Windhaven by George R. R. Martin
“Oh, S'Rella,” Maris said sorrowfully. She reached out and took her friend's hand, but when they touched S'Rella gave a sudden startled shudder and then, again, began to weep.
Sleep did not come easily for Maris. She twisted and turned restlessly. Her dreams were dark and shapeless, nightmares of flights that ended at the end of a rope.
She woke hours before dawn, in darkness, to the faint sound of distant music.
Evan was asleep beside her, snoring softly into his feather pillow. Maris rose and dressed, and wandered from the bedroom. Bari was resting comfortably, a child's innocent sleep, free of the burdens that weighed on the rest of them. S'Rella slept too, hunched beneath blankets.
Coll's room was empty.
Maris followed the sound of the soft, fading music. She found him outside, sitting up against the side of the house in the starlight, filling the cool pre-dawn air with the quiet melancholy of his guitar.
Maris sat on the damp ground beside him. “Are you making a song?”
“Yes,” Coll said. His fingers moved with slow deliberation. “How did you know?”
“I remembered,” Maris said. “When we were young together, you used to rise in the middle of the night and go outside, to work on some new tune you wanted to keep secret.”
Coll struck a final plaintive chord before he set the guitar aside. “I'm still a creature of habit, then,” he said. “Well, I have no choice. When the words scurry about in my head, they do not let me sleep.”
“Is it finished?”
“No. I have a mind to call it ‘Tya's Fall,' and the words have mostly come to me, but not the tune. I can almost hear it, but I hear it differently at different times. Sometimes it is dark and tragic, a slow, sad song like the ballad of Aron and Jeni. But later it seems to me it should be faster, that it should pulse like the blood of a man choking on his own rage, that it should burn and hurt and throb. What do you think, big sister? How should I do it? What does Tya's fall make you feel, sorrow or anger?”
“Both,” said Maris. “That's no help, but it's all the answer I can give. Both, and more. I feel guilty, Coll.”
She told him of Arrilan and his companions, and the offer they'd come bearing. Coll listened sympathetically, and when she had finished he took her hand in his own. His fingers were covered with calluses, but gentle and warm. “I did not know,” he said. “S'Rella said nothing.”
“I doubt S'Rella knows,” Maris said. “Val probably told Arrilan not to speak of my refusal. He has a good heart, Val One-Wing, whatever they might say of him.”
“Your guilt is foolish,” Coll told her. “Even if you had gone I doubt it would have mattered. One person more or less changes little. The Council would have broken with or without you, and Tya would have been hanged. You shouldn't torture yourself with remorse for something you couldn't have changed.”
“Perhaps you're right,” Maris said, “but I should have tried, Coll. They might have listened to me—Dorrel and his friends, the Stormtown group, Corina, even Corm. They know me, all of them. Val could never reach them. But I might have managed to keep the flyers together, if I'd gone and presided as Val asked me to.”
“Speculation,” said Coll. “You're giving yourself needless pain.”
“Perhaps it's time I gave myself pain,” Maris said. “I was afraid of hurting again—that was why I didn't go with Arrilan when he came for me. I was a coward.”
“You can't be responsible for all the flyers of Windhaven, Maris. You have to think of yourself first, of your own needs.”
Maris smiled. “A long time ago I thought only of myself, and I changed the whole world around to suit me. Oh, I told myself it was for everybody, but you and I know it was really for me. Barrion was right, Coll. I was naive. I had no idea where it would all lead. I knew only that I wanted to fly.
“I should have gone, Coll. It was my responsibility. But all I cared about was my pain, my life, when I should have been thinking of larger things. Tya's blood is on my hands.” She held one up.
Coll took it and squeezed it hard. “Nonsense. All I see is my sister tearing herself apart for nothing. Tya is gone, there is nothing you could have done, and even if there had been, there is certainly nothing you can do now. It is over. Never anguish about the past, Barrion once told me. Make your pain into a song, and give it to the world.”
“I can't make songs,” Maris said. “I can't fly. I said I wanted to be of use, but I turned my back on the people who needed me, and played at being a healer. I'm not a healer. I'm not a flyer. So what am I? Who am I?”
“Maris . . .”
“Just so,” she said. “Maris of Lesser Amberly, the girl who once changed the world. If I did it once, perhaps I can do it again. At least I can try.” She stood up abruptly, her face serious in the wan, pale light of dawn, whose faint glow had tinted the eastern horizon.
“Tya is dead,” Coll said. He took his guitar and rose to stand face-to-face with his stepsister. “The Council is broken. It's over, Maris.”
“No,” she said. “I won't accept that. It's not over. It's not too late to change the end of Tya's song.”
Evan woke quickly to her light touch, sitting up in bed and ready for any emergency.
