She saw lightning on the horizon, a lingering three-pronged bolt in the eastern sky. Then the wind slackened and went soft on her, and she fell, and banked, and turned, searching for a stronger current until the storm hit her, sudden as the crack of a whip. The wind gusted out of nowhere with terrible force, and as she struggled to ride with it, it changed direction. Then a second time, then a third. Rain stung her face, lightning blinded her, and there was a pounding in her ears.
The storm pushed her backward, then head over heels, as if she were a toy. She had no more choice, no more chance, than a leaf in a gale. She was buffeted this way and that until she was sick and dizzy and aware that she was falling. And she looked over her shoulder and saw the mountain rushing at her, a sheer wall of slick wet stone. She tried to pull away, and managed only to turn herself in the fierce embrace of the wind. Her left wing brushed the rock, collapsed, and Maris fell sideways, screaming, her left wing limp; though she tried to fly one-winged, she knew that it was useless, and was blinded by the rain; the storm had her in its killing teeth, and with her last clear thought, Maris knew this was her death.
The sea took her, and broke her, and spit her out. They found her late the next day, broken and unconscious, but alive, on a rocky beach three miles from Thayos' flyers' cliff.
When Maris woke, days later, she was old.
She was seldom more than semi-conscious during that first week, and afterward she remembered little.
Pain, when she moved and when she did not; waking and sleeping. She slept most of the time, and her dreams were as real to her as the constant pain. She walked through long tunnels beneath the earth, walked until her legs ached horribly, but she never found the steps that would lead her out to the sky. She fell through still air endlessly, her strength and skill useless in a windless sky. She stood before hundreds in Council and argued, but her words were slurred and too soft, and the people there would not listen.
She was hot, terribly hot, and she could not move. Someone had taken her wings and tied her legs and arms. She struggled to move, to speak. She had to fly somewhere with an urgent message. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak, she didn't know if there were tears or rain on her cheeks. Someone wiped her face and made her drink a thick, bitter liquid.
At some point Maris knew she was lying in a big bed, a hearth nearby that always had a blazing fire in it, and she was covered with heavy layers of furs and blankets. She was hot, terribly hot, and she struggled to push off the blankets but could not.
There seemed to be people in the room, coming and going. She recognized some of them — they were her friends — but although she asked them to remove the blankets, they never did. They didn't seem to hear her, but they would often sit at the foot of the bed and talk to her. They spoke of things gone by as if they were present still, which confused her, but everything was confused, and she was glad to have her friends with her.
Coll came, singing his songs, and Barrion was with him, Barrion of the quick grin and the deep, rumbly voice. Old, crippled Sena sat on the edge of the bed and said nothing. Raven appeared once, dressed all in black and looking so bold and beautiful that her heart ached with unspoken love for him all over again.
Garth brought her steaming hot kivas, then told her jokes so that she laughed and forgot to drink. Val One-Wing stood in the doorway, watching, cold-faced as ever. S'Rella, her dear friend, came often, speaking of old times. And Dorrel, her first love and still a trusted friend, came again and again, his presence a familiar comfort to her through the pain and confusion. Others came as well: old lovers she had never thought to see again appeared before her to speak, to plead, to accuse, and then vanished, leaving all her questions unanswered. There was chubby blond Timar, bringing her gifts he'd carved from stone, and Halland the singer, strong, black-bearded, looking just as he had when they had lived together on Lesser Amberly. She remembered then that he had been lost at sea, and she wept, her tears blotting out the sight of him.
There was another visitor, a man strange to Maris. And yet he was not a stranger: She knew the touch of his gentle, sure hands, and the sound of his almost musical voice speaking her name. Unlike her other visitors, he came close to her and held up her head and fed her hot milky soups and spice tea and a thick, bitter potion that made her sleep. She could not think how or when she had met him, but she felt glad to see him. He was thin and small but sinewy. Pale skin was stretched taut over the bones and planes of his face, freckled with age. Fine white hair grew well back from a high forehead. His eyes, beneath prominent brows and in a webwork of tiny wrinkles, were brilliantly blue. But although he came so often, and knew her, Maris could not bring his name to mind.
Once, as he stood beside her and watched her, Maris struggled out of her half-sleep and told him how hot it was, and asked him to take away the blankets.
He shook his head. "You're feverish," he said. "The room is chilly and you are very sick. You need the warmth of the blankets."
Startled by this phantom who had finally answered her, Maris struggled to sit up and get a better look at him. Her body responded sluggishly, and a sickening pain seared her left side.
"Easy," said the man. His cool fingers were on her brow. "Your bones must knit before you can move.
Here, drink this." He lifted her head and pressed the smooth, thick rim of a cup to her lips. She tasted familiar bitterness, swallowed obediently. The tension and pain drained out of her as her head sank back on the pillow.
"Sleep and don't worry," said the man.
With difficulty she managed to speak: "Who…?"
"My name is Evan," he said. "I'm a healer. You've been in my care for weeks now. You are healing, but still very weak. You must sleep now, and conserve your strength."
