Windhaven

'Flyers have married farmers before,' Maris said. 'You could go back.'

'Not without wings,' S'Rella said fiercely. Her eyes met Maris'. 'No matter how long it takes. And if — when — I win my wings, well, he'll have married by then. He's bound to. Farming isn't a job for a single person. He'll want a wife who loves the land, and a lot of children.'

Maris said nothing.

'Well, I have made my choice,' S'Rella said. 'It's just that sometimes I get… homesick. Lonely, maybe.'

'Yes,' Maris said. She put a hand on S'Rella's shoulder. 'Come, I have a message to deliver.'

S'Rella led the way. Maris slung her wings over a shoulder and followed down a dark passageway that led to a well-fortified exit. It opened on what had once been an observation platform, a wide stone ledge eighty feet above where the sea crested and broke against the rocks of Seatooth. The sky was gray and overcast, but the wild salt smell of the ocean and the strong, eager hands of the wind filled Maris with exhilaration.

S'Rella held the wings while Maris fastened the restraining straps around her body. When they were secure, S'Rella began to unfold them, strut by strut, locking each into place so the silver tissue pulled tight and strong. Maris waited patiently, aware of her role as teacher, although she was anxious to be off. Only when the wings were fully extended did she smile at S'Rella, slide her arms through the loops, and wrap her hands around the worn, familiar leather of the wing grips.

Then, with four quick steps, she was off.

For a second, or less than a second, she fell, but then the winds took her, thrumming against her wings, lifting her, turning her plunge into flight, and the feel of it was like a shock running through her, a shock that left her flushed and breathless and set her skin to tingling. That instant, that little space of less than a second, made it all worthwhile. It was better and more thrilling than any sensation Maris had ever known, better than love, better than everything. Alive and aloft, she joined the strong western wind in a lover's embrace.

Big Shotan lay to the north, but for the moment Maris let the prevailing wind carry her, luxuriating in the fine freedom of an effortless soar before beginning her game with the winds, when she would have to tack and turn, test and tease them into taking her where she chose to go. A flight of rainbirds darted past her, each a different bright color, their haste an omen of a coming storm. Maris followed them, climbing higher and higher, rising until Seatooth was only a green and gray area off to her left, smaller than her hand. She could see Eggland as well, and off in the distance the fog banks that shrouded the southernmost coast of Big Shotan.

Maris began to circle, deliberately slowing her progress, aware of how easy it would be to overshoot her destination. Conflicting air currents whispered past her ears, taunting her with promises of a northbound gale somewhere above, and she rose again, seeking it in the colder air far above the sea. Now Big Shotan's coast and Seatooth and Eggland were all spread out before her on the metallic gray ocean like toys on a table. She saw the tiny shapes of fishing boats bobbing in the harbors and bays of Shotan and Seatooth, and gulls and scavenger kites by the hundreds wheeling around the sharp crags of Eggland.

She had lied to S'Rella, Maris realized suddenly. She did have a home, and it was here, in the sky, with the wind strong and cold behind her and her wings on her back. The world below, with its worries about trade and politics and food and war and money, was alien to her, and even at the best of times she always felt a bit apart from it. She was a flyer, and like all flyers, she was less than whole when she took off her wings.

Smiling a small, secret smile, Maris went to deliver her message.

The Landsman of Big Shotan was a busy man, occupied by the endless task of ruling the oldest, richest, and most densely populated island on Windhaven. He was in conference when Maris arrived — some sort of fishing dispute with Little Shotan and Skulny — but he came out to see her. Flyers were the equals of the Landsmen, and it was dangerous even for one as powerful as he to slight them. He heard Sena's message dispassionately, and promised that word would travel back to Eastern the next morning, on the wings of one of his flyers.

Maris left her wings on the wall of the conference room in the Old Captain's House, as the Landsman's ancient sprawling residence was named, and wandered into the streets of the city beyond. It was the only real city on Windhaven; oldest, largest, and first. Stormtown, it was called; the town the star sailors built.

