The Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “No good will come of it,” Rannelly was moaning as she gathered up the red gown and began to shuffle across to her cubby. “You’re weyrfolk now. No good comes of weyrfolk mixing with Holders. Stick to your own. You’re somebody here . . .”

  “Shut up, you old fool. The whole point of being Weyrwoman is I can do what I please. I’m not my mother. I don’t need your advice.”

  “Aye, and I know it,” the old nurse said with such sharp bitterness that Kylara stared after her

  There, she’d frowned unattractively. She must remember not to screw her brows that way; it made wrinkles. Kylara ran her hands down her sides, testing the smooth curves sensuously, drawing one hand across her flat belly. Flat even after five brats. Well, there’d be no more. She had the way of it now. Just a few moments longer between at the proper time and . . .

  She pirouetted, laughing, throwing her arms up to the ceiling in a tendon-snapping stretch and hissing as the bruised deltoid muscle pained her.

  Meron need not . . . She smiled languorously. Meron did need to, because she needed it.

  He is not a dragonrider said Prideth, rousing from sleep. There was no censure in the golden dragon’s tone; it was a statement of fact. Mainly the fact that Prideth was bored with excursions which landed her in Holds rather than Weyrs. When Kylara’s fancy took them visiting other dragons, Prideth was more than agreeable. But a Hold, with only the terrified incoherencies of a watch-wher for company was another matter.

  “No, he’s not a dragonrider,” Kylara agreed emphatically, a smile of remembered pleasure touching her full red lips. It gave her a soft, mysterious, alluring look, she thought, bending to the mirror. But the surface was mottled and the close inspection made her skin appear diseased.

  I itch Prideth said, and Kylara could hear the dragon moving. The ground under her feet echoed the effect.

  Kylara laughed indulgently and, with a final swirl and a grimace at the imperfect mirror, she went out to ease Prideth. If only she could find a real man who could understand and adore her the way the dragon did. If, for instance, F’lar . . .

  Mnementh is Ramoth’s, Prideth told her rider as she entered the clearing which served as gold queen’s Weyr in Southern. The dragon had rubbed the dirt off the bedrock just beneath the surface. The southern sun baked the slab so that it gave off comfortable heat right through the coolest night. All around, the great fellis trees drooped, the pink clustered blossoms scenting the air.

  “Mnementh could be yours, silly one,” she told her beast, scrubbing the itchy spot with the long-handled brush.

  No. I do not contend with Ramoth.

  “You would quick enough if you were in mating heat,” Kylara replied, wishing she had the nerve to attempt such a coup. “It’s not as if there was anything immoral about mating with your father or clutching your mother . . .”

  Kylara thought of her own mother, a woman too early used and cast aside by Lord Telgar, for younger, more vital bedmates. Why, if she hadn’t been found on Search, she might have had to marry that dolt what-ever-his-name-had-been. She’d never have been a Weyrwoman and had Prideth to love her. She scrubbed fiercely at the spot until Prideth, sighing in an excess of relief, blew three clusters of blooms off their twigs.

  You are my mother, Prideth said, turning great opalescent eyes on her rider, her tone suffused with love, admiration, affection, awe and joy.

  Despite her annoying reflections, Kylara smiled tenderly at her dragon. She couldn’t stay angry with the beast, not when Prideth gazed at her that way. Not when Prideth loved her, Kylara, to the exclusion of all other considerations. Gratefully the Weyrwoman rubbed the sensitive ridge of Prideth’s right eye socket until the protecting lids closed one by one in contentment. The girl leaned against the wedge-shaped head, at peace momentarily with herself, with the world, the balm of Prideth’s love assuaging her discontent.

  Then she heard T’bor’s voice in the distance, ordering the weyrlings about, and she pushed away from Prideth. Why did it have to be T’bor? He was so ineffectual. He never came near making her feel the way Meron did, except of course when Orth was flying Prideth and then, then it was bearable. But Meron, without a dragon, was almost enough. Meron was just ruthless and ambitious enough so that together they could probably control all Pern . . .

  “Good day, Kylara.”

