The Dragon's Tapestry

Time was spinning her into a spidersilk cocoon. She knew that if she did not speak now, its threads would completely sur­round her, and she would not have another chance to tell it. She took a deep breath, felt the blood drain into her feet.

“I will tell you something,” she said. “The dragon is not in possession of his tapestry.”

No one spoke. She gripped the windowsill and raised her head high. She looked Maug in the eye.

“Master Clayware never spoke an untrue word, even you will not deny it, Maug. The dragon’s tapestry is in my father’s house, if his house still stands.”

Slowly Camlach stood up. Crob stood, too, and then Politha. Only Maug stayed close to the fire. He was playing with a hot coal, teasing it with the hearthspoon, blowing it bright red, let­ting it die, smiling grimly.

“That is a precious secret indeed,” said Camlach. “What is your father’s name, and where does he live?”

Marwen stared intently at the dying ember for a moment and then raised her head to look full into the Prince’s eyes.

“I am told he was from Verduma, and that his name was...” She swallowed. Her hands were shaking.

Camlach’s beaten face filled her vision.

“My father’s name was Nimroth,” she said.

As in the faceted eye of a wingwand she saw him, confusion and revelation breaking upon his face by turns, a hundred pol­ished planes of Camlach, peering down at her, seeing into her heart; and then only one face and one emotion: relief.

She was shaking her head and saying, “No, no, do not think it, it cannot be....” even before he grasped her arms and cried aloud.

“By the Mother!” He looked around the room at the others and back to her. He held her as if she would vanish under his grasp. “By the Mother! It explains the strength of your gift at so young an age, and the spell you cast so unwittingly over my heart, and why you were led here.... If this house in Verduma, the one of which I spoke, if this were your father’s house ... no wonder the dragon seems drawn to it. If it contains the dragon’s tapestry ... Is your father alive or dead?”

Looking into his face, she could believe it. Almost. “I don’t know. He never came for me,” she said.

“In any case, you are the wizard’s heir.”

She felt her face crumple into a frown. “A wizard’s heir would be so much greater than I.”

“It is a fearful thing to become one’s own god,” Camlach said. He bent his knees so that he might look into her eyes. “It does not lower your god but raises you. What god wants her child forever to eat the dust before her eyes?” Then he laughed exultantly and lifted her in his arms.

“Enough!”

All eyes turned to Maug. The heavy hearthspoon was in his hand, and his hand twitched. Camlach let her down gently, but his hand gripped her arm.

“She? The wizard’s heir? This skinny gray-faced girl who cheats her way into her Naming. You who call yourself a prince, look in her tapestry pouch. Look! It is empty. She is a soulless one, born with no tapestry. Could a soulless one be the wizard’s heir?”

Camlach laughed shortly, unbelievingly, and then, looking at Marwen’s face, became silent.

The silence in the room pressed in on Marwen’s ears, pressed down on her head so heavily that she felt she must collapse under the weight of it. Even the wind died suddenly, and the tiny whisper of the hourglass stopped. Crob and Politha had bent their heads down, but Crob glanced up at her with huge pity in his eyes.

“No, not soulless. I am not soulless. My tapestry was burned,” Marwen said, looking from face to face. Camlach’s hands had dropped away from her arm, and where he had touched, her arm felt cold. “My stepfather burned it—that was when I turned him into an ip....”

“Liar,” Maug said quietly. He took a stride toward her, rais­ing the soot-smeared hearthspoon, and then he stopped.

Between him and Marwen was the ip, its tail stiff in a fighting stance, its red tongue flickering. It hissed at Maug, and he stepped back, ashen-faced.

There was another long heavy silence.

“That is no ordinary ip,” Crob said finally, pointing.

“The girl is no ordinary Oldwife,” Politha said. “If you have a witness, I will remake your tapestry, child.”

Marwen almost cried out in pain at the disappointment in Politha’s voice. She had deceived this kind old woman.

“My stepfather is the only witness, and I—I cannot reverse the spell. I have tried every spell in the Songbook. That is why I sought the Oldest, thinking she could help me.”

Politha shook her head.

Marwen had not dared to look at Camlach. She could not bear to see his belief in her become suspicion.

“She has no tapestry to reweave. I have known her since we were children,” Maug said to Politha. He looked at the hearth-spoon in his hand and set it down. “But you can remake my tapestry for me, that was burned by the dragon.”

“And who will witness for you?” the old woman asked sharply.

“Marwen,” Maug answered. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and smoothed it.