Dragonsblood Read online

  When J’trel looked over Grenn that evening by the campfire, he was very pleased to be able to give Lorana some good news. “I think we should try to see if he can fly tomorrow morning,” he announced. “When the air is cold.”

  “Because the air is heavier then, right?” Lorana asked.

  “Exactly,” he agreed. “And, if he’s all right, I’ll take you back to the Weyr with me.”

  Lorana’s face fell.

  J’trel gave her an inquiring look.

  “I don’t know if I belong there,” Lorana admitted. When J’trel started to protest, she held up a restraining hand. “I don’t know where I belong.”

  J’trel bit back a quick response. He gave her a long glance and nodded slowly.

  “I think I see,” he said at last. “In fact, I feel somewhat the same myself.”

  “You do?” Lorana asked, taken aback.

  “Not about you,” he added hastily, pointing a finger toward his chest. “About myself.”

  Lorana was surprised.

  J’trel let out a long, slow sigh. “I’m old,” he said at last. “I can’t say that I’ll be any credit when Thread falls again. And I’m tired.”

  “Tired?”

  “Tired of hurting,” J’trel admitted. “Tired of the pain, tired of memories, tired of not being able to move the way I used to, tired of making compromises, tired of the looks the youngsters give me—looks I used to give old people.

  “It was different with K’nad,” he continued softly, almost to himself. “Then I had someone to share with. We would groan when our joints hurt and laugh about it together.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I hadn’t planned on anything beyond saying good-bye to K’nad’s kin,” he admitted. “And then I met you.”

  Lorana shook her head, trying to think of something to say.

  J’trel waved her unvoiced objections aside. “I’m not complaining,” he assured her. “In fact, I’m glad to have met you.” He grinned at her. “I’ve never met a woman more fit to lead a Weyr.”

  “Lead a Weyr?” Lorana repeated, aghast. “Weyrwoman? Me? No, no—I—”

  “You’ve more talent than I’ve ever seen,” J’trel told her. “Half the Istan riders of the past thirty Turns were searched by me and Talith.”

  He smiled briefly in pride. “And you can talk to any dragon!” he exclaimed.

  Lorana crinkled her forehead in confusion. “What makes you say that?” she asked. “I’ve only talked with Talith.”

  “While it’s true that a dragon can talk to anyone he chooses, only riders bonded to a dragon can address one—and usually only their own. No rider can talk to another dragon unless he can hear all dragons. Do you know how few can do that?”

  Lorana could only shake her head.

  “Torene is the only one I can think of,” J’trel said. “And I don’t think she had your way with them. It’s more like you feel them than talk to them.”

  “You don’t?” Lorana asked in surprise. She looked out to Talith and smiled fondly at the blue. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Lass, when are you going to stop apologizing for your gifts?” J’trel interrupted her gently.

  “It’s just—it’s just—” Lorana couldn’t continue.

  “I see,” J’trel said to stop her from tearing herself apart. He grimaced. He had seen this behavior in many of the survivors of the Plague.

  The Plague had come up suddenly twelve Turns earlier. Some said it had started at Nerat Tip, others said Benden Hold, still others said Bay Head. Wherever it had started, it had spread quickly, if sporadically, across all of Pern. While the Holds of Benden Weyr—Bitra, Lemos, and Benden—were hardest hit, no hold from southeasternmost Nerat Tip to northwesternmost Tillek Hold had been spared.

  In less than six months the Plague had passed, leaving grieving holders and crafters to recover—and wonder why the dragonriders hadn’t helped out sooner. Help from the Weyrs had come, but only when the worst of the Plague had passed. J’trel knew why: He’d heard from his Wingleader, J’lantir, of the bitter arguments amongst the Weyrleaders over whether to aid the holders or preserve their own numbers to fight the Thread that was due to fall in the Turns to come.

  In some places, one out of three holders had perished. In others, only the very youngest and the very oldest had been affected. Some outlying holds had been left empty, devoid of all life, and everyone had at least one close relative or friend who had succumbed to the Plague.

  When the Plague had passed and the dragonriders had come to help, they’d found fields untended, men and women sitting listless and vacant-eyed. The few healers who hadn’t themselves fallen to the Plague explained that these people were in deep shock. It took days of comfort and caring for the survivors to recover.

