Windhaven

Maris shook her head. "No, it wouldn't. I still wouldn't be happy about losing my wings, but if I were bested, well, I could stay on at the academy, train, wait for next year and try to get them back. Oh, nothing is going to be perfect, don't you see, because there aren't enough wings, and that's going to get worse, not better. But we must try to stop it, stop all the wings that are lost each year, stop sending out unqualified flyers, stop losing so many. There will still be accidents, we'll still have dangers, but we won't lose wings and flyers because of poor judgment and fear and lack of skill."

Exhausted, Maris ran out of words, but her speech had stirred the audience, moved it back toward her.

A dozen hands were up. Jamis pointed, and a solidly built Shotaner rose from the mass.

"Dirk of Big Shotan," he said, in a low voice, and then he repeated it again when the flyers in the back shouted "Louder! Louder!" His speech was awkward and self-conscious. "I just wanted to say — I've been sitting here, and listening — I've been — I never expected — all this, just to vote on an outlawing—"

He shook his head, clearly having difficulty getting the words out. "Oh, be damned," he said finally.

"Maris is right. I'm half ashamed to say it, but I shouldn't be. It's the truth — I don't want my son to have my wings. I'm afraid to. He's a good boy, mind you, and I love him, but he has attacks now and again, you know, the shaking sickness. He can't fly like that — he shouldn't fly — but he's grown up thinking of nothing else, and next year when he's thirteen he'll expect my wings, and with things like they are I'll have to give them to him, and he'll fly off and die, and then I won't have my son and I won't have my wings and I might as well die too. No!" He sat down, a dark red color and out of breath.

Several people shouted support. Maris, heartened, looked over at Corm, and saw that his smile was flickering. Suddenly he had doubts.

A familiar friend rose then, and smiled at her from above. "I'm Garth of Skulny," he said. "I'm with Maris, too!" Another speaker backed her, then another, and Maris smiled. Dorrel had scattered friends all over the audience and now they were trying to stampede the assembly her way. And it seemed to be working!

For, in between the endorsements from flyers she had known for years, total strangers stood to voice their support. Had they won, then? Corm clearly looked worried.

"You recognize what is wrong with our way, but I think your academy is not the answer." The words jolted Maris out of her complacent optimism. The speaker was a tall, blond woman, a leading flyer from the Outer Islands. "There is a reason for our tradition and we should not weaken it, or our children may go back to the idiocy of trial by combat. What we must do is teach our children better. We must teach them to have more pride, and we must build the needed skills in them from the time they are very small.

This is as my mother taught me, and as I am teaching my son. Perhaps a test of some sort is necessary — your idea of a challenge is good." Her mouth twisted wryly. "I admit, I do not look forward to the day, which comes too quickly, when I must give up my wings to Vard. Both of us will be too young, I think, when that day comes. That he should have to compete with me, to prove himself as good— no, a better flyer — than I am, yes, that is an excellent idea."

Other flyers in the hall were nodding in agreement. Yes, yes, of course, why hadn't they seen what a good idea some sort of testing would be? Everyone knew that the coming-of-age was rather arbitrary, that some were still children when they took on wings, others full adults. Yes, let the youngsters prove themselves as flyers first… the tide swept the assembly.

"But this academy," the speaker said gently. "That is not necessary. We birth enough new flyers among ourselves. I know your background and I can understand your feelings, but I cannot share them. It would not be wise." She sat down, and Maris felt her heart sink with her. That had done it, she thought. Now they will vote for a test, but the sky will still be closed to those born of the wrong parents; the flyers would reject the most im-portant part. So close, she had almost done it, but not close enough.

A gaunt man in silk and silver stood. "Arris, flyer and Prince of Artellia," he said, his eyes ice blue beneath his silver crown. "I vote with my sister from the Outer Islands. My children are of royal blood, born and bred to wings. It would be a joke to force them to fly in races with commoners. But a test, to see when they are worthy, now that is an idea worthy of a flyer."

He was followed by a dark woman all in leather. "Zevakul of Deeth in Southern Archipelago," she began.

"Each year I fly messages for my Landsman, but I also serve the Sky God, like all of the upper castes.

The concept of passing wings to a lower one, a soil-child, possibly an unbeliever— no!"