Windhaven - Страница 23

“Fair enough,” Sena said. “Will you help me ready him?”

Maris stared down at the gray stone floor. “You place me in a difficult position,” she said. “And for the sake of someone I don’t even like.”

“So only those you approve of deserve to fly?” Sena said. “Is that the principle you struggled for seven years ago?”

Maris raised her head, meeting Sena’s gaze. “You know better. Those who fly best deserve the wings.”

“And you admit Val is skilled,” Sena said. She sipped at her kivas while she waited for an answer.

Maris nodded reluctantly. “But if he should win, the others will not forget the past. You call him Val, but he’ll always be One-Wing to them.”

“I am not asking you to fly guard on him for the rest of his career,” Sena said tartly. “I ask only that you help me now, help Val to get his wings.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing more than you have already done for the others. Show him his mistakes. Teach him the things your years as a flyer have taught you, as you would teach a child of your own. Advise him. Push him. Challenge him. He is too skilled to gain much by pitting himself against my Woodwingers, and you saw today how little he is willing to listen to me. I am old and crippled, and I fly only in my dreams. But you are an active flyer, and reputed one of the best. He will heed you.”

“I wonder,” Maris said. She drained the last inch of kivas from her mug and set it aside. “Well, I suppose I must give him my advice, if he will take it.”

“Good,” Sena said. She nodded briskly and stood up. “I thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to tend to.” At the door she paused and half-turned. “I know this is hard for you, Maris. Perhaps if you knew Val better, you might feel some sympathy between you. He admires you, I know.”

Maris was startled by that, but tried not to show it. “I can’t admire him,” she said. “And the more I see of him, the less I see to sympathize with or like.”

“He is young,” Sena said. “His life has not been easy, and he is obsessed with winning back his wings—not so very different from you, some years back.”

Maris choked down her anger to keep from launching into a tirade about just how different Val One-Wing was from her younger self; she would only sound spiteful.

The silence lengthened, and then Maris heard Sena’s soft, uncertain footsteps taking her away.

The next day the final training began.

From sun-up until sundown the six challengers flew. Of those who would not compete this year, some went home to visit families on Seatooth or the Shotans or other nearby islands. The others, whose homes lay long, dangerous distances away, sat perched on bare rock to watch their fortunate companions and dream of the day when they, too, would have a chance to win their own wings.

Sena stood below on the launching deck, shouting up advice and encouragement to her fledglings, sometimes leaning on a wooden cane, more often using it to gesture and command. Maris, winged, flew guard; circling, watching, yelling cautions. She put S’Rella, Damen, Sher, Leva, and Kerr through their paces, racing against them two at a time, calling upon them to perform the sort of aerial acrobatics that might impress the judges.

Val was given a chance to use a pair of wings as often as any of the others, but Maris found herself observing him in silence. He had been in competition twice before, she reasoned; he knew what would be expected. To treat him as she did the other Woodwingers would be to condescend. But, mindful of her promise to Sena, she studied his flying closely, and that night at dinner she sought him out.

Only one hearth was lit in the common room, and the benches seemed strangely empty. When Maris arrived, one table was crowded with the students who would not be competing, and Sena sat at a second, talking in an animated fashion with Sher, Leya, and Kerr. S’Rella and Val were alone at the third table.

Maris let Damen fill her platter with his fish stew, then drew herself a glass of white wine and went to join them.

“How is the food?” she asked, as she sat down across from Val.

He looked at her evenly, but she could read nothing in his large, dark eyes. “Excellent,” he said. “But even at Airhome, we never had cause to complain about the meals. Flyers eat well. Even those with wooden wings.”

S’Rella, seated next to him, pushed a chunk of hook-fin across her plate with marked indifference. “This isn’t that good,” she said. “Damen always makes everything so bland. You should be here when I’m cook, Val. Southern food has a lot of spices.”

Maris laughed. “Too many, if you want my opinion.”

“I’m not talking about spices,” Val said. “I’m talking about food. This stew has four or five different kinds of fish in it, and chunks of vegetables, and I think there’s wine in the sauce. There’s plenty of it, and not a bit of it is rotten. Only flyers and Landsmen and rich traders would quibble about food like this.”

