Maris was too drained by the flight to smile at him when they had both come down in the soft sand of the landing pit, too depressed to pretend that it didn't matter. In silence, she removed her wings as hastily as she could, her numbed fingers often slipping and fumbling uselessly at the straps. At last, still without a word having passed between them, Maris slung her wings over her shoulder and turned toward the weathered fortress.
Val blocked her way.
“I won't tell anyone,” he said.
Her head jerked up, and she felt a hot flush of embarrassment rise in her cheeks. “I don't care what you say—about anything—to anyone!”
“Oh?” His faint smile taunted her, made her realize how hollow her words rang. Obviously she did care.
“It wasn't a fair trial,” she snapped, and instantly regretted the feeble, childish complaint.
“No,” Val agreed, his tone flat enough so Maris had no clue as to whether irony was intended. “You were flying all day, while I was well-rested. I could never have beaten you if we were both fresh. We all know that.”
“I've lost before,” Maris said, trying hard to control her emotions. “It doesn't bother me.”
“I see,” said Val. “Good.” He smiled again.
Maris shrugged irritably, feeling the wings scrape her back. “I'm very tired,” she said. “Please excuse me.”
“Certainly.” Val moved out of her way and she trudged past him, crossed the sand wearily, and began climbing the flight of worn, moss-covered steps that led to the fortress's seaward entrance. But at the top, some impulse made her hesitate and turn before ducking inside.
Val had not followed her. He still stood out on the sand, a gaunt solitary figure in the gathering dusk, his folded wings propped lightly on one shoulder. He was looking off over the sea, where a lone scavenger kite sailed in ragged circles against the clouds of sunset.
Maris shivered and went inside.
The yearly competition was a festive three-day affair. Once it had been only games and drinking, with nothing at stake except pride. In those days it was smaller, and traditionally held on the Eyrie. But since the challenge system had been instituted seven years ago, flyer participation had grown dramatically, and it had been necessary to move the competition to the islands.
The Landsmen competed for it eagerly, donating facilities and labor. It was a holiday for their own people, and brought crowds of visitors with good metal coin from other islands. The land-bound had few spectacles like it, and the flyers were still figures of romance and adventure to many of them.
This year the contests were to be held on Skulny, a mid-sized island to the northeast of Little Shotan. Seatooth's Landsman had chartered a ship for Sena and the Woodwingers, and a runner had just brought word that it was waiting at the small island's only port. They would sail on the evening tide.
“Setting out in the dark,” Sena grumbled, taking a seat beside Maris at breakfast. “Asking for trouble.”
Kerr looked up from his porridge. “Oh, but we have to leave on the tide,” he said earnestly. “That's why we leave in the evening.”
Sena regarded him sourly with her good eye. “Know a lot about sailing, do you?”
“Yes, ma'am. My brother Rac captains a trading ship, one of the big three-masters, and my other brother is a sailor too, though he's only a hand on a channel ferry. I thought that I—well, before I came to Woodwings, I thought I'd be a sailor too. It's about the closest thing there is to flying.”
Sena shuddered. “Like flying without control, like flying with weights dragging you into the sea, like flying blind, yes, that's sailing.”
She'd been speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, and there was widespread laughter around the room. Kerr blushed and concentrated on his bowl.
Maris looked at Sena with sympathy, trying not to laugh for Kerr's sake. Sena, although grounded for years, had never lost the flyer's almost superstitious fear of traveling by sea.
“How long will it take?” Maris asked.
“Oh, they say, winds willing, three days, with a stop in Stormtown. What does it matter? Either we'll get there, or we'll all drown.” The teacher looked at Maris. “You fly to Skulny today?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Sena said, reaching across to take Maris by the arm. “Then everyone need not drown. We have two sets of wings we'll be needing in the competition. It would be insane to take them in the boat with us—”
“Ship,” Kerr interrupted.
