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  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.

  "Oh, they'll have a chance to show their warmth and generosity," Val said. "But I won't beg for it, or polish their wings, or sing songs in their praise." He stood up abruptly. "Now, I would like to get some flying in. Is there a pair of wings I might use?"

  Maris nodded and directed him to the cabin where his wings were hung. After he was gone, she turned to S'Rella. "You care for him a lot, don't you?" she said softly.

  S'Rella lowered her eyes and blushed. "I know he's cruel at times, Maris, but he's not always like that."

  "Maybe that's so," Maris admitted. "He hasn't let me get to know him very well. Just — just be careful, all right, S'Rella? Val has a lot of hurt in him and sometimes people like that, when they've been hurt a lot, get back by hurting others, even those who care for them."

  "I know," S'Rella said. "Maris, you don't think — they won't hurt him tonight, will they? The flyers?"

  "I think he wants them to," Maris said, "so you'll see that he's right about them — about us. But I'm hoping that we'll prove him wrong."

  S'Rella said nothing. Maris finished her drink and rose. "Come," she said. "There's still time for more practice, and you need it. Let's get our wings back on."

  By early evening it was common knowledge among the flyers that Val One-Wing was on Skulny and intended to challenge. How the word had gotten out Maris was unsure. Perhaps Dorrel had said something, or perhaps Val had been recognized, or perhaps the news had come in from Eastern with some flyer who knew that Val had taken ship from Airhome. It was out and flying in any case. Twice Maris heard the epithet "One-Wing" as she and S'Rella walked back to their cabin in the flyer village, and outside their door a young flyer Maris knew casually from the Eyrie stopped her and asked point-blank if the rumor was true. When Maris admitted that it was, the other woman whistled and shook her head.

  It was not quite dark when Maris and S'Rella wandered up to the lodge, but the main room was already half-full of flyers, drinking and talking in small clusters. The promised seacat was roasting on a spit above the fire, but by the look of it still had several hours to go.

  Garth's sister, a stout plain-faced woman named Riesa, drew Maris a mug of her ale from one of three huge wooden casks that had been set along one wall. "It's good," Maris said after tasting. "Although I confess I'm no expert. Wine and kivas are my usual drinks."

  Riesa laughed. "Well, Garth swears by it, and he's drunk enough ale in his time to float a small trading fleet."

  "Where is Garth?" S'Rella asked. "I thought he'd be here."

  "He should be, later," Riesa said. "He wasn't feeling well, so he sent me on ahead. I think it was just an excuse to avoid helping with the barrels, actually."

  "Wasn't feeling well?" Maris said. "Riesa, is everything all right? He's been ill frequently of late, hasn't he?"

  Riesa's pleasant smile faded. "Has he told you, Maris? I wasn't sure. It's only been the past half-year. It's his joints. When it gets bad, they swell up on him something terrible, and even when they aren't swelling he's got pain." She leaned a little closer. "I'm worried about him, in truth. Dorrel is too. He's seen healers, here and in Stormtown too, but no one has been able to do much. And he's drinking more than he used to."

  Maris was appalled. "I knew Dorrel was fretting over him, but I thought it was just his drinking." She hesitated. "Riesa, has Garth told the Landsman about his troubles?"

  Riesa shook her head. "No, he's—" She interrupted herself to draw a mug for a craggy-looking Easterner and resumed only after he had drifted away. "He's afraid, Maris."

  "Why is he afraid?" S'Rella asked quietly, looking from Maris to Riesa and back again. She had been standing silently by Maris' elbow, listening.

  "If a flyer is sick," Maris said, "the Landsman can call together the island's other flyers, and if they agree, he can take the wings from the sick one, lest they be lost at sea." She looked back toward Riesa. "Then Garth is still flying missions as if he were well," she said, with concern in her voice. "The Landsman isn't sparing him."

  "No," Riesa said, chewing on her lip. "I'm frightened for him, Maris. The pain comes on so suddenly sometimes, and if it should come while
he's flying — I've told him to speak to the Landsman, but he won't hear of it. His wings are everything to him, you know that. All you flyers are alike."

  "I'll talk to him," Maris said firmly.

  "Dorrel has spoken to him endlessly," Riesa said. "It does no good. You know how stubborn Garth can be."

  "He should lay down his wings," S'Rella blurted suddenly.

