Windhaven

skill is all that saves him from death, all that binds Windhaven together.'

Corm snorted. 'This is a disgrace. You are no flyer, Maris, and you have no right to speak of these matters. Your words disgrace the sky and you violate all tradition. If your brother chooses to give up his birthright, very well, then. But he won't make a mockery of our law and give them to anyone he chooses.' He looked around, at the shock-still crowd. 'Where is the Landsman? Tell us the law!'

The Landsman's voice was slow, troubled. 'The law— the tradition — but this case is so special, Corm.

Maris has served Amberly well, and we all know how she flies. I—'

'The law,' Corm insisted.

The Landsman shook his head. 'Yes, that is my duty, but — the law says that — that if a flyer renounces his wings, then they shall be taken by another flyer from the island, the senior, and he and the Landsman shall hold them until a new wing-bearer is chosen. But Corm, no flyer has ever renounced his wings — the law is only used when a flyer dies without an heir, and here, in this case, Maris is—'

'The law is the law,' Corm said.

'And you will follow it blindly,' Barrion put in.

Corm ignored him. 'I am Lesser Amberly's senior flyer, since Russ has passed on the wings. I will take custody, until we find someone worthy of being a flyer, someone who will recognize the honor and keep the traditions.'

' No!' Coll shouted. 'I want Maris to have the wings.'

'You have no say in the matter,' Corm told him. 'You are a land-bound.' So saying, he stooped and picked up the discarded, broken wings. Methodically he began to fold them.

Maris looked around for help, but it was hopeless. Barrion spread his hands, Shalli and Helmer would not meet her gaze, and her father stood broken and weeping, a flyer no more, not even in name, only an old cripple. The party-goers, one by one, began to drift away.

The Landsman came to her. 'Maris,' he started. 'I am sorry. I would give the wings to you if I could. The law is not meant for this — not as punishment, but only as a guide. But it's flyers' law, and I cannot go against the flyers. If I deny Corm, Lesser Amberly will become like Kennehut and the songs will call me mad.'

She nodded. 'I understand,' she said. Corm, wings under either arm, was stalking off the beach.

The Landsman turned and left, and Maris went across the sand to Russ. 'Father—' she began.

He looked up. 'You are no daughter of mine,' he said, and turned on her deliberately. She watched the old man moving stiffly away, walking with difficulty, going inland to hide his shame.

Finally the three of them stood alone on the landing beach, wordless and beaten. Maris went to Coll and put her arms around him and hugged him. They held on to each other, both for the moment children seeking comfort they could not give.

'I have a place,' Barrion said at last, his voice waking them. They parted groggily, watched as the singer slung his guitar across his shoulders, and followed him home.

For Maris, the days that followed were dark and troubled.

Barrion lived in a small cabin by the harbor, just off a deserted, rotting wharf, and it was there they stayed. Coll was happier than Maris had ever seen him; each day he sang with Barrion, and he knew that he would be a singer after all. Only the fact that Russ refused to see him bothered the boy, and even that was often forgotten. He was young, and he had discovered that many of his own age looked on him with guilty admiration, as a rebel, and he gloried in the feeling.

But for Maris, things were not so easy. She seldom left the cabin except to wander out on the wharf at sunset and watch the fishing boats come in. She could think only of her loss. She was trapped and helpless. She had tried as hard as she could, she had done the right thing, but still her wings were gone.

Tradition, like a mad cruel Landsman, had ruled, and now kept her prisoner.

Two weeks after the incident on the beach, Barrion returned to the cabin after a day on the docks, where he went daily to gather new songs from the fishermen of Amberly and sing at wharfside inns. As they ate bowls of hot, meaty stew, he looked at Maris and the boy and said, 'I have arranged for a boat. In a month I will sail for the Outer Islands.'

Coll smiled eagerly. 'Us too?'

Barrion nodded. 'You, yes, certainly. And Maris?'

She shook her head. 'No.'

The singer sighed. 'You can gain nothing by staying here. Things will be hard for you on Amberly. Even for me, times are getting difficult. The Landsman moves against me, prompted by Corm, and respectable folk are starting to avoid me. Besides, there is a lot of world to see. Come with us.' He smiled. 'Maybe I can even teach you how to sing.'

Maris played idly with her stew. 'I sing worse than my brother flies, Barrion. No, I can't go. I'm a flyer. I must stay, and win my wings again.'

'I admire you, Maris,' he said, 'but your fight is hopeless. What can you do?'

'I don't know. Something. The Landsman, perhaps. I can go to him. The Landsman makes the law, and he sympathizes. If he sees that it is best for the people of Amberly, then…'

'He can't defy Corm. This is a matter of flyers' law, and he has no control over that. Besides…' he hesitated.

'What?'

'There is news. It's all over the docks. They've found a new flyer, or an old one, actually. Devin of Gavora is en route here by boat to take up residence and wear your wings.' He watched her carefully, concern written across his face.

'Devin!' She slammed down her fork, and stood. 'Have their laws blinded them to common sense?' She paced back and forth across the room. 'Devin is a worse flyer than Coll ever was. He lost his own wings when he swooped too low and grazed water. If it hadn't been for a ship passing by, he would be dead.

So Corm wants to give him another pair?'

Barrion grinned bitterly. 'He's a flyer, and he keeps the old traditions.'

'How long ago did he leave?'

'A few days, the word says.'

'It's a two-week voyage, easily,' Maris said. 'If I'm going to act, it must be before he gets here. Once he has worn the wings, they'll be his, and lost to me.'

'But Maris,' Coll said, 'what can you do?'

'Nothing,' Barrion said. 'Oh, we could steal the wings, of course. Corm has had them repaired, good as new. But where would you go? You'd never find a welcome. Give it up, girl. You can't change flyers'

law.'

'No?' she said. Suddenly her voice was animated. She stopped pacing and leaned against the table. 'Are you sure? Have the traditions never been changed? Where did they come from?'

Barrion looked puzzled. 'Well, there was the Council, just after the Old Captain was killed, when the Landsman-Captain of Big Shotan passed out the new-forged wings. That was when it was decided that no flyer would ever bear a weapon in the sky. They remembered the battle, and the way the old star sailors used the last two sky sleds to rain fire from above.'

'Yes,' said Maris, 'and remember, there were two other Councils as well. Generations after that, when another Landsman-Captain wanted to bend the other Landsmen to his will and bring all of Windhaven under his control, he sent the flyers of Big Shotan into the sky with swords to strike at Little Shotan. And the flyers of the other islands met in Council and condemned him, after his ghost flyers had vanished. So he was the last Landsman-Captain, and now Big Shotan is just another island.'

'Yes,' Coll said, 'and the third Council was when all the flyers voted not to land on Kennehut, after the Mad Landsman killed the Flyer-Who-Brought-Bad-News.'

Barrion was nodding. 'All right. But no Council has been called since then. Are you sure they would assemble?'

'Of course,' said Maris. 'It is one of Conn's precious traditions. Any flyer can call a Council. And I could present my case there, to all the flyers of Windhaven, and…'

She stopped. Barrion looked at her and she looked back, the same thought on both minds.