Dragondrums (dragon riders of pern)

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I always forget how hot it is at Igen,” she said, fluffing out her hair.

  “The dragons love it,” said N’ton, pointing beyond the Hold to where the rough shapes that Piemur had assumed were rock now became recognizable as dragons, stretched out to bake in the sun.

  It was as he was sliding down Lioth’s shoulder that Piemur noticed the curious construction of the Gather rectangle. There didn’t seem to be any walkway. The only open space was the customary central square for dancing. Though who’d have the energy to dance in this heat he didn’t know.

  Then Piemur ducked while Lioth showered them all with sand as he vaulted into the air and winged to join the other sunbathing dragons. The fire lizards—N’ton’s Tris, Sebell’s Kimi and Menolly’s nine—swirled up and away and were met, midair, by other fire lizards, the augmented fair swirling higher and higher in the joy of meeting.

  “That’ll occupy them for a while,” said Menolly, then she turned to Piemur. “Give me your flying gear and I’ll leave it at the Hold till you need it again.”

  “We must pay our respects to Lord Laudey and the others,” said Sebell, bringing out a handful of marks from his pocket. He presented Piemur with an eighth piece and two thirty-seconds. “I’m not being stingy, Piemur, but you’d be questioned if you had too many marks about you. And I don’t think Igen Hold runs to bubbly pies.”

  “Too hot to eat ’em anyway.” Piemur mopped his sweaty forehead with one hand as he gratefully slid the marks into his pouch.

  “But they do make a confection of fruits that you might like,” said Sebell. “Anyway, move around and listen. Don’t get caught being nosy and come up to the Hold for the evening meal. Ask for Harper Bantur if you have any trouble. Or Deece. He remembers you.”

  They had reached the edge of the Gather tents, and now Piemur realized that walking space existed but was considerately covered with tenting to deflect the worst of the sun’s baking heat. It was simple now for Piemur to move away from the journeymen harpers and the Weyrleader in the steady flow of people sauntering past the Gather stalls. He saw Menolly turn about, trying to see where he had got to, then Sebell spoke to her, and she shrugged and moved on with him.

  Almost immediately Piemur noticed one great difference between this and the Gathers he had attended in the west: people took their time. In order to separate himself from his craftmates, Piemur had deliberately lagged behind, but when he would have stepped out again at his customary pace, he hesitated. No one was moving briskly at all. Gestures and voices were languid, smiles slow, and even laughter had a lazy fall. A great many people carried long tubes from which they sipped. Stalls dispensing drinks, chilled water, as well as sliced fruits, were frequently placed and well-patronized. About every ten stalls or so, there were areas where people lounged, either on the sand or on benches placed about the edges. The tenting was raised in corners to catch breezes sweeping up from the river, cooling the lounge areas and the walkway.

  Piemur did one complete walkabout of the Gather rectangle. He could appreciate that, despite breezeways and the expenditure of the minimum of physical effort, people did not do much talking as they strolled from stall to stall. The talking, either conversation or bartering, was done while both parties sat comfortably. So he used one thirty-second piece on a long tube of fruit juice and some succulent slices of a rind-melon, found himself an inconspicuous spot in one lounge area, and settled to listen as he sipped his drink and ate.

  At first he didn’t quite catch the softer drawl of these south-easterners. The low-pitched conversation between two men on his left turned out to be the innocuous boasting of one about the breeding lines of the splay-footed runners he was hoping to barter profitably while the other man kept extolling the virtues of the currently favored strain. Disgusted at such a waste of his time, Piemur focused his ears on the group of five men on his right. They were blaming the weather on Thread, the bad crops on the weather and everything else except their lack of industry, which Piemur thought would be the real problem. A group of women were also murmuring against the weather, their mates, their children and the nuisancy children of other holds, but all in a fairly comfortable, tolerantly amused fashion. Three men, with their heads so close together no sound passed their shoulders, finally parted, but not before Piemur saw a small sack pass from one to another and decided that they must only have been bargaining hard, The runnermen left and a new pair took their places, composed their loose robes about them, leaned back and promptly went to sleep. Piemur found himself growing more heavy-eyed and sipped the last of his juice to keep him awake, wondering if he would find another lounge area as dull.

