Windhaven - Страница 33

Maris was startled by the anger in his tone. “I—I don’t know what I expected,” she said. “But I wanted to let you know that I understood what you’d been through, that I was on your side.”

“I don’t want you on my side,” Val said. “I don’t need you, or your sympathy. And if you think I appreciate your prying into my past, you are wrong. What went on between Arak and myself is our business, not yours, and neither of us needs your judgments.” He finished his wine, snapped his fingers, and the barkeep came across the room and set a bottle on the table between them.

“You wanted revenge on Arak, and rightly so,” Maris said stubbornly, “but you’ve changed that into a desire for revenge against all flyers. You should have challenged Arak, not Ari.”

Val poured himself a refill and tasted it. “There are several problems with that romantic notion,” he said more calmly. “For one, Arak did not have wings the year Airhome sponsored me. His son had come of age; Arak was retired. Two years ago, the son picked up some Southern fever and died, and Arak took up the wings again.”

“I see,” Maris said. “And you didn’t challenge the son because he was a friend.”

Val’s laugh was cruel. “Hardly. The son was an ill-bred bully who grew more like his father every day. I didn’t shed a tear when they dropped him into the sea. Oh, we played together once, when he was still too young to comprehend how superior he was, and we were whipped together often enough, but that made no bond between us.” He leaned forward. “I didn’t challenge the son because he was good, the same reason I would not have challenged Arak. I am not interested in revenge, no matter what you might think. I am interested in wings, and the things that go with them. Your Ari was the feeblest flyer I saw, and I knew I could take her wings. Against Arak or his son I might have lost. It is that simple.”

He sipped at his wine again, while Maris watched, dismayed. Whatever she had hoped to accomplish by coming here was not happening. And she realized that it would not happen, could not happen. She had been foolish to think otherwise. Val One-Wing was who he was, and that would not change simply because Maris understood the cruel forces that had shaped him. He sat regarding her with the same cool disdain as ever, and she knew then that they could never be friends, never, no matter what might come to pass.

She tried again. “Don’t judge all flyers by Arak.” As she heard her own words, she wondered why she had not said us, why she spoke of the flyers as if she were not one of them. “Arak is not typical, Val.”

“Arak and I understand each other well enough,” Val said. “I know exactly what he is, thank you. I know that he is crueler than most, flyer or land-bound, and less intelligent, and more easily angered. That does not make my opinion of other flyers any less true. His attitudes are shared by most of your friends, whether you care to admit it or not. Arak is only a bit less reticent about voicing those views, and a little more crude in his speech.”

Maris rose. “We have nothing more to say to each other. I’ll expect you and S’Rella tomorrow morning for practice,” she said as she turned away.

Sena and the other Woodwingers arrived several hours ahead of schedule the day before the competition was to open, putting in at the nearest port and trekking twelve miles overland along the sea road.

Maris was up flying and did not know they had arrived for several hours. When she found them, Sena immediately asked after the academy wings, and sent Sher and Leya running for them. “We must take advantage of every hour of good wind we have left,” she said. “We were trapped on that ship too long.”

Her students gone, Sena beckoned Maris to be seated and looked at her keenly. “Tell me what is wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

Sena shook her head impatiently. “I noticed it at once,” she said. “In years past the flyers may have been cool to us, but they were always polite and patronizing. This year the hostility hangs in the air like a bad smell. Is it Val?”

Briefly, Maris told the older woman what had happened.

Sena frowned. “Well, it is unfortunate, but we will survive it. Adversity will toughen them. They need that.”

“Do they? This is not the kind of toughness you get from wind and weather and hard landings. This is something else. Do they need their hearts toughened as well as their bodies?”

Sena put a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps they do. You sound bitter, Maris, and I understand your disappointment. I too was a flyer, and I would have liked to believe better of my old friends. We’ll survive, flyers and Woodwingers both.”

That night the flyers enjoyed a boisterous party at the lodge, so noisy that even in the village Maris and the others could hear it. But Sena would not let her charges attend. They need rest tonight, she said, after one final meeting in her cabin.

She began by discussing the rules. The competition was to last three days, but the serious business, the formal challenges, would be restricted to the mornings.

