The Dragon's Tapestry

“He asked me to care for Srill and the child she would bear, for, he said, Srill will know what to teach her. But, he said, if the gods be so unkind as to take Srill away, tell my daughter to seek my home in Verduma, for in it is the dragon’s tapestry.”

The old man closed his eyes. Marwen waited, feeling as though her life and all its events were funneling to this point, to these strange words that Master Clayware spoke at his death.

“I thought, years later, when you were but a child and the charm of the man had worn from me with the years, that per­haps he had been mad. I thought that if dragons lived, it was far away across the sea. I thought how odd you would think me if I were to give you such a message. But now, I have seen. Eyes— spinning eyes full of knowledge and hate, and wings—wings of such expanse that I could not see them all in one glance. And claws and teeth ... ah, ah, where is the Taker? She stays so long!”

“Master Clayware, what was my father’s name?”

The old man sighed and looked past her, as though he were seeing someone, an old friend. He smiled a little, though on his face it became a grimace.

“Nimroth,” he said. “Your father’s name was Nimroth.” 

Chapter Six

At the onset of windeven, master Clayware died.

—From The Tales of Marwen of Marmawell 

Marwen did not see the Taker. It is said that sometimes the spirit leaves a broken body before it is invited to do so, and then it must wan­der the hills in confusion until the Taker comes and leads it away to the lands of the dead.

Marwen sang the Death Song for Master Clayware. She sang it for Grondil, and for Leba and Sneda Shoemaker, and for Srill, her mother. She sang and sang until her voice would no longer make any sound. Then she slept.

When she woke, Cudgham-ip was basking in the sunlight near her face. Her tongue was swollen and dry in her mouth, and it was difficult to swallow.

“Is that really Cudgham?” Maug asked. He was sitting near­by, carving a piece of black bone and watching the creature’s every move.

Marwen sat up and moved away from him. “I need water,” she croaked.

He looked at her oddly, deliberated for a moment and then disappeared. She stood and began searching for Grondil’s lore books amidst the rubble of the hut. When Maug returned with fresh water, she had found the Songs of the One Mother. Even before she drank, she opened it and with renewed fascination touched the dragon drawings in the margins. For me, she thought, my father drew these for me.... She closed her book, eyeing Maug. Keeping him in her sight, she drank deeply, though the water tasted of cinders. Again she opened the book. At last she came upon some spells of restoration. With her hand upon Cudgham-ip she spoke them, one after another, to no effect.

Maug watched her without speaking.

Finally she stood, put the ip and the book in her apron pock­et and began walking to the hills where Opalwing was waiting.

At the top of the hill, she looked back to see her village for the last time. Maug was following her. He did not try to hide, and she waited for him.

Where his brass-colored hair touched his face there was a line of pimples, and below that his pale blue eyes were wet and red-rimmed.

“Don’t go without me,” he said.

“Why would you want to come with an ugly like me?” she asked.

Maug looked down and shrugged, and Marwen felt ashamed. To leave him here without a wingwand was to sentence him to death. He made an odd sound, and Marwen thought perhaps he was weeping.

“I have no tapestry,” he said.

She stared at him.

“When the dragon came, I was digging Grondil’s grave. It was fitting to take off my tapestry pouch,” he said.

“It was burned in the fire?”

He nodded. “You saw it once, Marwen, my cousin, not many years ago. You could stand as witness for me.”

“Yes, I remember. You were taunting me, and you dangled it in front of me.” She remembered vaguely the images of a star, a floxwillow and a spoon.

He looked at his feet and shrugged again.

“Of course, I don’t remember it,” she said, “but it is only a moderately difficult spell to bring it to mind.” She looked direct­ly into his eyes, feeling herself turn pink. “If I wanted to.”

“By the gods, Marwen ...”

“Now you know how I feel!”

His lips twisted scornfully. “It’s not the same at all. I will have neither work nor friends until my tapestry is remade, and I must be careful not to die. But you—you are soulless.”

Her throat closed around her protests. He had no reason to believe her, and it was enough for her just to know that she did have a tapestry and a soul.

“I will not tell,” Maug said, “if you promise that the first Oldwife we come to, you will witness my tapestry.”

She nodded, and with that pact they began to walk the tawny hills inland.