The Renegades of Pern (dragon riders of pern)

by Anne McCaffrey

  Weak and unable to focus her mind on new plans, Thella had drifted, carefully avoiding holds until she found herself a secluded valley in Nerat, where quantities of food easily gathered had somewhat restored her to health. She had been appalled at the scarring on her face and the wisps that were all that was left of her once luxuriant hair. All Thella’s misfortunes could be traced back to that whelp spawned by an insignificant trader, who had prevented her from finding a miserable girl who could have made life so much more predictable.

  Periodically she had comforted herself with the torments Aramina would have suffered before succumbing to terror and starvation in that dark and slimy pit. She still had to settle accounts with the trader, and she thought long and pleasantly about how she would wreak her revenge on Jayge and the entire Lilcamp train.

  To do so, she would have to recover full strength, and though the time it took to do so became another cause to resent Jayge, Thella achieved it. A deep tan reduced the shock of her facial scars, and her hair was reasonably thick again by the time she saddled her runner to take up her task.

  She replenished her empty pouch with marks after a fortunate evening encounter with a farmer journeyman. She appropriated his clothing once he no longer needed it. Before his demise, he had genially brought her up to date on nearly a full Turn’s news. His enthusiasm for the opening of the Southern Continent almost made her abandon her initial plans to go south and stake out in the tropical wilderness the holding which had so long been denied her.

  As she knew the Lilcamp-Amhold train initiated its sweeps from Igen, she took herself back to the low caverns. To her satisfaction she learned that, while Borgald Amhold had given up trading, the Lilcamp folk were still traveling. She began to make plans, first revisiting all her old caves to see which were still undiscovered and usable. And she began recruiting.

  At first she was not too successful. The stories about her had made many people wary of flouting the authority of Hold and Weyr; so although the population of the low cavern had changed sufficiently that most of those who might recognize her were gone, and those that remained were confused by her altered appearance, she found few willing accomplices. But once she had heard of Paradise River Hold, her energies were redirected and galvanized. Jayge and Aramina would live only as long as it took her to recruit sufficient men, acquire a ship, and sail south.

  14: Southern Continent, PP 15-17

  OVER THE NEXT two Turns, Piemur had reason to recall Lessa’s comment—or had it been a challenge?—to Master Robinton. There were changes of all kinds, but that was only natural, though some were rather spectacular, such as Menolly, Sharra, and Brekke all having sons on the same day. According to Silvina, Menolly gave birth to Robse between one note and the next; Sharra had slightly more difficulty producing Jarrol; and Nemekke arrived, two weeks before he was due, just before midnight, Benden Weyr time. Robinton and Lytol, deciding that they were the spiritual grandfathers of Menolly’s and Sharra’s sons, drank to their health, and that of Brekke’s second boy, with sufficient wine to have drowned all three.

  And there were other changes: Piemur’s prediction that Southern hazards would sort out aspiring holders proved correct. As tales from discouraged immigrants circulated north, the wave of northerners venturing south lost its impetus. Piemur knew that Master Robinton had had a hand in that through Master Sebell’s offices. The Southern Continent was having an effect on the Harper, fascinating him, as it had Piemur, with its lush beauty and incredible bounty and the allure of the mystery still locked in the ruins of another time.

  During the first Turn, Master Rampesi and Master Idarolan finally sighted each other, halfway around the world from Cave Hold. [sic] To mark the historic occasion, the two captains hammered a stout red stake into a hillside above the bay, and the festivities lasted well into the early dawn hours. There was a good deal of friendly banter over which ship had sailed the farthest, but as Dawn Sister was clearly the bigger, faster vessel, Master Rampesi finally gave way to his Craftmaster. Then they continued their explorations of the Southern shores, one heading eastward and the other westward, back to their ports of origin. Both shipmasters’ reports, delivered to the Conclave of Weyrleaders, Lord Holders, and Craftmasters, indicated a varied terrain, including precipitous cliffs and arid desert with sparse and unattractive vegetation but also a reassuringly large portion of inhabitable lands. That information considerably reduced the friction that was developing over titular possession of choice areas. The Weyrleaders were implacable on the point that northern Lord Holders, already well established, should not look to the South for their own benefit.

