The Dragon's Tapestry

Chapter Twelve

She could feel the searchings of Perdoneg over her head like a tangible roof, a hard sky alive with eyes and ears, hunting but too far away. He looked too far, unaware that she flew toward him. Like a chant, in rhythm to the beat of Mothball’s wings in the heavy hot air of midsummer sun, she murmured spells of concealment and hid­ing. She did not venture near the cities and avoided springs and rivers whenever she could. Her eyes became dull with searching the bright empty sky for dragonfire, and though once she saw black smoke blooming like a bitter flower in the distance, she did not see the dragon with her own eyes. Always he pulled at her with his mind, called to her but from too far away.

The hills were not kind to Marwen, for they hid their springs, and there was little food to forage. Only Cudgham-ip grew fat, for though Marwen’s supplies ran out quickly, she was careful to feed him.

She crossed the northern bay and entered Verduma further up the coast, avoiding the border cities. When finally she landed on the lush Verduman coast, she had eaten almost nothing for many winds, but she felt safe. She felt lost. Perdoneg had lost her and did not suspect that she would fly to his hill where he slept between foragings like a great black worm.

There was a weatherworn shack near the beach where she had landed, and for a moment she thought it was the shack she had seen in the spring. Flowers grew thick around the salt-bleached boards of the house and spilled out of window baskets and grew in ledges along the roof. The sweet-pepper smell of grasses and flowers filled the salt air. But it was not the same shack she had seen in the spring. She thought she might beg for a little bread there or perhaps buy some for the favor of sharpening a knife or two, but first she must bathe. Under the noonmonth sun Marwen swam in the sea until her fingertips and toes were wrinkled. By then her hunger was keen enough to give her courage to knock at the east window of the shack. She could see the shadow of a bed and a chair, and a bake-box was blackening over the fire.

A little face appeared, peeping above the sill, a girl with flow­ers braided into her hair. In a moment a larger and thinner ver­sion of the child’s face came to the window, her mother.

“What pretty hair she has, momma,” the little girl said. The woman put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and said nothing.

“Please,” Marwen said, “I have had little but stickstem roots to eat for days. Have you any bread for a traveler?”

“We are poor,” she said simply. “My husband is sick.” The woman began to turn away.

Marwen put her hand on the windowsill.

“I have some gift with healing, perhaps I could help.”

The woman pushed the little girl away gently with a whis­pered word and faced Marwen.

“Are you from Venutia?” the woman asked.

Marwen nodded. “But my father was Verduman.”

“Come in,” the woman said.

When Marwen’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, she could see, beneath the blankets on the bed, a tall man with black hair, beard, and moustache. He was thin and had an old goiter on his neck, but Marwen could smell no sickness on him.

“She says she’s a healer,” the woman said to her husband.

Marwen sat on a stool at the man’s bedside. The little girl came up behind her and fondled Marwen’s hip-length braid until her mother drew her away.

“You bring no tools or medicine,” he said. His voice was strong and full.

“I bring only my magic,” Marwen said. She sat very still, her hands folded as is seemly for the Oldwife.

“Don’t believe in magic,” he said gruffly.

“Have you no Oldwife nearby? Who did the tapestry for your child?”

“The woman sent for one by way of her sister when her time came. Stuff. That’s what I say—stuff. No such thing as magic.”

He leaned toward Marwen in a confidential manner. “I hear that up north is a dragon who wants to do battle with the ol’ wizard, but the wizard won’t show. Now, maybe the dragon has magic.”

He chuckled and drew the covers up under his chin.

Marwen recited silently to herself from the Tenets on anger. She kept her back straight and her hands still.

“What is the nature of your illness?” she asked quietly.

“Tired,” he said. “Always so tired. Can’t walk. The Oldwife that did for my wife, she gave me some herbs. Only made me tireder. Magic, huh! Stuff.”

Marwen was having difficulty remembering the words of the Tenets. She knew she could cast no spell in the face of such doubt, and her stomach was growling. “Your wife and child are hungry,” she said tersely, and then she took a deep breath. “But you must be hungry, too.” From her apron pocket she drew out a smallish stickstem root, warm from being next to Cudgham-ip who yawned as she took it out. She placed it in front of the man.

“What do you dream of, man?” she said. “Do you dream of roast podhen, pollberry pie, hot grainbread?” The stickstem root assumed the appearance, weight, and smell of each food as she spoke it.

The man reached out and tentatively touched the bread before it resumed its true identity as a root.

“It’s warm,” he said, and his voice was full of wonder. “Woman!” he said, calling to his wife, “are you not baking grainbread with the last of the barrel?”

“Aye,” she said.

He smiled broadly. “’Tis a quick and tricky hand you’ve got there, but ’tis no magic.”

Sure enough, she could now smell the bread baking. She was faint from hunger.

“Come here, child,” Marwen said to the little girl. “Do you have a doll?” The little girl shook her head. Marwen held up the stickstem root.

“This is a toy you might like. Shake it!”

The little girl shook the root and a musical tune played, an ancient tune to which long ago someone had put words about the Taker.

Marwen squirmed uncomfortably at the sound, for which tune the root should play, she had not chosen.

The man’s face showed delight and amazement.

“Give it to me, child,” he said holding out his hairy clublike hand.

The child ran to the other side of the little house and huddled under the table. The man roared and threw back his covers. He chased the girl around the room until, slipping under his reach­ing arms, the child hid behind Marwen.

“Mine, mine,” the little girl whimpered.

Before Marwen could stop him, the man crossed the room in two strides and grabbed the root. He shook it, and again the lit­tle tune played. He danced a little jig and sang: “Hite! Lither! Dollorum dello, the Taker’s feet are shod in yellow.”

