Marwen felt bile burning in the back of her throat. “Go away, old woman!” she called. Maug jumped up.
The Taker lifted her head, though Marwen could tell she saw little. She laughed sweetly and waved with stiff spotted fingers.
“No, go away!” Marwen screamed. “Is not Grondil’s life enough? Is not a whole village enough to fill you?”
The old woman shuffled on, reaching out her arms toward Marwen as if she would embrace her. Marwen began stepping backward, then turned and ran. Maug ran beside her until they reached Opalwing. Marwen’s fingers shook as she pulled the stockings from the wingwand’s antennae. Maug had already mounted and given the signal to fly before Marwen had a chance to mount.
But the wingwand did not move. Marwen jumped on in front, too frightened to be angered or repulsed by Maug’s arms reaching around her waist.
“Fly, Opalwing, fly!” She pushed her hands cruelly into the space between the beast’s head and body shells.
Then the wingwand’s legs buckled and they had to jump from her back to avoid being pinned as the beast collapsed.
“Opalwing!” Her terror turned to disbelief and anger, for attached to Opalwing’s leg, still venting its swift venom, was the creature Cudgham-ip.
Marwen wrenched it off by the tail. “Anything, so as not to be left behind?” she hissed.
Then the sound of the old woman’s wheezing breath was behind her, and without looking back Marwen ran, still holding Cudgham by the tail. Maug, gasping for breath, ran beside her.
Marwen ran until her legs were heavy as stone, and she could not breathe without pain. She looked back. She could not see the Taker. She lay down and closed her eyes until she could no longer feel her heart beating. She still held the ip by the tail.
Maug lay down on his back. He was panting, his arms spread out. Marwen watched his chest rise and fall and noticed how large his hands were. She sat up.
“Why does the Taker follow us?” he asked, rolling his head toward her.
Marwen frowned. Her breath was coming more easily now.
“Who am I to explain the ways of the Taker?”
“Can you feel her presence still?”
“No. She is gone.” She was holding Cudgham-ip by the tail, glaring into his mobbleberry eyes. The tip of his red tongue was sticking out.
Maug stood up. “I will return for the pack,” he said.
“No, please, don’t. I am afraid,” Marwen said, dropping the ip into her apron pocket. She did not want to return to the place where Opalwing lay dead. Worse still was the thought of remaining alone.
Maug looked at her strangely and said, “I cannot see the Taker, but I can see these hills, that they grow no leaf or berry. Even ips can starve to death in a desert. Since the wingwand is dead, we must either carry the pack or the Taker herself on our backs, for we will soon starve.”
Marwen looked around at the rolling hills, bald and brown and stretching into the horizon. It was as though they walked upon the back of some vast gold-furred monster that threatened to awaken and devour them.
“I will come with you,” she said.
When they reached Opalwing lying dead, her wings spread softly on the sharp grass, Maug spat.
“By the Mother! You should chase that ip into the desert for this.”
Marwen said nothing but watched as he shouldered the pack with ease.
“Better still, throw the thing.”
“No,” she said.
“Why not? The creatures can’t run very fast. Toss it and be rid of it,” he insisted.
Marwen felt her heart’s blood drain. It was all different now, just the two of them alone in the desert, but she was still afraid of him.
“You forget that this is not an ordinary ip, Maug. It is Cud-gham.” She drew him from her pocket and watched as he batted the air with his stumpy legs but less energetically than before.
Maug snorted. “All right, then, say he’s Cudgham—so what?” He gestured with his head confidingly, as if to keep it from Cudgham-ip. “Chuck him. Good riddance, right?”
“You don’t understand, Maug. I need Cudgham-ip like you need me. He is the only witness to my tapestry, and by one witness it may be remade.”
“But you don’t have—” He broke off.
A slow realization made her eyes narrow.
“You just want me to get rid of him because then you will be stronger than I am.”
Maug spat again and shook his head.
“And what should I do for a tapestry without you?” he said, but a shifting of his eyes told her she had guessed right.
“Do remember that,” she said.
She set her face toward Kebblewok, and they began to walk.
She listened for the water as the grandfather stone had advised her and often found natural wells surfacing in the hollows. There they would drink and dig up the roots of stickstem and sleep uneasily, and always the Taker followed in her dreams.
The only creatures they saw were ips and insects and sometimes the track or spoor of a bisor beast. Wind after wind, through many cycles of winds, they walked. Their food ran out quickly, and along the way they discarded the remainder of their gear as even the slightest weight on their shoulders became a torture. Marwen left their things as gifts for the little gods of the wells, and so usually they found water. Sometimes she caught Maug looking at her, but always he would look away. He was not kind to her, but he was no longer cruel either. Their sufferings bound them. Spiny bloodpetal pierced their ragged shoes and filled their feet with slivers when they became tired and accidentally stepped on them. Their homemade shoes were soon rags, their ankles and calves were scraped and raw from brushing the thorns of ghostflower that proliferated on the dry slopes. But they kept the dawnmonth sun to their right and Marwen thought that, if she lived, she would make a song for this.
One day they saw a wingwand flying overhead. They screamed and jumped until they were sure they had been seen, and long before the rider landed, they recognized the red-legged markings of Peggypin and knew that it was Buffle Spicetrader.
Relief flooded Marwen’s being like a warm bath. He must have escaped, being away on a journey to the market in Kebblewok. She ran toward him, waving and smiling, feeling terribly young, promising herself to be humble with the man. Maug, too, waved and called out.
But as she approached, Buffle’s eyes grew wide with recognition. He made the sign to ward off evil and flew away. Maug did not seem surprised but said nothing.
Soon after that Marwen ceased to long for food. She found less and less water at wells along the way, certainly not enough to bathe her feet. She muttered weak little spells of healing on their bruised and bleeding feet that, although they did not close their wounds, at least prevented infection. But fatigue was her greatest burden. She did not sleep well, even when she found a bit of soft grass around a well upon which to he. The Taker continued to appear in her dreams, waking her, forcing her on and on.
When they had lost all count of winds and days, and the sun had climbed noticeably higher in the east, and when they had become thin and brown, and when the songs would no longer allow themselves to be sung, then they saw the buildings of Kebblewok nestled in the lap of the hills like a child-god’s play toys.
Chapter Seven
Freshwind, nuwind, estwind,
three winds from the east.
Norwind, cullerwind, windeven,
three winds of the beast.
Windsign, wixwind, wywind,
three winds blow for sleep.