Dragonsong
Page 18
‘She has!’ Bright sparks lit the Masterharper’s eyes, and he turned purposefully towards the kitchen cavern.
‘Not so fast, Masterharper,’ said Manora. ‘Go softly with that child.’
‘Yes, I saw that, too, when we were chatting this evening, and now I understand what was inhibiting her. So how to proceed cautiously?’ The Masterharper frowned and gazed at T’gellan so long that the bronze rider wondered what he’d done wrong. ‘How do you know she’s taught her fire lizards to sing?’
‘Why, they were singing along with her and Oharan last night.’
‘Hmmm, now that’s very interesting. Here’s what we shall do.’
Menolly was tired now, and most of the visitors had left. Still the Masterharper did not appear to collect his fire lizard eggs. She wouldn’t leave until she’d seen him again. He’d been so kind; she hugged to herself the memory of their meeting. It was hard for her to believe that the Masterharper of Pern had carried her, Menolly of … Menolly of the Nine Fire Lizards. She propped her elbows up on the table and rested her head on her hands, feeling the rough scar against her left cheek and not even minding that at the moment.
She didn’t hear the music at first, it was soft, as if Oharan was playing to himself at a nearby table.
‘Would you sing along with me, Menolly?’ asked Oharan softly, and she looked up to see him taking a place at the table.
Well, no harm in singing. It would help keep her awake until the Masterharper arrived. So she joined in. Beauty and Rocky roused at the sound of her voice, but Rocky went back to sleep after a peevish complaint. Beauty, however, dropped down to Menolly’s shoulder, her sweet soprano trill blending with Menolly’s voice.
‘Do sing another verse, Menolly,’ said Manora, emerging from the shadows of the darkened cavern.
She took the chair opposite Menolly, looking weary, but sort of peaceful and pleased. Oharan struck the bridging chords and started the second verse.
‘My dear, you have such a restful voice,’ Manora said when the last chord died away. ‘Sing me another one and then I’m away.’
Menolly could scarcely refuse, and she glanced at Oharan to see what she should sing.
‘Sing this one along with me,’ the Weyr Harper said, his eyes intent on Menolly’s as his fingers struck an opening chord. Menolly knew the song, which had such an infectious rhythm that she began to sing before she realized why it was so familiar. She was also tired and not expecting to be trapped, not by Oharan and certainly not by Manora. That’s why she didn’t realize at first what Oharan was playing. It was one of the two songs she’d jotted down for Petiron: the ones he’d said he’d sent to the Masterharper.
She faltered.
‘Oh, don’t stop singing, Menolly,’ Manora said, ‘it’s such a lovely tune.’
‘Maybe she should play her own song,’ said someone standing just behind Menolly in the shadow; and the Masterharper walked forward, holding out his own gitar to her.
‘No! NO!’ Menolly, half-rose, snatching her hands behind her back. Beauty gave a startled squawk and twined her tail about Menolly’s neck.
‘Won’t you please play it … for me?’ asked the Harper, his eyes entreating her.
Two more people emerged from the darkness: T’gellan, grinning fit to crack his face wide open, and Elgion! How did he know? From the gleam of his eyes and his smile, he was pleased and proud. Menolly was frightened and hid her face in confusion. How neatly she had been tricked!
‘Don’t be afraid now, child,’ said Manora quickly, catching Menolly’s arm and gently pressing her back into her chair. ‘There’s nothing for you to fear now: for yourself or your rare gift of music.’
‘But I can’t play …’ She held up her hand. Robinton took it in both of his, gently fingering the scar, examining it.
‘You can play, Menolly,’ he said quietly, his kind eyes on hers, as he continued to stroke her hand, much as she would have caressed her frightened Beauty. ‘Elgion heard you when you were playing the pipes in the cave.’
‘But I’m a girl …’ she said. ‘Yanus told me …’
‘As to that,’ replied the Masterharper somewhat impatiently, though he smiled as he spoke, ‘if Petiron had had sense enough to tell me that that was the problem, you might have been spared a great deal of anguish: and I certainly would have been spared a great deal of trouble searching all Pern for you. Don’t you want to be a harper?’ Robinton ended on such a wistful, distressed note that Menolly had to reassure him.
‘Oh yes, yes. I want music more than anything else in the world …’ On her shoulder, Beauty trilled sweetly and Menolly caught her breath sharply in distress.
‘Now what’s the matter?’ asked Robinton.
‘I’ve got fire lizards. Lessa said I belong in the Weyr.’
‘Lessa will not tolerate nine singing fire lizards in her Weyr,’ said the Harper in a voice that brooked no contradiction. ‘And they do belong in my Harperhall. You’ve a trick or two to teach me, my girl.’ He grinned down at her with such mischief dancing in his eyes that she smiled timorously back at him. ‘Now,’ and he waggled a finger at her, in mock seriousness, ‘before you can think of any more obstacles, arguments or distractions, will you kindly bundle up my fire lizard eggs, get whatever you have, and let us be off to the Harperhall? This has been a day of many tiring impressions.’
His hand pressed hers reassuringly, and his kind eyes urged her acquiescence. All Menolly’s doubts and fears dissolved in an instant.
