“What is it?” the woman asked.
Marwen searched her mind for every relevant spell. She spoke them as rapidly as she could—spells for healing, for magic, for growth, for strength. Already the child’s eyes were glazing, and her flesh was hot. Desperately she thought, and desperately she invoked the spells, but something was distracting her.
“Stop that music!” she screamed, whirling round on the man.
He stood there, stupidly, and Marwen saw that he was not shaking the charmed stickstem root, but that it played on its own.
In the doorway, framed in an aura of light, stood the Taker, smiling and muttering to herself, her head bobbing beneath her hunched back.
Marwen hissed at her. The Taker looked in Marwen’s direction and smiled. She reached her hands out to Marwen as if she would give her something. The man and the woman stood frozen in place, looking around the room. They could see no one. Marwen watched as the Taker turned from herself toward the little girl. A coldness filled her bowels. She had robbed the Taker before. She would do it again.
The little girl’s father was still standing in the middle of the room staring at Marwen first and then at his daughter on the bed. Of course he could not see the Taker who came up behind him. With a simple spell, Marwen could send him reeling backward into the old woman’s arms and The Taker would have her life, though a worthless one.
Marwen shuddered a convulsive shake that caused her shoulders to heave and her head to snap.
Her fear had made her consider the ultimate faithlessness— that of ending the life of another. That was the Mother’s place and the Taker’s task, and Marwen’s hideous presumption made her reel with shame. Saving Sneda’s life and thereby forfeiting Grondil’s, had been a terrible mistake. To send this man into the arms of the Taker would be sorcery, black art.
Marwen lifted the sick child in her arms as the Taker made her way around the man.
“Is it not true that the Taker must obey the wizard? Then begone old woman,” she said, though her voice shook and was shrill. If she were the wizard’s heir, the Taker did not obey her. She moved toward Marwen and the girl. The old woman’s cataract-covered eyes wept, and the tears fell past her sky-blue apron like rain on a sunny day.
“Can’t you wait? Wouldn’t you sooner meet me over the body of a dragon, Mistress Taker? Or do you hunger for the dead he gives you?”
Instinctively Marwen pressed her back against the wall. She felt the breath go out of her. The Taker was close now.
“Will I see Grondil?” she whispered. “Will it hurt?” The child was heavy and hot in her arms. Marwen closed her eyes. A breath of cullerwind blew in at the window, knocking some pots to the ground with a clangor. A column of dust sprang up between Marwen and the Taker, but the dust did not settle. It roiled and grew darker until the Taker was eclipsed from Marwen’s sight and only a lightless cloud was before her, around her, cold and thin as a void.
The opaqueness began to assume a shape then, the blurred outline of a man in robes, a muted arm, an unfocused hand. In the hand a staff, a softly luminous line that was visible enough for Marwen to see the runes etched along its curved top spelling one word: Nimroth.
The darkness that engulfed Marwen began to disappear like dust settling. The shadowman reached his arms around the Taker to embrace her. And in a moment they were both gone.
Astonishment and fear were in the faces of the husband and wife, for all they had seen was Marwen, pressed in terror against the wall, the convulsing child held in her arms, while her face grew pale and then ashen-colored, while she railed at the Taker.
The child moaned in her arms. Marwen watched as the color returned to her cheeks.
For the next three winds, Marwen nursed the child with spells of healing, powerful ones that she had learned from Politha when nursing Camlach. And with every third spell, she wove with word and hand a spell of concealment from the dragon, wove a web of clouding, forgetting, hiding. The child’s mother hovered nearby, quietly fetching things for Marwen as she needed them. When at last the child slept, the woman touched her arm in gratitude. Marwen said nothing. Her head swam with spells and seeings. She glanced nervously at the ceiling and gathered herself to go.
“I heard you when you spoke of the dragon,” the woman ventured. “I have heard that the dragon sleeps round a hill to the north and east of here, between the villages of Rute and Rune-dar. There is an Oldwife there who they say is very wise. Perhaps she could help you.”
Cudgham-ip tried to crawl out of her pocket, but she pushed him back. She struggled to regain her wits and her manners. “Thank you,” she said. “What is your name?”
“Sharva,” the woman said.
Marwen stood and took her hands. “Your daughter will live and will probably have an immunity to ip poison. But for your quiet soul, there is a reward. May these hands grow the most beautiful flowers in all Ve, and may the wealthiest women seek you out for them.”
“You read my heart,” Sharva said. “But you have not yet eaten.”
Marwen, walking toward the door, said, “No, I’m not hungry anymore. Goodbye Sharva, and the gods be with you.”
“Goodbye, Marwen Oldwife.”
Marwen looked at the man. Just as she walked out the door, he snapped the stickstem root in half and stared into the broken halves, mumbling to himself.
“Stuff,” she thought she heard him say.
Chapter Thirteen
When light was put through the prism of matter, it became many things: spirit, love, knowledge ...
The wind was wild, the whole earth was breathing deeply, laughing and panting and singing, and the grasses, like earthfur, bent beneath the wind’s caress. Up sprang the little wind babies: stinging thinwings, flying iyos and far-jumping jimmies, all doing their braidy dance with unseen curls of air. The clouds had furled into fans of white mist, and beyond them the sky was deep and wide. Marwen let her heart and her wingwand soar into them.
“Father,” she said aloud into the wind, for the first time believing it was true. She had always believed in the wizard, but now she no longer needed to believe, for she knew. And she also knew that the wizard Nimroth was not afraid of Perdoneg, for no one returns from the land of the dead, not even to do battle with dragons. But beyond this there was a deeper joy within her: Nimroth loved her, and he had come for her. She wished she could shout it to the world, to Maug. But Maug was too far away, and the world was too far below.
“Father,” she said aloud again.
Chapter Fourteen
Evil has its own kingdom where a different penny is given in reward.
Camps of refugees had sprung up in the hills and valleys, ragged groups of men, women, and children who hovered around pale fires, their eyes and hands dragged down by dreams and fear, victims of the dragon’s violence. Among them, when she stopped to beg a little of their watery stew and hard bread, she first heard the rumors of the return of the wizard’s heir. They warmed their hearts and hands over this hope as over a fire, and Marwen listened to them embarrassed, fearful, silent.
Marwen’s hair color alarmed many people, and she avoided them when she could, until she began to dream of warm bread and fresh cheese, soft blankets and hot baths. Then she would tell them her name, Marwen Oldwife, and she would be directed to the Oldwife of the community. There Marwen was sometimes able to obtain food and a place to rest in exchange for assistance in the tapestry making or in the soup making. Marwen entertained the Verduman Oldwives with Venutian tales of magic, but she made no spells but for the spells of hiding. The Oldwives themselves were almost as skeptical as their people. They viewed the tapestries they created with an even temper, never amazed or disappointed because they did not believe in their truth. Once Marwen saw the tapestry judged at a death with much wresting of interpretation, and with a limited and earthly understanding of the symbols. But the further north and inland Marwen traveled, and the closer she came to Perdoneg, the less cynical the Oldwives became. At last, one day Marwen arrived on the outskirts of Rute, a land of long gulches and hollows and thick grazing grasses. Mothball was growing sleek, but Cudgham-ip was sleepier than ever, and his scaly skin hung on him, wrinkled and old. She eyed wearily dark storm clouds to the north. Asking at the east window of the first house for the Oldwife, Marwen heard a voice call out, “I am she. Have you not been taught the summoning?”