The White Dragon

by Anne McCaffrey

  Ruth hovered over the clearing, gently landing. Two men by the fire-pits leaped to Jaxom’s assistance as he offloaded the wherry. Ruth immediately vaulted out of the way so that Jaxom could guide the other carcasses dangling from the hunting ropes of the bigger dragons.

  F’nor, stripping off his flying gear, walked slowly up to Jaxom, squinting against the brilliant glare from the sands as be surveyed the activity in the once peaceful cove. He sighed deeply but began to nod his head as if unexpectedly satisfied by something.

  “Yes, it’ll work out all right,” he said, more to himself than to Jaxom because he turned then, smiling, and gripped Jaxom by the shoulder. “Yes, they’ll make the transition easily.”

  “Transition?”

  F’nor clearly didn’t mean the present building frenzy.

  “Dragonfolk going back to the land, the hold. How much exploring have you been able to do around here?”

  “The coves, as far back as those river meadows, and some of the immediate interior the day before yesterday with Piemur.”

  As one, the two men turned toward the cone of the volcano that lay, cloud clad, in the distance.

  “Yes, it does sort of draw your eye, doesn’t it?” F’nor grinned. “You’ll get there first, Jaxom. In fact, I’d prefer it if you and Piemur began some serious explorations with that as your goal. Yes, that pleases you, doesn’t it? Better for you, too, and Piemur. Now, before I forget it again, where’s that fire-lizard clutch you reported?”

  “There’re twenty-one eggs and I’d like to have five of them, if I may . . .”

  “Of course!”

  “To be taken to Ruatha!”

  “By evening.”

  “You know, that’s curious.” Jaxom craned his body about, looking everywhere.

  “What?”

  “Usually there’re a lot more fire-lizards around. I don’t count more than a double handful. And they’re all banded.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Fort Hold, Benden Weyr, at Cove Hold,

  and at Sea aboard the Dawn Sister,

  15.10.1–15.10.2

  WHEN THE THREE fire-lizards had made the first overtures of greeting, the three men, grinning at the enthusiasm shown by their friends, made themselves comfortable around the table in the small room at Fort Hold where Lord Groghe held his private meetings. Sebell had been there frequently, but never as spokesman for his Crafthall and never when Lord Groghe had summoned the Fort Weyrleader as well, in what was obviously a matter of some importance.

  “Not sure how to begin,” Lord Groghe said as he poured the wine. Sebell thought that was a very good way to begin, especially since the Lord Holder had honored them with Benden wine. “Might as well plunge. Problem’s this . . . I backed F’lar when he fought T’ron,” Groghe nodded at the current Fort Weyrleader, “because I knew he was right. Right to exile those misfits where they’d do no one any harm. While the Oldtimers were in the Southern Weyr, made sense to leave them alone, just as long as they left us alone—which they mostly did.” Lord Groghe peered from under his heavy brows first at N’ton and then at Sebell.

  Since both men were aware that there had been occasional depredations in Fort Hold which could only be attributed to the dissident Oldtimers, they nodded acknowledgement of that point. Lord Groghe cleared his throat, and folded his hands across his thick middle.

  “Point is, they’re mostly dead, or waiting to die. No trouble anymore. D’ram, being sort of F’lar’s representative, is bringing in dragonfolk from other Weyrs, to make it a proper Weyr again, fighting Thread and all that! I approve!” He favored the Harpercraftmaster and then the Weyrleader with long meaningful glances. “Hmmm. Well, that’s all to the good, isn’t it? Protecting the South against Thread! Thing of it is, with the Southern Weyr working again, as it were, that Southern land is safe. Now I know there’s a hold established there. Young Toric. Wouldn’t want to interfere with his Holding. No way! He’s earned it. But a working Weyr can protect more than one small hold, now, can’t it?” He pinned his gimlet stare on N’ton, who contrived to maintain an attitude of courteous interest, forcing Lord Groghe to continue without any help.

