Certain rights and privileges accrued to the different leaders of Holds and Masters of Crafts, and naturally, to the Dragonriders to whom all Pern looked for protection during Threadfalls.
The Red Star would swing inexorably close to Pern, but it would also Pass again, and life could settle into a less frenzied pattern. Occasionally, the conjunction of Rukbat’s natural five satellites would prevent the Red Star from passing close enough to Pern to drop its fearful spores. Sometimes, though, as siblings will, Pern’s sister planets seemed to draw the Red Star closer still and Thread rained relentlessly on the unfortunate victim. Fear creates fanatics and the Pernese were no exception. Only the dragonmen could save Pern, and their position in the structure of the planet became inviolable.
Mankind has a history of forgetting the unpleasant, the undesirable. By ignoring its existence, it can make the source of past Terror disappear. And the Red Star did not pass close enough to Pern to drop its Threads. The people prospered and multiplied, spreading out across the rich land, carving more holds out of solid rock, and so busy with their pursuits, that they did not realize that there were only a few dragons in the skies, and only one Weyr of Dragonriders left on Pern. The Red Star wasn’t due back for a long, long while. Why worry about such distant possibilities? In five generations or so, the descendants of the heroic dragonmen fell into disfavor. The legends of past braveries and the very reason for their existence fell into disrepute.
When, in the course of natural forces, the Red Star began to spin closer to Pern, winking with a baleful red eye on its intended, ancient victim, one man, F’lar, rider of the bronze dragon, Mnementh, believed that the ancient tales had truth in them. His half-brother, F’nor, rider of brown Canth, listened to his arguments and found belief in them more exciting than the dull ways of the lone Weyr of Pern. When the last golden egg of a dying queen dragon lay hardening on the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground, F’lar and F’nor seized this opportunity to gain control of the Weyr. Searching through Ruatha Hold for a strong woman to ride the soon-to-be hatched young queen, F’lar and F’nor discovered Lessa, the only surviving member of the proud Bloodline of Ruatha Hold. She Impressed young Ramoth, the new queen, and became Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr. When F’lar’s bronze Mnementh flew the young queen in her first mating, F’lar became Weyrleader of Pern’s remaining dragonmen. The three riders, F’lar, Lessa and F’nor forced the Lord Holders and Craftsmen to recognize their imminent danger and prepare the almost defenseless planet against Thread. But it was distressingly obvious that the scant two hundred dragons of Benden Weyr could not defend the sprawling settlements. Six full Weyrs had been needed in the olden days when the settled land had been much smaller. In learning to direct her queen dragon between one place and another, Lessa discovered that dragons could teleport between time as well. Risking her life as well as Pern’s only queen dragon, Lessa and Ramoth went back in time, four hundred Turns, before the mysterious disappearance of the other five Weyrs, just after the Last Pass of the Red Star had been completed.
The five Weyrs, seeing only the decline of their prestige and bored with inactivity after a lifetime of exciting combat, agreed to help Lessa’s Weyr and came forward to her Turn.
Seven Turns have now passed since that triumphant journey forward, and the initial gratitude of the Holds and Crafts to the rescuing Oldtime Weyrs has faded and soured. And the Oldtimers themselves do not like the Pern in which they are now living. Four hundred Turns brought too many subtle changes, and dissensions mount.
CHAPTER I
Morning at Mastercrafthall, Fort Hold
Several Afternoons Later at Benden Weyr
Midmorning (Telgar Time) at
Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
How to begin? mused Robinton, the Masterharper of Pern.
He frowned thoughtfully down at the smoothed, moist sand in the shallow trays of his workdesk. His long face settled into deep-grooved lines and creases, and his eyes, usually snapping blue with inner amusement, were gray-shadowed with unusual gravity.
He fancied the sand begged to be violated with words and notes while he, Pern’s repository and glib dispenser of any ballad, saga or ditty, was inarticulate. Yet he had to construct a ballad for the upcoming wedding of Lord Asgenar of Lemos Hold to the half-sister of Lord Larad of Telgar Hold. Because of recent reports of unrest from his network of drummers and Harper journeymen, Robinton had decided to remind the guests on this auspicious occasion – for every Lord Holder and Craftmaster would be invited of the debt they owed the dragonmen of Pern. As the subject of his ballad, he had decided to tell of the fantastic ride, between time itself, of Lessa, Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr on her great golden queen, Ramoth. The Lords and Craftsmen of Pern had been glad enough then for the arrival of Dragonriders from the five ancient Weyrs from four hundred Turns in the past.
Yet how to reduce those fascinating, frantic days, those braveries, to a rhyme? Even the most stirring chords could not recapture the beat of the blood, the catch of breath the chill of fear and the hopeless surge of hope of that first morning after Thread had fallen over Nerat Hold, when F’lar had rallied all the frightened Lords and Craftmasters at Benden Weyr and enlisted their enthusiastic aid.
It had not been just a sudden resurgence of forgotten loyalties that had prompted the Lords, but the all too real sense of disaster as they envisioned their prosperous acres blackened with the Thread they had dismissed as myth, of the thought of burrows of the lightning propagating parasites, of themselves walled up in the cliff-Holds behind thick metal doors and shutters. They’d been ready to promise F’lar their souls that day if he could protect them from Thread. And it was Lessa who had bought them that protection, almost with her life.
Robinton looked up from the sandtrays, his expression suddenly bleak.
“The sand of memory dries quickly,” he said softly, looking out across the settled valley toward the precipice that housed Fort Hold. There was one watchman on the fire ridges. There ought to be six, but it was planting time; Lord Holder Groghe of Fort Hold had everyone who could walk upright in the fields, even the gangs of children who were supposed to weed spring grass from stone interstices and pull moss from the walls. Last spring, Lord Groghe would not have neglected that duty no matter how many dragonlengths of land he wanted to put under seed.
Lord Groghe was undoubtedly out in the fields right now, prowling from one tract of land to another on one of those long-legged running beasts which the Masterherdsman Sograny was developing. Groghe of Fort Hold was indefatigable, his slightly protuberant blue eyes never missing an unpruned tree or a badly harrowed row. He was a burly man, with grizzled hair which he wore tied in a neat band. His complexion was florid, with a temper to match. But, if he pushed his holders, he pushed himself as well, demanding nothing of his people, his children nor his fosterlings that he was not able to do himself. If he was conservative in his thinking, it was because he knew his own limitations and felt secure in that knowledge.
Robinton pulled at his lower lip, wondering if Lord Groghe was an exception in his disregard for this traditional Hold duty of removing all greenery near habitations. Or was this Lord Groghe’s answer to Fort Weyr’s growing agitation over the immense forest lands of Fort Hold which the Dragonriders ought to protect? The Weyrleader of Fort Weyr, T’ron, and his Weyrwoman, Mardra, had become less scrupulous about checking to see that no Thread burrows had escaped their wing riders to fall on the lush forests. Yet Lord Groghe had been scrupulous in the matter of ground crews and flame-throwing equipment when Thread fell over his forests. He had a stable of runners spread out through the Hold in an efficient network so that if Dragonriders were competent in flight, there was adequate ground coverage for any Thread that might elude the flaming breath of the airborne beasts.