The Dragon's Tapestry

Marwen felt the ground roll beneath her. She clutched at Politha. The wind whined, then whipped into a wail. Politha’s blind eyes shone white as the room was lit by another seam of lightning, but Marwen couldn’t hear the thunder. Above the thunder came the crashing of a great voice on the wind, a voice like the sound of a mountain crumbling.

“Listen!” Camlach shouted. Marwen listened. All the hair on her arms stood on end. The great voice was almost as indiscernable as the rumble of rain and thunder, but as she listened she thought she heard the words, “Nimroth ... Nimroth ...”

Maug grimaced and put his hands over his ears.

Crob and Camlach raced out of doors. Marwen ran after them. From all the houses men were running, their eyes lifted to the low dark sky, their hands white around sword hilts and bows. In the walled city below, black clouds of smoke billowed in the rain. Marwen could see no fire.

“There!” Camlach shouted above the shriek of the wind. He pointed upward. There was a fierce joy in his voice. “There is a sight that will make all other dreams die: Perdoneg!” His arms dropped, and he stood smiling savagely up at the clouds, his chest heaving.

At first Marwen could see nothing but the clouds rolling and steaming over the gray hills. Then she saw flames streak like sun­light to the west, and a moment later she made out the black shadowed shape of a creature whose great wings sucked and beat at the wind, and caused the clouds to wheel.

“Nimroth ...”

Camlach threw his arm around Marwen. She stopped looking at the clouds to look at him, but his eyes were fixed on the sky. “That is the wizard’s name,” he said. He laughed and gestured rudely to the sky. “I knew it already, Perdoneg. But he is not here!” His arm fell to his side, and the other arm dropped from around Marwen’s shoulders, but still he looked up. “Nimroth is not here,” he said.

Then the rain poured down in dense cold streams, and Mar­wen could scarcely see Camlach. The sky lightened faintly as they ran into the house, and norwind died away to windeven. Marwen did not look up. She knew the dragon was gone. 

Chapter Ten

Intelligence is the stem and stalk upon which agency blooms, the brilliant flower or life.

—The Tenets of the Tapestry

Maug was hunkered on the floor before the dying fire, Politha was stroking his arm and whispering a spell of calming. Camlach pushed past Maug, ignoring him. He pulled off his wet overshirt and began coaxing the fire back to life.

“So. I was not wrong. I followed what I thought was the trail of the wizard to Kebblewok, and if Perdoneg himself came here, then the trail I followed is the right one.”

“Camlach, tell me what you know of the wizard,” Marwen said. She knelt beside him on the hearth.

The wind was blowing less violently now, more plaintively, and the rain was falling like a whispered song. Marwen waited for Camlach to speak, listening to the wind in the chimney. She did not repeat herself, she knew he had heard. She had waited all her life for this, it seemed; she surely could wait these moments more. She reminded herself that if nightmares could come true, so could dreams. When he did speak, there was a nobility in his voice that caused Marwen to see him as if for the first time.

“I went to the old people first. Many would not speak to me. But after some days, I learned from the elders of a man whose name is Nimroth”—Marwen watched his lips carefully as they formed the word—“or thus he called himself in the foothills of the Verduman mountains where he lived. Folk of the heights claim he was studious and spent much of his time alone in his books. They say he became expert in the history of the tapestry and its meaning. When he first came to dwell with the mountain people, he loved to sing and recite poetry, but as time went on, he hinted at finding dangerous things, and one day he disap­peared. I think this man is the wizard.”

Marwen thought nothing, said nothing. She could hear each drop of rain falling on the straw roof. She counted each drop of rain that fell through the chimney onto the fire, watched it sizzle and smoke. Finally she looked at Maug. His upper lip was drawn back, and his right eyelid drooped almost shut, and she was afraid of him.

If it were true ... but it could not be.

It could not be.

“But where is he?” Politha asked. “A wizard would know that you cannot run away from a dragon. Besides, he would have left an heir. It is, by legend, the most important task of the wizard.”