Maris found it endlessly fascinating. There were windmills everywhere, their great blades churning against the gray sky. There were more people here than on Lesser and Greater Amberly together. There were shops and stalls of a hundred different sorts, selling every useful good and worthless trinket imaginable.

She spent several hours in the market, browsing happily and listening to the talk, although she bought very little. Afterward she ate a light dinner of smoked moonfish and black bread, washed down with a mug of kivas, the hot spice wine that Shotan prided itself on. The inn where she took her meal had a singer and Maris listened to him politely enough, though she thought him much inferior to Coll and other singers she had known on Amberly.

It was close to dusk when she flew from Stormtown, in the wake of a brief squall that had washed the city streets with rain. She had good winds at her back all the way, and it had just turned dark when she reached the Eyrie.

It hulked out of the sea at her, black in the bright starlight, a weathered column of ancient stone whose sheer walls rose six hundred feet straight up from the foaming waters.

Maris saw lights within the windows. She circled once and came down skillfully in the landing pit, full of damp sand. Alone, it took her several minutes to remove and fold her wings. She hung them on a hook just inside the door.

A small fire was blazing in the hearth of the common room. In front of it, two flyers she knew only by sight were engrossed in a game of geechi, shoving the black and white pebbles around a board. One of them waved at her. She nodded in reply, but by then his glance had already gone back to his game.

There was one other present, slumped in an armchair near the fire with an earthenware mug in his hand, studying the flames. But he looked up when she entered. 'Maris!' he said, rising suddenly and grinning.

He set his mug aside and started across the room. 'I hadn't expected to see you here.'

'Dorrel,' she said, but then he was there, and he put his arms around her and they kissed, briefly but with intensity. One of the geechi players watched them in a distracted sort of way, but his gaze fell quickly when his opponent moved a stone.

'Did you fly all the way from Amberly?' Dorrel asked her. 'You must be hungry. Sit by the fire and I'll fetch you a snack. There's cheese and smoked ham and some sort of fruitbread in the kitchen.'

Maris took his hand and squeezed it and led him back toward the fire, choosing two chairs well away from the geechi players. 'I ate not too long ago,' she said, 'but thanks. And I flew from Big Shotan, not Amberly. An easy flight. The winds are friendly tonight. I haven't been to Amberly in almost a month, I'm afraid. The Landsman is going to be angry.'

Dorrel did not look too happy himself. His lean face wrinkled in a frown. 'Flying? Or gone to Seatooth again?' He released her hand and found his mug once more, sipping from it carefully. Steam rose from within.

'Seatooth. Sena asked me to come spend some time with the students. I've been working with them for about ten days. Before that I was on a long mission, to Deeth in the Southern Archipelago.'

Dorrel set down his mug and sighed. 'You don't want to hear my opinion,' he said cheerfully, 'but I'm going to tell it to you anyway. You spend too much time away from Amberly, working at the academy.

Sena is teacher there, not you. She is paid good metal for doing what she does. I don't see her pressing any iron into your palm.'

'I have enough iron,' Maris said. 'Russ left me well-off. Sena's lot is harder. And the Woodwingers need my help— they see precious few flyers on Seatooth.' Her voice became warmer, coaxing. 'Why don't you come spend a few days yourself? Laus would survive a week without you. We could share a room.

I'd like to have you with me.'

'No.' His cheerful tone vanished abruptly, and he looked vaguely irritated. 'I'd love to spend a week with you, Maris, in my cabin on Laus, or your home on Amberly, or even here in the Eyrie. But not at Woodwings. I've told you before: I won't train a group of land-bounds to take the wings of my friends.'

His words wounded her. She pulled back in her chair and looked away from him, into the fire. 'You sound like Corm, seven years ago,' she said.

'I don't deserve that, Maris.'

She turned back to look at him. 'Then why won't you help? Why are you so contemptuous of the Wood- wingers? You sneer at them like the most tradition-bound old flyer — but seven years ago you were with me. You