Windhaven

"She was probably being deliberately clumsy earlier, trying to lure a challenge from someone," Maris said. "I've known some who did that."

"That still leaves a lot of people to choose from," Kerr said, unsatisfied. "I don't know any of them. Can't you tell me the name of someone I can beat?"

Val laughed. He was standing by the door, S'Rella close to him. "You can't beat anyone," he said, "unless it's Sena here. Challenge her."

"I'll beat you, One-Wing," Kerr snapped back.

Sena hushed him and glared at Val. "Quiet. I'll have no more of that, Val." She looked back to Maris.

"Kerr is right. Can you tell us specific flyers who are vulnerable?"

"You know, Maris," Val said. "Like Ari." He was smiling.

Once, not so very long ago, the suggestion would have filled Maris with horror. Once she would have thought it betrayal of the worst kind. Now she was not so sure. The poorer flyers endangered themselves and their wings, and it was no secret who they were for one privy to Eyrie gossip.

"I–I suppose I can suggest a few names," she said hesitantly. "Jon of Culhall, for one. His eyes are said to be weak, and I've never been impressed by his abilities. Bari of Poweet would be another. She has gained a good thirty pounds this past year, a sure sign of a flyer whose will and body are failing." She named about a half-dozen more, all frequent subjects of flyer talk, reputed to be clumsy or careless or both, the old and the very young. Then, impulsively, she added one other name. "An Easterner I met yesterday might be worth a challenge. Arak of South Arren."

Val shook his head. "Arak is small but hardly frail," he said calmly. "He would outfly anyone here, except perhaps for me."

"Oh?" Damen, as ever, was annoyed by the implied slur. "We'll see about that. I'll trust Maris' judgment."

They talked for a few minutes more, the Wood-wingers eagerly discussing the names Maris had tossed out. Finally Sena chased them all away and told them to get some rest.

In front of the cabin she had shared with Maris, S'Rella bid goodnight to Val. "Go on," she told him. "I'll stay here tonight."

He looked a bit nonplussed. "Oh? Well, suit yourself."

When Val was out of sight, Maris said, "S'Rella? You're welcome, of course, but why…?"

S'Rella turned to her with a serious expression on her face. "You left out Garth," she said.

Maris was taken aback. She had thought of Garth, of course. He was ill, drinking too much, gaining weight; it might be best for him to lose his wings. But she knew he would never agree to that, and he had been close to her for a long time, and she could not bring herself to name his name when speaking to the Woodwingers. "I couldn't," she said. "He's my friend."

"Aren't we your friends too?"

"Of course."

"But not as close friends as Garth. You care more about protecting him than about whether we win our wings."

"Maybe I was wrong to omit him," Maris admitted. "But I care for him too much, and it isn't easy — S'Rella, you haven't said anything about Garth to Val, have you?" She was suddenly worried.

"Never mind," S'Rella said. She brushed past Maris into the cabin and began to undress. Maris could only follow helplessly, already regretting her question.

"I want you to understand," Maris said to S'Rella as the Southern girl slipped under the blankets.

"I understand," S'Rella replied. "You're a flyer." She rolled over on her side, her back to Maris, and said no more.

The first day dawned bright and still.

From where she stood outside the flyers' lodge, it seemed to Maris that half the population of Skulny had come to watch the competition. People were everywhere: wandering up and down the shores, climbing over the rugged cliff face to get better vantage points, sitting on grass and sand and stone alone or in groups. The beach was littered with children of all ages, running up and down kicking sand up in their wake, playing in the surf, shouting excitedly, running with their arms stretched out stiffly, playing at being flyers. Merchants moved among the crowds: one man decorated with sausages, another bearing wineskins, a woman wheeling a cart burdened with meat pies. Even the sea was full of spectators. Maris could see more than a dozen boats, laden with passengers, lying dead in the water just beyond the breakers, and she knew there must be even more beyond her sight.

Only the sky was empty.

Normally the sky would have been crowded with impatient flyers, full of the glint of silver wings wheeling and turning as they took some last-minute practice or simply tested the wind. But not today.

Today the air was still.

The dead calm was frightening. It was unnatural, impossible: along the coast the brisk Seabreeze should have been constant. Yet a suffocating heaviness hung over everything. Even the clouds rested wearily in the sky.

Flyers paced the beach with their wings slung over their shoulders, glancing up uneasily from time to time, waiting for the wind to return, and talking among themselves about the calm in low, careful voices.