Dragon's Code

by Gigi McCaffrey

  Perhaps Sebell and the Master were right; maybe there really was nothing to take from what he’d seen and heard. Perhaps what T’reb had been up to wasn’t truly sinister at all. Nonetheless, he couldn’t forget what he’d seen with his own eyes on those desolate Hatching Grounds. Spurred on by that thought, and what his gut instincts were telling him, suddenly he felt inclined to forget what the Master wanted and find out for himself just exactly what plans were brewing among the Oldtimers in Southern Weyr. Just as soon as his head stopped pounding!

  * * *

  —

  Piemur mopped the sweat off his head and face and checked the knot in the tunic he’d tied around his waist. He’d need the tunic later when he reached the top of the cliff face, but for now it was too hot and awkward to climb in, especially in the unrelenting heat. Satisfied the tunic was secured, he tested the first handhold he’d use to haul himself up the rock face and then began the arduous task of climbing.

  It had been a sevenday since he’d left Southern Hold. He’d left Stupid behind, because the terrain he’d be mapping wasn’t suitable for the six-legged ruminant. N’ton and Lioth had obligingly flown Piemur close to the cliff face to shorten his trekking time, but even so Piemur had started his journey in an unnaturally foul humor, unable to shake the feeling that Master Robinton no longer valued him, and that he’d made a fool of himself in front of Sebell, N’ton, and Toric. Ever since that afternoon it had been hard to keep his spirits buoyed and on an even keel. He felt as if he didn’t fit in anywhere anymore. Throughout the last fourteen days he’d mentally argued with himself about returning to Southern Weyr to discover more of what the Oldtimers were planning with the men from Nabol, and every time his better sense won out and he convinced himself not to act contrary to Master Robinton’s orders, he felt like a coward, willing to do anything in order to fit in. Where had his gumption gone? Had he lost so much of his strength of character along with his singing voice that he was no longer able to act on his own?

  His foster mother, Ama, had always reminded him—as she did all her fosterlings—to heed their instincts. And before Piemur left Crom to be an apprentice at the Harper Hall, Ama reminded him that if he ever felt uncertain of the direction his life was taking, all he had to do was let his instincts guide him toward a decision.

  “Don’t fret, my lad, or overthink things,” Ama had said, beaming at him. “Let your guts guide you and then just go with it. Let it rip, my Pie.” At the time he hadn’t understood what she was saying, but he reckoned now she may have been telling him that he didn’t have to be an apprentice harper if he felt that wasn’t his destiny.

  As he climbed the cliff now, all alone save for Farli’s sporadic company, he found himself lapsing into dark reveries and had to consciously shake himself out of his funk. Right now, he reminded himself, it was important that he focus all his concentration on his ascent. Slowly, as he got into the pattern—climb, haul, find a foothold, then climb again—Piemur stopped thinking and unconsciously began to hum a song he’d learned as a young boy. It was a gentle tune that lilted from one note to the next in a steady rhythm and always made him smile when he heard it.

  He’d just navigated to one side of a large gouge in the rock face, a recess that looked like one of the very shallow caves that pockmarked the cliff and slowed down his climb. He placed both feet on the far-right side of the cave mouth and reached for the next handhold, still humming, when his voice suddenly failed to rise easily, croaking unattractively instead. Abruptly he stopped humming. Holding on with both arms, his feet still on the ledge, he cleared his throat and then tried the note again. Another ragged croak filled the air. He frowned and turned his head to one side of the cliff face, spitting saliva from his mouth.

  Ha! he thought bitterly, leaning into the cliff face as he spat over his shoulder again. So much for all the advice he’d been given: “You have to give your voice time, Piemur, let it settle naturally,” or, “You’ll see, Piemur, it’ll be no time before you find your mature range.” But no one said what everyone knew—that there wasn’t any guarantee a young man’s voice would settle into a good tenor or baritone once he’d matured.

