“No, not soulless. I am not soulless. My tapestry was burned,” Marwen said, looking from face to face. Camlach’s hands had dropped away from her arm, and where he had touched, her arm felt cold. “My stepfather burned it—that was when I turned him into an ip....”
“Liar,” Maug said quietly. He took a stride toward her, raising the soot-smeared hearthspoon, and then he stopped.
Between him and Marwen was the ip, its tail stiff in a fighting stance, its red tongue flickering. It hissed at Maug, and he stepped back, ashen-faced.
There was another long heavy silence.
“That is no ordinary ip,” Crob said finally, pointing.
“The girl is no ordinary Oldwife,” Politha said. “If you have a witness, I will remake your tapestry, child.”
Marwen almost cried out in pain at the disappointment in Politha’s voice. She had deceived this kind old woman.
“My stepfather is the only witness, and I—I cannot reverse the spell. I have tried every spell in the Songbook. That is why I sought the Oldest, thinking she could help me.”
Politha shook her head.
Marwen had not dared to look at Camlach. She could not bear to see his belief in her become suspicion.
“She has no tapestry to reweave. I have known her since we were children,” Maug said to Politha. He looked at the hearth-spoon in his hand and set it down. “But you can remake my tapestry for me, that was burned by the dragon.”
“And who will witness for you?” the old woman asked sharply.
“Marwen,” Maug answered. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and smoothed it.
“A soulless one?” Windeven had softened away to windsigh, and though the rain had almost stopped, the eaves still gurgled and dripped. Maug stared at the old blind woman who did not blink or seem to breathe. “No soulless one can witness a tapestry,” she said firmly.
Maug ran his hand over his face. He looked blankly past Marwen. He had forgotten her. It was nothing to him that he had just made her a different person in the eyes of all these people—not a wizard’s heir, not even an Oldwife but something less than human, something that lived and breathed without a soul, something small and ridiculous and evil.
“Then we will go to Loobhan, to the Oldest, as we had planned,” Maug said.
“No,” Marwen said. The magic was surging through her now like a windstorm, a half-stifled rage. It gathered at her fingertips like webstuff. “You have nothing to hold me with now, Maug. I will go to my father’s house ... with Camlach....”
But Crob and Politha turned away from her. She forced herself to look at Camlach. The hollows in his cheeks were gray, and his bruised eyes were black in the shadows.
“One without a tapestry should not die,” he said. “And the name Nimroth is not unheard of in Verduma. Perhaps it is not much evidence.”
Marwen folded her fingers into her palms, held her arms close against her sides. She was afraid to speak.
“Marwen,” Politha said, “you have seen the dragon. Should you die before your tapestry is fulfilled, you will toil in his kingdom and do his bidding.” Her words were careful, her voice purposely kind, and Marwen thought she heard an edge of loathing in it.
“The dragon’s tapestry is mine,” she said at last, shrilly. “You won’t find it without me. I will hide it with spells. Even as I speak, I weave them.” She spoke more and more quickly. “It is a valuable thing to know that the dragon is without his tapestry, and for that knowledge there will be a cost: a wingwand, a beast strong enough to carry us across the wilderness to Loobhan.”
Maug shrank back into the shadows. The fire hissed and sputtered fitfully. Politha and Crob bent to unroll their greatrugs for the sleeping winds were nigh, but their movements were slow and sad.
“Agreed,” Camlach said. His mouth sagged as if he remembered his bruises. Then, “Marwen—”
She didn’t look at him. She looked at the hourglass. “Don’t pity me,” she said.
That night Marwen dreamed of a white wingwand burning, its body blackening in dragonfire, its wings melting like silk in the flames, burning until there was nothing left but an eye spinning in the ashes, and it was looking for her.
Chapter Eleven
The essence of magic is not so much in the spell but in the words themselves. Any man who speaks takes a form of magic in his mouth. Any man who writes words plays with wizardry.
They almost left without her at the next waking wind. But she followed, her face set, her hands curled and stuffed into her apron pocket on either side of Cudgham-ip. Crob had protested when Camlach said he would choose his own mount, but he had been consoled that the city soldiers would be busy with the fire damage. They said nothing when she followed them, stomping proudly behind, Maug in tow like a pale shadow.
The streets were sodden and muddy with ash. The market was closed. Only the bones remained: old tables black with puddles, frame casings for hanging wares blown over, broken shelves and the refuse of the day before. Their footsteps echoed unevenly. They stepped over discarded fruit peels, bits of torn oilcloth and shards of broken clayware. On either side of her were the dull silent stone walls and before her the bent backs of Crob and Camlach. Maug walked apart from them, but she did not look at him.
She could never have said what she felt at that moment. She thought of the Stumble, the brook that ran through the hills and into Marmawell, and how it looked when it was dry in drought, no more than a gash of mud and stone, and buried in the mud, the slimy eyeless creatures that slept, waiting for the water to return. Which was the brook: the wormy bed in which the water ran or the bright quick water that hastened after a spring rain, cool and clear and silvered with little fish? And who was she? A young Oldwife who could spin spells like threads, whose father was sought by dragons, or a sorceress, a girl without a tapestry, a girl who lied and deceived and brought black magic?
She bumped into Crob. They had stopped before a small, roped-off herd of wingwands bundled together morosely, limp and bedraggled as a bouquet of bruised flowers. They had been penned for a long time, and the stench made Marwen’s eyes water. A near-naked boy standing by with a prodder approached them, winking and grinning.
“They’re cheap today. Nobody buying today, see. Three gold discs is all—take yer pick.” Crob stepped closer, but the boy barred his way with his prodder. “No closer please. They bite.” He grinned, baring his brown teeth, and winked.
Crob growled, but Camlach shook his head, warning him silently not to make a scene. “That one, then,” Crob said pointing to a handsome female with pale blue head, feet, and wings.
“Ah, Chalkhill Blue. Good choice, ol’ molehead,” the boy said. Crob growled again.
“I will have the young male with the hump,” Camlach said quickly. He had chosen a huge orange and scarlet beast, and when its wings rustled, they flickered like flame. It appeared to be a muscular animal, though its backfur, even from here, looked dirty and matted.
“Wi-Bisti,” the boy nodded.
“And one more,” Camlach said. Marwen met his eyes. His eyelids were blue from bruising and his lip seemed drawn down by a scar on his mouth. He was much better. But even in the cage where she’d first seen him there hadn’t been this much pain in his eyes. He didn’t smile at her, but neither did he look away. “Your price was one wingwand. You can share your mount with Maug if you will.”
Marwen nodded once and pointed into the herd. “I will have that one, the mottle-brown.”