  Piemur was proud of and impressed by Master Robinton’s continued insistence on small holdings. Paradise River Hold, rather than Southern, was constantly cited as the acceptable precedent. The Weyrleaders, besieged by petitioners, finally conceded that point, adding the provision that no one already in possession of a hold could expect to be granted one in the South. With greatly increased supplies of all raw materials available from the South, Craftmasters increased their numbers of apprentices and more walked the tables as journeymen to support broader holder requirements.

  With no need any longer to limit mating flights to keep the dragon population down to that which the existing Weyrs could accommodate, there were soon sufficient weyrlings to populate a new Weyr in the thick forest between Landing and Monaco. T’gellan, rider of bronze Monarth, was appointed as Weyrleader to the Eighth Weyr, designated as Eastern until a suitable name could be agreed upon. T’gellan found his new position no sinecure, since he had to deal both with older dragons and riders, unable to fly full Falls, and weyrlings sent to Eighth for a season to perfect their fighting skills before being added to Northern wings.

  Southern dragonriders turned out to be useful after all, despite the land’s defenses—in the form of those amazing grubs—against Thread. After a storm of nasty tangles ripped through some of the dense forests, Weyrleader T’gellan increased sweepriders, and even Lord Toric, once he had seen the damage done by a series of tangles, lost his complacence and organized ground crews.

  A nearby Weyr, with an old friend as Weyrleader, provided Piemur and his master with any number of willing beasts to help them explore, far more extensively than perhaps Benden might realize. To their delight, they found more ruins along the river that flowed on Mount Garben’s western flank. And Master Robinton knew of suitable folk to move into those old holdings—ostensibly for onsite excavations.

  D’ram passed his leadership on to K’van, whose Heth surprised complacent older bronze riders by flying Adrea’s Beljeth in her mating flight. D’ram retired to Cove Hold, where he was well received by Master Robinton and Lytol, the retired Lord Warder of Ruatha Hold.

  The fears that another Toric, or worse yet, a second Fax, might emerge began to recede as more and more small holds were established along the coast and rivers. The sheer size of the Southern Continent, and the difficulty of communications—solving that problem was a major priority of the Smithcrafthall—served as inhibiting factors.

  There were regular passages back and forth between the continents, both by sail and by dragon. The harbor facilities at Monaco Bay were still functional, though the dwelling at the point had been battered into ruins by storms. The harbor was superb, and several Masterfishermen vied with each other for Master Idarolan’s permission to take hold there. Paradise River Hold was thriving; it had its own seahold, Mastered by Alemi, formerly of Half Circle Seahold, who had command of two small coastal skiffs and one deep-water vessel.

  During those Turns, excavations continued at the Plateau, though the work became somewhat slow and desultory during the long stretches during which little or nothing was found. Whenever minor finds were uncovered, interest would be temporarily revived, and Master Robinton would seize that renewal of energy to get other sites dug up, clinging to his belief that somewhere in the ruins would be the answers to his questions about the Dawn Sisters and the origin of their ancestors. The maps had onl
y whetted his appetite.

  Meanwhile Master Fandarel had assembled an astounding array of mechanical pieces, including the shell of what he insisted had to be one of the ancients’ small flying ships. The starboard side had been badly dented, the durable material fractured, stained, and mottled with tiny cracks. The stripped hull raised more questions than it answered, but encouraged the hopes of those who thought that a complete vessel might be found abandoned at one of the ancient sites.

  To assist in the tagging and cataloging at Cove Hold, Menolly and Brekke sent a variety of young people, serving informal apprenticeships. Piemur suspected his friends of matchmaking, but there was no doubt that the girls were useful—and, Piemur conceded, decorative. They seemed to enjoy D’ram’s occasional teasing and were understanding of Lytol’s quiet introspection. Still, none of them caught Piemur’s fancy, especially since they had a tendency to moon over Master Robinton.

