Windhaven

listening — I've been — I never expected — all this, just to vote on an outlawing—'

He shook his head, clearly having difficulty getting the words out. 'Oh, be damned,' he said finally.

'Maris is right. I'm half ashamed to say it, but I shouldn't be. It's the truth — I don't want my son to have my wings. I'm afraid to. He's a good boy, mind you, and I love him, but he has attacks now and again, you know, the shaking sickness. He can't fly like that — he shouldn't fly — but he's grown up thinking of nothing else, and next year when he's thirteen he'll expect my wings, and with things like they are I'll have to give them to him, and he'll fly off and die, and then I won't have my son and I won't have my wings and I might as well die too. No!' He sat down, a dark red color and out of breath.

Several people shouted support. Maris, heartened, looked over at Corm, and saw that his smile was flickering. Suddenly he had doubts.

A familiar friend rose then, and smiled at her from above. 'I'm Garth of Skulny,' he said. 'I'm with Maris, too!' Another speaker backed her, then another, and Maris smiled. Dorrel had scattered friends all over the audience and now they were trying to stampede the assembly her way. And it seemed to be working!

For, in between the endorsements from flyers she had known for years, total strangers stood to voice their support. Had they won, then? Corm clearly looked worried.

'You recognize what is wrong with our way, but I think your academy is not the answer.' The words jolted Maris out of her complacent optimism. The speaker was a tall, blond woman, a leading flyer from the Outer Islands. 'There is a reason for our tradition and we should not weaken it, or our children may go back to the idiocy of trial by combat. What we must do is teach our children better. We must teach them to have more pride, and we must build the needed skills in them from the time they are very small.

This is as my mother taught me, and as I am teaching my son. Perhaps a test of some sort is necessary — your idea of a challenge is good.' Her mouth twisted wryly. 'I admit, I do not look forward to the day, which comes too quickly, when I must give up my wings to Vard. Both of us will be too young, I think, when that day comes. That he should have to compete with me, to prove himself as good— no, a better flyer — than I am, yes, that is an excellent idea.'

Other flyers in the hall were nodding in agreement. Yes, yes, of course, why hadn't they seen what a good idea some sort of testing would be? Everyone knew that the coming-of-age was rather arbitrary, that some were still children when they took on wings, others full adults. Yes, let the youngsters prove themselves as flyers first… the tide swept the assembly.

'But this academy,' the speaker said gently. 'That is not necessary. We birth enough new flyers among ourselves. I know your background and I can understand your feelings, but I cannot share them. It would not be wise.' She sat down, and Maris felt her heart sink with her. That had done it, she thought. Now they will vote for a test, but the sky will still be closed to those born of the wrong parents; the flyers would reject the most im-portant part. So close, she had almost done it, but not close enough.

A gaunt man in silk and silver stood. 'Arris, flyer and Prince of Artellia,' he said, his eyes ice blue beneath his silver crown. 'I vote with my sister from the Outer Islands. My children are of royal blood, born and bred to wings. It would be a joke to force them to fly in races with commoners. But a test, to see when they are worthy, now that is an idea worthy of a flyer.'

He was followed by a dark woman all in leather. 'Zevakul of Deeth in Southern Archipelago,' she began.

'Each year I fly messages for my Landsman, but I also serve the Sky God, like all of the upper castes.

The concept of passing wings to a lower one, a soil-child, possibly an unbeliever— no!'

Other echoes came, and rolled across the hall:

'Joi, of Stormhammer-the-Outermost. I say yes, make us fly to earn our wings, but only against the children of flyers.'

'Tomas, of Little Shotan. Children of the land-born could never learn to love the sky as we do. It would be a waste of time and money to build this academy Maris speaks of. But I'm for a test.'

'Crain of Poweet, and I'm with these others. Why should we have to compete with the children of fisher-people? They don't let us compete for their boats, do they?' The hall rocked with laughter, and the older flyer grinned. 'Yes, a joke, a good one. Well, brothers, we would be a joke, this academy would be a joke if it let in riff-raff of any birth at all. Wings belong to flyers and over the years it has remained that way because it is the way it is. The other people are content, and very few of them really want to fly.

