The White Dragon

by Anne McCaffrey

  “By whom?” Lessa inquired, now deeply interested.

  “By many people, myself included, N’ton, Toric’s holders, but most of it by a young Harper named Piemur.”

  “So that’s what happened to him when his voice changed,” Lessa said in surprise.

  “By the scale of this map,” F’lar said slowly, “you could fit the North of Pern in the western half of the Bay.”

  Sebell laid his left thumb on the protuberance of Southern and planted the rest of his hand, fingers splayed, on the western section of the map. “This area could easily occupy the Lord Holders.” He heard Lessa’s sharp intake of breath and smiled at her, spreading his right hand over the eastern portion. “But this, Piemur tells me, is the best part of the South!”

  “Near that mountain?” Lessa asked.

  “Near that mountain!”

  Piemur, leading Stupid while Farli circled above him, reappeared from the forest just as full dark was falling on the cove. He swung a plaited string of ripe fruit to the ground in front of Sharra.

  “There! That’s to make up for cutting out this morning,” he said, a tentative grin on his face as he squatted on his haunches. “Stupid wasn’t the only one scared of that mob this morning.” He made a show of wiping his forehead. “I haven’t seen that many people in . . . since the last gather I attended a South Boll. That was two Turns ago! I was afraid they’d never leave! They’ll be back tomorrow?”

  Jaxom grinned at his plaintive question and nodded. “I wasn’t much better than you, Piemur. I got away by having to hunt. Then I tracked down that clutch and spent the afternoon rigging fishnet.” He gestured toward the next cove.

  Piemur nodded. “Funny thing that, not wanting to be among people. Felt as if I couldn’t breathe with so many using the same air supply. And that’s downright foolish.” He looked about him, at the black bulks of supplies lining the cove. “We’re not stuffed in a Hold, with fans going!” He shook his head. “Me, Piemur, Harper, a social fellow. And I turn and run from people . . . faster than Stupid did!” He gave a snort of laughter.

  “If it’ll make you two feel any better, I was a bit overwhelmed myself,” Sharra said. “Thank you for the fruit, Piemur. That . . . that horde ate all we had. I think there’s some roast wherry left, and a few rib bones from the buck.”

  “I could eat Stupid, only he’d be too tough.” Piemur breathed a sigh of relief and eased himself down to the sand.

  Sharra chuckled as she went to get him something to eat. “I don’t like to think of a lot of people here,” Jaxom told Piemur.

  “Know what you mean.” The young Harper grinned. “Jaxom, do you realize that I’ve been places no man has ever stepped before? I’ve seen places that scared me to leaking, and other spots that I had trouble leaving because they were so beautiful.” He exhaled in resignation. “Oh, well, I got there first.” Suddenly he sat up, pointing urgently into the sky. “There they are! If only I had a far-viewer!”

  “Who are?” Jaxom slewed himself around to see where Piemur was pointing, expecting dragonriders.

  “The so-called Dawn Sisters. You can only see them dusk and dawn down here and much higher in the sky. See, those three very bright points! Many’s the time I’ve used them as guides!”

  Jaxom could scarcely miss the three stars, gleaming in an almost constant light. He wondered that he hadn’t noticed them before now.

  “They’ll fade soon,” Piemur said, “unless one of the moons is out. Then you see them again just before dawn. Must ask Wansor about that when I see him. They don’t act like proper stars. The Starsmith’s not scheduled to come down and help build the Harper’s hold, is he?”

  “He’s about the only one who isn’t,” Jaxom replied. “Cheer up, Piemur. The way they worked today, it won’t take long to finish that hold. And what do you mean about the Dawn Sisters?”

  “They just don’t act like proper stars. Didn’t you ever notice?”

  “No. But we’ve been in most evenings and certainly every dawn.”

  Piemur pointed with several stabs of his right arm at the Dawn Sisters. “Most stars change position. They never do.”

  “Sure they do. In Ruatha they’re almost invisible on the horizon . . .”

  Piemur was shaking his head. “They’re constant. That’s what I mean. Every season I’ve been here, they’re always in the same place.”

