working out regularly. She was dismayed to find that both her arms, not merely the injured one, were sadly weakened by her time of enforced idleness.
Determined to test the air again as soon as possible, Maris had her wings taken to the keep, to the Landsman's own metalsmith, for repair. The woman was busy with preparations for the impending war, but a flyer's request was never to be ignored, and she promised to have the damaged struts straightened and restored within a week. She was true to her word.
Maris checked out her wings carefully on the day they were returned, folding and unfolding each strut in turn, scanning the fabric to make sure it was taut and firmly mounted. Her hands fell to the task as if they had never stopped doing it; they were a flyer's hands, and there was nothing in all the world they knew how to do better than tend a pair of wings. Almost Maris was tempted to strap on the wings and make the long walk to the flyers' cliff. Almost, but not quite. Her balance had not yet come to her, she thought, though she was steadier on her feet now. Every night, surreptitiously, she gave herself the plank test. She had not yet passed it, but she was improving. She was not yet ready for wings, but soon, soon.
When she was not working, sometimes she walked with Evan in the forest, when he went abroad to gather herbs or tend to other patients. He taught her the names of the plants he used in his work, and explained what each herb was good for, and when and how to use it. He showed her all manner of animals as well; the beasts of the chilly Eastern forests were not at all like the familiar denizens of Lesser Amberly's tame woods, and Maris found them fascinating. Evan seemed so at home in the forest that the creatures did not fear him. Strange white crows with scarlet eyes accepted breadcrumbs from his fingers, and he knew the hidden entrances to the tunnel-monkey lairs that honeycombed the wild, and once he caught her arm and pointed out a hooded torturer, gliding sensuously from limb to limb in pursuit of some unseen prey.
Maris told him stories of her adventures in the sky and on other islands. She had been flying for more than forty years, and her head was full of wonders. She told him of life on Lesser Amberly, of Stormtown with its windmills and its wharves, of the vast blue-white glaciers of Artellia and the fire mountains of the Embers. She talked of the loneliness of the Outer Islands, hard up against the Endless Ocean to the east, and the fellowship that had once thrived on the Eyrie before flyers had divided into factions.
Neither ever spoke of what lay between them, dividing them. Evan did not contradict Maris when she spoke of flying, nor did he mention any invisible damage to her head. The subject was like a patch of dangerous ground, no wider than a wooden plank, upon which neither was willing to step. Maris kept her occasional dizzy spells to herself.
One day as they stepped outside Evan's house, Maris stopped him from turning deeper into the forest.
'All those trees make me feel like I'm still inside,' she complained. 'I need to see the sky, to smell clean, open air. How far away is the sea?'
Evan gestured to the north. 'About two miles that way. You can see where the trees begin to thin.'
Maris grinned at him. 'You sound reluctant. Do you feel sad when there aren't any trees around? You don't have to come if you can't bear it — but I don't understand how you can breathe in that forest. It's too dim and close. Nothing to smell but dirt and rot and leaf-mold.'
'Wonderful smells,' Evan said, smiling back. They began to walk toward the north. 'The sea is too cold and empty and big for my tastes. I feel comfortable and at home in my forest.'
'Ah, Evan, we're so different, you and I!' She touched his arm and grinned at him, somehow pleased by the contrast. She threw her head back and sniffed the air. 'Yes, I can smell the sea already!'
'You could smell it on my doorstep — you can smell the sea all over Thayos,' Evan pointed out.
'The forest disguised it.' Maris felt her heart lightening with the thinning of the forest. All her life had been spent beside the sea, or over it. She had felt the lack every morning waking in Evan's house, missing the pounding of the waves and the sharp salt smell, but most of all missing the sight of that vast, gray immensity, beneath an equally immense and turbulent sky.
The tree line ended abruptly, and the rocky cliffs began. Maris broke into a run. She stopped on the cliff's edge, breathing hard, and gazed out over the sea and the sky.
The sky was indigo, filled with rapidly scudding gray clouds. The wind was relatively gentle at this height, but Maris could tell from the patient circling of a pair of scavenger kites that up higher the flying was still good. Not a day for rushing urgent messages, perhaps, but a good day for playing, for swooping and diving and laughing in the cool air.
She heard Evan approaching. 'You can't tell me that's not beautiful,' she said, without turning. She took an- other step closer to the edge of the cliff and looked down… and felt the world drop beneath her.
She gasped for breath and her arms flailed, seeking some solidity, and she was falling, falling, falling, and even Evan's arms wrapped tight around her could not draw her back to safety.
It stormed all the next day. Maris spent the day inside, lost in depression, thinking of what had happened on the cliffs. She did not exercise. She ate listlessly, and had to force herself to tend to her wings. Evan watched her in silence, frowning often.
The rain continued the following day, but the worst of the storm was past, and the downpour grew more gentle. Evan announced that he was going out. 'There are some things I need from Port Thayos,' he said,
'herbs that do not grow here. A trader came in last week, I understand. Perhaps I will be able to replenish my stores.'
'Perhaps,' Maris said evenly. She was tired, though she had done nothing this morning except eat breakfast. She felt old.
'Would you like to walk with me? You have never seen Port Thayos.'
'No,' Maris said. 'I don't feel up to it just now. I'll spend the day here.'
Evan frowned, but reached for his heavy raincloak nonetheless. 'Very well,' he said. 'I will be back before dark.'
But it was well after dark when the healer finally returned, carrying a basket full of bottled herbs. The rain had finally stopped. Maris had begun to worry about him when the sun went down. 'You're late,' she said when he entered, and shook the rain from his cloak. 'Are you all right?'
He was smiling; Maris had never seen him quite so happy. 'News, good news,' he said. 'The port is full of it. There will be no war. The Landsmen of Thayos and Thrane have agreed to a personal meeting on that accursed rock, to work out a compromise about mining rights!'
'No war,' Maris said, a little dully. 'Good, good. Odd, though. How did it happen?'
Evan started a fire and began to make some tea. 'Oh, it was all happenstance,' he said. 'Tya returned from another mission, bearing nothing. Our Landsman was rebuffed on all sides. Without allies, he did not feel strong enough to press his claims. He is furious, I'm told, but what can he do? Nothing. So he sent Jem to Thrane to set up a meeting, to haggle out whatever settlement he can. Anything is better than nothing, I would have thought he'd find support on Cheslin or Thrynel, particularly if he offered them a large enough share of the iron. And certainly there is no love lost between Thrane and the Arrens.' Evan laughed. 'Ah, what does it matter? The war is off. Port Thayos is giddy with relief, except for a
Evan went to his basket and rummaged among the herbs, pulling out a large moonfish. 'I thought perhaps seafood would cheer you up,' he said. 'I know a way of cooking this with dandyweed and bitternuts that will make your tongue sing.' He found a long bone knife, and began to scale the fish, whistling happily as he worked, and his mood was so infectious that Maris found herself smiling too.
There was a loud knocking at the door.
Evan looked up, scowling. 'An emergency, no doubt,' he said, cursing. 'Answer it if you would, Maris.
My hands are full of fish.'
The girl standing in the door wore a dark green uniform, trimmed with gray fur; a landsguard, and one of the Landsman's runners. 'Maris of Lesser Amberly?' she asked.
'Yes,' Maris said.
The girl nodded. 'The Landsman of Thayos sends his greetings, and invites you and the healer Evan to honor him at dinner tomorrow night. If your health permits it.'
'My health permits it,' Maris snapped. 'Why are we suddenly so honored, child?'
The runner had a seriousness beyond her years. 'The Landsman honors all flyers, and your injury in his
