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Chapters (55)
  1. Title Page
  2. Map
  3. Prologue
  4. VOLUME I: DRAGONFLIGHT
  5. Dedicatory Note
  6. PART I Weyr Search
  7. PART II Dragonflight
  8. PART III Dust Fall
  9. PART IV The Cold Between
  10. VOLUME II: DRAGONQUEST
  11. Dedication
  12. I Morning at Mastercrafthall, Fort Hold / Several Afternoons Later at Benden Weyr / Midmorning (Telgar Time) at Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  13. II Evening (Fort Weyr Time). Meeting of the Weyrleaders at Fort Weyr
  14. III Morning over Lemos Hold
  15. IV Midday at Southern Weyr
  16. V Midmorning at Ruatha Hold / Early Evening at Benden Weyr
  17. VI Midmorning at Southern Weyr / Early Morning at Nabol Hold: Next Day
  18. VII Midmorning at Benden Weyr / Early Morning at the Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  19. VIII Midmorning at Southern Weyr
  20. IX Afternoon at Southern Weyr: Same Day
  21. X Early Morning in Harpercrafthall at Fort Hold / Afternoon at Telgar Hold
  22. XI Early Morning at Benden Weyr
  23. XII Morning at Benden Weyr / Predawn at High Reaches Weyr
  24. XIII Night at Fort Weyr: Six Days Later
  25. XIV Early Morning at Ruatha Hold / Midday at Benden Weyr
  26. XV Evening at Benden Weyr: Impression Banquet
  27. XVI Evening at Benden Weyr / Later Evening at Fort Weyr
  28. VOLUME III: THE WHITE DRAGON
  29. Dedication
  30. I At Ruatha Hold, Present Pass, 12th Turn
  31. II Benden Weyr, Present Pass, 13th Turn
  32. III Morning at Ruatha Hold, and Smithcrafthall at Telgar Hold, Present Pass, 15.5.9
  33. IV Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, and Various Points Between, 15.5.10-15.5.16
  34. V Morning in Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold, Afternoon in Benden Weyr, Late Afternoon in Harpercraft Hall, 15.5.26
  35. VI Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold, 15.5.27-15.6.2
  36. VII Morning at Ruatha Hold, 15.6.2
  37. VIII Ruatha Hold, Fort Weyr, Fidello’s Hold, 15.6.3-15.6.17
  38. IX Early Summer, Harpercraft Hall and Ruatha Hold, 15.7.3
  39. X From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4
  40. XI Late Morning at Benden Weyr, Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midday at Fidello’s Hold, 15.7.5
  41. XII Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, Threadfall, 15.7.6
  42. XIII A Cove in the Southern Continent, 15.7.7-15.8.7
  43. XIV Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midmorning at Ista Weyr, Midafternoon at Jaxom’s Cove, 15.8.28
  44. XV Evening at Jaxom’s Cove and Late Evening at Ista Weyr, 15.8.28
  45. XVI At the Cove Hold, 15.8.28-15.9.7
  46. XVII Fort Hold, Benden Weyr, at Cove Hold, and at Sea aboard the Dawn Sister, 15.10.1-15.10.2
  47. XVIII At the Cove Hold the Day of Master Robinton’s Arrival, 15.10.14
  48. XIX Morning at the Cove Hold, Star-gazing in Late Evening, Next Morning, Discovery at the Mountain, 15.10.15-15.10.16
  49. XX At the Mountain and at Ruatha Hold, 15.10.18-15.10.20
  50. XXI Next Day at the Mountain, Cove Hold, and the Southern Hatching Ground, 15.10.21
  51. Afterword
  52. Dragondex
  53. Other Books by Anne McCaffrey
  54. To learn more about other great titles from Ballantine Books . . .
  55. Copyright

Possibly. If there is a major inner upheaval of the land. One of Fax’s guards at Ruath Hold had once regaled the Watch with a tale from his great-grandsire’s days. A whole coastal village in East Fort had slid into the sea. There had been monumental tides that year and, beyond Ista, a mountain had allegedly emerged at the same time, its top afire. It had subsided years later. That might be to what the line referred. Might be.

“Sands heat...” True, in summer it was said that Igen Plain could be unendurable. No shade, no trees, no caves, just bleak sand desert. Even dragonmen eschewed that region in deep summer. Come to think of it, the sands of the Hatching Ground were always warm underfoot. Did those sands ever get hot enough to burn? And what warmed them, anyway? The same unseen internal fires that heated the water in the bathing pools throughout Benden Weyr?

“Dragons prove ...” Ambiguous for half a dozen interpretations, and R’gul won’t even suggest one as official. Does it mean that dragons prove the Red Star passes? How? Coming out with a special keen, similar to the one they utter when one of their own kind passes to die between? Or did the dragons prove themselves in some other way as the Red Star passes? Besides, of course, their traditional function of burning the Threads out of the skies? Oh, all the things these ballads don’t say, and no one ever explains. Yet there must originally have been a reason.

“Stone pile and fires burn/Green withers, arm Pern.”

More enigma. Is someone piling the stones on the fires? Do they mean firestone? Or do the stones pile themselves as in an avalanche? The balladeer might at least have suggested the season involved—or did he, with “green wither”? Yet vegetation purportedly attracted Threads, which was the reason, traditionally, that greenery was not permitted around human habitations. But stones couldn’t stop a Thread from burrowing underground and multiplying. Only the phosphine emissions of a firestone-eating dragon stopped a Thread. And nowadays, Lessa smiled thinly, no one not even dragonmen—with the notable exceptions of F’lar and his wingmen—bothered to drill with firestone, much less uproot grass near houses. Lately hilltops, scoured barren for centuries, were allowed to burgeon with green in the spring.

“Guard all passes.”

She dug the phrase out with the stylus, thinking to herself: So no dragonrider can leave the Weyr undetected.

R’gul’s current course of inaction as Weyrleader was based on the idea that if no one, Lord or holder, saw a dragonrider, no one could be offended. Even traditional patrols were flown now over uninhabited areas, to allow the current agitation about the “parasitical” Weyr to die down. Fax, whose open dissension had sparked that movement, had not taken the cause to his grave. Larad, the young Lord of Telgar, was said to be the new leader.