"I will fly proxy for Val."
And she knew they would not deny her.
Maris got her wings and joined the mill of contestants, impatient and increasingly nervous.
The gates had been erected during the night, nine flimsy wooden constructions planted firmly in the sand, in a course demanding a series of difficult turns and tacking maneuvers. The first gate, straight out from the flyers' cliff, consisted of two tall blackwood poles, each some forty feet high, set fifty feet apart in the sand. A rope had been tied from the top of one pole to the top of the other. To score, the flyer had to glide through that gate. Easy enough, but the next gate was only a few yards farther down the beach, not straight ahead but off to one side, so the flyer had to angle quickly before shooting past it. And the second gate was smaller, the poles just a little bit shorter and set just a little bit closer together. So it went, the course wandering out into the shallows and then veering sharply back onto land, a twisting, wing-snapping course, with each of the nine gates smaller than the one before, until the ninth and final gate, two poles barely eight feet off the ground, set exactly twenty-one feet apart. A flyer's wingspan was twenty feet. No one had ever flown more than seven gates. Even that was no mean task; of all the flyers to try the gates this morning, the best score was six, and that had been flown by the phenomenal Lane.
Challengers traditionally flew first in this test; the flyer was given the courtesy of knowing what score he had to beat. Wings on her shoulders, Maris watched the Woodwingers make their attempts.
Sher dove straight from the cliff through the first gate, coming in barely under the rope, banked sharply toward the second but continued to descend, fast, too fast. Panicking, the young Woodwinger leveled off quickly to avoid hitting the ground, and suddenly started to rise, passing over the second gate instead of through it. The flyer that Sher challenged managed only two gates, but that was enough for the victory.
Leya, watching Sher, chose a different strategy. She leapt from the cliff to circle widely above the beach, dropping down gradually so that she'd pass through the first gate level instead of in a descent. She began her turn well before she entered the gate proper, so that she actually swung around one pole gracefully, already heading for the second gate. She sailed smoothly through that as well, again beginning her turn early, but this time it was a sharper turn, more demanding, upwind. Leya made it well enough, and the third gate with it, but had nothing left to wrench herself around afterward. She flew peacefully out to sea, missing the fourth gate by a wide margin. A few of the spectators applauded her anyway, and her flyer rival could only manage two gates before he landed roughly in the sand. So Leya had her first triumph, though it was not enough to win a pair of wings.
Damen and Arak were announced by the crier. Both of them had trouble. Damen took the gates too fast, and couldn't recover after the second in time to turn for the third. Arak passed through the second gate too high; the upper edge of a wing grazed the rope, and it was enough to send him off balance and far off course. But even with the two-gate tie, Arak easily retained his wings.
Kerr, surprisingly, also managed a tie. Imitating Leya, he entered the first gate leveled and starting his turn, and handled the second easily enough. But like Leya he had trouble veering upwind into the third, and unlike Leya, he did not manage it. He thumped to a halt in the sand a few yards short of the gate, and the land-bound children rushed in from all sides to help him out of his wings. Jon of Culhall tried to avoid Kerr's fate by maintaining a higher altitude, but passed over and to the right of the third gate.
" Corm of Lesser Amberly," the crier was announcing, " Val One-Wing, Val of South Arren," Then a brief pause. " Maris of Lesser Amberly, flying proxy for Val, Maris of Lesser Amberly."
She stood on the flyers' cliff, helpers unfolding her wings, locking each strut in place. A few dozen yards away, Corm too stood and let them work. She looked over at him, and his eyes met hers, dark, intense.
"Maris One-Wing," he called bitterly. "Is this what you've come at? I'm glad Russ is not alive to see you."
"Russ would be proud," she threw back, angry, and knowing Corm had wanted to make her angry.
Anger brought carelessness, and that was his only hope. Seven years ago she had outflown him, in a much fiercer contest. She was confident she could outfly him today as well. Precision, control, reflexes, a feel for the wind; that was all it required, and she had them in full measure.
