The Dragon's Tapestry

“I will not go.”

“Then I must leave you here in the hills, and Loobhan is many days’ journey yet.” She gathered Cudgham-ip into her apron pocket. As she straightened, Maug threw his arms around her to bind her. She struggled to breathe against the press of his arms.

“Leave me, and I will live to hate you,” he whispered into her ear. “I will drink of my loathing for you and eat of my revulsion every step of my way across these hills. And if I die, I will die cursing you.”

“Maug, I’ll come back,” she said struggling. “I’ll stand wit­ness for your tapestry.... I promise....”

“You will die. Nothing can stand against the Serpent.”

His fingers dug into her breast. She closed her eyes and saw the white fingers in the places of magic inside her, and she saw herself peeling them back and back....

There was a snapping sound, and Maug fell away with a yelp. He squirmed on the ground until she went to him and with a word healed his broken finger.

“Come with me,” she made herself say.

He did not answer, only looked at her with eyes she could not understand, white eyes.

Marwen hesitated and then took her tapestry pouch from around her waist. She put the wingwand ornament that Camlach had carved for her into her apron pocket along with Cudgham-ip and gathered some rocks to put in the tapestry pouch. She whispered a spell over them and watched as they glowed red-hot, then handed them to Maug.

“With this you can roast roots and leaves to make them edi­ble.” She turned to Mothball and removed the stockings from her antennae. “Come, let us fly.”

She dropped the old rusted lock near the spring as they rose into the air, and then Marwen set her face northward, toward Verduma. She felt the white fingers become longer, and then there were arms and wings, but they could not pull her back. 

Chapter Twelve

TAKER POEM

Hite! Lither! Dollorum dello,

The taker's feet are shod in yellow

Wiss! Morah! Dollorum deen,

Her body's shroud in grassy green

Tood! Nimmel! Dollorum du,

The taker's bib is bright and blue

Ruut! Panlo! Dollorum day,

The taker's eyes are dim and gray

—A Vean child's nursery rhyme 

She could feel the searchings of Perdoneg over her head like a tangible roof, a hard sky alive with eyes and ears, hunting but too far away. He looked too far, unaware that she flew toward him. Like a chant, in rhythm to the beat of Mothball’s wings in the heavy hot air of midsummer sun, she murmured spells of concealment and hid­ing. She did not venture near the cities and avoided springs and rivers whenever she could. Her eyes became dull with searching the bright empty sky for dragonfire, and though once she saw black smoke blooming like a bitter flower in the distance, she did not see the dragon with her own eyes. Always he pulled at her with his mind, called to her but from too far away.

The hills were not kind to Marwen, for they hid their springs, and there was little food to forage. Only Cudgham-ip grew fat, for though Marwen’s supplies ran out quickly, she was careful to feed him.

She crossed the northern bay and entered Verduma further up the coast, avoiding the border cities. When finally she landed on the lush Verduman coast, she had eaten almost nothing for many winds, but she felt safe. She felt lost. Perdoneg had lost her and did not suspect that she would fly to his hill where he slept between foragings like a great black worm.

There was a weatherworn shack near the beach where she had landed, and for a moment she thought it was the shack she had seen in the spring. Flowers grew thick around the salt-bleached boards of the house and spilled out of window baskets and grew in ledges along the roof. The sweet-pepper smell of grasses and flowers filled the salt air. But it was not the same shack she had seen in the spring. She thought she might beg for a little bread there or perhaps buy some for the favor of sharpening a knife or two, but first she must bathe. Under the noonmonth sun Marwen swam in the sea until her fingertips and toes were wrinkled. By then her hunger was keen enough to give her courage to knock at the east window of the shack. She could see the shadow of a bed and a chair, and a bake-box was blackening over the fire.

A little face appeared, peeping above the sill, a girl with flow­ers braided into her hair. In a moment a larger and thinner ver­sion of the child’s face came to the window, her mother.

“What pretty hair she has, momma,” the little girl said. The woman put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and said nothing.

“Please,” Marwen said, “I have had little but stickstem roots to eat for days. Have you any bread for a traveler?”

“We are poor,” she said simply. “My husband is sick.” The woman began to turn away.