  “Well, hmmm. Trouble is, you bring up a fair of young ‘uns to know how to hold proper and that’s what they want to do. Hold! Terrible fights they get into. Terrible quarrels. Fostering ’em don’t help much. Just got to foster others and they quarrel and fight. Scorch it! They all need holds of their own.” Lord Groghe banged his fist on the table emphasizing this point. “I can’t split my land more’n it is and I’m Holding every square length that isn’t bare rock. Can’t put out men who’re beholden to me as their fathers and grandfathers and greats were? That’s not proper Holding on my side. And I won’t turn ’em out to please my kin. Not that it would.

  “Thing of it is, while the Oldtimers were south, wouldn’t have dreamed of suggesting it. But they aren’t in command anymore. D’ram is and he’s F’lar’s man and he’ll make it a proper Weyr so there could be more holdings, couldn’t there?”

  Lord Groghe glanced from Harper to Weyrleader, daring them to contradict him. “There’s plenty of unheld land in the South, isn’t there? No one really knows how much. But I heard Masterfisherman Idarolan say one of his ships cruised for days along a coastline. Hmmm yes, well.” Then he started to chuckle, a mirth that increased into a wheeze that shook the large well-fleshed frame of the Lord Holder. He was reduced to speechlessness and impotently pointed his thick forefinger first at one and then the other, trying to indicate something by gesture which his laughter kept him from explaining by word.

  Helplessly, N’ton and Sebell exchanged grins and shrugs, unable to perceive what amused Lord Groghe or what he wanted to convey to them. The monumental mirth subsided, leaving Lord Groghe weak to the point of wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Well trained! That’s what you pair are! Well trained!” he gasped, pounding his chest with his fist to stop his wheezing. He coughed long and then, as abruptly as the laughter had seized him, he turned solemn. “Can’t fault either of you. Won’t. Shouldn’t give up Weyr secrets easily anyhow. Appreciate that. Do me one favor. Tell F’lar. Remind him that it’s better to attack than defend. Not but what he doesn’t already know that! I think,” Lord Groghe stabbed at his chest with his thumb, “he’d better be prepared . . . soon. Trouble is, everyone in Pern knows that the Masterharper is going south to get well. Everyone wishes Master Robinton the best of luck. Yet everyone is beginning to wonder about that Southern Continent now it’s not closed anymore.”

  “Southern is too big to be adequately protected against Thread which still falls there,” N’ton said.

  Lord Groghe nodded, mumbling that he was aware of that. “Point is, people know you can live without hold and survive Threadfall!” The Lord Holder’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at Sebell. “That Menolly girl of yours did it! Hear tell Toric in Southern got little help from those Oldtimers during Falls.”

  “Tell me, Lord Groghe,” Sebell asked in his quiet way, “have you ever been out in Fall?”

  Lord Groghe shuddered a bit. “Once. Ohhh, well, yes, I take your point, Harper. I take your point. Still, one way to separate boys from men!” He gave a sharp nod of his head. “That’s my notion. Separate boys from men!” He gazed up at N’ton, a sly look in his eyes though his expression continued bland. “Or don’t the Weyrs want the boys separated?”

  N’ton laughed, to the Lord’s surprise. “It’s time we separated more than the boys, Lord Groghe.”

  “Huh?”

  “We will convey your message to F’lar today.” The Fort Weyrleader raised his cup to the Lord Holder as a seal on that promise.

  “Can’t ask fairer than that! What news, Master Sebell, of Master Robinton?”

  Sebell’s eyes lit with amusement. “He’s four days out of Ista Hold, resting comfortably.”

  “Ha!” Lord Groghe begged to disbelieve that.

  “Well, I’m told he’s comfortable,” Sebell replied. “Whether he is of t
he same opinion or not.”

  “Going to that pretty place where young Jaxom’s trapped, huh?”

  “Trapped?” Sebell regarded Lord Groghe with mock horror. “He’s not trapped, only restricted from flying between for a while longer.”

  “Been at that cove. Beautiful. Whereabouts is it exactly?”

  “In the South,” Sebell answered.

  “Humph. All right, you won’t tell? You won’t tell! Don’t blame you. Beautiful place. Now, off with the pair of you and tell F’lar what I’ve said. Don’t think I’ll be the last but it’d be a help to be the first. Help to him. Help to me! Dratted sons of mine drive me to drinking!” The Lord Holder rose and so did the two younger men. “Tell your Master I was asking for him when you see him next, Sebell.”

