Windhaven

'Helmer,' Jamis said firmly, 'Maris has the floor.'

'I don't care,' he said. 'She attacks our ways, but she offers us nothing better. And for good reason. This way has worked for so many years because there is none better. It may be hard, yes. It's hard for you because you weren't born to a flyer. Sure, it's hard. But have you another way?'

Helmer, she thought as he sat. Of course, his anger made sense, he was one whom this tradition would soon hurt — was hurting. Still young, he would be a land-bound in less than a year, when his daughter came of age and took his wings. He had accepted the loss as inevitable, perhaps, as a rightful part of an honored tradition. But now Maris attacked the tradition, the only thing that gave nobility to Helmer's sacrifice-to-come. If things remained unchanged, Maris wondered briefly, would Helmer in time hate his own daughter for her wings? And Russ… if he had not been injured… if Coll had not been born…

'Yes,' Maris said loudly, suddenly realizing that the room was silently awaiting her reply. 'Yes, I do have a way; I would never have presumed to call a Council if—'

'You didn't!' someone shouted, and others laughed. Maris felt herself grow hot and hoped she was not blushing.

Jamis slapped the table, hard. 'Maris of Lesser Amberly is speaking,' he said, loudly. 'The next one who interrupts her will be ejected!'

Maris, gave him a grateful smile. 'I propose a new way, a better way,' she said. 'I propose that the right to wear wings be earned. Not by birth or by age, but by the one measure that truly counts — by skill!'

And as she spoke, the idea sprang suddenly into her head, more elaborate, more complex, more right than her vague concept of a free-for-all. 'I propose a flying academy, open to all, to every child who dreams of wings. The standards would be very high, of course, and many would be sent away. But all would have the right to try — the son of a fisherman, the daughter of a singer, or a weaver — everyone could dream, hope. And for those who passed all the tests, there would be a final test. At our annual competition, they could challenge any flyer of their choice. And, if they were good enough, good enough to outfly him or her, then they would win the wings!

'The best flyers would always keep the wings, this way. And a defeated flyer, well, could wait for next year and try to win back the wings from the one who had taken them. Or he or she could challenge someone else, some poorer flyer. No flyer could afford to be lazy, no one who did not love the sky would have to fly, and…' She looked at Helmer, whose face was unreadable. 'And more, even the children of flyers would have to challenge to win the sky. They would claim their parents' wings only when they were ready, when they could actually fly better than their father or their mother. No flyer would become a land-bound just because he'd married young and had a child come of age while he should, by all that is just and right, still be in the sky. Only skill would be important, not birth, not age — the person, not tradition!'

She paused, on the verge of blurting out her own story, of what it was like to be a fisherman's daughter and know the sky could never be hers — the pain, the longing. But why waste her breath? These were all born flyers, and she would not wring sympathy from them for the land-bounds they held in contempt. No, it was important that the next Woodwings born on Windhaven have a chance to fly, but it was no good as an argument. She had said enough. She had set it all before them, and the choice was theirs. She glanced briefly at Helmer, at the odd smile flickering over his face, and she knew with dead certainty that his vote was hers.

She had just given him a chance to reclaim his life, without being cruel to his daughter. Satisfied, smiling, Maris sat.

Jamis the Senior looked over at Corm.

'That sounds very nice,' he said. Smiling, in control, Corm did not even bother to stand. At the sight of his calm, Maris felt all her painfully piled-up hope slip away. 'A nice dream for a fisherman's daughter, and it's understandable. Perhaps you don't understand about the wings, Maris. How do you expect families who have flown since — since forever—to put their wings up for grabs, to pass them on to strangers. Strangers who without tradition or family pride may not care for them properly, may not respect them. Do you truly think any of us would hand over our heritage to an impudent land-bound?

Instead of our own children?'

Maris' temper flared. 'You expected me to give my wings to Coll, who could not fly as well as I.'

'They were never your wings,' Corm said.

Her lips tightened; she said nothing.

'If you thought they were, that was your folly,' Corm said. 'Think: If wings are passed from person to person like a cloak, if they are held for only a year or two, what sort of pride would their owners have in them? They would be — borrowed — not owned, and everyone knows a flyer must own his wings, or he is not a flyer at all. Only a land-bound would wish such a life on us!'

Maris felt the sentiments of the audience shifting with each of Corm's words. He piled his arguments on top of each other so glibly that they all slipped away from her before she'd had a chance to get at them.

She had to answer him, but how, how? The attachment of a flyer to his wings was nearly as strong as his attachment to his feet; she couldn't deny that, she couldn't fight it. She remembered her own anger when she felt Corm had not cared for her wings properly, and yet they were never hers at all, only her father's, her brother's.

'The wings are a trust,' she blurted out. 'Even now a flyer knows he must pass them on, in time, to his child.'

'That is quite different,' Conn said tolerantly. 'Family is not the same as strangers, and a flyer's child is not a land-bound.'

'This is something too important to be silly about blood ties!' Maris flashed at him, her voice rising.

'Listen to yourself, Corm! Listen to the snobbery that has been allowed to grow in you, in other flyers; listen to your contempt for the land-bound, as if they could help what they are with the laws of inheritance as they now stand!' Her words were angry, and the audience grew perceptibly more hostile; she would lose it all if she championed the land-bound against the flyers, she suddenly realized.

Maris willed herself to be calm. 'We do have pride in our wings,' she said, consciously returning to her strongest arguments. 'And that pride, if it is strong enough, should make sure we keep them. Good flyers will keep the sky. If challenged, they will not be defeated easily. If defeated, they will come back. And they will have the satisfaction of knowing that the flyer who takes their wings is good, of knowing that their replacement will bring honor to the wings and use them well, regardless of parentage.'

'The wings are meant to be—' Corm began, but Maris would not let him finish.

'The wings are not meant to be lost in the sea,' she said, 'and clumsy flyers, flyers who have taken no care to be really good because they've never had to, these are the flyers who have lost wings for us all.

Some hardly deserved the name of flyer. And what of the children who are really too young for the sky, though they may be of age technically? They panic, fly foolishly, and die, taking their wings with them.'

She glanced quickly at Coll. 'Or how about the ones who were not meant to fly at all? Being born of a flyer doesn't mean you'll have the skill. My own — Coll, whom I love as a brother and a son, he was never meant to be a flyer. The wings were his, yet I couldn't give them to him — didn't want to give them to him — oh, even if he had wanted them, I wouldn't have wanted to give them up—'

'Your system won't change that,' someone shouted.

Maris shook her head. 'No, it wouldn't. I still wouldn't be happy about losing my wings, but if I were bested, well, I could stay on at the academy, train, wait for next year and try to get them back. Oh, nothing is going to be perfect, don't you see, because there aren't enough wings, and that's going to get worse, not better. But we must try to stop it, stop all the wings that are lost each year, stop sending out unqualified flyers, stop losing so many. There will still be accidents, we'll still have dangers, but we won't lose wings and flyers because of poor judgment and fear and lack of skill.'

Exhausted, Maris ran out of words, but her speech had stirred the audience, moved it back toward her.

A dozen hands were up. Jamis pointed, and a solidly built Shotaner rose from the mass.

'Dirk of Big Shotan,' he said, in a low voice, and then he repeated it again when the flyers in the back shouted 'Louder! Louder!' His speech was awkward and self-conscious. 'I just wanted to say — I've been sitting here, and