Dragonriders of Pern 6 - Dragondrums

by Anne McCaffrey

  “It wouldn’t be hard to refresh your memory, Saneter, but we must have proper drums. And that would take time with all the Master Smith has on his plate right now,” said Sebell, shaking his head with the disappointment he felt. He’d been so sure…

  “Must drums be made of metal?” asked Toric. “These have wooden frames.” He tapped the stretched hide across the larger drum, and it rattled in response.

  “The metal message drums are large, to resound—” Sebell began.

  “But not necessarily metal; just something big enough, hollow enough over which to stretch your hide, and resonate?” asked Toric, ignoring the interruption. “What about a tree trunk…say…” and he began to hold out his arms, widening the circle while Sebell stared in disbelief at the area he encompassed. “…about this big? That ought to make a bloody loud drum. Tree I’m thinking of came down in the last big storm.”

  “I know things grow bigger here in the south, Toric,” said Sebell, skeptical in his own turn, “but a tree trunk as big as you suggest? Well, now, they don’t grow that big.”

  Toric threw back his head, laughing at Sebell’s incredulity. He clapped Saneter on the shoulder. “We’ll show this disbelieving northerner, won’t we, Harper?”

  Saneter grinned apologetically at his crafters, spreading his hands out to indicate that Toric was indeed telling the truth.

  “Further, it’s not all that far from the hold. We could make it there and back before dinner,” said Toric, well pleased with himself, and strode out of the harper’s quarters ahead of the other three to rouse assistants.

  While Sebell didn’t doubt that the fallen tree was “not far” from the Southern Hold, it was also not an easy trek through steamy hot forests where the trail had to be hacked out afresh. But, when they finally reached the tree, it was every bit as large in girth as Toric had promised. Sebell felt much like Menolly, awed, as they reached out to caress the smooth wood of the fallen giant. The insects that had burrowed out the monster’s core had also made meals of its bark until only a thin shell remained, the last skin of the once-living tree. Even that shell had begun to rot away in the steam and rain of its environment.

  “Will this make you enough drums, harperman?” asked Toric, delighted to confound them.

  “Enough for every holding you’ve got, with more left over,” said Sebell, running his eyes down the fallen trunk. Surely it must be several dragon lengths: queen dragons! It must be the biggest, oldest tree ever grown on Pern. How many Threadfalls had it survived?

  “Well, how many shall we cut you today?” asked Toric, gesturing for the doubled-handed saw that had been carried by his holders.

  “I’ll settle for one just now,” said Sebell, “from here…” and he marked the distance with an arm and his body, pointing to the limit with his right forefinger by his ribs,

  “…to here. That would make a good, deep, long-carrying sound when the hide is stretched.”

  Saneter, who had come with them, stooped to pick up a thick, knobby-ended branch and pounded the tree trunk experimentally. Everyone was surprised at the hollow boom that resulted. The fire lizards, who’d been perched on the surface, lifted with shrieks of protest.

  Grinning, Sebell held out his hand to Saneter for the stick. He beat out the phrase “apprentice, report!” He grinned more broadly as the majestic tones echoed through the forest and started a veritable shower of tree-dwelling insects and snakes, shaken from their perches by the unexpected loud reverberations.

  “Why move it?” asked Toric. “You could hear this at the back of the mountains.”

  “Ah, but site this on that landing over your harbor, and a message would carry to that Island River of yours,” said Sebell.

  “Then we’ll cut your drum, Harper,” said Toric, gesturing for another man to take the opposite handle of the big saw. He held the blade for the initial cut. “Then we shall…take the rest…out in sections…as big as we…can carry them,” he said, thrusting mightily at his end of the saw.

  With a man of Toric’s brawn and the willing help of the other holders, the first drum section was quickly detached from the trunk. A long pole was cut, vines quickly laced to secure the section to the carrier, and the party was soon making its way back to the Southern Hold.

  By the time they had arrived, Sebell and Menolly were dripping with sweat, tortured by scratches and insect bites, which did not seem to bother the tougher, tanned hides of the Southerners. Sebell wondered if he could find the energy to cover the drum that day. Toric had firmly assured him that there were hides large enough—since herdbeasts also grew larger here in the south—to fit this mammoth drum. But the journeyman was determined to work as long and hard as the Southern Holder if he had to. And he had to, to find Piemur.

  They had positioned the drum in front of the cavern “for the sun to dry up the insects,” so Toric announced, when the big holder frowned at his guests.

  “Man, you will die an early death if you work this hard all the time.” Toric waved toward the westering sun. “The day is nearly over. This drummaking can wait till morning. Now we all need a wash,” and his gesture went seaward. “That is, if you harpers swim…”

  Menolly gave a sigh, partly composed of relief that Sebell was not going to insist on finishing the drum tonight and partly of disgust since Toric would never remember that she had not only lived holdless but had been a sea-holder’s daughter and could outswim him. Sebell hesitated briefly before he surrendered to Toric’s suggestion.