“Stop,” Marwen said. He stopped, and she put her arm around the child who was caressing her braid again and pulling on her spidersilk sheath.

“Now do you believe my magic?” Marwen said to the man. “You’re not so tired now. I seem to have healed you.”

The man’s wife bent and drew from the oven a large loaf of grainbread.

“The bread is ready. You would honor us in sharing some,” she said softly. “No gifted one need beg bread in my home.”

Marwen smiled at the woman. But just as Marwen rose, the child screamed a single clear note of pain and terror.

She looked down to see the child taking her hand out of her apron pocket in which the ip slept. On her hand were two round drops of red blood.

“Oh, Mother,” Marwen whispered. “Oh, Mother, help.” She gathered the child in her arms and laid her on the bed.

“What is it?” the woman asked.

Marwen searched her mind for every relevant spell. She spoke them as rapidly as she could—spells for healing, for magic, for growth, for strength. Already the child’s eyes were glazing, and her flesh was hot. Desperately she thought, and desperately she invoked the spells, but something was distracting her.

“Stop that music!” she screamed, whirling round on the man.

He stood there, stupidly, and Marwen saw that he was not shaking the charmed stickstem root, but that it played on its own.

In the doorway, framed in an aura of light, stood the Taker, smiling and muttering to herself, her head bobbing beneath her hunched back.

Marwen hissed at her. The Taker looked in Marwen’s direc­tion and smiled. She reached her hands out to Marwen as if she would give her something. The man and the woman stood frozen in place, looking around the room. They could see no one. Marwen watched as the Taker turned from herself toward the little girl. A coldness filled her bowels. She had robbed the Taker before. She would do it again.

The little girl’s father was still standing in the middle of the room staring at Marwen first and then at his daughter on the bed. Of course he could not see the Taker who came up behind him. With a simple spell, Marwen could send him reeling back­ward into the old woman’s arms and The Taker would have her life, though a worthless one.

Marwen shuddered a convulsive shake that caused her shoul­ders to heave and her head to snap.

Her fear had made her consider the ultimate faithlessness— that of ending the life of another. That was the Mother’s place and the Taker’s task, and Marwen’s hideous presumption made her reel with shame. Saving Sneda’s life and thereby forfeiting Grondil’s, had been a terrible mistake. To send this man into the arms of the Taker would be sorcery, black art.

Marwen lifted the sick child in her arms as the Taker made her way around the man.

“Is it not true that the Taker must obey the wizard? Then begone old woman,” she said, though her voice shook and was shrill. If she were the wizard’s heir, the Taker did not obey her. She moved toward Marwen and the girl. The old woman’s cataract-covered eyes wept, and the tears fell past her sky-blue apron like rain on a sunny day.

“Can’t you wait? Wouldn’t you sooner meet me over the body of a dragon, Mistress Taker? Or do you hunger for the dead he gives you?”

Instinctively Marwen pressed her back against the wall. She felt the breath go out of her. The Taker was close now.

“Will I see Grondil?” she whispered. “Will it hurt?” The child was heavy and hot in her arms. Marwen closed her eyes. A breath of cullerwind blew in at the window, knocking some pots to the ground with a clangor. A column of dust sprang up between Marwen and the Taker, but the dust did not settle. It roiled and grew darker until the Taker was eclipsed from Marwen’s sight and only a lightless cloud was before her, around her, cold and thin as a void.

The opaqueness began to assume a shape then, the blurred outline of a man in robes, a muted arm, an unfocused hand. In the hand a staff, a softly luminous line that was visible enough for Marwen to see the runes etched along its curved top spelling one word: Nimroth.

The darkness that engulfed Marwen began to disappear like dust settling. The shadowman reached his arms around the Taker to embrace her. And in a moment they were both gone.

Astonishment and fear were in the faces of the husband and wife, for all they had seen was Marwen, pressed in terror against the wall, the convulsing child held in her arms, while her face grew pale and then ashen-colored, while she railed at the Taker.

The child moaned in her arms. Marwen watched as the color returned to her cheeks.

For the next three winds, Marwen nursed the child with spells of healing, powerful ones that she had learned from Politha when nursing Camlach. And with every third spell, she wove with word and hand a spell of concealment from the dragon, wove a web of clouding, forgetting, hiding. The child’s mother hovered nearby, quietly fetching things for Marwen as she needed them. When at last the child slept, the woman touched her arm in gratitude. Marwen said nothing. Her head swam with spells and seeings. She glanced nervously at the ceiling and gathered herself to go.

“I heard you when you spoke of the dragon,” the woman ventured. “I have heard that the dragon sleeps round a hill to the north and east of here, between the villages of Rute and Rune-dar. There is an Oldwife there who they say is very wise. Perhaps she could help you.”

Cudgham-ip tried to crawl out of her pocket, but she pushed him back. She struggled to regain her wits and her manners. “Thank you,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Sharva,” the woman said.

Marwen stood and took her hands. “Your daughter will live and will probably have an immunity to ip poison. But for your quiet soul, there is a reward. May these hands grow the most beautiful flowers in all Ve, and may the wealthiest women seek you out for them.”

“You read my heart,” Sharva said. “But you have not yet eaten.”

Marwen, walking toward the door, said, “No, I’m not hungry anymore. Goodbye Sharva, and the gods be with you.”

“Goodbye, Marwen Oldwife.”

Marwen looked at the man. Just as she walked out the door, he snapped the stickstem root in half and stared into the broken halves, mumbling to himself.

“Stuff,” she thought she heard him say.