  Kylara ignored the greeting. T’bor’s forcedly cheerful tone told her that he was determined not to quarrel with her over whatever it was he had on his mind this time. She wondered what attraction he had ever held for her, though he was tall and not ill-favored; few dragonriders were. The thin lines of Thread scars more often gave them a rakish rather than repulsive appearance. T’bor was not scarred but a frown of apprehension and a nervous darting of his eyes marred the effect of his good looks.

  “Good day, Prideth,” he added.

  I like him, Prideth told her rider. And he is really devoted to you. You are not kind to him.

  “Kindness gets you nowhere,” Kylara snapped back at her beast. She turned with indolent reluctance to the Weyrleader. “What’s on your mind?”

  T’bor flushed as he always did when he heard that note in Kylara’s voice. She meant to unsettle him.

  “I need to know how many weyrs are free. Telgar Weyr is asking.”

  “Ask Brekke. How should I know?”

  T’bor’s flush deepened and he set his jaw. “It is customary for the Weyrwoman to direct her own staff . . .”

  “Custom be Thread-bared! She knows. I don’t. And I don’t see why Southern should be constantly host to every idiot rider who can’t dodge Thread.”

  “You know perfectly well, Kylara, why Southern Weyr . . .”

  “We haven’t had a single casualty of any kind in seven Turns of Thread.”

  “We don’t get the heavy, constant Threadfall that the northern continent does, and now I understand . . .”

  “Well, I don’t understand why their wounded must be a constant drain on our resources . . .”

  “Kylara. Don’t argue with every word I say.”

  Smiling, Kylara turned from him, pleased that she had pushed him so close to breaking his childish resolve.

  “Find out from Brekke. She enjoys filling in for me.” She glanced over her shoulder to see if he understood exactly what she meant. She was certain that Brekke shared his bed when Kylara was otherwise occupied. The more fool Brekke, who, as Kylara well knew, was pining after F’nor. She and T’bor must have interesting fantasies, each imagining the other the true object of their unrequited loves.

  “Brekke is twice the woman and far more fit to be Weyrwoman than you!” T’bor said in a tight, controlled voice.

  “You’ll pay for that, you scum, you snivelling boy-lover,” Kylara screamed at him, enraged by the unexpectedness of his retaliation. Then she burst out laughing at the thought of Brekke as the Weyrwoman, or Brekke as passionate and adept a lover as she knew herself to be. Brekke the Bony, with no more roundness at the breast than a boy. Why, even Lessa looked more feminine.

  Thought of Lessa sobered Kylara abruptly. She tried again to convince herself that Lessa would be no threat, no obstacle in her plan. Lessa was too subservient to F’lar now, aching to be pregnant again, playing the dutiful Weyrwoman, too content to see what could happen under her nose. Lessa was a fool. She could have ruled all Peru if she had half-tried. She’d had the chance and lost it. The stupidity of going back to bring up the Oldtimers when she could have had absolute dominion over the entire planet as Weyrwoman to Pern’s foremost queen! Well, Kylara had no intention of remaining in the Southern Weyr, meekly tending the world’s wounded weyrmen and cultivating acres and acres of food for everyone else but herself. Each egg hatched a different way, but a crack at the right time speeded things up.

  And Kylara was all ready to crack a few eggs, her way. Noble Larad, Lord of Telgar Hold, might not have remembered to invite her, his only full-blood sister, to the wedding, but surely there was no reason why she should remain distant wh
en her own half sister was marrying the Lord Holder of Lemos.

  Brekke was changing the dressing on his arm when F’nor heard T’bor calling her. She tensed at the sound of his voice, an expression of compassion and worry momentarily clouding her face.

  “I’m in F’nor’s weyr,” she said, turning her head toward the open door and raising her light voice.

  “Don’t know why we insist on calling a hold made of wood a weyr,” said F’nor, wondering at Brekke’s reaction. She was such a serious child, too old for her years. Perhaps being junior Weyrwoman to Kylara had aged her prematurely. He had finally got her to accept his teasing. Or was she humoring him, F’nor wondered, during the painful process of having the deep knife wound tended.

  She gave him a little smile. “A weyr is where a dragon is, no matter how it’s constructed.”

  T’bor entered at that moment, ducking his head, though the door was plenty high enough to accommodate his inches.

  “How’s the arm, F’nor?”

