Windhaven - Страница 63

It was a hot, still day, bad weather for flying. Maris swiped at attacking insects as she trudged through the tall grass that almost concealed the cabin. Her heart was racing with excitement as she pushed open the heavy wooden door, hanging on its hinges.

She blinked, almost blind in the dark interior after the brilliant sunshine, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and heard his familiar voice say her name.

“You… you came,” she said. She was suddenly short of breath. “Dorrel.”

“Did you doubt I would come?”

She could see now. The familiar smile, his well-remembered way of standing.

“Do you mind if we sit down?” he asked. “I’m awfully tired. It was a long flight from Western, and it did me no good to try to catch up to S’Rella.”

They sat close together, on two matching chairs that must once have been very fine. But the cushions were impregnated with dust now, greenish and slightly damp with mold.

“How are you, Maris?”

“I’m… living. Ask me again in a month or so and I may have a better answer for you.” She looked into his dark, concerned eyes, and then away again. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Dorr?”

He nodded. “When you weren’t at the Council, I understood… I hoped that you were doing what was best for you. I was more pleased than I can say when S’Rella came, bearing your message, your request that I come to you.” He sat a little straighter in his chair. “But surely you didn’t send for me just for the pleasure of seeing an old friend.”

Maris drew a deep breath. “I need your help. You know about the circle? The black flyers?”

He nodded. “Rumors have already spread. And I saw them as I flew in. An impressive sight. Your doing?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “And not an end in itself, I’ll wager. What’s your plan?”

“Will you help me with it? We need you.”

“‘We?’ You’ve sided with the one-wings, I suppose?” His tone was not angry, and did not condemn, but Maris was aware that he had withdrawn from her, ever so slightly.

“It’s not a matter of sides, Dorr. At least, not among the flyers. It mustn’t be—that way is death, the end of everything we both hold dear. Flyers—one-wing or flyer-born—must not be split up, fragmented, at the mercy of Landsmen.”

“I agree. But it’s too late. It was too late once Tya declared her scorn for all the laws and traditions by telling her first lie.”

“Dorr,” she said, her voice coaxing and reasonable, “I don’t approve of what Tya did, either. She meant well; what she did was wrong, I agree, but—”

“I agree, you agree,” he said, interrupting. “But. We always come down to that. Tya is dead now—we can all agree on that. She’s dead, but it’s not over, it’s far from over. Other one-wings call her a hero, a martyr. She died for the cause of lying, for the freedom to lie. How many more lies will be told? How long will it be before the people forget their mistrust of us? Since the one-wings refused to repudiate Tya, and split away from us, there is talk among… among a few… of closing down the academies and ending the challenges, returning to the old way, to the old days when a flyer was a flyer for once and for all.”

“You don’t want that.”

“No. No, I don’t.” His shoulders slumped for a moment, uncharacteristically, and he sighed. “But, Maris, it goes beyond what I want, or what you want. It’s out of our hands now. Val spoke the death warrant for the one-wings when he led them out of Council and called his illegal sanction.”

“Sanctions can be revoked,” Maris said.

Dorrel stared at her. His eyes narrowed. “Did Val One-Wing tell you that? I don’t believe him. He’s playing some devious game, trying to use you to trick me.”

“Dorrel!” She stood up, indignant. “Give me some credit, please! I’m not one of Val’s puppets! He didn’t promise to revoke the sanction, and he’s not using me. I tried to convince him that it would be in everyone’s best interest to act in such a way that both flyer-born and one-wings were united again. Val is stubborn and impulsive, but he’s not blind. Although he wouldn’t promise to revoke the sanction, I did make him see what a mistake he had made—that his sanction was useless because it was honored only by a small group, and that this division among flyers was to no one’s advantage.”

Dorrel looked at her thoughtfully. Then he, too, rose, and began to pace around the small, dusty room. “Quite a feat, to get Val One-Wing to admit he was wrong,” he said. “But what good does that do now? Does he agree that the plan we followed was right?”

“No,” Maris said. “I don’t think it was right, either. I think you were much too harsh. Oh, I know what you thought—I know you had to repudiate Tya’s crime, and you thought the best way to do that was to hand her over to the Landsman for execution.”

