Politha stopped speaking. The fire cast sharp shadows on the faces of the four, and Marwen thought she could see them all burning in dragon’s breath. In the silence of fire and wind, the old woman added, “It has been long since I have found the courage, in this age of disbelief, to say such a thing, to speak of the wizard. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the magic truly fades from Ve. The Songs tell of an age when the magic will be done away with, when evil will have its chance to reign in Ve. Perhaps that day is now come.”
“The magic is not fading,” Marwen said starting, as if awakening from a dream.
Politha chuckled. “I should have known better than to try and keep this one under a story spell.” Crob grunted and bent over his work again.
“Grondil, my mother, interpreted the tapestry without error and wove both truth and prophecy with her threads,” Marwen said. “Her spells graced the spice gardens, for which Marmawell is known, and brought safely into the world every child in the village. And you, Politha, who learned the art of weaving so well, you who wove a blanket of invisibility, can you say that there is no magic in those hands that see what your eyes do not?”
Politha smiled and nodded.
“The Oldwives of the smaller villages have not entirely lost their art, it is true. But did your mother not teach you, child, of the way it was in ancient times, when the Oldwives’ spells were not restricted to kitchens and gardens and inkle looms, when an Oldwife could be granted the gift of the staff as was Farrell of Old. Ah, Marwen, once there was a time when the Oldwife of the village was not feared but loved and respected. You, Marwen—were the children kind to you, honoring you for your gift?”
For a moment Marwen feared that every taunt and cruel trick she had endured was revealed in some way to the others in the room, and that they, too, seeing her weakness and vulnerability, would despise her. She glanced at Maug. He looked steadily down at the floor. She felt the walls expand, and Camlach seemed far away.
“I thought not,” Politha said gently. “In the cities, here in Kebblewok and in other places, only the devoted use the services of the Oldwives for anything other than the making of the tapestry for their children, and even the tapestry has become less sacred, a thing to speak of lightly, even to ignore. They do not teach their children to believe in the magic. The Oldwives have become midwives. True, the people do still make sacrifice to the One Mother, but it is holiday, not worship. Perhaps, perhaps the dragon will instruct us, will send us running to our tapestries....” Quietly, tunelessly, into the silence, she began to sing, her old voice quavering and haunting:
When she was done, Crob arose from his cobbler’s bench and fed the fire with more rushweed braids, as if he were cold.
Cudgham-ip crawled from some damp corner of the cottage into Politha’s lap. Everyone in the room became still. He lay there double-blinking in slow motion, first one eye, then the other, again and again hypnotically. Hesitantly the old woman touched the creature’s leathery skin.
Crob jumped to grab her hand away, his accent heavy when he spoke. “Is good, is fine, Politha. Is pet, see, Marwen’s pet, but—uh—don’t touch.”
“So there you are,” Marwen said. She picked the lizard up by the tail where he dangled undignified. “I thought I had lost you,” she said. Angered at the relief in her voice, she added in a half-whisper, “No loss.”
“Now there is magic!” Camlach said, amazed.
Marwen shrugged one shoulder and dropped the ip into her apron pocket. She opened her mouth to tell them all about the remarkable spell she had done to transform a man into a lizard, but she closed her mouth again. She had not been able to reverse the spell. She looked about the room for some object with which to display her magic but could see nothing for the gathering smoke. She smiled.
“If the magic were fading, could a mere Oldwife do this?” Marwen said. She stretched her arms out, fingers extended. Slowly the smoke gathered like breeze-blown mist between her outstretched arms, its grayness acquiring a gritty texture, darker, heavier.
Marwen smiled to herself, partly in pride, partly in the pure joy of the magic. It was a mastery like no other, in which she tuned her spirit to see all other things in their spirit form and then commanded them to be as she willed, as a painter wills color, as a weaver wills thread, as a poet wills words. The smoke that had only a short time before spoken the language of growing rushweed gathered at her fingertips and allowed itself to be molded and formed into the shape of a large ip, its tongue leaping from its mouth like a lick of fire.
Marwen laughed quietly as she saw through the haze of her little trance the astonished faces of Maug and Crob. But then the laughter died to a hiccough, and her hands dropped to her sides.
Always before, a smoke sculpture had faded as quickly as it was made, leaving the watchers wondering if their eyes had tricked them. But this time it did not fade; it boiled and bubbled and was no longer an ip but a dragon, its tongue a flame. Tiny glowing embers that burst from the fire hovered in the dragon’s head like eyes, and the eyes turned to Marwen and saw.
Marwen cried out, and her breath made the smoke wings lift. The wind outside beat on the house like the sound of great wings. The windowboard burst open, and the wind roared like fire and wailed like children in pain. Crob jumped up and pushed the windows closed.
“What is it?” Politha was saying. “What is the matter?”
Gritting his teeth, Camlach rolled on to his knees, thrust a fist into the smoke dragon. Shards of smoke roiled around the room a moment and then faded.
For a long time, the room was full of silence. The wind shook the loose windowboards, and the rain fell hard as hail into the thatched roof.
“I’m sorry—I don’t know what happened,” Marwen said. “It is a trick I have done since childhood.” Marwen could still hear her heart. The embers had looked at her and had seen her.