Windhaven

Evan went to his basket and rummaged among the herbs, pulling out a large moonfish. "I thought perhaps seafood would cheer you up," he said. "I know a way of cooking this with dandyweed and bitternuts that will make your tongue sing." He found a long bone knife, and began to scale the fish, whistling happily as he worked, and his mood was so infectious that Maris found herself smiling too.

There was a loud knocking at the door.

Evan looked up, scowling. "An emergency, no doubt," he said, cursing. "Answer it if you would, Maris.

My hands are full of fish."

The girl standing in the door wore a dark green uniform, trimmed with gray fur; a landsguard, and one of the Landsman's runners. "Maris of Lesser Amberly?" she asked.

"Yes," Maris said.

The girl nodded. "The Landsman of Thayos sends his greetings, and invites you and the healer Evan to honor him at dinner tomorrow night. If your health permits it."

"My health permits it," Maris snapped. "Why are we suddenly so honored, child?"

The runner had a seriousness beyond her years. "The Landsman honors all flyers, and your injury in his service has weighed heavily on him. He wishes to show his gratitude to all the flyers who have flown for Thayos, however briefly, in the emergency just past."

"Oh," Maris said. She still was not satisfied. The Landsman of Thayos had not struck her as the type who cared much about expressing gratitude. "Is that all?"

The girl hesitated. Briefly her detachment left her, and Maris saw that she was indeed very young. "It is not part of the message, flyer, but…"

"Yes?" Maris prompted. Evan had stopped his work to stand behind her.

"Late this afternoon, a flyer arrived, with a message for the Landsman's ears only. He received her in private chambers. She was from Western, I think. She dressed funny, and her hair was too short."

"Describe her, if you can," Maris said. She took a copper coin from a pocket and let her fingers play with it.

The girl looked at the coin and smiled. "Oh, she was a Westerner, young — twenty or twenty-five. Her hair was black, cut just like yours. She was very pretty. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as pretty. She had a nice smile, I thought, but the lodge men didn't like her. They said she didn't even bother thanking them for their help. Green eyes. She was wearing a choker. Three strands of colored sea-glass. Is that enough?"

"Yes," Maris said. "You're very observant." She gave the girl the coin.

"You know her?" Evan asked. "This flyer?"

Maris nodded. "I've known her since the day she was born. I know her parents as well."

"Who is she?" he demanded, impatiently.

"Corina," said Maris, "of Lesser Amberly."

The runner remained at the door. Maris glanced back at her. "Yes?" she asked. "Is there more? We accept the invitation, of course. You may give the Landsman our thanks."

"There's more," the girl blurted. "I forgot. The Landsman said, most respectfully, that you are requested to bring your wings, if that would not put too great a burden on your health."

"Of course," Maris said numbly. "Of course."

She closed the door.

The keep of the Landsman of Thayos was a grim, martial place that lay well away from the island's towns and villages in a narrow, secluded valley of its own. It was close to the sea, but shielded from it by a solid wall of mountains. By land, only two roads gave approach, and both were fortified by landsguard. A stone watchtower stood atop the tallest peak, a high sentinel for all the paths leading to the keep.

The fortress itself was old and stern, built of great blocks of weathered black stone. Its back was to the mountain, and Maris knew from her last visit that much of it lay underground, in chambers chiseled from solid rock. Its exterior face showed a double set of wide walls — landsguard armed with longbows walked patrol on the parapets — ringing a cluster of wooden buildings and two black towers, the taller of which was almost fifty feet high. Stout wooden bars closed off the tower windows. The valley, so close to the sea, was damp and cold. The only ground cover was a tenacious violet lichen, and a blue-green moss that clung to the underside of boulders and half-covered the walls of the keep.

Coming up the road from Thossi, Maris and Evan were stopped once at the valley checkpoint, passed, stopped again at the outer wall, and finally admitted to the keep. They might have been detained longer, but Maris was carrying her bright silver wings, and lands-guard did not trifle with flyers. The inner courtyard was full of activity — children playing with great shaggy dogs, fierce-looking pigs running everywhere, landsguard drilling with bow and club. A gibbet had been built against one wall, its wood cracked and well-weathered. The children played all about it, and one of them was using a noose as a swing. The other two nooses hung empty, twisting ominously in the chill wind of evening.