  Leaning heavily against the cliff face, Piemur closed his eyes at the memory of his old voice as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end—it was as if the songs he’d sung three Turns ago still filled the air, and he tried in vain to stop the familiar feeling of loss from piercing his heart. This is what he did now: map the Southern Continent; or spy on the Oldtimer dragonmen; or teach the children of Southern Hold; or do whatever the Masterharper of Pern asked of him. Piemur did what he was told, and without any grousing, but he felt as if he’d been discarded, as if all his Turns of vocal training never existed. The thought cut through him.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed out loud this time. He couldn’t help himself.

  A group of tiny birds, nesting in a crevice in the cliff face, were startled by the harsh sound Piemur made and flew out of their nest in a panicked frenzy.

  If anyone had told Piemur three Turns ago that he’d no longer be a first-line singer or even a full-time drum messenger in the Harper Hall, but, rather, become an odd-jobber on the Southern Continent, he would’ve told them in no uncertain terms to char off! Had he really been such a disappointment to his Master and Crafthall?

  He thought of the Masterharper, and how dismissive he’d been of Piemur’s opinion about the Oldtimers. Now, as Piemur clung to the cliff face, he shook his head and a spray of sweat flew off him.

  He continued to climb, hauling himself higher and higher, while his mood seemed to go lower and lower. His thoughts were on the verge of turning decidedly dark when he felt a sudden, gentle whoosh of air over his head and Farli appeared above him. Her delicate wings maintaining a hover, she chirped at him, her eyes whirling brightly while she broadcast a series of mental images that were too jumbled for Piemur to comprehend.

  “Ah, here, hold up there a minute,” Piemur said gently, smiling in spite of himself. “Completely out of the blue you decide to come chattering back to me. You’ve grown tired of your friends, is that it? Well, you may well be able to fly and chat at the same time, Farli, but I’m not able to climb a rock face and stop midway to casually decipher your ramblings. I have to pay attention to what I’m doing, you know. Just give me a moment.”

  A chap couldn’t stay broody for very long when he had a fire-lizard, Piemur mused. He smiled at the sight of his little queen, and knew how lucky he was to have her, even if she did wander off on her own from time to time. Even though Piemur felt he didn’t fit in anywhere else on Pern, he knew that Farli was a perfect fit for him. Attuned to his thoughts as always, Farli flitted close to Piemur’s shoulder as he climbed, thrumming gently, moving to keep her delicately sculpted head close to his.

  Then, without warning, Farli’s thrumming changed to a shrill chittering, and she broadcast an image of Piemur climbing very fast up the rock face.

  “Yes, Farli, that’s a good, clear image. Well done, you’re getting much better at that,” Piemur said encouragingly. It was hard work training a fire-lizard, but he reckoned his gold had really improved.

  Unexpectedly Farli screeched loudly in Piemur’s ear again and then abruptly vanished between. Piemur chuckled to himself and shook his head, amused at the small queen’s antics. Something on the periphery of his vision caught Piemur’s attention and he whirled his head around, craning to see behind him.

  Thread! It wasn’t supposed to fall for another day! He could see a wide bank of the mindless, voracious strands moving toward the cliff like a giant curtain of gray.

  Move! Fast! Piemur thought frantically, searching above him for another one of the cavelike blemishes in the face of the cliff. He didn’t dare climb down, because it was too hard to see foot- and handholds to move quickly in that direction. He had to go up!

  One more frantic look over his shoulder at the approaching thick band t
old him that the Thread was barely three meters away. He called on all the dragons of Pern, present and past, to guide him to the nearest opening as he hauled himself upward. If even one strand of the deadly filaments touched his body he wouldn’t stand a chance: The searing burn would surely cause him to lose his grip on the rock face, and it was a long fall down.

  His left hand pawed around above his head as he hauled himself upward with his right. There, an opening—he could feel it! He pulled his body up with all his strength, scrambling to get into the little fault in the cliff face before the Thread reached him. At last his head and shoulders were in the cave; all he had to do was drag the rest of his body into the small, irregularly shaped opening.

  I hope I fit in here!