  Everyone felt the same nagging loss, the same wonderment mixed with shame at their survival—the sense that they were not worthy of their existence.

  “What would you like to do?” J’trel asked her.

  Lorana shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t think that I’m ready . . .”

  “Perhaps you aren’t,” J’trel agreed. “You could always go back to Lemos—”

  “No!” Lorana exclaimed. She took a deep breath, then continued more calmly. “Please, Lemos holds too many sad memories—I don’t want to go back there.”

  “Very well,” J’trel said. He pursed his lips. “Perhaps we should look at your skills . . . ?”

  “Well, I guess I’m not bad with broken wings,” Lorana allowed, with a glance toward the sleeping Grenn.

  “And you can draw very well,” J’trel said. He yawned. “Perhaps we should sleep on it.”

  When the sun woke him the next morning, J’trel was struck with an inspiration. He knew that Lorana would overcome her grief more easily if she had something to engage her attention, and he recognized that her eye and training put her in an excellent position to categorize the various species on Pern.

  “No one’s ever drawn all the different creatures of Pern,” he told her. “You could be the first.”

  Lorana was intrigued.

  “But how can I get all over Pern?” she asked. “I couldn’t ask you to take me everywhere.”

  “I shall have to ponder that,” J’trel said, admitting, “at some point I’ll have to get back to my own affairs.”

  Then he stood up, slapping his legs with his hands. “But now, I think it’s time to see whether our charge is ready for his first flight.”

  It was only a few moments before the fire-lizard came back down squawking loudly in complaint.

  J’trel looked surprised. “I don’t understand.”

  “I do,” Lorana said with a laugh. “We’ve been stuffing him so much, he’s too fat to fly!”

  “J’trel?” Lorana’s voice drew the dragonrider back from his reverie.

  She handed her book to him nervously, pointing at her latest sketch. J’trel could see that she’d done several in rapid succession.

  “Is this Captain Tanner?” she asked, pointing to her latest effort.

  “That’s him, indeed!” J’trel agreed enthusiastically. “Let’s go aboard, so you can meet him.”

  Aboard, J’trel led her to the stern of the ship. Lorana’s eyes darted all about, taking in the activity and the sights with relish.

  Suddenly they stopped.

  Captain Tanner was opposite her. Next to J’trel was another seaman. Two others stood on either side of Captain Tanner.

  Lorana was surprised to realize that Captain Tanner was the youngest of the men. She guessed that he was near her own age of twenty Turns. The other seamen all looked older, sea-grizzled, and not nearly as wholesome, wearing grubby clothes and frowns.

  Captain Tanner’s honest brown eyes met hers in quiet appraisal.

  “Here’s your ship’s healer, Captain Tanner,” J’trel said, “as promised.”

  Tanner’s eyes widened as the words registered. He turned to Lorana, his expression bleak. “My lord J’tr
el did not mention that you were a woman.”

  “Show him your drawings,” J’trel said.

  Numbly, Lorana extended her sketchbook to Captain Tanner. Tanner took them politely and glanced down at the first drawing.

  “Have you ever drawn a ship?”

  “Just now from the docks,” she said. “If you turn the page . . .”

  Captain Tanner did so and gasped in awe. The sailors near him drew closer for a better view.

  “I’m also interested in the fish and the birds at sea,” Lorana said.

  “That’s why Lorana wants to journey with you on the Wind Rider,” J’trel put in.

  “And you’d draw them, as well?” one of the older men asked. Lorana nodded.

  “And if we caught them, would you give us a drawing of that?” another asked. Before Lorana could answer, the third seaman guffawed, “As if you’d ever catch anything Minet! You and that old rod of yours!”

  “Aye, a net’s the only proper way to catch fish!”

  “There are no nets aboard Wind Rider, you git!” Minet replied. Lorana could tell that there was no real rancor among the three.

  “Wind Rider is a schooner, Baror,” Tanner said. “She’s built for speed, not trawling.”

  The seaman named Baror looked away from Tanner, face clouded. Lorana wasn’t sure she liked that look.

  “They say it’s bad luck to have a woman aboard a ship,” Baror muttered. Beside him Minet nodded.

