Windhaven

  “Do you know how Tya died?” Maris asked. “Did you know that the Landsman of Thayos was cruel and stupid enough to kill her while she wore her wings? Afterward they were stripped from her and given to the man she'd won them from two years before. Tya's body was buried in an unmarked grave in a field just outside the keep, where thieves and murderers and other outlaws are customarily buried. She died with her wings on, but she was not allowed a flyer's burial. And she has had no mourners.”

  “What of it? What has this to do with me? What do you really want of me, Maris?”

  She smiled. “I want you to mourn, Val. That's all. I want you to mourn for Tya.”

  Maris and Evan heard the news first from the lips of a wandering storyteller, an elderly, waspish woman from Port Thayos who stopped with them briefly so the healer might remove a thorn that had lodged under the skin of one bare foot. “Our landsguard have taken the mine from Thrane,” the woman said while Evan worked on her. “There is talk of invading Thrane itself.”

  “Folly,” Evan muttered. “More death.”

  “Is there other news?” Maris asked. Flyers continued to come and go from her secret field, but it had been more than a week since Coll—having passed along his song to a half-dozen one-wings—had taken the road to Port Thayos. The days had been cold, and rainy, and anxious.

  “There is the flyer,” the woman said. She winced as Evan's fine bone knife sliced the thorn from her flesh. “Careful, healer,” she said.

  “The flyer?” Maris said.

  “A ghost, some say,” the woman said. Evan had removed the thorn and was rubbing salve into the cut he had made. “Perhaps Tya's ghost. A woman dressed all in black, silent, restless. She appeared from the west two days before I left. The lodge men came out to meet her, to help her land and care for her wings. But she did not land. She flew silently above the mountains and the Landsman's keep, and on across the countryside to Port Thayos. Nor did she land there. Since she first came, she has flown in a great circle, round and round again, from Port Thayos to the Landsman's keep and back, never landing, never shouting down a word. Flying, always flying, in sun or storm, day or night. She is there at sunset and still there at dawn. She neither eats nor drinks.”

  “Fascinating,” Maris said, suppressing a smile. “You think she is a ghost?”

  “Perhaps,” the old woman said. “I have seen her many times myself. Walking down the alleys of Port Thayos, I feel a shadow touch me, and I look up, and she is there. She has caused much talk. The people are afraid, and some of the landsguard say that the Landsman is most afraid of all, though he tries not to show it. He will not come outside to look at her when she passes above his keep. Perhaps he is afraid of seeing Tya's face.”

  Evan had wrapped a bandage soaked in ointment around the storyteller's injured foot. “There,” he said. “Try standing on that.”

  The woman stood up, leaning on Maris for support. “It pains a bit.”

  “It was infected,” Evan said. “You are lucky. If you had waited a few days longer to come to a healer, you might have lost the foot. Wear boots. The forest trails are hazardous.”

  “I do not care for boots,” the woman said. “I like the feel of the earth and grass and rock beneath my feet.”

  “Do you like the feel of thorns beneath your skin?” Evan said. They argued back and forth for a time, and finally the woman agreed to wear a soft cloth boot, but only on her injured foot, and only until it was healed.

  When she was gone, Evan turned to Maris with a smile. “So it begins,” he said. “How is it that the ghost neither eats nor drinks?”

  “She carries a bag of nuts and dried fruit, and a skin of water,” Maris said. “Flyers often do that on long flights. How do you suppose we could fly to Artellia or the Embers otherwise?”

  “I had never given the matter much thought.”

  Maris nodded, preoccupied. “I suspect they substitute a second flyer by night, secretly, to let their ghost rest. Clever of Val to send someone who looks like Tya. I should have thought of that.”

  “You have thought of quite enough,” Evan said. “Don't reproach yourself. Why do you look so serious?”

  “I wish,” Maris said, “that the flyer could be me.”

  Two days later, a little girl arrived panting at their door. She was one of that family so indebted to Evan, and for a brief, fearful moment Maris wondered if the landsguard had come for her already. But it was only news; Evan had asked to be sent word of anything heard in Thossi.

