Dragonquest

  “A Weyr can’t have too much numbweed,” Manora said briskly.

  “That isn’t the only pot that’s showing cracks, either,” Lessa cut in, testily. “And if we’ve got to gather more numbweed to make up what we’ve lost . . .”

  “There’s the second crop at the Southern Weyr,” Brekke suggested, then looked flustered for speaking up.

  But the look Lessa turned on Brekke was grateful. “I’ve no intention of shorting you, Brekke, when Southern Weyr does the nursing of every fool who can’t dodge Thread.”

  “I’ll take the pot. I’ll take the pot,” F’nor cried with humorous assurance. “But first, I’ve got to have more in me than a cup of klah.”

  Lessa blinked at him, her glance going to the entrance and the late afternoon sun slanting in on the floor.

  “It’s only just past noon in Telgar Hold,” he said, patiently. “Yesterday I was all day Searching at Southern Boll so I’m hours behind myself.” He stifled a yawn.

  “I’d forgotten. Any luck?”

  “Canth didn’t twitch an ear. Now let me eat and get away from the stink. Don’t know how you stand it.”

  Lessa snorted. “Because I can’t stand the groans when you riders don’t have numbweed.”

  F’nor grinned down at his Weyrwoman, aware that Brekke’s eyes were wide in amazement at their good-natured banter. He was sincerely fond of Lessa as a person, not just as Weyrwoman of Benden’s senior queen. He heartily approved of F’lar’s permanent attachment of Lessa, not that there seemed much chance that Ramoth would ever permit any dragon but Mnementh to fly her. As Lessa was a superb Weyrwoman for Benden Weyr, so F’lar was the logical bronze rider. They were well matched as Weyrwoman and Weyrleader, and Benden Weyr—and Pern—profited. So did the three Holds bound to Benden for protection. Then F’nor remembered the hostility of the people at Southern Boll yesterday until they learned that he was a Benden rider. He started to mention this to Lessa when Manora broke his train of thought.

  “I am very disturbed by this discoloration, F’nor,” she said. “Here. Show Mastersmith Fandarel these,” and she put two small pots into the larger vessel. “He can see exactly the change that occurs. Brekke, would you be kind enough to serve F’nor?”

  “No need,” F’nor said hastily and backed away, pot swinging from his hand. He used to be annoyed that Manora, who was only his mother, could never rid herself of the notion that he was incapable of doing for himself. She was certainly quick enough to make her fosterlings fend for themselves, as his foster mother had made him.

  “Don’t drop the pot when you go between, F’nor,” was her parting admonition.

  F’nor chuckled to himself. Once a mother, always a mother, he guessed, for Lessa was as broody about Felessan, the only child she’d borne. Just as well the Weyrs practiced fostering. Felessan—as likely a lad to Impress a bronze dragon as F’nor had seen in all his Turns at Searching—got along far better with his placid foster mother than he would have with Lessa had she had the rearing of him.

  As he ladled out a bowl of stew, F’nor wondered at the perversity of women. Girls were constantly pleading to come to Benden Weyr. They’d not be expected to bear child after child till they were worn-out and old. Women in the Weyrs remained active and appealing. Manora had seen twice the Turns that, for instance, Lord Sifer of Bitra’s latest wife had, yet Manora looked younger. Well, a rider preferred to seek his own loves, not have them foisted on him. There were enough spare women in the Lower Caverns right now.

  The klah might as well be medicine. He couldn’t drink it. He quickly ate the stew, trying not to taste his food. Perhaps he could pick something up at Smithcrafthall at Telgar Hold.

  “Canth! Manora’s got an errand for us,” he warned the brown dragon as he strode from the Lower Cavern. He wondered how the women stood the smell.

  Canth did, too, for the fumes had kept him from napping on the warm ledge. He was just as glad of an excuse to get away from Benden Weyr.

  F’nor broke out into the early morning sunshine above Telgar Hold, then directed brown Canth up the long valley to the sprawling complex of buildings on the left of the Falls.

  Sun flashed off the water wheels which were turned endlessly by the powerful waters of the three-pronged Falls and operated the forges of the Smithy. Judging by the thin black smoke from the stone buildings, the smelting and refining smithies were going at full capacity.

  As Canth swooped lower, F’nor could see the distant clouds of dust that meant another ore train coming from the last portage of Telgar’s major river. Fandarel’s notion of putting wheels on the barges had halved the time it took to get raw ore downriver and across land from the deep mines of Crom and Telgar to the crafthalls throughout Pern.

