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  "S'Rella," Garth said. "I don't — you can stay, girl, I have no—"

  S'Rella whirled. "Everything Val says is true. I hate you all."

  And she followed Val One-Wing out into night.

  S'Rella did not return to their little cabin that night, but she was there just after dawn the next day, Val with her, both ready for practice. Maris gave them the wings and accompanied them up the steep, twisting stone stairs to the flyers' cliff. "Race," she told them. "Fly above the coastline, using the sea breeze and staying low. Circle the entire island."

  It was not until they were out of sight that Maris took wing herself. They would take several hours to complete the circuit, and she was thankful for the time. She felt tired and irritable, in no mood for even the best of company, and Val was never that. She gave herself to the healing embrace of the wind and angled out to sea.

  The morning was pale and quiet, the wind steady behind her. She rode it, letting it take her where it would; all directions were the same to her. She wanted only to fly, to feel the touch of the wind, to forget all the petty troubles below in the cold, clean air of the upper sky.

  There was little enough to see: gulls and scavenger kites and a hawk or two near the shores of Skulny, a fishing boat here and there, and farther out only ocean, ocean everywhere, blue-green water with long bright streaks of sun upon it. Once she saw a pack of seacats, graceful silver shapes whose playful leaps took them twenty feet above the waves. An hour later, she caught a rare glimpse of a wind wraith, a vast strange bird with semi-translucent wings as wide and thin as the sails of a trading ship. Maris had never seen one before, though she had heard other flyers speak of them. They liked the higher altitudes where humans seldom flew, and almost never came within sight of land. This one was quite low, floating on the wind, its great wings scarcely seeming to move. She soon lost sight of it.

  A deep sense of peace filled her, and she felt all the tensions and angers of the land drain away from her.

  This was what it meant to fly, she thought. The rest, the messages she flew, the honor paid to her, the ease of living, the friends and enemies in flyer society, the rules and laws and legends, the responsibility and the boundless freedom, all of it, all of it was secondary. This, for her, was the real reward; the simple feel of flying.

  S'Rella felt it too, she thought. Perhaps that was why she was so drawn to the Southern girl, because of the way she looked when she came from flying, cheeks flushed, eyes glowing, smiling. Val had none of that look about him, Maris realized suddenly. The thought saddened her. Even if he should win his wings, he would miss so much; he took a fierce pride in his flying, came away from it with a sheen of satisfaction, but he was not capable of finding joy in the sky. Whether or not he ever won his wings, the peace and happiness of the true flyer would always be denied him. And that, thought Maris, was the crudest truth about Val's life.

  When she saw by the sun that it was nearly noon, Maris finally banked and swept around in a long, graceful arc to begin the flight back to Skulny.

  Maris was resting alone in her cabin late that afternoon when she was startled by loud, insistent pounding at the door.

  Her visitor was a stranger, a short, slight, hollow-cheeked man with graying hair pulled back hard and tied in a knot at the back of his head. An Easterner: his hairstyle and fur-trimmed clothes told her that. He wore an iron ring on one finger and silver on another, testimonials to his wealth.

  "My name is Arak," he said. "I have flown for South Arren these past thirty years."

  Maris opened the door wider and let him in, gesturing him toward the one chair. She sat on a bed. "You are from Val's home island."

  He grimaced. "Indeed. It is Val One-Wing I would speak to you about. Some of us have been talking—"

  "Us?"

  "Flyers."

  "Which flyers?" His self-centered intensity made her hostile; she did not like his presumption or his tone.

  "That doesn't matter," Arak said. "I was sent to talk with you because it is generally felt that you are a flyer at heart, even if not flyer-born. You would not help Val One-Wing if you knew the sort of man he is."

  "I know him," Maris said. "I do not like him, and I have not forgotten Ari's death, but still he deserves his chance."

  "He has had more chances than he ever deserved," Arak said angrily. "Do you know the stock he springs from? His parents were vicious, dirty, ignorant. From Lomarron, not South Arren at all. Do you know Lomarron?"

  Maris nodded, remembering the time she had flown to Lomarron three years before. A large, mountainous island, soil-poor but metal-rich. Because of that wealth, warfare was endemic. Most of the land-bound there worked in the mines. "His parents were miners," she guessed.

  But Arak shook his head. "Landsguard," he said. "Professional killers. His father was a knife-fighter, his mother a sling."

