Dragonflight

by Anne McCaffrey

  “More efficient,” Fandarel added approvingly.

  “After tomorrow, when all the Weyrs show up at Telgar, we can request what supplies we need to stock the empty Weyrs,” T’ton grinned. “Like old times, squeezing extra tithes from the Holders.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Like old times.”

  “There’s the southern Weyr,” F’nor suggested. “We’ve been gone from there six Turns in this time, and the herdbeasts were left. They’ll have multiplied, and there’ll be all that fruit and grain.”

  “It would please me to see that southern venture continued,” F’lar remarked, nodding encouragingly at F’nor.

  “Yes, and continue Kylara down there, please, too,” F’nor added urgently, his eyes sparkling with irritation.

  They discussed sending for some immediate supplies to help out the newly occupied Weyrs, and then adjourned the meeting.

  “It is a trifle unsettling,” T’ton said as he shared wine with Robinton, “to find that the Weyr you left the day before in good order has become a dusty hulk.” He chuckled. “The women of the Lower Caverns were a bit upset.”

  “We cleaned up those kitchens,” F’nor replied indignantly. A good night’s rest in a fresh time had removed much of his fatigue.

  T’ton cleared his throat. “According to Mardra, no man can clean anything.”

  “Do you think you’ll be up to riding tomorrow, F’nor?” F’lar asked solicitously. He was keenly aware of the stress showing in his half brother’s face, despite his improvement overnight. Yet those strenuous Turns had been necessary, nor had they become futile even in hindsight with the arrival of eighteen hundred dragons from past time. When F’lar had ordered F’nor ten Turns backward to breed the desperately needed replacements, they had not yet brought to mind the Question Song or known of the tapestry.

  “I wouldn’t miss that fight if I were dragonless,” F’nor declared stoutly.

  “Which reminds me,” F’lar remarked, “we’ll need Lessa at Telgar tomorrow. She can speak to any dragon, you know,” he explained, almost apologetically, to T’ton and D’ram.

  “Oh, we know,” T’ton assured him. “And Mardra doesn’t mind.” Seeing F’lar’s blank expression, he added, “As senior Weyrwoman, Mardra, of course, leads the queens’ wing.”

  F’lar’s face grew blanker. “Queens’ wing?”

  “Certainly,” and T’ton and D’ram exchanged questioning glances at F’lar’s surprise. “You don’t keep your queens from fighting, do you?”

  “Our queens? T’ton, we at Benden have had only one queen dragon—at a time—for so many generations that there are those who denounce the legends of queens in battle as black heresy!”

  T’ton looked rueful. “I had not truly realized till this instant how small your numbers were.” But his enthusiasms overtook him. “Just the same, queens are very useful with flamethrowers. They get clumps other riders might miss. They fly in low, under the main wings. That’s one reason D’ram’s so interested in the agenothree spray. Doesn’t singe the hair off the Holders’ heads, so to speak, and is far better over tilled fields.”

  “Do you mean to say that you allow your queens to fly—against Threads?” F’lar ignored the fact that F’nor was grinning, and T’ton, too.

  “Allow?” D’ram bellowed. “You can’t stop them. Don’t you know your Ballads?”

  “’Moreta’s Ride?”

  “Exactly.’

  F’nor laughed aloud at the expression on F’lar’s face as he irritably pulled the hanging forelock from his eyes. Then, sheepishly, he began to grin.

  “Thanks. That gives me an idea.”

  He saw his fellow Weyrleaders to their dragons, waved cheerfully to Robinton and Fandarel, more lighthearted than he would have thought he’d be the morning before the second battle. Then he asked Mnementh where Lessa might be.

  Bathing, the bronze dragon replied.

  F’lar glanced at the empty queen’s weyr.

  Oh, Ramoth is on the Peak, as usual. Mnementh sounded aggrieved.

  F’lar heard the sound of splashing in the bathing room suddenly cease, so he called down for hot klah. He was going to enjoy this.

  “Oh, did the meeting go well?” Lessa asked sweetly as she emerged from the bathing room, drying-cloth wrapped tightly around her slender figure.

  “Extremely. You realize, of course, Lessa, that you’ll be needed at Telgar?”

  She looked at him intently for a moment before she smiled again.

  “I am the only Weyrwoman who can speak to any dragon,” she replied archly.

