Time passed without a trace in the corridors of Wood-wings. Torches burned down in wall-sockets and lamps ran short of oil, and days often passed before anyone noticed. Maris felt her way carefully along one such dark stretch of corridor, nervous and a bit oppressed by the weight of the old fortress on her. She did not like being underground and enclosed; it quarreled with all her flyer’s instincts.
With relief Maris saw the dim glow of a light ahead. One last, sharp corner and she found herself back in familiar territory. Unless she had gotten turned around completely, Sena’s room was the first to the left.
“Maris.” Sena looked up and smiled. She was sitting in a wicker chair, carving a soft block of wood with a bone knife, but now she set it aside and motioned Maris to enter. “I was about to call for S’Rella again and send her looking for you. Did you get lost in our maze?”
“Almost,” Maris said, shaking her head. “I should have thought to carry a light. I can get from my room to the kitchen or the common room or the outside, but beyond that it is a less certain proposition.”
Sena laughed, but it was only polite laughter, masking a mood that was far from light. The teacher was a former flyer, three times Maris’ age, made land-bound a decade ago in the sort of accident all too common among flyers. Normally her vigor and enthusiasm cloaked her age, but this morning she looked old and tired. Her bad eye, like a piece of milky sea-glass, seemed to weigh down the left side of her face. It sagged and trembled beneath its burden.
“You sent S’Rella to me for a reason,” Maris said. “News?”
“News,” Sena said, “and not good. I thought it best not to talk about it at breakfast until I had discussed it with you.”
“Yes?”
“Eastern has closed Airhome,” Sena said.
Maris sighed and leaned back in her chair. Suddenly she too felt weary. The news was no great surprise, but it was still disheartening. “Why now?” she asked. “I spoke to Nord three months ago, when they sent me out with a message to Far Hunderlin. He thought they would keep the doors open at least through the next competition. He even told me that he had several promising students.”
“There was a death,” Sena said. “One of those promising students made a misjudgment, and struck a cliffside with her wing. Nord could only watch helplessly as she fell to the rocks below. Worse, her parents were there too. Wealthy, powerful people—traders from Cheslin with more than a dozen ships. The girl had been showing off for them. The parents went to the Landsman, of course, asking for justice. They said Nord was negligent.”
“Was he?” Maris said.
Sena shrugged. “He was a mediocre flyer even when he had his wings, and I cannot believe he was better than that as a teacher. Always too eager to impress. And he constantly overpraised and overestimated his students. Last year, in the competition, he sponsored nine in challenges. They all failed, and most had no business trying. I sponsored only three. This girl that died, I’m told, had been at Airhome only a year. A year, Maris! She had talent perhaps, but it was like Nord to let her go too far too soon. Well, it is too late now. You know the academies have been a drain, a useless drain to hear some Landsmen talk. All they needed was an excuse. They dismissed Nord and closed the school. End. And all the children of Eastern can give up their dreams now, and content themselves with their lot in life.” Her voice was bitter.
“Then we are the last,” Maris said glumly.
“We are the last,” Sena echoed. “And for how long? The Landsman sent a runner to me last night, and I hobbled up to get this joyous news, and afterward we talked. She is not happy with us, Maris. She says that she has given us meat and hearth and iron coin for seven years, but we have given her no flyer in return. She is impatient.”
“So I gather,” Maris said. She knew the Landsman of Seatooth only by reputation, but that was enough. Seatooth lay close by Big Shotan but had a long, fierce history of independence. Its present ruler was a proud, ambitious woman who was deeply resentful that her island had never had a flyer of its own. She had campaigned hard to make Seatooth the home of the training academy for the Western Archipelago, and once she had been lavish in her support. But now she expected results. “She doesn’t understand,” Maris said. “None of the land-bound understand, really. The Woodwingers come to the competitions almost raw, to vie with seasoned flyers and flyer-children who have been bred and reared to wings. If only they would give you time …” I
“Time, time, time,” said Sena, a hint of anger in her voice. “Yes, I said as much to the Landsman. She said that seven years was enough time. You, Maris, you are a flyer. I was a flyer once. We know the difficulties, the need for training year after year, for practice until your arms tremble with the effort and your palms come away bloody from the wing grips. The land-bound know none of that. Too many of them thought the fight was over seven years ago. They thought that next week the sky would be full of fisherfolk and cobblers and glassblowers, and they were dismayed when the first competition came and went and the flyers and flyer-children defeated all land-bound challengers.
“At least then they cared. Now they are only resigned, I fear. In the seven years since your great Council, the seven years of the academies, only once has a land-bound taken wings. And he lost them back again a year later, at the very next competition. These days I think the island folk come to the meets only to see flyer siblings compete for the family wings. The challenges from my Woodwingers are talked about as a kind of a comic interlude, a brief performance by some jesters to lighten up the moments between the serious races.”
“Sena, Sena,” Maris said with concern. The older woman had poured all of the passion of her own broken life into the dreams of the young people who came to Woodwings asking for the sky. Now she was clearly upset, her voice trembling despite herself. “I understand your distress,” Maris said, taking Sena’s hand, “but it isn’t as bad as you say.”
Sena’s good eye regarded Maris skeptically, and she pulled her hand away. “It is,” she insisted. “Of course they don’t tell you. No one wants to bring bad news, and they all know what the academies mean to you. But it’s true.” Maris tried to interrupt, but Sena waved her quiet. “No, enough, and not another word about my distress. I did not call you here to comfort me, or to make us late for breakfast. I wanted to tell you the news privately, before I told the others. And I wanted to ask you to fly to Big Shotan for me.”
“Today?”
“Yes,” Sena said. “You have been doing good work with the children. It is a real benefit to them to have an actual flyer in their midst. But we can spare you for one day. It should only take a few hours.”
“Certainly,” Maris said. “What is this about?”
“The flyer who brought the news about Airhome to the Landsman also brought another message. A private message for me. One of Nord’s students wishes to continue his studies here, and hopes that I will sponsor him in the next competition. He asks for permission to travel here.”
“Here?” Maris said, incredulous. “From Eastern? Without wings?”
“He has word of a trader bold enough to try the open seas, I am told,” Sena said. “The voyage is hazardous, to be sure, but if he is willing to make it I will not begrudge him admission. Take my agreement to the Landsman of Big Shotan, if you would. He sends three flyers to Eastern every month, and one is due to leave on the morrow. Speed is important. The ships will take a month getting here even if the winds are kind, and the competition is only two months away.”
“I could take the message direct to Eastern myself,” Maris suggested.