Windhaven Read online

  She remembered the taste of rain, and the throb of distant thunder, and the way the sea looked at dawn, just before the sun came up. She remembered the way it felt to run and cast herself from a flyers' cliff, trusting wind and wings and her own skill to keep her in the air.

  Sometimes she trembled and cried out in the night, and Evan wrapped his arms around her and whispered soothing promises, but Maris did not tell him of her dreams. He had never been a flyer, or seen a flyers' Council, and he would not understand.

  Time passed. The sick came to Evan, or he to them, and died or grew well. Maris and Bari worked at his side, doing what they could. But Maris found that her mind was not always in the work she did. Once Evan sent her into the forest to gather sweetsong, an herb he used to make tesis, but Maris found herself thinking of the Council as she wandered in the cool, damp woods. It has started by now, she thought, and in her head she heard the speeches they must be making, Val and Corm and the rest, and she weighed their arguments and set others up against them, and wondered where it would all go, and whom they had chosen to preside. When she finally returned, beneath her arm was a basket of liar's weed, which looks almost like sweetsong but has no healing properties. Evan took the basket and sighed loudly, shaking his head. "Maris, Maris," he muttered, "what am I to do with you?" He turned to Bari. "Girl," he said, "go fetch me some sweetsong before it grows too dark. Your aunt is not feeling well."

  Maris could only agree with him.

  Then one day Coll returned, trudging up the road with his guitar across his back, some six weeks after he had left them. He was not alone. S'Rella walked by his side, still wearing her wings, and stumbling like one half-asleep. Their faces were gray and drawn.

  When Bari saw them coming, she gave a loud cry and ran to embrace her father. Maris turned to S'Rella.

  "S'Rella — are you all right? How did the Council go?"

  S'Rella began to weep.

  Maris went to her and took her old friend in her arms, feeling her shake. Twice she tried to speak, but only gasped and choked.

  "It's all right, S'Rella," Maris said helplessly. "There, there, it's all right, I'm here." Her eyes found Coll's.

  "Bari," Coll said in a shaky voice. "Go find Evan and bring him out to us."

  Bari, with a worried glance at S'Rella, ran to obey.

  "I was at the Landsman's keep," Coll said when his daughter had gone. "He learned that I was your brother, and decided to detain me until the Council was over. S'Rella flew in after the Council. The landsguard took her and brought her to the keep as well. He had other flyers there, too. Jem, Ligar of Thrane, Katinn of Lomarron, some poor child from Western. Besides the flyers and myself, there were four other singers, a couple of storytellers, and of course all the Landsman's own criers and runners. He wants the word to spread, you see. He wants everyone to know what he did. We were his witnesses.

  The landsguard marched us out into the courtyard and forced us to watch."

  "No," Maris said, pressing S'Rella closer. "No, Coll, he didn't dare! He couldn't."

  "Tya of Thayos was hanged yesterday at sunset," Coll said bluntly, "and denying it won't change it. I saw it. She tried to make a speech, but the Landsman would not allow it. The noose wasn't tied properly. Her neck didn't break in the fall, and it was a long time before she strangled to death."

  S'Rella pulled away from her embrace. "You were lucky," she said with difficulty. "He might — could have sent for you. Oh, Maris. I couldn't look away — I—it was awful. They wouldn't even let her — have — last words. And the worst—" Her voice caught again.

  Evan and Bari were coming, but Maris barely heard their footsteps, or Evan's cry of greeting. A great coldness had settled on her; the same numb sickness she had felt when Russ had died, when Halland had been lost at sea. "How could he dare," she said slowly. "Didn't anyone do anything? Was there no one to stop him?"

  "Several landsguard officers cautioned him against it, one high officer in particular — I believe she commands his bodyguard. He would not listen. The landsguard who marched us out were clearly frightened. Several averted their eyes when the trap was opened. In the end, though, they obeyed. They are landsguard, after all, and he is their Landsman."

  "But the Council," said Maris. "Why didn't the Council — what about Val, the flyers?"

  "The Council," said S'Rella bitterly, "the Council named her outlaw and stripped her wings from her."

