I can't imagine, and they didn't - of course - leave us any record of it."
"But the Benden Weyrleader knew of it," Jiverny said at once. "One man was told, and he carried it through to his death, and passed it on, and R'tin would have passed it on in his turn. Although by now - he would by now have told everyone it was a Long Interval - wouldn't he?"
"Unless the Weyrleader wasn't told that detail," H'ric said. "Unless all the Benden Weyrleader back then knew was that the dragons had gone - and that they'd return."
"I suggest you leave a very stiff note, Weyrleader, for the future Weyrleaders, to keep safe until the other dragons do return," G'ance said dryly as he spread out the records of the queen dragons and their broods. "These aren't complete, but here - recorded at the end of the Fourth Pass - Isimith laid the last and biggest of her clutches and never any more."
"Was Isimith a Benden gold?" D'wan asked. "Here's the others you remember, Weyrleader, at the same time, Orolith of Fort, Pamalith of Igen. Someone's scratched a couplet in the margin here. The biggest and the best, then dwindled with the rest."
"The Fourth Pass was delayed and now the Eighth as well. I wonder if that's a pattern that'll be repeated?"
"So we have another two hundred or two hundred and fifty Turns at the most, before Thread, and hopefully the missing dragons, return," Jiverny said into the silence as the men studied the records. "Who's going to tell the conclave?"
H'ric looked across at her.
"We'll both have to go," he said quietly. "This is too important not to tell them, but it's not going to be pleasant."