  The seawater, not as warm as Sebell had anticipated, was indeed refreshing as well as relaxing. The four fire lizards zipped in and out of the gentle evening waves, chittering with delight to frolic with their friends, though if Menolly disappeared for long beneath the waves, her three fire lizards dove after her, pulling her surfacewards by her hair.

  Suddenly Toric’s queen, who had held herself aloof from the antics of the visitors, hovered above Toric’s head, twittering urgently. Toric glanced around. Following his gaze, Menolly and Sebell saw three red-sailed sloops, their sides lined with people, rounding the arm of land that protected the southern harbor.

  “The harvesters have returned,” said Toric to the harpers. “I’ll just see if all is well. Stay on and enjoy yourselves.”

  With strong strokes of his powerful arms, he made a diagonal line to the shore that would intercept the landing of the lead ship.

  “Sometimes that man is too much,” she said, shaking her head at this latest exhibition of the southerner’s strength.

  “Which is as well for me,” said Sebell, laughing, and pulled her under just to let the fire lizards rescue her.

  They played that game bit, reveling in the freedom of the water and its coolness until Menolly suddenly wondered if she had enough energy left to swim back to shore. But they got there safely, fire lizards escorting, and paused to lean against the seawall to catch their breaths before continuing back up to the hold.

  Toric was now directing the unloading, his tall figure moving here and there. Abruptly, they saw a tall, dark-haired girl, only a head shorter than the big Holder, approach him and hold him in a long conversation.

  “That must be Sharra,” Menolly said, noticing several fire lizards converge over the girl’s head. One of them landed on her shoulder, and Menolly gave a snort. “Toric certainly has his queen well-trained, hasn’t he?”

  Suddenly a sound paralyzed them: the sharp thudding of a practiced hand against what could only be the newly acquired drum round. A practiced hand that beat a measure, “Harper here, anyone else?” and the staccato that was a question.

  “It has to be Piemur!” Menolly’s cry was half-gasp half-scream, but the words weren’t quite out of her mouth before both harpers were on their feet and running toward the ramp up from the harbor.

  “What’s the matter?” they heard Toric yelling after them.

  “That was Piemur!” Sebell managed to gasp out as he charged a bare stride ahead of Menolly. But when they skidded to a halt on the shel
l-strewn area before the cavern, there was no one about.

  Sebell cupped his hands about his mouth. “PIEMUR! REPORT!”

  “Beauty! Rocky! Where is he?” gasped Menolly, half-angry with Piemur for that heart-stopping shock.

  “SEBELL?”

  The harper’s name echoed and re-echoed coming from the cavern. Sebell and Menolly were halfway there when a tanned, bare-legged, shock-haired figure ran straight into them.

  Menolly, Sebell and Piemur were entangled in mutual cries and thumpings of rediscovery when a tiny fire lizard queen began attacking Sebell, and a small runner beast tried to butt Menolly’s knees from under her. Beauty, Rocky and Diver immediately drove off the little queen, but it wasn’t until Piemur, dashing tears of relief and joy from his eyes, called Farli to order and reassured Stupid, that any sort of coherent conversation was possible. By that time, Sharra, Toric, and half the Southern Hold were aware that the lost had been found.

  A celebration for the successful return of the harvesters would have been held in any case, but the evening was certainly crowned by Piemur’s appearance, especially after he was reassured that his absence would be forgiven by the Masterharper in view of the extraordinary outcome of the initial folly of stealing the queen egg from Meron’s hearth.

  Sebell and Menolly listened intently when Piemur accounted for his continued absence once Farli had been Impressed.

  “He was wiser not to come back right then, anyhow,” said Sharra before Toric could speak. “If you remember, Mardra was in a taking over that unclosed sack and ready to flay the hide off the back of the culprit. Though what she wants with more to wear here, I don’t know!”

  “The wilderness has its own thrall,” said Toric, eyeing Piemur so closely that the boy wondered what he’d done wrong now. “Tell me, young apprentice harper, how did you survive Threadfall the day your queen hatched?”

  “In the water, under a ledge in the lagoon,” said Piemur as if that ought to have been obvious. “Farli didn’t hatch until after Threadfall.”

  Toric nodded approval. “And the other Threadfalls?”

  “Under water. Only by that time I’d sort of found a camp by the river, above the numbweed meadows…” He glanced at Sharra, whose eyes twinkled at the truth he now chose to speak, “where I found a submerged log to hold onto and a long reed to breath through.”

  “Why didn’t you come back after the second Fall?”

  “I found Stupid, and I couldn’t travel far or fast until he was grown up.” Sharra bubbled with laughter then, for the ingenuous expression of Piemur’s face was just short of impudence. “You were certainly making tracks eastward to the sea when our paths crossed,” she said.

