Windhaven - Страница 18

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.

She had lied to S’Rella, Maris realized suddenly. She did have a home, and it was here, in the sky, with the wind strong and cold behind her and her wings on her back. The world below, with its worries about trade and politics and food and war and money, was alien to her, and even at the best of times she always felt a bit apart from it. She was a flyer, and like all flyers, she was less than whole when she took off her wings.

Smiling a small, secret smile, Maris went to deliver her message.

The Landsman of Big Shotan was a busy man, occupied by the endless task of ruling the oldest, richest, and most densely populated island on Windhaven. He was in conference when Maris arrived—some sort of fishing dispute with Little Shotan and Skulny—but he came out to see her. Flyers were the equals of the Landsmen, and it was dangerous even for one as powerful as he to slight them. He heard Sena’s message dispassionately, and promised that word would travel back to Eastern the next morning, on the wings of one of his flyers.

Maris left her wings on the wall of the conference room in the Old Captain’s House, as the Landsman’s ancient sprawling residence was named, and wandered into the streets of the city beyond. It was the only real city on Windhaven; oldest, largest, and first. Stormtown, it was called; the town the star sailors built. Maris found it endlessly fascinating. There were windmills everywhere, their great blades churning against the gray sky. There were more people here than on Lesser and Greater Amberly together. There were shops and stalls of a hundred different sorts, selling every useful good and worthless trinket imaginable.

She spent several hours in the market, browsing happily and listening to the talk, although she bought very little. Afterward she ate a light dinner of smoked moonfish and black bread, washed down with a mug of kivas, the hot spice wine that Shotan prided itself on. The inn where she took her meal had a singer and Maris listened to him politely enough, though she thought him much inferior to Coll and other singers she had known on Amberly.

It was close to dusk when she flew from Stormtown, in the wake of a brief squall that had washed the city streets with rain. She had good winds at her back all the way, and it had just turned dark when she reached the Eyrie.

It hulked out of the sea at her, black in the bright starlight, a weathered column of ancient stone whose sheer walls rose six hundred feet straight up from the foaming waters.

Maris saw lights within the windows. She circled once and came down skillfully in the landing pit, full of damp sand. Alone, it took her several minutes to remove and fold her wings. She hung them on a hook just inside the door.

A small fire was blazing in the hearth of the common room. In front of it, two flyers she knew only by sight were engrossed in a game of geechi, shoving the black and white pebbles around a board. One of them waved at her. She nodded in reply, but by then his glance had already gone back to his game.

There was one other present, slumped in an armchair near the fire with an earthenware mug in his hand, studying the flames. But he looked up when she entered. “Maris!” he said, rising suddenly and grinning. He set his mug aside and started across the room. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

“Dorrel,” she said, but then he was there, and he put his arms around her and they kissed, briefly but with intensity. One of the geechi players watched them in a distracted sort of way, but his gaze fell quickly when his opponent moved a stone.

“Did you fly all the way from Amberly?” Dorrel asked her. “You must be hungry. Sit by the fire and I’ll fetch you a snack. There’s cheese and smoked ham and some sort of fruitbread in the kitchen.”

Maris took his hand and squeezed it and led him back toward the fire, choosing two chairs well away from the geechi players. “I ate not too long ago,” she said, “but thanks. And I flew from Big Shotan, not Amberly. An easy flight. The winds are friendly tonight. I haven’t been to Amberly in almost a month, I’m afraid. The Landsman is going to be angry.”

Dorrel did not look too happy himself. His lean face wrinkled in a frown. “Flying? Or gone to Seatooth again?” He released her hand and found his mug once more, sipping from it carefully. Steam rose from within.

“Seatooth. Sena asked me to come spend some time with the students. I’ve been working with them for about ten days. Before that I was on a long mission, to Deeth in the Southern Archipelago.”

Dorrel set down his mug and sighed. “You don’t want to hear my opinion,” he said cheerfully, “but I’m going to tell it to you anyway. You spend too much time away from Amberly, working at the academy. Sena is teacher there, not you. She is paid good metal for doing what she does. I don’t see her pressing any iron into your palm.”

“I have enough iron,” Maris said. “Russ left me well-off. Sena’s lot is harder. And the Woodwingers need my help—they see precious few flyers on Seatooth.” Her voice became warmer, coaxing. “Why don’t you come spend a few days yourself? Laus would survive a week without you. We could share a room. I’d like to have you with me.”

“No.” His cheerful tone vanished abruptly, and he looked vaguely irritated. “I’d love to spend a week with you, Maris, in my cabin on Laus, or your home on Amberly, or even here in the Eyrie. But not at Woodwings. I’ve told you before: I won’t train a group of land-bounds to take the wings of my friends.”

His words wounded her. She pulled back in her chair and looked away from him, into the fire. “You sound like Corm, seven years ago,” she said.

“I don’t deserve that, Maris.”

She turned back to look at him. “Then why won’t you help? Why are you so contemptuous of the Wood-wingers? You sneer at them like the most tradition-bound old flyer—but seven years ago you were with me. You fought for this, believed in it with me. I could never have done it without you—they would have taken my wings and named me outlaw. You risked the same fate by helping me. What has changed you so?”

Dorrel shook his head violently. “I haven’t changed, Maris. Listen. Seven years ago, I fought for you. I didn’t care about those precious academies you dreamed up—I fought for your right to keep your wings and be a flyer. Because I loved you, Maris, and I would have done anything for you. And,” he went on, his tone a little cooler, “you were the best damn flyer I’d ever seen. It was a crime, madness, to give your wings to your brother and ground you. Now, don’t look at me like that. Of course the principle mattered to me, too.”

“Did it?” Maris asked. It was an old argument, but it still upset her.

“Of course it did. I wouldn’t fly in the face of all I believed just to please you. The system as it existed was unfair. The traditions had to be changed—you were right about that. I believed that then, and I believe it now.”

“You believe it,” Maris said bitterly. “You say that, but words are easy. You won’t do anything for your belief—you won’t help me now, although we’re on the verge of losing all we fought for.”

“We aren’t going to lose it. We won. We changed the rules—we changed the world.”

“But without the academies, what does that mean?”

“The academies! I didn’t fight for the academies. Changing bad tradition was what I fought for. I’ll agree that if a land-bound can outfly me, I must give him my wings. But I will not agree to teach him to outfly me. And that’s what you’re asking of me. You, of all people, should understand what it means to a flyer to lose the sky.”

“I also understand what it is to want to fly but to know that there’s no chance of ever being allowed to,” Maris said. “There’s a student at the academy—S’Rella. You should have heard her this morning, Dorrel. She wants to fly more than anything. She’s a lot like I was, when Russ first began to teach me how to fly. Come help her, Dorr.”

“If she really is like you, she’ll be flying soon enough, whether I choose to help her or not. So I choose not. Then if she defeats a friend of mine, takes his wings in competition, I won’t have to feel guilty.” He drained his mug and stood up.

Maris scowled and was seeking another argument when he said, “Have some tea with me?” She nodded, watching him go to the kettle on the fire where the fragrant spiced tea steamed. His stance, his walk, the way he bent to pour the tea—all so familiar to her. She knew him probably better than she had ever known anyone, she thought.