“Tomorrow you name your opponent and race,” Sena said. “The judges will rate you according to speed and endurance. The day after they will look for grace. On the third day, precision: you will fly the gates to show your control.”

The evenings and afternoons would be filled with less serious contests, games, personal challenges, singing contests, drinking bouts and so on. “Leave those to flyers not involved in the real challenges,” Sena warned. “You have no business with such foolery. They can only tire you, and waste your strength. Watch if you will, but take no part.”

When she had finished talking about the rules, Sena answered questions for a time, until she was asked one she could not answer. It came from Kerr, who had lost some weight during the three days at sea, and looked surprisingly fit. “Sena,” he said, “how do we decide who is best to challenge?”

Sena looked at Maris. “We have had this problem before,” she said. “The children of flyer families know everything they need to when they come of an age to challenge, but we hear no flyer gossip, know little about who is strong or who is weak. What things I know myself are ten years out of date. Will you advise them, Maris?”

Maris nodded. “Well, obviously, you want to find someone you can beat. I’d say challenge those from Eastern or Western. The flyers from farther away are usually the best from their regions. When the competition is in Southern, then the weaker Southern flyers are on hand, but only the most skilled from Western make the flight.

“Also, you’d do best to avoid the flyers from Big Shotan. They are organized almost in a military fashion, and they practice and drill endlessly.”

“I challenged a woman from Big Shotan last year,” Damen put in glumly. “She hadn’t seemed very good beforehand, but she beat me easily enough when it mattered.”

“She was probably being deliberately clumsy earlier, trying to lure a challenge from someone,” Maris said. “I’ve known some who did that.”

“That still leaves a lot of people to choose from,” Kerr said, unsatisfied. “I don’t know any of them. Can’t you tell me the name of someone I can beat?”

Val laughed. He was standing by the door, S’Rella close to him. “You can’t beat anyone,” he said, “unless it’s Sena here. Challenge her.”

“I’ll beat you, One-Wing,” Kerr snapped back.

Sena hushed him and glared at Val. “Quiet. I’ll have no more of that, Val.” She looked back to Maris. “Kerr is right. Can you tell us specific flyers who are vulnerable?”

“You know, Maris,” Val said. “Like Ari.” He was smiling.

Once, not so very long ago, the suggestion would have filled Maris with horror. Once she would have thought it betrayal of the worst kind. Now she was not so sure. The poorer flyers endangered themselves and their wings, and it was no secret who they were for one privy to Eyrie gossip.

“I—I suppose I can suggest a few names,” she said hesitantly. “Jon of Culhall, for one. His eyes are said to be weak, and I’ve never been impressed by his abilities. Bari of Poweet would be another. She has gained a good thirty pounds this past year, a sure sign of a flyer whose will and body are failing.” She named about a half-dozen more, all frequent subjects of flyer talk, reputed to be clumsy or careless or both, the old and the very young. Then, impulsively, she added one other name. “An Easterner I met yesterday might be worth a challenge. Arak of South Arren.”

Val shook his head. “Arak is small but hardly frail,” he said calmly. “He would outfly anyone here, except perhaps for me.”

“Oh?” Damen, as ever, was annoyed by the implied slur. “We’ll see about that. I’ll trust Maris’ judgment.”

They talked for a few minutes more, the Wood-wingers eagerly discussing the names Maris had tossed out. Finally Sena chased them all away and told them to get some rest.

In front of the cabin she had shared with Maris, S’Rella bid goodnight to Val. “Go on,” she told him. “I’ll stay here tonight.”

He looked a bit nonplussed. “Oh? Well, suit yourself.”

When Val was out of sight, Maris said, “S’Rella? You’re welcome, of course, but why… ?”

S’Rella turned to her with a serious expression on her face. “You left out Garth,” she said.

Maris was taken aback. She had thought of Garth, of course. He was ill, drinking too much, gaining weight; it might be best for him to lose his wings. But she knew he would never agree to that, and he had been close to her for a long time, and she could not bring herself to name his name when speaking to the Woodwingers. “I couldn’t,” she said. “He’s my friend.”