The Renegades of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘And we still have those bloody Oldtimers to deal with.’ But there was less force in the kick Toric gave the table leg.

  ‘They haven’t hindered your plans all that much, now, have they?’ Piemur said drolly. ‘What they don’t know won’t hurt them. I’d bide my time, Toric.’

  ‘You’re with me, then?’

  ‘If today didn’t prove that, I don’t know what will,’ Piemur said, cocking his head to one side. He liked Toric, admired him, but he did not entirely trust him. Which was fair. Toric did not completely trust Piemur, especially not too often in Sharra’s company. Piemur had noticed how Toric tried to keep them apart; the holder had just given Sharra her long-sought permission to go on an adventurous trip south, beyond Hamian’s mines. ‘So, if we’re back to normal tomorrow, I’d like to see what’s beyond that headland east of Island River. Maybe even get as far as the cove that Menolly found when they were storm-lost.’ He noticed the alertness in Toric’s eyes. The holder had not liked that inadvertent excursion; he had always been suspicious of just how far Menolly and the Masterharper had gone, though he could never deny that they had been storm-driven, and that only Menolly’s sea skills had kept the small boat afloat. ‘A dragon can’t go between to a place he’s never seen,’ Piemur reminded the Southerner. ‘Likewise, a man can’t hold what he hasn’t beheld! How about it, Toric?’

  Stupid led the way out of the brushland, pushing through the tangle with his sturdy front end, his hide too tough to be pierced by branch and thorn. From above, Farli was giving directions, and Piemur thrashed at the vegetation with the thick blade Hamian had forged for him.

  He came out on a beach that sloped down to the sea, a pale green expanse of water ruffled with whitecaps from the onshore breeze. He sighed at the splendid view, then looked back the way he had come, at the thick trees waving their fronds and leaves. He took a redfruit from the pack on Stupid’s back, nicked it expertly with his chopper, and sucked at the sweet, thirst-quenching flesh. Stupid complained. He chopped off a hunk and fed it to the little runnerbeast, who munched contentedly.

  But when Piemur turned to look down the narrow bay, he froze. He could not believe his eyes. He fumbled for the small distance-viewer he had wheedled away from Master Rampesi, who had just received a more powerful device from Starmaster Wansor; it had not done him much good with his nighttime star-gazing, but it had been useful in surveying terrain. When he had focused it, there was no doubt that smoke was rising languidly from the chimney of a good-sized building, high up on the riverbank. It was roofed, big, and had a wide porch, probably on all four sides, with steps leading up to it on the two sides visible to him. Other buildings, large and small, were positioned nearby, making it a sizable settlement. A small sloop was drawn up on the shore, although he could see the stumps of pilings jutting out into the river that might once have been a pier, and fishnets hung on a rack to dry. Colored fishnets! Even through the distance-viewer, he could make out the yellows, greens, blues, and reds.

  ‘There isn’t anyone in all this part of the world, Stupid. There just isn’t. I haven’t seen anyone in months. Toric certainly doesn’t know. Shipwreck?’ Piemur searched his memory. There had been quite a few shipwrecks—and the number was growing. ‘That’s what they are. Shipwrecked. And colored fishnets? Toric won’t like this.’

  A fair of fire-lizards appeared overhead, but they did not fly low enough for him to get a close look. Farli joined them in the usual aerial dance. He had seen numerous fire-lizard nests along the coast, even some unplundered golds. But Toric had definitely stated that there would be no more trade of eggs with the north. Farli swooped to his shoulder, wrapping her tail about his neck and chittering unintelligibly about men and lots of things piled on the beach.

  ‘Houses are not piles,’ Piemur stated firmly. But the incident with the northern dragons had taught him to pay attention to Farli’s incomprehensible statements. For the last few days she had been trying to tell him something that she had learned only recently. Eventually it would all make sense to him, just as he had deciphered her comments about the Black Rock River, which they had had such trouble negotiating. He had not expected such an immense inland sea, with distant islands lost in the misty rain.