  Canth gave a bugle cry of greeting which was instantly answered by the two dragons, green and brown, perched on a small ledge above the main Crafthall.

  Beth and Seventh from Fort Weyr, Canth told his rider, but the names were not familiar to F’nor.

  Time was when a man knew every dragon and rider in Pern.

  “Are you joining them?” he asked the big brown.

  They are together Canth replied so pragmatically that F’nor chuckled to himself.

  The green Beth, then, had agreed to brown Seventh’s advances. Looking at her brilliant color, F’nor thought their riders shouldn’t have brought that pair away from their home Weyr at this phase. As F’nor watched, the brown dragon extended his wing and covered the green possessively.

  F’nor stroked Canth’s downy neck at the first ridge but the dragon didn’t seem to need any consolation. He’d no lack of partners after all, thought F’nor with little conceit. Greens would prefer a brown who was as big as most bronzes on Pern.

  Canth landed and F’nor jumped off quickly. The dust made by his dragon’s wings set up twin whirls, through which F’nor had to walk. In the open sheds which F’nor passed on his way to the Crafthall, men were busy at a number of tasks, most of them familiar to the brown rider. But at one shed he stopped, trying to fathom why the sweating men were winding a coil of metal through a plate, until he realized that the material was extruded as a fine wire. He was about to ask questions when he saw the sullen, closed expressions of the crafters. He nodded pleasantly and continued on his way, uneasy at the indifference—no, the distaste—exhibited at his presence. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t agreed to do Manora’s errand.

  But Smithcraftmaster Fandarel was the obvious authority on metal and could tell why the big kettle had suddenly discolored the vital anesthetic salve. F’nor swung the kettle to make sure the two sample pots were within, and grinned at the selfconscious gesture; for an instant he had a resurgence of his boyhood apprehension of losing something entrusted to him.

  The entrance to the main Smithcrafthall was imposing: four landbeasts could be driven abreast through that massive portal and not scrape their sides. Did Pern breed Smithcraftmasters in proportion to that door? F’nor wondered as its maw swallowed him, for the immense metal wings stood wide. What had been the original Smithy was now converted to the artificers’ use. At lathes and benches, men were polishing, engraving, adding the final touches to otherwise completed work. Sunlight streamed in from the windows set high in the building’s wall, the eastern shutters were burnished with the morning sun which reflected also from the samples of weaponry and metalwork in the open shelves in the center of the big Hall.

  At first, F’nor thought it was his entrance which had halted all activity, but then he made out two dragonriders who were menacing Terry. Surprised as he was to feel the tension in the Hall, F’nor was more disturbed that Terry was its brunt, for the man was Fandarel’s second and his major innovator. Without a thought, F’nor strode across the floor, his bootheels striking sparks from the flagstone.

  “And a good day to you, Terry, and you, sirs,” F’nor said, saluting the two riders with airy amiability. “F’nor, Canth’s rider, of Benden.”

  “B’naj, Seventh’s rider of Fort,
” said the taller, grayer of the two riders. He obviously resented the interruption and kept slapping an elaborately jeweled belt knife into the palm of his hand.

  “T’reb, Beth’s rider, also of Fort. And if Canth’s a bronze, warn him off Beth.”

  “Canth’s no poacher,” F’nor replied, grinning outwardly but marking T’reb for a rider whose green’s amours affected his own temper.

  “One never knows just what is taught at Benden Weyr,” T’reb said with thinly veiled contempt.

  “Manners, among other things, when addressing Wing-seconds,” F’nor replied, still pleasant. But T’reb gave him a sharp look, aware of a subtle difference in his manner. “Good Master Terry, may I have a word with Fandarel?”

  “He’s in his study . . .”

  “And you told us he was not about,” T’reb interrupted, grabbing Terry by the front of his heavy wher-hide apron.

  F’nor reacted instantly. His brown hand snapped about T’reb’s wrist, his fingers digging into the tendons so painfully that the green rider’s hand was temporarily numbed.

  Released, Terry stood back, his eyes blazing, his jaw set.

  “Fort Weyr manners leave much to be desired,” F’nor said, his teeth showing in a smile as hard as the grip with which he held T’reb. But now the other Fort Weyr rider intervened.

