Dragon Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

  Trees! Another bone of contention between Weyr and Hold, with F'lar staunchly upholding the Lords' position. Four hundred Turns ago, such timber stands had not existed, were not permitted to grow. Too much living green to protect. Well, the Oldtimers were eager enough to own products of wood, overloading Fandarel's woodcraftsman, Bendarek, with their demands. On the other hand, they wouldn't permit the formation of a new Crafthall under Bendarek. Probably because, F'lar thought bitterly, Bendarek wanted to stay near the hardwoods of Lemos, and that would give Benden Weyr a Crafthall in its jurisdiction. By the Egg, the Oldtimers were almost more trouble than they were worth!

  Mnementh landed with sweeping backstrokes that flattened the thick meadow grass. F'lar slid down the bronze's neck to join Lord Asgenar while Mnementh trumpeted approval to the green dragon and F'rad, his rider.

  F'rad wants to warn you that Asgenar ...

  "Not much gets through Benden's wings," Asgenar was saying by way of greeting so that Mnementh didn't finish his thought. The young man was wiping soot and sweat from his face for he was one Lord who directed his ground crews personally instead of staying comfortably in his main Hold. "Even if Threads have begun to deviate. How do you account for all these recent variations?"

  "Variations?" F'lar repeated the word, feeling stupid because he somehow realized that Asgenar was not referring just to this day's unusual occurrence.

  "Yes! And here we thought your timetables were the last word. To be relied on forever, especially since they were checked and approved by the Oldtimers." Asgenar gave F'lar a sly look. "Oh, I'm not faulting you, F'lar. You've always been open in our dealings. I count myself lucky to be weyrbound to you. A man knows where he stands with Benden Weyr. My brother-in-law elect? Lord Larad, has had problems with T'kul of the High Reaches Weyr, you know. And since those premature falls at Tillek and Upper Crom, he's got a thorough watch system set up." Asgenar paused, suddenly aware of F'lar's tense silence. "I do not presume to criticize weyrfolk, F'lar," he said in a more formal tone, "but rumor can outfly a dragon and naturally I heard about the others. I can appreciate the Weyrs not wishing to alarm commoners but, well, a little forewarning would be only courteous."

  "There was no way of predicting today's fall," F'lar said slowly, but his mind was turning so rapidly that he felt sick. Why had nothing been said to him? R'mart of Telgar Weyr hadn't been at the meeting about T'reb's transgressions. Could R'mart have been busy fighting Thread at that time? As for T'kul of the High Reaches Weyr imparting any information, particularly news that might show him in a bad light, that one wouldn't give coordinates to save a rider's life.

  No, they'd have had good reason not to mention premature falls to F'lar that night. If T'kul had confided in anyone. But why hadn't R'mart let them know?

  "But Benden Weyr's not caught sleeping. Once is all we'd need in those forests, huh, F'lar?" Asgenar was saying, his eyes scanning the spongewoods possessively.

  "Yes. All we'd need. What's the report from the leading Edge of this Fall? Have you runners in yet?"

  "Your queens' wing reported it safe two hours past." Asgenar grinned and rocked back and forth on his heels, his confidence not a bit jarred by today's unpredicted event. F'lar envied him.

  Again the bronze rider thanked good fortune that he had Lord Asgenar to deal with this morning instead of punctilious Raid or suspicious Lord Sifer. He devoutly hoped that the young Lord Holder would not find his trust misplaced. But the question haunted him. How could Threads change so?

  Both Weyrleader and Lord Holder froze as they watched a blue dragon hover attentively above a stand of trees to the northeast. When the beast flew on, Asgenar turned to F'lar with troubled eyes.

  "Do you think these odd falls will mean that those forests must be razed?"

  "You know my views on wood, Asgenar. It's too valuable a commodity, too versatile, to sacrifice needlessly."

  "But it takes every dragon to protect ..."

  "Are you for or against?" F'lar asked with mild amusement. He gripped Asgenar's shoulder. "Instruct your foresters to keep constant watch. Their vigilance is essential."

  "Then you don't know the pattern in the Thread shifts?"

  F'lar shook his head slowly, unwilling to perjure himself to this man. "I'll leave the long-eyed F'rad with you."

  A wide smile broke the thin troubled face of the Lord Holder.

