Dragondrums

by Anne McCaffrey

  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.

  “Mirrim, this is Piemur. You’ve heard me speak of him often enough,” said Menolly, putting her hand on Piemur to draw him forward and closer to her, the intimacy a guarantee of him to Mirrim. “He was my first friend at the Harper Hall, as you were mine here. We’ve all been at the Igen Gather. Baked yesterday, frozen this morning, and very hungry!” Menolly let her tone drift upward plaintively.

  “Well, of course you’re hungry,” said Mirrim, breaking off her stern appraisal of Piemur to turn to the hearth. She filled cups and bowls and set them out on one of the small tables with such alacrity that Piemur changed his first, unflattering impression of her. “I can’t stop long with you. You know how things are at the Weyr when there’s a Hatching; so much to do. The important details you really have to see to yourself to be sure they’re done right.” She flopped gracelessly into a chair with an exaggerated sigh of relief to underscore the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. Then she ran both hands through the fringe of brown hair on her forehead, ending the gesture with pats at the neat plaits that hung down her back.

  Piemur eyed her with a certain skeptical cynicism but, when he realized that Menolly and Sebell took no notice of her mannerisms and had sought out her company from everyone in the busy cavern, he came to the reluctant conclusion that there must be more to her than was obvious.

  Beauty landed on Menolly’s shoulder just then, chirruping with some petulance, her eyes whirling reddishly. Diver swooped to Menolly’s other shoulder just as Kimi landed on Sebell’s. Rocky, to Piemur’s intense delight, came to roost on his.

  “I thought that was Rocky,” Mirrim said, pointing accusingly at Piemur as if he oughtn’t to have a fire lizard anyhow.

  “It is,” said Menolly with a laugh, “but Piemur helps me feed him every day so Rocky’s just reminding us he’s hungry, too.”

  “Why didn’t you say they hadn’t been fed?” Mirrim bounced to her feet, scowling with disapproval. “Really, Menolly, I’d’ve thought you’d take care of your friends first. . . .”

  Sebell and Menolly exchanged guilty smiles as Mirrim stalked off to a table where women were cutting up wherries for the Hatching Feast. She returned with a generous bowlful of scraps, three fire lizards hovering anxiously above her. She shooed them away, reminding them with gruff affection that they’d already been fed. To Piemur’s relief, because he was developing an antipathy to her manner, Mirrim was called away to one of the main hearths. Rocky poked his cheek imperiously, and Piemur concentrated on feeding him.

  “Is she a good friend of yours?” Piemur asked when the first edge of fire lizard hunger had been eased.

  Sebell laughed, and Menolly made a rueful grimace.

  “She’s very good-hearted. Don’t let her ways put you off.”

  Piemur grunted. “They have.”

  Sebell laughed again, offering Kimi a large chunk of meat so he could get a swallow of his klah while she struggled to chew. “Mirrim does take a bit of getting used to but, as Menolly says, she’ll give you the shirt from her back . . .”

  “Complaining all the time, I’ll wager,” Piemur said.

  Menolly’s expression was solemn. “She was fosterling to Brekke, and Manora’s always said that it was Mirrim’s devoted nursing that helped Brekke live after her queen was killed.”

  “Really?” That did impress Piemur, and he looked for Mirrim among the knot of women by the hearth as if this disclosure had caused her to change visibly.

  “Don’t, please don’t judge her too quickly, Piemur,” said Menolly, touching his arm to emphasize her request.

  “Well, of course, if you say so . . .”

  Sebell winked at Piemur. “She says so, Piemur, and we must obey!”

  “Oh, you,” and Menolly dismissed Sebell’s teasing with a scowl of irritation. “I just don’t want Piemur jumping to the wrong conclusion on the basis of a few moments’ meeting—”

  “When everyone knows,” and Sebell rolled his eyes ceilingward, “that it takes time, endurance, tolerance and luck to appreciate Mirrim!” Sebell ducked as Menolly threatened him with her spoon.

