The Dragon's Tapestry

“They’re cheap today. Nobody buying today, see. Three gold discs is all—take yer pick.” Crob stepped closer, but the boy barred his way with his prodder. “No closer please. They bite.” He grinned, baring his brown teeth, and winked.

Crob growled, but Camlach shook his head, warning him silently not to make a scene. “That one, then,” Crob said point­ing to a handsome female with pale blue head, feet, and wings.

“Ah, Chalkhill Blue. Good choice, ol’ molehead,” the boy said. Crob growled again.

“I will have the young male with the hump,” Camlach said quickly. He had chosen a huge orange and scarlet beast, and when its wings rustled, they flickered like flame. It appeared to be a muscular animal, though its backfur, even from here, looked dirty and matted.

“Wi-Bisti,” the boy nodded.

“And one more,” Camlach said. Marwen met his eyes. His eyelids were blue from bruising and his lip seemed drawn down by a scar on his mouth. He was much better. But even in the cage where she’d first seen him there hadn’t been this much pain in his eyes. He didn’t smile at her, but neither did he look away. “Your price was one wingwand. You can share your mount with Maug if you will.”

Marwen nodded once and pointed into the herd. “I will have that one, the mottle-brown.”

The naked boy shook his head. “That one don’t have a name. Flew into the herd during the storm. Could be bad luck, but,” he winked and grinned, “too late now.” He led the three beasts they had chosen away from the rest of the herd and pocketed the money Camlach gave him. “The folks is as good as the peo­ple, now,” he said, and he sauntered back to the herd, wielding his prodder like a cane.

The beasts were hungry. Their antennae drooped. Crob shook his head and ran his hand over the blistered hocks and hinds of his animal. He was sweating. “This one—I am not sure she can carry very fat me.”

Camlach examined his animal in disgust, then looked up at the dirty lad. “I ought to teach you not to cheat your betters,” he said.

“Who is better, scarface?” the boy said laughing, and then he stopped. His prodder fell to his side. “Say, don’t that scarface look familiar?” In the next moment he was gone, running on bare silent feet.

“I don’t like that lad. We should be swift,” Crob said.

Marwen patted her wingwand. It was a docile creature, and, though its backfur had been fouled by the black greasy rain, it was by far the best of the three.

“Mothball is your name,” she said.

“Look, she has never been clipped,” Camlach said, reaching under Mothball’s wing, but as he did so, his hand brushed Marwen’s hand.

Marwen stood still. She did not look at Camlach. But the hand Camlach had touched trembled and from that one touch the blood rolled in her veins like some scalding magic.

Camlach, too, was still. “She may be a wild wingwand or one half-tamed that escaped,” he said. “She may be hard to control.”

Marwen said nothing.

“Were it not for your magic, Marwen, I would be dead,” he said, moving closer. “Come to me when you have your tapestry.”

“I will not come,” she said.

His face was quiet, but his eyes were filled with the look of one who had wakened to find his dreams are not real.

“Come,” he said again.

“If I have any pride I will not come,” she said, but the blood-magic made her shake her head and smile. “So expect me.”

“Guards!” hissed Crob.

Maug leaped onto Mothball.

“Ho! You! Halt!” A tangle of soldiers ran with heavy booted feet toward them. One of them was a guard that had watched over Camlach when he was entombed.

Marwen mounted the wingwand in front of Maug. Camlach was still watching her, smiling. “Watch, Prince,” she said. “Watch how I fly this wild wingwand.”

“Fly! Fly!” Crob called to Camlach, but the Prince was watching her. Mothball bucked once and then rose into the air, flying south and east.

Below her, Marwen could see the soldiers were almost upon Camlach, and his wingwand was slow in takeoff. Marwen whis­pered a spell into the wind, a spell for strength to his beast and Crob’s. Then they, too, were airborne.

The rain had turned the brown muscled hills green.

The solid gray sky closed the world in like a vast empty skull, with low-floating cloud like bits of white matter still clinging to the bone. In the east a vein of bloodred sunlight oozed through on the horizon, and the wind blew, moaning and uneasy, like the ghosts of bad dreams.

Before, Marwen had always felt healing and happiness in the hills, and she had milked their magic into her being. But these hills withheld their power, as though they would force her back. When Mothball landed to eat near a spring, Marwen stayed close to the beast, feeding her flowers—fon and bugboots, and gall-pollen where she could find it. Maug hovered nearby like a shad­ow, silent, dark, and distorted, until she sent him away to look for more treats for Mothball. He disappeared over a hill, and Marwen filled her lungs with air.