The Dragon's Tapestry

“Fedderweed,” he said gruffly. “It is poisonous. It seems to be good only to provide cover.”

The wingwands ignored the fedderweed and grazed on the grass that lay crushed and blown beneath like old yellow hair.

“I have never seen such large flowers....” Marwen said.

“Silence!” the soldier growled, crouching in the weeds. He pointed to the hill that rose before them. “See there. That is Perdoneg’s favorite sleeping place, around the top. He is gone now, but your voice is loud enough for a dragon’s ears to hear all the way to the border.”

The hill looked familiar to her and beautiful but for the black­ened patches where the grass had been burned away.

“Where is Prince Camlach?”

The soldier nodded toward the hill.

“Near the top of that hill is a house that Perdoneg continues to spare.” Marwen looked in the direction that Torbil gestured. Nestled in a dimple of the hill near the age-worn summit was the small house of clay and straw bricks, thatch-roofed and snug, just as she had seen it twice before. She could see only vaguely the wild flowers that grew over the fence, around the doorway of the house, and out of the coping stones, the delicate color of flowers that grow without seeding in wild places. But all around the yard, where flowers had been when Marwen had had the seeing in the well, was a black charred scar, and in soft dark lumps on the slope lay the roasted remains of the weedsheep that had once grazed there.

Torbil was whispering, a sound like rolling gravel. “He senses when anyone comes near it and kills all who approach. How the Prince got up there only the Mother knows. Crob has gone to bring some of the women and children from Rune-dar to the house, but before he left he sent me for the Oldwife of Rute.

His message to her was: ‘There is some magic in this house. Come help us find it.’ I am to go with you to the house.”

Marwen could hear the fear in his voice. If she failed, he, too, would die.

But Marwen was not afraid. From the beginning of time, she had been meant to see this house, to go into it, and to find its secret—the power that preserved it from Perdoneg’s fire. Still the gods did not love the foolish and would expect her to use good sense. She could not risk walking boldly up the side of the hill, for the wings of the dragon were swift and silent, and if he were not here now, he could be in the next breath.

Marwen knelt before a particularly large fedderweed, its branches reaching out like thin arms, its fleshy leaves finely veined.

“Hail, lady fedderweed, dressed in green lace and jeweled in gold. I am Marwen Oldwife of Marmawell, daughter of Nimroth, the wizard who once walked among you. I need your help.”

Immediately the wind sang softly through the plant’s leaves. Marwen listened, and it seemed after a time that she heard, beyond the fair song of the fedderweed, a deeper voice, a richer song. She began to walk toward the sound.

“Come,” Marwen whispered to the soldier. He stood staring as she walked a few paces and then, bending low, he rushed to catch up.

“I do not hold with any Venutian sorcery,” he said behind her.

She gestured to him for silence. The song was one of great beauty and sadness and pain. It became louder as they came closer to the hill. They circled it to its northern slope.

Marwen’s thighs cramped, walking hunched as she was, but the song grew ever nearer and stronger. At last, when they were practically at the foot of the hill, Marwen saw the singer.

She had no name for what she saw, and she stared open­ mouthed. It was not grass or flower but a god of soil and stem, nevertheless. Beside it she felt soft and young. The soldier looked at her and said, “Tree. It is called tree.” Then he thought for a moment and added, “There are trees in the mountains, but this one comes from a place where there are many such giant plants, and the wingwands could fit into the palm of your hand. Or so the legend goes.”

Its huge stem was covered in tough brown hide, and its limbs were muscular and tuberous. One of the large branches, a frac­tion of the tree itself, had been torn away, leaving an open white wound and the remaining branches cupping cold sky where once had been living green.

Marwen shook her head in disbelief and walked slowly toward the tree. It smelled clean like rain, sweet like the earth, and in its wind-frayed leaves, the breezes tossed and played. Among its leaves were white fruit bearing down the branches.

“By the gods—Perdoneg! He’s back!” Torbil whispered fiercely, his voice just short of shrieking. Marwen glanced upward a moment to the north sky where the sun burned hot and bright on the scales of a great winged creature. Before it flew a frantic group of wingwands and riders. She looked again at the tree.

“Ah,” she said softly, circling the tree and touching it gently with her fingers.

“Hide us,” Torbil said desperately.

Behind the tree the hill rose sharply upward, and where the tree’s feet were rooted in the earth was a small cave.