  Anger had pushed her tears aside. "The Council gave him leave to do it!"

  "And so everyone would know that he was hanging a flyer," Coll said wearily, "the Landsman put her wings on her. Folded, of course, but still unmistakable. He joked about it. He told her to use her wings to break this fall, and fly away."

  Later, over cups of Evan's special tea and plates of bread and sausage, S'Rella regained her composure and told Maris and Evan the whole story of the disastrous Council while Coll went outside to talk with his daughter.

  It was a simple story. Val One-Wing, who had called the fifth flyers' Council in the history of Windhaven, had lost control of it. He had never had control, in fact. His one-wings and allies made up barely a fourth of those assembled, and the three who sat in the positions of honor — the Landsmen of North and South Arren and the retired flyer Kolmi of Thar Kril, who presided — were unsympathetic. No sooner had the meeting begun than angry voices were raised to denounce Tya and her crime, including that of Kolmi himself. "This land-bound girl never understood what it means to be a flyer," S'Rella quoted Kolmi as saying. Others joined the chorus. She should never have been given wings, said one. She had committed a crime not only against her Landsman, but against her fellow flyers as well, said another. She has betrayed her sacred trust, has made all flyers suspect, added a third.

  "Katinn of Lomarron tried to speak for her," S'Rella told them, "but he was hooted down. Katinn grew furious and cursed them all. Like Tya, he has seen a lot of war. Some of Tya's friends tried to defend her, at least explain why she did the thing she did, but others refused to listen. When Val himself rose, and tried to put forward his proposal, I thought briefly that we had a chance. He was very good. Calm and reasonable, unlike his usual self. He placated them by admitting that Tya had committed a great crime, but went on to say that the flyers had to defend her nonetheless, that we could not afford to let the Landsman have his way with her, that our fates were linked with Tya's. It was a very good speech. If it had come from anyone else it might have swayed them, but it came from Val, and the arena was full of his enemies. So many of the older flyers still hate him.

  "Val suggested that the Council strip Tya of her wings for five years, after which she would have to win them back in competition. He also said that we had to insist that only flyers could judge flyers, which meant freeing her from Thayos by threat of a sanction.

  "He had people ready to second his proposal and speak in its behalf, but it did no good. Kolmi never recognized us. We were never given a chance to speak. The Council went on most of a day, and I'd say barely a dozen one-wings ever got to speak. Kolmi just wouldn't let us be heard.

  "After Val, he recognized a woman from Lomarron, who talked about how Val's father had been hanged as a murderer, and how Val himself had driven Ari to suicide by taking her wings. 'No wonder he wants us to defend this criminal,' she said. Others like her followed; there was much talk of crime, of one-wings who only half understood what it meant to be a flyer, and Val's proposal got lost in the chaos.

  "Then some older flyers put forth a proposal to close the academies. That wasn't popular. Corm spoke in favor of it, but his own daughter rose against him. It was quite a sight. The Artellians were for it too, and some of the retired flyers, and they managed to force a vote, but less than a fifth of the Council voted with them. The academies are safe."

  "We can be thankful for that much," Maris said.

  S'Rella nodded. "Then Dorrel spoke. You know how highly he's regarded. He gave a fine speech — much too fine. He spoke first of Tya's idealistic motivati
ons, and how much sympathy he had for what she had tried to do. But then he said we couldn't let sympathy or other emotions decide our course. Tya's crime struck right at the soul of flyer society, Dorrel said. If the Landsman could not count on flyers to bear their messages truthfully and dispassionately, to act as their voices in distant lands, then what was the use of us? And if they had no use for us, how long until they took our wings by force and replaced us with their own men? We could not fight the landsguard, he said. We had to regain the trust that had been lost, and the only way to do that was to name Tya outlaw, despite her good intentions. To leave her to her fate, no matter how much we sympathized with her. If we defended Tya in any way, Dorrel said, the land-bound would misunderstand, would think we approved of her crime. We had to make our censure clear."

  Maris nodded. "Much of that is true," she said, "no matter how grim the consequences. I can see how it might be persuasive."

