"Did you think I loved you as an apprentice, as a healer, Maris? For how much you could help me? As a healer, quite frankly, you tried my patience. I love you as a woman, for yourself, for who you are. And now that you've realized who you are, who you have always been, you think you must leave me?"
"There are things I must do," she said. "I don't know what my fate will be. I may fail. It might be dangerous for you to be associated with me. You might share Reni's fate… I don't want to risk you."
" You can't risk me," he said firmly. "I risk myself." He took her hand and held it tightly. "There may be things I can do to help — let me do them. I'll share your burden, share the danger, and make it less. I can do more than just make tea for your friends, you know."
"But you don't have to," Maris said. "You shouldn't risk your life for nothing. This isn't your fight."
"Not my fight?" He sounded mildly indignant. "Isn't Thayos my home? What the Landsman of Thayos decrees affects me, my friends, my patients. My blood is in these mountains and in this forest. You are the stranger here. Whatever you accomplish for your people, the flyers, will also affect my people. And I know them, as you cannot. They know me, and they trust me here. Many owe me debts, debts that cannot be paid in iron coin. They will help me, and I will help you. I think you need my help."
Maris felt as if strength was pouring through her, traveling from the firm clasp of his hand up her arm. She smiled, glad that she was not alone, feeling more certain of her way now. "Yes, Evan, I do need you."
"You have me. How do we begin?"
Maris leaned back against the wooden headboard, fitting into the curve of Evan's arm. "We need a hidden place, a landing field; a place safe for flyers to come and go without the Landsman or his spies knowing they are on Thayos."
She felt his nod as soon as she had finished speaking. "Done," he said. "There is an abandoned farm, not far from here. The farmer died only last winter, so the forest has not reclaimed the place, although it will shelter it from spying eyes."
"Good. Perhaps we should all move there, for a time, in case the landsguard come looking for us."
"I must stay here," Evan said. "If the landsguard cannot find me, neither can the sick. I must be available to them."
"It might not be safe for you."
"I know a family in Thossi, a family with thirteen children. I helped the mother through a difficult birthing, and saved her children from death half a dozen times — they would eagerly do the same for me. Their house is on the main road, and there is always a child to spare. If the landsguard come for us, they must pass by there, and one of the children could run ahead to warn us."
Maris smiled. "Perfect."
"What else?"
"First, we must wake S'Rella." Maris sat up, moving out of his light embrace, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I need her to be my wings, to fly messages for me, many messages. But one first, the crucial one. To Val One-Wing."
Val came to her, of course.
She waited for him in the doorway of a cramped two-room plank cabin, badly weathered, its furnishings covered with mold. He circled three times above the weed-choked field, silver wings dark against a threatening sky, before he decided that it was safe to land.
When he came down, she helped him with his wings, although something clutched and trembled within her when her hands touched the soft metal fabric. Val embraced her, and smiled. "You're looking well, for an old cripple," he said.
"You're very glib, for an idiot," Maris said back at him. "Come inside."
Coll was within the cabin, tuning his guitar. "Val," he said, nodding.
"Sit," Maris said to Val. "I have something I want you to hear."
He glanced at her, puzzled. But he sat.
Coll sang "Tya's Fall." At his sister's urging, he had composed two versions. He gave Val the sad one.
Val listened politely, with only a hint of restlessness. "Very pretty," he said when Coll was done. "Very sad." He looked sharply at Maris. "Is this why you sent S'Rella to me, and had me fly here at risk of my life, in spite of my pledge never to come to Thayos? For this? To listen to a song?" He frowned. "How badly did that fall injure your head?"
Coll laughed. " Give her half a chance," he said.
"It's all right," Maris said. "Val and I are used to each other, aren't we?"
Val smiled thinly. "You have half a chance," he said. "Tell me what this is all about."
"Tya," Maris said. "In a word. And how to mend what was broken in Council."
Val frowned. "It's too late. Tya is dead. We responded, and now we wait to see what will happen."
