Dragonquest is the second volume in what I consider the Main Sequence books and is the direct sequel to Dragonflight. Even twenty years ago “Dragonquest” bothered me as a title because there is no quest that any dragons (or riders) must complete. This book is all about the tensions that have been building over seven years of Threadfall between Hold, Craft Hall, and Weyr (both Oldtimer and Modern).
The Oldtimers, remember, are the five Weyrs that followed Lessa 400 years into their future to save the planet from thread in her current time. Now seven years into this present Pass they are starting to show the strains and stresses of long service and the knowledge that the end is still decades away. While all dragonriders enjoy a measure of privilege in their world, some of the Oldtimers are beginning to overreach and to claim additional entitlements. Dragonquest opens with two Oldtimers attempting to claim as a tithe item an ornate knife that was specifically created as a wedding gift from the Smith Crafthall to Lord Larad of Telgar Hold. Their attempt is thwarted by F’nor’s intervention. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of a nasty knife wound to F’nor when the irrationally worked-up Oldtimer attacks him. The two Oldtimers return (knifeless!) to Fort Weyr but face less-than-thorough justice from their leadership. F’nor’s wound is serious enough that he is sent to Southern Weyr to recover.
That one event is the spark that lights up this tinderbox. That one event kicks off all of the other events in this book.
The sins of (some of) the Oldtimers, which include other improper material claims and improper hunting of Hold herds for dragon feeding as well as dereliction of duty during threadfall, can no longer be rationalized away since they did, after all, save the planet. Holders and Crafters are coming to resent the Weyrs despite the protection they offer. Holder confidence is further shaken when Thread suddenly deviates from its heretofore predictable pattern of fall. The Oldtimer Weyrs feel insulted when riders from Benden, the only modern Weyr, consistently side with Hold and Hall against them.
Now add to this volatile mix F’nor’s discovery (while recuperating at Southern) that fire lizards can be Impressed and kept as pets. Fire lizards are “dragons in miniature” with virtually all the same abilities as their larger cousins and everyone simply has to have one (at least!). Aside from size, the only real difference to fire lizards is that they’re not capable of language but are perfectly capable of communicating by emotions and, to a lesser degree, images shared telepathically with the people who Impress them.
The distribution of fire lizards becomes a central factor of Southern Weyrwoman Kylara’s [slut!]* machinations with Lord Meron [asshole!]* of Nabol Hold (remember those names from the end of the last post?).
And to round out the setup for this novel, technological sophistication is starting to slowly progress once again. At the time the present Pass began Pern was a pre-industrial society. No printing press (records are kept on cured hides), no mass production, no steam or petroleum power (although there were a few specific applications of water wheels for mechanical power). Early in Dragonquest the Smith Craft Master Fandarel develops a version of the telegraph in an effort to improve communication. Additionally, a master Woodcrafter, Bendarek, has independently developed paper for the first time from the old growth hardwoods that grew up over the Long Interval. These and other newfangled nuisances annoy various Oldtimers, Holders and even other Crafters, especially once a precocious young Lord Jaxom rediscovers a long unused suite of rooms while on a visit to Benden Weyr in which I as a modern reader recognize implements of a scientific laboratory. That discovery leads to many questions about what else may have been lost or forgotten over the centuries.
The situation on Pern is obviously far, far from stable. And while there’s not a single, main plot that Dragonquest is built around, there are four or five smaller plot threads that contain all of the action.
First up, the tension between the Oldtimers and the Benden riders finally comes to a head when T’ron, the leader of Fort Weyr, duels the Benden leader, F’lar over the modern rider’s tendency to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong:
“Yes, Oldtimer, Benden Weyr concerns itself with Ista and Igen, And the Holds of Nabol, and Crom, and Telgar, because Benden dragonmen have not forgotten that Thread burns anything and anyone it touches, Weyr and commoner alike. And if Benden Weyr has to stand alone against the fall of Thread, it will.”
F’lar defeats T’ron without killing him and exiles T’ron any riders who wish to follow to the Southern Continent. Since most of R’mart’s High Reaches Weyr chooses to go south, the newly displaced Southern riders move into High Reaches. Southern was chosen because it is both out of the way and also because the Southern Continent is thoroughly seeded with a type of grub that is a near perfect defense against Thread. I’ve largely elided that detail above but how the grubs are discovered and their function determined is a significant sub plot of its own.
