Something stirred in the Alabaster tower. It was half as if the entire population got flutters in their stomachs, and half as if everyone blinked at the same exact moment in time. When everyone roused themselves out of their strange reverie...
Something was different. Very different.
The air seemed saltier, headier. There was a wind blowing from a direction which it usually did not. A number of fire lizards flew around the tower frantically, inside, nearly braining themselves as if they’d forgotten how to move between spaces.
With a sigh, Lord Holder Engell leaned back in his thickly padded leather chair, and closed his eyes. “Well it’s about time,” he breathed. He readied himself, momentarily, for what would surely come next. The knock at the thick wooden door was urgent, and did not stop with two or three raps, but continued on until Engell rose out of his chair and moved to answer it. There were muffled voices on the other side of the door, just as urgent as the knocking.
He was not entirely sure he wanted to answer the door. But he knew he would have to, shortly if not immediately.
The door was silent on its hinges, but when it opened it brought loud confused voices brightly into the Lord Holder’s office.
“What’s happened?” Demanded one of the minor holders. “What is going on, Engell?” Others similarly chanted in, without regard for rank or patience. But they said approximately the same thing: they were confused, they were angry, and they wanted to know what had just gone on.
Engell held up his hand, and eventually the group of distressed Holders quieted down.
“What has happened, my friends, is that we have moved.”
He waited a moment, and then precisely when he thought they would, the holders began to shout again. “Move? What do you mean, ‘moved’? How can a building ‘move’?”
“How does a dragon move? How do you breathe? How do we do anything?” Engell said, patience wearing a bit thin. Perhaps... he ought to have allowed these rabble to be left behind... But no. They were valuable as heads of their Holds, and they would be required to set up things ... here.
The blank and terrified eyes of the group finally met the pale blue ones which stared at them gently and calmly. Engell blinked again, for effect more than anything else.
“Moved. As in, holders, we are no longer where we were. Nowhere close, in fact.” He breathed deeply, and heard something beyond, something in his head which alerted him that the other changes had been made at last. “We are no longer on Pern.”
There was some silence. Though he did not have Kalkin’s senses, Engell swore that he heard the hearts of the holders before him racing. And where was that healer of his anyway? A cold stab of worry pierced Engell’s mind: what if he hadn’t been near enough when they moved? He mentally felt about, this new world was apt to enhance his normally hidden powers, and it was a simple matter of locating the time-tossed healer-rider. Though not close to the tower, he was there, he and his dragon would be fine. They among all his riders would be able to stumble upon Alabaster in its new setting, even if they were to get lost. Then Engell was brought back to the present, when one Holder cried out, “but what about my Hold? What about my children?”
Calmly, Engell placed his hand upon the man’s shoulder. He looked from one man to the next, and wondered why they never allowed their wives to come to the meetings – since most of their women were by far and away better suited to the job of running a hold. It was more than good enough for his great-elder Viridia and her ilk, it would be so again soon.
“Your holds and people, animals and the like, are all well and fine. They have been moved with us. Do not ask me how, please. Just do not ask.” They wouldn’t like the answer anyway.
“But where are we?” One of them cried.
“That is a much better question, and one I can answer.” Engell pushed past the group, noticed there were many other people standing in the hallway looking out the single large window which decorated the floor. When those people noticed that their Lord Holder was present, they quieted and watched him walk toward that window, giving him room to do so.
“We are on a place,” he said, looking out at the brilliant blue-green sea that sat very close to the tower, “called Alskyr. On an island. We have been invited here, and I considered the options, and felt they were necessary to aid our causes.”
“Your causes maybe,” said one holder with a growl. “Your causes are always hidden, Engell, and we’ve never been privy to them.”
With a careful, calm glance at the man, Engell said, “correct. And you never will be.” But he immediately tossed a mental power at the group around him, to erase that little slip. Like his distant relative, E’tan, he could be quite the manipulator. But unlike him, he chose to keep his presence where he was actually needed.
He looked out of the tower, where he could see the dark, rocky shore. There was a bit of land between the tower and the sea, but only enough to make the place look sufficiently impressive from the ocean. The high peak of the green island was to the east, not far away. The lower peak could be seen, but only barely, over the horizon to the west. Between, there lay a great expanse of grassland. And around them, the wild and beautiful sea.