  “A merchant came through,” said the little girl. “He talked 'bout the flyers.”

  “What of them?” Maris asked.

  “He said, he told old Mullish at the inn, that the Landsman is scared. There are three of them, he said. Three black flyers, going round and round and round.” She stood up and spun in a circle, her small arms outstretched, to show them what she meant. Maris looked at Evan, and smiled.

  “Seven black flyers now,” a huge fat man told them. He'd come to their door battered and bleeding, a deserter from the landsguard dressed in rags. “Tried to send me to Thrane,” he said by way of explanation, “but damned if I'd go there.” When he wasn't speaking, he coughed, and often he coughed up blood.

  “Seven?”

  “A bad number,” the man said, coughing. “All dressed in black too, a bad color. They mean us no good.” His coughing suddenly grew so bad he could not talk.

  “Easy,” Evan said, “easy.” He gave the man wine, mixed with herbs, and he and Maris led him to a bed.

  The fat man would not rest, though. As soon as his coughing fit had ended, he began to talk again. “If I was Landsman, I'd march out my archers, and shoot 'em down when they flew overhead. Yes, I would. There's some that says the arrows would just pass through 'em, but not me. I think they're flesh just like me.” He slapped his ample gut. “Can't just let 'em fly. They're bringing bad luck to us all. Weather's been bad lately, and the fish haven't been running, and I heard tell of people taking sick and dying in Port Thayos when the shadow of those wings touched 'em. Something terrible is going to happen on Thrane, I know it, that's why I wouldn't go. Not with seven black flyers in the sky. No, not me. This is an evil thing, I tell you, and it won't bring us good.”

  It brought the fat man no good, at any rate, Maris thought. The next morning, when she brought his breakfast in to him, his huge body was stiff and cold. Evan buried him in the forest, among the graves of a dozen other travelers.

  “Thenya went to Port Thayos to try to sell her tapestries,” reported another of the horde of children Evan had delivered, a boy this time. “When she came back to Thossi, she said there are more than a dozen black flyers now, flying in a great circle from the port to the Landsman's keep. And more are arriving every day.”

  “Twenty flyers, all in black, silent, grim,” said the young singer. She had golden hair and blue eyes, a sweet voice and an easy manner. “They'll make a marvelous song! I'd be working on it now, if only I knew how it was all going to end . . .”

  “Why are they here, do you think?” Evan asked.

  “For Tya, of course,” the young woman said, startled that anyone would ask. “She lied to stop the war, and the Landsman killed her for it. They wear black for her, I'd wager. Many people are grieving for her.”

  “Ah, yes,” Evan said. “Tya. Her story might make a song itself. Have you thought of making one?”

  The singer grinned. “There already is one,” she said. “I heard it in Port Thayos. Here, I'll sing it for you.”

  Maris met Katinn of Lomarron in the abandoned field, where slender green ruffians and misshapen dirt-dragons were fast crowding out the wild wheat. The big man with the scylla's-tooth necklace came down gracefully on silvered wings, dressed all in black.

  She led him inside and gave him water. “Well?”

  He wiped away the moisture from his lips and grinned at her roughly. “I flew in very high, and saw the circle far beneath me. Ah, you should have seen it! Forty wings by now, I'd guess. T
he Landsman must be drooling at the mouth. Word has gone out, too. More one-wings are coming from all over Eastern, and Val himself flew the word back to Western, so it won't be too long before others join us, too. By now there are so many that it's easy to break away for a rest or a meal without anyone being the wiser. I don't envy poor Alain starting it all. She's a strong flyer, no doubt of that. I've never known her to tire. They've got her resting in secret on Thrynel now, but she'll be back to rejoin us soon. As for me, I'm on my way to join the circle now.”

  Maris nodded. “What about Coll's song?”

  “They're singing it on Lomarron, and South Arren, and Kite's Landing. I've heard it myself, several times. And it's gone to Southern and the Outer Islands as well, and to Western of course—to your Amberly, and Culhall, and Poweet. Heard that it's spreading among the singers in Stormtown.”

