The Dragon's Tapestry

Marwen ran to her, crying out. She wrapped her arms around the wingwand’s head and stroked her antennae, but the beast butted at the grass and swung its head so that Marwen laughed and let go. “It is a sign,” she whispered. She looked into the faceted eyes of the wingwand and saw herself broken into a hun­dred tiny selves, looking out as if from behind glass. “A sign, yes,” she said. “And I wonder why Grondil searched so long and far for you that she might give you to me—Grondil who never wasted an hour or an ounce of anything in her life.” She stood stroking the beast’s backfur distractedly until the wave of grief was gone, and she realized that she felt hungry and dirty.

Marwen stripped off her spidersilk and stepped into the water. In only a few moments, her feet and ankles ached with the cold. Clenching her jaw she lay down on the pebbly bottom, leaning her head back until only her face was above water. The water carried her hair downstream. When her breath was coming in gasps, she ducked all of her face beneath the water.

She emerged like a silver fish that flings itself on the bank and then heaves and mouths for breath. She pulled her spidersilk over her head, and as she did so, the ip fell out of her pocket and righted himself with slow snaky movements.

“Oh, Cudgham!” Marwen said. “I’d almost forgotten. Why, you are almost as loathsome and stupid a reptile as you were a man.” She put crossed fingers to her lips and frowned. “If Grondil heard me say that, she would make me read ten pages of the Tenets out loud for punishment.”

She looked around.

“What do you eat? Can I catch you a nice slimy slug or a many-legged insect perhaps?”

The ip answered by darting out his long tongue and captur­ing a jimmie, which it rolled into his mouth and swallowed whole.

“Ooo,” Marwen half-grimaced and half-gloated. “Wouldn’t it be fun to turn you back into a man while the bug is still in your belly.”

She took a deep breath and uttered the reversal of the spell. Nothing happened. There the lizard sat, unchanged and blink­ing with slow transparent eyelids. She tried again, again nothing.

Marwen shrugged, almost relieved. Just to be sure, she snapped her fingers once. She had meant to turn him blue or black, but she had never been able to snap her fingers very well. The ip turned a dainty shade of pink.

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle and then forced her face to be serious. “No, that is too cruel,” she said, and she turned him back to his green and rust color.

“Well, perhaps the wizard can tell me the proper spell. All the more reason to find him.” Talking out loud about the wizard, a thing forbidden in Marmawell, made him seem more real to her, and she took heart. “Nevertheless, should you bite me, Cudgham, you shall be left like this forever. Do not forget.” The creature blinked again.

Opalwing was grazing morosely on the tough yellow stubble. “You are hungry, too, aren’t you?” Marwen said. “There is noth­ing but this dry wiregrass for you to eat and less still for me to eat.”

Her stomach rumbled as she looked around at the hills that spread from horizon to horizon. She could remember little of the few maps she had seen. She knew that Ve was surrounded by water on all sides, and most of the villages were nearer the coast where the soil was rich enough and the rain frequent enough to grow food. Marmawell was different from other villages because it was situated more inland where the soil was drier. There they grew the spices for which Marmawell was famous. The major trading cities, including Kebblewok, were more central, but even with Opalwing, it was too far a journey without provisions.

Marwen felt a chill of fear. Not even with magic could she produce food from nothing. She could, if she could remember the spell, make the wiregrass look and taste more appetizing. But it would still be wiregrass and could not sustain her long. She sorely wished that she had brought her Tenets and her Songs of the One Mother. They were her inheritance, precious treasures that Grondil would have given her on her deathbed.

Marwen remembered Merva Leatherworker’s words: “Return to us, and I will reconsider your fate....” True, Merva had not thought that Marwen would have a wingwand, but was that not a result of Marwen’s own magic? Had she not summoned the creature with her mind? Her magic was enough to save her, and besides, she needed to return for her books whether Merva allowed her to stay or not. Books and provisions: for these she would risk a second exile. And maybe, Marwen thought, maybe I shall not stay anyway, even if they allow it.

She stood. “Come, Opalwing, let us go. The dead are not served by our fasts.” She picked up a moss-slicked pebble from the river bottom, and ran and gave it to the oldman rock.