Now at High Reaches Weyr, Kylara [slut!] is much closer to Lord Meron [asshole!] and they continue to make trouble. They’re also involved romantically which leads directly to the greatest tragedy of the series. I’ll try to keep it short, I swear. When a gold dragon rises to mate she broadcasts her emotions with enormous strength. Other gold riders take their dragons far away as a standard practice. Brekke, rider of Wirenth (and the only other person besides Lessa who can telepathically hear every dragon), and F’nor had previously developed a relationship and they come up with the harebrained idea that F’nor’s Canth would fly against the usual bronze dragons when Wirenth’s time came. Bronzes are traditionally the only dragons to fly golds since they’re the largest males. Brown Canth, however, is as large as many of the bronzes and figures he’s got as good a shot as any of them. When Wirenth rises the other golds scatter but Kylara [slut!] doesn’t go far enough. She’d only gone to Nabol Hold. To see Meron [asshole!]. Their amorous activity ends up triggering Prideth who was due to rise soon herself. When Prideth sees Wirenth leading her bronzes (and an upstart brown) through the sky she jealously launches herself after them. There follows an absolutely epic battle between the two gold dragons and the All Hands response that tries to separate them. Eventually the more nimble Wirenth locks herself onto Prideth and takes them both between. They never return. Both women are left catatonic by the psychic trauma (serves Kylara [slut!] right!) but I’m always nearly bawling over Brekke’s loss. But I’m a bit of a softie, after all.
A week or so later the clutch at Benden is ready to Hatch although this particular occasion isn’t as joyous as it usually is. F’lar and Lessa have the even-more-harebrained idea to present Brekke as a candidate for the gold egg on the theory that she’d almost certainly Impress the new queen due to her ability to hear all dragons. The little queen very nearly picks Brekke but is scolded away by her fire lizard and chooses another girl instead. Fortunately that intervention helped snap Brekke out of her catatonic state and she begins to recover. Also at this Hatching is a very small, almost runt-ish, egg that is having trouble hatching. That same precocious, ten-year-old Lord Jaxom takes it upon himself to help the poor thing out of its shell. You’re right! Jaxom Impresses little Ruth who is indeed a runt at half the size of his siblings and who has a white hide instead of the gold, bronze, brown, blue, or green that every other dragon has been. This, of course, causes all kinds of trouble: How can Jaxom be both a Lord Holder and a Dragonrider? What happens when the poor thing dies (as it surely would!)? Those questions and others will be the main focus of the next book, The White Dragon. But I bet you saw that coming.
Finally, over the second half of the book several Lords Holder, including Meron [asshole!] (naturally), have been increasingly grumbling about the Weyrs’ apparent “reluctance” to fight Thread at its source: the wandering planet known as the Red Star. They’ve convinced themselves that, with the discovery of the powerful telescope among the items in the Benden rooms, it should be straightforward for the dragonriders to find a visual reference good enough for them to make the jump between. F’lar has a difficult time getting them to realize that even if conditions on the other planet would allow them to survive (which was certainly not proven) that it would still be a logistical impossibility to char the entire surface. Meron [asshole!] is the most incorrigible of the Lords and fair monopolizes the telescope looking for a reference good enough for his fire lizard to use to make the leap. The fire lizard, being a perfectly sane creature, is having none of that and is so upset that it leaves Meron [asshole!], possibly permanently. At least, I’ve never seen whether it ever came back. F’nor was present at that particular viewing and once Meron [asshole!] leaves, takes a turn at the telescope. He sees a feature that he thinks might work as a reference and asks his own fire lizard (a queen) if she could do it. While the reference really isn’t good enough for her, her much stronger reaction to F’nor’s request is outright terror of the Red Star.
“Canth,” he said taking a deep breath, “You said the coordinates I gave her were vivid. Vivid enough–for you to take me to that fist I saw in the clouds?”
Yes, I can see where you want me to go, Canth replied so confidently that F’nor was taken aback.
And so he and Canth make the attempt with precisely zero preparation. It’s an interplanetary step between which takes far longer that the short hops about Pern. They arrive to superheated air that’s not breathable and filled with dust that basically sandblasts skin and hide. Canth’s psychic scream of anguish can be felt by every dragon on Pern and most riders. It’s only because of Brekke’s equally strong cry, “Don’t leave me alone!” that they’re able to find their way back between to Pern. Too damaged to fly, every other dragon teleports into position to catch them and bear them safely to the ground where heroic efforts are made to save them. Dragonquest ends with confirmation that both man and beast are on the mend and that their mad jump had put to rest the idea of fighting Thread on the Red Star.
I knew that scene would be coming up on this re-read but it wasn’t until a few pages before that all of the details came back and hit me full force. It was literally a “WHOA” moment where I had to stop reading and sit for a while. Softie that I am I’d been struck by the memory that it was Brekke’s anguish that guided them back home. More than that though was the memory that this scene will be revisited in the second Harper Hall book, Dragonsinger as experienced by one of my all-time favorite characters, Menolly. Being a Harper in training she sets her experience of the event to music which I think makes for an even stronger telling than in Dragonquest. Still, all of those details resurfaced in an instant and literally took my breath away.
I am positively thrilled that I could react so strongly to this book I’ve known for twenty years now. And who says you need a single central plot when for slightly smaller ones can be braided together so effectively!
* – “Slut” and “asshole” are the traditional audience callbacks for the characters Janet and Brad respectively in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Their application to McCaffrey’s characters is much more apt and, more importantly, amuses me.