  Riesa gave her a hard look. "Child, you don't know what you are saying. You are the Woodwinger Garth met last night, are you not? Maris' friend?"

  S'Rella nodded.

  "Yes, Garth spoke of you," Riesa said. "You would understand better if you were a flyer. You and I, we can only watch from outside, we can never feel as a flyer feels about his wings. At least Garth has told me so."

  "I will be a flyer," S'Rella insisted.

  "Certainly you will, child," Riesa said, "but you are not now, and that is why you talk so easily of laying down the wings."

  But S'Rella looked offended. She stood very stiffly and said, "I'm not a child, and I do understand." She might have said more, but just then the door opened and she and Maris both glanced in that direction.

  Val had arrived.

  "Excuse me," Maris said, taking Riesa by the forearm and giving her a squeeze for reassurance. "We'll talk more later." She hurried to where Val stood, his dark eyes sweeping the room, one hand resting on the hilt of his ornate knife in a pose that was half nervousness and half challenge.

  "A small party," he said noncommittally when Maris and S'Rella joined him.

  "It's early," Maris replied. "Give it time. Come, let's get you a drink and a bit of food." She gestured to the far wall, where a lavish table had once again been spread with spiced eggs, fruit, cheese, bread, various shellfish, sweetmeats, and pastries. "The seacat is the main course, but we'll be waiting hours for that," she concluded.

  Val took in the seacat on the spit and the table covered with other edibles. "I see the flyers are eating simply once again," he said. But he let himself be led across the room, where he ate two spiced eggs and a wedge of cheese before pausing to pour a goblet of wine.

  Around them the party went on; Val had attracted no particular attention. But Maris did not know if that was because the others had accepted him, or simply failed to recognize him.

  The three of them stood quietly for a few moments, S'Rella talking to Val in a low voice while he sipped at his wine and nibbled some more cheese, Maris quaffing her ale and watching the front door a bit apprehensively each time it opened. It had grown dark outside, and the lodge was rilling up rapidly. A dozen Shotaners she knew only vaguely swept in all at once, still in their red uniforms, followed by a half-dozen Easterners she knew not at all. One of them climbed atop Riesa's ale casks; a companion tossed him up a guitar, and he began to sing flyers' songs in a passably mellow voice. Beneath him the crowd grew dense, and listeners began to shout up requests.

  Maris, still glancing at the door whenever it opened, drifted a bit closer to Val and S'Rella, and tried to listen to them above the music.

  Then the music stopped.

  In mid-song, suddenly singer and guitar both grew silent, and the silence flowed across the room, as conversations ceased and all eyes turned curiously to the man perched atop the ale keg. In less than a minute, everyone in the lodge was looking at him.

  And he was looking across the room at Val.

  Val turned in his direction and raised his wine glass. "Greetings, Loren," he called, in his maddeningly flat tones. "I toast your fine singing." He drained his wine and set the glass aside.

  Someone, taking Val's words for a veiled insult, snickered. Others took the toast in earnest, and raised their own glasses. The singer just sat and stared, his face darkening, and most of the flyers watched him, baffled, waiting for him to resume.

  "Do the ballad of Aron and Jeni," someone called out.

  The guitarist shook his head. "No," he said, "I've got a more appropriate song." He played a few opening bars and began to sing a song unfamiliar to Maris.

  Val turned to her. "Don't you recognize it?" he said.

  "It's popular in Eastern. They call it the ballad of Ari and One-Wing." He poured himself more wine and raised the glass again in mocking tribute to the singer.

  With a sinking feeling, Maris realized that she had heard the song before, years past, and what was worse had enjoyed it. It was a rousing, dramatic story of betrayal and revenge, with One-Wing the villain and the flyers the heroes.

  S'Rella was biting her lip in anger, barely holding back her tears. She started forward impulsively, but Val restrained her with a hand on her arm and shook his head. Maris could only stand helplessly, listening to the cruel words, so very different from those of her own song, the one Coll had composed for her. She wished he were here now, to compose a song in answer to this. Singers had a strange power, even amateurs like the Easterner across the room.

  When he was finished, everyone knew.

  He tossed his guitar down to a friend, and jumped down after it. "I'll be singing on the beach, if anyone cares to hear," he said. Then he took his instrument and left, followed by all of the Easterners who had arrived with him and a good many others. The lodge was suddenly half-empty again.

  "Loren was a neighbor," Val said. "From North Arren, just across the bay. I haven't seen him in years."