Her wings were wide and tight, metal humming softly in the wind, and she felt utterly serene and sure of herself. She reached up, wrapped her hands around the grips, ran, jumped, soared. Up she flew, up and up, and she did a loop for the sheer joy of it and then dove, sliding down and down through the air, riding and shifting with the little eddies and currents, angling toward the gates. She was banked sharply and wheeling as she went through the first gate, her wings drawing a silver line from the top of one pole to the bottom of the other, but she stabilized gracefully and swayed the other way for the approach to the second, slid through it fluidly. It was the feel of it, the love of it, not the thought; it was instinct and reflex and knowing the wind, and Maris was the wind. The third gate was next, the difficult upwind turn, but she snapped around easily, quickly, cleanly, then looped above the water to correct her angle on the fourth gate, and she was through that too, and the fifth was a wide lazy downwind turn, and the sixth was almost straight ahead, not a difficult angle at all, but small, so she dropped a little and skimmed low over the sand, her wings taut and full, and the spectators were shouting and cheering.
In a heartbeat it was over.
Just as the sixth gate loomed ahead of her, she hit a sink, a sudden cold downdraft that had no right being there. It pushed at her, clutched at her, just for an instant, but that was long enough for her wings to brush the ground, and then her legs were trailing through the wet sand and she slid along bumpily before finally jolting to a halt in the shadow of the gate.
A small blond girl ran up to her and helped her to her feet, then began folding up her wings. Maris stood breathless and exhilarated. Five, then, five it was. Not the best score of the day, but a good score, and it was enough. Corm trailed Val by such a margin that it would not be enough for him to beat her. He had to humiliate her, crush her, collect two pebbles from each of the judges. And that he could not do.
He knew it too. Disheartened by her flight, he did not even come close. He failed on the fourth gate, a decisive victory for her, for Val. She felt elated as she trudged across the beach, wings folded on her back.
Criers' calls ran up and down the shore. S'Rella stood poised on the precipice, the sun shining off the bright metal of her wings, and behind her Maris glimpsed wiry, black-haired Jirel of Skulny.
S'Rella leaped, and Maris stood to watch, her heart flying with her, hoping, hoping. S'Rella banked and circled, a leisurely approach instead of the wild rush Maris had employed, and came gliding down smoothly on the same tack Leya and Kerr had used in their turns. Through the first gate, turning, leveling, wheeling now in the opposite direction — Maris felt her breath stop for a minute — and through the second gate, and now a very sharp turn upwind, a clean knife-thrust of a turn as if the wind itself had changed direction at her command, and through the third gate, still in control, and another hard veer and she was through the fourth gate — people began to rise and cheer — and the fifth was as easy for her as it had been for Maris, and now it was the sixth that she was moving in on, the sixth on which Maris had failed, and her wings were swaying a bit but then they stilled and she came in higher than Maris, and the sink shook her but didn't ground her, and then she was through the sixth gate too — shouts everywhere — and the seventh demanded a split-second bank at just the right angle, and S'Rella did that as well, and she came around toward the eighth—
— and it was too narrow, the poles set too close together, and S'Rella was just a bit too far to one side.
Her left wing hit the pole with a snap, and the wing-struts shattere
d even as the pole did, and S'Rella went sprawling on the ground.
And Maris was only one of dozens running toward her.
When she got there, S'Rella was sitting up, laughing and breathing hard, surrounded by land-bound who were shouting at her, yelling hoarse-voiced congratulations. The children pressed close to touch her wings. But S'Rella, her face reddened by the wind, couldn't seem to stop laughing.
Maris pushed her way through the crowd and hugged her, and S'Rella giggled through it all. "Are you all right?" Maris asked, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length. S'Rella nodded furiously, still giggling. Then what…?"
S'Rella pointed at her wing, the wing that had struck the gate. The fabric, virtually indestructible, was undamaged, but a support strut had broken. "That's easily fixed," Maris said after she'd looked it over.
"No problem."
"Don't you see?" S'Rella said, jumping to her feet. Her right wing bobbed with the motion, taut and vibrant, but her left hung limp and broken, silver tissue dragging on the sand.
Maris looked and began to laugh. "One-Wing," she said helplessly, and they collapsed into each other's arms again, laughing.
"Jirel didn't disgrace you," Maris said to Garth that night, as she sat with him by his fire. He was up and about again, looking better, and drinking ale once more. "She was an admirable proxy, flew five gates, as good as I'd done. But five isn't seven, of course, and it wasn't enough. Even the Landsman couldn't call it a tie."