  “True,” F’lar admitted blithely. “And no longer the only queen’s rider in Benden. . . .”

  “I hate you!” Lessa snapped, unable to evade F’lar as he pinned her cloth-swathed body to his.

  “Even when I tell you that Fandarel has a flamethrower for you so you can join the queens’ wing?”

  She stopped squirming in his arms and stared at him, disconcerted that he had outguessed her.

  “And that Kylara will be installed as Weyrwoman in the south . . . in this time? As Weyrleader, I need my peace and quiet between battles. . . .”

  The cloth fell from her body to the floor as she responded to his kiss as ardently as if dragon-roused.

  From the Weyr and from the Bowl,

  Bronze and brown and blue and green,

  Rise the dragonmen of Pern,

  Aloft, on wing; seen, then unseen.

  RANGED ABOVE THE Peak of Benden Weyr, a scant three hours after dawn, two hundred and sixteen dragons held their formations as F’lar on bronze Mnementh inspected their ranks.

  Below in the Bowl were gathered all the weyrfolk and some of those injured in the first battle. All the weyrfolk, that is, except Lessa and Ramoth. They had gone on to Fort Weyr where the queens’ wing was assembling. F’lar could not quite suppress a twinge of concern that she and Ramoth would be fighting, too. A holdover, he knew, from the days when Pern had had only one queen. If Lessa could jump four hundred Turns between and lead five Weyrs back, she could take care of herself and her dragon against Threads.

  He checked to be sure that every man was well loaded with firestone sacks, that each dragon was in good color, especially those in from the southern Weyr. Of course, the dragons were fit, but the faces of the men still showed evidences of the temporal strains they had endured. He was procrastinating, and the Threads would be dropping in the skies of Telgar.

  He gave the order to go between. They reappeared above, and to the south of Telgar Hold itself, and were not the first arrivals. To the west, to the north, and, yes, to the east now, wings arrived until the horizon was patterned with the great V’s of several thousand dragon wings. Faintly he heard the claxon bell on Telgar Hold Tower as the unexpected dragon strength was acclaimed from the ground.

  “Where is she?” F’lar demanded of Mnementh. “We’ll need her presently to relay orders . . .”

  She’s coming, Mnementh interrupted him.

  Right above Telgar Hold another wing appeared. Even at this distance, F’lar could see the difference: the golden dragons shone in the bright morning sunlight.

  A hum of approval drifted down the dragon ranks, and despite his fleeting worry, F’lar grinned with proud indulgence at the glittering sight.

  Just then the eastern wings soared straight upward in the sky as the dragons became instinctively aware of the presence of their ancient foe.

  Mnementh raised his head, echoing back the brass thunder of the war cry. He turned his head, even as hundreds of other beasts turned to receive firestone from their riders. Hundreds of great jaws masticated the stone, swallowed it, their digestive acids transforming dry stone into flame-producing gases, igniting on contact with oxygen.

  Threads! F’lar could see them clearly now against the spring sky. His pulses began to quicken, not with apprehension, but with a savage joy. His heart pounded unevenly. Mnementh demanded more stone and began to speed up the strokes of his wings in the air, gathering himself to le
ap upward when commanded.

  The leading Weyr already belched gouts of orange-red flame into the pale blue sky. Dragons winked in and out, flamed and dove.

  The great golden queens sped at cliff-skimming height to cover what might have been missed.

  Then F’lar gave the command to gain altitude to meet the Threads halfway in their abortive descent. As Mnementh surged upward, F’lar shook his fist defiantly at the winking Red Eye of the Star.

  “One day,” he shouted, “we will not sit tamely here, awaiting your fall. We will fall on you, where you spin, and sear you on your own ground.”

  By the Egg, he told himself, if we can travel four hundred Turns backward and across seas and lands in the blink of an eye, what is travel from one world to another but a different kind of step?

  F’lar grinned to himself. He’d better not mention that audacious notion in Lessa’s presence.

  Clumps ahead, Mnementh warned him.

  As the bronze dragon charged, flaming, F’lar tightened his knees on the massive neck. Mother of us all, he was glad that now, of all times conceivable, he, F’lar, rider of bronze Mnementh, was a dragonman of Pern!

