“You can’t come, love,” F’lar told Lessa, confused that she was following him out to Mnementh. She could handle Mardra. She’d have to. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.

“Not till you’ve had this numbweed.” She glared up at him as fiercely as Mardra had and fumbled at his belt again. “You won’t last if you don’t. And Mnementh won’t take you up until I do.”

F’lar stared at her, saw Mnementh’s great eye gleaming at him and knew she meant it.

“But—he wouldn’t—” he stammered.

“Oh, wouldn’t he?” flashed Lessa, but she had the belt loose, and he gasped as he felt the cold of the salve on the burning lips of the wound. “I can’t keep you from going. You’ve got to, I know. But I can keep you from killing yourself with such heroics.” He heard something rip, saw her tearing a sleeve from her new gown into bandage-length strips. “Well, I guess they’re right when they say green is an unlucky color. You certainly don’t get to wear it long.”

She quickly pressed the material against him, his wound already numbing. Deftly overlapping the outsized tunic, she tightened the wide belt to hold the bandage securely in place.

“Now, go. It’s shallow but long. Get the Threadfall under control and get back. I’ll do my part here.” She gave his hand a final grip and, picking up her skirts, half-ran up the ramp, as if she were too busy to watch him leave.

She’s worried. She’s proud: Let’s go.

As Mnementh wheeled smartly upward, F’lar heard the sound of music, gitars accompanying a ragged chorus. How like the Harper to have the appropriate music for this occasion, he thought.

Drummer, beat, and piper, blow.

Harper, strike, and soldier, go.

Free the flame and sear the grasses

Till the dawning Red Star passes.

Odd, thought F’lar, four hours later, as he and Mnementh returned to Telgar with the wings from Igen, it was over Telgar, seven Turns ago, that the massed Weyrs flew against the second Fall of Thread.

He stifled keen regret at the recollection of that triumphant day when the six Weyrs had been solidly in accord. And yet, the duel at Telgar Hold today had been as inevitable as Lessa’s flight backward in time to bring up the Oldtimers. There was a subtle symmetry, a balance of good and bad, a fateful compensation. (His side ached. He suppressed pain and fatigue. Mnementh would catch it and then he’d catch it from Lessa. Fine thing when a man’s dragon acted nursy. But the effects of that half-kettle of numbweed Lessa’d slathered on him were wearing off.) He watched as the wings circled to land. All the riders had been bidden back to Telgar.