"Good," Garth said. "S'Rella deserves the wings. I like S'Rella. Make her promise to come visit me too."
Maris smiled. "I will," she said. "She's sorry she couldn't come tonight, but she wanted to go straight down to Val. I'm to join her after I leave here. I don't relish it, but…" She sighed.
Garth took a healthy swig of ale and stared into the fire for a long moment. "I feel sorry for Corm," he said. "Never liked him, but he knew how to fly."
"Don't fret," Maris said. "He's bitter but he'll recover. Shalli's pregnancy will soon be too advanced for her to fly, so Corm will have the use of her wings for a few months, and if I know him he'll bully her into sharing even after the baby comes. Next year he can challenge. It won't be Val, either. Corm is cleverer than that. I'll wager he names someone like Jon of Culhall."
"Ah," Garth said, "if the damned healers ever cure me, I may name Jon myself."
"He'll be a popular choice next year," Maris agreed. "Even Kerr wants another chance at him, though I doubt Sena will sponsor him again until he's a lot more seasoned. She'll have better prospects to choose from next year. With the double victory by S'Rella and Val, Woodwings is suddenly thriving again. She'll soon have more students than she knows what to do with." Maris chuckled. "You and Corm weren't the only flyers grounded, either. Bari of Poweet lost her wings in an out-of-family challenge, and Big Hara went down to her own daughter."
"A flock of ex-flyers," Garth grumbled.
"And a lot of one-wings," Maris added, smiling. "The world is changing, Garth. Once we had only flyers and land-bound."
"Yes," Garth said, gulping down some more ale. "Then you confused everything. Flying land-bounds and grounded flyers. Where will it end?"
"I don't know," Maris said. She stood up. "I'd stay longer, but I must go talk to Val, and I'm long overdue on Amberly. With Shalli pregnant and Corm wingless, the Landsman will no doubt work me to death. But I'll find time to visit, I promise."
"Good." He grinned up at her. "Fly well, now."
When she left, he was shouting to Riesa for another ale.
Val was propped up awkwardly in bed; his head raised just enough so that he could eat, he was spooning soup into his mouth with his left hand. S'Rella sat by his side, holding the bowl. They both looked up when Maris entered, and Val's hand trembled, spilling hot soup on his bare chest. He cursed and S'Rella helped him mop it up.
"Val," Maris said evenly, nodding. On the floor by the door she set the wings she had carried, once belonging to Corm of Lesser Amberly. "Your wings."
The swelling in his face had subsided enough so that Val was beginning to look like himself again, although his puffed lip gave him an atypical sneer. "S'Rella told me what you did," he said with difficulty.
"Now I suppose you want me to thank you."
Maris folded her arms and waited.
"Your friends the flyers did this to me, you know," he said. "If the bones mend crooked, I'll never use those damn wings you got me. Even if they heal properly, I'll never be as good as I was."
"I know that," Maris said, "and I'm sorry. But it wasn't my friends who did this, Val. Not all flyers are my friends. And they aren't all your enemies."
"You were at the party," Val said.
Maris nodded. "It won't be easy, and most of the burden is on you. Reject them if you like, hate all of them. Or find the ones worth knowing. It's up to you."
"I'll tell you who I'm going to find," Val said. "I'm going to find the ones who did this to me, and then I'm going to find whoever sent them."
"Yes," Maris said. "And then?"
"S'Rella found my knife," Val said simply. "I dropped it in the bushes last night. But I cut one of them, well enough so I'll know her by the scar."
"Where are you going, when you heal?" Maris said.
Val seemed thrown off-stride by the sudden change of subject. "I had thought Seatooth. I've heard the stories, about how much the Landsman there wants a flyer. But S'Rella tells me that the Landsman of Skulny is anxious as well. I'll talk to them both, see what they offer."
"Val of Seatooth," Maris said. "It has a nice sound to it."
"It will always be One-Wing," he said. "Maybe for you too."