  “I will, sir!”

  Lord Groghe’s little queen, Merga, chirped brightly at Sebell’s Kimi and N’ton’s Tris as the three men walked to the Hall door. To Sebell, it indicated that Lord Groghe was well pleased with the interview.

  Neither man made any comment until they were well down the wide ramp that led from the courtyard of Fort Hold to the main paved roadway of the complex Hold.

  Then N’ton heard Sebell’s soft and satisfied chuckle. “It worked, N’ton, it worked.”

  “What worked?”

  “The Lord Holder’s asking the Weyrleaders’ permission to go south!”

  “Why shouldn’t they?” N’ton seemed perplexed. Sebell grinned broadly at his friend. “By the Shell, it worked with you, too! Do you have time to take me to Benden Weyr? Lord Groghe’s right. He might be the first though I doubt it, knowing Lord Corman’s ways, but he won’t be the last.”

  “What worked with me, Sebell?”

  Sebell’s grin deepened and his brown eyes danced. “Now I’m well trained not to give away craft secrets, my friend.”

  N’ton made a noise of disgusted impatience and stopped in the middle of the dusty pavement. “Explain or you don’t go.”

  “It should be so obvious, N’ton. Do think on it. While you take me to Benden. If you haven’t figured out what I mean, I’ll tell you there. I’ll have to inform F’lar what’s been done anyhow.”

  “Lord Groghe, too, eh?” F’lar regarded the two younger men thoughtfully.

  He’d just returned from fighting Thread over Keroon and a surprising after-Fall interview with Lord Corman, punctuated with much honking of the Lord’s large and perpetually runny nose.

  “Threadfall over Keroon today?” Sebell asked and when F’lar grimaced sourly, the young Craftmaster grinned at N’ton. “Lord Groghe wasn’t first!”

  Giving vent to the irritation he felt, F’lar slapped his riding gauntlets down on the table.

  “I apologize for barging in when you must wish to rest, Weyrleader,” Sebell said, “but if Lord Groghe has thought of those empty lands to the south, others have, too. He suggested that you’d better be warned.”

  “Warned, huh?” F’lar brushed the forelock out of his eyes and grimly poured a cup of wine for himself. Recalling courtesy, he poured wine for N’ton and Sebell.

  “Sir, the matter’s not yet out of hand.”

  “Hordes of holdless men wanting to swarm south, and it’s not out of hand?”

  “They have to ask Benden’s permission first!”

  F’lar was in the act of swallowing wine and nearly choked in surprise.

  “Ask Benden’s permission? How does that come about?”

  “Master Robinton’s doing,” N’ton said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Excuse me, I don’t seem to be following you,” F’lar said, sitting down. He dabbed the splattered wine from his lips. “What has Master Robinton, who is, I trust, safely at sea, to do with Groghe, Corman and who knows who else wanting Southern lands for their many sons?”

  “Sir, you know that I’ve been sent about Pern—north and south—by the Masterharper? Lately I’ve had two important tasks to accomplish above and beyond my normal duties. First I was to take the temper of every small Hold as regarded duty to Hold and Weyr. Secondly I was to reinforce the belief that it is to Benden Weyr everyone on Pern must look!”

  F’lar blinked, shook his head as if to clear his mind, and then leaned forward to Sebell.

  “Go on. This is very interesting.”

  “Benden Weyr only could appreciate the changes that had occurred to Hold and Craft during the Long Interval, because only Benden had changed with the Turns. You, as Benden Weyrleader, saved Pern from Thread when no one else felt Thread would ever fall again. You also protected your Time from the excesses of those Oldtimers, who could not accept the gradual changes of Hold and Craft. You upheld the rights of Hold and Craft against your own kind and exiled those who would not look to you for leadership.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t ever heard it put quite like that,” F’lar said.

  To N’ton’s amusement, Benden’s Weyrleader squirmed, partly embarrassed but mostly gratified by the summation.

  “And so the South became closed off!”

  “Not precisely closed off,” F’lar said. “Toric’s people always came and went.” He grimaced at the present repercussions of that liberty.

  “They came north, true, but traders or anyone else only went south with the permission of Benden Weyr.”

