The White Dragon

by Anne McCaffrey

  “You know as much as we know, as much as Ruth knows.” Jaxom paused to inquire of his dragon. “And Ruth says he sleeps. He also says the dragons won’t let him go.”

  “The dragons won’t let him go, huh? Don’t that beat all!” Piemur shook his head from side to side. “Not that I’m surprised, mind you,” he added with customary briskness. “The dragons know who’re their friends. Now, as I was saying, Master Robinton decided it would be very smart of us to know more about the South, since he had a notion F’lar had an eye for this continent during the next Interval.”

  “How is it that you know so much about what F’lar and Robinton think?” Sharra asked.

  Piemur chortled, wagging a finger at her. “That’s for me to know and you to guess. But I’m right, aren’t I, Jaxom?”

  “I don’t know what F’lar’s plans might be but he’s not the only one interested in the South, I’d wager.”

  “Truly spoken! But he’s the only one that matters, don’t you see?”

  “No, frankly I don’t see,” Sharra said. “My brother’s Lord Holder . . . Well he is,” she added with some heat when Piemur started to contradict her. “Or would be, if his Hold had been acknowledged by the Northern Lord Holders. He risked settling south with F’nor when he timed it back. No one else was willing to try. He’s put up with the Oldtimers, and made a fine, big, Threadfree Hold. No one can gainsay his right to hold what he has . . .”

  “Nor do I!” Piemur assented quickly. “But . . . for all Toric’s attracted a lot of new people from the North, he can only Hold so much! He can only protect and work so much. And there is so much more of the Southern Continent than anyone realizes. Except me! I’ll bet I’ve already walked the breadth of Pern from Tillek Head to Nerat Tip on this continent and not gone its length.” Piemur’s tone changed abruptly from derision to awe. “There was this bay, you see, the opposite shore all but hid in the heat haze. Stupid and I had been struggling through really bad sand for two days. I’d only enough water to go back the way we’d come because I’d thought that the sand would have to give way to decent land soon. . . . I sent Farli out, first to the far shore, then down to the mouth of the bay, but all she brought back to me was more sand. So I knew I’d have to turn back. But,” he turned to his listeners, “you see, there’s probably as much land beyond that bay as I’d already transversed from Toric’s Hold and I’d still not come full circle! Toric could not begin to hold the half of, what I’ve seen. And that’s only the western side. East now, it’s taken me a full three sevendays to reach you from Toric’s and we’d had to swim part of the way. Good swimmer, that Stupid of mine! As willing as a new day and never complains. When I think of how careful my father was to feed his runner stock on only the best fodder, and what Stupid makes do on with twice the work out of him . . .” Piemur broke off to shake his head at the inequity.

  “So,” he returned briskly to his narrative, “I’ve been exploring as I was told to, and heading in your general direction, as I was told to, only I expected to be here long before this! My word, but I’m tired, and no one knows how much farther I’ve got to travel before I get where I’m going.”

  “I thought you were coming here.”

  “Yes, but I’ve to go on . . . eventually.” He raised his left leg, the one which he’d been favoring, and squinched his face up in a grimace of pain. “Shards, but I can’t go another step for a while! This leg’s been walked half off, now, hasn’t it, Sharra?”

  Still elevating the leg, he swiveled in the sand toward the healer who was looking quite concerned. Deftly she unwound the shreds of what had probably been Piemur’s cloak, and uncovered a long but recently healed scar.

  “I can’t walk any farther on that, now can I, Sharra?”

  “No, I don’t think you should, Piemur,” Jaxom said, critically examining the healed wound. “Do you, Sharra?”

  She looked from one to the other and then began to shake her head, her eyes dancing.

  “No, positively not. It needs soaking in warm salt water, and plenty of sun, and you’re a terrible rascal, Piemur. Just as well you’re not a posted Harper! You’d scandalize any sensible Holder!”

  “Have you kept any Records of your traveling?” Jaxom asked, keenly interested and just a shade jealous of Piemur’s freedom.