  “Can’t be! It’s impossible. Wansor says that stars have routes in the sky just like—”

  “They stay still! They’re always in the same position.”

  “And I tell you that’s impossible.”

  “What’s impossible? And don’t snarl at each other,” Sharra said, returning with a tray piled high with food and a wineskin slung over her shoulder. Giving Piemur the food, she filled cups all around.

  Piemur guffawed as he reached for a buck rib. “Well, I’m going to send a message to Wansor. I say it’s bloody peculiar behavior for stars!”

  A change in the breeze awakened the Masterharper. Zair chirped softly, curled on the pillows above Robinton’s ear. A sunscreen had been rigged above the Harper’s head but it was the airless heat that roused him.

  For a change, no one was seated in watch over him. The respite of surveillance pleased him. He had been touched by the concern of everyone, though at times the attention bade fair to smother him. He’d curbed his impatience. He had no choice. Too weak and tired to resist the ministrations. Today must be another small indication of his general improvement: leaving him alone. He reveled in the solitude. Before him, the jib sheet flapped idly and he could hear the mainsail, behind him—aft, he corrected himself abruptly—rumbling windless as well. The gentle rolling swells seemed to be all that drove the ship forward. Waves, curls of foam on their crests, were mesmeric in their rhythm and he had to shake his head sharply to break their fascination. He raised his glance above the swell and saw nothing but water, as usual, on all sides. They would not see land for days more, he knew, though Master Idarolan said they were making good speed on their southeasterly course now that they had picked up the Great South Current.

  The Master Fisherman was as pleased with this expedition as everyone else connected with it. Robinton snorted to himself with amusement. Everyone else apparently was profiting by his illness.

  Now, now, Robinton chided himself, don’t be sour. Why did you spend so much time training Sebell if not to take over when it became necessary? Only, Robinton thought, he hadn’t ever expected that to happen. He wondered fleetingly if Menolly was faithfully reporting the daily messages from Sebell. She and Brekke could well be conspiring to keep any worrying problem from him.

  Zair stroked his cheek with his soft head. Zair was the best humor-vane a man could have. The fire-lizard knew, with an instinct that outshone his own reliable sense of atmosphere, the emotional climate of those about Robinton.

  He wished he could throw off this languor and use the journey time to good effect—catching up on Craft business, on those songs he had in mind to write, on any number of long-delayed projects that the press of immediate concerns had pushed further and further from completion. But Robinton had no ambition at all; he found himself content to lie on the deck of Master Idarolan’s swift ship and do nothing. The Dawn Sister, that’s what Idarolan called her. Pretty name. That reminded him. He must borrow the Fisherman’s far-viewer this evening. There was something odd about those Dawn Sisters. They were visible, higher up than they ought to be, in the sky at dusk as well as dawn. Not that he’d been allowed to be awake at dawn to check. But they were mostly in the sky at sunset. He didn’t think that stars should act that way. He must remember to write Wansor a note.

  He felt Zair stir, heard him chirp a pleasant greeting before he heard the soft step behind him. Zair’s mind imagined Menolly.

  “Don’t creep up on me,” he said with more testiness than he intended.

  “I thought you were asleep!”

  “I was. What else do I do all day?” He smiled at her to take the
petulance from his words.

  Surprisingly, she grinned and offered him a cup of fruit juice, lightly laced with wine. They knew better now than to offer him plain juice.

  “You sound better.”

  “Sound better? I’m as peevish as an old uncle! You must be heartily tired of my sulks by now!”

  She dropped beside him, her hand on his forearm.

  “I’m just so glad you’re able to sulk,” she said. Robinton was startled to see the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “My dear girl,” he began, covering her hand with his.

  She laid her head on the low couch, her face turned from him. Zair chirped in concern, his eyes beginning to whirl faster. Beauty erupted into the air above Menolly’s head, chittering in echoed distress. Robinton set down his cup and raised himself on one elbow, leaning solicitously over the girl.

  “Menolly, I’m fine. I’ll be up and about any day now, Brekke says.” The Harper permitted himself to stroke her hair. “Don’t cry. Not now!”