  The Shotaners were talking softly among themselves, one or two of them giving Val, Maris, and S'Rella pointed looks from time to time. All of them left together.

  "You haven't introduced me to your flyer friends," Val said to S'Rella. "Come." He took her hand and led her forcefully to where four men were clustered in a tight circle. Maris had no choice but to follow. "I'm Val of South Arren," he said loudly. "This is S'Rella. Fine flying weather today, wasn't it?"

  One of the four, a huge, dark man with a massive jaw, frowned at him. "I admire your courage, One-Wing," he rumbled, "but nothing else about you. I knew Ari, though not well. Do you want me to make polite conversation with you?"

  "This is a flyers' lodge and a flyers' party," one of his companions said sharply. "Do you two have business here?"

  "They are my guests," Maris said furiously. "Or do you question my right to be here too?"

  "No. Only your taste in guests." He clapped the big man on the shoulder. "Come. I have a sudden urge to hear some singing."

  Val tried another group, two women and a man with ale mugs in their hands. Before he had quite reached them, they set down their mugs — still half-full — and left.

  Only one party remained in the room, six flyers that Maris knew vaguely from the far reaches of Western, and a single blond youth from the Outer Islands. And suddenly they were leaving too, but on the way to the door one of them, a man well into his middle years, stopped to talk to Val. "You may not remember, but I was among the judges the year you took Ari's wings," the man said. "We judged fairly, but some have never forgiven us for the verdict we handed down. Perhaps you did not know what you were doing, perhaps you did. It makes no difference. If they were so reluctant to forgive me, they will never forgive you. I pity you, but we're helpless. You were wrong to come back, son. They will never let you be a flyer."

  Val had been calm through everything else, but now his face contorted in rage. "I do not want your pity,"

  he said. "I do not want to be one of you. And I am not your son! Get out of here, old man, or I will take your wings this year."

  The gray-haired flyer shook his head, and a companion took him by his elbow. "Let's go, Cadon. You waste your concern on him."

  When they left, only Riesa remained in the lodge room with Maris, Val, and S'Rella. She busied herself with her ale mugs, gathering them up to wash, and did not look at them.

  "Warmth and generosity," Val said.

  "They're not all—" Maris started, and found she could not go on. S'Rella looked as if she were about to cry.

  Then the door crashed open, and it was Garth standing there, frowning, looking puzzled and angry.

 
"What is going on?" he said. "I stumble up from home to host my party, and everyone is out on the beach. Maris? Riesa?" He slammed the door and started across the room. "If there was a fight, I'll break the neck of the fool who started it. Flyers have no business quarreling like land-bound."

  Val faced him squarely. "I'm the cause of your empty party," he said.

  "Do I know you?" Garth said.

  "Val. Of South Arren." He waited.

  "He didn't start anything," Maris said suddenly. "Believe that, Garth. He's my guest."

  Garth looked baffled. "Then why—?"

  "I'm also called One-Wing."

  Comprehension broke across Garth's face, and Maris knew how she must have looked the day she had met Val on the Stormtown docks, and had a sickening realization of what it must have felt like to Val.

  Whatever Garth felt, he struggled to control it. "I wish I could bid you welcome," he said, "but that would be a lie. Ari was a sweet, fine woman who never hurt anyone, and I knew her brother too. We all did."

  He sighed and looked to Maris. "He is your guest, you say? What would you have me do?"

  "Ari was my friend as well," Maris said. "Garth, I don't ask you to forget her. But Val is not her killer. He took her wings, not her life."

  "They are one and the same," Garth grumbled, but it was half-hearted. He looked back at Val. "You were a boy then, though, and none of us knew that Ari would kill herself. I've made my own share of mistakes, though none as big as yours, and I suppose—"

  "I made no mistake," Val interrupted.

  Garth blinked. "Your challenge was a mistake," he said. "Ari killed herself."

  "I would challenge her again," Val said. "She was not fit to fly. Her death was her mistake, not mine."

  Garth was always gentle and genial, even his infrequent angers full of bluff and bluster; Maris had never seen his face as cold and bitter as it looked now. "Out, One-Wing," he said, his voice low. "Leave this lodge and do not enter it again, whether you wear wings or not. I will not have you."

  "I won't be back," Val said evenly. "Nonetheless, I thank you for your warmth and generosity." He smiled and headed toward the door. S'Rella started after him.