Sena looked at him. “Boat or ship, it would be insane. We might as well put them to use. Will you take two of the students with you? The long flight should be good practice.”
Maris looked down the table and saw how everyone within hearing distance had suddenly become still. No spoons were raised, no jaws moved as they waited for her answer.
“That's a fine idea,” Maris said, smiling. “I'll take S'Rella with me, and—” She hesitated, trying to decide who to choose.
Two tables down, Val set down his spoon and rose. “I'll go,” he said.
Maris' eyes met his across the room. “S'Rella and Sher or Leya,” she said stubbornly. “They need that kind of flight the most.”
“I'll stay with Val, then,” S'Rella said quietly.
“And I'd rather go with Leya,” Sher added.
“It will be S'Rella and Val,” Sena said irritably, “and I'll hear no more about it. If the rest of us die at sea, they have the best chance of becoming flyers and honoring our memory.” She pushed aside her porridge bowl and turned on the bench. “Now I must go see our patron the Landsman and be obsequious to her for a while. I will see you again before you leave for Skulny.”
Maris scarcely heard her; her eyes were still locked with Val's. He smiled at her thinly, then spun and followed Sena from the room. S'Rella left soon after.
Kerr was talking to her, Maris suddenly realized. She shook herself back to attention and smiled at him. “Sorry. I didn't hear you.”
“It isn't so dangerous,” he said quietly. “Not just to sail from here to Skulny. There's only a few miles of open ocean, when the ship crosses from Little Shotan to Skulny. Mostly we'll hug the shores of the Shotans, with land never out of sight. And the ships aren't as fragile as she thinks. I know about ships.”
“I'm sure you do, Kerr,” Maris said. “Sena is just thinking like a flyer. After the freedom of having your own wings, it's a hard thing to travel by sea and trust your life to those handling the sails and the tiller.”
Kerr chewed his lip. “I guess I see,” he said, without conviction. “But if the flyers all think that, they don't know much. It's not as dangerous as she says.” Satisfied, he went back to his breakfast.
Maris grew thoughtful as she ate. He was right, she realized with a sense of vague unease; flyers were often too limited in the ways they thought, judging everything from their own perspective. But the idea that Val's sweeping condemnation of them might have some justice to it disturbed her more than she was willing to admit.
Afterward she went to look for S'Rella and Val. They were not in their rooms, nor in any of the other obvious places, and no one seemed to know where they had gone after leaving the common room. Maris wandered through the dark, cool corridors until she was thoroughly lost, making her choice of turning according to whether or not there were torches for her to light in the wallsockets.
She was thinking of giving out a cry for help, and laughing at herself for being so helpless within the enclosure of walls, when she heard, very faintly, the sound of voices, and pressed on. One more turn to the right and she found them, together, sitting close in a small cul-de-sac with a window overlooking the sea. There was something in the way they leaned near to each other that spoke of intimacy, and it changed Maris' mood to one of annoyance.
“I've been looking all over for you,” Maris said abruptly.
S'Rella half-turned away from Val and stood up. “What is it?” she asked eagerly.
“We're flying to Skulny, you know,” Maris sa
id. “Can you be ready to leave in an hour? Anything you wanted to take with you, you can pack up and give to Sena.”
“I can be ready to leave in a minute,” S'Rella said, and her smile put a damper on Maris' pique. “I was so happy when you named me, Maris. You don't know what this means to me.” Her face alight, she leaped forward and embraced Maris.
Maris hugged her back. “I think I do,” she said. “Now, go off and get ready.”
S'Rella bid a brief goodbye to Val and then was off. Maris stood watching her go, then turned back to him, and hesitated.
Val was still looking down the tunnel where S'Rella had disappeared, smiling, but there was something about him—the smile was real, Maris realized. That was it. He was smiling with something like fondness, and it gave him a softer, more human look than she had ever seen him wear.
