The Dragon's Tapestry

“Thank you, grandfather stone, for now my thoughts are as clear as the water. I shall return to the village and beg forgive­ness. I will search among Grondil’s books until I find the words to return Cudgham to his former state and get him to stand wit­ness at a tapestry making, my tapestry making.”

Marwen dug up a few stickstem roots from the bank of the stream and without magic made a small fire over which she roasted them. She pierced the outer hull and ate the soft meat inside, which, though bland, was filling and warm. It gave her strength to begin her flight back to Marmawell.

Freshwind was gentle in the constant sunlight of spring and summer, though in winterdark it often brought freezing rains from over the sea. Opalwing flew evenly into the saltsoft breeze, seemingly glad to be headed home. Her wings met at the top and the bottom during flight, as the wings of all well-bred wingwands do. Marwen filled with a lovely dizzying sensation of height at every wingbeat as the ground below was first hidden, then revealed.

About a third of the way to Marmawell, Opalwing began to slow her speed. When Marwen urged her to fly faster, the beast balked and reduced her speed even more. Opalwing was young and unused to flying long distances, Marwen knew, so she allowed the creature to land and graze for a time. While she waited for her to rest, Marwen noticed an unusual cloud in the south.

“What is that, Opalwing? Is it a storm cloud? Is that what makes you nervous?” she asked. But after the beast had eaten and slept, she still would not fly. Marwen cajoled and pushed and shouted, but Opalwing would not budge. There was little else she could do. A wingwand could throw its rider for mis­treatment received years before. It was better to humor the pow­erful intelligent creatures. Finally Marwen herself slept.

The cloud had disappeared when Marwen awoke, and Opal­wing willingly resumed the journey. Occasionally she changed direction nervously, as though she smelled a predator, and it took all Marwen’s skill and strength to steer her back on course.

When they were close to Marmawell, though still beyond sight of it, Opalwing landed without warning and without direc­tion to do so. She almost unseated Marwen and then disobeyed Marwen’s commands to fly. Finally, in frustration, Marwen punched the hard shell of the creature’s body.

“I should let Cudgham-ip nip your heels,” she said, close to tears. She was hungry and thirsty and sore from sleeping on the ground, and she knew Marmawell was just beyond the next hump of hills. She started to walk, stopping to look back occa­sionally, but the wingwand did not follow.

She had not walked far when a smell made Marwen’s heart pulse in her throat. It was a nauseating stench that drove away all thoughts of food. On the wind were shreds of black smoke like ghosts blowing by.

For two more winds she walked. She had her first sighting of the village at cullerwind. Cullerwind in winterdark often brought hail or blizzard or windwraiths—those freakish phantom winds that inexplicably tore the roof from one house or bore away one podhen out of an entire flock. In summerlight, however, cullerwind was usually benign, its worst deed winding the clothes round and round the drying poles until they looked like strange heavy fruits on an unnatural vine.

But there were no wadded clothes, no drying poles, no peo­ple, no huts. Nothing. Marmawell was gone, and in its place was a black stain on the loins of the hills.

The hills did a half-turn before her eyes, and she struggled to maintain her footing. A muscle in her temple twitched. Time and place lost all landmarks by which she understood them. She was unsure if this charred valley was really the place where her village had been, though looking more closely she could see parts of huts still standing. She was unsure how long she had been in returning, though the position of the sun told her it had been little more than a cycle of winds. She even doubted the events of the past few days and thought perhaps it had all been part of a hideous dream.

She peered into her apron pocket. Cudgham-ip slept, and she touched his leathery hide, as though she were touching reality itself.

“By the Mother!” she whispered. Where before a herd of wingwands had grazed, only a few charred lumps remained like blisters on the hillside. A summer windwraith scooped up some black dust and whirled it into the sky along with a feather and a strand of straw. But for the wailing of the wind in Marwen’s ears, there was complete silence.

She walked heavily toward the half-burnt remains of what had been her own hut. Halfway into the valley, she came upon a body. It reminded her of the clay dolls the little village girls made, dark and shriveled imitations of people. She opened her mouth to sing the Death Song, but no sound would come out.

After a while she continued walking. The wailing of the wind sounded more humanlike the closer she came to the hut.