  "I couldn't ask, but it's a relief. I shan't abuse the privilege."

  F'lar glanced at him sharply. "Why should you?"

  Asgenar gave him a wry smile. "That's what the Oldtimers carp about, isn't it? And instant transportation to any place on Pern is a temptation."

  F'lar laughed, remembering that Asgenar, Lord of Lemos, was to take Famira, the youngest sister of Larad, Lord of Telgar Hold, to wife. While the Telgar lands marched the boundaries of Lemos, the Holds were separated by deep forest and several ranges of steep rocky mountains.

  Three dragons appeared and circled above them, wingriders reporting on the ground activities. Nine infestations had been sighted and controlled with minimum loss of property. Sweepriders had reported that the mid-Fall area was clear. F'lar dismissed them. A runner came loping up the meadow to his Lord Holder, carefully keeping several dragonlengths between himself and the two beasts. For all that every Pernese knew the dragons would harm no human, many would never lose their fearfulness. Dragons were confused by this distrust so that F'lar strolled casually to his bronze and scratched the left eye ridge affectionately until Mnementh allowed one lid to droop in pleasure over the gleaming opalescent eye.

  The runner had come from afar, managing to gasp out his reassuring message before he collapsed on the ground, his chest heaving with the effort to fill his starved lungs. Asgenar stripped off his tunic and covered the man to prevent his chilling and made the runner drink from his own flask.

  "The two infestations on the south slope are char!" Asgenar reported to the Weyrleader as he rejoined him. "That means the hardwood stands are safe." Asgenar's relief was so great that he took a swig on the bottle himself. Then hastily offered it to the dragonrider. When F'lar politely refused, he went on, "We may have another hard winter and my people will need that wood. Crom coal costs!"

  F'lar nodded. Free provision of fuel wood meant a tremendous saving to the average holder, though not every Lord saw it in this aspect. Lord Meron of Nabol Hold, for instance refused to let his commoners chop fuel wood, forcing them to pay the high rates for Crom coal, increasing his profit at their expense.

  "That runner came from the south slope? He's fast."

  "My forest men are the best in all Pern. Meron of Nabol has twice tried to lure that man from me."

  "And?"

  Lord Asgenar chuckled. "Who trusts Meron? My man had heard tales of how that Lord treats his people." He seemed about to add another thought but cleared his throat instead, glancing nervously away as if catching a glimpse of something in the woods.

  "What all Pern needs is an efficient means of communication," remarked the dragonman, his eyes on the gasping runner.

  "Efficient?" and Asgenar laughed aloud. "Is all Pern infected with Fandarel's disease?"

  "Pern benefits by such an illness." F'lar must contact the Mastersmith the moment he got back to the Weyr. Pern needed the genius of the giant Fandarel now more than ever.

  "Yes, but will we recover from the feverish urge for perfection?" Asgenar's smile faded as he added, in a deceptively casual fashion, "Have you heard whether a decision has been reached about Bendarek's guild?"

  "None yet."

  "I do not insist that a Craftmaster's Hall be sited in Lemos, " Asgenar began, urgent and serious.

  F'lar held up his hand. "Nor I, though I have trouble convincing others of my sincerity. Lemos Hold has the biggest stands of wood, Bendarek needs to be near his best source of supply, and he comes of Lemos!"

  "Every single objection raised has been ridiculous," Asgenar replied, his gray eyes sparkling with anger. "You know as well as I that a Craftmaste
r owes no allegiance to a Lord Holder. Bendarek's as unprejudiced as Fandarel as far as loyalty to anything but his craft is concerned. All the man thinks of is wood and pulp and those new leaves or sheets or what-you-ma-callums he's mucking about with."

  "I know. I know, Asgenar. Larad of Telgar Hold and Corman of Keroon Hold side with you or so they've assured me."

  "When the Lord Holders meet in Conclave at Telgar Hold, I'm going to speak out. Lord Raid and Sifer will back me, if only because we're weyrbound."

  "It isn't the Lords or Weyrleaders who must make this decision," F'lar reminded the resolute young Lord. "It's the other Craftmasters. That's been my thought since Fandarel first proposed a new craft designation."

  "Then what's holding matters up? All the Mastercraftsmen will be at the wedding at Telgar Hold. Let's settle it once and for all and let Bendarek alone." Asgenar threw his arms wide with frustration. "We need Bendarek settled, we need what he's been producing and he can't keep his mind on important work with all this shifting and shouting."