He hoped that everyone else had made it properly.
KSHAU PROTECTORATE ISLE/NEXUS
“That’s it then?” Asked Shard of the blond-haired man beside him. Their dragons shifted around on the warm ground, hundreds of spans above the sea that surrounded the Protectorate’s Isle. Though the Isle itself had come away from their old world, it did not completely rest upon the current one either. It was phased between several. The feeling of being fuzzy around the edges would not leave either man, nor their dragons.
“That’s it.” E’tan confirmed. It would be their greatest achievement, if only some of them would really be allowed to remember it. E’tan’s dust-grit mental voice cut through Shard’s distracted mind and gave him a bit of encouragement.
Everything went just fine. All the qualified riders and their dragons did their parts admirably well.
“Did I?” Shard asked, “I don’t remember.” Jeremoth tilted his blue head at his rider.
‘Of course we did a good job. We always do the best job ever.’ The dragon thought.
E’tan let a rare smile pass his thin lips. “He’s got the right attitude. I hope it grows on you, my friend.”
Shard said nothing, but his eyes held a world behind them. Finally, ill at ease with his friend waiting for him to say something, Shard quipped, “will I get to be blue again?”
E’tan laughed hard, his thin frame shuddering with it. “You’ve always been blue, and you always will be to me, Shard.”
“... Will I get to be Aern again?” The taller man asked, quietly, more serious.
E’tan returned to his own somber typicality. “You’ve rarely been Aern, and I doubt he’d want to be you. Let that rest.”
“Rest it for me, then.” Shard said, closing his eyes. Jeremoth flared his wings beyond, but brown Utainth near him settled the dragon.
Within moments, Shard was returned to his own self, remembering precious little of the whys and wherefores of what had transpired upon a world that was not his own.
“And if you can do that trick to all of our people too... I’d much appreciate it.” Shard muttered, the half-soothing half-terrifying touch of his old friend finally passing through his mind. It left in its wake a sort of scar, a spot which could never be touched without feeling something amiss.
“Even I have limits,” E’tan replied finally.
Shard looked down at E’tan, and smirked. “You lie so well even you sometimes believe yourself. Go and do whatever it is you’re going to do. I need to ... Find our wings, and get my bearings straight.”
When E’tan looked up at his friend, the blond man found that Shard had regained the blue tint to his skin at last, and the length on his white-curled hair grew almost moment by moment, into a plume that only E’tan recognized. Ahh, Rue would be furious for not having been told about this little twist. That her mate and partner was about as far from human as a dragon was from a flitter. The long blue tines had also reasserted themselves along Shard’s arms, and he appeared to remember them as he walked. Shard’s sure step turned to a long stretch up to his dragon with hands the same shade as the blue.
“I’m me again,” Shard said, and Jeremoth snorted.
‘You’re always you, like he said. Now, can we find something to eat?’
Shard climbed onto the dragon’s neck, and as always without a harness clung on while the dragon lifted his large wings.
HEALING DEN
Dark blue eyes peered out from rich brown eyelids. From under narrow ebony eyebrows, they squinted at something just beyond sight. The popping sound which alerted Baeris to the shifting had been so subtle as to be ignored by nearly everyone in the Den. Dulath stuck her apple-gold-green nose into the woman’s room.
“Do you think they did everything properly?” Dulath asked, and was suddenly surprised to find that she spoke aloud. Baeris was as well, but as usual she took it with ease.
“I think so. I think that wherever we are, we’ll be where we’re most needed.”
“That is what healers do, my friend, is it not?” Dulath rubbed her small head against Baeris’ shoulder, nearly bowling her over. The just-bigger-than-a-horse sized dragoness breathed a warm loving breath onto her rider, and turned out of the room. To her pleasure she retained the ability to speak mentally. ‘I will make sure all our eggs are fine. And I will make sure that their mothers know how to return to their own homes once we are finished with these sands.’
“That’s a good idea, Dulath. Go do that... I’ve had the strangest dreams lately. That girl who ... died, seems intent on remaining for a dragon and at first I did not think she could ever be serious. But now...” (Read the Halloween Flight and Hatching!)
