Windhaven

'Val? Here?'

'He has left again now. They told me he arrived only a few days ago, looking very worn, as from a long flight. He wasn't alone, either. Five or six others were with him. Flyers, all of them.'

'Did you hear any names?'

'Only Val's. He's notorious. But some of the others were described to me. A stocky Southern woman with white hair. A huge man with a black beard and a scylla-tooth necklace. Several Westerners, including two enough alike to be brothers.'

'Damen and Athen,' Maris said. 'I'm not sure of the others.'

Evan returned with cups of steaming tea and a platter of thick sliced bread. 'I am,' he said. 'Of one, at least. The man with the necklace is Katinn of Lomarron. He comes to Thayos frequently.'

'Of course,' Maris said. 'Katinn. A leader among Eastern one-wings.'

'Was there more?' Evan asked.

Coll set aside his guitar and blew on his tea to cool it. 'I was told that Val came representing the flyers, to try to talk the Landsman into releasing this woman he's imprisoned, this Tya.'

'A bluff,' Maris said. 'Val doesn't represent the flyers. All those you named are one-wings. The old families, the traditionalists, still hate Val. They'd never let him speak for them.'

'Yes, I heard that too,' Coll said. 'Anyway, it was claimed that Val offered to summon a flyer's court to judge Tya. He was willing enough to let the Landsman keep Tya imprisoned until—'

Maris nodded impatiently. 'Yes, yes. But what did the Landsman say?'

Coll shrugged. 'Some say he was very cool, some say he and Val One-Wing quarreled loudly. In any case, he insisted that the flyer would be tried in the Landsman's own court, and that he would do the judging and sentencing himself. The word on the streets is that the verdict has already been reached.'

'So poor Reni wasn't enough for him,' Evan murmured. 'The Landsman must have another death to avenge his pride.'

'What did Val say to that?' Maris asked.

Coll sipped his tea. 'I gather Val left after his meeting with the Landsman. Some say the one-wings are going to raid the keep and rescue Tya. There's talk of a flyer's Council too, summoned by Val. To invoke a sanction against Thayos, and shun it.'

'No wonder the people are frightened,' Evan said.

'Flyers should be frightened, too,' Coll said. 'Feeling among the locals is running against them. In a tavern near the northside cliffs I overheard a conversation about how the flyers have always secretly ruled Windhaven, deciding the fate of islands and of individuals by the messages they bear and the lies they tell.'

'That's absurd!' Maris said, shocked. 'How can they believe that?'

'The point is that they do,' Coll replied. 'I am a flyer's son. Never a flyer, although I was raised to be. I understand the traditions of the flyers, the bonds that link them, the feeling they have of being a society apart from all others. But I also know the people the flyers call 'land-bound,' as if they were all the same, joined together in one large family like the flyers are.'

He set down his mug of tea and again picked up his guitar, as if holding it gave him some special eloquence.

'You know how scornful the flyers can be of land-bound, Maris,' he said. 'I don't think you realize how resentful the land-bound can be of the flyers.'

'I have land-bound friends,' Maris said. 'And the one-wings all began as land-bound.'

Coll sighed. 'Yes, there are those who worship the flyers. Lodge men who devote their lives to caring for them, children who want to touch a flyer's wings, hangers-on who get a special thrill and a special status from coaxing a flyer into bed. But there are others as well. The land-bound who resent flyers seldom seek them out as friends, Maris.'

'I know there are problems. I haven't forgotten the hostility we faced when Val got his wings, the threats, the beating, the coolness. But surely things are changing, now that the society of flyers is no longer limited by birth.'

Coll shook his head. 'It's grown worse,' he said. 'In the old days, when it was a matter of birth, a lot of people felt flyers were special. In many of the Southern islands the flyers are priests, a special caste blessed by their Sky God. In Artellia they are princes. Just as the Landsmen of Eastern inherited their offices from their parents, so did the flyers inherit their wings.

'But no one now could make the mistake of thinking flyers divinely chosen. Suddenly there are new questions. How did this grubby farm-child I grew up with suddenly become so high and mighty? What sets this former neighbor apart, and gives him the freedom, power, and wealth of a flyer? These one-wings aren't as aloof as the traditional flyers — they lord over their old companions sometimes, or meddle in local affairs. They don't withdraw entirely from island politics — they still have local interests. It makes for bad feelings.'

'Twenty years ago no Landsman would have dared seize a flyer,' said Evan thoughtfully. 'But twenty years ago, would any flyer have dared to misrepresent a message?'

'Of course not,' said Maris.

'I wonder, though, how many will believe that?' Coll added. 'Now that it's happened, it's clear that it might have happened before. Those farmers I overheard were convinced that the flyers have been manipulating messages all along. From what I heard, the Landsman of Thayos is becoming rather a hero for being the one to flush out the truth.'

'A hero?' Evan was disgusted.

'It can't all change because of one well-meaning lie,' Maris said stubbornly.

'No,' said Coll. 'It's been changing all along. And it's all your fault.'

'Me? I've nothing to do with this.'

'No?' Coll grinned at her. 'Think again. Barrion used to tell me a story, big sister. About how he and you floated in a boat together, waiting to steal back your wings from Corm, so that you could call your Council. Do you remember?'

'Of course I remember!'

'Well, he said you floated there quite a while, waiting for Corm to leave his house, and all that waiting gave Barrion a chance to think over what you and he were doing. At one point, he said, he sat cleaning his nails with his dagger, and it occurred to him that maybe the best thing he could do was to use that dagger on you. It would have saved Windhaven a lot of chaos, he said. Because if you won, there were going to be more changes than you imagined, and several generations worth of pain. Barrion thought the world of you, Maris, but he also thought you were naive. You can't change one note in the middle of a song, he told me. Once you make the first change, others have to follow, until you've redone the whole song. Everything relates, you see.'

'So why did he help me?'

'Barrion was always a troublemaker,' Coll said. 'I guess he wanted to redo the whole song, make something better out of it.' Her stepbrother grinned wickedly. 'Besides,' he added, 'he never liked Corm.'

After a week without news, Coll decided to return to Port Thayos, to hear what he could. The docks and taverns where he plied his trade were always a rich source of news. 'Maybe I'll even visit the Landsman's keep,' he said jauntily. 'I've been making up a song about our Landsman here, and I'd love to see his face when he hears it!'

'Don't you dare, Coll,' Maris said.

He grinned. 'I'm not mad yet, big sister. But if the Landsman likes good singing, a visit might be worthwhile. I might learn something. Just keep Bari safe for me.'

Two days later a wineseller brought Evan a patient: a huge, shaggy black dog, one of two such monstrous hounds that pulled his wooden cart from village to village. A hooded torturer had mauled the animal and now it lay among the wineskins, crusted with blood and filth.

Evan could do nothing to save the beast, but for his efforts he was offered a skin of sour red wine. 'They tried that traitor flyer,' the wineseller reported as they drank together by the fire. 'She's to hang.'

'When?' Maris asked.

'Who's to say? Flyers are everywhere, and the Landsman's afraid of them, I think. She's locked up now in his