  For the additional residents at Cove Hold, small private cots had been constructed, though most evenings everyone met for their meal in the main Hall. A large area adjacent to D’ram’s cot was cleared for Piroth’s weyr. A second guest house was constructed when the facilities in Cove Hall were constantly strained; then an archive hall—Lytol’s domain—was added as repository for the mass of records, sketches, charts, maps, ruin diagrams, and artifact samples. Soon an annex was required to allow space for the craftswomen determined to piece together some of the splinters and shards. Wansor’s large distance-viewer was housed on the eastern point, where he continued his observations of the Dawn Sisters, the baleful Red Star, and those other celestial bodies which, with the help of the ancients’ star maps, he managed to identify.

  And still the excavation of Landing continued. Fandarel’s mound, the last of the original choices to be excavated, had added to the frustration. He had been correct that the heat of the volcano had kept the building from being cleared by the ancient refugees, but whatever had been in it had been so badly damaged—or, in some cases, completely destroyed—that it was impossible to identify. A flurry of further digging in that sector proved unenlightening: the buildings thus found seemed to have been used as beastholds.

  That raised the questions of how so many beasts could have been accommodated in the Dawn Sisters, how many people had made the voyage, how far they had come, and how long had Landing been inhabited. The fire-lizards’ peculiarly tenacious memory evidently contained only unusual occasions: the initial landing, the volcanic eruption, and the far more recent incident of the retrieval of Ramoth’s stolen egg, when dragons had actually flamed at fire-lizards. It was still not common knowledge that Jaxom and Ruth had stolen back the egg for the North—all most people knew was that the miraculous return of the egg had made it unnecessary for the Northern dragon wings to exact retribution from Southern Oldtimers and prevented the worst catastrophe anyone could imagine: dragon fighting dragon.

  There was a certain contentment on both sides of the sea now that the Southern Continent had been opened up, leaving those interested in the ancients free to pursue the puzzles posed by the excavations. One rainy week, the frustration level of those kept holdbound at the cove was particularly high, and even Piemur, racking his brain, could not come up with a diversion.

  “It may well be, Robinton,” Lytol suggested, “that we shall never know the answers.”

  “Now that I won’t accept!” The Harper propelled himself out of his chair, pausing the tiniest bit as his joints prevented a smooth rising. “Bloody rain always seizes me up.” He straightened his back, stood on one leg to jiggle the other, then repeated the process with his right leg. “What was I going to do?”

  “Pace with frustration,” Piemur said, looking up from the object he was studying under an enlarging glass. “I’ll join you. There is no way this—thing—was useful.” He flicked the rectangular board away from him. “‘Beads and wires and tiny joins!”

  “Decorative?” D’ram asked.

  “Unlikely. It’s more of the same sort of thing we found in the forward portion of the flying ship.”

  “What was I going to do?” Robinton demanded of no one in particular, one hand on his forehead, the other propped at his belt. “And I’ve got enough wine.”

  “I was talking about generations,” Lytol patiently cued him. “You wouldn’t accept the delay…”

  “Ah, yes, thank you.” Robinton went over to the map stand that stood across one window. He leafed through the charts until he found the one he wanted and then pulled it up to hook it to the top of the frame. “Has anyone done anything about these?” He indicated the symbols in red, blue, and green, positioned like miniature flags between the landing strip and the far southern edge of the settlement.

  Piemur swiveled in his chair to look.

  “No, sir. There doesn’t seem to be anything there now.”

  “But caves were discovered in that general area, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, caves that had obviously been adapted for use as living quarters,” Piemur admitted. “Probably for greens, since the dragon couches were very small.”

  “What if—what if the caves here,” Robinton said excitedly, tapping the flags, “had concealed entrances?”