  A combination of excited voices and a chill breeze woke him. He stared about him, wondering if he had missed a drum message, and then oriented himself. Night had fallen and, with the set of the sun, the cooler winds of evening blew cheerfully through the raised flaps. There was no one else in the tent with him, but he could smell the aroma of roasting meats and scrambled to his feet. He’d be late at the Hold for his supper, and he was hungry.

  Cool evening had enlivened everyone, for the walkway was now full of quickly stepping, chattering people, and Piemur had to duck and dart his way out of the Gather tents. The dragon lumps on the Hold cliff turned their brilliant lanterns of eyes on the doings below them, rivaling the blazing glow baskets set on high standards about the Gather grounds.

  No one challenged Piemur at the Hold courtyard gates, and he found the main Hall by simply following the general drift of the well-dressed people.

  Lord Laudey, according to Harper Hall gossip, was not a very outgoing man, but at a Gather, every Holder did make an effort. The principal men and craftmasters of his Hold were invited with their immediate families to dine in the Hold Hall, as well as such dragonriders and visiting Lord Holders, Craftmasters and Masters who might be attending the Gather.

  By custom, the harpers ate at the first table below the main one. Piemur had never seen the resident Harper, Bantur, and hoped that Menolly and Sebell were already at the table. They were, and chatting in high spirits with Deece, who’d been seconded to Bantur the night Menolly had walked the tables to become a journeywoman, and with Strud, who’d been posted to a sea hold on Igen River that same night. Gray of hair but with bright and unusually blue eyes, Bantur welcomed Piemur with such friendliness for a mere apprentice that Piemur was made more uncomfortable by kindness than he would have been by taciturnity. Bantur insisted on getting him fresh meats and tubers from one of the drudges and heaped his plate so high with choice cuts that Piemur’s eyes boggled.

  The other harpers talked while he ate, and when he had finally swallowed the last morsel, Bantur suggested they all leave to make room for more of Lord Laudey’s guests. Then Bantur asked if Piemur would take a harper’s turn on drum or gitar and, when Piemur saw Sebell’s discreet nod, he agreed with a show of enthusiasm to take a gitar part.

  “Why Piemur, I thought sure you’d take a drum part,” said Menolly, her expression so bland that he nearly rose to her bait.

  Piemur restrained an urge to kick her in the shins and smiled sweetly at her instead. “You heard today what the drummers think of me,” he replied so demurely that Menolly chortled until her eyes filled.

  As the harpers filed out of the Hall for the Gather, Sebell fell in step with Piemur.

  “Heard anything of interest?”

  “Who talks during the day’s heat!” asked Piemur with heartfelt disgust. He suspected that Sebell had known about desert daytime indolence.

  “You’ll notice the change in them now, and you’ll only need to do the dance turns. If I gauge the Gather right,” said Sebell, glancing ahead at Menolly’s slender figure in harper blue, “they’ll keep her singing until she’s hoarse. They always do.”

  Piemur glanced swiftly at Sebell, wondering if the journeyman was aware of showing his feelings for the harper girl so openly.

  The first dance turn was the longest and most energetic. The crisp night air stimulated the
dancers’ gyrations until they were energetic beyond Piemur’s credence. Quite a transformation from the languid manners of the afternoon. Then, as Bantur, Deece, Strud and Menolly remained on the platform to sing, Sebell nodded to Piemur to work his way from the square’s attentive audience toward the smaller groups of men, drinking tubes in hand, conversing in quiet tones.

  The subdued level, Piemur decided, was out of courtesy to the singers and their audience, but it made it hard for him. He was about to give up when the word “Oldtimers” caught his ear. He sidled closer to the group and, in the light of the glow baskets, recognized two as seaholders, a miner, a smith and an Igen holder.

  “I don’t say it was them, but since they’ve gone south, we’ve had no more unexpected demands,” said the smith. “G’narish may also be an Oldtimer, but he follows Benden’s ways. So it had to have been Oldtimers.”

  “Young Toric often sends his two-master north for trade,” said one of the seaholders, in a voice so confidential that Piemur had to strain to catch the words. “He always has, and my Holder sees no harm in it. Toric’s no dragonman, and those that stayed south with him don’t fall under Benden’s order. So we trade. He may bargain close, but he pays well.”