"A half-flyer," she agreed. "Both of us. But which half? Val, you can make the Landsmen bid for your services. The flyers will despise you for it, most of them, and maybe some of the younger and greedier will imitate you, and I'd hate to see that. And you can wear that knife your father gave you when you fly, even though you break one of the oldest and wisest flyer laws by doing so. It is a small point, a tradition, and the flyers again will despise you, but no one will do anything. But I tell you now, if you find who ordered you beaten, and kill them with that same knife, you'll be One-Wing no longer. The flyers will name you outlaw and strip your wings away, and not a Landsman on Windhaven will take your side or give you landing, no matter how much they need flyers."
"You want me to forget," Val said. "Forget this?"
"No," said Maris. "Find them, and take them to a Landsman, or call a flyer court. Let your enemy be the one who loses wings and home and life, and not you. Is that such a bad alternative?"
Val smiled crookedly, and Maris saw he had lost some teeth as well. "No," he said. "I almost like it."
"It's your choice," Maris said. "You won't be flying for a good while, so you'll have time to think about it.
I think you're intelligent enough to use that time." She looked to S'Rella. "I must return to Lesser Amberly. It's on your way, if you're going back to Southern. Will you fly with me, and spend a day in my home?"
S'Rella nodded eagerly. "Yes, I'd love — that is, if Val will be all right."
"Flyers have unlimited credit," Val said. "If I promise Raggin enough iron, he'll nurse me better than my own parent."
"I'll go, then," S'Rella said. "But I'll see you again, Val, won't I? We both have wings now."
"Yes," Val said. "Go fly with yours. I'll look at mine."
S'Rella kissed him and crossed the room to where Maris stood. They started out the door.
" Maris!" Val called sharply.
She turned at the sound of his voice, in time to see his left hand reach awkwardly behind his head, under the pillow, and come whipping out with frightening speed. The long blade sliced through the air and struck the doorframe not a foot from Maris' head. But the knife was ornamental obsidian, bright and black and sharp, but not resilient, and it shattered when it struck.
Maris must have looked terrified; Val was smiling. "It was never my father's," he
said. "My father never owned anything. I stole it from Arak." Across the room their eyes met, and Val laughed painfully. "Get rid of it for me, will you, One-Wing?"
Maris smiled and bent to pick up the pieces.
PART THREE
The Fall
SHE GREW OLD in less than a minute.
When Maris left the side of the Landsman of Thayos she was still young. She took the underground way from his spare rocky keep to the sea, a damp, gloomy tunnel through the mountain. She walked quickly, with a taper in her hand, her folded wings on her back, surrounded by echoes and the slow drip of water.
There were puddles on the floor of the tunnel, and the water soaked through her boots. Maris was anxious to be off.
It was not until she emerged into the twilight on the far side of the mountain that Maris saw the sky. It was a dim threatening purple, a violet so dark it was almost black; the color of a bad bruise, full of blood and pain. The wind was cold and unruly. Maris could taste the fury that was about to break, could see it in the clouds. She stood at the foot of the time-worn stairs that led up the sea cliff, and briefly she considered turning back, resting overnight at the lodge house and postponing her flight until dawn.
The thought of the long walk back through the tunnel dismayed her, however, and Maris took no joy in this place. Thayos seemed to her a dark and bitter land, and its Landsman rude, his brutality barely hidden beneath the civilities required between Landsman and flyer. The message he had given her to fly weighed heavily upon her. The words were angry, greedy, full of the threat of war, and Maris was eager to deliver and forget them, to free herself of the burden as quickly as she could.
So she extinguished her taper and started up the stairs, climbing easily with long, impatient strides. There were lines on her face and gray in her hair, but Maris was still as graceful and vigorous as she had been at twenty.
Where the steps opened onto a broad stone platform above the sea, Maris unfolded her wings. They caught the wind and tugged at her as she snapped the last struts into place. The purple gloom of the storm gave a dark cast to the silver metal, and the rays of the setting sun left red streaks of light upon it, like fresh wounds welling full of blood. Maris hurried. She wanted to get ahead of the storm, to use the front for added speed. She tightened the straps around herself, checked the wings a final time, and wrapped her hands about the familiar grips. With two quick steps she flung herself from the cliff, as she had uncounted times before. The wind was her old and true lover. She folded herself into its embrace and flew.
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