Windhaven

everything the way it is, and looking down on the land-bound, and not offering help to the Woodwingers for fear they'll hurt a fellow flyer, a real flyer… if it means things like that, then I don't think I am a flyer. And sometimes I wonder if I'm not beginning to share Val's opinions of those who are.'

Dorrel let go her hand but his eyes were still on her. Even in the dark she could feel the anguished intensity of his gaze. 'Maris,' he said softly. ' I'm a flyer, born to my wings. Val One-Wing surely despises me for it. Do you?'

'Dorr,' she said, hurt. 'You know I don't. I've always loved and trusted you — you're my best friend, truly. But…'

'But,' he echoed.

She could not look at him. 'I wasn't proud of you when you refused to come to Woodwings,' she said.

The distant sounds of the party and the melancholy wash of the waves against the beach seemed to fill the world. Finally Dorrel spoke.

'My mother was a flyer, and her mother before her, and on back for generations the pair of wings that I bear has been in my family. That means a great deal to me. My child, should I ever father one, will fly, too, someday.

'You weren't born to that tradition, and you've been the dearest person in the world to me. And you've always proved that you deserved wings at least as much as any flyer's child. It would have been a horrible injustice if you'd been denied them. I'm proud that I could help you.

'I'm proud that I fought with you in Council to open the sky, but now you seem to be telling me that we fought for different things. As I understood it, we were fighting for the right of anyone who dreamed hard enough and worked long enough to become a flyer. We weren't out to destroy the great tradition of the flyers, to throw the wings out and let land-bound and would-be flyers alike fight over them like scavenging gulls over a pile offish.

'What we were trying to do, or so I thought, was to open the sky, to open the Eyrie, to open the ranks of the flyers to anyone who could prove worthy of bearing wings.

'Was I wrong? Were we actually fighting instead to give up everything that makes us special and different?'

'I don't know anymore,' she said. 'Seven years ago, I could think of nothing more wonderful than being a flyer. Neither could you. We never dreamed that there were people who might want to wear our wings, but reject everything else that makes up a flyer. We never dreamed of them, but they existed. And we opened the sky for them, too, Dorr. We changed more than we knew. And we can't turn our backs on them. The world has changed, and we have to accept it, and deal with it. We may not like all the results of what we've done, but we can't deny them. Val is one of those results.'

Dorrel stood up and brushed the sand from his clothes. 'I can't accept that result,' he said, his voice more sorrowful than angry. 'I've done a lot of things for the love of you, Maris, but I can see the limits.

It's true that the world has changed — because of what we've done — but we don't have to accept the evil with the good. We don't have to embrace those, like Val One-Wing, who sneer at our traditions and seek to tear us apart. He'll destroy us in the end, Maris — with his selfishness and his hatred. And because you don't understand that, you'll help him. I won't. Do you understand that?'

She nodded without looking up at him.

A minute passed in silence. 'Will you come with me, back to the lodge?'

'No,' she said. 'No, not just now.'

'Good night, Maris.' Dorrel turned and walked away from her, his boots crunching on the sand until the lodge door opened for him with a burst of party noise, then closed again.

It was quiet and peaceful on the beach. The lanterns, burning atop their poles, moved weakly in the breeze, and she heard their faint clattering and the never-ending sound of the sea rolling in and out, in and out.

Maris had never felt so alone.

Maris and S'Rella spent the night together in a roughly finished cabin for two not far from the shore, one of fifty such structures that the Landsman of Skulny had had erected to house the visiting flyers. The little village was only half full as yet, but Maris knew that the earliest arrivals had already appropriated the more comfortable accommodations in the lodge house and the guest wing of the Landsman's own High Hall.

S'Rella didn't mind the austerity of their lodgings. She was in high spirits when Maris retrieved her at last from the dying party. Garth had stayed close to her throughout the evening, introducing her to almost everybody, forcing her to eat three portions of his stew after she had praised it incautiously, and regaling her with embarrassing anecdotes about half of the flyers present. 'He's nice,' S'Rella said, 'but he drinks too much.' Maris could only agree with that; though it had not always been so: when she'd come to find S'Rella, Garth had been red-eyed and close to staggering. Maris helped him to the back room and put him to bed while he carried on a slurred, unintelligible conversation.

The next day dawned gray and windy. They woke to the cries of a food vendor, and Maris slipped outside and bought two steaming hot sausages from his cart. After breakfast, they donned their wings and flew. Not many of the flyers were in the air; the holiday atmosphere was a contagion, and most were drinking and talking in the lodge, or paying their respects to the Landsman, or wandering about Skulny to see what there was to see. But Maris insisted that S'Rella practice, and they stayed aloft for close to five hours on steadily rising winds.

Below them, the beach was again choked with children eager to assist incoming flyers. Despite their numbers, they were kept busy. Arrivals were constant throughout the day. The most spectacular moment — S'Rella looked on with wondering, awe-struck eyes — was when the flyers of Big Shotan approached en masse, nearly forty strong, flying in a tight formation, gorgeous against the sun in their dark red uniforms and silver wings.

By the time the competition began, Maris knew, virtually all the flyers from the scattered reaches of Western would be here. Eastern would be heavily represented too, although not quite with the unanimity of Western. Southern, smaller and farther, would have fewer still, and there would be only a handful of competitors from the Outer Islands, desolate Artellia, the volcanic Embers, and the other far-off places.

It was afternoon, and Maris and S'Rella were sitting outside the lodge with glasses of hot spiced milk in their hands, when Val made his appearance.

He gave Maris his mocking half-smile and sat down next to S'Rella. 'I trust you enjoyed flyer hospitality,' he said flatly.

'They were nice,' S'Rella said, blushing. 'Won't you come tonight? There's to be another party. Garth is going to roast a whole seacat, and his sister is providing ale.'

'No,' Val said. 'They have ale enough and food enough where I'm staying, and it suits me better.' He glanced at Maris. 'No doubt it suits us all better.'

Maris refused to be baited. 'Where are you staying?'

'A tavern about two miles down the sea road. Not the sort of place you'd care to visit. They don't get many flyers there, just miners and landsguard and some less willing to talk about their professions. I doubt they'd know how to treat a flyer properly.'

Maris frowned in annoyance. 'Do you ever stop?'

'Stop?' He smiled.

All at once Maris was filled with a perverse determination to erase that smile, to prove Val wrong. 'You don't even know the flyers,' she said. 'What right have you to hate them so? They're people, no different from you — no, that's wrong, they are different. They're warmer and more generous.'

'The warmth and generosity of flyers is fabled,' Val said. 'No doubt that's why only flyers are welcome at flyer parties.'

'They welcomed me,' S'Rella said.

Val gave her a long look, cautious and measuring. Then he shrugged and the thin smile returned to his lips.

'You've convinced me,' he said. 'I'll come to this party tonight, if they'll let a land-bound through the door.'

'Come as my guest, then,' Maris said, 'if you refuse to call yourself a flyer. And put aside your damned hostility for a few hours. Give them a chance.'

'Please,' S'Rella said. She took his hand and smiled hopefully at him.