  They had finished feeding the fire lizards and sent them out to sun themselves when Mirrim popped up before them again, exhaling a mighty sigh.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get everything finished in time. Why those eggs have to be so awkward in their timing. Half the western guests will be dead of sleep and need breakfast. . . . See?” She waved toward the entrance where dragons were depositing more passengers. “There’s so much to be done. And I particularly want to get to this Hatching. Felessan’s a candidate today, you know.”

  “So F’nor told us. I could manage the breakfast hearth, Mirrim,” said Menolly.

  “Just set us a task,” said Sebell, throwing his arm across Piemur’s shoulders, “and we’ll do our best to assist.”

  “Oh, would you?” Suddenly the affected manners dropped, and Mirrim’s scowl gave way to an incredulous smile of relief, illuminating her face and making her a very pretty girl. “If you would just set up those tables,” and she pointed to stacks of trestles and tops, “that’d be the greatest help!”

  She was again summoned across the cavern and dashed off with a smile of such unaffected gratitude that Piemur stared after her in astonishment. Why did the girl act oddly? She was much nicer when she was just herself!

  “So, Felessan stands on the Hatching Ground,” said Sebell. “I missed that this morning.”

  “Sorry, thought I’d told you,” said Menolly, rising to clear the table of their dishes. “I wonder if he’ll Impress.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?” asked Piemur, startled by her doubt.

  “He may be the son of the Weyrleaders, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll Impress. Dragon choice can’t be forced.”

  “Oh, Felessan’ll Impress,” said a dragonrider, approaching the small hearth, two others just behind him. “Are you tending the pot, Menolly?”

  “And a good day to you, T’gellan,” Menolly said with a pert smile for the bronze rider as she poured klah for him.

  “How’s yourself, Sebell?” T’gellan went on, seating himself on the bench and gesturing to the other riders to join him.

  “Hard put upon,” said Sebell in a long-suffering tone that sounded suspiciously like an imitation of Mirrim. “We just got organized to set up the tables. C’mon, Piemur, before Mirrim lays about us with her ladle.”

  Because Menolly had so stoutly championed Mirrim, Piemur kept an eye out for the girl as he and Sebell arranged the additional tables. He spotted Mirrim dashing from one hearth to another, called to assist in trussing wherries for roasting, herdbeasts for the spit. He watched her organize one group of youngsters to peel roots and tubers and another to laying the tables with utensils and platters. He decided that Mirrim had not been puffing up her responsibilities.

  Menolly, too, was kept busy, feeding dragonriders and their sleepy-eyed passengers, dragged from their b
eds for the imminent Hatching.

  Sebell and Piemur had just set up the last table when a faint hum reached their ears. Fire lizards reappeared in the cavern, the high notes of their chirruping a counter-cadence to the low bass throb of the humming dragons.

  Mirrim, divested of her apron and brushing water stains from her skirt, came dashing toward them.

  “C’mon, Oharan promised to save us all seats by him,” she cried and led the way across the Bowl at a run.

  The Weyr Harper had kept them places in the tiers above the Hatching Ground, though, he informed them, his life had been threatened by Holders and Craftmasters. Piemur could see why as he settled down, for this was. a splendid position, in the second tier, close to the entrance so that the view of the entire Ground was clear. There was no queen egg for Ramoth to guard, so the Benden queen dragon was standing to one side of the ground, Lessa and F’lar on the ledge above her. Occasionally the enormous golden dragon looked up at her weyrmate, as if seeking assurance or, Piemur thought, consolation, since the eggs she had clutched were shortly to be taken from her care. The notion amused Piemur, for he’d never have ascribed maternal emotions to Benden’s preeminent queen dragon. Certainly Ramoth with her yellow flashing eyes and restless foot-shifting, wing-rustling, was a far picture from the gentle concern female herdbeast or runners showed their offspring.