  Dragondex

  THE WEYRS IN ORDER OF FOUNDING

  Fort Weyr

  Benden Weyr

  High Reaches Weyr

  Igen Weyr

  Ista Weyr

  Telgar Weyr

  Southern Weyr

  THE MAJOR HOLDS AS BOUND TO THE WEYRS

  Fort Weyr

  Fort Hold (oldest hold), Lord Holder Groghe

  Ruatha Hold (next oldest), Lord Holder Jaxom, Lord Warder Lytol

  Southern Boll Hold, Lord Holder Sangel

  Benden Weyr

  Benden Hold, Lords Holder Raid and Toronas

  Bitra Hold, Lords Holder Sifer and Sigomal

  Lemas Hold, Lord Holder Asgenar

  High Reaches Weyr

  High Reaches Hold, Lord Holder Bargen

  Nabol Hold, Lords Holder Fax, Meron, Deckter

  Tillek Hold, Lord Holder Oterel

  Igen Weyr

  Keroon Hold, Lord Holder Corman

  Parts of Upper Igen

  Southern Telgar Hold

  Ista Weyr

  Ista Hold, Lord Holder Warbret

  Igen Hold, Lord Holder Laudey

  Nerat Hold, Lords Holder Vincet and Begamon

  Telgar Weyr

  Telgar Hold, Lord Holder Larad

  Crom Hold, Lord Holder Nessel

  Southern Weyr

  Southern Hold, Holder Toric

  THE PRINCIPAL LORDS (AND THEIR HOLDS)

  Asgenar (Lemos)

  Banger (Igen Plains)

  Bargen (High Reaches)

  Begamon (Nerat, 2)

  Corman (Keroon)

  Deckter (Nabol, 3)

  Fax (Nabol, 1)

  Groghe (Fort)

  Jaxom (Ruatha)

  Larad (Telgar)

  Laudey (Igen)

  Lytol (Ruatha Warder)

  Meron (Nabol, 2)

  Nessel (Crom)

  Oterel (Tillek)

  Raid (Benden)

  Sangel (Boll)

  Sifer (Bitra, 1)

  Sigomal (Bitra, 2)

  Toric (Southern)

  Toronas (Benden 2)

  Vincet (Nerat 1)

  Warbret (1st)

  CRAFTMASTERS AND MASTERCRAFTSMEN

  Crafter Rank/craft Location

  Andemon Masterfarmer Nerat Hold

  Arnor Craftmaster, scrivenor Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Baldor Weyrharper Ista Weyr

  Belesdan Mastertanner Igen Hold

  Bendarek Craftmaster, woodsmith Lemos Hold

  Benelek Journeyman machinesmith Smith Hall

  Briaret Masterherder Keroon Hold

  Brudegan Journeyman harper Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Chad Harper Telgar Weyr

  Domick Craftmaster, composer Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Elgin Harper Half-Circle Sea Hold

  Facenden Craftmaster, smith

  Fandarel Mastersmith Smithcraft Hall, Telgar Hold

  Idarolan Masterfisher Tillek Hold

  Jerint Craftmaster, instruments Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Ligand Journeyman tanner Fort Hold

  Menolly Journeyman harper Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Morshall Craftmaster, theory Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Nicat Masterminer Crom Hold

  Oharan Weyrharper Benden Weyr

  Oldive Masterhealer Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Palim Journeyman baker Smithhall

  Petiron Harper Half-Circle Sea Hold

  Piemur Apprentice/journeyman Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Robinton Masterharper Fort Hold

  Sebell Journeyman/Masterharper Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Sharra Journeyman healer Southern Hold

  Shonegar Craftmaster, voice Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Sograny Masterherder Keroon Hold

  Tagetarl Journeyman harper Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Talmor Journeyman harper Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Terry Craftmaster, smith Smithcraft Hall, Telgar Hold

  Timareen Craftmaster, weaver Telgar Hold

  Wansor Craftmaster, glassmith Smithcraft Hall, Telgar Hold

  Yanis Craftmaster Half-Circle Sea Hold

  Zurig Masterweaver Southern Boll Hold

  OWNERS OF FIRE-LIZARDS

  Owner Lizard(s)