  “Have I kept Records?” Piemur snorted derisively. “Most of what Stupid packs is Records! Why do you think I’m wearing rags? I haven’t room to carry spare clothes.” His voice lowered and he leaned urgently toward Jaxom. “You don’t just possibly happen to have any of Bendarek’s leaves down here, do you? There are a couple of—”

  “Plenty of leaves. Drawing tools as well. C’mon!”

  Jaxom was on his feet, Piemur not a second behind him with only a trace of a limp, following him to the shelter. Jaxom had not intended Piemur to see his bumbling attempts to map their immediate vicinity. But he’d forgot the young Harper’s keen eyes missed little, and Piemur had spotted the roll of neatly connected leaves and, without so much as a by-your-leave, laid it open. He soon was nodding his head and muttering under his breath.

  “You haven’t been wasting your time here, have you?” Piemur grinned, an oblique compliment to Jaxom’s work. “You used Ruth as measure? Fair enough. I’ve taught my queen, Farli, to pace her flight. I count by the second, watch for her dip at the end of the run and record the distance by seconds. I figure it up later when I’m charting. N’ton double-checked the measure when he worked with me, so I know it’s reasonably accurate, as long as I allow enough for a wind factor.” He whistled as his gaze fell on the tall stack of fresh sheets. “I might need ’em, I might, to map what I’ve traveled over. If you’d give me a hand . . .”

  “You do have to rest that leg, don’t you?” Jaxom kept his face expressionless.

  Piemur caught his eye in surprise, and then they both burst out laughing until Sharra, joining them, wanted to share the joke.

  The next few days passed most agreeably for the three, starting with Ruth’s assurances about the Harper’s continued improvement. The first morning, noticing that Stupid had cropped all the ground greens in the area, Piemur asked if there was any grassland nearby. So Jaxom and Piemur flew Ruth to the river meadows that lay south and east of the cove, a good hour’s flying inland. Ruth willingly helped harvest the tall waving grain grasses which Piemur pronounced fine fodder that might even put poor Stupid into condition. Ruth told Jaxom that he’d never seen such a hungry-looking runner.

  “We’re not fattening him up for you,” Jaxom said, laughing.

  He is Piemur’s friend. Piemur is my friend. I do not eat the friends of friends.

  Jaxom couldn’t resist repeating this rationalization to Piemur, who howled with laughter and thumped Ruth with the same rough affection he used on Stupid.

  They packed half a dozen heavy sheaves of grass on Ruth and were airborne when Piemur asked Jaxom if he’d been to the peak yet.

  “Can’t fly between.” Jaxom didn’t bother hiding his frustration from Piemur.

  “Too bloody right you can’t. Not with fire-head!”

  Jaxom blinked at Piemur’s unequivocal agreement.

  “Don’t worry! You’ll get there soon enough.” Piemur squinted at the symmetrical peak, shading his eyes with one hand. “May look near, but it’s several, four-five maybe, days’ travel. Rough country, I’d guess. You’ve . . .” he paused to give Jaxom an unexpected blow in the midriff which robbed him of breath, “got to get fit first! I heard you puffing, hacking down that grass. Huh!”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to bring Stupid here and let him graze? There aren’t any dragons about, except Ruth. And he’s agreed not to eat Stupid!”

  “Once he sees wild ones, he won’t come back. He’s too stupid to know he’s much safer with me with a dragon to bring him food, instead of eating him as food.”

  Stupid was delighted with the contribution to his diet and whistled with pleasure as he munched away at the piled grass.

  “Just ho
w intelligent is Stupid?” Sharra asked, stroking the creature’s rough dun-colored neck.

  “Not as smart as Farli, but not really stupid. Limited is a fairer assessment of his scope. Within those limitations, he’s pretty bright.”

  “For instance?” asked Jaxom. He’d never thought much of runner beasts.

  “Well, for instance, I can send Farli ahead, telling her to fly so many hours in the direction I’ve pointed, land and pick up anything lying on the ground. Generally she brings back grasses or bush twigs, and sometimes stone and sand. I can send her to look for water. That’s what fooled me about the Big Bay. She’d found water, all right, so Stupid and I humped after her. I didn’t specify drinking water.” Piemur shrugged and laughed. “But Stupid and I have to go on foot, and he’s right smart about ground. Kept me from sinking in mud and those shifting sands time and again. He’s clever about finding the easiest route over rough going. He’s also good at finding water . . . drinking-type water. So I should have listened to him when he didn’t want to cross the sands to the Big Bay. He knew there wasn’t any real water over there, although Farli insisted there was. I trusted Farli that time. Generally speaking, the two make one good reliable guide between them. We’re a team—Stupid, Farli and I.

