The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [126]
A sad note, well sustained, for Lytol who had once ridden a Benden dragon and lost his Larth in an accident in the Spring Games—had it been fourteen or fifteen Turns ago? Lytol had left the Weyr—to be among dragonfolk only exacerbated his tremendous loss—and taken to the craft of weaving. He’d been Crafthall Master in the High Reaches Hold when F’lar had discovered Lessa on Search. F’lar had appointed Lytol to be Lord Warder of Ruatha Hold when Lessa had abdicated her claim to the Hold to young Jaxom.
And how did a man signify the dragons of Pern? No theme was grand enough for those huge, winged beasts, as gentle as they were great, Impressed at Hatching by the men who rode them, flaming against Thread, who tended them, loved them, who were linked, mind to mind, in an unbreakable bond that transcended speech! (What was that really like? Robinton wondered, remembering that his youthful ambition had been to be a dragonman.) The dragons of Pern who could transfer themselves in some mysterious fashion between one place and another in the blink of an eye. Between even one Time and another!
The Harper’s sigh came from his soul but his hand moved to the sand and pressed out the first note, wrote the first word, wondering if he would find some answer himself in the song.
He had barely filled the completed score with clay to preserve the text, when he heard the first throb of the drum. He strode quickly to the small outer court of the Crafthall, bending his head to catch the summons; it was his sequence all right, in urgent tempo. He concentrated so closely on the drumroll that he did not realize that every other sound common to the Harper’s Hall had ceased.
“Thread?” His throat dried instantly. Robinton didn’t need to consult the timetable to realize that the Threads were falling on the shores of Tillek Hold prematurely.
Across the valley on Fort Hold’s ramparts, the single watchman made his monotonous round, oblivious to disaster.
There was a soft spring warmth to the afternoon air as F’nor and his big, brown Canth emerged from their weyr in Benden Weyr. F’nor yawned slightly and stretched until he heard his spine crack. He’d been on the western coast all the previous day, Searching for likely lads—and girls, since there was a golden egg hardening on the Benden Weyr Hatching Grounds—for the next Impression. Benden Weyr certainly produced more dragons, and more queens, than the five Oldtimers’ Weyrs, F’nor thought.
“Hungry?” he asked courteously of his dragon, glancing down the Weyr Bowl to the Feeding Grounds. No dragons were dining and the herdbeasts stood in their fenced pasture, legs spraddled, heads level with their bony knees as they drowsed in the sunlight
Sleepy, said Canth, although he had slept as long and deeply as his rider. The brown dragon proceeded to settle himself on the sun-warmed ledge, sighing as he sank down.
“Slothful wretch,” F’nor said, grinning affectionately at his beast.
The sun was full on the other side of the enormous mountain cup that formed the dragonman’s habitation on the eastern coast of Pern. The cliffside was patterned with the black mouths of the individual dragon weyrs, starred where sun flashed off mica in the rocks. The waters of the Weyr’s spring-fed lake glistened around the two green dragons bathing as their riders lounged on the grass verge. Beyond, in front of the weyrling barracks, young riders formed a semi-circle around the Weyrlingmaster.
F’nor’s grin broadened. He stretched his lean body indolently, remembering his own weary hours in such a semicircle, twenty odd Turns ago. The rote lessons which he had echoed as a weyrling had far more significance to this present group of dragonriders. In his Turn, the Silver Thread of those teaching songs had not dropped from the Red Star for over four hundred Turns, to sear the flesh of man