Beauty bugled, releasing the stranglehold of her tail about Menolly’s neck. Beauty called again, rousing the rest of the fair, her voice echoing Menolly’s joy. She rose slowly to her feet, her hand clinging to the Harper’s for support and confidence.
‘Oh, gladly will I come, Master Robinton,’ she said, her eyes blurred by happy tears.
And nine fire lizards bugled a harmonious chorus of accord!
THE END
Also by Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey’s books can be read individually or as series. However, for greatest enjoyment the following sequences are recommended:
The Dragon Books
DRAGONFLIGHT
DRAGONQUEST
DRAGONSONG
DRAGONSINGER: HARPER OF PERN
THE WHITE DRAGON
DRAGONDRUMS
MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN
NERILKA’S STORY & THE COELURA
DRAGONSDAWN
THE RENEGADES OF PERN
ALL THE WEYRS OF PERN
THE CHRONICLES OF PERN: FIRST FALL
THE DOLPHINS OF PERN
RED STAR RISING: THE SECOND CHRONICLES OF PERN
(published in US as DRAGONSEYE)
THE MASTERHARPER OF PERN
THE SKIES OF PERN
and with Todd McCaffrey:
DRAGON’S KIN
DRAGON’S FIRE
DRAGON HARPER
DRAGON’S TIME
SKY DRAGONS
by Todd McCaffrey:
DRAGONSBLOOD
DRAGONHEART
DRAGONGIRL
Crystal Singer Books
THE CRYSTAL SINGER
KILLASHANDRA
CRYSTAL LINE
Talent Series
TO RIDE PEGASUS
PEGASUS IN FLIGHT
PEGASUS IN SPACE
Tower and the Hive Sequence
THE ROWAN
DAMIA
DAMIA’S CHILDREN
LYON’S PRIDE
THE TOWER AND THE HIVE
Catteni Sequence
FREEDOM’S LANDING
FREEDOM’S CHOICE
FREEDOM’S CHALLENGE
FREEDOM’S RANSOM
Individual Titles
RESTOREE
DECISION AT DOONA
THE SHIP WHO SANG
GET OFF THE UNICORN
THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS
BLACK HORSES FOR THE KING
NIMISHA’S SHIP
A GIFT OF DRAGONS
written in collaboration with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
POWERS THAT BE
POWER LINES
POWER PLAY
CHANGELINGS
MAELSTROM
DELUGE
The Acorna Series
ACORNA (with Margaret Ball)
ACORNA’S QUEST (with Margaret Ball)
ACORNA’S PEOPLE (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S WORLD (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S SEARCH (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S REBELS (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S TRIUMPH (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S CHILDREN: FIRST WARNING (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S CHILDREN: SECOND WAVE (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
ACORNA’S CHILDREN: THIRD WATCH (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
and published by Corgi Books
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
DRAGONSONG
A CORGI BOOK : 9780552106610
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448127931
First publication in Great Britain
Corgi edition published 1978
Copyright © Anne McCaffrey 1976
The Estate of Anne McCaffrey, Literary Trustee, Jay A. Katz
Anne McCaffrey has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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About the Author
Auspiciously born on April Fool’s Day, 1926, Anne Inez McCaffrey was the second of three children and the only daughter.
She, like so many of her time, was shaped by the two World Wars and the Depression. Her father, George Herbert McCaffrey had served as a lieutenant in the First World War and after the war helped the Polish set up their government before returning home to marry Anne Dorothy McElroy.
Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey was a very talented woman with a decent touch of what the family came to call ‘the Sight’. Just before the very worst of the stock market Crash in 1929, she pulled all her money out. Her husband, less trusting of such things, did not.
When not drilling the children in the backyard or maintaining his reserve status with the Army, the ‘Kernel’ – as he called himself – indulged in gardening. He was also a great reader and one of Anne’s first memories was of him at the far end of the hallway reading Kipling’s Barrack-room Ballads while she was sick with scarlet fever.
As Anne got older, she learned to ride horses and thus began a lifelong equestrian love affair.
When the Second World War broke out, the Kernel reported immediately to the draft board, offering his services. Elder brother Hugh had already joined the Army and was stationed in Hawaii, desperately trying to get off the island and go to Officer Candidate School.
During the worst of the Battle of Britain when ‘the Few’ were all that stood between the English and imminent invasion, Anne developed a sense of rapport with the plucky young Princess Elizabeth who, with her family, endured the German ‘Blitz’ on London – Anne being just twenty days the Princess’ elder. And with that was planted the seed that would grow into Dragonflight.
Anne’s little brother, Kevin, was not expected to live. He’d contracted osteomyelitis and had, for several years, been at death’s door. Anne’s mother took charge of caring for ‘Kevie’ which left Anne herself to be sent down south to Stuart Hall School for girls. As a Yankee, and a Catholic to boot, Anne found Stuart Hall not the best of matches. She turned heads and gained the ire of the Dean by insisting on being allowed to go to the local movie theater to see Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ‘Tarzan’.