  “Silly of me, I know. Because you are getting well, and we’ll see to it that you never strain yourself again . . .” Menolly wiped her eyes impatiently with the back of her hand and sniffled.

  It was an endearingly childlike action. Her face, now blotchy from crying, was suddenly so vulnerable that Robinton felt his heart give a startling thump. He smiled tenderly at her, stroked tendrils of her hair back from her face. Tilting her chin up, he kissed her cheek. He felt her hand tighten convulsively on his arm, felt her lean into his kiss with an appeal that set both fire-lizards humming.

  Perhaps it was that response from their friends, or the fact that he was so startled that caused him to stiffen, but Menolly swiveled away from him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her head bent, her shoulders sagging.

  “So, my dear Menolly, am I,” the Harper said as gently as he could. In that instant, he regretted his age, her youth, how much he loved her—the fact that he never could— and the weakness that caused him to admit so much. She turned back to him, her eyes intense with her emotion.

  He held up his hand, saw the quick pain in her eyes, as the merest shake of his fingers forestalled all she wanted to say. He sighed, closing his eyes against the pain in her loving eyes. Abruptly he was exhausted by an exchange of understanding that had taken so few moments. As few as at Impression, he thought, and as lasting. He supposed he had always known the dangerous ambivalence of his feelings for the young SeaHold-bred girl whose rare talent he had developed. Ironic that he should be weak enough to admit it, to himself and to her, at such an awkward moment. Obtuse of him not to have recognized the intensity and quality of Menolly’s feelings for him. Yet, she’d seemed content enough with Sebell. Certainly they enjoyed a deep emotional and physical attachment. Robinton had done everything in his subtle power to insure that. Sebell was the son he had never had. Better that!

  “Sebell . . .” he began, and stopped when he felt her fingers tentatively closing over his.

  “I loved you first, Master.”

  “You’ve been a dear child to me,” he said, willing himself to believe that. He squeezed her fingers in a brisk grip which he broke and, elbowing himself off the pillows, retrieved the cup he had set down and took a long drink.

  He was able, then, to smile up at her, despite the lingering ache in his throat for what could never have been. She did manage a smile in return.

  Zair flew up and beyond the sunscreen, though Robinton couldn’t imagine why the approach of the Masterfisher would startle the creature.

  “So, you wake. Rested, my good friend?” the Sea-master asked.

  “Just the man I wanted to see. Master Idarolan, have you noticed those Dawn Sisters at dusk? Or has my eyesight deteriorated with the rest of me?”

  “Oho, the eye is by no means dimmed, good Master Robinton. I’ve already sent word back to Master Wansor on that account. I confess that I have never sailed so far easterly in these Southern waters so I’d never observed the phenomenon before, but I do believe that there is something peculiar about the positioning of those three stars.”

  “If I’m allowed to stay up past dusk this evening,” the Harper glared significantly at Menolly, “may I have the loan of your distance-viewer?”

  “You certainly may, Master Robinton. I’d appreciate your observations. I know you’ve had a good deal more time to study Master Wansor’s equations. Perhaps we can figure out between us this erratic behavior.”

  “I’d like nothing better. In the meantime, let us complete that game we started this morning. Menolly, have you the board handy?”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  At the Cove Hold the Day of Master

  Robinton’s Arrival, 15.10.14

  WITH SO MANY eager hands and skilled craftsmen, Cove Hold took only eleven days to complete, though the stonemen shook their heads a bit over rushing the drying of hardset. Another three days were spent on the interior. Lessa, Manora, Silvina and Sharra consulted long, and with much shifting of the furnishings finally achieved what they considered the effective use—not efficient, Sharra told Jaxom with a wicked grin, but effective— of the offerings which poured in from every hold, craft and cot.

  Sharra’s voice began to take on a tone that mixed suffering and pride. She’d spent the day unpacking, washing and arranging things. “What did you fall into?” she asked Piemur, noticing newly acquired scratches on his face and hands.

  “Doing things his way,” Jaxom replied, though he’d a few marks on his neck and forehead as well.