  Asgenar brown Rial

  Baner —

  Bargen —

  Brand blue

  Brekke bronze Berd

  Corman —

  Deelan green

  Famira green

  F’nor gold Grall

  Groghe queen Merga

  G’sel bronze

  Kylara gold

  Larad green

  Menolly queen Beauty; bronzes Rocky, Diver, Poll; browns Lazybones, Mimic, Brownie; greens Auntie One, Auntie Two; blue Uncle

  Meron bronze

  Mirrim greens Reppa, Lok; brown Tolly

  Nessel —

  Nicat —

  N’ton brown Tris

  Oterel —

  Piemur queen Farlir

  Robinton bronze Zair

  Sangel —

  Sebell queen Kimi

  Sharra bronze Meer, brown Talla

  Sifer —

  Toric queen; two bronzes

  Vincet —

  SOME TERMS OF INTEREST

  Agenothree: a common chemical on Pern, HNO3.

  Between: an area of nothingness and sensory deprivation between here and there.

  Black rock: analogous to coal.

  Day Sisters: a trio of stars visible from Pern.

  Dawn Sisters: an alternate name for Day Sisters.

  Deadglow: a numbskull, stupid. Derived from glow.

  Fellis: a flowering tree.

  Fellis juice: a juice made from the fruit of the fellis tree; a soporific.

  Fire-stone: phosphine-bearing mineral which dragons chew to produce flame.

  Glow: a light-source which can be carried in a hand-basket.

  High Reaches: mountains on the northern continent of Pern (see map).

  Hold: a place where the common people live; originally they were cut into the mountains and hillsides.

  Impression: the joining of minds of a dragon and his rider-to-be at the moment of the dragon’s hatching.

  Interval: the period of time between passes, generally 200 Turns.

  Klah: a hot stimulating drink made of tree bark and tasting faintly of cinnamon.

  Looks to: is Impressed by.

  Long Interval: a period of time, generally twice the length of an interval, in which no Thread falls and Dragonmen decrease in number. The last Long Interval is thought to herald the end of Threads.

  Month: four sevendays

  Numbweed: a medicinal cream which, when smeared on wounds, kills all feeling; used as an anesthetic.

  Oldtimer: a member of one of
the five Weyrs which Lessa brought forward four hundred Turns in time. Used as a derogative term to refer to one who has moved to Southern Weyr.

  Pass: a period of time during which the Red Star is close enough to drop Thread on Pern.

  Pern: third of the star Rukbat’s five planets. It has two natural satellites.

  Red Star (sic): Pern’s stepsister planet. It has an erratic orbit.

  Rukbat: a yellow star in the Sagittarian Sector, Rukbat has five planets and two asteroid belts.

  Sevenday: the equivalent of a week on Pern.

  Thread: (mycorrhizoid) spores from the Red Star, which descend on Pern and burrow into it, devouring all organic material they encounter.

  Turn: a Pernese year.

  Watch-wher: a nocturnal reptile distantly related to dragonkind.

  Weyr: a home of dragons and their riders.

  weyr: a dragon’s den.

  Weyrsinger: the Harper for the dragonriders, usually himself a dragonrider.

  Wherries: a type of fowl roughly resembling the domestic Turkey of Earth, but about the size of an Ostrich

  Withies: water plants resembling the reeds of Earth.

  PERNESE OATHS

  By the Egg

  By the first Egg

  By the Egg of Faranth

  Scorch it

  Shards

  By the shards of my dragon’s egg

  Shells

  Through Fall, Fog, and Fire

  THE PEOPLE OF PERN

  Abuna: Kitchen head at Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold

  Alemi: Third of Seaholder’s six sons, at Half-Circle Sea Hold

  Andemon: Masterfarmer, Nerat Hold

  Arnor: Craftmaster scrivenor, at Harpercraft Hold

  Balder: Harper, at Ista Weyr

  B’dor: at Ista Weyr

  Bedella: Oldtimer Weyrwoman, at Telgar Weyr; dragon queen Solth

  Belesdan: Mastertanner, Igen Hold

  Bendarek: Craftmaster Woodsmith, at Lemos Hold

  Benelek: Journeyman machinesmith, Smithhall

  Benis: one of Lord Holder Groghe’s 17 sons, at Fort Hold

  B’fol: rider, at Benden Weyr; dragon green Gereth

  B’irto: rider, at Benden Weyr; dragon bronze Cabenth

  B’naj: rider, at Fort Weyr; dragon queen Beth