  “T’reb! F’nor!” B’naj thrust the two apart. “His green’s proddy, F’nor. He can’t help it.”

  “Then he should stay weyrbound.”

  “Benden doesn’t advise Fort,” T’reb cried, trying to step past his Weyrmate, his hand on his belt knife.

  F’nor stepped back, forcing himself to cool down. The whole episode was ridiculous. Dragonriders did not quarrel in public. No one should use a Craftmaster’s second in such a fashion. Outside, dragons bellowed.

  Ignoring T’reb, F’nor said to B’naj, “You’d better get out of here. She’s too close to mating.”

  But the truculent T’reb would not be silenced.

  “Don’t tell me how to manage my dragon, you . . .”

  The insult was lost in a second volley from the dragons to which Canth now added his warble.

  “Don’t be a fool, T’reb,” B’naj said. “Come! Now!”

  “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t wanted that knife. Get it and come.”

  The knife B’naj had been handling lay on the floor by Terry’s foot. The Craftsman retrieved it in such a way that F’nor suddenly realized why there had been such tension in the Hall. The dragonriders had been about to confiscate the knife, an action his entrance had forestalled. He’d heard too much lately of such extortions.

  “You’d better go,” he told the dragonriders, stepping in front of Terry.

  “We came for the knife. We’ll leave with it,” T’reb shouted and, feinting with unexpected speed, ducked past F’nor, grabbing the knife from Terry’s hand, slicing the smith’s thumb as he drew the blade.

  Again F’nor caught T’reb’s hand and twisted it, forcing him to drop the knife.

  T’reb gave a gurgling cry of rage and, before F’nor could duck or B’naj could intervene, the infuriated green rider had plunged his own belt knife into F’nor’s shoulder, viciously slicing downward until the point hit the shoulder bone.

  F’nor staggered back, aware of nauseating pain, aware of Canth’s scream of protest, the green’s wild bawl and the brown’s trumpeting.

  “Get him out of here,” F’nor gasped to B’naj, as Terry reached out to steady him.

  “Get out!” the Smith repeated in a harsh voice. He signaled urgently to the other craftsmen who now moved decisively toward the dragonmen. But B’naj yanked T’reb savagely out of the Hall.

  F’nor resisted as Terry tried to conduct him to the nearest bench. It was bad enough that dragonrider should attack dragonrider, but F’nor was even more shocked that a rider should ignore his beast for the sake of a coveted bauble.

  There was real urgency in the green’s shrill ululation now. F’nor willed T’reb and B’naj on their beasts and away. A shadow fell across the great portal of the Smithhall. It was Canth, crooning anxiously. The green’s voice was suddenly still.

  “Are they gone?” he asked the dragon.

  Well gone, Canth replied, craning his neck to catch sight of his rider. You hurt.

  “I’m all right. I’m all right,” F’nor lied, relaxing into Terry’s urgent grip. In a blackening daze, he felt himself lifted, then the hard surface of bench under his back before the dizzying shock and pain overwhelmed him. His last conscious thought was that Manora would be annoyed that he had not seen Fandarel first.

  CHAPTER II

  Evening (Fort Weyr Time):

  Meeting of the Weyrleaders at Fort Weyr

  WHEN MNEMENTH burst out of between above Fort Weyr, he entered so high above the Weyr mountain that it was a barely discernible black point in the darkening land below. F’lar’s exclamation of surprise was cut off by the thin cold air that burned his lungs.

  You must be calm and cool, Mnementh said, doubling his rider’s astonishment. You must command at this meeting. And the bronze dragon began a long spiral glide down to the Weyr.

  F’lar knew that no admonitions could change Mnementh’s mind when he used that firm tone. He wondered at the great beast’s unexpected initiative. But the bronze dragon was right.

  F’lar could accomplish little if he stormed in on T’ron and the other Weyrleaders, bent on extracting justice for his wounded Wing-second. Or if F’lar was still seething from the subtle insult implicit in the timing of this meeting. As Weyrleader of the offending rider, T’ron had delayed answering F’Iar’s courteously phrased request for a meeting of all Weyrleaders to discuss the untoward incident at the Craftmasterhall. When T’ron’s reply finally arrived, it set the meeting for the first watch, Fort Weyr time; or high night, Benden time, a most inconsiderate hour for F’lar and certainly inconvenient for the other easterly Weyrs, Igen, Ista and even Telgar. D’ram of Ista Weyr and R’mart of Telgar, and probably G’narish of Igen would have something sharp to say to T’ron about such timing, though their lag was not as great as Benden Weyr’s.