  “I’d say it’s worse luck to travel without a healer,” J’trel observed. Captain Tanner nodded.

  “Did you say the Wind Rider was built for speed?” Lorana asked, looking at the other ships in the harbor for comparison.

  “Aye,” Minet told her, “Lord Holder Tillek—the Masterfisher himself—had her built here special, for fast runs between Thread.”

  “If it ever comes,” the third seaman growled.

  “It’ll come, Colfet, it’ll come,” Captain Tanner replied, casting an apologetic look toward J’trel.

  Colfet seemed to realize his gaffe. “I meant no disrespect, dragon-rider.”

  J’trel didn’t hear much apology in the northerner’s tone but let it go. “Then I’ll take none, seaman.”

  Tanner decided to change the subject. “J’trel says you’ve also got a way with beasts.”

  “My father worked with them, yes,” Lorana replied.

  “Do you suppose you could splint an arm or tend a scrape for a person?”

  Lorana shrugged. “It’s not much different. More than a scrape or a break and you’d want to get a proper healer.”

  The seamen all nodded in agreement.

  “None of the lads are likely to get themselves hurt on a milk run like this,” Colfet growled. “Just down to that new sea hold and back here.”

  Captain Tanner told Lorana, “I’m only captain for Wind Rider’s shakedown cruise. After these three get the feel of her rigging, they’ll be taking her on up to Tillek.”

  “But I’d like to go to Tillek,” Lorana said.

  Colfet glanced at the other Tillek men, then said, “For that you’ll have to get my approval.” He took a long thoughtful breath. “Let’s see how you are on this run down to this new Hold, first.”

  “We’d better be moving then,” Tanner said, turning to the others. “The tide doesn’t wait.”

  J’trel shook her hand and then grabbed her in a hug. “You watch out for yourself, youngster. I’ll want to know how you get along.”

  Lorana gave him a smile. “I’ll do that, J’trel.”

  The Wind Rider was everything Captain Tanner had said it would be. Lorana stowed her gear in the healer’s cabin and then joined the crew on deck as the ship was nimbly warped out of Ista Harbor. The schooner heeled as the wind caught her quarter, and the helmsman cursed as he struggled to control the wheel.

  As the ship heeled into a new wave and burst through the other side, Captain Tanner said to Colfet, “What do you think of her now, Mister Colfet? Is she fit for your Master’s fleet?”

  “She grabs the wind well, Captain Tanner,” Colfet admitted. “But it’s early days, early days. I’d like to see her in a blow.”

  Tanner laughed and pointed to the confused seamen above in the rigging. “Not before this lot get themselves sorted out, I hope.”

  Colfet gave him a sour grin. “No, not before.” He glanced at the setting sun over the taffrail. “And tomorrow will be too fair for a strong wind.”

  “What makes you say that?” Lorana asked.

  “Bad weather coming, probably a blow,” Colfet answered, as if that were all the explanation needed.

  Captain Tanner raised his monocular to his eye. “Lorana, look there! It seems we’re getting a send-off!”

  Lorana looked where Tanner pointed and could see a dragon and rider in the distance waving at them. She laughed and waved back.

  J’trel says safe voyage, Lorana, Talith told her.

  Thank him please, Talith.

  High up in the sky, Talith relayed Lorana’s reply to J’trel.

  “You’re welcome, lass,” J’trel said to himself. “Did you hear that, Talith? How many can speak to other dragons? How many Weyrwomen can do that? Not one, I’m telling you. She’ll ride gold, and she’ll be the best Weyrwoman Pern’s ever seen.”

  TWO

  -ome (suffix): (i) the biological portion of an ecosystem. (ii) the material and genetic information required to re-create the biological portion of an ecosystem. Examples: the “terrome” refers to the biological portion of the Terran ecosystem; the “cetome” refers to the biological portion of the Cetus III ecosystem; the “eridanome” refers to the biological portion of the Eridani ecosystem.

  —Glossary of terms, Ecosystems: From -ome to Planet, 24th Edition

  Fort Hold, First Pass year 42, AL 50

  With another wordless cry, Wind Blossom rolled out of her dreams into the new day. It was always the same dream. Only—different this time. Something had woken her early.

