The common room of the lodge was warm and cheerful, as always, but almost empty. Garth, a short, well-muscled flyer ten years her senior, was the only one there. He looked up from his place by the fire and called them by name. Maris wanted to answer, but her throat was tight with longing, and her teeth were clenched together. Dorrel led her to the fireplace.
“Like a woodwinged idiot I kept her out in the cold,” Dorrel said. “Is the kivas hot? Pour us some.” He stripped off his wet, muddy clothes quickly and efficiently, and pulled two large towels from a pile near the fire.
“Why should I waste my kivas on you?” Garth rumbled. “For Maris, of course, for she is very beautiful and a superb flyer.” He made a mock bow in her direction.
“You should waste your kivas on me,” Dorrel said, rubbing himself briskly with the big towel, “unless you would care to waste it all over the floor.”
Garth replied, and they traded insults and threats in laconic voices. Maris didn’t listen—she had heard it all before. She squeezed the water from her hair, watching the patterns the wetness made on the hearth stones and how quickly they faded. She looked at Dorrel, trying to memorize his lean, muscular body—a good flyer’s body—and the quick changes of his face as he teased Garth. But he turned when he felt Maris watching him, and his eyes gentled. Garth’s final witticism fell limply into silence. Dorrel touched Maris softly, tracing the line of her jaw.
“You’re still shivering.” He took the towel from her hands and wrapped it around her. “Garth, take that bottle off the fire before it explodes and let us all get warm.”
The kivas, a hot spice wine flavored with raisins and nuts, was served in great stone mugs. The first sip sent thin lines of fire down her veins, and the shivering stopped.
Garth smiled at her. “Good, isn’t it? Not that Dorrel will appreciate it. I tricked a slimy old fisherman out of a dozen bottles. He found it in a shipwreck, didn’t know what he had, and his wife didn’t want it in the house. I gave him some trinkets for it, some metal beads I’d picked up for my sister.”
“And what does your sister get?” Maris asked, between sips of kivas.
Garth shrugged. “Her? Oh, it was a surprise, anyway. I’ll bring something from Poweet the next time I go. Some painted eggs.”
“If he doesn’t see something else he can trade them for on his way back,” Dorrel said. “If your sister ever gets her surprise, Garth, the shock will kill all pleasure. You were born a trader. I think you’d swap your wings if the deal was good enough.”
Garth snorted indignantly. “Close your mouth when you say that, bird.” He turned to Maris. “How is your brother? I never see him.”
Maris took another sip of her drink, holding on to calm with both hands. “He’ll be of age next week,” she said carefully. “The wings will be his then. I wouldn’t know about his comings and goings. Maybe he doesn’t like your company.”
“Huh,” said Garth. “Why shouldn’t he?” He sounded wounded. Maris waved a hand, and forced herself to smile. She had meant it lightly. “I like him well enough,” Garth went on. “We all like him, don’t we, Dorrel? He’s young, quiet, maybe a bit too cautious, but he should improve. He’s different somehow—oh, but he can tell some stories! And sing! The land-bound will learn to love the sight of his wings.” Garth shook his head in wonder. “Where does he learn them all? I’ve done more traveling than he has, but…”
“He makes them up,” said Maris.
“Himself?” Garth was impressed. “He’ll be our singer, then. We’ll take the prize away from Eastern at the next competition. Western always has the best flyers,” he said loyally, “but our singers have never been worthy of the title.”
“I sang for Western at the last meet,” Dorrel objected.
“That’s what I mean.”
“You shriek like a seacat.”
“Yes,” said Garth, “but I have no delusions about my ability.”
Maris missed Dorrel’s reply. Her mind had drifted away from their dialogue, and she was watching the flames, thinking, nursing her still-warm drink. She felt peaceful here in the Eyrie, even now, even after Garth had mentioned Coll. And strangely comfortable. No one lived on the flyers’ rock, but it was a home of sorts. Her home. It was hard to think of not coming here anymore.
She remembered the first time she’d seen the Eyrie, a good six years ago, just after her coming-of-age day. She’d been a girl of thirteen, proud of having flown so far alone, but scared too, and shy. Inside the lodge she’d found a dozen flyers, sitting around a fire, drinking, laughing. A party was in progress. But they’d stopped and smiled at her. Garth had been a quiet youth then, Dorrel a skinny boy just barely older than she. She hadn’t known either of them. But Helmer, a middle-aged flyer from the island closest to hers, had been among the company, and he made the introductions. Even now she remembered the faces, the names: redheaded Anni from Culhall, Foster who later grew too fat to fly, Jamis the Senior, and especially the one nicknamed Raven, an arrogant youth who dressed in black fur and metal and had won awards for Eastern in three straight competitions. There was another too, a lanky blonde from the Outer Islands. The party was in her honor; it was seldom any of the Outers flew so very, very far.
They’d all welcomed Maris, and soon it seemed almost as if she’d replaced the tall blonde as true guest of honor. They gave her wine, despite her age, and they made her sing with them, and told her stories about flying, most of which she’d heard before, but never from such as these. Finally, when she felt very much part of the group, they let their attentions wander from her, and the festivities resumed their normal course.
It had been a strange, unforgettable party, and one incident in particular was burned golden in her memory. Raven, the only Eastern wing in the group, had been taking a lot of needling. Finally, a little drunk, he rebelled. “You call yourselves flyers,” he’d said, in a whiplash voice that Maris would always recall. “Come, come with me, I’ll show you flying.”
And the whole party had gone outside, to the flyers’ cliff of the Eyrie, the highest cliff of all. Six hundred feet straight down it plunged, to where the rocks stood up like teeth and the water churned furiously against them. Raven, wearing folded wings, walked up to the brink. He unfolded the first three joints of his wing struts carefully, and slid his arms through the loops. But he did not lock the wings; the hinges still moved, and the opened struts bent back and forth with his arms, flexible. The other struts he held, folded, in his hands.
Maris had wondered what he was up to. She soon found out.
He ran and jumped, out as far as he could, off the flyers’ cliff. With his wings still folded.
She’d gasped, run to the edge. The others followed, some looking pale, a few grinning. Dorrel had stood beside her.
Raven was falling straight down, a rock, his hands at his sides, his wing cloth flapping like a cape. Head first he flew, and the plunge seemed to last forever.
Then, at the very last moment, when he was almost on the rocks, when Maris could almost feel the impact—silver wings, suddenly, flashing in the sunlight. Wings from nowhere. And Raven caught the winds, and flew.
Maris had been awed. But Jamis the Senior, the oldest flyer Western had, only laughed. “Raven’s trick,” he growled. “I’ve seen him do it twice before. He oils his wing struts. After he’s fallen far enough, he flings them away as hard as he can. As each one locks in place, the snap flings loose the next one. Pretty, yes. You can bet he practiced it plenty before he tried it out in front of anyone. One of these days, though, a hinge is going to jam, and we won’t have to listen to Raven anymore.”
But even his words hadn’t tarnished the magic. Maris often had seen flyers, impatient with their land-bound help, draw their almost-open wings up and shake out the last joint or two with a sharp snap. But never anything like this.