  “You expected me to stay anywhere near people making numbweed?” asked Piemur with such disgust that everyone laughed.

  “I’ll bet there were times in the marsh when you wished you were back just harvesting numbweed,” said Sharra, grinning at Piemur, who rolled his eyes upward.

  “You went alone to the marshes?” Toric was not pleased.

  “I know the marshes, Toric,” said Sharra firmly, as if this were a continuation of previous arguments. “I had my fire lizards and, in fact, I had Piemur, Farli and little Stupid. And I’ll add one thing”—now she turned to the harpers—“your young friend is a born Southerner!”

  “He’s apprentice to Master Robinton,” said Sebell, with a warning to Piemur that brought a sudden silence to the main table.

  “He’s wasted as just a harper,” said Sharra after a moment. “Why, I—”

  “And I’m not really a harper right now, either, am I, Sebell?” asked Piemur, suddenly collecting his wits. “I was only good as a singer, and I have no voice. Is there really a place for me at the Harper Hall? I mean,” and he rattled on, his eyes going from Sebell to Menolly, “I know you and Menolly thought you could get me to help you two, but a fine help I turned out to be, getting sacked up and sent south without even knowing it. It’s not as if I was good at anything except getting into trouble—”

  “Useful trouble, as it turned out,” said Sebell, “but I just had an idea…to keep you out of trouble for a while.” The journeyman turned to the Southerner. “You rather like the idea of message drums, Toric? And, Saneter, you say you’ve forgotten most of the measures you learned. Well now, Piemur hasn’t.”

  “I could be drum messenger here?” Piemur was suddenly open-mouthed with shock.

  Sebell held his hand up to get a word in, and the radiance in Piemur’s face faded. “I can’t be certain until I’ve asked Master Robinton, but frankly, Toric, I think Piemur could serve his Hall very well right now as drum…no, drum apprentice-master…if Saneter wouldn’t mind being taught by one of lower rank.” Sebell then turned to the startled hold harper to explain. “Rokayas who is Master Olodkey’s senior journeyman said that Piemur was one of the quickest, cleverest apprentices he’s ever had to beat measures into. If you wouldn’t mind him refreshing your memory…”

  Saneter laughed and beamed encouragingly at Piemur, whose face once again shone. “If he can put up with a fumble-fingered old harper…”

  “Toric, as Southern Holder?” Sebell paused delicately, for he had caught the narrowing of the big man’s eyes and wondered if he had presumed too much.

  “Troublemaker in the Hall?” Toric frowned, giving each one a long, expressionless look, pausing to stare hard at Piemur. The boy held his breath so long his face began to turn bright red under his tan.

  “Actually, not a troublemaker, Toric,” said Menolly. “He just has a lot of energy.”

  “We could certainly use drums for messages to the coastal holds,” said Toric in a slow drawl, his face closed on his thoughts. “Can Piemur make the drums?” he asked Sebell.

  “I’d prefer to stay and supervise,” Sebell murmured.

  “Well, in the ordinary way I wouldn’t accept another Northerner, but as Piemur has already proved he can survive on southern lands, I will make an exception in his case.”

  At the shouts of joy, he held up his hand once more, commanding instant silence. “Contingent, of course, on the approval of the Masterharper.”

  “He’ll be so glad to hear that Piemur’s alive and well,” cried Menolly, fumbling in her pouch for the message tube.

  “Aw, Menolly, it’s not as if I hadn’t listened to everything you told me about fire lizards and your life in the Dragonstone cave and all—”

  “You’ll find this lad has ears in every pore of him,” said Sebell, giving Piemur’s right one an affectionate twist.

  “And tell Master Robinton I’ve got a queen and a tame runnerbeast,” Piemur told Menolly who was busily writing. “I wouldn’t have to leave Stupid behind if I have to go back to the Harper Hall, would I, Sebell?”

  Sebell said something soothing and watched as Menolly made the message tube fast to Beauty’s leg, told her to go back to Master Robinton and return as soon as possible.

  “D’you think he’ll let me stay?” Piemur asked Menolly then, his eyes round with hope and anxiety.

  “You did put your time in the drumheights to good advantage,” Menolly said, hoping that this solution to the problem of Piemur’s immediate future did indeed meet with Master Robinton’s favor. The boy so clearly had thrived in his few sevendays’ here. She could swear he was taller and had broadened through chest and neck. And there was no question but what his unexpected trip to Southern had altered him in many subtle ways. She caught Sebell’s glance and knew that he had observed those changes, too. That the journeyman must see that this broad and unexplored southern land could absorb the energies and intelligence of their young friend far better than the more traditional Harper Hall. “Bet you didn’t think it would result in an opportunity like this?”