I am here, she heard Ramoth say in her mind. We are together, and this reassurance was all that kept her from losing her grasp on sanity in that terrifying aeon of unpassing, timeless nothingness.

Someone had sense enough to call for Robinton. The Masterharper found F’lar sitting at the table, his face deathly pale, his eyes staring at the empty weyr. The craftmaster’s entrance, his calm voice, reached F’lar in his shocked numbness. He sent the others out with a peremptory wave.

“She’s gone. She tried to go back four hundred Turns,” F’lar said in a tight, hard voice.

The Masterharper sank into the chair opposite the Weyrleader.

“She took the tapestry back to Ruatha,” F’lar continued in that same choked voice. “I’d told her about F’nor’s returns. I told her how dangerous this was. She didn’t argue very much, and I know going between times had frightened her, if anything could frighten Lessa.” He banged the table with an important fist. “I should have suspected her. When she thinks she’s right, she doesn’t stop to analyze, to consider. She just does it!”

“But she’s not a foolish woman,” Robinton reminded him slowly. “Not even she would jump between times without a reference point. Would she?”

“ ‘Gone away, gone ahead’—that’s the only clue we have!”

“Now wait a moment,” Robinton cautioned him, then snapped his fingers. “Last night, when she walked upon the tapestry, she was uncommonly interested in the Hall door. Remember, she discussed it with Lytol.”

F’lar was on his feet and halfway down the passageway.

“Come on, man, we’ve got to get to Ruatha.”

Lytol lit every glow in the Hold for F’lar and Robinton to examine the tapestry clearly.

“She spent the afternoon just looking at it,” the Warder said, shaking his head. “You’re sure she has tried this incredible jump?”

“She must have. Mnementh can’t hear either her or Ramoth anywhere. Yet he says he can get an echo from Canth many Turns away and in the Southern Continent.” F’lar stalked past the tapestry. “What is it about the door, Lytol? Think, man!”

“It is much as it is now, save that there are no carved lintels, there is no outer Court or Tower . . .”

“That’s it. Oh, by the first Egg, it is so simple. Zurg said this tapestry is old. Lessa must have decided it was four hundred Turns, and she has used it as the reference point to go back between times.”

“Why, then, she’s there and safe,” Robinton cried, sinking with relief in a chair.

“Oh, no, harper. It is not as easy as that,” F’lar murmured, and Robinton caught his stricken look and the despair echoed in Lytol’s face.

“What’s the matter?”

“There is nothing between,” F’lar said in a dead voice. “To go between places takes only as much time as for a man to cough three times. Between four hundred Turns. . . .” His voice trailed off.

Who wills,

Can.

Who tries,

Does.