'Dorr,' she said softly, almost too transfixed by the moment to speak, and he raised his head and their eyes met, and finally she had come back to him.
'It will work,' Dorrel said. 'They'll have to see. They can't deny you.' They were sitting at breakfast.
While Dorrel made eggs and tea, Maris had explained her plan in detail.
Now she smiled and spooned out more of the soft egg. She felt happy and full of hope. 'Who'll go first to call Council?'
'Garth, I thought,' Dorrel said eagerly. 'I'll catch him at home and we'll divide up the nearby islands and branch out. Others will want to help — I just wish you could come, too,' he said, and his eyes grew wistful. 'It would be nice, flying together again.'
'We'll have lots of that, Dorr.
'Yes, yes, we'll have lots of time to fly together, but— it would be nice this morning, especially. It would be nice.'
'Yes. It'd be nice.' She went on smiling and finally he had to smile too. He was just reaching across the table to take her hand, or touch her face, when a sudden knock at the door, loud and authoritative, made them freeze.
Dorrel rose to answer it. Maris in her chair was in full view of the doorway, but there was no point in trying to hide, and there was no second door.
Helmer stood outside, folded wings strapped to his back. He looked straight at Dorrel, but not past him into the cabin at Maris. 'Corm has invoked the flyer's right to call a Council,' he said, his voice flat and strained and overly formal. 'To concern the once-flyer Maris of Lesser Amberly who stole the wings of another. Your presence is requested.'
'
Dorrel tossed a glance over his shoulder at her, then looked at Helmer, who was plainly if uncomfortably ignoring Maris.
'Why, Helmer?' he asked, more quietly than Maris had.
'I've told you. And I don't have time to stand here moving the wind with my mouth. I have other flyers to inform, and it's a thick day for flying.'
'Wait for me,' Dorrel said. 'Give me some names, some islands to go to. It will make your task easier.'
The corner of Helmer's mouth twitched. 'I wouldn't've thought you'd want to go on such a mission, for such a reason. I hadn't intended to ask for your help. But since you offer…'
Helmer gave Dorrel terse instructions while the younger flyer rapidly winged himself. Maris paced, feeling restless, awkward, and confused again. Helmer was obviously determined to ignore her, and to save them both embarrassment Maris did not question him again.
Dorrel kissed her and squeezed her tightly before he left. 'Feed Anitra for me, and try not to worry. I'll be back before it's been dark too long, I hope.'
When the flyers were gone, the house felt stifling. Outside was not much better, Maris discovered as she stood against the door. Helmer had been right, it was not a good day for flying. It was a day to make one think of still air. She shuddered, fearing for Dorrel. But he was too skilled and too smart to need her worry, she thought, trying to reassure herself. And she would go crazy if she sat inside all day imagining possible dangers for him. It was frustrating enough to have to wait here, denied the sky. She looked up at the cloudy-bright overcast. If, after the Council, she should be made a land-bound forever—
But there was plenty of time for sorrow in the future, so she resolved not to think about it now. She went back inside the house.
Anitra, a nocturnal flyer, was asleep behind her curtain; the cabin was still and very empty. She wished briefly for Dorrel, to ease her thoughts by sharing them, to speculate with her on why Corm had called the Council. Alone, her thoughts went around and around in her head, birds in a trap.
A geechi game sat on top of Dorrel's wardrobe. Maris took it down, and arranged the smooth black and white pebbles in a simple opening pattern, one her mind was comfortable with. Idly she began to move them, playing both sides, shoving the pebbles unthinkingly into new configurations, each suggested by the last, each as inevitable as chance. And she thought:
Corm is a proud man, and I injured his pride. He is known as a good flyer and I, a fisherman's daughter, stole his wings and outflew him when he pursued me. Now, to regain his pride, he must humble me in some very public, very grand way. Getting the wings back would not be enough for him. No, everyone, every flyer, must be present to see me humbled and declared an outlaw.
Maris sighed. That was it. This was the Council to outlaw the land-bound flyer who stole wings — oh, yes, songs would be written about it. But perhaps it made no difference. Even though Corm had stolen a flight on her, the Council could still be turned against him. She, the accused, would have the right to speak, to defend herself, to attack senseless tradition. And her chance was the same, Maris knew, the same in Corm's Council as it would have been in the one that Dorrel would have summoned. Only now she knew the full extent of Corm's hurt and his anger.
She looked down at the geechi board. The pebbles, white and black, were arrayed across the center of the board, facing each other. Both armies had committed themselves to attacking formations; it was clear that this would be no waiting game. With her next move, the captures would begin.
Maris smiled, and swept the pebbles from the table.
It took a full month for the Council to assemble.
Dorrel brought the call to four flyers that first day, and five others the next, and each of those contacted others, and those still others, and so the word went out in ever-widening ripples across the seas of Windhaven. A special flyer was sent off to the Outer Islands, another to desolate Artellia, the great frozen island to the north. Soon, all had heard, and one by one they flew to the meeting.
The site was Greater Amberly. By rights, the Council should have been held on Lesser Amberly, home to both Maris and Corm. But the smaller island had no building large enough for such a gathering as this would be, and Greater Amberly did: a huge, dank hall, seldom used.
To it came the flyers of Windhaven. Not all of them, no, for there were always emergencies, and a few still had not received the word, and others were missing on long, dangerous flights; but most of them, the vast majority, and that was enough. In no one's lifetime had there ever been such a gathering. Even the annual competitions at the Eyrie were small compared to this, mere local contests between Eastern and Western. Or so it seemed to Maris then, during the month she waited and watched while the streets of Ambertown filled with laughing flyers.
There was an air of holiday about it all. The early arrivals held drinking bouts each night, to the delight of the local wine merchants, and traded stories and songs and gossiped endlessly about the Council and its outcome. Barrion and other singers kept them entertained by night, while by day they raced and frolicked in the air. The latecomers were greeted riotously as they straggled in. Maris, who had flown back from Laus after getting special leave to use the wings once more, ached to join them. Her friends were all there, and Corm's, and indeed all the wings of Western. The Easterners had come too, many in suits of fur and metal that reminded her irresistibly of the way Raven had dressed on that day so long ago. There were three pale-skinned Artellians, each wearing a silver circlet on his brow, aristocrats from a dark frigid land where flyers were kings as well as messengers. They mingled, brothers and equals, with the red-uniformed flyers of Big Shotan, and the twenty tall representatives of the Outer Islands, and the squadron of sunburned winged priests from the lush Southern Archipelago who served the Sky God as well as their Landsmen. Seeing them, meeting them, walking among them, the size and breadth and cultural diversity of Windhaven struck Maris as seldom before. She had flown, if only for a short time; she had been one of the privileged few. Yet there were still so many places she had not been. If only she could have her wings again…
Finally all those who were coming had arrived. The Council was set for dusk; there would be no crowds in the inns of Ambertown tonight.
'You have a chance,' Barrion told Maris on the steps of the great hall just before the meeting. Coll was with her too, and Dorrel. 'Most of them are in a good mood, after weeks of wine and song. I drift, I talk, I sing, and I know this: they