  "Many islands have landsguard forces," Maris said uneasily.

  Arak seemed to be enjoying this. "On Lomarron they get more practice than on other islands," he said.

  "Too much, finally. His mother had her sling hand lopped off in an engagement, severed clean at the wrist.

  Not long after that there was a truce. But Val's family didn't take to truces. His father killed a man anyway, and then the three of them had to flee Lomarron in a fishing boat they stole. That was how they came to South Arren. The mother was a useless one-handed cripple, but the father joined the landsguard again. Only for a short time, though. One night he got too drunk and told a mate who he was, and word reached the Landsman, and then Lomarron. He was hanged as a thief and a murderer."

  Maris sat silent, feeling numb.

  "I know all this," Arak went on, "because I took pity on the poor widow. I took her in as housekeeper and cook, never mind that she was clumsy and slow with the one hand. I gave them a place to live, plenty to eat, and raised Val with my own son. With his father gone, he should have looked up to me. I set him a good example; I gave him the discipline he lacked. But it was wasted— his blood was bad. The kindness was wasted on both of them, and anything you do for him is going to be wasted as well. His mother was lazy and shiftless, always whining and complaining about how she felt, never getting her work done on time, but expecting to be paid for it all the same. Val used to play at being a knife-fighter, and killing people. Even tried to drag my own boy into his sick games, but I stopped that soon enough. He was a terrible influence. Both of them stole, you know, him and his mother. There was always something missing. I had to keep my iron under lock and key. I even caught him handling my wings once, in the middle of the night, when he thought I was asleep.

  "Give him a chance to win wings fairly, and what does he do? Attacks poor Ari, who hadn't a chance, and as good as kills her. He has no morals, no code. I couldn't beat it into him when he was a boy, and now—"

  Maris rose, suddenly remembering the scars on Val's back. "You beat him?"

  "Eh?" Arak looked up at her in surprise. "Of course I beat him. The only way to lick some sense into him.

  A blackwood stick when he was small, a touch of the whip now and then when he was older. Same as I gave my own."

  "Same as you gave your own. How about the other things you gave your own — did Val and his mother eat at table with you?"

  Arak stood up, his sharp face twisted in dismay. Even standing, he was a small figure, and had to look up at Maris. "Of course not," he snapped. "They were help, hired land-bound. Servants don't eat with their masters. I gave them all they needed — don't you imply that I starved them."

  "You gave them scraps," Maris said with angry certainty. "Scraps and refuse, the garbage you didn't want."

  "I was a wealthy flyer when you were a land-bound brat digging for your dinner. Don't try to tell me how to feed my household."

  Maris stepped closer, looming above him. "Raised him with your own son, did you? And what did you say when you were training your son, and Val asked if he might try on the wings?"

  Arak gave a choking snort of laughte
r. "I whipped that idea out of him fast enough," he said. "That was before you came along with your damned academies and put notions in the heads of the land-bound."

  She shoved him.

  Maris had scarcely ever touched another person in anger, but now she shoved him hard, with both hands, wanting to hurt him, and Arak staggered backward, the laughter dying in his throat. She shoved him again and he stumbled and fell. She stood over him, seeing the nervous disbelief in his eyes. "Get up,"

  she said. "Get up and get out, you filthy little man. If I could I'd rip the wings from your back. You foul the sky."

  Arak rose and moved quickly to the door. Outside, he was brave again. "Blood will tell," he said, glaring through the doorway at Maris. "I knew it. I told them all. Land-bound is land-bound. The academies will close. We should have taken your wings early, but we'll take them late, just the same."

  Maris, shaking, slammed the door.

  Suddenly a terrible suspicion hit her, and she wrenched the door open again and ran out after him. Arak, seeing her coming, began to run, but she soon caught up with him, and knocked him flat on the sand.

  Several astonished flyers watched, but no one moved to interfere.

  Arak cringed beneath her. "You're mad," he shouted. "Leave me alone!"

  "Where was Val's father executed?" Maris demanded.

  Arak got clumsily to his feet.

  "On Lomarron or South Arren?"

  "On Arren, of course. No sense shipping him back," he said, stepping away from her. "Our rope was just as good."

  "But the crime was committed on Lomarron, so the Landsman of Lomarron had to order the execution,"

  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 wron
g."

  "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?"