Dragonsinger (dragon riders of pern)

by Anne McCaffrey

  “They have much to live for, Menolly. Brekke needs them to stay alive. She’s lost her queen already. She’ll make them live. We’ll know more when the Harper returns.”

  Camo entered the room, carrying a heavily laden tray. His thick-featured face changed from ludicrous anxiety to beams of joy as he saw first the fire lizards and then Menolly.

  “Pretty ones hungry? Camo has food?” And Menolly saw two huge pans of meat in pieces among the other dishes on the tray.

  “Thank you for feeding the pretties this morning, Camo.”

  “Camo very quiet. Very quiet.” The man bobbed at Menolly in such a fashion that the pitcher of klah splashed. Sebell deftly relieved him of the tray and set it on the sandtable center board.

  “You’re a good man, Camo,” the journeyman said, go to the kitchen now. You must help Abuna. She needs you.”

  “Pretty ones hungry?” The disappointment was writ large on Camo’s face.

  “No, not now, Camo,” Menolly said gently, smiling up at him. “See, they’re asleep.”

  Camo turned himself in a circle toward the sandtable and then the window ledges where several of the fire lizards were sprawled on the sun-warmed stone, glistening with their recent oiling.

  “We’ll feed them again tonight, Camo.”

  “Tonight? Good. Don’t forget? Promise? Promise? Camo feed pretties?”

  “I promise, Camo,” Menolly said with extra fervor. The wistful, piteous way in which the poor man asked her to promise suggested that too many promises made to Camo were conveniently forgotten.

  “Now,” Sebell said as the man shuffled from the room, “Silvina said you’d no time for more than klah when you woke. If I remember Shonagar’s lessons, you’ll be starved.”

  To Menolly’s delight, there was redfruit on the tray as well as meatrolls, klah, cheese, bread and a sweet conserve. Sebell ate lightly, more to keep her company than because he was hungry, though he said he’d been studying. To prove that, he rattled off the names and descriptions of the fish she had given him the other morning.

  “Did I remember them all correctly?” he asked, peering at her as she stared at him in amazement.

  “Yes, you did!”

  “Think I can pose as a seaman now?”

  “If you only have to name fish!”

  “If only…” he paused dramatically, making a grimace for that restriction. “I had a chat with a bronze dragonrider I know at Fort Weyr. He’s agreed to take us, on the quiet, to any body of water that you feel is adequate to teach me how to sail.”

  “Teach you how to sail!” Menolly was appalled. “In one easy lesson, like those fish names?”

  “No, but I don’t think I’ll actually have to sail. I should know the fundamentals and leave…” he grinned at her, “…the doing to the experts in the craft.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief for she liked Sebell, and she’d been distressed to think that he might be foolhardy enough to attempt sailing on the ocean by himself. Yanus had often said that no one ever really learned all there was to know about the sea, the winds and the tides. Just when one got confident, a squall could make up and smash a ship to splinters.

  “I do feel, that to be convincing, I’d better know how to gut fish as well. That seems a more integral part of the craft than actual sailing. So that will take priority in your instruction. N’ton said he could acquire some fresh fish for me with no problems.”

  Again Menolly suppressed her curiosity as to why a journeyman harper needed to be conversant with the seacraft.

  “Tomorrow’s a rest day,” Sebell continued. “There may even be a gather if the weather holds, which to my landsman’s eye, seems likely. So, if the fire lizards break shell, and if we can disappear circumspectly, perhaps some day after that…”

  “I can’t miss my lessons with Master Shonagar…”

  “Has he got you dithering so soon?”

  “He is so emphatic…”

  ‘Yes, he usually is. But he really knows how to build a voice, if that’s any consolation to you. I could always play an instrument…” and Sebell grinned in reminiscence, “…but I never thought I’d make a singer. I was terrified I’d be sent away from the Hall…”

  “You were?”

