The Question Song is one of those peculiarities of time travel, a song inspired by the very person it later inspired.
The Question Song was written by MasterHarper Creline at the start of the Second Long Interval after the Weyrs had been abandoned. It was ostensibly in response to the strange abandonment, but in actuality, had been inspired by Lessa, who needed it to be written so that, at the start of the Ninth Pass, she could hear it and figure out what had happened. It contained essential clues given by Lessa to Creline to work into it.
- Gone away, gone ahead
- Echoes away, gone unanswerèd
- Empty, open, dusty, dead,
- Where have all the Weyrfolk fled?
- Where have dragons gone together?
- Leaving Weyrs to wind and weather?
- Setting herdbeasts free of tether?
- Gone, our safeguards, gone, but whither?
- Have they flown to some new Weyr?
- Where cruel Threads some others fear?
- Are they worlds away from here?
- Why, oh, why, the empty Weyr?