  "Any proposal that smacks of change right now," (especially now, F'lar added to himself, thinking of this Threadfall.) "is going to alarm certain Weyrleaders and Lord Holders. Sometimes I think that only the Crafts constantly look for change, are interested and flexible enough to judge what is improvement or progressive. The Lord Holders and the, " F'lar broke off.

  Fortunately another runner was approaching from the north, his legs pumping strongly. He came straight past the green dragon, right up to his Lord.

  "Sir, the northern section is clear. Three burrows have been burned out. All is secure."

  "Good man. Well run."

  The man, flushed with praise and effort, saluted the Weyrleader and his Lord. Then, breathing deeply but without labor, he strode over to the prone messenger and began massaging his legs.

  Asgenar smiled at F'lar. "There's no point in our rehearsing arguments. We are basically in agreement. If we could just make those others see!"

  Mnementh rumbled that the wings were reporting an all-clear. He so pointedly extended his foreleg that Asgenar laughed.

  "That does it," he said. "Any idea how soon before we have another Fall?"

  F'lar shook his head. "F'rad is here. You ought to have seven days free. You'll hear from me as soon as we've definite news."

  "You'll be at Telgar in six days, won't you?"

  "Or Lessa will have my ears!"

  "My regards to your lady."

  Mnementh bore him upward in an elliptical course that allowed them to make one final check of the forest lands. Wisps of smoke curled to the north and farther to the east, but Mnementh seemed unconcerned. F'lar told him to go between. The utter cold of that dimension painfully irritated the Thread scores on his face. Then they were above Benden Weyr. Mnementh trumpeted his return and hung, all but motionless, until he heard the booming response of Ramoth. At that instant, Lessa appeared on the ledge of the weyr, her slight stature diminished still further by distance. As Mnementh glided in, she descended the long flight of stairs in much the same headlong fashion for which they criticized their weyrling son, Felessan.

  Reprimands were not likely to break Lessa of that habit either, thought F'lar. Then he noticed what Lessa had in her hands and rounded angrily on Mnementh. "I'm barely touched and you babble on me like a weyrling!"

  Mnementh was not the least bit abashed as he backwinged to land lightly by the Feeding Ground. "Thread hurts."

  "I don't want Lessa upset over nothing!"

  "I don't want Ramoth angry over anything!"

  F'lar slid from the bronze's neck, concealing the twinges he felt as the gritty wind from the Feeding Grounds aggravated the cold-seared lacerations. This was one of those times when the double bond between riders and dragons became a serious disadvantage. Particularly when Mnementh took the initiative, not generally a draconic characteristic.

  Mnementh gave an awkward half jump upward, clearing the way for Lessa. She hadn't changed from wher-hide riding clothes and looked younger than any Weyrwoman ought as she ran towards them, her plaited hair bouncing behind her. Although neither motherhood nor seven turns of security had added flesh to her small-boned body, there was a subtle roundness to breast and hip, and that certain look in her great gray eyes that F'lar knew was for him alone.

  "And you complain about the timing of other riders," she said, gasping, as she came to an abrupt stop at his side. Before he could protest the insignificance of his injuries, she was smearing numbweed on the burns. "I'll have to wash them once the feeling's gone. Can't you duck ash yet? Virianth will be all right but Sorenth and Relth took awful lacings. I do wish that glass craftsman of Fandarel's, Wansor's his name, isn't it?, would complete those eyeguards he's been blathering about. Manora thinks she can save P'ratan's good looks but we'll have to wait and see about his eye." She paused to take a deep breath. "Which is just as well because if he doesn't stop raiding Holds for new lovers, we won't be able to foster all the babies. Those holdbred girls are convinced it's evil to abort." She stopped short, set her lips in the thin line which F'lar had finally catalogued as Lessa veering away from a painful subject.

  "Lessa! No, don't look away." He forced her head up so she had to meet his eyes. She who couldn't conceive must find it hard, too, to help terminate unwanted pregnancies. Would she never stop yearning for another child? How could she forget she had nearly died with Felessan? He'd been relieved that she had never quickened again. The thought of losing Lessa was not even to be thought. "Riding between so much makes it impossible for a Weyrwoman to carry to term."