  With one last mighty effort, Piemur pulled his legs into the little cave. His head banged against the hard, unforgiving rock. He forced himself to ignore the pain. As the leading edge of Thread hit the cliff face, Piemur squeezed himself as tightly as he could into the back of the cave. If a wind started to blow, Piemur thought in horror, even a little gust of it, Thread could blow in and he’d be done for. He watched in terrified awe, pressed tightly against the back of the crevice, as the silver strands made contact with the cliff face and then, unable to penetrate the rock, slithered and fell toward the ground. He had never been this close to Thread before in his life! He closed his eyes.

  What was that sound? He could hear something like gushing liquid or rushing air—or maybe a combination of the two. It grew louder. Through his tightly closed eyelids Piemur could sense an orange glow. His eyes snapped open just as flame spewed in front of the rock face, and Piemur wondered if he was dreaming. Then another burst of fire flared in front of his eyes and, hissing, Farli flew into the cave.

  She must have flown off to find firestone when she first caught sight of the Threadfall, Piemur thought in amazement. He knew that fire-lizards, like dragons, could chew firestone in order to breathe flame, but he’d never seen it before.

  Now his gold fire-lizard stood firm, all four feet planted squarely on the rock and her head thrust forward while she flamed the Thread, answering an instinctive urge to extinguish her ancient foe.

  “Farli, you amazing girl!” Piemur cried. “Keep flaming!” Then fear washed over him as he realized there was only a limited amount of flame his little queen could produce before the gases from the firestone she had chewed would be spent.

  “Farli, you’re going to have to get help for me. Save your flame, Farli, you’re going to need it!”

  Farli cheeped once to Piemur in reply, then closed her mouth, a tiny wisp of smoke floating up and over her head.

  “We need help, Farli. Can you go get help?”

  As Piemur spoke, Farli looked intently at his face. Then she pushed an image of a brown fire-lizard at him as her eyes flashed from red to brown and then red again. She let out a quick set of trills, spewed a burst of flame from her mouth, then hopped off the ledge and was gone between.

  Piemur sat, alone and very frightened, his eyes huge as he watched the falling curtain of Thread and waited for help.

  A roaring noise, faint at first and then growing louder, filled Piemur’s ears. He wondered, having never heard about it before, if this was the sound Thread made as it fell where it could find no fuel to feed on. He had never before been out in the open when Thread was falling!

  The roaring noise grew even louder, and Piemur could see an orange glow in the light around his cave.

  “Piemur! Piemur!” N’ton’s voice called.

  “Yes, I’m here, N’ton!” Piemur hollered, hands cupped around his mouth to broadcast the sound of his voice. He didn’t dare put his head outside the cave.

  “Hang on!” N’ton called, and Piemur could see the orange light growing brighter.

  “You’ll have to jump, but wait for my command,” N’ton told him.

  Jump? Piemur could feel fear creeping up the back of his neck again and he swallowed hard, trying to muster the courage to fling his body out of the cave into the midst of Thread. Well, if Thread didn’t kill him, the fall most likely would, he thought. He didn’t appreciate the irony.

  The noise of Lioth flaming grew louder, and now Piemur could feel the fiery heat. He saw a wing tip, and then the dragon wheeled in the air and sank out of sight.

  “Piemur, I’m right below you. Jump now!” N’ton shouted, and with barely a second thought Piemur sucked in a big breath and pushed with all his strength, flinging himself out of the cave.

  He fell with arms wide and legs splayed, amazed that he wasn’t screaming. Lioth was below him, his mouth wide open, spewing flame to keep the space all around them clear of Thread.

  With a thud, Piemur hit the bronze dragon’s back, landing hard, and all the air whooshed out of his lungs. Then slowly, to his horror, he began to slide—down, down, and away from Lioth’s body, unable in that brief moment to do anything to stop his progress, unable even to draw breath. There’s N’ton’s foot, Piemur thought calmly. I’m falling away from Lioth through Thread.

  And then Piemur felt something clawing at his back, and with a mighty yank that seemed as if it might cut him in half, N’ton had caught hold of his tunic.

  “I’ve got you!” the dragonrider shouted, one hand grasping Piemur’s tunic while he held on tight to the straps of his flying harness with the other.

