S'Rella was small but determined, with a stamina that belied her size. At the moment she was still graceless in the sky, but she was stubborn enough to give hope of quick improvement. Maris had been working with Sena's flock of would-be flyers for nearly ten days now, and she had come to regard S'Rella as one of the three or four most promising.
"Shall I wait and show you the way?" the girl asked when Maris climbed off the bed to wash at the basin of water in the far corner of the room.
"No," Maris said. "Off to breakfast now. I can find Sena well enough myself." She smiled to soften the dismissal, and S'Rella smiled back, a little shyly, before she left.
A few minutes later Maris was having second thoughts as she groped along a narrow, dank corridor in search of Sena's cubbyhole. Woodwings academy was an ancient structure, a huge rock shot through with tunnels and caves, some natural, others hollowed out by human hands. Its lower chambers were perpetually flooded, and even in the upper, inhabited portions, many of the rooms and all of the halls were windowless, cut off from sun and stars. The sea smell was everywhere. In the old days it had been a fortress, built during Seatooth's bitter revolt against Big Shotan and afterward unoccupied until the Landsman of Seatooth had offered it to the flyers as a site for a training academy. In the seven years since, Sena and her charges had restored much of it, but it was still easy to take a wrong turning and get lost in the abandoned sections.
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.
"No," said Sena. "We need you here. Simply relay my word to Big Shotan and then return to fly guard on my clumsy young birds." She rose unsteadily from her wicker chair, and Maris stood up quickly to help her. "And now we should see about breakfast," Sena continued. "You need to eat before your flight, and with all the time we have spent talking, I fear the others have probably eaten our share."
But breakfast was still waiting when they reached the common room. Two blazing hearths kept the large hall warm and bright in the damp morning. Gently curving walls of stone rose to become an arched and blackened ceiling. The furniture was rough and sparse: three long wooden tables with benches running the length of each side. The benches were crowded with students now, talking and joking and laughing, most at least half finished with their meals. Nearly twenty would-be flyers were currently in residence, ranging in age from a woman only two years younger than Maris to a boy just shy of ten.
The hall quieted only a little when Maris and Sena entered, and Sena had to shout to be heard above the din and clatter. But after she had finished speaking, it was very quiet indeed.
Maris accepted a chunk of black bread and a bowl of porridge and honey from Kerr, a chubby youth who was taking his turn as cook today, and found a place on one of the benches. As she ate, she conversed politely with the students on either side of her, but she could sense that neither had her heart in it, and after a short time both of them excused themselves and left. Maris could not blame them. She remembered how she had felt, years earlier, when her own dream of being a flyer had been imperiled, as their dreams were imperiled now. Airhome was not the first academy to shut its doors. The desolate island-continent of Artellia had given up first, after three years of failure, and the academies in the Southern Archipelago and the Outer Islands had followed it into oblivion. Eastern's Airhome was the fourth closing, leaving only Woodwings. No wonder the students were sullen.
Maris mopped her plate with the last of the bread, swallowed it, and pushed back from the table. "Sena, I will not be back until tomorrow morning," she said as she rose. "I'm going to fly to the Eyrie after Big Shotan."
Sena looked up from her own plate and nodded. "Very well. I plan to let Leya and Kurt try the air today.
The rest will exercise. Be back as early as you can." She returned to her food.
Maris sensed someone behind her, and turned to see S'Rella. "May I help you with your wings, Maris?"
"Of course you may. Thank you."
The girl smiled. They walked together down the short corridor to the little room where the wings were kept. Three pair of wings hung on the wall now; Maris' own and two owned by the academy, dying bequests from flyers who had left no heirs. It was hardly surprising that the Woodwingers fared so poorly in competition, Maris thought bitterly as she contemplated the wings. A flyer sends his child into the sky almost daily during the years of training, but at the academies — with so many students and so few wings — practice time was not so easily come by. There was only so much you could learn on the ground.
She pushed the thought away and lifted her wings from the rack. They made a compact package, the struts folded neatly back on themselves, the tissue-metal hanging limply between and drooping toward the floor like a silver cape. S'Rella held them up easily with one hand while Maris partially unfolded them, checking each strut and joint carefully with fingers and eyes for any wear or defect that might become evident, too late, as a danger in the air.
"It's bad about them closing Airhome," S'Rella said as Maris worked. "It happened just the same way in Southern, you know. That was why I had to come here, to Woodwings. Our own school was closed."
Maris paused and looked at her. She had almost forgotten that the shy Southern girl had been a victim of a previous closing. "One of the students from Airhome is coming here, as you did," Maris said. "So you won't be alone among the savage Westerners anymore." She smiled.