  “I don’t remember saying that at Telgar Hold the day I fought T’ron!” F’lar struggled to recall clearly what had happened that day other than a wedding, a fight and a Threadfall.

  “You didn’t actually say so in so many words,” Sebell replied, “but you asked for and received the support of three other Weyrleaders, and every Lord Holder and Craftmaster . . .”

  “And Master Robinton construed that to mean Benden gives all orders regarding Southern?”

  “More or less.” Sebell made that admission cautiously.

  “But not in so many words, eh, Sebell?” F’lar asked, appreciating afresh the devious mind of the Harper.

  “Yes, sir. It seemed the course to take, sir, considering your own wish to secure some part of the Southern Continent for the dragonfolk during the next Interval.”

  “I’d no idea that Master Robinton had taken a chance remark of mine so much to heart.”

  “Master Robinton has always had the best interests of the Weyrs clearly in mind.”

  Grimly F’lar thought of the painful estrangement when the Harper had intervened on the day the egg had been stolen. But again, though it hadn’t seemed so at the moment, the Harper had acted in the best interests of Pern. If Lessa had carried out her intention of setting the Northern dragons against the poor old beasts at Southern . . .

  “We owe the Masterharper much.”

  “Without the Weyrs . . .” Sebell spread his hands wide to indicate that there was no other option.

  “Not all the Holds would agree to that,” F’lar said. “There is still that notion that the Weyrs do not destroy the Red Star because the end of Thread would mean the end of their dominance in Pern. Or has Master Robinton cleverly changed that notion, too?”

  “Master Robinton didn’t have to,” Sebell said with a grin. “Not after F’nor and Canth tried to go to the Red Star. The notion is Dragonmen must fly/When Threads are in the sky.”

  “Isn’t it current knowledge now,” F’lar tried to keep the contempt from his tone, “that the Southerners rarely stirred themselves to fly Thread in the South?”

  “That is, as you believe, now known. But, sir, I think you fail to appreciate that it is one thing to think about being holdless in the Fall, and quite another matter to endure it.”

  “You have?” F’lar asked.

  “I have.” Sebell’s expression was solemn. “I would prefer above all else to be within a Hold.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I know that it’s a question of changing the habits of my early years, but I definitely prefer to be sheltered during Fall. And to me that will always imply protection by dragons!”

  “So, in the final analysis, I’ve got the problem of Southern right back in my lap?”
/>
  “What’s the problem with Southern now?” Lessa asked, entering the Weyr just then. “I thought it was understood that we have first rights in Southern!”

  “That,” F’lar chuckled, “does not appear to be in contention. Not at all. Thanks to good Master Robinton.”

  “Then what is the problem?” She nodded at Sebell and N’ton by way of greeting, then looked sternly at her weyrmate for his answer.

  “Only which part of the Southern Continent we’ll open to the holdless younger sons of the North before they become a problem in themselves. Corman spoke to me after Fall.”

  “I saw you two talking. Frankly, I’ve been wondering when the subject would come up now that we’ve had to interfere with the Oldtimers again.” Lessa loosened her riding belt, and sighed. “I wish I knew more. Has Jaxom done nothing with his time down at the cove?”

  Sebell extracted a bulky packet from his tunic. “He has, among others. Perhaps this will ease your mind, Lessa.” With an air of quiet triumph, Sebell unfolded the carefully joined leaves of a large chart, portions of which remained white. A clearly defined coastline was occasionally expanded inland with colored and shaded areas. In the margins were dates and the names of those who had surveyed the various sections. The thumb of land pointing at Nerat Tip was completely filled in and familiar to the Weyrleader as Southern Weyr and Hold. On either side of that landmark was an incredible sweep of continent, bounded on the west by the delineation of a great sandy waste on two sides of a huge bay. On the east, ever farther from the thumb of Southern, a longer coastline stretched, dipping sharply south, punctuated at its most easterly point by the drawing of a high, symmetrical mountain and a small, starred cove.

  “This is what we know of the Southern Continent,” Sebell said after a long interval while the dragonriders studied the map. “As you see, we still haven’t managed to chart the entire coast, let alone the interior. This much has taken three full Turns of discreet survey to do.”