"If we wait then it will be too late. We can't afford to wait for the flyers to close the academies, or limit challenges to those who promise to ignore your sanction. You've given a weapon to Corm and his kind by walking out, by acting without the support of the Council."
Val shook his head. "I did what had to be done. And there are more one-wings every year. The Landsman of Thayos may laugh now, but he will not laugh forever."
"You don't have forever," Maris said. She was silent a moment, her thoughts tumbling so fast that she was afraid to speak. She couldn't afford to alienate Val. They did understand each other, as she had told Coll, but Val was still prickly and temperamental, as his actions in Council had proved. And it would be hard for him to admit that he had been wrong.
"I should have come when you sent for me," she said after a moment. "But I was afraid, and selfish.
Perhaps I could have kept this split from taking place."
Val said flatly, "That's useless. What happened, happened."
"That doesn't mean it can't be changed. I understand you felt you had to do something—but what you did may turn out to be a lot worse than doing nothing could have been. What if the flyers decide to strip you of your wings, to ground all the one-wings?"
"Let them try."
"What could you do? Fight them individually, hand to hand? No. If the flyers should decide to take away the wings from all those who participate in your sanction, there would be nothing you could do. Nothing except, perhaps, to kill a few flyers and see a lot more one-wings die like Tya. The Landsmen would support the flyers with all the power of the landsguard."
"If that happens…" Val stared at Maris, his face dangerously still. "If that happens, you'll live to see your dream die. Does that mean so much to you? Still? When you know that you can never fly again yourself?"
"This is more important than my dream or my life," Maris said. "It's gone beyond that. You know that.
You care too, Val."
The silence in the little cabin seemed to close around them. Even Coll's fingers were motionless upon the strings of his guitar.
"Yes," said Val, the word like a sigh. "But what… what can I do?"
"Revoke this sanction," Maris said promptly. "Before your enemies use it against you."
"Will the Landsman revoke Tya's hanging? No, Maris, this sanction is the only power we have. The other flyers must join us in it, or we must stay split."
"It's a useless gesture, you know that," Maris said. "Thayos will not miss the one-wings. The flyer-born will come and go as always, and the Landsman will have plenty of wings to bear his words. It means nothing."
"It means we will keep our word; that we do not make idle threats. Besides, the sanction was voted by all of us. I could not revoke it alone if I wanted to. You are wasting your breath."
Maris smiled scornfully, but inside she felt hopeful. Val was beginning to back down. "Don't play games with me, Val. You are the one-wings. That's why I called you here. We both know they will do whatever you suggest."
"Are you really asking me to forget what the Landsman did? To forget Tya?"
"No one will forget Tya."
A soft chord sounded. "My song will assure that," Coll said. "I'll sing it in Port Thayos in a few days.
Other singers will steal it. Soon it will be heard everywhere."
Val stared at him in disbelief. "You mean t
o sing that song in Port Thayos? Are you mad? Don't you know that the very name of Tya raises curses and fights in Port Thayos? Sing that song there, in any tavern, and I'll wager you'll be left in a gutter with your throat slit open."
"Singers are given a certain license," Coll said. "Especially if they are good. The first mention of Tya's name may bring jeers, but after they've heard my song they'll feel differently. Before long, Tya will have become a hero, a tragic victim. That will be because of my song, although few will admit or realize it."
"I've never heard such arrogance," Val said, sounding bemused. He looked at Maris. "Did you put him up to this?"
"We discussed it."
"Did you discuss the fact that he's likely to be killed? Some people may be willing to listen to a song that makes Tya sound noble. But some furious, drunken landsguard will try to stop this singer from spreading his lies, and crush his head in. Did you think of that?"
"I can watch out for myself," Coll said. "Not all my songs are popular, especially at first."
"It's your life," Val said, shaking his head. "If you live long enough, I suppose your singing may make some difference."
"I want you to send some more flyers here," Maris said. "One-wings who can sing and play at least passably well."