"Do you miss your home?" S'Rella asked suddenly.
Maris thought a moment. "Truthfully, I don't know that I really have a home," she said. "Wherever I am is my home."
S'Rella digested that calmly. "I suppose that's a good way to feel, if you're a flyer. Do most flyers feel that way?"
"Maybe a little bit," Maris said. She glanced back to her wings and set her hands to work again. "But not so much as me. Most flyers have more ties to their home islands than I do, though never so many as the land-bound. Could you help me stretch that taut? Thanks. No, I didn't mean that particularly because I'm a flyer, but just because my old home is gone and I haven't made a new one yet. My father — my stepfather, really — died three years ago. His wife died long before that, and my own natural parents are both dead as well. I have a stepbrother, Coll, but he's been off adventuring and singing in the Outer Islands for a long time now. The little house on Lesser Amberly seemed awfully big and empty with Coll and Russ both gone. And since I had no one to go home to, I went there less and less. The island survives. The Landsman would like his third flyer to be in residence more often, no doubt, but he makes do with the two at hand." She shrugged. "My friends are flyers, mostly."
"I see."
Maris looked at S'Rella, who was staring at the wing she still held with more concentration than it warranted. "You miss your home," Maris said gently.
S'Rella nodded slowly. "It's different here. The others are different from the people I knew."
"A flyer has to get used to that," Maris said.
"Yes. But there was someone I loved. We talked of marrying, but I knew we never would. I loved him — I still love him — but I wanted to be a flyer even more. You know."
"I know," Maris said, trying to be encouraging. "Perhaps, after you win your wings, he could—"
"No. He'll never leave his land. He can't. He's a farmer, and his land has always been in his family. He—
well, he never asked me to give up the idea of flying, and I never asked him to give up his land."
"Flyers have married farmers before," Maris said. "You could go back."
"Not without wings," S'Rella said fiercely. Her eyes met Maris'. "No matter how long it takes. And if — when — I win my wings, well, he'll have married by then. He's bound to. Farming isn't a job for a single person. He'll want a wife who loves the land, and a lot of children."
Maris said nothing.
"Well, I have made my choice," S'Rella said. "It's just that sometimes I get… homesick. Lonely, maybe."
"Yes," Maris said. She put a hand on S'Rella's shoulder. "Come, I have a message to deliver."
S'Rella led the way. Maris slung her wings over a shoulder and followed down a dark passageway that led to a well-fortified exit. It opened on what had once been an observation platform, a wide stone ledge eighty feet above where the sea crested and broke against the rocks of Seatooth. The sky was gray and overcast, but the wild salt smell of the ocean and the strong, eager hands of the wind filled Maris with exhilaration.
S'Rella held the wings while Maris fastened the restraining straps around her body. When they were secure, S'Rella began to unf
old them, strut by strut, locking each into place so the silver tissue pulled tight and strong. Maris waited patiently, aware of her role as teacher, although she was anxious to be off. Only when the wings were fully extended did she smile at S'Rella, slide her arms through the loops, and wrap her hands around the worn, familiar leather of the wing grips.
Then, with four quick steps, she was off.
For a second, or less than a second, she fell, but then the winds took her, thrumming against her wings, lifting her, turning her plunge into flight, and the feel of it was like a shock running through her, a shock that left her flushed and breathless and set her skin to tingling. That instant, that little space of less than a second, made it all worthwhile. It was better and more thrilling than any sensation Maris had ever known, better than love, better than everything. Alive and aloft, she joined the strong western wind in a lover's embrace.
Big Shotan lay to the north, but for the moment Maris let the prevailing wind carry her, luxuriating in the fine freedom of an effortless soar before beginning her game with the winds, when she would have to tack and turn, test and tease them into taking her where she chose to go. A flight of rainbirds darted past her, each a different bright color, their haste an omen of a coming storm. Maris followed them, climbing higher and higher, rising until Seatooth was only a green and gray area off to her left, smaller than her hand. She could see Eggland as well, and off in the distance the fog banks that shrouded the southernmost coast of Big Shotan.
Maris began to circle, deliberately slowing her progress, aware of how easy it would be to overshoot her destination. Conflicting air currents whispered past her ears, taunting her with promises of a northbound gale somewhere above, and she rose again, seeking it in the colder air far above the sea. Now Big Shotan's coast and Seatooth and Eggland were all spread out before her on the metallic gray ocean like toys on a table. She saw the tiny shapes of fishing boats bobbing in the harbors and bays of Shotan and Seatooth, and gulls and scavenger kites by the hundreds wheeling around the sharp crags of Eggland.
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