Windhaven - Страница 37

Jon of Culhall accumulated another eight white pebbles, and Maris felt sorry for Kerr.

“Corm of Lesser Amberly” announced the crier, “Val One-Wing, Val of South Arren!”

They stepped into view on the flyers’ cliff, wings strapped in place but folded, and Maris could feel a ripple of excitement go through the onlookers. People along the beach were making noise, and even the lands-guard and attendants who stood near the Landsman moved closer to watch.

Corm was not laughing or joking today. He stood as silently as Val, his dark hair tossing in the wind, while his wings were unfolded and locked by others. Val, as usual, waved away the help.

“Corm can be quite graceful,” Maris warned Sena. “Val may have trouble today.”

“Yes,” Sena agreed, glancing at Shalli’s seat among the judges.

The crowd was growing impatient; the two flyers still had not launched. Corm’s helpers had stepped back from him, and he stood with his silver wings fully extended, but Val had made no move to unfold his own. Instead he kept examining the joints of one wing, as if looking for something wrong. Corm said something to him, sharply, and Val looked up from what he was doing and made a broad gesture.

“All right,” Corm said clearly, and then he was running and an instant later he was aloft.

“There’s Corm,” Shalli said. “Where’s One-Wing?”

“Doesn’t he know that this will cost him?” Sena muttered.

Maris gripped Sena tightly by the elbow. “He’s going to do it again,” she said urgently.

“Do what?” Sena said, but even as she spoke a light broke over her face and Maris knew she understood.

Val jumped.

It was a long way down, and only sand and spectators below; trickier and more dangerous than the same stunt over water. But he was doing it, falling, his wings flapping behind him like a silver cape. Shalli and the Southern judge jumped to their feet, two of the landsguard rushed to the cliffside, even the crier gave a grunt of surprise. Maris heard people screaming, somewhere below.

Val’s wings took flower.

For an instant it did not seem to be enough. He still fell, speed increasing, even with the wings fully extended. But then he yanked himself to one side and that did it; suddenly he was veering up sharply, angling over the beach and out toward sea. People were dropping to the sand, and someone was still screaming, but there was shouting as well.

Then silence, a hush, a long indrawn breath. Val skimmed the waves, gliding as if over ice, and smoothly began to rise. Serenely he flew out to where Corm, almost unnoticed, had just performed a difficult loop.

The applause began, and the cheering, and all along the shore land-bound began clapping and chanting the refrain, “One-Wing, One-Wing, One-Wing,” over and over. Even Lane’s spectacular plunge had not thrilled them as Val had.

The judge from Eastern was laughing. “I never thought I’d see that again,” she exclaimed. “Damn, damn. Even Raven never did it better.”

Shalli looked miserable. “A cheap trick,” she said. “And dangerous as well.”

“Probably,” the Outer Islander agreed, “but I’ve never seen anything like it. How did he do it, anyway?”

The Easterner tried to explain, and the two of them fell to talking. In the distance, Val and Corm were going through their stunts. Val flew well, though Maris noted that his upwind turns were still not all they should be. Corm flew better, matching Val stunt-for-stunt and doing each of them just a little more gracefully, with the skill that comes with decades of flying. But he flew hopelessly, Maris thought; after Raven’s Fall, no amount of finesse was going to redress the balance.

She was right. Shalli was the only exception. “Corm was much superior overall,” she insisted. “One foolhardy stunt does not change that.” She dropped a white stone into the box with an emphatic flick of her wrist.

But the other judges just smiled at her indulgently, and the four pebbles that followed hers were black.

“Garth of Skulny, S’Rella the Woodwinger!”

S’Rella and Garth, though totally different in appearance, looked almost alike this morning, Maris thought as she watched them prepare. Garth should have been elated by his victory yesterday, and the likelihood that his wings were safe, but if anything he seemed paler and more aged today. He hardly spoke to Riesa, and went about the motions of donning his wings with a wooden deliberateness. S’Rella bit her lip as she let the helpers unfold her wings, and looked as if she were holding back tears.

Neither of them attempted anything spectacular on launching. Garth banked right, S’Rella left, and they passed above the beach and the boats with approximately equal ease. A few of the locals waved to Garth and shouted his name as he sailed by overhead, but otherwise the crowd was silent, still breathless over Val’s leap.

