The Dragon's Tapestry

The magic was in her tapestry, she knew it, and she vowed then, with hen bones and wingwand droppings underfoot, that when she had her tapestry remade, she would fit it. She wanted to run toward this lad, Camlach who died so nobly, whose quest was her own but who dared to say it before scores of people. True belief could never be secret.

This, she knew, was what the magic was for: not for shoes, not even for gratitude and honor but for this: to make right that which was wrong. But even as she thought this, she felt the magic tighten its arms around her, binding her, restricting her, owning her. Every knowledge bore a responsibility; it did not liberate her but exacted a price. She remembered the hourglass Grondil had sketched into the dirt floor, and her words: “The higher your powers, the narrower become your options to use them.”

Ahead of her, Crob was sweating. Maug clenched his jaw so that the sides of his face throbbed. Few were in the streets, only a blind beggar and a soldier or two dozing on their feet.

When they arrived at ‘death-in-a-cage,’ Camlach was awake. No guards were within view, but Marwen could hear drunken laughter not far off. The fever in the lad made his face swollen and dry, and his eyes gleam. There were new purple bruises on his arms and chest, old ones had become yellow and brown, and an ugly gash to his temple oozed blood. He tried to smile when they came close, but he did not stir.

“Since you came, I have been afraid to sleep for fear it would be my last. Is it now that you will release me?”

“Now,” Marwen said tenderly. She saw that he had hardly dared to hope.

“I’m not sure I can walk,” he said.

“Maug and I will help you, lad,” Crob said.

Maug had been standing apart, as if on lookout. He coughed softly and reluctantly came closer. “Hurry,” he said, the sweat glistening in the furrows of his forehead.

Marwen looked past him to a wingwand soaring. The magic in her became peaceful, and she felt a cool serenity still her heart. In that moment she was utterly sure of her power.

She placed three fingers gently on the padlock. The lock had forgotten the language of its birth as rock and raw metal, and knew now only the language of a tool that has listened to the whispering out of a thousand souls.

“I am old, I am old,” it told Marwen.

In the language of creation, Marwen told the lock how she could return it to its mother earth, and in the next moment, the padlock’s rusted pins gave way and fell into her palm. She dropped the lock into her apron pocket; the ip hissed and rewound itself into a smaller ball. Marwen quietly swung the bars aside while Crob leaned in with his arms outstretched, and Maug stood nervously beside him ready to help, albeit grudg­ingly.

It took all their strength to help him out, for though Camlach was wasted and thin from many days of fasting, still he was lanky, taller by a head than Maug and Crob, and built in the shoulders like a man already. He leaned on them heavily, but Marwen had no wits to help them. The very air sang to her of danger. She thought she could hear footsteps.

“Where can we hide?” she whispered to Crob.

Then Crob and Maug, too, heard the footsteps and increased their pace. “There is no place to hide,” Crob said with such a heavy accent that Marwen would not have been able to under­stand him had she not already known the answer.

“We shall have to leave him,” Maug said.

“If the guards come near, show them your pet,” Crob said to Marwen between clenched teeth. It was clear that the young man was becoming too heavy for them.

At that moment two voices rang out in rage, and Marwen knew that the empty maw meant to be Camlach’s tomb had been discovered. Soon, she knew, their cries would be echoed in every street, and they would be safe nowhere.

“Faster!” Crob said.

Camlach threw his head back and groaned. “No, leave me here. I think my ankle is broken.”

“Will we all die for one?” Maug snarled. His face was wet and gray.

“Not much farther, lad,” Crob whispered to Camlach. He looked at Marwen desperately.

From every direction Marwen could hear booted feet running and angry calls, but the feeling of peace had fallen over her again like a soft cloak, and she realized she knew where she was in the maze of streets. She knew where she was and who, around the next corner, she would find.

“This way,” she whispered to Crob, and then she ran ahead and around the corner. There, like a queen on a throne, sat the blind old blanket woman, Politha.

Marwen looked into the woman’s calm unseeing eyes as she approached, breathless. “Grandmother, let your hands be blessed. Please answer me this question. Who wove these fine blankets?” she asked, but she knew the answer already.

“I wove them, child,” she said.

Marwen bent on one knee and picked up the old woman’s hands. The wrinkled skin felt like spidersilk over bone.

“And what else do you weave, Politha? Do you weave the tapestry, or am I mistaken?”