  "It doesn't seem to affect Kylara," Lessa said with bitter resentment. She had turned away, watching Mnementh rend a fat buck with such an intense expression in her eyes that F'lar had no difficulty guessing that she'd prefer Kylara thus rendered.

  "That one!" F'lar said with a sharp laugh. "Dear heart, if you must model yourself after Kylara to bear children, Weyrwoman, I prefer you barren!"

  "We've more important things to discuss than her," Lessa said, turning to him in a complete change of mood. "What did Lord Asgenar say about the Threadfall? I'd have joined you in the meadow, but Ramoth's got the notion she can't leave her clutch without someone spying on them. Oh, I sent messengers out to the other Weyrs to tell them what's happened here. They ought to know and be on their guard."

  "It would've been courteous of them to have apprised us first," F'lar said so angrily that Lessa glanced up at him startled. He told her then what the Lemos Lord Holder had said on the mountain meadow.

  "And Asgenar assumed that we all knew? That it was simply a matter of changing the timetables?" Shock faded from her face and her eyes narrowed, flashing with indignation. "I would I had never gone back to get those Old-timers. You'd have figured out a way for us to cope."

  "You give me entirely too much credit, love." He hugged her for her loyalty. "However, the Oldtimers are here and we've got to deal with them."

  "Indeed we will. We'll bring them up to date if ..."

  "Lessa," and F'lar gave her a little shake, his pessimism dispersed by the vehemence of her response and the transparency of her rapid calculations on how to bring about such changes. "You can't change a watch-wher into a dragon, my love ..."

  "Who'd want to? demanded Mnementh from the Feeding Ground, his appetite sated.

  The bronze dragon's tart observation elicited a giggle from Lessa. F'lar hugged her gratefully.

  "Well, it's nothing we can't cope with," she said firmly, allowing him to tuck her under his shoulder as they walked back to the weyr. "And it's nothing I don't expect from that T'kul of the ever-so-superior High Reaches. But R'mart of Telgar Weyr?"

  "How long have the messengers been gone?"

  Lessa frowned up at the bright midmorning sky. "Only just. I wanted to get any last details from the Sweepriders."

  "I'm as hungry as Mnementh. Feed me, woman."

  The bronze dragon had glided up to the ledge to settle in his accustomed spot just as a commotion started in the
tunnel. He extended his wings to flight position, neck craned toward the one land entrance to the dragonweyr.

  "It's the wine train from Benden, silly," Lessa told him, chuckling as Mnementh gave voice to a loud brassy grumble and began to arrange himself again, completely disinterested in wine trains "Now don't tell Robinton the new wine's in, F'lar. It has to settle first, you know."

  "And why would I be telling Robinton anything?" F'lar demanded, wondering how Lessa knew that he had only just started to think of the Masterharper himself.

  "There has never been a crisis before us when you haven't sent for the Masterharper and the Mastersmith." She sighed deeply. "If we only had such cooperation from our own kind." Her body went rigid under his arm. "Here comes Fidranth and he says that T'ron's very agitated."

  "T'ron's agitated?" F'lar's anger welled up instantly.

  "That's what I said," Lessa replied, freeing herself and taking the steps two at a time. "I'll order you food." She halted abruptly, turning to say over her shoulder, "Keep your temper. I suspect T'kul never told anyone. He's never forgiven T'ron for talking him into coming forward, you know."

  F'lar waited beside Mnementh as Fidranth circled smartly into the weyr. From the Hatching Cavern came Ramoth's crotchety challenge. Mnementh answered her soothingly that the intruder was only Fidranth and no threat. At least not to her clutch. Then the bronze rolled one scintillating eye toward his rider. The exchange, so like one between himself and Lessa, drained anger from F'lar. Which was as well, for T'ron's opening remarks were scarcely diplomatic.

  "I found it! I found what you forgot to incorporate in those so-called infallible timetables of yours!"

  "You've found what, T'ron?" F'lar asked, tightly controlling his temper. If T'ron had found anything that would be of help, he could not antagonize the man.

  Mnementh had courteously stepped aside to permit Fidranth landing room, but with two huge bronze bodies there was so little space that T'ron slid in front of the Benden Weyrleader, waving a portion of a Record hide right under his nose.