Baeris looked out of the dark window and onto the starry plain beyond. It was as if everything the humans had cut out of their mountain retreat, every part which they used, had been removed whole and stuck out into the middle of the night sky. She absently wondered if there was ever going to be a sunny day, or a rainstorm, or anything else. It wasn’t quite natural to be out here, seemingly unprotected.
But whereever ‘here’ was, it was beautiful, and the temperature was pleasantly warm. It got colder where it was required, she noticed while doing rounds in the large Healing Den: where the cold food was stored, and where the chilly bath chambers led; then grew quite warm as she neared the sands and the flitter rooms. She looked over one of the egg piles in the flit room and furrowed her eyebrows.
“What’s this?” She said to herself, as she noticed that some of the eggs weren’t the same as the others. They were slightly bigger, more oval. And, upon picking one up, she discovered they were much heavier. She barely noticed the scattering of extremely tiny eggs as well, which were dotting the warm sand near that new odd pile. “I wonder how that got there?” She mused, and held the egg close to her cheek. She could feel something inside it moving, but it would be a while before anything came from it. She would never be so lucky as to have another Striker pop out of an egg the way he did.
And where was that blasted blue anyway? She looked around, hoping that he’d pop in from the null-space of between, but... He did not. She hoped that he would make it to their new home. Baeris sent a mental nudge, a plea, for the flitter to come home to her shoulder where he belonged.
PIECES OF EARTH, PIECES OF WORLDS
“Are you quite done yet?” T’shen asked, holding the elder’s hair back as the man wretched into a low bush.
“Does it look like I’m bloody done yet?” Kalkin growled fiercely. He sighed, kneeling, and wiped his mouth off carefully. Greatfully he took a sip of water from T’shen’s offered bota, careful not to get it dirty by holding it expertly away from his head and letting the spout douse his lips and mouth. He let the stream cover his face a bit, cooling him off. Kalkin drew in a breath and dried his face off. He still looked slightly dizzy.
“I can’t understand why it’s any different heading here,” T’shen commented, but Kalkin stood unsteadily and needed a little assistance while they headed back to their dragons. “I mean, it’s not even ‘space’ really. Just... well, you know.”
“I know... It’s not space if it’s not in the same universe, is it.” Kalkin groaned again, but only rubbed the back of his neck. He noticed that his trio of annoying flitters had been joined by a fourth, another blue. A big familiar looking one. “Striker, get back to Baeris. She’ll be missing you terribly.” He said, and the large blue (who was the same size as Kalkin’s bronze Courage) cheeped at him angrily. “I realize that, but you’ll forget where to go. Go to her side now.” Kalkin waved his long fingers at the flitter, and Echo chirped to aid the decision for the other blue.
At last, the healer’s friend disappeared, hopefully on his way to the proper time, place and dimension. All he really needed to remember was the smell of Baeris’ beautiful hair, and the comfort of her shoulder...
Kalkin soon found that both Courage and Echo had wound up back on his own shoulders, while white Tsuki danced along the grass and skittered under another bush.
“How do you do that?” T’shen asked.
“Talk to the flitters? I am very good at languages.” Kalkin grinned widely. “Sixth helps sometimes.” The tiny blue dragon nearby chirruped with a sing-song tale of happy hunting. The tall dark skinned man waved Sixth off. “You don’t need to help right now.”
The starcrafter turned currier smirked at the old healer. “Well, let’s get going. We have to see that everything is up and running now.”
“Why me...” Kalkin moaned, but continued to stride beside the other man.
“Because you have been to that site, and you know technology when you see it. What have we here?”
Kalkin looked over the ruined hulk of a ship, and nodded. “Yup. Technology.” He nodded curtly. T’shen nearly choked laughing. “Yes, I said ‘yup’. You have a problem with that, starcrafter?” Kalkin moved over the rubble near the wreckage, and examined a part which he then pried up with brute strength. The sharp whine of bending metal made T’shen wince.
“That’s still amazing...” T’shen said. He tilted his head as Arfeth bespoke him privately. “No, I think he wants to do it himself. Let him to it. You’re too heavy to stand on that anyway.” He paused. “Sixth is busy chasing butterflies, Arfeth. Why not go join him?”