Kevin did live thanks to the newly-developed penicillin and went on to enjoy a long life. The family was reunited when ‘the Kernel’ returned from his years in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) but now a man so worn by the cares of war that his two younger children passed him by as they were searching for him among the returnees.
Anne graduated from Radcliffe College, cum laude, and while studying Slavonic languages, she’d participated in several theatre productions. It was at this stage in her life that Anne decided she really wanted to be an opera singer.
She met Horace Wright Johnson, who preferred to be called Wright. Wright, a very handsome man with a great voice, wooed her with The Beggar’s Opera to such effect that they married.
The Kernel went to Japan to help set up their government and volunteered to go along with the UN group to Korea when war broke out there. He contracted Tuberculosis and was returned to the States in 1953.
Alec Anthony Johnson was born August 29th, 1952 and was less than a year old when the Kernel returned. After her first visit to her father in hospital, it appears that little Alec caught a diminished (and treatable) form of TB but Anne was forbidden to return to her dying father for fear of a more serious re-infection. She didn’t have the heart to tell her father that his first grandchild had been infected and the Kernel was deeply hurt that she wouldn’t come see him again. He wrote her out of his Will.
Anne wrote The Ship Who Sang as her catharsis over the death of her father.
Second son Todd was born in April 1956 after a ten months’ gestation. Originally scheduled for March 23rd, young master Johnson knew when he was on to a good thing and clung to the womb for an additional month. When the doctors suggested that he might be stillborn, Anne waved them off. Still, the amniotic fluid was all gone and he was born a wrinkled, yellow baby, called ‘the Chinaman’ by the nurses on staff. They were worried and immediately started pumping him full of liquids until they could finally say, ‘Congratulations, Mrs Johnson! He peed!’
On their third try, the Johnsons produced a beautiful baby girl, Georgeanne Johnson – her name being the sum of her maternal grandparents’ names. When first seen by Uncle Hugh, he said, ‘What a gorgeous George!’ And from that was born her life-long nickname, Gigi.
Wright worked in public relations for DuPont and when his job offered him a six-month stint in Dusseldorf, Germany, the whole family went. Here Anne met up with a voice coach and worked assiduously to develop her talent as an operatic soprano. Sadly, the coach insisted upon overworking a part of her register with the result that her higher range was forever spoiled and her dreams of opera stardom dashed. Years later, she turned this bitter disappointment into a story, Crystal Singer.
Returning from Europe Anne re-established contacts within the science fiction writing community. At one point she was brought aside by James Blish who asked her why she’d stopped writing. ‘You’ve written one beautiful story, please don’t stop!’
On the way home, Anne thought to herself, ‘Jim Blish says I can write! Jim Blish says I can write! Jim Blish says I can write!’ Enthused, she returned to her writing, producing the short story, The Ship Who Mourned.
In 1965, the family moved up to Sea Cliff, Long Island, following Wright’s job. Anne started working on a novelette, Weyr Search. Her agent, Virginia Kidd, read it an
d said, ‘Oh, Anne! Do please finish it!’
Weyr Search was followed by Dragonrider and, also by her first full-length novel, Restoree. The ‘Ship’ stories continued and were collected into the anthology, The Ship Who Sang. Anne wrote another novel, Decision at Doona.
Betty Ballantine at Ballantine Books bought all her novels and bought Dragonflight when it was finished. Dragonflight incorporated both Weyr Search and Dragonrider plus new material.
At first, Wright was intrigued by and supportive of Anne’s success; as time went on, less so. Famously he said, ‘You’ll never pay a phone bill with your writing!’
For various reasons, their marriage slid into disarray and Anne finally decided that she had to get a divorce. But where to go? How to live?
She’d been on a trip to Ireland in 1968 with her Aunt Gladdie and loved it. Harry Harrison (of Soylent Green fame) regaled her with the lure of the Irish artists’ tax exemption. The cost of living was much lower in Ireland than on Long Island or in Los Angeles, her other possibility.
And so, with her two youngest kids – her eldest now starting college – she departed for Ireland in August 1970.
Anne and the two children lived in a rented, suburban house in south County Dublin. The kids were already enrolled in nearby Avoca & Kingston School. Once settled, Anne re-wrote Dragonquest, and finished two gothic romances, The Mark of Merlin, and Ring of Fear, and took herself and her two kids on their first journey to England and Wales over the 1971 Easter Spring Break, taking in the English Eastercon, held that year in Worcester. The convention was great, Anne made many friends and afterwards the family toured around, down to Stonehenge and through other beautiful countryside, wending back up through Wales’ scenic but seriously twisty roads.
Next year found them living in a Georgian mansion, Meadowbrook House, and Anne trying – and failing – to write the story of Menolly. ‘It just wouldn’t write!’ she complained. She did manage to complete Cooking Out Of This World and other stories – it was here that she penned The Smallest Dragonboy -but times were tight. Fortunately, her eldest son Alec came over from the United States and took up trawling. As a fisherman he could bring home a share of the catch and the family dined on Monkfish and other rarities. Still, there was a great deal of truth to Gigi’s, ‘Gee, Mom, wouldn’t it be nice to have pancakes for dinner because we wanted them?’