Dorrel stopped walking and frowned at her. “Maris, you know that was never my intention. I never thought Tya should die. But Val’s proposal was absurd—it would have seemed that we condoned her actions.”

“The Council should have insisted that Tya be given over for punishment, and then stripped Tya of her wings, forever.”

“We did strip her of her wings.”

“No,” said Maris. “You let the Landsman do that, after he’d hanged her in them. Why do you suppose he did that? To show that he could hang a flyer and go unscathed.”

Dorrel looked horrified. He crossed the room and gripped her arm. “Maris, no! He hung her in her wings?”

She nodded.

“I hadn’t heard that.” He sank down on his chair again as if his legs had been kicked.

“He proved his point,” Maris said. “He proved that flyers could be killed as easily as anyone else. And now they will be. Now that you and Val have split flyers and one-wings into two warring camps, the Landsmen will take advantage of it. They’ll demand oaths of loyalty, they’ll set up rules and regulations to govern their flyers, they’ll execute the rebels for treason—in time, perhaps, they’ll claim the wings as their own property, to be handed out to followers who please them. Other flyers could be arrested, even executed, tomorrow. All it will take is for one more Landsman to realize he has the power—that the flyers are too fragmented now to offer any opposition.” She sat down and gazed at him, almost holding her breath as she hoped for the right response.

Slowly Dorrel nodded. “What you say has a horrible ring of truth to it. But… what can I do? Only Val, and the other one-wings, can decide to rejoin us. You surely don’t expect me to try to rally the other flyers in a belated sanction of our own?”

“Of course not. But it’s not only up to Val—it can’t be. There are two sides, and both of you must make some gesture of reconciliation.”

“And what might that gesture be?”

Maris leaned forward. “Join the black flyers,” she said. “Mourn Tya. Join the others. When word goes out that Dorrel of Laus has joined the one-wings in mourning, others will follow.”

“Mourn?” He frowned. “You want me to dress in black and fly in a circle?” His voice was suspicious. “And what else? What else am I to join your black flyers in? Is it your plan to enforce the sanction against Thayos by keeping all the flyers in formation above it?”

“No. Not a sanction. They don’t stop any flyers who bring a message to or from Thayos, and if you, or any of your followers, had to leave the circle, no one would stop you. Just make the gesture.”

“This is more than a gesture, and more than mourning. I’m certain of it,” Dorrel said. “Maris, be honest with me. We have known each other for a very long time. For the love I still bear for you I would do much. But I can’t go against what I believe, and I won’t be tricked. Please don’t play one of Val One-Wing’s games and try to use me. I think you owe me honesty.”

Maris looked steadily back into his eyes, but she felt a pang of guilt. She was trying to use him—he was an important part of her plan, and because of what they had once meant to each other she had felt certain he would not let her down. But she did not mean to deceive him.

She said quietly, “I’ve always thought of you as my friend, Dorr, even when we were opposed. But I’m not asking you to do this for me just out of friendship. It’s more important than that. I think it is equally important to you that this rift between the one-wings and the flyer-born be healed.”

“Tell me the whole truth, then. Tell me what you want me to do, and why.”

“I want you to join the black flyers, to prove that the one-wings do not fly alone. I want to bring flyers and one-wings together again, to show the world that they can still act as one.”

“You think that if Val One-Wing and I fly together we will forget all our differences?”

Maris smiled ruefully. “Perhaps once, long ago, I was that naive. No more. I hope that the one-wings and the flyer-born will act together.”

“How? In what way beyond this odd mourning ceremony?”

“The black flyers carry no weapons, make no threats, and do not even land on Thayos,” she said. “They are mourners, nothing more. But their presence makes the Landsman of Thayos very nervous. He does not understand. Already he is so frightened he has called his landsguard from Thrane—and therefore the black flyers have succeeded where Tya failed, and ended the war.”

“But surely the Landsman will get over his fear. And the black flyers cannot circle Thayos forever.”

“The Landsman here is an impetuous, bloody-minded, and fearful man,” Maris said. “The violent always suspect others of violence. And it is not his way to wait for someone else to act. I think he will do something before long. I think he will give the flyers cause to act.”