  Piemur’s cautionary instinct had sharpened on the long and solitary eastward journey. And though he was eager to talk to someone besides himself, he was also strangely loath to initiate a meeting. Nevertheless he proceeded down the long strand to the river’s mouth, struggling up dunes and treading carefully through the salt grasses, prodding ahead of his feet with his snake-stick, Stupid a pace behind him, Farli swooping up and back, flitting away and returning.

  There were people, she told him, but not the men. Not the other men.

  It was almost time for the precipitous sunset of those parts when Piemur finally got close enough to see that some of the buildings were derelict, with plants growing out of the windows and through cracks in the roofs. Several were bigger than anything Toric had yet permitted to be built, and they tended to be more wide open to air and sun than anyone dared build in the north, though the facing material was beautifully fit stone. The roofs seemed to be sheer slabs, finger thick. He remembered the exceedingly durable mine props that Hamian had found solidly in place after who knew how many Turns.

  And there were people. He dropped down on the sand, getting a mouthful, when he saw a man walking from what had to be a beasthold toward the steps of the wide verandah. Canines, large ones to judge by their deep voices, began to bark somewhere behind the house.

  ‘Ara!’ The man’s call brought a woman out of the house, followed by a toddling child. There was a touching moment of embrace, then the man scooped the child up and, with one arm around the woman, entered the house.

  ‘A family, Stupid. There’s a family living here, with a big house, lots of rooms, more than three people need. Why’d they build it so big? Or are there others inside?’

  Four fire-lizards, two gold, a bronze, and a brown, suddenly came out of nowhere and hovered on wing above him before disappearing. Although Farli was not alarmed, Piemur was.

  ‘O-ho, we’ve been spotted. Well, fire-lizard friends can’t be all bad, can they, Stupid? Let’s go forth like brave men and get this over with.’ He got to his feet and approached the building, shouting at the top of his well-trained lungs. ‘Hello the House! Let’s hope there’s enough dinner for four, huh, Stupid? Hello there!’

  There was glad astonishment and a warm, if shy, welcome from the shipwrecked couple, as well as an immediate invitation to share their meal, which was cooking over a most fascinating stove. The man, Jayge, tanned and well-muscled, was several Turns older and taller by several handwidths than the harper. He had an open face, a nose slightly bent out of line from some brawl, light-colored eyes, and a steady gaze. He wore a sleeveless vest and short pants of roughly spun cotton, and around his lean hips was a fine leather belt from which hung a bone-handled knife. On his feet were rather ingenious sandals that protected toes and heels but were open across the foot. They looked much more comfortable and cooler than the heavy boots Piemur wore,

  Ara was younger, with an appealing face that looked both innocent and yet was oddly mature; at times she looked sad. Her black hair was braided down her back, but curls escaped the plait to frame her face. She wore a loose, sleeveless cotton dress, dyed a deep red and embroidered on scoop neck and hem, a narrow leather belt dyed a red to match her dress, and red leather sandals. She was utterly charming, and Piemur did not miss Jayge’s proud and proprietary gaze.

  While Piemur ate his way through the best meal he had eaten since he had left Southern, he listened to Jayge and Ara tell of their adventures, occasionally throwing in a question or a comment to encourage them to add details.

  ‘We were hired at Keroon Beastmasterhold,’ Jayge told him, ‘about thirty months ago—we lost an accurate track of time in the storm and during our first days here. We were transporting some expensive breeding stock for Master Rampesi, to be del
ivered to Holder Toric at the Southern Hold. Would you know him?’

  ‘I do. I remember how mad Rampesi was when he had to admit your ship must have gone down. You were lucky to survive.’

  ‘We very nearly didn’t,’ Jayge said, giving Ara a sideways glance and laying his arm across her shoulders, his expression tenderly, amused. ‘Ara here insists that we were dragged to shore by shipfish.’

  ‘Quite likely,’ Piemur assured him, grinning at Jayge’s surprise and Ara’s triumphant cry. ‘Every Masterfisherman worth his knots will agree: Master Rampesi has told me of men falling overboard and being lifted up by shipfish. He’s seen the phenomenon himself, and he’s not given to harper tales. That’s why Fishcrafthallers are so glad to see them escorting a ship out to sea. Means good luck.’