"Weeks." The word frightened her. She must be terribly sick, horribly injured, to spend weeks in the house of a healer. "Wh — where?"
He put his strong, thin fingers against her mouth to hush her. "On Thayos. No more questions now. I'll tell you everything later, when you are stronger. Now sleep. Let your body heal itself."
Maris stopped fighting the coming sleep. He had said she was mending and must conserve her strength.
She wished only, as she sank into sleep, that she would not dream again about that brief, terrible flight through the storm, and the awful crushing of her body.
Later, when she awoke, the world was dark, with only dim embers alive in the hearth to give shape to the shadows. As soon as she stirred, Evan was there. He prodded the fire into new life, felt her brow, and then sat lightly on the bed.
"The fever has broken," he said, "but you are not well yet. I know you want to move — it will be hard to keep still. But you must. You are still very weak, and your body will mend better if you do not tax it. If you cannot keep still by yourself I must give you more tesis."
"Tesis?" Her own voice sounded strange in her ears. She coughed, trying to clear her throat.
"The bitter drink that quiets the body and mind, brings sleep and relaxation to stop the pain. It's a very helpful drink, full of healing herbs, but too much of it can be a poison. I had to give you more than I liked to, to keep you still. Physical restraints were no good for you — you thrashed and struggled and strained to be free. You wouldn't let the broken parts of your body rest and heal. When you drank the tesis you fell into the quiet, healing, painless sleep you needed. But I don't want to give you any more. There will be pain, but I think you can bear it. If you cannot, then I will give you tesis. Do you understand me, Maris?"
She looked into his bright blue eyes. "Yes," she said. "I understand. I'll try to be still. Remind me."
He smiled. It made his face suddenly young. "I'll remind you," he said. "You're accustomed to a life of activity, motion, always going and doing. But you can't go somewhere to get your strength back — you must wait for it, lying here, as patiently as you can."
Maris began to nod her head, checking it as she felt a dull, straining pain on her left side. "I've never been a patient per
son," she said.
"No, but I've heard that you are strong. Use that strength to be still, and you may recover."
"You must tell me the truth," Maris said. She watched his face, trying to read the answer there. She felt fear like a cold poison moving throughout her body. She longed for the strength to sit up, to check her arms and legs.
"I'll tell you what I know," said Evan.
She felt the fear in her throat and could scarcely speak. The words came in a whisper. "How… how badly was I hurt?" She closed her eyes, afraid now to read his face.
"You were terribly battered, but you lived." He stroked her cheek and she opened her eyes. "Both your legs were broken in the fall, the left one in four places. I set them, and they seem to be mending well — not as quickly as they would if you were younger, but I think you will walk without a limp again.
Your left arm was shattered, with bone protruding through the flesh. I thought I would have to amputate.
But I did not." He pressed his fingers against her lips and withdrew them — it was like a kiss. "I cleaned it and used the fireflower essence and other herbs. You'll have stiffness there a long time, but I don't think there was any nerve damage, so that with time and exercise I think your left arm will be strong and useful again. You broke two ribs when you fell, and you hit your head on the rock. You were unconscious for three days in my care — I didn't know if you would ever return."
"Only three broken limbs," Maris said. "An easy landing, after all." Then she frowned. "The message…"
Evan nodded. "You repeated it again and again in your delirium like a chant, determined to deliver it. But you needn't worry. The Landsman was informed of your accident, and by now he has sent the same message to the Landsman of Thrane by another flyer."
"Of course," Maris murmured. She felt a burden she had not even known she carried lifted from her.
"Such an urgent message," Evan said, his voice bitter. "It couldn't wait for better flying weather. It sent you out into the storm, to injury. It might have meant your death. The war hasn't come yet, but already they start, disregarding human lives."
His bitterness distressed her even more than his talk of war, which merely puzzled her. "Evan," she said gently, "the flyer chooses when to fly. The Landsmen have no power over us, war or no. It was my eagerness to leave your bleak little island that made me start out despite the weather.",
"And now my bleak little island is your home for a time."
"How long?" she asked. "How long before I can fly again?"
He looked at her without replying.
Maris suddenly feared the worst. "My wings!" She struggled to rise. "Are they lost?"
Evan was quick, with hands on her shoulders. "Be still!" His blue eyes blazed.
"I forgot," she whispered. "I'll be still." Her whole body throbbed painfully in response to the mild exertion. "Please… my wings?"
"I have them," he said. He shook his head. "Flyers. I should have known — I've healed other flyers. I should have hung them over your bed so they would be the first thing you saw. The Landsman wanted to take them for repair, but I insisted on keeping them. I'll get them for you." He vanished into the next room. A few minutes later he returned, carrying her wings in his arms.
They were mangled and broken and did not fold properly. The metallic fabric of the wings themselves was virtually indestructible, but the supporting struts were ordinary metal, and Maris could see that several of them had shattered, while others were bent and twisted grotesquely. The bright silver was crusted with dirt and stained black in places. In Evan's uncertain grasp they seemed a hopeless ruin.
