"I am sorry,” the man was saying to Vijocka. “How was I to know the lass had an ip for her familiar?”
Vijocka was not paying any attention to him. Her arms were around Marwen, consoling her. Marwen was not aware of sadness. Inside her was a horrible darkness, but she could not name it sadness. Having Vijocka’s arms around her felt good, and she ached for Grondil’s touch and longed to be with her.
“I said I was sorry and that is a better apology than more deserving ones have received. Now, Oldwife of Rute, the Prince sends for you, for he has need of your magic.”
Marwen looked up.
“Camlach?”
The soldier named Torbil glared at her with black eyes. “I like not the sound of his name in your mouth, Venutian wench.”
Vijocka began to protest, but Marwen stopped her with a gesture.
“I am Marwen Oldwife. I will go with you in place of Vijocka.”
“I go with no Venutian witch.”
“Silence!” Vijocka said. “If Camlach is in need of magic, her’s is the greater.”
“Nevertheless ...”
“I will not go,” Vijocka said. “My own people need me. Take Marwen or take no one.”
The soldier cursed into his beard and turned away from the window to wait for Marwen impatiently.
“Go quickly,” Vijocka said. “I will do the rights for Cud-gham-ip.”
Marwen nodded but did not move.
“Is there no hope now, Vijocka? Can I never have my tapestry?”
Vijocka paused before she answered. “I know of no way, but perhaps you will find one. You are the wizard’s heir.”
Marwen stood unmoving until Vijocka pushed her gently out the door. “Hurry,” she said, her voice hushed, urgent. She walked with her to the wingwand fields where the soldier waited.
Cullerwind wailed in the hollows and blew Marwen off balance. The dark clouds in the north had dispersed.
“Take fresh beasts and leave your own here to rest,” Vijocka said.
She introduced Marwen to a sleek young beast, grass-green with black wing markings. “This is Fallspar, and this is Grafewing,” she said giving the soldier a heavy-set male with mottled blue and gray wings.
She took Marwen aside just before she mounted.
“Take care. You hold a prince’s heart in your hands if I am not amiss, and that is a great power in itself.” Marwen remembered Camlach climbing up the hill, foolishly, bravely before the dragon’s eyes, and she thought what a great thing it would be to hold that good heart as her own.
“Truly, Vijocka?” She wondered why this belief came harder to her than any other now.
The Oldwife nodded. Torbil grunted impatiently. Marwen waved and signaled the wingwand to fly.
“Go with the blessings of the Mother!” Vijocka called as they rose into the air.
The green wings of Fallspar met at the top, enfolding Marwen in an envelope through which the noonsun shone, then dropped until they met at the bottom revealing to her a panoramic view of the land that changed with almost every other wingbeat.
Fleshy pale-leafed weeds, almost as high as her waist, grew profusely on the foothills far below. They were the largest vegetation Marwen had ever seen, and she wondered at the sight.
Her wonder soon faded, however, when, after traveling through nuwind, they rounded a low soft-sloped mountain and came in sight of true mountains. With each wingbeat they loomed larger, and Marwen had to remind herself to breathe. Depthless and hazy they seemed from this distance, layered shades of lavender, flat and sharp-edged. Below them was a hill unremarkable by comparison.
When they landed on the lower reaches of the hill, Marwen discovered she had underestimated the size of the pale plants. Their tender green fingers reached almost to the height of her breast. Yellow blooms like rings of jewels adorned the tallest. She felt as small as a hearthcat hiding in the grasses.
“What is this plant?” Marwen asked as the soldier placed socks on the wingwands’ antennae.
“Fedderweed,” he said gruffly. “It is poisonous. It seems to be good only to provide cover.”
The wingwands ignored the fedderweed and grazed on the grass that lay crushed and blown beneath like old yellow hair.
“I have never seen such large flowers....” Marwen said.
“Silence!” the soldier growled, crouching in the weeds. He pointed to the hill that rose before them. “See there. That is Perdoneg’s favorite sleeping place, around the top. He is gone now, but your voice is loud enough for a dragon’s ears to hear all the way to the border.”
The hill looked familiar to her and beautiful but for the blackened patches where the grass had been burned away.
“Where is Prince Camlach?”
The soldier nodded toward the hill.
“Near the top of that hill is a house that Perdoneg continues to spare.” Marwen looked in the direction that Torbil gestured. Nestled in a dimple of the hill near the age-worn summit was the small house of clay and straw bricks, thatch-roofed and snug, just as she had seen it twice before. She could see only vaguely the wild flowers that grew over the fence, around the doorway of the house, and out of the coping stones, the delicate color of flowers that grow without seeding in wild places. But all around the yard, where flowers had been when Marwen had had the seeing in the well, was a black charred scar, and in soft dark lumps on the slope lay the roasted remains of the weedsheep that had once grazed there.
Torbil was whispering, a sound like rolling gravel. “He senses when anyone comes near it and kills all who approach. How the Prince got up there only the Mother knows. Crob has gone to bring some of the women and children from Rune-dar to the house, but before he left he sent me for the Oldwife of Rute.
His message to her was: ‘There is some magic in this house. Come help us find it.’ I am to go with you to the house.”
Marwen could hear the fear in his voice. If she failed, he, too, would die.
But Marwen was not afraid. From the beginning of time, she had been meant to see this house, to go into it, and to find its secret—the power that preserved it from Perdoneg’s fire. Still the gods did not love the foolish and would expect her to use good sense. She could not risk walking boldly up the side of the hill, for the wings of the dragon were swift and silent, and if he were not here now, he could be in the next breath.
Marwen knelt before a particularly large fedderweed, its branches reaching out like thin arms, its fleshy leaves finely veined.
“Hail, lady fedderweed, dressed in green lace and jeweled in gold. I am Marwen Oldwife of Marmawell, daughter of Nimroth, the wizard who once walked among you. I need your help.”
Immediately the wind sang softly through the plant’s leaves. Marwen listened, and it seemed after a time that she heard, beyond the fair song of the fedderweed, a deeper voice, a richer song. She began to walk toward the sound.
“Come,” Marwen whispered to the soldier. He stood staring as she walked a few paces and then, bending low, he rushed to catch up.
“I do not hold with any Venutian sorcery,” he said behind her.
She gestured to him for silence. The song was one of great beauty and sadness and pain. It became louder as they came closer to the hill. They circled it to its northern slope.
Marwen’s thighs cramped, walking hunched as she was, but the song grew ever nearer and stronger. At last, when they were practically at the foot of the hill, Marwen saw the singer.
She had no name for what she saw, and she stared open mouthed. It was not grass or flower but a god of soil and stem, nevertheless. Beside it she felt soft and young. The soldier looked at her and said, “Tree. It is called tree.” Then he thought for a moment and added, “There are trees in the mountains, but this one comes from a place where there are many such giant plants, and the wingwands could fit into the palm of your hand. Or so the legend goes.”