  Even with the dream interrupted, as if against her will, Wind Blossom remembered her mother’s last words: “Always a disappointment you were to me. Now you hold the family honor. Fail not, Wind Blossom.”

  Wind Blossom had had the same dreams for the last forty years.

  The sound repeated itself: a dragon bugling in the sky above.

  Her mother, Kitti Ping, had created the dragons. Kitti Ping, famed Eridani Adept, who had saved Cetus III from the ravages of the Nathi War was also Pern’s savior with the creation of the great, fire-breathing, telepathic dragons.

  Wind Blossom was credited with—blamed for—the creation, through similar genetic manipulation, of the photophobic watch-whers. On the starships’ manifests Kitti Ping and Wind Blossom had been listed as geneticists. That title conveyed only a small portion of the full Eridani training Kitti Ping had received and had passed on to her daughter, Wind Blossom.

  “Always a disappointment you were to me,” her mother’s calm, controlled voice came to Wind Blossom’s mind—a memory over forty years old.

  They had come to Pern fifty years earlier, thousands of war-weary people seeking an idyllic world beyond the knowledge of human and Nathi alike. They had been led by such luminaries as Emily Boll, famed Governor of Tau Ceti and heroic leader of Cetus III, and Admiral Paul Benden, the victor of the Nathi Wars.

  Instead of finding rest and a pastoral, agricultural world, they discovered that their lush planet Pern had an evil stepsister—the Red Star. Its orbit was wildly erratic, coming through the solar system on a cometary 250-year cycle, dragging with it the mysterious peril of Thread.

  Eight years after the colonists landed on Pern, the Red Star came close enough to unload its burden on its sister-planet. The Thread, mindless, voracious, space-traveling spores, ate anything organic—plastics, woods, flesh. The first Threadfall on the unsuspecting colony was devastating.

  Galvanized by this new threat, Kitti Ping, Wind Blossom, and all the biologists on Pern dropped their work in adapting t
erran life-forms to life on Pern to concentrate instead on creating a defense against Thread.

  From the native flying fire-lizards, barely longer from nose to tail than a person’s arm, Kitti Ping created the huge fire-breathing dragons, able to carry a rider, telepathically bound to his mount, into a flaming battle against Thread. And so humankind on Pern was saved.

  It was the sound of a dragon’s bugle that had disturbed Wind Blossom’s dreams. Through the unshuttered windows, she could make out the beat of the dragon’s wings and heard it land in the courtyard outside the College.

  Shouts and cries reached her window with emotions intact but words incomprehensible. The dragon alone was indication enough of something extraordinary, and the voices confirmed that there was some sort of emergency.

  The voices in the courtyard moved inside.

  Her room smelled of lavender. Wind Blossom took a long, deep lungful of the smell and turned to look at the fresh cutting on her bedside table. Her mother’s room had always smelled of cedar. Sometimes of apple blossoms, too, but always of cedar.

  Perhaps some arnica would help, Wind Blossom thought as she summoned the strength to ignore the pain in her old joints and the weakness of her muscles as she sat up in bed and slid her feet into her slippers. Arnica was good for bruises and aches.

  And some peppermint tea for my thinking, she added with a bittersweet twinkle in her eyes.

  She walked to her dresser and looked impassively at her face reflected in the still water of the wash basin. Her hair was still dark—it would always be dark—as were her eyes. They stared impassively back at her as she examined her face. Her skin had the same yellowish tinge of her Asian ancestors; her eyes had the Asian almond shape.

  Wind Blossom completed her inspection, noting once again that the muscles around her face, which had slackened thirty years before, pulled the corners of her lips downward.

  Opening her dresser, she saw the yellow tunic at the bottom of her drawer and sighed imperceptibly as she had done at the sight of it every day for the past twenty years. Once, an accident at the laundry had left one of her white tunics with a distinctly yellowish tinge. No one had remarked on it. When the day was over, Wind Blossom had carefully put the yellow tunic away in her drawers. She had worn it again, years later—and no one had noticed. Now, as always, she carefully pulled out one of her scrupulously white tunics. From the lower drawer she pulled out a fresh pair of black pants.