“What thing?”
Marwen looked over at Maug who stirred in his sleep.
“Do you wish for some cheese?” Marwen said to Camlach more loudly. She scrambled to her feet and brought the platter to him.
“Thank you,” he said, but instead of taking the cheese, he took her free hand, firmly, gently.
“Here,” he said, his eyes upon her steadily. “This is for you, to say thank you for helping me.” Into her hand he placed the soap carving, a replica of a wingwand in flight. Vividly Marwen saw Opalwing’s white wings fanning her.
Camlach’s hand lingered on hers. In his eyes was a questioning, a probing, as if he would see into her soul, and at that moment she was afraid. Not even Grondil had looked so deep.
She backed up a pace and stopped, feeling like a wild animal, cornered and wary of every sudden movement. She looked at the door as if she would flee and then back to Camlach. His face was kind.
“When you touched me, I felt fire,” she whispered.
Camlach’s eyes left her for only a brief moment to glance at Politha, but it was enough. Marwen saw the old woman raise her hand to her mouth and her blind eyes widen.
“Fire, Marwen?” Camlach said softly.
Marwen lowered her eyes, confused. “It was not unpleasant,” she said.
Politha covered her face with her apron, then pulled it down and groped her way to Marwen.
“It is a sacred thing you are feeling,” she said gently, but Marwen thought she turned a stern face to Camlach. “like a wild wingwand, it must be tamed and bridled before it can serve us.”
Marwen’s stomach felt pleasantly uneasy, the way it did just before she made magic. She ran her fingers over the smooth white soap carving and wondered what magic there was in the hands that made it. “I have never before owned such a lovely thing,” she said. “Thank you.”
Camlach did not smile, but his voice was as soft as spellwork. “Let it remind you of a wild wingwand and of me.”
Marwen gazed silently at Camlach for a moment and then nodded.
Into the pouch on her belt, in which most people carried their tapestries, Marwen placed the ornament, being careful to let no one see that it went to the very bottom. Now more than ever before, she longed to fill that pouch and hold her future safely in her own hands.
She did not see that Maug had awakened and that from his dark corner, his eyes were bright and cold.
Chapter Nine
"Farrell, most beautiful of Oldwives, thou art become wise.'
"Nay, lord, I am of all womeh most unknowing."
"And again more wise."
When are you going to ask Politha?” Maug whispered. Marwen was kneading flatpans for their journey, sprinkling puffs of heavy brown flour carelessly onto the dough. She wasn’t very good at this and wished she’d paid more attention to Grondil’s instructions in the kitchen.
“Politha?”
“About reweaving my tapestry. You promised that you’d ask the first Oldwife we came to.” He stood beside her, slope-shouldered and sullen.
Marwen looked up furtively. “Shhh!”
“I’ll tell them about you,” Maug said. There was a nervous bitter edge to his voice, but he kept it low enough that no one else could hear.
Marwen gripped his forearm with a dry doughy hand.
“Maug, not here. Not Politha. Can you not wait until we reach the Oldest?”
He said nothing for a time, and Marwen began to knead the dough again without taking her eyes off him. They both listened to the sound of Crob’s hammer against a boot heel. Finally Maug said, “The Oldest then. But remember, I’m not afraid of you.”
Marwen struggled not to glare at him. She put the bread in the bake box over the fire and sat with the others. It had become dark with thunderclouds, and the wind began to batter cold at the windowboards. They would not leave until the storm was over. She looked around the room for Cudgham-ip, but she could not see him.
The fire tossed and popped as it burned rushweed braids, casting demon shadows that danced on sheets of leather curing on frames. The fire shadows danced on the knobs and points and blades of the cobbling tools. The east window remained shut against the worsening storm. Camlach spoke, and Crob, Maug, Marwen, and Politha listened intently.
“You cannot imagine the destruction,” he said. “Entire villages burned to the ground, men and women and little children scorched and blistered and charred black, screaming until their throats are swollen shut, and they die. Those that survive have nothing to eat, for the grain is burnt to stubble. Ashes fall like snow on villages to the south, and the sun is hidden in smoke.”
Camlach swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It had been only a few winds since his rescue, but the spells had brought much healing already. “Your words constrain me to believe,” Crob said, and he shook his huge head in sorrow.
“Has this dragon a name?” Politha asked.
“Perdoneg,” Camlach said.
Politha’s gasp was not heard, for the wind howled at the windowsill in that moment and died away to a moan.
“Perdoneg?” Politha said in a half-whisper. “Are you sure?”
“It is the name he gives himself,” Camlach said and then, looking at Politha soberly, he added, “If there is some knowledge that you have concerning this thing, please tell it for the sake of all Ve.”
“I will tell what I know, lad,” the blind woman said after a moment, “not for the sake of Ve but for the sake of magic. The story was passed down to me from my grandmother who made me memorize it carefully.”
She rocked a little from side to side, and Marwen felt her invoke a story spell.
“In ancient times there were many dragons, and they roamed the world and had divers powers. But they were small dragons, and grown men with their wits about them could defend themselves against one. It was the vestige of these that I thought was in your land. In that day many wizards roamed the land, also, bringing peace and prosperity to the people of Ve. An Oldwife in that day could live her entire life without ever burying an unfulfilled tapestry.
“But the people were not happy. ‘Why should we endure these dragons that torment us and even carry off our children?’ they complained, and so the wizards began to destroy the dragons one by one. After a few generations, the population of the dragons had been substantially depleted, but the records also say that fewer and fewer men were born with the power. Then one day, in this long ago time, there was only one wizard to be found in all the land, though he was a great and powerful and good wizard.”
Marwen’s legs were folded under her, but at this she sat up straight on her knees. “I know his name: Morda-hon.” Politha nodded, and Marwen snapped her fingers in satisfaction. The old woman continued.
“It was thought by the people that all the dragons had been destroyed, but they were mistaken. One day from across the water came an immense creature that filled the sky when it flew, eating wingwands whole and able to curl around an entire mountain to sleep. The creature had given itself a name: Perdoneg.
“Morda-hon was wise and realized that as all the light was now in himself, so all the darkness was embodied in Perdoneg, and to destroy one would be to destroy the other. Morda-hon spoke to Perdoneg of this wisdom, and they conversed for many days. But the nature of the darkness is to want to comprehend and overcome the light, and finally Perdoneg laughed and said he had come to destroy a wizard and his heir, and that he would do so.
“Then ensued a great battle, and in the end Perdoneg was imprisoned by Morda-hon in the land of the lost—that place where come to dwell all those dead whose tapestries are unfulfilled. There Perdoneg became lord and master of unfinished souls. It is said that many generations of wizards have lived since then, descending in secrecy, for as belief in dragons disappeared, so did belief in wizards.”