  “Which reminds me, I found a fire-lizard clutch, a queen’s, five . . .” Farli chittered at him, “all right, maybe six or seven coves back. I kind of lost track there, but she’ll remember where . . . In case someone wants some. You know if green fire-lizards weren’t as stupid as they are, we’d be up to our ears in little green ones. And they’re downright useless.”

  Sharra grinned. “I remember the day I found my first clutch in the sands. I didn’t know the difference between green and gold nests. Oh, how I watched that clutch . . . for days. Never told a soul. I was going to Impress all of them . . .”

  “Four or five?” Piemur asked with a laugh.

  “Six, in fact. Only I didn’t realize that a sand snake had got the lot from beneath long before I found the nest.”

  “How is it, then, that sand snakes don’t get a queen’s eggs?” Jaxom asked.

  “She’s never far from her clutch,” Sharra said. “She’d spot a snake tunnel right away and kill it.” She gave a shudder. “I hate snakes worse than I hate Thread.”

  “Much the same thing, isn’t it?” Piemur asked, “except for the direction of attack.” He gestured with both hands, one coming down, the other coming up on an imaginary victim.

  During the hot part of the day, Jaxom, Sharra and Piemur began to turn his Records, measurements and rough sketches into proper detailed maps. Piemur wanted to get the report back to Sebell, or Robinton or F’lar if so directed, as soon as possible.

  In the cool of the next morning, with Stupid as pack animal and Ruth overhead, the three friends backtracked to Piemur’s queen clutch. Twenty-one eggs were in the nest, all nicely hardened to within a day or two of Hatching. Their approach had sent the wild fire-lizard queen to cover so they were able to excavate the eggs, packing them carefully in the carrier they had strapped to Stupid’s back. Jaxom asked Ruth to alert Canth that they had fire-lizard eggs.

  Canth says that they are coming tomorrow anyway, Ruth replied. The Harper ate well.

  Ruth gave them such snippets of information about Master Robinton periodically. It was as good as being in the same Hall with the invalid, without having to hear him complain, Piemur observed.

  They returned to the shelter cove through the forest. The fruit trees near the clearing had been picked clean and if F’nor were coming, he’d surely appreciate some fresh fruit to take back to Benden Weyr.

  “Should you be around when F’nor comes?” Jaxom asked the young Harper.

  “Why not? He knows what I’ve been doing. You know, Jaxom, when you see how beautiful this continent is, you wonder why our ancestors went north . . .”

  “Maybe the South was too big an area to keep Threadfree until the grubs had been seeded,” Sharra suggested.

  “Good point!” Then Piemur snorted with derision. “Those old Records are worse than useless; they leave out the most important things. Like telling farmers to watch for the grubs in the North and not mentioning why! Like leaving the Southern Continent alone, and not why! Though if there were half as many earth-shakes then as there are now, I can’t fault them for common sense. When I was on the way to Big Bay, I bloody near got killed in a shake. Nearly lost Stupid from fright. If it hadn’t been for Farli keeping her eye on him, I never would have caught up with the stupid idiot!”

  “Earth-shakes happen in the North,” Jaxom said, “in Crom and High Reaches and sometimes Igen and the Telgar Plain.”

  “Not the kind I’ve been through,” Piemur said, shaking his head at the memory. “Not where the earth drops beneath your feet and two paces beyond you lifts above your head half a dragonlength.”

  “When did that happen? Three, four months ago?”

  “That’s when!”

  “Earth only trembled at Southern, but that’s scary enough!”

  “Ever seen a volcano pop up out of the ocean and spew fiery rock and ash about?” asked Piemur.

  “No, and I’m not sure you have, either, Piemur,” Sharra said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “I have, and N’ton was with me, so I’ve a witness.”

  “Don’t think I won’t ask him.”

  “Where was it, Piemur?” Jaxom asked, fascinated.