  Lioth swerved violently to avoid a thick clump of Thread, and Piemur could feel the force of the movement pulling against his body.

  Lioth! Quickly, my friend! My grip on him is loosening! Take us between! N’ton said to his dragon on a tight mental note.

  We will not let the man-boy fall, Lioth replied, as his wings thrust air downward with powerful force and he flamed a path clear above them.

  Lioth, he feels like a deadweight. I don’t think I can hold him, N’ton said. Take us to water! He flashed a mental image of the nearby shoreline to his dragon.

  In an instant Lioth transported them between, a cold, frighteningly dark place where the absolute silence was a noisy pressure in human ears, and where the freezing temperature was a striking blow to all but dragon hide. Piemur felt a massive shock as the cold assaulted him, and he closed his mouth on an overriding urge to scream. He couldn’t feel Lioth’s hide against his body, or N’ton’s grip on his tunic, or any air in his lungs!

  Then they burst into daylight, and as Piemur was finally able to drag air into his starved lungs again, he felt his fear slip away. They were flying over the sea, Lioth adjusting his altitude quickly to draw close to the water’s surface.

  I cannot land with him. He must go in alone, Lioth told N’ton.

  “Hold your breath, Pie!” N’ton shouted, leaning over toward Piemur. Then he let go.

  Piemur hit the water feetfirst, his arms spread out wide, plunging into the warm seas of the Southern Continent with a flamboyant splash, plumes of water flaring up around him in a rainbow of spray that settled into groups of ripples as he submerged.

  Surfacing quickly, he spread out his arms and legs and lay on his back while he worked to steady his breathing. Lioth landed half a dragonlength away, furling his wings along his back as he bobbed gently in the water. N’ton looked over at Piemur, an expression of awe on his face, his blue eyes wide.

  “Piemur?” the dragonrider called, a line of concern evident in his creased brow.

  “Just…give…me…one…moment.” Piemur spoke each word slowly, as the rippling water lapped around his mouth and he floated on the waves.

  A slow smile started to spread across N’ton’s face as he looked across the water at his young friend. “I guess you might need a moment to gather yourself after that,” he said, the relief evident in his voice.

  “Ah, here,” Piemur said slowly as he lifted his head to regard N’ton and Lioth. He managed a weak smile. “I don’t think I will ever want to do that again.”

&
nbsp; In the north, the Weyrs and major Holds tended to be carved out of rock in the mountains that were so plentiful on that continent. Southern Weyr, like Southern Hold, did not have access to all that stone, but here in the south it wasn’t as important, because the land was rife with the grubs that had been seeded in the soil hundreds of Turns in the past, and which the present generation of Pern’s people had only recently rediscovered. The grubs devoured Thread, eliminating the deadly parasites before they could burrow into the ground and wreak havoc.

  As well as protecting the verdant lands of the Southern Continent, the sightless little grubs seemed to have enhanced the soil to such a degree that trees and other vegetation, through some unknown exchange, had a remarkable ability to self-heal any score marks left by the Thread that did land. Certainly the southern vegetation was more robust than that which grew in the north.

  Southern Weyr was positioned on a grassy promontory near a small freshwater lake. Cavelike rooms—weyrs—had been dug into the steep sides of the bluff, below a plateau with natural barriers where the Weyr’s herdbeasts could be safely corralled. Since an actual cavern could not have been excavated there, a central hall was situated on the plateau above, built from hardwood trees and topped with black reef-rock tiles. The wooden buildings suited the heat of Southern, built as they were above ground on stilts, with reef-rock foundations, wide windows, and deep porches to keep the baking-hot sun at bay. The Weyr was far more spacious than any of its northern counterparts, and though unconventional, it lacked none of the amenities to which weyrfolk were accustomed. During the day the dragons rested on the plateau in wallows they’d made in the bare black soil, baking in the sun’s heat. Groves of giant, arching spongewood and fellis trees offered shade for the structures the humans used, and scattered beyond the central hall were other, ancillary buildings.