  “In marks?” asked the Igen holder, surprised.

  “No. Barter! Gemstones, hides, fruit, such like. And once” —here Piemur held his breath for fear of missing the confidential whisper– “nine fire lizard eggs!”

  “No?” Envy as well as surprised interest were expressed in that startled reply. The seaholder quickly gestured the man to keep his tone down. “Of course,” and there was no disguising the bitter jealousy, “they’ve all the sand beaches in the world to search in the south! Any chance…”

  The fascinating conversation broke off as another seaholder joined them, an older man, and possibly superior to the gossiping seaman, for talk turned to other things, and Piemur moved on.

  Then Menolly began to sing alone, the other harpers accompanying her. All conversations died as she sang, with what appeared to Piemur to be incredible aptness, the “Fire Lizard Song.”

  Her voice was richer now, Piemur noticed with a critical ear, the tone better sustained. He couldn’t fault her musical phrasing. Nor should he be able to after three Turns of severe instruction by Master Shonagar. Her voice was so admirably suited to the songs she sang, he thought, and more expressive than many singers who had even better natural voices. As often as Piemur had heard the “Fire Lizard Song,” he found himself listening as intently as ever. When the song ended, he applauded as vigorously as everyone else, only then aware that he had been equally captivated. Putting words to music was not Menolly’s only talent; she put her music in the hearts and minds of her listeners, too.

  “While her enrapt audience started shouting for their favorite tunes, she beckoned Sebell to the platform, and they sang a duet of an eastern sea hold song, their voices so well blended that Piemur’s respect and admiration for his fellow harpers reached unprecedented heights. Now, if only his voice turned tenor, he might have the chance to sing with…

  He played three more dance turns, but Sebell had been correct: the Igen gatherers wanted Menolly whenever she would favor them with song. Piemur also noticed that for every solo she sang, there was at least one group song and a duet including the Igen harpers. Clever of her to forestall ill-feeling. Too bad such discretion did not translate into his particular problem with the drum apprentices!

  Whether it was because he’d had a sleep in the afternoon or because the desert air was particularly bracing, Piemur was never sure, but it was only when he noticed the thinning of the crowd around the dance area, and the increased number of people rolled up in their blankets in the Gather tents, that he began to feel fatigue. He looked around then for Sebell and Menolly. When he saw nothing of them, he finally sought a weary, yawning Strud, who advised him, with a grin, to find a corner and get some sleep, if he could.

  It had been easy enough to sleep that afternoon, but now, with no heat to lull him, the things he had heard—music as well as malice—danced about in his mind. One positive fact emerged: the Oldtimer’s descent on the miner in Fort Hold was not an isolated incident. He also knew that while G’narish, Igen’s Oldtime Weyrleader, was respected, Igen Holders would have given much to be beholden to Benden instead.

  A sharp peck on his ear woke him, and he had a momentary fright before he focused his eyes on Rocky’s cocked head and heard the reassuring soft chirrup. Someone was snoring lustily beside him, and Piemur’s back was warm. He cautiously eased away from this unknown sleeper.

  Rocky chirped again and, hopping off his shoulder, walked a few paces away with exaggerated steps before looking back at Piemur. He wanted Piemur to come with him, and while his eyes were not red with hunger, they were whirling fast enough to indicate some urgency.

  “I don’t need a drum to get your message,” Piemur said under his breath as he moved further away from his snoring bed companion. He really must have been tired to sleep through that sort of racket.

  Rocky landed on his right shoulder, poking at his cheek to force his head left. Piemur obediently ducked under the tent flap and, in the glows that were shedding a subdued waning light on the sands before Igen Hold, he saw the dark bulk of a dragon and several figures.

  Rocky called in a sweet light voice and then took off toward the group. Piemur followed, yawning and shivering in the chill predawn breeze, wishing he had some klah. Especially if the presence of a dragon meant he had to go between; he was cold enough already.

  The dragon was not Lioth, as he’d half expected, but a brown nearly as big as the Fort Weyr dragon. It had to be Canth. And it was, for as he neared the group, he saw the scars on F’nor’s face from the dreadful, near-fatal scoring he’d taken on his famous jump to the Red Star.

