Anne McCaffrey - Dragonquest

G’sel gave an odd gargle and rose, almost unsettling his lizard.

“How can you say that, Brekke, when she’s so mean and nasty to you?” Mirrim cried, and subsided at a stern look from her foster mother.

“Make no judgments where you have no compassion,” Brekke replied. “And I, too, will not tolerate any shirking of duties to care for these pretties. I don’t know why we saved them!”

“Make no judgments where you have no compassion,” F’nor retorted.

“They needed us.” Mirrim said so emphatically that even she was surprised at her temerity, and immediately became absorbed in her brown.

“Yes, they did,” F’nor agreed, aware of the little queen’s golden body nestled trustingly against his ribs. She had twined her tail as far as it would reach around his waist. “And true weyrmen one and all, we responded to the cry for succor.”

“Mirrim Impressed three and she’s no weyrman,” Brekke said in a dry, didactic correction. “And if they are Impressionable by non-riders, they might well be worth every effort to save.”

“How’s that?”

Brekke frowned a little at F’nor as if she didn’t credit his obtuseness.

“Look at the facts, F’nor. I don’t know of a commoner alive who hasn’t entertained the notion of catching a fire lizard, simply because they resemble small dragons – no, don’t interrupt me. You know perfectly well that it’s just in these last eight Turns that commoners were permitted on the Ground as candidates at Impression. Why, I remember my brothers plotting night after night in the hope of catching a fire lizard, a personal dragon of their own. I don’t think it ever occurred to anyone, really, that there might be some truth in that old myth that dragons – weyrdragons – were bred from lizards. It was just that fire lizards were not proscribed to commoners, and dragons were. Out of our reach.”

Her eyes softened with affection as she stroked the tiny sleeping bronze in the crook of her arm. “Odd to realize that generations of commoners were on the right track and never knew it. These creatures have the same talent dragons have for capturing our feelings. I oughtn’t to take on another responsibility but nothing would make me relinquish my bronze now he’s made himself mine.” Her lips curved in a very tender smile. Then, as if aware she was displaying too much of her inner feelings, she said very briskly, It’d be a very good thing for people – for commoners – to have a small taste of dragon.”

“Brekke, you can’t mean you think that a fire lizard’s loving company would mellow someone like Vincet of Nerat or Meron of Nabol toward Dragonriders?” Out of respect for her, F’nor did not laugh aloud. Brekke was a sackful of unexpected reactions.

She gave him such a stern look that he began to regret his words.

“If you’ll pardon me, F’nor,” G’sel spoke up, “I think Brekke’s got a good thought there. I’m holdbred myself. You’re weyrbred. You can’t imagine how I used to feel about Dragonriders. I honestly didn’t know myself – until I Impressed Roth.” His face lit with a startling joy at the memory. He paused, unabashed, to savor the moment anew. “It’d be worth a try. Even if the fire lizards are dumb, it’d make a difference. They wouldn’t understand how much more it is with a dragon. Look, F’nor, here’s this perfectly charming creature, perched on my shoulder, adoring me. He was all ready to bite the Weyrwoman to stay with me. You heard how angry he was. You don’t know how – spectacular – it’d make a commoner feel.”

F’nor looked around, at Brekke, at Mirrim, who did not evade his eyes this time, at the other riders.

“Are you all holdbred? I hadn’t realized. Somehow, once a man becomes a rider, you forget he ever had another affiliation.”

“I was craftbred,” Brekke said, “but G’sel’s remarks are as valid for the Craft as the Hold.”

“Perhaps we ought to get T’bor to issue an order that lizard-watching has now become a Weyr duty,” F’nor suggested, grinning slyly at Brekke.

“That’ll show Kylara,” someone murmured very softly from Mirrim’s direction.

Midmorning at Ruatha Hold

Early Evening at Benden Weyr

JAXOM’S PLEASURE in riding a dragon, in being summoned to Benden Weyr, was severely diminished by his guardian’s glowering disapproval. Jaxom had yet to learn that most of Lord Warder Lytol’s irritation was for a far larger concern than his ward’s mischievous habit of getting lost in the unused and dangerous corridors of Ruatha Hold. As it was, Jaxom was quite downcast. He didn’t mean to irritate Lytol, but he never seemed able to please him, no matter how hard he tried. There was such an unconscionable number of things that he, Jaxom, Lord of Ruatha Hold, must know, must do, must understand, that his head swam until he had to run away, to be by himself, to think. And the only empty places to think in in Ruatha, where no one ever went or would bother you, were in the back portions of the hollowed-out cliff that was Ruatha Hold. And while he could, just possibly, get lost or trapped behind a rockfall (there hadn’t been a cave-in at Ruatha in the memory of living man or the Hold Records as far back as they were still legible), Jaxom hadn’t got into trouble or danger. He knew his way around perfectly. Who could tell? His investigations might someday save Ruatha Hold from another invader like Fax, his father. Here Jaxom’s thoughts faltered. A father he had never seen, a mother who died bearing him, had made him Lord of Ruatha, though his mother had been of Crom Hold and Fax his father, of the High Reaches. It was Lessa, who was now Weyrwoman at Benden, who had been the last of Ruathan Blood. These were contradictions he didn’t understand and must.

He had changed his clothes now, from the dirty everyday ones to his finest tunic and trousers, with a wher-hide over-tunic and knee boots. Not that even they could stop the horrible cold of between. Jaxom shuddered with delighted terror. It was like being suspended nowhere, until your throat closed and your bowels knotted and you were scared silly that you’d never again see the light of day, or even night’s darkness, depending on local time of day where you were supposed to emerge. He was very jealous of Felessan, despite the fact that it was by no means sure his friend would be a dragonrider. But Felessan lived at Benden Weyr, and he had a mother and a father, and Dragonriders all around him, and . . .

“Lord Jaxom!” Lytol’s call from the Great Courtyard broke through the boy’s reverie and he ran, suddenly afraid that they’d leave without him.

It was only a green, Jaxom thought with some disappointment. You’d think they’d send a brown at the very least, for Lytol, Warder of Ruatha Hold, one time dragonrider himself. Then Jaxom was overwhelmed by contrition. Lytol’s dragon had been a brown and it was well known that half a man’s soul left him when his dragon died and he remained among the living.

The green’s rider grinned a welcome as Jaxom scrambled up the extended leg.

“Good morning, Jeralte,” he said, slightly startled because he’d played in the Lower Caves with the young man only two Turns back. Now he was a full-fledged rider.

“J’ralt, please, Lord Jaxom,” Lytol corrected his ward.

“That’s all right, Jaxom,” J’ralt said and looped the riding belt deftly around Jaxom’s waist.

Jaxom wanted to sink; to be corrected by Lytol in front of Jer – J’ralt, and not to remember to use the honorific contraction! He didn’t enjoy the thrill of rising, a-dragonback over the great towers of Ruatha Hold, of watching the valley, spread out like a wall hanging under the dragon’s sinuous green neck. But as they circled, Jaxom had to balance himself against the dragon’s unexpectedly soft hide, and the warmth of that contact seemed to ease his inner misery. Then he saw the line of weeders in the fields and knew that they must be looking up at the dragon. Did those bullying Hold boys know that he, Jaxom, Lord of Ruatha, was a-dragon-back? Jaxom was himself again.