"You want Coll to train them for the day when they lose their wings?"
"His song must go beyond Thayos, as quickly as possible," Maris said. "I want flyers who can learn it well enough to teach it to singers wherever they go, and I want them to go everywhere with that song as a message from us. All of Windhaven will know of Tya, and will sing Coll's song of what she tried to do."
Val looked thoughtful. "Very well," he said. "I'll send my people here in secret. Away from Thayos, the song may be popular."
"You will also spread the word that the sanction against Thayos has been revoked."
"I will not," he snapped. "Tya must be avenged by more than a song!"
"Did you ever know Tya?" Maris asked. "Don't you know what she tried to do? She tried to prevent war, and to prove to the Landsmen that they could not control the flyers. But this sanction will give us back into the hands of the Landsmen, because it has split and weakened us. Only by acting together, in unison, do flyers have the strength to defy the Landsmen."
"Tell that to Dorrel," Val said coldly. "Don't blame me. I called the Council to act together and save Tya, not to bow down before the Landsman of Thayos. Dorrel took the Council away from me, and made us weak. Tell him, and see what answer he can give you!"
"I intend to," Maris said calmly. "S'Rella is on her way to Laus now."
"You mean to bring him here?"
"Yes. And others. I can't go to them now. I'm a cripple, as you said." She smiled grimly.
Val hesitated, obviously trying to put the pieces together in his mind. "You want more than the sanction revoked," he said finally. "That's just the first step, to unite one-wing and flyer-born. What do you have planned for us, if you can weld us together?"
Maris felt her heart lift, knowing that she would have Val's agreement.
"Do you know how Tya died?" Maris asked. "Did you know that the Landsman of Thayos was cruel and stupid enough to kill her while she wore her wings? Afterward they were stripped from her and given to the man she'd won them from two years before. Tya's body was buried in an unmarked grave in a field just outside the keep, where thieves and murderers and other outlaws are customarily buried. She died with her wings on, but she was not allowed a flyer's burial. And she has had no mourners."
"What of it? What has this to do with me? What do you really want of me, Maris?"
She smiled. "I want you to mourn, Val. That's all. I want you to mourn for Tya."
Maris and Evan heard the news first from the lips of a wandering storyteller, an elderly, waspish woman from Port Thayos who stopped with them briefly so the healer might remove a thorn that had lodged under the skin of one bare foot. "Our landsguard have taken the mine from Thrane," the woman said while Evan worked on her. "There is talk of invading Thrane itself."
"Folly," Evan muttered. "More death."
"Is there other news?" Maris asked. Flyers continued to come and go from her secret field, but it had been more than a week since Coll — having passed along his song to a half-dozen one-wings — had taken the road to Port Thayos. The days had been cold, and rainy, and anxious.
"There is the flyer," the woman said. She winced as Evan's fine bone knife sliced the thorn from her flesh.
"Careful, healer," she said.
"The flyer?" Maris said.
"A ghost, some say," the woman said. Evan had removed the thorn and was rubbing salve into the cut he had made. "Perhaps Tya's ghost. A woman dressed all in black, silent, restless. She appeared from the west two days before I left. The lodge men came out to meet her, to help her land and care for her wings. But she did not land. She flew silently above the mountains and the Landsman's keep, and on across the countryside to Port Thayos. Nor did she land there. Since she first came, she has flown in a great circle, round and round again, from Port Thayos to the Landsman's keep and back, never landing, never shouting down a word. Flying, always flying, in sun or storm, day or night. She is there at sunset and still there at dawn. She neither eats nor drinks."
"Fascinating," Maris said, suppressing a smile. "You think she is a ghost?"
"Perhaps," the old woman said. "I have seen her many times myself. Walking down the alleys of Port Thayos, I feel a shadow touch me, and I look up, and she is there. She has caused much talk. The people are afraid, and some of the landsguard say that the Landsman is most afraid of all, though he tries not to show it. He will not come outside to look at her when she passes above his keep. Perhaps he is afraid of seeing Tya's face."