Then his eyes snapped back to her, and the smile changed, subtly, a small twist at the corners, and now he was smiling for Maris and the smile was full of derision and hostility. “I haven't thanked you for naming me,” he said. “I was so happy when you said I could fly with you.”
“Val,” Maris said wearily, “we may not like each other, but we have a long flight to make together. You could at least try to be civil. Don't mock me. Are you going to pack?”
“I've never unpacked,” he said. “I'll give my bag to Sena, and wear my knife. It's the only thing that matters. Don't worry, I'll be ready.” He hesitated. “And I won't bother you on Skulny. When we land, I'll find my own quarters. Fair enough?”
“Val,” Maris started. But he had turned away and was staring through the cell's small window at the moving, cloudy sky, his face cold and closed.
Sena brought the others out to the launching cliff to watch Maris, S'Rella, and Val depart. All of them were in the highest of spirits, laughing and joking, vying with each other for the privilege of helping Maris and S'Rella with their wings. There was a mood of wild and restless gaiety among them that was infectious; Maris felt her own spirits rise, and for the first time she was eager for the competitions.
“Let them be, let them be!” Sena cried, laughing. “They certainly can't fly with the lot of you hanging on their wings!”
“Wish they could,” mumbled Kerr. He pushed at his nose, which had turned bright red in the wind.
“You'll have your chance,” S'Rella said, sounding defensive.
“No one grudges you this,” Leya said quickly.
“You're the best of us,” Sher added.
“Save it,” Sena said, putting one arm around Leya, the other around Sher. “Go now. We'll wave goodbye and meet you again on Skulny.”
Maris turned to S'Rella and saw that the younger woman was watching her intently, her whole body tensed and ready for Maris' slightest signal. She remembered her own earliest flights, when she had still not quite believed that she could have wings of her own, and she touched S'Rella's shoulder and spoke to her kindly.
“We'll all stay close together and take it easy,” she said. “The stunts are for the competitions—right now, we'll concentrate on steady flying. This will be a long trip for you, I know, but don't worry about it—you've got enough stamina for twice the distance. Just relax and trust yourself. I'll be there watching out for you, but you won't really need me.”
“Thank you,” S'Rella said. “I'll do my best.”
Maris nodded and signaled, and Damen and Liane came out and unfolded her wings for her, strut by strut, pulling the bright silver fabric taut until her wings were spread twenty feet. Then she was off, leaping away from the cliff to a chorus of farewells and good wishes, into the cool, steady, faintly rain-scented flow of the wind. She circled and watched S'Rella's takeoff, trying to judge it as if S'Rella were in competition.
No doubt about it, S'Rella had improved greatly recently. The clumsiness was gone, and she did not hesitate at the edge, but sprang smoothly clear of the fortress and, having judged the wind nicely, began to rise almost at once.
“I don't believe your wings are of wood at all!” Maris called to her.
Then both of them swung through the sky in impatient, widening circles, waiting for Val.
He had been leaning against the door through all of the joking and the preparations, standing outside it all, his face blank and guarded. He was winged already, having strapped them on without help. Now he walked calmly through the group of students and would-be flyers, and stood perched on the brink of the precipice, his feet half-over the edge. Painstakingly he unfolded the first three struts, but he did not lock them into place. Then he slid his arms through the loops, flexed, knelt, and stood again.
Damen reached to help him unfold his wings, but Val turned and said something sharp to him—Maris, circling above, lost the words in the wind—and Damen fell back in confusion.
Then Val laughed, and jumped.
S'Rella trembled visibly in the air, her wings shaking with her shock. From below, Maris heard someone scream, and someone else was swearing.
Val fell, body straight like a diver's, twenty feet down, forty . . .
And suddenly he was falling no more—the wings came out of nowhere, flaring, flashing silver-white in the sun as they sprang open almost with their own volition. The air screamed past them, and Val caught it and turned it and rode on it, and all at once he was flying, skimming the breakers with impossible speed, then pulling up, climbing, soaring, the waves and the rocks and death all receding visibly beneath him, and Maris could hear dimly the peal of his triumphant wind-blown laughter.