  “Oh, indeed I was. I’d wanted to be a harper since I learned my first Ballads. I’m landsman bred, so harpering is very respectable. My foster father gave me all the assistance I needed, and our Hold Harper was a good technician, not very creative,” and Sebell waggled a hand, “but capable of teaching the fundamentals thoroughly. I thought myself a right proper musician…until I got here.” Sebell uttered a self-deprecating noise at his boyish pretensions. “Then I learned just how much more there is to harpering than playing an instrument.”

  Menolly grinned with complete understanding. “Just like there’s more to being a seaman than knowing how to gut a fish and trim sail?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Which reminds me, Domick did excuse you from this morning’s session, but he hasn’t excused you from the work… So, we might as well put waiting time to use. Incidentally, my compliments on your manner with Domick yesterday. You struck exactly the right note with him.”

  “I never play flat.”

  Sebell gave her a wide-eyed stare. “I didn’t mean, playing.” He stared at her a moment more. “You mean, you really like that sort of music? You weren’t dissembling?”

  “That music was brilliant. I’ve never heard anything like it.” Menolly was a bit disconcerted by Sebell’s attitude.

  “Oh, I guess it would seem so to you. I only hope you have the same opinion several Turns from now after you’ve had to endure more of Domick’s eternal search for pure musical forms.” He gave a mock shudder. “Here…” and he spread out sheets of new music. “Let’s see how you like this. Domick wants you to play first gitar, but you’re to learn the second as well.”

  The occasional music for two gitars was extremely complex, switching from one time value to another, with chording difficult enough for uninjured hands. She and Sebell had to work out alternative fingering for the passages that her left hand could not manage. The repetitive theme had to dominate, but it swung from one gitar part to the other. They had gone through two of the three sections before Sebell called a break, laughing at his surrender as he stretched and kneaded tired fingers and shoulders.

  “We won’t get this music note-perfect in one sitting, Menolly,” he protested when she wanted to finish the third movement.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”

  “Will you stop apologizing for the wrong things?”

  “I’m sor– Well, I didn’t mean to…” She had to rephrase what she wanted to say as Sebell laughed at her attempt to obey his injunction. “This sort of music is a challenge. It really is. For instance here…” and she turned to a quick time passage that had been extremely difficult to finger.

  “Enough, Menolly. I’m bone tired, and why you aren’t…”

  “But you’re a journeyman harper…”

  “I know but this journeyman harper cannot spend all his time playing…”

  “What do you do? Besides cross-craft.”

  “Whatever the Harper needs me to do. Primarily I journey…looking among the youngsters in hold and craft to see if there’re any likely ones for the Craft Hall. I bring new music to distant harpers…your music most recently—”

  “My music?”

  “First to flush you out because we didn’t know you were a girl. Second, because were exactly the songs we need.”

  “That’s what Master Robinton said.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised…and meek. Admittedly it’s nice to have one modest apprentice in this company of rampant extroverts…what’s the matter?”

  “Why isn’t music like Master Domick’s—”

  “Your music can be played easily and well by any half-stringed harper or fumble-fingered idiot. Not that I’m maligning your songs. It’s just that they’re an entirely different kettle of fish—to use
a seamanly metaphor—to Domick’s. Don’t you judge your songs against his standard! More people have already listened to your melodies and liked them, than will ever hear Domick’s, much less like them.”

  Menolly swallowed. The very notion that her music was more acceptable than Domick’s was incredible, and yet she could appreciate the distinction that Sebell was making. Domick was a musician’s composer.

  “Of course, we need music like Master Domick’s, too. It serves a different purpose, for the Hall, and the Craft. He knows more about the art of composing—which you have to learn—”

  “Oh, I know I do.” Then, because the problem had been weighing heavily on her conscience, she spilled the words out in a rush. “What do I do, Sebell, about the fire lizard song? Master Robinton rewrote it, and it’s much, much better. But he’s told everyone that I wrote it.”

  “So? That’s the way the Harper wishes it to be, Menolly. He has his reasons.” Sebell reached out to grip her knee and give her a little shake. “And he didn’t change the song much. Just sort of…” Sebell gestured with both hands, compressing the space between them, “…tightened it up. He kept the melody as you’d written it, and that’s what everyone is humming. What you have to do now is learn how to polish your music without losing its freshness. That’s why it’s so important for you to study with Domick. He has the discipline: you have the originality.”