  “Good,” said Maris. “Good.”

  “The Landsman sent Jem up to question the black flyers,” said Evan's friend, repeating the news from Thossi, “and it's said that he recognized them and called on them by name, but they would not speak to him. You ought to come to the city and see them, Evan. Whenever you look up, the sky is full of flyers.”

  “The Landsman has ordered the flyers out of his sky, but they will not go. And why should they? As the singers say, the sky belongs to flyers!”

  “I heard that a flyer arrived from Thrane, with a message from their Landsman to ours, but when he met her in the audience chamber to hear it, he turned pale with fear, for the flyer was dressed in black from head to foot. She delivered the message to him as he trembled, but before she could go, the Landsman stopped her and demanded to know why she was dressed all in black. ‘I go to join the circle,' she told him calmly, ‘and grieve for Tya.' And so she did, so she did.”

  “They say the singers in Port Thayos all dress in black these days, and some other people as well. The streets are full of merchants selling black cloth, and the dyers are very busy.”

  “Jem has joined the black flyers!”

  “The Landsman has ordered the landsguard back from Thrane. He's afraid of what the black flyers might do, I heard, and he wants his best archers around him. The keep is full to overcrowding. It's said that the Landsman will not go outside, lest the shadow of their wings fall upon him as they fly overhead.”

  S'Rella arrived with the welcome news that Dorrel was less than a day behind her. Maris kept watch on the cliffs herself all that afternoon, too impatient even to wait at home with S'Rella, and at last she was rewarded by the sight of a dark figure gliding inland. She hurried into the forest to meet him.

  It was a hot, still day, bad weather for flying. Maris swiped at attacking insects as she trudged through the tall grass that almost concealed the cabin. Her heart was racing with excitement as she pushed open the heavy wooden door, hanging on its hinges.

  She blinked, almost blind in the dark interior after the brilliant sunshine, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and heard his familiar voice say her name.

  “You . . . you came,” she said. She was suddenly short of breath. “Dorrel.”

  “Did you doubt I would come?”

  She could see now. The familiar smile, his well-remembered way of standing.

  “Do you mind if we sit down?” he asked. “I'm awfully tired. It was a long flight from Western, and it did me no good to try to catch up to S'Rella.”

  They sat close together, on two matching chairs that must once have been very fine. But the cushions were impregnated with dust now, greenish and slightly damp with mold.

  “How are you, Maris?”

  “I'm . . . living. Ask me again in a month or so and I may have a better answer for you.” She looked into his dark, concerned eyes, and then away again. “It's been a long time, hasn't it, Dorr?”

  He nodded. “When you weren't at the Council, I understood. . . . I hoped that you were doing what was best for you. I was more pleased than I can say when S'Rella came, bearing your message, your request that I come to you.” He sat a little straighter in his chair. “But surely you didn't send for me just for the pleasure of seeing an old friend.”

  Maris drew a deep breath. “I need your help. You know about the circle? The black flyers?”

  He nodded. “Rumors have already spread. And I saw them as I flew in. An impressive sight. Your doing?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “And not an end in itself, I'll wager. What's your plan?”

  “Will you help me with it? We need you.”

  “‘We?' You've sided with the one-wings, I suppose?” His tone was not angry, and did not condemn, but Maris was aware that he had withdrawn from her, ever so slightly.

  “It's not a matter of sides, Dorr. At least, not among the flyers. It mustn't be—that way is death, the end of everything we both hold dear. Flyers—one-wing or flyer-born—must not be split up, fragmented, at the mercy of Landsmen.”

  “I agree. But it's too late. It was too late once Tya declared her scorn for all the laws and traditions by telling her first lie.”

  “Dorr,” she said, her voice coaxing and reasonable, “I don't approve of what Tya did, either. She meant well; what she did was wrong, I agree, but—”

  “I agree, you agree,” he said, interrupting. “But. We always come down to that. Tya is dead now—we can all agree on that. She's dead, but it's not over, it's far from over. Other one-wings call her a hero, a martyr. She died for the cause of lying, for the freedom to lie. How many more lies will be told? How long will it be before the people forget their mistrust of us? Since the one-wings refused to repudiate Tya, and split away from us, there is talk among . . . among a few . . . of closing down the academies and ending the challenges, returning to the old way, to the old days when a flyer was a flyer for once and for all.”