  “I’ll show you on the map. N’ton’s been keeping his eye on the place. Last time we met, he said the volcano had stopped smoking and it had built a regular island about itself as neat as . . . as neat as that mountain of yours!”

  “I’d prefer to see it with my own eyes,” Sharra said, still skeptical.

  “I’ll arrange it,” the Harper replied with good humor. “That’s a likely tree!” he added and, leaping in the air, grabbed the lowest branch and swung himself neatly up. He began to sever the stems that held the redfruit, dropping them carefully into the waiting hands of Jaxom and Sharra.

  It had taken them only two hours to walk to the fire-lizards’ clutch along the beach. But it took them almost three times as long to hack a narrow path back to the shelter through the thick undergrowth. Jaxom began to appreciate the arduousness of Piemur’s journey as he slashed valiantly away at the sticky-sapped bushes. His shoulders ached and he’d branch-spiked shins and skinned toes by the time they emerged near the shelter. Jaxom had lost all sense of direction. But Piemur had an uncanny sense and with Ruth and three fire-lizards, had kept them on a direct line to their goal.

  Once there, only Jaxom’s pride kept him from collapsing on his bed and sleeping off his exertions. Piemur was all for a swim to wash off the sweat and Sharra thought that broiled fish would make a good supper, so Jaxom struggled to keep going.

  That might have been why, he thought later, he had such vivid dreams when he finally did crawl into bed to sleep. The mountains, smoking and spewing out fire-ash and glowing rock, dominated the dream, which was full of streams of running people. To Jaxom that was very sensible but he was also part of those people rushing away and it seemed that he couldn’t run fast enough. The red-orange glowing river that poured over the lip of the mountain threatened to engulf him and he couldn’t make his legs move fast enough.

  “Jaxom!” Piemur shook him awake. “You’re dreaming! You’ll wake Sharra.” Piemur paused, and in the dim twilight of predawn, the sound of Sharra’ s moaning was clearly audible. “Maybe I should. She sounds like she’s having a bad dream, too.”

  Piemur started to crawl out of his sleeping furs when they heard Sharra sigh deeply, and fall into a quieter sleep.

  “I shouldn’t have talked about that volcano. I relived that eruption. At least, I think that’s what I was dreaming.” Piemur sounded confused. “Probably too much fish and fruit! I made up for lost meals tonight.” He sighed and made himself comfortable again.

  “Thanks, Piemur!”

  “For what?” Piemur asked in the middle of a
yawn.

  Jaxom turned over, found a good position and dropped easily back into a dreamless sleep.

  Ruth’s bugle woke all three the next morning.

  “F’nor’s coming,” Jaxom said, having heard Ruth’s message.

  F’nor brings others, Ruth added.

  Jaxom, Sharra and Piemur had reached the cove when four dragons erupted into the air, the other three dwarfed by brown Canth. Shrieking in surprise, the fire-lizards who had been draped about Ruth abruptly disappeared, leaving only Meer, Talla and Farli.

  It is Piemur, Jaxom heard Ruth tell Canth. And then F’nor began to wave wildly, clasping two hands above his head in a signal of victory.

  Canth deposited his rider on the sand. Roaring a command at the other dragons, he waddled happily into the water where Ruth was quick to join him.

  “Well met, Piemur,” F’nor cried, unloosening his flying gear as he walked toward the others. “Began to wonder if you’d gotten lost!”

  “Lost?” Piemur looked outraged. “That’s the trouble with you dragonfliers. You’ve no respect for ground distances! You’ve got it too easy. Up, up and away! Wink out and you’re where you want to be. No effort at all involved.” He made a sound of disgust in his throat. “Now I know where I’ve been, every bloody finger’s length of it!”

  F’nor grinned at the young Harper and pummeled his back with such vigor Jaxom was surprised to see Piemur unmoved. “You’ll amuse your Master then, with the full and properly embroidered tale of your travels . . .”

  “You’re to bring me to Master Robinton?”

  “Not yet. He’s coming to you!” F’nor pointed to the ground.

  “What?”

  F’nor was searching in his belt pouch and brought out a folded leaf. “This is my reason for coming today! And don’t let me forget the fire-lizard eggs, will you?”