  "Others of like mind followed Dorrel. Tera-kul of Yethien, old Arris of Artellia, a woman from the Outer Islands, Jon of Culhall, Talbot of Big Shotan — leaders, each of them, and highly respected. All of them supported Dorrel. Val seethed, and Katinn and Athen were screaming for the floor, but Kolmi looked right past them. The talk went on for hours, and finally — in less than a minute — Val's proposal was brought up and voted down, and the Council went on to name Tya outlaw and give her up to the tender mercies of Thayos. We did not tell the Landsman to hang her. At the suggestion of Jirel of Skulny, we went so far as to ask him not to. But it was only a request."

  "Our Landsman seldom heeds requests," Evan said quietly.

  "That was the end of it for me," S'Rella continued. "That was when the one-wings left."

  "Left?!"

  S'Rella nodded. "When the vote was done, Val rose from his place, and his look — I'm glad he had no weapon, or he might have killed someone. Instead he spoke; he called them all fools, and cowards, and worse. There were shouts, curses back at him, some scuffles. Val called on all his friends to leave.

  Damen and I had to push through to the door, the flyers — some of them I recognized, people I've known for years, but they were jeering, saying things to us — it was horrible, Maris. The anger there…"

  "You got out, though."

  "Yes. And we flew to North Arren, almost all of the one-wings. Val led us to a large field, an old battlefield, and he stood on top of a ruined fortification and spoke to us. We had our own Council. A fourth of all the flyers of Windhaven were there. We voted to impose a sanction on Thayos, even if the others would not. That was why Katinn flew here with me; we were to tell the Landsman together. He had already been sent word of the other decision, but Katinn and I were going to confront him with the one-wings' threat." She laughed bitterly. "He listened to us coldly, and when we were finished, he said that we and all of our kind were unfit to be flyers, and that nothing would please him more than never to have a one-wing fly to Thayos again. He promised to show us exactly what he thought of us, and Val, and all one-wings.

  "And he showed us. At sunset his landsguard came, and we were marched into the courtyard with the rest, and he showed us." Her face was gray; the recounting of the tale had opened her wounds again.

  "Oh, S'Rella," Maris said sorrowfully. She reached out and took her friend's hand, but when they touched S'Rella gave a sudden startled shudder and then, again, began to weep.

  Sleep did not come easily for Maris. She twisted and turned restlessly. Her dreams were dark and shapeless, nightmares of flights that ended at the end of a rope.

  She woke hours before dawn, in darkness, to the faint sound of distant music.

  Evan was asleep beside her, snoring softly into his feather pillow. Maris rose and dressed, and wandered from the bedroom. Bari was resting comfortably, a child's innocent sleep, free of the burdens that weighed on the rest of them. S'Rella slept too, hunched beneath blankets.

  Coll's room was empty.

  Maris followed the sound of the soft, fading music. She found him outside, sitting up against the side of the house in the starlight, filling the cool predawn air with the quiet melancholy of his guitar.

  Maris sat on the damp ground beside him. "Are you making a song?"

  "Yes," Coll said. His fingers moved with slow deliberation. "How did you know?"

  "I remembered," Maris said. "When we were young together, you used to rise in the middle of the night and go outside, to work on some new tune you wanted to keep secret."

  Coll struck a final plaintive chord before he set the guitar aside. "I'm still a creature of habit, then," he said. "Well, I have no choice. When the words scurry about in my head, they do not let me sleep."

  "Is it finished?"

  "No. I have a mind to call it 'Tya's Fall,' and the words have mostly come to me, but not the tune. I can almost hear it, but I hear it differently at different times. Sometimes it is dark and tragic, a slow, sad song like the ballad of Aron and Jeni. But later it seems to me it should be faster, that it should pulse like the blood of a man choking on his own rage, that it should burn and hurt and throb. What do you think, big sister? How should I do it? What does Tya's fall make you feel, sorrow or anger?"

  "Both," said Maris. "That's no help, but it's all the answer I can give. Both, and more. I feel guilty, Coll."