Sena shook her head. “S’Rella was never as pretty to watch as Sher or Leya, but she can fly better than that.” She had just stalled and lost altitude on a rather routine upwind turn, and Maris had to agree with the teacher’s assessment. S’Rella was not flying well.

“She’s just going through the motions,” Maris said. “I think she’s still shaken by last night.”

Garth was taking full advantage of his opponent’s lassitude. He soared with his usual quiet competence, performed graceful, languorous turns, and slid into a loop. It was not an especially good loop, but S’Rella was attempting none at all.

“This one will be easy to judge,” the Landsman of Skulny said with relief. He was already looking about for a white pebble. Maris could only hope that he would not drop two.

“Look at that,” Sena snorted with disgust. “My best student, and she’s wandering all over the sky like some eight-year-old on her first flight.”

“What’s Garth doing?” Maris wondered aloud. His wings were moving out to sea, tilting first one way and then the other, almost shaking. “That’s an awful wobble.”

“If the judges notice,” Sena said sourly. “Look, he’s righted it now.”

He had; now the great silver wings had straightened, and Garth was sailing steadily away from them, riding on the wind, sinking slightly.

“He’s just flying,” Maris said, puzzled. “He isn’t doing any stunts.”

Garth continued to move off, toward the deep waters beyond the breakers. He flew gracefully, but so straight; it was no great task to be graceful when yielding to the wind. Gradually he was descending. Now he was about thirty feet above the water, and still he sank. His flight seemed so calm, so peaceful.

Maris gasped. “He’s falling,” she said. She turned to the judges. “Help him,” she shouted. “He’s falling!”

“What’s she yelling about?” the Easterner asked.

Shalli put her telescope to her eye, found Garth in it. He was skimming the waves now. “She’s right,” she said, in a small voice.

Instantly there was chaos. The Landsman jumped to his feet and began to wave his arms and shout orders, and two of the landsguard went sprinting off down the stairs, and the others all started running somewhere. The crier cupped her huge hands and shouted, “Help him! Help the flyer! People in the boats, help the flyer!” Down on the beach other criers repeated the chant, and spectators ran for the shore, shouting and pointing.

Garth hit the water. His forward motion sent him skipping over the surface, once, twice, and sheets of spray fanned out from his wings, but he lost speed rapidly, slowed, stopped.

“It’s all right, Maris,” Sena was saying, “it’s all right. Look, they’ll get him.” A small sailboat, alerted by the shouts of the criers, was moving in on him rapidly. Maris watched it apprehensively. It took them a minute to reach him, another minute to fish him out in a net they tossed over the side. But from this distance, she had no way of telling whether he was dead or alive.

The Landsman lowered his telescope. “They got him, and the wings too.”

S’Rella was flying low above the sailboat that had rescued Garth. Too late she had realized what was happening, and started after him, but it was unlikely she would have been able to help in any event.

The Landsman, grim, ordered another of his landsguard down to find out Garth’s condition, and walked back to his seat. The judges talked nervously among themselves and Maris and Sena shared an anxious silence until the man returned, ten minutes later. “He is alive and recovering, though he swallowed some water,” the landsguard announced. “They are taking him back to his house.”

“What happened?” the Landsman demanded.

“His sister says he has been ill for some time,” the man replied. “It seems he had an attack.”

The Landsman swore. “He never told me any such thing.” He glared at the four flyer judges. “Must we score this?”

“I’m afraid we must,” Shalli said gently. She picked up a black pebble.

“Her?” the Landsman said. “Garth outflew her easily, until he was taken sick. You mean to give the girl the victory?”

“You can’t be serious, sir,” the big man from the Outer Islands said. “Your Garth fell into the ocean. He might have stunted as well as Lane and he’d still lose.”

“I must agree,” the Easterner said. “Landsman, you are not a flyer, you do not understand. Garth is fortunate to be alive. If he had fallen while flying a mission, with no ship to save him, he would have been food for a scylla.”

“He was sick,” the Landsman insisted, frantic not to lose the wings for Skulny.

“It does not matter,” the quiet Southern judge put in, and she cast the first pebble into the voting box with a flick of her thumb. It was black. Three other black stones followed in quick succession, Shalli placing hers with obvious dismay, until the Landsman defiantly added a white.