But Maris knew better. They were not lost to the sea. They could be made whole again. Her heart soared to see them. They meant life to her; she would fly again.
"Thank you," she said to Evan. She tried not to weep.
Evan hung the wings on the wall beyond the foot of the bed, where Maris could see them. Then he turned to her.
"It will be longer and harder to repair your body than your wings," he said. "Much longer than you will like. It won't be a matter of weeks, but of months, many months, and even then I can't promise you anything. Your bones were shattered, and the muscles torn — you aren't likely, at your age, to regain all the strength you once had. You'll walk again, but as for flying—"
"I will fly. My legs and my ribs and my arm will mend," Maris said quietly.
"Yes, given time, I hope they will mend. But that may not be enough." He came close, and she saw the concern in his face. "The head injury — it may have affected your vision, or your sense of balance."
"Stop it," Maris said. "Please." Tears leaked from her eyes.
"It's too soon," Evan said. "I'm sorry." He stroked her cheeks, wiping away the tears. "You need rest and hope, not worry. You need time to grow strong again. You'll put on your wings again, but not before you are really ready — not before I say you are ready."
"A land-bound healer — telling a flyer when to fly," Maris muttered with a mock scowl.
Although she might suffer it, a time of forced inactivity was not something Maris could enjoy. As the days passed and she began to spend more time awake, she grew restless. Evan was beside her much of the time, coaxing her to eat, reminding her to lie still, and talking to her, always talking, to give her restless mind something to exercise itself on, even though her body must stay motionless.
And Evan proved to be a gifted storyteller. He considered himself more an observer of life than a participant, and he had a rather detached outlook and a sharp eye for detail. He made Maris laugh, often; he made her think; and he even managed to make her forget, for minutes at a time, that she was trapped in bed with a broken body.
At first Evan told stories of Thayos society, his descriptions so vivid that she could almost see the people.
But after a time his talk turned to himself, and he offered her his own life, as if in exchange for the confidences she had made to him during her delirium.
He had been born in the deep woods of Thayos, an island on the northern fringe of Eastern, sixty years before. His parents were foresters.
There had been other families in the forest, other children to play with, but from his earliest years Evan had preferred the time he spent alone. He liked to hide in the brush to watch the shy, brown dirt diggers; to hunt out the places where the most beautifully scented flowers and tastiest roots grew; to sit quietly in a small clearing with a chunk of stale bread, and tame the birds to come to his hand.
When Evan was sixteen, he fell in love with a traveling midwife. Jani, the midwife, was a small, brown woman with a ready wit and a sharp tongue. In order to be near her, Evan appointed himself Jani's assistant. She seemed amused by his interest at first, but soon accepted him, and Evan, his interest sharpened by love, learned a great deal from her.
On the eve of her departure, he confessed his love for her. She wouldn't stay, and she wouldn't take him with her — not as lover, not as friend, not even as assistant, although she admitted he had learned well and had a skillful touch. She traveled alone always, and that was that.
Evan continued to practice his new healing skills when Jani had gone. Since the nearest healer lived in Thossi village, a full day's walk from the forest, Evan was soon much in demand. Eventually he apprenticed himself to the healer in Thossi. He might have attended a college of healers, but that would have meant a sea-voyage, and the idea of traveling on the dangerous water frightened him as nothing else ever had.
When he had learned all she could teach him, Evan returned to the forest to live and work. Although he never married, he did not always live alone. Women sought him out — wives seeking an undemanding lover, traveling women who paused a few days or months in his company, patients who stayed until their passion for him was cured.
Maris, listening to his soft, mellow voice and gazing at his face for so many hours that she knew it as well as that of any lover in her past, understood the attraction. The bright blue eyes, the skillful, gentle hands, th
e high cheekbones and imposing beak of a nose. She wondered, though, what he had felt — was he as self-contained as he seemed?
One day Maris interrupted his story of a family of tree-kits he'd recently found to ask, "Didn't you ever fall in love? After Jani, I mean."
He looked surprised. "Yes, of course I did. I told you about…"
"But not enough to want to marry someone."
"Sometimes I did. With S'Rai — she lived here with me for almost a year, and we were very happy together. I loved her very much. I wanted her to stay. But she had her own life elsewhere. She wouldn't stay in the forest with me; she left."
"Why didn't you go away with her? Didn't she ask you to?"
Evan looked unhappy. "Yes, she did. She wanted me to go with her; somehow it just didn't seem possible."
"You've never been anywhere else?"
"I've traveled all over Thayos, whenever there has been need," Evan said, rather defensively. "And I lived in Thossi for nearly two years when I was younger."
"All Thayos is much the same," Maris said, shrugging her good shoulder. There was a twinge in her left, which she ignored. She was allowed to sit up now, and she was afraid Evan would revoke the privilege if she ever admitted to pain. "Some parts have more trees, some parts have more rocks."
Evan laughed. "A very superficial view! To you, all parts of the forest would seem identical."
This was so obvious as to require no comment. Maris persisted. "You've never been off Thayos?"
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