S’Rella looked wounded. Maris frowned and put down her knife. “Most flyers eat simply, Val. We can’t afford to get fat.”

“I’ve been served fish that stank, and I’ve eaten fish stew that was entirely fishless,” Val said coolly. “I grew up on scraps and leavings from flyer plates. I will be happy to spend the rest of my life eating as simply as a flyer.” There was an infinite amount of sarcasm in the way he said simply.

Maris flushed. Her own true parents had not been wealthy, but her father had fished the sea off Amberly and they had always had enough to eat. After his death, when she had been adopted by the flyer Russ, she had always had enough of everything. She drank some of her wine and changed the subject. “I wanted to talk to you about your turns, Val.”

“Oh?” He swallowed his last piece of fish and shoved the empty plate away. “Am I doing anything wrong, flyer?” His voice was so fiat that Maris found it difficult to tell if the sarcasm was still there or not.

“Not wrong, not exactly. But given a choice, I notice that you always turn downwind. Why?”

Val shrugged. “It’s easier.”

“Yes,” Maris said. “But not better. You’ll come out of a downwind turn with more speed, but it will also take more room. And you tend to roll more on a downwind turn, particularly in high winds.”

“An upwind turn is difficult in high winds,” Val said.

“It requires more strength,” Maris agreed. “But you need to work on your strength. You should not avoid difficulty. A habit like always turning downwind may seem harmless, but the time will come when you have to turn upwind, and you should be able to do it well.”

Val’s expression was as guarded as ever. “I see,” he said.

Emboldened, Maris raised a touchier subject. “Something else. I saw that you wore your knife again today during practice.”

“Yes.”

“Next time, don’t,” Maris said. “I don’t think you understand. No matter what the knife means to you, this is a matter of flyer law. No blades may be worn in the sky.”

“Flyer law,” Val said icily. “Tell me, who gave the flyers the right to make laws? Do we have farmers’ law? Glassblowers’ law? The Landsmen make the law. The only law. When my father gave me that knife, he told me never to put it aside. But I did put it aside, during the year I had my wings. I obeyed your flyer law. It did nothing but shame me. I was still One-Wing. Well, I was a boy then, and cowed by flyer law, but I am not a boy now. I choose to wear my knife.”

S’Rella looked at him wonderingly. “But, Val—how can you disregard flyer law, if you’re going to be a flyer?”

“I never said I was going to be a flyer,” Val replied. “Only that I intend to win wings, and fly.” His eyes moved from Maris to S’Rella. “And, S’Rella, you are not going to be a flyer either, even if you should win. Remember that, if it comes to pass. You’ll be as I was—a One-Wing.”

“That’s not true!” Maris said angrily. “I was not born of flyers, but they’ve accepted me all the same.”

“Have they?” Val said. He smiled a thin, ironic smile, and rose from the bench. “You’ll excuse me. I have to rest. Tomorrow I must practice my upwind turns, and I’ll need all my strength for that.”

When he was gone, Maris reached across the table to take S’Rella by the hand, but the girl gave her a troubled look and pulled away. “I have to go too,” she said, and Maris was left alone.

She sat for a long time, thinking, and it was not until Damen approached her that she remembered the half-eaten meal on her plate. “Everyone else is gone,” he said softly. “Are you going to finish, Maris?”

“Oh,” she said, “no, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I got distracted and let it get cold.” She smiled and helped Damen with the plates, then left him to clean up the common room and set off down the dank stone corridors in search of Val’s room.

She found it after only one wrong turning, and her anger grew as she walked; she was determined to have it out with Val. But it was S’Rella who answered her impatient knocking.

“What are you doing here?” Maris said, startled.

S’Rella hesitated, shy and uncertain. But Val’s voice came from within the room. “She doesn’t have to answer that,” he said.

“No, of course not,” Maris said, abashed. She had no right even asking, she realized. She touched S’Rella on the shoulder. “I’m sorry. Can I come in? I want to talk to Val.”

“Let her in,” Val said, and S’Rella smiled at Maris tentatively and opened the door.