Kalkin meanwhile had opened a jagged hole in the side of what appeared to be a structure made of metal and glass. Long-melted glass, long-eroded metal. They descended carefully into the darkness. Both men easily adjusted to the dim light inside. Kalkin picked over a broken object and stepped to the side, so T’shen could see what he’d found.
“So... this is ‘it’ huh?” T’shen asked. Kalkin nodded. “What does it do?”
“It breaks a lot.” Kalkin said, the awareness of irony dripping from his low voice. “It breaks things. The world. Dimensions. That sort of thing.”
Though T’shen did understand he wanted to hear about it from the elder. “Why did you make it?” Kalkin almost jolted at that.
“You assume much,” Kalkin said, but he gazed at his handiwork and snarled at it. “Because this place was not enough. It was too much in ways as well. Because I knew there were other universes where I could have lived my own life and not ... well,” he chuckled bitterly, “That wasn’t true at all. I never get to live ‘my’ way. It’s always at someone else’s whim.” He paused. “Just like Shard’s, only at least I know who’s manipulating me.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” T’shen said. “So. It’s going to work when you get it back there? You’ll be able to put it together? It looks pretty beat up.”
Kalkin kicked at the mess of wiring and glass. “It’s just fine. Are you going to want to take it or do you want to call in the Uplift wing?” Kalkin asked, and T’shen nodded.
“I’m not picking that crap up. Let the dragons do it.”
I heard that! Arfeth mentally shouted, and the men laughed, as they emerged from the strange ruins.
“I never thought I would see this place again...” Kalkin said, looking around the landscape. Perhaps one era long ago, it had been a city. Or more than that, a metropolis. Had he ever really been there? T’shen wasn’t sure. Perhaps his dragon had gotten VERY lost? Or perhaps the lunatic ravings that he’d heard tales about, when Kalkin would drop his careful exterior, were actually true: he had never been from their world at all. Perhaps he really had traveled to Pern the hard way, but that still never quite sat well with T’shen.
There were so many other variables in their new lives. Shard had hinted that he was somehow different than he seemed. The whole Protectorate was far more complicated than anyone ever expected. And now, it would be split up again, in a way that no one could really understand.
When the Uplift dragons and their brave, strong riders arrived to the world where Kalkin’s life started, they were all a bit disoriented. Even more so when several of their members suddenly ‘reverted’ to their ‘normal’ state.
Tsukiya, Kyani, Than and others adopted odd new features. Catlike ones. Had they been like that all along? No one quite knew. But their dragons were surely aware, and they hardly reacted at all. With their strong dragons aiding them, they lift this one odd piece of rubble off the ground, and return to the Protectorate’s Isle with it.
T’shen and Kalkin watched as it wavered in the air with the dragons surrounding it. When they teleported away, the pair of men quietly went back to their blue dragons, and followed.
MAMA TANI'S
"So they've gone now, have they?" The tall tiger-striped woman sighed. She looked around at the small homestead she ran, and leaned against the wall. "I suppose that I can have my dragon now, huh?"
I hope so! I like you, and I missed you! Where have you been, anyway? Called a mental voice from a pale green dragoness. She was joined by a large sleek pale bronze, her mate.
"I've been here. Well, no not 'here' but ..." Tani growled, and this time she seemed to mean it. The whiskers on her face twitched and she rediscovered them as if for the first time. "it's been so long..." she whispered. "I love having a tail..."
She began to chase it, when her lover Ilya arrived. He caught her tail for her. "I'm back, did you miss me?"
"Did I ever!" Tani cried, "I've had to raise like seventeen kids and there are more coming! They're not going to the same place any more... We're not on the old world."
"Then..." Ilya looked around, and saw the other furry folk showing up, some on their dragons and some waiting to get their own. "Where is here?"
"Nexus, or something," Raanatani said, simply. "If you want I can show you the computer room."
"You've got a computer room?"
"We've got electricity," Tani proudly said, beaming and showing off her fangs. "And I think pretty soon we'll be adding on a dragon housing area too. I mean, look at em! They can't keep going back to human - most of us hate it. It's best if they stay here."
Ilya licked his lips and then grinned. "Let's see those computers. I wanna play some games."