Windhaven

the crippled ship, the coffins where they died awhile; then, driven off course, they came here, to a world of endless ocean and raging storms, a world where the only land was a thousand scattered rocky islands, and the winds blew constantly. The song told of the landing, in a ship not meant to land, of the death of thousands in their coffins, and the way the sail — barely heavier than air — had floated atop the sea, turning the waters silver all around the Shotans. Barrion sang of the star sailors'

magic, and their dream of repairing the ship, and the slow agonizing dying of that dream. He lingered, melancholy, over the fading powers of their magic machines, the fading that ended in darkness. Finally came the battle, just off Big Shotan, when the Old Captain and his loyalists went down defending the precious metal sails against their children. Then, with the last magic, the sons and daughters of the star sailors, the first children of Windhaven, cut the sails into pieces, light, flexible, immensely strong. And, with whatever metal they could salvage from the ship, they forged the wings.

For the scattered people of Windhaven needed communication. Without fuel, without metal, faced by oceans full of storms and predators, given nothing free but the powerful winds: the choice was easy.

The last chords faded from the air. The poor sailors, Maris thought, as always. The Old Captain and his crew, they were flyers too, though their wings were star-wings. But their way of flying had to die so a new way could be born.

Barrion grinned at someone's request, and began a new tune. He did a half-dozen songs from ancient Earth, then looked around sheepishly and offered up a composition of his own, a bawdy drinking song about a horny scylla who mistook a fishing ship for its mate. Maris hardly listened. Her mind was on the star sailors still. In a way, they were like Woodwings, she thought; they couldn't give up their dream. And it meant they had to die. I wonder if they thought it was worth it?

'Barrion,' Russ called from the floor. 'This is a flyer's age-day. Give us some flying songs!'

The singer grinned, and nodded. Maris looked over at Russ. He stood by the table, a wine glass in his good hand, a smile on his face. He is proud, she thought. His son is soon to be a flyer, and he has forgotten me. She felt sick and beaten.

Barrion sang flying songs; ballads from the Outer Islands, from the Shotans, from Culhall and the Amberlys and Poweet. He sang of the ghost flyers, lost forever over the seas when they obeyed the Landsman-Captain and took swords into the sky. In still air you can see them yet, wandering hopelessly through the storms on phantom wings. Or so the legends go. But flyers who hit still air seldom return to talk of it, so no one could say for sure.

He did the song of white-haired Royn, who was past eighty when he found his flyer grandson dead in a lover's quarrel, and took the wings to chase and kill the culprit.

He sang the ballad of Aron and Jeni, the saddest song of all. Jeni had been a land-born, and worse, crippled; unable to walk, she had lived with her mother, a washerwoman, and daily she sat by the window to watch the flyers' cliff on Little Shotan. There she fell in love with Aron, a graceful laughing flyer, and in her dreams he loved her too. But one day, alone in her house, she saw him play in the sky with another flyer, a fire-haired woman, and when they landed they kissed each other. When her mother came home, Jeni was dead. Aron, when they told him, would not let them bury the woman he had never known. He took her in his arms and carried her up to the cliff; then, slinging her beneath him, he rode the winds far out to sea and gave her a flyer's burial.

Woodwings had a song too, though not a very good one; it made him a comical fool. Barrion sang it, though, and the one about the Flyer-Who-Brought-Bad-News, and Winddance, the flyers' wedding song, and a dozen others. Maris could hardly move, so caught was she. The kivas was rain-cold in her hand, forgotten in the face of the words. It was a good feeling, a restless disturbing glorious sadness, and it brought back to her memories of the winds.

'Your brother is a flyer born,' a soft voice whispered by her side, and she saw that Corm was resting on the arm of her chair. He gestured gracefully with his wine glass, to where Coll sat at Barrion's feet. The youth had his hands folded tightly around his knees, and his look was one of rapture.

'See how the songs touch him,' Corm said easily. 'Only songs to a land-bound, but more, much more, to a flyer. You and I know that, Maris, and your brother too. I can tell by watching. I know how it must be for you, but think of him, girl. He loves it as much as you.'