  So T’ron wanted F’lar off balance and irritated. Therefore, F’lar would appear all amiability. He’d apologize to D’ram, R’mart and G’narish for inconveniencing them, while making certain that they knew T’ron was responsible.

  The main issue, to F’lar’s now calm mind, was not the attack on F’nor. The real issue was the abrogation of two of the strongest Weyr restrictions; restrictions that ought to be so ingrained in any dragonrider that their fracture was impossible.

  It was an absolute that a dragonrider did not take a green dragon or a queen from her Weyr when she was due to rise for mating. It made no difference whatsoever that a green dragon was sterile because she chewed firestone. Her lust could affect even the most insensitive commoners with sexual cravings. A mating female dragon broadcast her emotions on a wide band. Some green-brown pairings were as loud as bronze-gold. Herd-beasts within range stampeded wildly and fowls, wherries and whers went into witless hysterics. Humans were susceptible, too, and innocent Hold youngsters often responded with embarrassing consequences. That particular aspect of dragon matings didn’t bother weyrfolk who had long since disregarded sexual inhibitions. No, you did not take a dragon out of her Weyr in that state.

  It was irrelevant to F’lar’s thinking that the second violation stemmed from the first. From the moment riders could take their dragons between, they were abjured to avoid situations that might lead to a duel, particularly since dueling was an accepted custom among Craft and Hold. Any differences between riders were settled in unarmed bouts, closely refereed within the Weyr. Dragons suicided when their riders died. And occasionally a beast panicked if his rider was badly hurt or remained unconscious for long. A berserk dragon was almost impossible to manage and a dragon’s death severely upset his entire Weyr. So armed dueling, which might injure or kill a dragon, was the most absolute proscription.

&nbs
p; Today, a Fort Weyr rider had deliberately—judging from the testimony F’lar had from Terry and the other smithcrafters present—abrogated these two basic restrictions. F’lar experienced no satisfaction that the offending rider came from Fort Weyr even if T’ron, the major critic of Benden Weyr’s relaxed attitudes toward some traditions, was in a very embarrassing position. F’lar might argue that his innovations breached no fundamental Weyr precepts, but the five Oldtime Weyrs categorically dismissed every suggestion originating from Benden Weyr. And T’ron bleated the most about the deplorable manners of modern Holders and Crafters, so different—so less subservient, F’lar amended—to the acquiescence of Holders and Crafters in their distant past Turn.

  It would be interesting, F’lar mused, to see how T’ron the Traditionalist explained away the actions of his riders, now guilty of far worse offenses against Weyr traditions than anything F’lar had suggested.

  Common sense had dictated F’lar’s policy—eight Turns ago—of throwing open Impressions to likely lads from Holds and Crafts; there hadn’t been enough boys of the right age in Benden Weyr to match the number of dragon eggs. If the Oldtimers would throw open the mating flights of their junior queens to bronzes from other Weyrs, they’d soon have clutches as large as the ones at Benden, and undoubtedly queen eggs, too. However, F’lar could appreciate how the Oldtimers felt. The bronze dragons at Benden and Southern Weyr were larger than most Oldtimer bronzes. Consequently, they’d fly the queens. But, by the Shell, F’lar hadn’t suggested that the senior queens be flown openly. He did not intend to challenge the Oldtimer Weyrleaders with modern bronzes. He did feel that they’d profit by new blood among their beasts. Wasn’t an improvement in dragonkind anywhere of benefit to all the Weyrs?

  And it was practical diplomacy to invite Holders and Crafters to Impressions. There wasn’t a man alive in Pern who hadn’t secretly cherished the notion that he might be able to Impress a dragon. That he could be linked for life to the love and sustaining admiration of these gentle great beasts. That he could traverse Pern in a twinkling, astride a dragon. That he would never suffer the loneliness that was the condition of most men—a dragonrider always had his dragon. So, whether the commoners had a relative on the Hatching Ground hoping to attach a dragonet or not, the spectators enjoyed the vicarious thrill of being present, at witnessing this “mysterious rite.” He’d observed that they were also subtly reassured that such dazzling fortune was available to some lucky souls not bred in the Weyrs. And those bound to a Weyr should, F’lar felt, get to know the riders since those riders were responsible for their lives and livelihoods.