Windhaven

All three of them were silent. Maris stared down at her plate of cold stew, and thought. No way, she asked, is there really no way? Then she looked at Barrion. "Earlier," she began, very carefully, "you mentioned something about stealing the wings…"

The wind was cold and wet, angry, lashing at the waves; against the eastern sky a storm was building.

"Good flying weather," Maris said. The boat rocked gently beneath her.

Barrion smiled, pulled his cloak a little tighter to shut out the damp. "Now if only you could do some flying," he said.

Her eyes went to the shore, where Corm's dark wood house stood against the trees. A light was on in an upper window. Three days, Maris thought sourly. He should have been called by now. How long could they afford to wait? Each hour brought Devin closer, the man who would take her wings.

"Tonight, do you think?" she asked Barrion.

He shrugged. He was cleaning his nails with a long dagger, intent on the task. "You would know better than I," he said without looking up. "The light tower is still dark. How often are flyers called?"

"Often," Maris said, thoughtful. But would Corm be called? They had already floated offshore two nights, hoping for a summons that would call him away from the wings. Perhaps the Landsman was using only Shalli until such time as Devin arrived. "I don't like it," she said. "We have to do something."

Barrion slid his dagger into its sheath. "I could use that on Corm, but I won't. I'm with you, Maris, and your brother is all but a son to me, but I'm not going to kill for a pair of wings. No. We wait until the light tower calls to Corm, then break in. Anything else is too chancy."

Kill, Maris thought. Would it come to that, if they forced their way in while Corm was still at home? And then she knew it would. Corm was Corm, and he would resist. She'd been inside his home once. She remembered the set of crossed obsidian knives that gleamed upon his wall. There must be another way.

"The Landsman isn't going to call him," she said. She knew it, somehow. "Not unless there's an emergency."

Barrion studied the clouds building up in the east. "So?" he said. "We can hardly make an emergency."

"But we can make a signal," Maris said.

"Hmmmm," the singer replied. He considered the idea. "Yes, we could, I suppose." He grinned at her.

"Maris, we break more laws every day. It's bad enough we're going to steal your wings, but now you want me to force my way into the light tower and send a false call. It's a good thing I'm a singer, or we'd go down as the greatest criminals in the history of Amberly."

"How does your being a singer prevent that?"

"Who do you think makes the songs? I'd rather make us all into heroes."

They traded smiles.

Barrion took the oars and rowed them quickly to shore, to a marshy beach hidden by the trees but not far from Corm's home. "Wait here," he said, as he climbed out into the knee-deep, lapping water. "I'll go to the tower. Go in and get the wings as soon as you see Corm leave." Maris nodded her agreement.

For nearly an hour she sat alone in the gathering darkness, watching lightning flash far off to the east.

Soon the storm would be on them; already she could feel the bite of the wind. Finally, up on the highest hill of Lesser Amberly, the great beacon of the Landsman's light tower began to blink in a staccato rhythm. Barrion knew the correct signal somehow, Maris suddenly realized, even though she'd forgotten to tell him. The singer knew a lot, more than she'd ever given him credit for. Perhaps he wasn't such a liar after all.

Short minutes later, she was lying in the weeds a few feet from Corm's door, head low, sheltered by the shadows and the trees. The door opened, and the dark-haired flyer came out, his wings slung over his back. He was dressed warmly. Flying clothes, thought Maris. He hurried down the main road.

After he was gone, it was a simple task to find a rock, sneak around to the side of the building, and smash in a window. Luckily Corm was unmarried, and he lived alone; that is, if he didn't have a woman with him tonight. But they'd been watching the house carefully, and no one had come and gone except a cleaning woman who worked during the day.

Maris brushed away loose glass, then vaulted up onto the sill and into the house. All darkness inside, but her eyes adjusted quickly. She had to find the wings, her wings, before Corm returned. He'd get to the light tower soon enough and find it was a false alarm. Barrion wasn't going to linger to be caught.

The search was short. Just inside the front door, on the rack where he hung his own wings between flights, she found hers. She took them down carefully, with love and longing, and ran her hands over the cool metal to check the struts. At last, she thought; and then, They will never take them from me again.

She strapped them on, and ran. Through the door and into the woods, a different road from the one Corm had taken. He would be home soon, to discover the loss. She had to get to the flyers' cliff.