Maris looked up at Corm, and all but laughed at his wisdom. Yes, Coll looked entranced, but only she knew why. It was singing he loved, not flying; the songs, not the subject. But how could Corm know that, smiling handsome Corm who was so sure of himself and knew so little. 'Do you think that only flyers dream, Corm?' she asked him in a whisper, then quickly glanced away to where Barrion was finishing a song.

'There are more flying songs,' Barrion said. 'If I sang them all, we would be here all night, and I'd never get to eat.' He looked at Coll. 'Wait. You'll learn more than I'll ever know when you reach the Eyrie.'

Corm, by Maris' side, raised his glass in salute.

Coll stood up. 'I want to do one.'

Barrion smiled. 'I think I can trust you with my guitar. Nobody else, maybe, but you, yes.' He got up, relinquishing his seat to the quiet, pale-faced youth.

Coll sat down, strummed nervously, biting his lip. He blinked at the torches, looked over at Maris, blinked again. 'I want to do a new song, about a flyer. I — well, I made it up. I wasn't there, you understand, but I heard the story, and well, it's all true. It ought to be a song, and it hasn't been, till now.'

'Well, sing it then, boy,' the Landsman boomed.

Coll smiled, glanced at Maris again. 'I call this Raven's Fall.'

And he sang it.

Clear and pure, with a beautiful voice, just the way it happened. Maris watched him with wide eyes, listened with awe. He got it all right. He even caught the feeling, the lump that twisted in her when Raven's folded wings bloomed mirror-bright in the sun, and he climbed away from death. All of the innocent love she had felt for him was in Coll's song; the Raven that he sang of was a glorious winged prince, dark and daring and defiant. As Maris once had thought him.

He has a gift, Maris thought. Corm looked down at her and said, 'What?' and suddenly she realized that she'd whispered it aloud.

'Coll,' she said, in a low voice. The last notes of the song rang in her ears. 'He could be better than Barrion, if he had a chance. I told him that story, Corm. I was there, and a dozen others, when Raven did his trick. But none of us could have made it beautiful, as Coll did. He has a very special gift.'

Corm smiled at her complacently. 'True. Next year we'll wipe out Eastern in the singing competition.'

And Maris looked at him, suddenly furious. It was all so wrong, she thought. Across the room, Coll was watching her, a question in his eyes. Maris nodded to him, and he grinned proudly. He had done it right.

And she had decided.

But then, before Coll could start another song, Russ came forward. 'Now,' he said, 'now we must get serious. We've had singing and talk, good eating and good drink here in the warmth. But outside are the winds.'

They all listened gravely, as was expected, and the sound of the winds, forgotten background for so long, now seemed to fill the room. Maris heard, and shivered.

'The wings,' her father said.

The Landsman came forward, holding them in his hands like the trust they were. He spoke his ritual words: 'Long have these wings served Amberly, linking us to all the folk of Windhaven, for generations, back to the days of the star sailors. Marion flew them, daughter of a star sailor, and her daughter Jeri, and her son Jon, and Anni, and Flan, and Denis'… the genealogy went on a long time… 'and last Russ and his daughter, Maris.' There was a slight ripple in the crowd at the unexpected mention of Maris. She had not been a true flyer and ought not have been named. They were giving her the name of flyer even as they took away her wings, Maris thought. 'And now young Coll will take them, and now, as other Landsmen have done for generations, I hold them for a brief while, to bring them luck with my touch.

And through me all the folk of Lesser Amberly touch these wings, and with my voice they say, 'Fly well, Coll!' '

The Landsman handed the folded wings to Russ, who took them and turned to Coll. He was standing then, the guitar at his feet, and he looked very small and very pale. 'It is time for someone to become a flyer,' Russ said. 'It is time for me to pass on the wings, and for Coll to accept them, and it would be folly to strap on wings in a house. Let us go to the flyers' cliff and watch a boy become a man.'