  A blur of white, seen from the corner of his eye, drew Piemur’s attention to the Hatching Ground entrance. The candidates were approaching the eggs, their white tunics fluttering in the light morning breeze. Piemur suppressed his amusements as the boys, stepping further on the hot sands, began to pick up their feet smartly. When they had reached the clutch, they ranged themselves in a loose semicircle about the gently rocking eggs. Ramoth made a noise like a disapproving growl, which the boys all ignored, but Piemur noticed that the ones nearest her edged surreptitiously away.

  A startled murmur ran through the audience as one of the eggs rocked more violently. The sudden snapping of the shell seemed to resound through the high-ceilinged cavern, and the dragons on the upper ledges hummed more loudly than ever with encouragement. The actual Hatching had begun. Piemur didn’t know where to look because the audience was as fascinating as the Hatching: dragonriders’ faces with soft glows as they relived the magic moment when they had Impressed the hatchling dragon who became their life’s companion, minds indissolubly linked. On other faces was hope, breathless and incredulous, as guests and parents of the candidates waited for the moment when their lads would be chosen, or rejected, by the hatchlings. Fire lizards, respectfully quiet, perched on many shoulders in the Ground. And Piemur, who could never aspire to Impress a dragon, was reminded of that unfilled promise, that he would have a fire lizard one day. He wondered if Menolly remembered her promise to him. Or if he’d ever have the opportunity to remind her of it.

  “There’s Felessan,” said Menolly, nudging him sharply with her elbow. She pointed to a leggy figure with such a luxuriant growth of dark curling hair that his head seemed oversized.

  “He doesn’t even look nervous,” said Piemur, as he noted the signs of apprehension in other candidates who shifted uneasily or twitched unnecessarily at their tunics.

  A concerted gasp directed their attention from Felessan, and they saw that several more eggs were rocking violently as the hatchlings struggled to be free. Abruptly an egg split open, and a moist little brown dragon was spilled to his feet on the hot sands. Dragging his fragile-looking damp wings on the ground, he began to lunge this way and that, calling piteously, while the adult dragons crooned encouragement, reinforced by Ramoth’s half-hum, half-howl.

  The boys nearest the dragonet tried to anticipate his direction, hoping to Impress him, but he lurched out of their immediate circle, staggering cross the sands, his call plaintive, desperate until the next group of boys turned. One, prompted by some instinct, took a step forward. The little brown’s cries turned joyous, he tried to extend his wet wings to bridge the distance between them, but the boy rushed to the dragon’s side, caressing head and shoulders, patting the damp wings while the little hatchling crooned with triumph, his jeweled eyes glowing the blue and purple of love and devotion. The day’s first Impression had been made!

  Piemur heard Menolly’s deep and satisfied sigh and knew that she was reliving the moment she had Impressed her fire lizards in the Dragon Stones cave three Turns ago. He was again assailed by a deep stab of envy. When would he rate a fire lizard?

  Excited cries brought his attention back to the Hatching Ground as more eggs cracked, exposing their occupants.

  “Watch Felessan, Piemur! There’s a bronze near him . . .” cried Mirrim, grabbing Piemur’s arm in her excitement.

  “And two browns and a blue,” added Menolly, scarcely less excited as she canted her body in a mental effort to direct the little bronze toward Felessan. “He deserves a bronze! He deserves one!”

  “Only if the dragon wants him,” said Mirrim sententiously. “Just because he’s the Weyrleader’s son—”

  “Shut up, Mirrim,” said Piemur, exasperated, clenching his fists, urging the Impression to occur.

  Felessan was aware of the bronze’s proximity, but so were a handful of other candidates. The little creature, rocking unstably on his wobbly legs, seemed not to see any of them for a moment. Then the wedge-shaped head fell forward and got buried in the sand as his hind legs overbalanced him. It was too much. Felessan gently righted the little beast and then stood transfixed, the expression on his exultant face plainly visible to his friends as Impression was made.

  Ramoth’s bugle astonished everyone into a long moment of silence; but it was no wonder, Piemur thought, that F’lar and Lessa were embracing each other at the sight of their one child Impressing a bronze!

