Windhaven

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."