Windhaven

Maris said. 'How did that order get to your Landsman? You flew it, didn't you? You flew the messages both ways' .'

Arak glared at her and broke and ran again. Maris did not go after him this time.

The look on his face had been all the admission she needed.

The wind off the sea was brisk and cold that night, but Maris walked slowly, not eager to leave the solitude of the sea road for a conference with Val. She wanted to speak with Val — she felt she had to — but she wasn't certain what she would say. For the first time, she felt she understood him. And her sympathy disturbed her.

She was angry with Arak; she had responded to him emotionally and, she now thought, irrationally. She had no right to that anger, even if Val did. A flyer could not be blamed for the message he or she flew — that was common sense, as well as the stuff of legend. Maris herself had never flown a message leading directly to anyone's death, but she had carried information once that had resulted in the imprisonment of a woman accused of theft — did that woman bear a grudge against Maris as well as against the Landsman who sentenced her?

Maris shoved her hands into her pockets and hunched her shoulders against the bite of the wind, scowling as she turned the problem over in her mind. Arak was an unpleasant person, and he might well have taken pleasure in the idea of being the instrument of revenge against a murderer, and there was no doubt that he had taken advantage of the situation. Val and his mother had been cheap labor to him, however sanctimoniously he might speak of his generosity.

As she neared the tavern where Val was lodged, Maris still argued with herself. Arak was a flyer, and flyers could not refuse to carry messages, no matter how unwelcome or unfair they might sound. She couldn't let her dislike of the man trick her into blaming him for the execution (deserved or not) of Val's father. And that was something that Val, if he was ever to be more than One-Wing, would have to understand, too.

The tavern was a shabby place, its interior dark and cold and smelling faintly of mold. The fire was too small to heat the main room properly, and the candles on the table burned smokily. Val was dicing with three dark-haired, heavy women in landsguard brown-and-green, but he came away when Maris asked him to, a wine glass in his hand.

He nursed his wine as she spoke, his face closed and silent. When she had finished, his smile was faint and fast-fading. 'Warmth and generosity,' he said. 'Arak has them both in abundance.' After that he said nothing.

The silence was lengthy and awkward. 'Is that all you're going to say?' Maris asked finally.

Val's expression changed just a little, the lines around his mouth tightening, eyes narrowing; he looked harder than ever. 'What did you expect me to say, flyer? Did you think I'd embrace you, bed you, sing a song in praise of your understanding? What?'

Maris was startled by the anger in his tone. 'I–I don't know what I expected,' she said. 'But I wanted to let you know that I understood what you'd been through, that I was on your side.'

'I don't want you on my side,' Val said. 'I don't need you, or your sympathy. And if you think I appreciate your prying into my past, you are wrong. What went on between Arak and myself is our business, not yours, and neither of us needs your judgments.' He finished his wine, snapped his fingers, and the barkeep came across the room and set a bottle on the table between them.

'You wanted revenge on Arak, and rightly so,' Maris said stubbornly, 'but you've changed that into a desire for revenge against all flyers. You should have challenged Arak, not Ari.'

Val poured himself a refill and tasted it. 'There are several problems with that romantic notion,' he said more calmly. 'For one, Arak did not have wings the year Airhome sponsored me. His son had come of age; Arak was retired. Two years ago, the son picked up some Southern fever and died, and Arak took up the wings again.'

'I see,' Maris said. 'And you didn't challenge the son because he was a friend.'

Val's laugh was cruel. 'Hardly. The son was an ill-bred bully who grew more like his father every day. I didn't shed a tear when they dropped him into the sea. Oh, we played together once, when he was still too young to comprehend how superior he was, and we were whipped together often enough, but that made no bond between us.' He leaned forward. 'I didn't challenge the son because he was good, the same reason I would not have challenged Arak. I am not interested in revenge, no matter what you might think. I am interested in wings, and the things that go with them. Your Ari was the feeblest flyer I saw, and I knew I could take her wings. Against Arak or his son I might have lost. It is that simple.'

He sipped at his wine again, while Maris watched, dismayed. Whatever she had hoped to accomplish by coming here was not happening. And she realized that it would not happen, could not happen. She had been foolish to think otherwise. Val One-Wing was who he was, and that would not change simply because Maris understood the cruel forces that had shaped him. He sat regarding her with the same cool disdain as ever, and she knew then that they could never be friends, never, no matter what might come to pass.

She tried again. 'Don't judge all flyers by Arak.' As she heard her own words, she wondered why she had not said us, why she spoke of the flyers as if she were not one of them. 'Arak is not typical, Val.'

'Arak and I understand each other well enough,' Val said. 'I know exactly what he is, thank you. I know that he is crueler than most, flyer or land-bound, and less intelligent, and more easily angered. That does not make my opinion of other flyers any less true. His attitudes are shared by most of your friends, whether you care to admit it or not. Arak is only a bit less reticent about voicing those views, and a little more crude in his speech.'

Maris rose. 'We have nothing more to say to each other. I'll expect you and S'Rella tomorrow morning for practice,' she said as she turned away.

Sena and the other Woodwingers arrived several hours ahead of schedule the day before the competition was to open, putting in at the nearest port and trekking twelve miles overland along the sea road.

Maris was up flying and did not know they had arrived for several hours. When she found them, Sena immediately asked after the academy wings, and sent Sher and Leya running for them. 'We must take advantage of every hour of good wind we have left,' she said. 'We were trapped on that ship too long.'

Her students gone, Sena beckoned Maris to be seated and looked at her keenly. 'Tell me what is wrong.'

'What do you mean?'

Sena shook her head impatiently. 'I noticed it at once,' she said. 'In years past the flyers may have been cool to us, but they were always polite and patronizing. This year the hostility hangs in the air like a bad smell. Is it Val?'

Briefly, Maris told the older woman what had happened.

Sena frowned. 'Well, it is unfortunate, but we will survive it. Adversity will toughen them. They need that.'

'Do they? This is not the kind of toughness you get from wind and weather and hard landings. This is something else. Do they need their hearts toughened as well as their bodies?'

Sena put a hand on her shoulder. 'Perhaps they do. You sound bitter, Maris, and I understand your disappointment. I too was a flyer, and I would have liked to believe better of my old friends. We'll survive, flyers and Woodwingers both.'

That night the flyers enjoyed a boisterous party at the lodge, so noisy that even in the village Maris and the others could hear it. But Sena would not let her charges attend. They need rest tonight, she said, after one final meeting in her cabin.

She began by discussing the rules. The competition was to last three days, but the serious business, the formal challenges, would be restricted to the mornings.

'Tomorrow you name your opponent and race,' Sena said. 'The judges will rate you according to speed and endurance. The day after they will look for grace. On the third day, precision: you will fly the gates to show your control.'

The evenings and afternoons would be filled with less serious contests, games, personal challenges, singing contests, drinking bouts and so on. 'Leave those to flyers not involved in the real challenges,'

Sena warned. 'You have no business with such foolery. They can only tire you, and waste your strength.

Watch if you will, but take no part.'

When she had finished talking about the rules, Sena answered questions for a time, until she was asked one she could not answer. It came from Kerr, who had lost some weight during the three days at sea, and looked surprisingly fit. 'Sena,' he said, 'how do we decide who is best to challenge?'