  The excitement was over too soon, Piemur thought, just moments later. He wished that all the eggs hadn’t hatched at once, so this dizzy happiness could be extended. Not that there wasn’t some disappointment and sadness, too, because far more candidates were presented to the eggs than could Impress. Only one little green had not Impressed, and she was mewling unhappily, butting one boy out of her way, lurching to another and peering up into his face, obviously searching for just the right lad. She had worked her way toward the tiers, despite the efforts of the remaining candidates to attract her attention and keep her well out into the Ground.

  “Whatever is the matter with those boys?” demanded Mirrim, frowning with anxiety over the little green’s pathetic wandering. She stood up, gesturing peremptorily to the candidates to close around the little green.

  Just then the creature began to croon urgently and made directly for the steps that led up to the tiers.

  “What is possessing her?” Mirrim asked no one in particular. She looked behind her accusingly, as if somehow a candidate might be hiding among the guests.

  “She wants someone not on the Ground,” rang a voice from the crowd.

  “She’s going to hurt herself,” said Mirrim in an agitated mutter and pushed past the three people seated between her and the stairs. “She’ll bruise her wings on the walls.”

  The little green did hurt herself, slipping off the first step and banging her muzzle so sharply on the stone that she let out a cry of pain, echoed by a fierce bugle from Ramoth who began to move across the sands.

  “Now, listen here, you silly thing, the boys you want are out there on the Ground. Turn yourself around and go back to them,” Mirrim was saying as she made her way down the steps to the little green. Her fire lizards, calling out in wildly ecstatic buglings, halted her. She stared for a long moment at the antics of her friends, and then, her expression incredulous, she looked down at the green hatchling determinedly attacking the obstacle of steps. “I can’t!” Mirrim cried, so panic-stricken that she slipped on the steps herself and slid down three before her flailing hands found support. “I can’t!” Mirrim glanced about her for confirmation. “I’m not supposed to Impress. I’m not a candidate. She can’t want me!” Awe w
ashed over the consternation on her face and in her voice.

  “If it’s you she wants, Mirrim, get down there before she hurts herself!” said F’lar, who had by now reached the scene, Lessa beside him.

  “But I’m not—”

  “It would seem that you are, Mirrim,” said Lessa, her face reflecting amusement and resignation. “The dragon’s never wrong! Come! Be quick about it, girl. She’s scraping her chin raw to get to you!”

  With one final startled look at her Weyrleaders, Mirrim half-slid the remaining steps, cushioning the little green’s chin from yet another harsh contact with the stone of the step.

  “Oh, you silly darling! Whatever made you choose me?” Mirrim said in a loving voice as she gathered the green into her arms and began to soothe the hatchling’s distressed cries. “She says her name is Path!” The glory on Mirrim’s face caused Piemur to look away in embarrassment and envy.

  For one brief moment, Piemur had entertained the bizarre notion that maybe the little green dragon had been looking for him. A deep sigh fluttered through his lips, and a hand was laid gently on his shoulder. Schooling his expression, he turned to see Menolly watching him, a deep pity and understanding in her eyes.

  “I promised you Turns ago that you’d have a fire lizard, Piemur, I haven’t forgotten. I will keep that promise!”

  As one they turned their heads back to watch Mirrim fussing over her Path, her fire lizards hopping on the sands, chattering away as if welcoming the little green in their own fashion.

  “Come on, you two,” said Sebell, as Mirrim began to encourage Path to walk out of the Hatching Ground. “We’d better see Master Robinton. This is going to cause problems.” The last he said in a low voice.

  “Why?” asked Piemur, making sure they weren’t overheard. But everyone was filing out of the tiers now, eager to congratulate or condole. “She’s weyrbred.”

  “Greens are fighting dragons,” began Sebell.

  “In that case, Mirrim’s well paired, isn’t she?” asked Piemur with droll amusement.