  “C’mon, Piemur,” called Sebell. “F’nor’s here to take us to Benden Weyr. Ramoth’s latest clutch is Hatching.”

  Piemur started to whoop with joy, then bit his tongue, choking off his jubilation. Bad enough he’d been to a Gather, but when Clell and that lot heard he’d been to a Benden Hatching, his life wouldn’t be worth a wax mark! He saw in the same instant that the others were expecting him to react with appropriate anticipation and, loudly damning his changing voice, he affected as genuine a smile as he could manage. The groan that escaped him as he climbed to Canth’s back was for the inexorable forces he couldn’t resist rather than the physical effort. He endured in silence Sebell’s teasing about the miseries of an apprentice’s life, and then Menolly’s for his silence, which she attributed to either hunger or sleepiness.

  “Never mind, Piemur,” she said with an encouraging smile, “there’s bound to be some klah left in the pot for you at Benden Weyr.” She peered down at his face. “You are awake, aren’t you?”

  “Sort of,” he said, yawning again, then added for her benefit, “I just can’t take it in that me, Piemur, gets to go to a Benden Weyr Hatching!”

  Should he ask Menolly not to tell the Drum Master and Dirzan? Could he ask her to say he’d been left at Igen Hold until they could collect him? No, he couldn’t, because she’d want to know why. And he couldn’t tell her because that would mark him a blubber-baby, bleater, babblemouth. There had to be some way he could settle Clell and Dirzan by himself!

  Despite his misgivings, Piemur succumbed to the fear-charged thrill of Canth’s initial vault into the air, the sensation of being pressed down, the breathlessness as the huge wings beat powerfully, and he felt the effort of Canth’s neck muscles under his buttocks. It wasn’t quite as scary flying in this predawn darkness because he didn’t know how far he was above the ground, particularly since his face was turned away from Igen Hold’s fading lights; but he caught his breath in a spurt of pure terror as F’nor gave Canth the audible request to take them between to Benden Weyr. He was again alone in the intense, sense-deprived, utter cold, and then, before the cold could sink to his bones, they had emerged into the brightening day, momentarily su
spended above the massive Bowl of Benden Weyr.

  He’d been to Fort Weyr once, by cart, with a group of harpers, when Ludeth, the Weyrqueen, had her first queen egg hatching. He’d thought that Fort was huge, but Benden seemed much bigger. Perhaps because he was seeing it from dragonback, perhaps because of the light, touching the far edges of the Bowl, gilding the lake. Perhaps it was because this was Benden, and Benden figured so hugely and importantly in his eyes, and the eyes of everyone else on Pern.

  Without Benden and her courageous leaders, Pern might have been half-destroyed by Thread.

  Another dragon appeared in the air just above them, and instinctively Piemur ducked, hearing Menolly laugh at his reflex. A third and then a fourth dragon arrived even as Canth began to glide down to the bowl floor. By the time Piemur could slide from brown Canth’s shoulder to the ground, he marveled that the dragons hadn’t collided midair, appearing as they had with such startling frequency.

  Beauty, Kimi, Rocky and Diver popped in above Menolly’s head, caroling with excitement, and suddenly they were joined by five other fire lizards Piemur had never seen before. When Menolly muttered worriedly about feeding fire lizards before they disrupted the Weyr, F’nor laughingly told them to find Mirrim. She was likely to be supervising breakfast in the kitchen caverns. Sebell’s nudge in his ribs reminded Piemur to thank the brown rider and his dragon. Then the three harpers made their way across the Bowl to the brightly lit cavern.

  The enticing aromas of fresh klah and toasted cereals quickened their steps, Menolly leading the way toward the smallest hearth, away from the bustle and hurry of weyrfolk at the larger fires.

  “Mirrim?” she called, and the girl at the hearth turned, her face lighting as she recognized the new arrivals. “Menolly! You came! Sebell! How are you? What have you been up to recently to get so tanned? Who’s this?” Her smile disappeared as she noticed Piemur bringing up the rear, as if such a scruffy apprentice shouldn’t be in such good company.