  ‘But the storm was incredibly powerful,’ Jayge objected.

  ‘So are they—and quite at home in stormy seas. You’re the only survivors?’

  When Ara looked stricken, Jayge answered quickly. ‘No, but one man was so badly hurt, we never even learned his name. Festa and Scallak had broken leg and arm bones; I’d snapped my wrist and a few ribs; but Ara set us all and healed us straight.’ He twisted his left hand to prove the mend, smiling at Ara. ‘We were quite a sight then, only three good arms and four legs among us, except for Ara, who nursed and fed us all.’ He shot his young wife a look of such tender pride that Piemur almost blushed. ‘We were getting along fine here, even tamed some wild beasts—Ara’s got a gift with animals—when first Festa and then Scallak caught some kind of a fever, terrible headaches… they went blind.’ He broke off, frowning at the memory.

  ‘Fire-head, probably,’ Piemur said, breaking the silence to relieve Ara’s obvious distress at the memory. ‘It has a high mortality rate if you don’t know the cure.’

  ‘There is one?’ Ara’s eyes widened. ‘I tried everything I knew. I felt so helpless, and ever since I’ve been afraid…’

  ‘Don’t fret yourself. Look—’ Piemur hauled his pack over and pulled out a small vial, which he handed to her. ‘I’ve medicine here. Instructions on it, as you see. Just don’t go near beaches stained yellow. It’s at its worst in mid- or late spring. And now that we know where you are, I’ll see that Sharra—she’s had Healer Hall training—sends you a record of symptoms and treatment for some of the southern nasties.’

  ‘I hope we’ve found most of them,’ Jayge said with a rueful grin, rubbing the scar on his forearm. Piemur recognized the blemish as an old needlethorn infection.

  ‘That’s the hard way to learn what to avoid. I’d say you’d done pretty well here.’ Piemur was fascinated with the material of the house.

  ‘We found all this,’ Jayge said, his gesture including the house and the buildings beyond.

  ‘Found it?’

  Jayge grinned, his teeth very white in his tanned face. He had curious yellow-green eyes, with flecks of dark in them, and a one-sided smile that Piemur liked. ‘Found the whole settlement. Mind you, it saved our lives. There were appalling storms for weeks after we were swept in here.’ He paused, hesitant. ‘I didn’t think anyone had been allowed to settle in the south, except at Southern Hold. This isn’t part of Southern, is it, and we just didn’t search far enough west?’

  ‘Ah, to be honest with you…’ Piemur hesitated only a moment, for Toric could not possibly expect to claim the entire south. ‘No, this isn’t Southern Hold!’ Seeing that his vehemence had surprised both Jayge and Ara, he smiled to reassure them. ‘You’re a long way from where you were supposed to land those beasts. A long way.’ Piemur decided it would also be a very long time before Toric discovered their existence. ‘Hold hard to what you’ve got here,’ he added blithely, and looked admiringly around at the gracious proportions of the room in which they ate. With its wide windows, louvered on the inside, it was unlike even freestanding hold rooms. The inside walls were not of the same stone as the outside and were colored very cool green blue. Jayge had fashioned sconces for candles Ara had made from berry wax, so the room was pleasantly lit. ‘How big is this house you found?’

  ‘More than we need right now,’ Ara said, swatting at Jayge affectionately when he winked at Piemur. Though her figure was not yet distorted, the harper had suspected she might be pregnant again. There was a luminous quality to her eyes and face that Sharra had told him often enhanced the beauty of a gravid woman. ‘Twelve rooms, but some would be awfully small to house a whole family. We had to shovel out the sand in the front rooms. The walls were filthy; I was afraid we’d have to scrub them clean, but the dirt sort of slid off when we washed them. I haven’t quite got the stains completely off, but now you can see what pretty colors they used.’