  “Improving under Brekke’s expert care. There’s a rumor,” F’nor said, grinning slyly up at Brekke, “that men sent to Southern heal quicker.”

  “If that’s why there are always many coming back, I’ll give her other duties.” T’bor sounded so bitter that F’nor stared at him. “Brekke, how many more wounded can we accommodate?”

  “Only four, but Varena at West can handle at least twenty.” From her expression, F’nor could tell she hoped there weren’t that many wounded.

  “R’mart asks to send ten, only one badly injured,” T’bor said, but he was still resentful.

  “He’d best stay here then.”

  F’nor started to say that he felt Brekke was spreading herself too thin as it was. It was obvious to him that, though she had few of the privileges, she had assumed all the responsibilities that Kylara ought to handle, while that one did much as she pleased. Including complaining that Brekke was shirking or stinting this or that. Brekke’s queen, Wirenth, was still young enough to need a lot of care; Brekke fostered young Mirrim though she had had no children herself and none of the Southern riders seemed to share her bed. Yet Brekke also took it upon herself to nurse the most seriously wounded dragonriders. Not that F’nor wasn’t grateful to her. She seemed to have an extra sense that told her when numbweed needed renewing, or when fever was high and made you fretful. Her hands were miracles of gentleness, cool, but she could be ruthless, too, in disciplining her patients to health.

  “I appreciate your help, Brekke,” T’bor said. “I really do.”

  “I wonder if other arrangements ought to be made,” F’nor suggested tentatively.

  “What do you mean?”

  Oh-ho, thought F’nor, the man’s touchy. “For hundreds of Turns, dragonriders managed to get well in their own Weyrs. Why should the Southern ones be burdened with wounded useless men, constantly dumped on them to recuperate?”

  “Benden sends very few,” Brekke said quietly.

  “I don’t mean just Benden. Half the men here right now are from Fort Weyr. They could as well bask on the beaches of Southern Boll . . .”

  “T’ron’s no leader—” T’bor said in a disparaging tone.

  “So Mardra would like us to believe,” Brekke interrupted with such uncharacteristic asperity that T’bor stared at her in surprise.

  “You don’t miss much, do you, little lady?” said F’nor with a whoop of laughter. “That’s what Lessa said and I agree.”

  Brekke flushed.

  “What do you mean, Brekke?” asked T’bor.

  “Just that five of the men most seriously wounded were flying in Mardra’s wing!”

  “Her wing?” F’nor glanced sharply at T’bor, wondering if this was news to him, too.

  “Hadn’t you heard?” Brekke asked, almost bitterly. “Ever since D’nek was Threaded, she’s been flying . . .”

  “A queen eating firestone? Is that why Loranth hasn’t risen to mate?”

  “I didn’t say Loranth ate firestone,” Brekke contradicted. “Mardra’s got some sense left. A sterile queen’s no better than a green. And Mardra’d not be senior or Weyrwoman. No, she uses a fire thrower.”

  “On an upper level?” F’nor was stunned. And T’ron had the nerve to prate how Fort Weyr kept tradition?

  “That’s why so many men are injured in her wing; the dragons fly close to protect their queen. A flame thrower throws ‘down’ but not out, or wide enough to catch airborne Thread at the speed dragons fly.”

  “That is without doubt . . . ouch!” F’nor winced at the pain of an injudicious movement of his arm. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Does F’lar know?”

  T’bor shrugged. “If he did, what could he do?”

  Brekke pushed F’nor back onto the stool to reset the bandage he had disarranged.

  “What’ll happen next?” he demanded of no one.

  “You sound like an Oldtimer,” T’bor remarked with a harsh laugh. “Bemoaning the loss of order, the permissiveness of—of times which are so chaotic . . .”

  “Change is not chaos.”

  T’bor laughed sourly. “Depends on your point of view.”

  “What’s your point of view, T’bor?”

  The Weyrleader regarded the brown rider so long and hard, his face settling into such bitter lines, that he appeared Turns older than he was.

  “I told you what happened at that farce of a Weyrleaders’ meeting the other night, with T’ron insisting it was Terry’s fault.” T’bor jammed one fist into the palm of his other hand, his lips twitching with a bitter distaste at the memory. “The Weyr above all, even common sense. Stick to your own, the hindmost falls between. Well, I’ll keep my own counsel. And I’ll make my weyrfolk behave. All of them. Even Kylara if I have to . . .”