  Menolly could not reply to that assessment. There was a lump in her throat as she remembered the beatings she’d taken for doing exactly what she was now encouraged to do.

  “Don’t hunch up like that,” Sebell said, almost sharply. “What’s the matter? You’ve gone white as a sheet. Shells!” This last word came out as an expletive and caused Menolly to look in surprise at the journeyman. “Just when I didn’t want to be interrupted…”

  She followed the line of his gaze and saw the bronze dragon circling down to land beyond the courtyard.

  “That’s N’ton. I’ve got to speak to him, Menolly, about our teaching tip. I’ll be right back.” He was out of the room at a trot, and she could hear him taking the steps in a clatter.

  She looked at the music they’d been playing, and Sebell’s words echoed through her mind. “He has the discipline; you have the originality.” “Everyone’s been humming it.” People liking her twiddles? That still didn’t seem possible, although Sebell had no more reason to lie to her than the Masterharper when he’d said that her music was valuable to him. To the Harper Craft. Incredible! She struck a chord on the gitar, a triumphant, incredible chord, and then modulated it, thinking undisciplined that musical reaction had been.

  They were still twiddles, her songs, unlike the beautiful, intricate musical designs that Domick composed. But if she studied hard with him, maybe she could improve her twiddles into what she could honestly call music.

  Firmly she turned her thoughts toward the gitar duet and ran through the tricky passages, slowly at first and then finally at time. One of the chords modulated into tones that were so close to the agonized cry of the previous night that she repeated the phrase.

  “Don’t leave me alone” and then found another chord that fit, “The cry in the night/Of anguish heart-striking/Of soul-killing fright.” That’s what Sebell had said: that Brekke would not want to live if Canth and F’nor died, “Live for my living/Or else I must die/Don’t leave me alone. /A world heard that cry.”

  By the time Menolly had arranged the chords in the plaint to her satisfaction, Beauty, Rocky and Diver were softly crooning along with her. So she worked on the verse.

  “Well, you approve?” she asked her fair. “Perhaps I ought to jot it down on something…”

  “No need,” said a quiet voice behind her, and she whirled on the stool to see Sebell seated at the sandtable, scribing quickly. “I think I’ve got most of it.” He looked up, saw the startled expression on her face and gave her a brief smile. “Close your mouth and come check my notation.”

  “But…but…”

  “What did I tell you, Menolly, about apologizing for the wrong things?”

  “I was just tuning…”

  “Oh, the song needs polishing, but that refrain is poignant enough to set a Hold to tears.” He beckoned again to her, a crisp gesture that brought her to his side. “You might want to change the sequence, give the peril first, the solution next…though I don’t know. With

  that melody…do you always use minors?” He slid a glass across the sand so the scribbling couldn’t be erased. “We’ll see what the Harper thinks. Now what’s wrong?”

  “Leave it? You can’t be serious.”

  “I can be and usually am, young Menolly,” he said, rising from the stool to reach for his gitar. “Now, let’s see if I put it down correctly.”

  Menolly sat, immersed in acute embarrassment to hear Sebell playing a tune of her making. But she had to listen. When her fire lizards began to croon softly along with Sebell’s deft playing, she was about ready to concede—privately—that it wasn’t a bad tune after all.

  “That’s very well done, Sebell! Didn’t know you had it in you,” said the Masterharper, applauding vigorously from the doorway. “I’d rather dreaded transferring that incident to music…”

  “This song, Master Robinton, is Menolly’s.” Sebell had risen at the Harper’s entrance, and now he bowed deferentially to Menolly. “Come, girl, it’s why the Harpers searched a continent for you.”

  “Menolly, my dear child, no blushes for that song.” Robinton seized her hands and clasped them warmly. “Think of the chore you just saved me. I came in halfway through the verse, Sebell, if you would please…” and the Harper gestured to Sebell to begin again. With one long arm, Robinton snaked a stool out from under the flat-bottomed sandtable, and still holding Menolly by the hand, he composed himself to listen as Sebell’s clever fingers plucked the haunting phrases from the augmenting chords. “Now, Menolly, think only of the music as Sebell plays, not that it is your music. Learn to think objectively, not subjectively. Listen as a harper.”