S'Rella had locked into a stall, still watching Val. Maris shouted commands at her, and she broke out of it, twisting her wings at an angle and slanting off back over the land. Above the fortress, its bare rock heated in the sun, she found a strong riser and sailed back up to safety.
Below, Sena was cursing up at Val and shaking her cane in apoplectic fury. He paid no attention. He was rising, higher and higher, and from the Woodwingers on the cliff came the ragged, popping sound of applause.
Maris went after him, banking, breaking her circle, heading out over the sea. Val was already ahead of her. But flying easily this time, luxuriating in his stunt.
When she caught him, flying as near to him as she dared—above and a bit behind and to the right—she began to shout curses down at him, borrowing freely from Sena's more extensive vocabulary.
Val laughed at her.
“That was dangerous and useless and stupid,” Maris shouted. “You could have killed yourself . . . a jammed strut . . . if you hadn't flung them hard enough . . .”
Val still laughed. “My risk,” he shouted back. “And I didn't fling them . . . rigged springs . . . better than Raven.”
“Raven was a fool,” she shouted. “And long dead . . . what's Raven to you?”
“Your brother sang that song, too,” Val yelled. Then he banked and dove, away from her, abruptly terminating the conversation.
Numb, and seeing no use in further pursuit of Val, Maris wheeled around and looked for S'Rella, who was following several hundred yards behind and below them. She drifted down to join her, trying to tell her pounding heart to relax, willing her stiff muscles to loosen and get the feel of the wind.
S'Rella was ghost-pale, and flying badly. “What happened?” she cried when Maris approached. “I could have died.”
“It was a stunt,” Maris called to her. “Flyer named Raven used to do it. Val concocted his own version.”
S'Rella flew silently for a moment, considering that, and then a little color came tentatively back into her face. “I thought someone had pushed him,” she shouted. “A stunt—it was beautiful.”
“It was insane,” Maris called back. She was quietly horrified that S'Rella could possibly have thought one of her fellow students capable of shoving Val to his death. He has been influencing her, she thought bitterly.
The rest of the flight, as Maris had predicted, was easy. Maris and S'Rella flew close together, Val ahead and much higher, preferring the company of rainbirds, it seemed. The
y kept him in sight throughout the afternoon, but only with an effort.
The winds were cooperative, blowing them so steadily toward Skulny that they hardly needed to do more than relax and glide. It was at times a dull flight, but Maris did not regret it. They skirted the coast of Big Shotan, fishing fleets everywhere beyond the little harbor towns, bringing in as big a catch as possible in the storm-free weather. And they saw Stormtown from the air, its great bay in the center of the city, windmills turning all along the shores, forty of them, or fifty—S'Rella tried to count them, but they were behind her before she was half done. And in the open sea between Little Shotan and Skulny, near sunset, they spied a scylla, its long neck craning up out of the blue-green water as its rows of powerful flippers churned just beneath the surface. S'Rella seemed delighted. She had heard about scyllas all her life, but this was the first she had actually seen.
They reached Skulny just ahead of the night. As they circled before landing, they could see figures below setting up lanterns on poles all along the beach, to guide in later flyers. Already the small flyers' lodge nearby was ablaze with lights and activity: the parties, thought Maris, began earlier every year.
Maris tried to make her landing an example to S'Rella, but even as she was on her hands and knees, shaking sand out of her hair, she heard S'Rella thump to the ground nearby, and realized the girl had surely been too busy with her own landing to notice how clumsy or adept her teacher was.
Whoops of pleasure and welcome surrounded them at once. Eager hands reached out to them. “Help you, flyer? Help you, please?”
Maris took hold of one strong hand, and looked up into the eager face of a young boy with wind-tangled hair. His face was alive with pleasure; he was here for the glory of being near flyers, and was probably thrilled by the thought of the coming competition on his own island.