  “Shells, what’s Kylara up to now?”

  T’bor gave F’nor a thoughtful stare. Then, with a shrug he said, “Kylara means to go to Telgar Hold four days hence. Southern Weyr hasn’t been invited. I take no offense. Southern Weyr has no obligation to Telgar Hold and the wedding is Holder business. But she means to make trouble there, I’m sure. I know the signs. Also she’s been seeing the Lord Holder of Nabol.”

  “Meron?” F’nor was unimpressed with him as a source of trouble. “Meron, Lord of Nabol, was outmaneuvered and completely discredited at that abortive battle at the Benden Weyr Pass, eight Turns ago. No Lord Holder would ally himself with Nabol again. Not even Lord Nessel of Crom who never was very bright. How he got confirmed as Lord of Crom by the Conclave, I’ll never understand.”

  “It’s not Meron we have to guard against. It’s Kylara. Anything she touches gets—distorted.”

  F’nor knew what T’bor meant. “If she were going to, say, Lord Groghe’s Fort Hold, I’d not be concerned. He thinks she should be strangled. But don’t forget that she’s full blood sister to Larad of Telgar Hold. Besides, Larad can manage her. And Lessa and F’lar will be there. She’s not likely to tangle with Lessa. So what can she do? Change the pattern of Thread?”

  F’nor heard Brekke’s sharp intake of breath, saw T’bor’s sudden twitch of surprise.

  “She didn’t change Thread patterns. No one knows why that happened,” T’bor said gloomily.

  “How what happened?” F’nor stood, pushing aside Brekke’s hands.

  “You heard that Thread is dropping out of pattern?”

  “No, I didn’t hear,” and F’nor looked from T’bor to Brekke who managed to be very busy with her medicaments.

  “There wasn’t anything you could do about it, F’nor,” she said calmly, “and as you were still feverish when the news came . . .”

  T’bor snorted, his eyes glittering as if he enjoyed F’nor’s discomposure. “Not that F’lar’s precious Thread patterns ever included us here in the Southern continent. Who cares what happens in this part of the world?” With that, T’bor strode out of the Weyr. When F’nor would have followed, Brekke grabbed his arm.

  “No, F’nor, don’t press him
. Please?”

  He looked down at Brekke’s worried face, saw the deep concern in her expressive eyes. Was that the way of it? Brekke fond of T’bor? A shame she had to waste affection on someone so totally committed to a clutching female like Kylara.

  “Now, be kind enough to give me the news about that change in Thread pattern. My arm was wounded, not my head.”

  Without acknowledging his rebuke, she told him what had occurred at Benden Weyr when Thread had fallen hours too soon over Lemos Hold’s wide forests. F’nor was disturbed to learn that R’mart of Telgar Weyr had been badly scored. He was not surprised that T’kul of High Reaches Weyr hadn’t even bothered to inform his contemporaries of the unexpected falls over his weyrbound territories. But he had to agree that he would have worried had he known. He was worried now but it sounded as if F’lar was coping with his usual ingenuity. At least the Oldtimers had been roused. Took Thread to do it.

  “I don’t understand T’bor’s remark about our not caring what happens in this part of the world . . .”

  Brekke put her hand on his arm appealingly. “It’s not easy to live with Kylara, particularly when it amounts to exile.”

  “Don’t I just know it!” F’nor had had his run-ins with Kylara when she was still at Benden Weyr and, like many other riders, had been relieved when she’d been made Weyrwoman at Southern. The only problem with convalescing here in Southern, however, was her proximity. For F’nor’s peace, her interest in Meron of Nabol couldn’t have been more fortunate.

  “You can see how much T’bor has made out of Southern Weyr in the Turns he’s been Weyrleader here,” Brekke went on.

  F’nor nodded, honestly impressed. “Did he ever complete the exploration of the southern continent?” He couldn’t recall any report on the matter coming in to Benden Weyr.

  “I don’t think so. The deserts to the west are terrible. One or two riders got curious but the winds turned them back. And eastward, there’s just ocean. It probably extends right around to the desert. This is the bottom of the earth, you know.”