The Dragon's Tapestry

He led them through damp walled streets that were littered with eggshells, broken pots and soiled straw. When the market stalls dwindled away, the streets were quieter and more of the morningsun’s slanting rays warmed the cobblestone. Then the gray stone buildings ended. Mud brick cottages with thatched roofs like those she had known in Marmawell clustered on the rising slope of the city. Marwen felt the weight of the walls lifted from her and was surprised to feel the coolness of lostwind on her face. Now she could hear the crying and laughter of little children, the banging of spoons on pots, and she could smell wingwand manure and washday soap. Marwen and Maug fol­lowed Crob willingly into his cottage.

It was small and sparse, and cluttered with the tools of his trade: sheets of drying leather, scarred worktables, nails, molds and spools of thick thread. Scraps of leather, material and bent nails were piled up in a thrifty heap beside a dusty hourglass on the mantle. But the floor was well-swept and laid with small rugs for sitting.

Crob served them thick soup and a slab of seedbread. Mar­wen ate greedily. When she was almost done, she reluctantly saved a small piece of meat for Cudgham.

Through the east window, Marwen could see the sun, pale like a pink moon below a vast continent of cloud. It would rain today or tomorrow.

“So, I do not know your names,” the man said when they fin­ished eating.

“Marwen is my name and this is Maug. We are from Marmawell, a village to the south.” She glanced at Maug who shook his head, and she knew she should not speak of the dragon. He had always been secretive, never telling anything that he didn’t have to, but now he was sullen, his silence thick with deceit. He pulled his knife and the black bone from his pocket and began whittling.

“Ah, Marmawell, from which comes most precious herbs and spices: lapluv, greencup and teas fit for the king. The fame of this village reaches even to other provinces.”

Marwen was pleased and thought to tell him that she and her mother had cast spells on the very kitchen gardens that had pro­duced those spices.

“My mother grew a little shumple and browm,” she said instead, remembering the Tenets on modesty and humility. Per­haps, she thought, had she practiced them more in Marmawell, Maug would not be looking at her so with his hard gray mirror eyes.

Crob was silent for a time. Then he arose, drew from a bag a pair of shoes and, kneeling, placed them before Marwen. He did not look at her.

They were made of fine soft rupi leather, pale blue, the same blue as the round skystone she had found, so long ago it seemed, and the tiny buckles were made of some metal that gleamed like a bit of gray lake under a cloud-laden sky.

Marwen stared. The only shoes she had ever owned had been braided from strips of old greatrug, rough and long-wearing.

The man looked up and into her eyes.

“I do not buy magic. This is a gift. For magic, I give grati­tude and much honor.”

Marwen did not smile. For the first time, she was getting what she had always thought a fitting price for her art: gratitude and honor. Now, however, it felt burdensome. She wondered what this gentleman could want from her, and a silent secret place inside her wondered if she had anything to give.

“I do not know what to do,” she said.

“What says your tapestry?” Crob asked glancing at her tapestry pouch.

Marwen blushed fiercely and looked at Maug defiantly. He smiled and continued whittling the bone into shavings. Crob made an impatient gesture with his hand. His voice was urgent.

“You know what it is to thirst,” he said to her. “I know of a lad, about your age, who thirsts unto death. If you will help me save him, there could be greater rewards for you than these shoes.”

Marwen did not hear the words of reward. She saw only the man wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“What is it you want of me?” she asked.

“Have you skill with locks?”

Marwen shook her head. “How so, when only the very rich have them? But I know the language of rock and metal.”

He nodded.

Marwen looked at this lump of a man who sat cross-legged before her. His dark hair was Verduman, she thought. All the tales she had ever heard of Verduma had been told her by Cud-gham, and all the tales were full of blood and venom.

“Are you Verduman?” she asked.

Crob looked at her for a moment. “Half Verduman,” he said, searching her face. “I was born on the divide, the son of a Venutian woman and a Verduman soldier.”

She had always listened to Cudgham, only half-believing, but now she tried to recall the stories and the descriptions of the Verdumans. They were a dark people, she remembered, long-nosed and broad-shouldered, a people who loved to fight and quarrel but who were famous for their bravery. Perhaps it was because for generations the Vean King had made his home in the province of Verduma, and from their mountain people, the Clouddwellers, the king chose his army. She thought of her father and her own Verduman blood.