S’Rella seemed puzzled, but Maris said, “No more talk. You still have a few hours before the competition opens, and I want you to try to get some sleep. You have to win your wings today, remember?”
“I can’t,” S’Rella protested. “Not now.”
“Especially now,” Maris said. “Whoever had this done to Val would be delighted to know that it lost you your wings as well as his. Do you want that?”
“No,” S’Rella said.
“Then sleep.”
Later, while S’Rella slept, Maris looked up again at the window. The sun was half-risen, its reddened face streaked with heavy dark clouds. It was going to be a good, windy day. A fine day for flying.
The competition was already well under way when Maris and S’Rella arrived. They had been delayed in the tavern when Raggin demanded immediate payment of Val’s bill, and it had taken a long argument to convince him that he would get everything due him. Maris made him promise to tend to Val’s needs, and allow no one else up those stairs.
Sena was at her usual station by the judges, watching the early contestants fly the gates. Maris sent S’Rella off to join the other Woodwingers, and hurried up the cliff. Sena was relieved to see her. “Maris!” she exclaimed. “I was worried something was wrong. No one knew where you had gone. Are S’Rella and Val with you? It will be time soon. Sher is next up, in fact.”
“S’Rella is ready to fly,” Maris said. She told Sena about Val.
All the strength and vitality seemed to drain from the teacher as she listened. Her good eye clouded over with tears and she leaned more heavily on her cane, and suddenly she was very old indeed. “I did not believe,” she muttered weakly. “I did not—even when that terrible thing happened with the birds, even then—I could not think they would do such a thing.” Her face was the color of ash. “Help me, child. I must sit down.”
Maris put an arm about her for support and led her to the judges’ table, where Shalli looked up, concerned. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” said Maris, easing Sena into a seat. “Val will not fly today,” she continued, swinging around to face the judges. “Last night he was attacked and beaten at the tavern where he had a room. An arm and a leg were broken.”
All of the judges looked shocked. “How terrible,” Shalli said. The Easterner swore, the Outer Islander shook his head, and the Landsman of Skulny rose. “This is dreadful. I won’t allow this on my island. We’ll find whoever did it, you have my promise on that.”
“A flyer did it,” Maris said, “or paid for it, anyway. They broke his right arm and his right leg. One-Wing. You understand.”
Shalli frowned. “Maris, this is a horrid thing, but no flyer would do such a thing. And if you mean to imply that Corm would—”
“Do you have proof a flyer was involved?” the Easterner interrupted.
“I know the tavern where Val One-Wing was staying,” the Landsman said. “The Iron Axe, was it not? That is a very bad place, with the worst sort of patrons, rough people. It could have been anyone. A drunken fight, a jealous lover, a gambling quarrel. I’ve seen many beatings come before me from that place.”
Maris stared at him. “You’ll never find who did it, no matter what you promise,” she said. “That isn’t what concerns me. I want to take Val’s wings back to him tonight.”
“Val’s—wings?”
“I’m afraid,” the Southerner said, “he must wait and try again next year. I am sorry he was hurt when he was so close to winning.”
“Close?” Maris looked the length of the table, found the box she sought, picked it up and rattled it at them. “Nine black stones to one white. That is more than close. Val had won. Even if he lost five to nothing today, he had won.”
“No,” Shalli said stubbornly. “Corm deserves his chance. I won’t have you cheat him of it for One-Wing, no matter how sorry I feel for him. Corm is very good at the gates. He might have won ten to nothing, two stones from each of us, and then he would have kept his wings.”
“Ten to nothing,” Maris said. “How likely is that?”
“It is possible,” Shalli said.
“It is,” echoed the Easterner. “We can’t give the victory to One-Wing. It would not be fair to Corm, who has flown well for many years. I think we must declare Val forfeit.”
Heads were bobbing up and down the table, but Maris only smiled. “I was afraid you might take this position.” She put her hands on her hips and defied them. “But Val will have his wings. Luckily there is a precedent. You set it yourselves last night, with S’Rella and Garth. Let the score stand and the match continue. Summon Corm.
“I will fly proxy for Val.”
And she knew they would not deny her.
Maris got her wings and joined the mill of contestants, impatient and increasingly nervous.
The gates had been erected during the night, nine flimsy wooden constructions planted firmly in the sand, in a course demanding a series of difficult turns and tacking maneuvers. The first gate, straight out from the flyers’ cliff, consisted of two tall blackwood poles, each some forty feet high, set fifty feet apart in the sand. A rope had been tied from the top of one pole to the top of the other. To score, the flyer had to glide through that gate. Easy enough, but the next gate was only a few yards farther down the beach, not straight ahead but off to one side, so the flyer had to angle quickly before shooting past it. And the second gate was smaller, the poles just a little bit shorter and set just a little bit closer together. So it went, the course wandering out into the shallows and then veering sharply back onto land, a twisting, wing-snapping course, with each of the nine gates smaller than the one before, until the ninth and final gate, two poles barely eight feet off the ground, set exactly twenty-one feet apart. A flyer’s wingspan was twenty feet. No one had ever flown more than seven gates. Even that was no mean task; of all the flyers to try the gates this morning, the best score was six, and that had been flown by the phenomenal Lane.
Challengers traditionally flew first in this test; the flyer was given the courtesy of knowing what score he had to beat. Wings on her shoulders, Maris watched the Woodwingers make their attempts.
Sher dove straight from the cliff through the first gate, coming in barely under the rope, banked sharply toward the second but continued to descend, fast, too fast. Panicking, the young Woodwinger leveled off quickly to avoid hitting the ground, and suddenly started to rise, passing over the second gate instead of through it. The flyer that Sher challenged managed only two gates, but that was enough for the victory.
Leya, watching Sher, chose a different strategy. She leapt from the cliff to circle widely above the beach, dropping down gradually so that she’d pass through the first gate level instead of in a descent. She began her turn well before she entered the gate proper, so that she actually swung around one pole gracefully, already heading for the second gate. She sailed smoothly through that as well, again beginning her turn early, but this time it was a sharper turn, more demanding, upwind. Leya made it well enough, and the third gate with it, but had nothing left to wrench herself around afterward. She flew peacefully out to sea, missing the fourth gate by a wide margin. A few of the spectators applauded her anyway, and her flyer rival could only manage two gates before he landed roughly in the sand. So Leya had her first triumph, though it was not enough to win a pair of wings.
Damen and Arak were announced by the crier. Both of them had trouble. Damen took the gates too fast, and couldn’t recover after the second in time to turn for the third. Arak passed through the second gate too high; the upper edge of a wing grazed the rope, and it was enough to send him off balance and far off course. But even with the two-gate tie, Arak easily retained his wings.