  He held her hand so tightly in his that she could not pull away without giving offense. The clasp of his fingers was more than reassuring: it was therapeutic. Her embarrassment ebbed as the music and Sebell’s warm baritone voice flowed into the room. When the fire lizards hummed loud, Robinton squeezed her hand and smiled down at her.

  “Yes, a little work on the phrases. One or two words could be altered, I think, to heighten the effect, but the whole can stand. Can you scribe… Ah, Sebell, well done. Well done,” said the Masterharper as Sebell tapped the protecting glass. “I’ll want it transferred to some of those neat paper sheets Bendarek supplies us with, so Menolly can go over it at her leisure. Not too much leisure,” and the Masterharper held up a warning hand, “because that fire lizard echo swept round Pern, and we must explain it. A good song, Menolly, a very good song. Don’t doubt yourself so fiercely. Your instinct for melodic line is very good, very good indeed. Perhaps I should send more of my apprentices to a sea hold for a time if this is the sort of talent the waves provoke. And see, your fair is still humming the line…”

  Menolly drew out of her confusion long enough to realize that the fire lizards’ hum had nothing to do with her song: their attention was not on the humans but…

  “The eggs! They’re hatching!”

  “Hatching!” “Hatching!” Both master and journeyman crowded each other to get through the door to the hearth and the fire-warming pots. “Menolly! Come here!”

  “I’m getting the meat!”

  “They’re hatching!” the Harper shouted. “They’re hatching. Grab that pot, Sebell, it’s wobbling!”

  As Menolly dashed into the room, the two men were kneeling at the hearth, watching anxiously as the earthen pots rocked slightly.

  “They can’t hatch IN the pots,” she said with a certain amount of asperity in her voice. She took the pot from the protecting encirclement of Sebell’s curved fingers and carefully upended it on the hearth, her fingers cushioning
the egg until the sand spilled away from it. She turned to Robinton, but he had already followed her example. Both eggs lay in the light of the fire, rocking slightly, the striations of hatching marking the shells.

  The fire lizards lined up on the mantel and the hearth, humming deep in their throats. The pulsing sound seemed to punctuate the now violent movements of the eggs as the hatchlings fluttered against the shells for exit.

  “Master Robinton?” called Silvina from the outer room. “Master Robinton?”

  “Silvina! They’re hatching!” The Harper’s jubilant bellow startled Menolly and set the fire lizards to squawking and flapping their wings in surprise.

  Other harpers, curious about the noise, began to crowd in behind Silvina, who stood at the door to the Harper’s sleeping quarters. If there were too many people in the room, Menolly thought…

  “No! Stay out! Keep them out!” she cried before she realized she’d said anything. “Yes. Stay back now,” Silvina was saying. “You can’t all see. You’ve got the meat, Menolly? Ah, so you have. Is it enough?”

  “It should be.”

  “What do we do now?” asked the Harper, his voice rough with suppressed excitement as he crouched above the egg.

  “When the fire lizard emerges, feed it,” Menolly said, somewhat surprised, for the Harper must have been a guest at numerous dragon hatchings. “Just stuff its mouth with food.”

  “When will they hatch?” asked Sebell, washing his fingers in his palms with excited frustration.

  The fire lizards’ hum was getting more intense: their eyes whirling with participation in the event. Suddenly a second little golden queen erupted into the room, her eyes spinning. She let out a squeal which Beauty answered, lifting her wings higher, but in greeting, not challenge.

  “Silvina!” Menolly pointed to the queen.

  “Master Robinton, look!” said the headwoman and, as they all watched, the newly arrived queen took her place on the mantel beside Beauty, her throat vibrating as fast as the others.

  “That’s Merga, Lord Groghe’s queen,” said the Harper, and then he glanced over his shoulder at the door. “I hope it isn’t an awkward time for him. This sort of summons could be inconvenient…”