For most it is only a passing whim, or too frightening to think about. Why should we encourage idle dreams? They are not flyers, were never meant to be, and they can lead worthwhile lives in some other…'

Maris listened in disbelief and rising anger, infuriated by the smug self-righteousness of his tone… and then she saw with horror that other flyers, including some of the younger ones, were bobbing their heads complacently in time with his words. Yes, they were better because they were born of flyers, yes, they were superior and did not wish to mix, yes, yes. Suddenly it did not matter that in times past, she had felt much the same way about the land-bound. Suddenly all she could think of was her father, her blood-father, the dead fisherman she scarcely remembered. Memories she had thought gone came back: sensory impressions, chiefly — stiff clothes that reeked of salt and fish; warm hands, rough but gentle, that smoothed her hair and wiped tears off her cheeks after her mother had scolded her — and stories he had told, in his low voice, tales of things he had seen that day in his little skiff — what the birds had looked like, racing away from a sudden storm, how the moonfish leaped toward the night sky, how the wind felt and the waves sounded against the boat. Her father had been an observant man and a brave one, daring the ocean every day in his frail boat, and Maris knew in her hot rage that he was the inferior of no one here, of no one on Windhaven.

'You snobs,' she said sharply, not caring anymore whether it would help or hurt the vote. 'All of you.

Thinking how superior you are, just because you were born of a flyer and inherited wings through no goodness of your own. You think you inherited your parents' skill? Well, how about the other half of your heritage? Or were all of you born of flyer marriages?' She jabbed an accusing finger at a familiar face on the third tier. 'You, Sar, you were nodding just then. Your father was a flyer, yes, but your mother was a trader, and born of fisherfolk. Do you look down on them? What if your mother confessed that her husband was not your real father — what if she told you that you could blame your birth on a trader she met in the East? What then? Would you feel obliged to give up your wings and seek some other life?'

Moon-faced Sar only gaped at her; never a quick man, he couldn't understand why she had singled him out. Maris withdrew her finger and launched her anger against them all.

'My true father was a fisherman, a fine, brave, honest man who never wore wings and never wanted them. But if, if he had been chosen to be a flyer, he would have been the best of all! Songs would be sung of him, celebrating him! If we inherit our talent from our parents, look at me. My mother can spin and gather oysters. I cannot. My father could not fly. I can. And some of you know how good I am — better than some who were born to it.' She turned and glanced down the length of the table. 'Better than you, Corm,' she said in a voice that carried all through the great hall. 'Or have you forgotten?'

Corm glared up at her, his face flushed with anger, a thick vein bulging in his neck. He said nothing. Maris turned back to the hall. Her voice softened, and she looked out on them with false solicitude. 'Are you afraid?' she asked them. 'Have you hung onto your wings only on the strength of a pretense? Are you afraid that all the grubby little fisherchildren will come and snatch them away from you, prove themselves better flyers than you and make you all look fools?'

Then all her words were gone, and her anger. And Maris sat back in her chair, and silence hung heavy in the great stone hall. Finally a hand went up, and then another, but Jamis only stared blankly ahead, his face thoughtful. No one moved until at last he stirred himself, as if from sleep, and gestured at someone in the crowd.

High up against the wall, an old man with one dead arm stood alone in the flickering yellow torchlight.

The assembly turned to watch him.

'Russ, of Lesser Amberly,' he began. His tone was gentle. 'My friends, Maris is right. We have been fools. And none of us has been so big a fool as I.

'Not long ago, I stood on a beach and said I had no daughter. Tonight, I wish I could have back those words, I wish I still had the right to call Maris my daughter. She has made me very proud. But she isn't mine. No, as she said, she was born of a fisherman, a better man than I. All I did was love her for a bit, and teach her how to fly. It