Evan had wrapped a bandage soaked in ointment around the storyteller's injured foot. "There," he said.
"Try standing on that."
The woman stood up, leaning on Maris for support. "It pains a bit."
"It was infected," Evan said. "You are lucky. If you had waited a few days longer to come to a healer, you might have lost the foot. Wear boots. The forest trails are hazardous."
"I do not care for boots," the woman said. "I like the feel of the earth and grass and rock beneath my feet."
"Do you like the feel of thorns beneath your skin?" Evan said. They argued back and forth for a time, and finally the woman agreed to wear a soft cloth boot, but only on her injured foot, and only until it was healed.
When she was gone, Evan turned to Maris with a smile. "So it begins," he said. "How is it that the ghost neither eats nor drinks?"
"She carries a bag of nuts and dried fruit, and a skin of water," Maris said. "Flyers often do that on long flights. How do you suppose we could fly to Artellia or the Embers otherwise?"
"I had never given the matter much thought."
Maris nodded, preoccupied. "I suspect they substitute a second flyer by night, secretly, to let their ghost rest. Clever of Val to send someone who looks like Tya. I should have thought of that."
"You have thought of quite enough," Evan said. "Don't reproach yourself. Why do you look so serious?"
"I wish," Maris said, "that the flyer could be me."
Two days later, a little girl arrived panting at their door. She was one of that family so indebted to Evan, and for a brief, fearful moment Maris wondered if the landsguard had come for her already. But it was only news; Evan had asked to be sent word of anything heard in Thossi.
"A merchant came through," said the little girl. "He talked 'bout the flyers."
"What of them?" Maris asked.
"He said, he told old Mullish at the inn, that the Landsman is scared. There are three of them, he said.
Three black flyers, going round and round and round." She stood up and spun in a circle, her small arms outstretched, to show them what she meant. Maris looked at Evan, and smiled.
"Seven black flyers now," a huge fat man told them. He'd come to their door battered and bleeding, a de
serter from the landsguard dressed in rags. "Tried to send me to Thrane," he said by way of explanation, "but damned if I'd go there." When he wasn't speaking, he coughed, and often he coughed up blood.
"Seven?"
"A bad number," the man said, coughing. "All dressed in black too, a bad color. They mean us no good."
His coughing suddenly grew so bad he could not talk.
"Easy," Evan said, "easy." He gave the man wine, mixed with herbs, and he and Maris led him to a bed.
The fat man would not rest, though. As soon as his coughing fit had ended, he began to talk again. "If I was Landsman, I'd march out my archers, and shoot 'em down when they flew overhead. Yes, I would.
There's some that says the arrows would just pass through 'em, but not me. I think they're flesh just like me." He slapped his ample gut. "Can't just let 'em fly. They're bringing bad luck to us all. Weather's been bad lately, and the fish haven't been running, and I heard tell of people taking sick and dying in Port Thayos when the shadow of those wings touched 'em. Something terrible is going to happen on Thrane, I know it, that's why I wouldn't go. Not with seven black flyers in the sky. No, not me. This is an evil thing, I tell you, and it won't bring us good."
It brought the fat man no good, at any rate, Maris thought. The next morning, when she brought his breakfast in to him, his huge body was stiff and cold. Evan buried him in the forest, among the graves of a dozen other travelers.
"Thenya went to Port Thayos to try to sell her tapestries," reported another of the horde of children Evan had delivered, a boy this time. "When she came back to Thossi, she said there are more than a dozen black flyers now, flying in a great circle from the port to the Landsman's keep. And more are arriving every day."
"Twenty flyers, all in black, silent, grim," said the young singer. She had golden hair and blue eyes, a sweet voice and an easy manner. "They'll make a marvelous song! I'd be working on it now, if only I knew how it was all going to end…"
"Why are they here, do you think?" Evan asked.
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