  She told him of Arrilan and his companions, and the offer they'd come bearing. Coll listened sympathetically, and when she had finished he took her hand in his own. His fingers were covered with calluses, but gentle and warm. "I did not know," he said. "S'Rella said nothing."

  "I doubt S'Rella knows," Maris said. "Val probably told Arrilan not to speak of my refusal. He has a good heart, Val One-Wing, whatever they might say of him."

  "Your guilt is foolish," Coll told her. "Even if you had gone I doubt it would have mattered. One person more or less changes little. The Council would have broken with or without you, and Tya would have been hanged. You shouldn't torture yourself with remorse for something you couldn't have changed."

  "Perhaps you're right," Maris said, "but I should have tried, Coll. They might have listened to me — Dorrel and his friends, the Stormtown group, Corina, even Corm. They know me, all of them. Val could never reach them. But I might have managed to keep the flyers together, if I'd gone and presided as Val asked me to."

  "Speculation," said Coll. "You're giving yourself needless pain."

  "Perhaps it's time I gave myself pain," Maris said. "I was afraid of hurting again — that was why I didn't go with Arrilan when he came for me. I was a coward."

  "You can't be responsible for all the flyers of Windhaven, Maris. You have to think of yourself first, of your own needs."

  Maris smiled. "A long time ago I thought only of myself, and I changed the whole world around to suit me. Oh, I told myself it was for everybody, but you and I know it was really for me. Barrion was right, Coll. I was naive. I had no idea where it would all lead. I knew only that I wanted to fly.

  "I should have gone, Coll. It was my responsibility. But all I cared about was my pain, my life, when I should have been thinking of larger things. Tya's blood is on my hands." She held one up.

  Coll took it and squeezed it hard. "Nonsense. All I see is my sister tearing herself apart for nothing. Tya is gone, there is nothing you could have done, and even if there had been, there is certainly nothing you can do now. It is over. Never anguish about the past, Barrion once told me. Make your pain into a song, and give it to the world."

  "I can't make songs," Maris said. "I can't fly. I said I wanted to be of use, but I turned my back on the people who needed me, and played at being a healer. I'm not a healer. I'm not a flyer. So what am I?

  Who am I?"

  "Maris…"

  "Just so," she said. "Maris of Lesser Amberly, the girl who once changed the world. If I did it once, perhaps I can do it again. At least I can try." She stood up abruptly, her face serious in the wan, pale light of dawn, whose faint glow had tinted the eastern horizon.

  "Tya is dead," Coll said.
He took his guitar and rose to stand face-to-face with his stepsister. "The Council is broken. It's over, Maris."

  "No," she said. "I won't accept that. It's not over. It's not too late to change the end of Tya's song."

  Evan woke quickly to her light touch, sitting up in bed and ready for any emergency.

  "Evan," Maris said, sitting beside him. "I know what I must do. I had to tell you first."

  He ran one hand over his head, smoothing down the ruffled white hair, frowning. "What?"

  "I… I am alive, Evan. I cannot fly, but I am still who I am."

  "It's good to hear you say that, and know you mean it."

  "And I'm not a healer. I'll never be a healer."

  "You have been making discoveries, haven't you? All this while I slept? Yes… I've known, although I couldn't quite tell you. You didn't seem to want to know."

  "Of course I didn't want to know. I thought it was the only choice I had. What else was there for me?

  Pain, only memories of pain and uselessness. Well, the pain is still there, and the memories, but I need not be useless. I must learn to live with the pain, accept it or ignore it, because there are things I must do. Tya is dead and the flyers are broken, and there are things that only I can do, to set things right. So you see…" She bit her lip and couldn't quite meet his eyes. "I love you, Evan. But I must leave you."

  "Wait." He touched her cheek, and she met his eyes. She thought of the first time she had looked into their deep blue depths, and she felt, unexpectedly strong, a pang of loss. "Tell me now," he said, " why you must leave me."

  She moved her hands helplessly. "Because I… I'm useless here. I don't belong here."

  He caught his breath — it might have been a sob or a laugh that he swallowed, she couldn't tell.