“A flock of ex-flyers,” Garth grumbled.
“And a lot of one-wings,” Maris added, smiling. “The world is changing, Garth. Once we had only flyers and land-bound.”
“Yes,” Garth said, gulping down some more ale. “Then you confused everything. Flying land-bounds and grounded flyers. Where will it end?”
“I don’t know,” Maris said. She stood up. “I’d stay longer, but I must go talk to Val, and I’m long overdue on Amberly. With Shalli pregnant and Corm wingless, the Landsman will no doubt work me to death. But I’ll find time to visit, I promise.”
“Good.” He grinned up at her. “Fly well, now.”
When she left, he was shouting to Riesa for another ale.
Val was propped up awkwardly in bed; his head raised just enough so that he could eat, he was spooning soup into his mouth with his left hand. S’Rella sat by his side, holding the bowl. They both looked up when Maris entered, and Val’s hand trembled, spilling hot soup on his bare chest. He cursed and S’Rella helped him mop it up.
“Val,” Maris said evenly, nodding. On the floor by the door she set the wings she had carried, once belonging to Corm of Lesser Amberly. “Your wings.”
The swelling in his face had subsided enough so that Val was beginning to look like himself again, although his puffed lip gave him an atypical sneer. “S’Rella told me what you did,” he said with difficulty. “Now I suppose you want me to thank you.”
Maris folded her arms and waited.
“Your friends the flyers did this to me, you know,” he said. “If the bones mend crooked, I’ll never use those damn wings you got me. Even if they heal properly, I’ll never be as good as I was.”
“I know that,” Maris said, “and I’m sorry. But it wasn’t my friends who did this, Val. Not all flyers are my friends. And they aren’t all your enemies.”
“You were at the party,” Val said.
Maris nodded. “It won’t be easy, and most of the burden is on you. Reject them if you like, hate all of them. Or find the ones worth knowing. It’s up to you.”
“I’ll tell you who I’m going to find,” Val said. “I’m going to find the ones who did this to me, and then I’m going to find whoever sent them.”
“Yes,” Maris said. “And then?”
“S’Rella found my knife,” Val said simply. “I dropped it in the bushes last night. But I cut one of them, well enough so I’ll know her by the scar.”
“Where are you going, when you heal?” Maris said.
Val seemed thrown off-stride by the sudden change of subject. “I had thought Seatooth. I’ve heard the stories, about how much the Landsman there wants a flyer. But S’Rella tells me that the Landsman of Skulny is anxious as well. I’ll talk to them both, see what they offer.”
“Val of Seatooth,” Maris said. “It has a nice sound to it.”
“It will always be One-Wing,” he said. “Maybe for you too.”
“A half-flyer,” she agreed. “Both of us. But which half? Val, you can make the Landsmen bid for your services. The flyers will despise you for it, most of them, and maybe some of the younger and greedier will imitate you, and I’d hate to see that. And you can wear that knife your father gave you when you fly, even though you break one of the oldest and wisest flyer laws by doing so. It is a small point, a tradition, and the flyers again will despise you, but no one will do anything. But I tell you now, if you find who ordered you beaten, and kill them with that same knife, you’ll be One-Wing no longer. The flyers will name you outlaw and strip your wings away, and not a Landsman on Windhaven will take your side or give you landing, no matter how much they need flyers.”
“You want me to forget,” Val said. “Forget this?”
“No,” said Maris. “Find them, and take them to a Landsman, or call a flyer court. Let your enemy be the one who loses wings and home and life, and not you. Is that such a bad alternative?”
Val smiled crookedly, and Maris saw he had lost some teeth as well. “No,” he said. “I almost like it.”
“It’s your choice,” Maris said. “You won’t be flying for a good while, so you’ll have time to think about it. I think you’re intelligent enough to use that time.” She looked to S’Rella. “I must return to Lesser Amberly. It’s on your way, if you’re going back to Southern. Will you fly with me, and spend a day in my home?”
S’Rella nodded eagerly. “Yes, I’d love—that is, if Val will be all right.”
“Flyers have unlimited credit,” Val said. “If I promise Raggin enough iron, he’ll nurse me better than my own parent.”
“I’ll go, then,” S’Rella said. “But I’ll see you again, Val, won’t I? We both have wings now.”
“Yes,” Val said. “Go fly with yours. I’ll look at mine.”
S’Rella kissed him and crossed the room to where Maris stood. They started out the door.
“Maris!” Val called sharply.
She turned at the sound of his voice, in time to see his left hand reach awkwardly behind his head, under the pillow, and come whipping out with frightening speed. The long blade sliced through the air and struck the doorframe not a foot from Maris’ head. But the knife was ornamental obsidian, bright and black and sharp, but not resilient, and it shattered when it struck.
Maris must have looked terrified; Val was smiling. “It was never my father’s,” he said. “My father never owned anything. I stole it from Arak.” Across the room their eyes met, and Val laughed painfully. “Get rid of it for me, will you, One-Wing?”
Maris smiled and bent to pick up the pieces.
III
The Fall
She grew old in less than a minute.
When Maris left the side of the Landsman of Thayos she was still young. She took the underground way from his spare rocky keep to the sea, a damp, gloomy tunnel through the mountain. She walked quickly, with a taper in her hand, her folded wings on her back, surrounded by echoes and the slow drip of water. There were puddles on the floor of the tunnel, and the water soaked through her boots. Maris was anxious to be off.
It was not until she emerged into the twilight on the far side of the mountain that Maris saw the sky. It was a dim threatening purple, a violet so dark it was almost black; the color of a bad bruise, full of blood and pain. The wind was cold and unruly. Maris could taste the fury that was about to break, could see it in the clouds. She stood at the foot of the time-worn stairs that led up the sea cliff, and briefly she considered turning back, resting overnight at the lodge house and postponing her flight until dawn.
The thought of the long walk back through the tunnel dismayed her, however, and Maris took no joy in this place. Thayos seemed to her a dark and bitter land, and its Landsman rude, his brutality barely hidden beneath the civilities required between Landsman and flyer. The message he had given her to fly weighed heavily upon her. The words were angry, greedy, full of the threat of war, and Maris was eager to deliver and forget them, to free herself of the burden as quickly as she could.
So she extinguished her taper and started up the stairs, climbing easily with long, impatient strides. There were lines on her face and gray in her hair, but Maris was still as graceful and vigorous as she had been at twenty.
Where the steps opened onto a broad stone platform above the sea, Maris unfolded her wings. They caught the wind and tugged at her as she snapped the last struts into place. The purple gloom of the storm gave a dark cast to the silver metal, and the rays of the setting sun left red streaks of light upon it, like fresh wounds welling full of blood. Maris hurried. She wanted to get ahead of the storm, to use the front for added speed. She tightened the straps around herself, checked the wings a final time, and wrapped her hands about the familiar grips. With two quick steps she flung herself from the cliff, as she had uncounted times before. The wind was her old and true lover. She folded herself into its embrace and flew.