  ‘We fixed this roof with slabs taken from the other ones,’ Jayge said. ‘I’ve never seen material like this before. And we shouldn’t have been able to nail it, but Ara found a keg of nails that would penetrate and hold.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Ara went on with an air of confession. ‘The house is unusual, but the thick walls keep us cool in the heat of the day and warm enough on cold ones. We found the strangest-looking containers, most of them empty. Jayge laughs at me, but I know we’ll find something to tell us who lived here before we did.’

  ‘I’d like to know when you do,’ Piemur said. ‘Did you find those colored fishnets here?’

  They both grinned, exchanging glances, and Jayge explained. ‘We found lots of empty nets stored in one corner of the largest building. It had neither porch nor windows but it did have vents along the roof, so we figured it may have been a storehouse. Snakes and other insects had destroyed whatever was in the crates and barrels and those nets, but the material they were made of seems indestructible.’

  ‘It’d have to be, to last any length of time here in the south,’ Piemur said casually, though he was more excited about the settlement than he dared express. The Harper should know about it. He wondered if he should send Farli with a message to Master Robinton but decided that it could wait until morning. ‘So you’ve fished, and you’ve stock…’

  ‘I’ll have to introduce you to the dogs tomorrow,’ Ara said. ‘We have them against snakes and big spotted cats.’

  ‘You have them here, too?’ Piemur asked eagerly. Sharra had thought those cats a local sport—she would be interested to know that they inhabited other parts of the Southern Continent.

  ‘Enough so that we don’t hunt without the dogs,’ Jayge said. ‘And we carry spear or bow and arrow once we pass the clearings.’

  ‘But there’s wild rice,’ Ara put in enthusiastically, ‘and all kinds of vegetables—even a grove of the oldest fellis trees I’ve ever seen!’ She waved to the east of the hold. ‘We’ve floods of wild wherry, and runner and herd beasts grazing in the river valley, a day’s good run from here. Jayge is a good spearman.’

  ‘And you’ve never missed with bow and arrow,’ Jayge said proudly. ‘And—’ Jayge grinned at Piemur. ‘We’ve a fair home brew.’ He went to a wall cupboard, fashioned out of one of the crates he had mentioned, and opened it to display two small barrels, their shape reminiscent of much larger ones Piemur had seen at the Benden Master-vintner’s. ‘We’ve been experimenting,’ Jayge went on, pouring three cups and serving them. ‘And it’s improving!’

  Piemur sniffed and found its aroma odd, not as fruity as he had expected. He took a sip.

  ‘Ooooh, that’s great stuff!’ His appreciation was genuine as he felt the shock of it coursing pleasantly through him. He raised his cup to the smiling Ara and Jayge in a toast. ‘To friends, near and far!’

  ‘I think it’ll improve with age,’ Jayge remarked with quiet satisfaction after he and Ara had solemnly returned the toast. ‘But for a trader’s brew, it’s passable.’

  ‘I could be prejudiced, or maybe I’ve just lost my palate, but Jayge, this’s smooth to lip, mouth, and throat, and a tonic to blood and bone.’

  They talked long into the crystal clear, chill early hours of the morning until sheer fatigue slowed both que
stion and answer. If Piemur had extracted from them an account of their establishment there, he had replied with eagerly received news of the North—expurgated, of course, and embellished when the incident deserved his harper’s touch. Piemur had introduced himself with rank, craft, and hold affiliation and explained that his current task was to explore the coast. Jayge had responded that he was a trader by craft and that Ara was from Igen. There was something that they were not revealing, Piemur was quick enough to realize, but then, he had not told them the entire truth either.

  Piemur remained with Jayge and Ara for longer than he should have. Not only did he admire their fortitude and industry—even Toric would consider them resourceful and diligent—but also he wanted time to delve into the mystery of the buildings there on the far edge of nowhere. In the oldest of the Harper Hall Records, there had been elusive fragments, which Piemur, as Master Robinton’s special apprentice, had been allowed to see. When man came to Pern, he established a good Hold in the South, one fragment had begun, only to conclude ambiguously, but found it necessary to move north to shield. Like Robinton, Piemur had always wondered why anyone would have left the beautiful and fertile Southern Continent and settle the far harsher north. But it must have happened—the discovery of the ancient mine had been evidence of that. And now these incredible buildings!