  “Master, haven’t we found enough junk?” Piemur’s sweeping gesture took in the entire Cove Hold complex.

  “But no answers!” Robinton shook his head. “There have to be some answers, so that we can understand more than what we’ve gleaned from fire-lizards!” Roused from his sleep on the back of Robinton’s chair, Zair chirped in reassurance. “And that’s enough from you, impudence with wings. As I’ve said before, people who could execute the wonders we have seen would have kept records!”

  “They did, and they’re the dust in the back corridors of Fort Hold and Benden Weyr,” Piemur broke in. “And we’re none the wiser.”

  “They can’t have kept so few copies!” the Harper insisted. “And we have the maps as examples of the durability of their materials—so where are the rest?”

  “There were lapses in record-keeping,” Lytol agreed solemnly. “We now know there must have been a terrible fire in one portion of Fort Hold’s lowest level; we are also agreed that plague decimated Hall, Hold, and Weyr on three separate occasions. We may never learn our history.” He seemed as resigned to that possibility as the Harper was resistant to it.

  “So, when the rain decides to stop,” Piemur asked on a long-suffering note, “do you want me to take some rodmen and find these caves for you?”

  When the next day brought a clearing of the heavy rains, Piemur sent Farli to Eastern Weyr for a dragon to convey himself and the Harper to the Plateau. V’line, a young bronze rider, arrived and duly transported them. Once at the Plateau, the Harper requested V’line and Clarinath to circle over the site. So often an aerial search produced visual clues not apparent on the surface. Carefully scrutinizing the terrain below, neither Piemur nor Robinton noticed the absence of fire-lizards.

  But as the wide circling brought them to face north, they could not fail to notice the map building, which had been completely unearthed, visibly tremble and slowly, almost majestically, collapse. Then people were erupting from the Plateau buildings in panic.

  “Clarinath says the ground isn’t steady,” V’line exclaimed.

  “Earthshake?” Piemur suggested.

  “Can we land?” V’line asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” the Harper said. “There’s nothing out here to fall on us. Pity about the ‘hill.’ Perhaps we shouldn’t have uncovered it.”

  “Perhaps you should have let Master Esselin shore up the weak section,” Piemur replied.

  “Shall we land?” V’line was dubious, and Clarinath was swinging his head anxiously, peering down at the unreliable surface. “Is it still rocking?”

  “How can we tell up here?” Piemur demanded. “Tell Clarinath the Harper says it’s all right to land.”

  “I’m glad you’re so certain about it,” the Harper said, his expression reflecting his qua
lms. “But I feel we ought to proceed first to Plateau and see if all is well.”

  The rest of that day was spent in establishing that there had been little damage, with the exception of the old “hill,” at the Plateau. The earthshake had been more noticeable at Monaco Bay and Eastern Weyr, but had been the merest shiver at Cove Hold, noticed only because of the disappearance of the fire-lizards.

  Masters Nicat and Fandarel were sent for—Piemur thought it a waste of their valuable time, since it was his experience that shakes were common in the South—to look into the phenomenon and figure out what precautions could be taken for the future. Earthshakes were exceedingly rare in the North, and no one knew what to expect.

  “It’s really rather simple,” Piemur muttered to the girl who was passing around soup and klah. “The next time all the fire-lizards flick off in a storm, you can expect another shake.”

  “Are you certain of your facts?” she asked skeptically.

  “Yes, on the basis of personal observation,” Piemur replied, not certain if he liked being challenged so quickly. Then he noticed the twinkle in her eye. She was not unattractive, with a mop of very curly black hair, gray eyes, and a fine long nose—he always noticed noses, since he regretted his own snub of a nose. “I’ve been in the South nearly ten Turns and that shock was nothing.”

  “I’ve been here ten days, and I found that shock unsettling, journeyman. I don’t recognize your colors,” she added, nodding at his shoulder knots.

  He winked at her and assumed an arrogant pose. “Cove Hold!” He was extremely proud to be one of a half dozen entitled to wear those colors.