Through the dragon’s eyes, she could see a hill and on the slope of the hill, a shack around which flowers bloomed in a mist of color. Flowers poured over the edge of the windowboxes, and even the roof was a cloud of petal, leaf, and swaying stems. It was the shack she had seen in the vision spring. But the eyes of the dragon did not see the shack and the flowers, only the slim shape of a man, a young man it seemed, dressed in a green tunic and fine brown boots who was stealthily crawling up the slope.
Marwen knew that the young man was Prince Camlach.
The dragon was going to kill him, of that there was no doubt. Unless she could distract him for a moment.
“Perdoneg,” she said with her mind.
Shock. Astonishment. Then glee. She felt the dragon’s eyes turn inward, away from the climbing figure on the slope, and the window through which she had come shut tight.
Above the din, quiet but piercing, came the dragon’s voice.
“Marwen.”
It was caressing, even lustful, and Marwen thrilled unwillingly to the sound of it.
“Marwen, child of power, you have come to me,” the voice rang. “You are mine.”
“No!”
“I have seen your tapestry in the lands of the dead, its spirit, its shadow, lost in a place where only the Taker could find it.” The dragon laughed, and his laughter echoed as if in a canyon.
Marwen felt herself shut in, trapped. Camlach would be safe now, but there was no way out for her.
Marwen cried, “You are evil!”
“What is evil? Do you not think evil has its own reward, as does good? That is the only choice you have—to choose your reward. Ask learning of me.” The voice was calm and utterly, utterly sane.
“Pity the dark and the untruth,” Marwen murmured, repeating aloud from the Tenets of the Tapestry.
“Pity it not,” said the dragon. “It simply is. Without darkness and lies there could be no light and truth. I need not kill you, Marwen. I can take you alive to reign as queen of my kingdom. Only tell me where your father is.”
Marwen tried not to hear. His voice was seductive and beautiful. Behind it she could hear the storm raging on.
“Let me go!” Marwen shouted in a disembodied voice. The words were lost in the din of psychic noise around her, and Marwen was terrified. The spell included no words for protection from a mind stronger than one’s own. Her body lay in a deathlike trance while her mindforce faced an eternity of entrapment in the haunted mind of the dragon.
She thought of spells of freeing, loosening, revealing, until briefly she remembered the hands of Vijocka, steady and magic-wise, and Marwen became still.
“Be calm,” she told herself. She remembered Vijocka’s counsel to focus her thoughts and be strong. In that moment she realized that the dragon could not hear the storm of his subconscious, did not know that she could hear it.
“I am the wizard’s heir,” Marwen whispered, and the words echoed in a hiss above the clamor. She felt power stretch from her like unfolding wings.
“I am the wizard’s heir,” she repeated. “Perdoneg, why do you not use your magic? Where is your tapestry?” Her voice rang softly like a musical note in a storm. The dragon did not answer, but the noise increased.
“You will free me, for only I can find your tapestry. It is my right, my gift....”
Though her voice was still and small, she knew the dragon heard. She waited.
When the window of the dragon’s mind opened, she flew away.
Marwen could hear, feel, smell for many winds before she could see or speak. She heard the soft steady chanting of Vijocka in trance and the plea of freshwind through the east window; she felt the warmth of the noonmonth sun on the left side of her body and the rough woven texture of the greatrug beneath her; she smelled the burning incense of Vijocka’s spellworking and new-blooming sweesle.
It was windeven when, emerging from the haze of her semiconsciousness, Marwen could see the form of Vijocka, cross-legged and hunched.
“It was you,” Marwen said, her voice croaking, her lips dry and sticky. “It was you that gave me wings....”
Vijocka’s chanting stopped abruptly when Marwen spoke. She slowly opened her eyes, but she did not move or speak for a long moment.
Finally she said, “No, Marwen. It was by your own power that you have done what you have done. I kept your body alive while you did it. Never have I seen such power. Not even the wizard Farrell of old could have done such a thing.”
“Where is my ip?” Marwen asked, not hearing.
“You—you were with Perdoneg....” Vijocka said softly, her eyes fixed and staring at the tray of smoking incense. Marwen nodded.
Vijocka opened her mouth as if to speak. Then in a fluid movement, she bent on one knee before Marwen and rose again.
“I honor the heir,” she said simply. “None other than the wizard could enter the mind of the dragon and return to tell of it.”
Marwen reached out to Vijocka. For a time they grasped each other’s forearms, quiet, desperate. Marwen laughed a brief breathless laugh, and Vijocka laughed, too, almost a gasp or a sob.
Finally Vijocka said, “What will you do?”
“I must go. He is seeking me. He will know now that I am close—hopefully, he will have no idea how close. His tapestry is the key,” Marwen said sitting up groggily. “I believe it is at my father’s house. Perhaps when I see the tapestry, I will know what to do.”
Vijocka watched her with unseeing eyes. “Yes, the lore books tell of Morda-hon hiding the dragon’s tapestry. I remember now. It is a little-known detail. Nimroth must have found it. But surely this dragon, who has lived century upon century and has memory of the beginnings and endings of kings and rivers, would remember what was in his own tapestry.”
“He remembers,” Marwen said. “His desperation has to do with its finding and its fulfilling, but I was not strong enough and did not penetrate deeply enough to know any more than this for certain.”
Still Vijocka had not moved, and Marwen noticed how sallow her brown skin had become, and her lips and fingernails were a dusky purple. Marwen felt dizzy when she got on her feet, but thirst drove her, and then she held out a cup of water for Vijocka.
The woman drank quickly, sloppily. Marwen put an arm around her to steady her.
“How long have you been like this?” Marwen asked stroking her black silky braid.
“You have been in trance for one windcycle,” Vijocka said. Cudgham-ip crawled into Marwen’s lap. Marwen sat very still. She put out one finger and stroked his leathery back.
“Cudgham-ip, the time has come to return you to your proper form,” she said. “Before I lived in Perdoneg’s mind, I touched the mind of the Mother. And I worshipped her. I worship her, Cudgham, the One who gives me my magic, who loves me ... and you.” Marwen closed her eyes and pursed her lips together. She opened them again. “For her I do forgive and free my heart to reverse the spell. Perhaps then you will help me regain my tapestry.”
The huge helmeted head of a man appeared in the east window. He was bearded and sweating. “Oldwife of Rute, let your hands be blessed!” he bellowed.
Marwen and Cudgham-ip both jumped.
The man’s eyes touched Marwen and then rested on the ip that was running as quickly as it could across the dirt floor.
In less than two breaths, the soldier fit his bow and shot the ip, pinning it to the floor. It squirmed for a short time and died.
Chapter Fifteen
Belief that dwells in the head is less worthy than belief that dwells in the hands and the feet and the backbone of man.