  With so many to build the Hold, N’ton, F’nor, and F’lar, when he could arrange the time, had joined Piemur and Jaxom to increase their knowledge of the lands immediately adjacent to the Cove.

  Piemur rather arrogantly told F’lar that dragons had to be to a place first to get there again between—or else get a sharp enough visualization from someone who had. But he, with his two feet and Stupid’s four, had to be first so that mere dragonriders could then follow. The dragonriders ignored the somewhat disparaging remarks, but Piemur’s attitude was beginning to get on Jaxom’s nerves.

  No matter the method of accomplishment, temporary camps at a good day’s flight by dragon from Cove Hold were established in a wide arc fanning out from the new Hold. Each camp consisted of a small tile-roofed shelter and a stone bunker to secure emergency supplies and sleeping furs. By a tacit agreement, they had gone two days’ flight on a direct bearing to the mountain and built a secondary camp.

  The restriction on Jaxom flying between would shortly be removed. He had only to wait now, F’lar told him, until Master Oldive gave him a final examination. Since Master Oldive would soon be in Cove Hold to check Robinton’s recovery, Jaxom wouldn’t have long to wait.

  “And, if I can go between, so can Menolly,” Jaxom said.

  “Why would you have to wait until Menolly can go between?” Sharra asked, with an edge to her voice that Jaxom hoped might be a twinge of jealousy.

  “She and Master Robinton found this Cove first, you know.” He wasn’t glancing in the direction of the Cove when he spoke, but toward the omnipresent mountain.

  “By sea,” Piemur said with some disgust for such a mode of transport.

  “I have to admit, Piemur,” Sharra said after regarding him for a long moment, “that feet were used before wings and sail. I, for one, am thankful that there are other ways of getting from one place to another. And it’s no disgrace to use them.”

  She then turned and walked off, leaving Piemur to stare after her in surprise.

  The incident cleared the air and Jaxom was relieved to note that Piemur eased his snide remarks about flying and riding.

  Attesting to the accuracy of Piemur’s charting was the fact that, once the Great South Current curved shoreward, Master Idarolan was able to identify his position by the contour of the now visible coast and to predict the arrival of the Dawn Sister at Cove Hold. She was twenty-two days out of Istan water before she rounded the west point of the Cove one bright morning, an eve
nt that was celebrated by a special, select welcoming committee.

  Oldive and Brekke had forbidden a large reception and party. There was no point in undoing all the benefit of the long, restful voyage with the strain and fatigue of a feast. So Master Fandarel represented the hundreds of craftsmen and masters who had produced the beautiful Cove Hold. Lessa stood for all the Weyrs whose dragons had transported men and material, and Jaxom was the logical spokesman for the Lord Holders who had contributed the men and supplies.

  These last moments, as the graceful three-masted ship headed up the Cove toward the stubby stone pier, seemed the hardest to endure. Jaxom strained his eyes as the ship glided closer and closer on the calm waters, and let out a jubilant whoop that made the fire-lizards squeak in surprise when he discerned the figure of the Harper standing in the prow, waving to those on shore. The fire-lizards executed aerial dances of great intricacy above the ship.

  “Look, he’s almost black with sun,” Lessa cried, clutching Jaxom’s arm in her excitement.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll have had a good long rest,” Fandarel said, grinning from ear to ear in anticipation of his friend’s delight and pleasure in the new Hall. It was just out of sight from the pier.

  The ship suddenly wheeled as Master Idarolan swung the tiller starboard, to slip his vessel deftly broadside to the dock. Seamen leaped to the pier, snubbing lines on the bollards. Jaxom jumped forward to lend a willing hand. The ship creaked as her timbers resisted the sudden halt. Bound bolsters were run over the side to prevent the ship rubbing against stone. Then a plank was dropped from an opening in the ship’s rail to the pier.

  “I’ve brought him safely to you, Benden, Mastersmith, Lord Holder,” boomed the voice of the Master Seaman as he jumped to the cabin housing.

  A spontaneous cheer burst from Jaxom’s throat, echoed by a roar from Fandarel and a cry from Lessa. Jaxom and Fandarel stood on either side of the springy plank to grip Robinton’s hands as he all but slid ashore.