  “You don't want that.”

  “No. No, I don't.” His shoulders slumped for a moment, uncharacteristically, and he sighed. “But, Maris, it goes beyond what I want, or what you want. It's out of our hands now. Val spoke the death warrant for the one-wings when he led them out of Council and called his illegal sanction.”

  “Sanctions can be revoked,” Maris said.

  Dorrel stared at her. His eyes narrowed. “Did Val One-Wing tell you that? I don't believe him. He's playing some devious game, trying to use you to trick me.”

  “Dorrel!” She stood up, indignant. “Give me some credit, please! I'm not one of Val's puppets! He didn't promise to revoke the sanction, and he's not using me. I tried to convince him that it would be in everyone's best interest to act in such a way that both flyer-born and one-wings were united again. Val is stubborn and impulsive, but he's not blind. Although he wouldn't promise to revoke the sanction, I did make him see what a mistake he had made—that his sanction was useless because it was honored only by a small group, and that this division among flyers was to no one's advantage.”

  Dorrel looked at her thoughtfully. Then he, too, rose, and began to pace around the small, dusty room. “Quite a feat, to get Val One-Wing to admit he was wrong,” he said. “But what good does that do now? Does he agree that the plan we followed was right?”

  “No,” Maris said. “I don't think it was right, either. I think you were much too harsh. Oh, I know what you thought—I know you had to repudiate Tya's crime, and you thought the best way to do that was to hand her over to the Landsman for execution.”

  Dorrel stopped walking and frowned at her. “Maris, you know that was never my intention. I never thought Tya should die. But Val's proposal was absurd—it would have seemed that we condoned her actions.”

  “The Council should have insisted that Tya be given over for punishment, and then stripped Tya of her wings, forever.”

  “We did strip her of her wings.”

  “No,” said Maris. “You let the Landsman do that, after he'd hanged her in them. Why do you suppose he did that? To show that he could hang a flyer and go unscathed.”

  Dorrel looked horrified. He crossed
the room and gripped her arm. “Maris, no! He hung her in her wings?”

  She nodded.

  “I hadn't heard that.” He sank down on his chair again as if his legs had been kicked.

  “He proved his point,” Maris said. “He proved that flyers could be killed as easily as anyone else. And now they will be. Now that you and Val have split flyers and one-wings into two warring camps, the Landsmen will take advantage of it. They'll demand oaths of loyalty, they'll set up rules and regulations to govern their flyers, they'll execute the rebels for treason—in time, perhaps, they'll claim the wings as their own property, to be handed out to followers who please them. Other flyers could be arrested, even executed, tomorrow. All it will take is for one more Landsman to realize he has the power—that the flyers are too fragmented now to offer any opposition.” She sat down and gazed at him, almost holding her breath as she hoped for the right response.

  Slowly Dorrel nodded. “What you say has a horrible ring of truth to it. But . . . what can I do? Only Val, and the other one-wings, can decide to rejoin us. You surely don't expect me to try to rally the other flyers in a belated sanction of our own?”

  “Of course not. But it's not only up to Val—it can't be. There are two sides, and both of you must make some gesture of reconciliation.”

  “And what might that gesture be?”

  Maris leaned forward. “Join the black flyers,” she said. “Mourn Tya. Join the others. When word goes out that Dorrel of Laus has joined the one-wings in mourning, others will follow.”

  “Mourn?” He frowned. “You want me to dress in black and fly in a circle?” His voice was suspicious. “And what else? What else am I to join your black flyers in? Is it your plan to enforce the sanction against Thayos by keeping all the flyers in formation above it?”

  “No. Not a sanction. They don't stop any flyers who bring a message to or from Thayos, and if you, or any of your followers, had to leave the circle, no one would stop you. Just make the gesture.”