“Evan,” Maris said, sitting beside him. “I know what I must do. I had to tell you first.”
He ran one hand over his head, smoothing down the ruffled white hair, frowning. “What?”
“I . . . I am alive, Evan. I cannot fly, but I am still who I am.”
“It's good to hear you say that, and know you mean it.”
“And I'm not a healer. I'll never be a healer.”
“You have been making discoveries, haven't you? All this while I slept? Yes . . . I've known, although I couldn't quite tell you. You didn't seem to want to know.”
“Of course I didn't want to know. I thought it was the only choice I had. What else was there for me? Pain, only memories of pain and uselessness. Well, the pain is still there, and the memories, but I need not be useless. I must learn to live with the pain, accept it or ignore it, because there are things I must do. Tya is dead and the flyers are broken, and there are things that only I can do, to set things right. So you see . . .” She bit her lip and couldn't quite meet his eyes. “I love you, Evan. But I must leave you.”
“Wait.” He touched her cheek, and she met his eyes. She thought of the first time she had looked into their deep blue depths, and she felt, unexpectedly strong, a pang of loss. “Tell me now,” he said, “why you must leave me.”
She moved her hands helplessly. “Because I . . . I'm useless here. I don't belong here.”
He caught his breath—it might have been a sob or a laugh that he swallowed, she couldn't tell.
“Did you think I loved you as an apprentice, as a healer, Maris? For how much you could help me? As a healer, quite frankly, you tried my patience. I love you as a woman, for yourself, for who you are. And now that you've realized who you are, who you have always been, you think you must leave me?”
“There are things I must do,” she said. “I don't know what my fate will be. I may fail. It might be dangerous for you to be associated with me. You might share Reni's fate. . . . I don't want to risk you.”
“You can't risk me,” he said firmly. “I risk myself.” He took her hand and held it tightly. “There may be things I can do to help—let me do them. I'll share your burden, share the danger, and make it less. I can do more than just make tea for your friends, you know.”
“But you don't have to,” Maris said. “You shouldn't risk your life for nothing. This isn't your fight.”
“Not my fight?” He sounded mildly indignant. “Isn't Thayos my home? What the Landsman of Thayos decrees affects me, my friends, my patients. My blood is in these mountains and in this forest. You are the stranger here. Whatever you accomplish for your people, the flyers, will also affect my people. And I know them, as you cannot. They know me, and they trust me here. Many owe me debts, debts that cannot be paid in ir
Maris felt as if strength was pouring through her, traveling from the firm clasp of his hand up her arm. She smiled, glad that she was not alone, feeling more certain of her way now. “Yes, Evan, I do need you.”
“You have me. How do we begin?”
Maris leaned back against the wooden headboard, fitting into the curve of Evan's arm. “We need a hidden place, a landing field; a place safe for flyers to come and go without the Landsman or his spies knowing they are on Thayos.”
She felt his nod as soon as she had finished speaking. “Done,” he said. “There is an abandoned farm, not far from here. The farmer died only last winter, so the forest has not reclaimed the place, although it will shelter it from spying eyes.”
“Good. Perhaps we should all move there, for a time, in case the landsguard come looking for us.”
“I must stay here,” Evan said. “If the landsguard cannot find me, neither can the sick. I must be available to them.”
“It might not be safe for you.”
“I know a family in Thossi, a family with thirteen children. I helped the mother through a difficult birthing, and saved her children from death half a dozen times—they would eagerly do the same for me. Their house is on the main road, and there is always a child to spare. If the landsguard come for us, they must pass by there, and one of the children could run ahead to warn us.”
Maris smiled. “Perfect.”
“What else?”
“First, we must wake S'Rella.” Maris sat up, moving out of his light embrace, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I need her to be my wings, to fly messages for me, many messages. But one first, the crucial one. To Val One-Wing.”
Val came to her, of course.
She waited for him in the doorway of a cramped two-room plank cabin, badly weathered, its furnishings covered with mold. He circled three times above the weed-choked field, silver wings dark against a threatening sky, before he decided that it was safe to land.
When he came down, she helped him with his wings, although something clutched and trembled within her when her hands touched the soft metal fabric. Val embraced her, and smiled. “You're looking well, for an old cripple,” he said.
“You're very glib, for an idiot,” Maris said back at him. “Come inside.”
Coll was within the cabin, tuning his guitar. “Val,” he said, nodding.
“Sit,” Maris said to Val. “I have something I want you to hear.”
He glanced at her, puzzled. But he sat.
Coll sang “Tya's Fall.” At his sister's urging, he had composed two versions. He gave Val the sad one.
Val listened politely, with only a hint of restlessness. “Very pretty,” he said when Coll was done. “Very sad.” He looked sharply at Maris. “Is this why you sent S'Rella to me, and had me fly here at risk of my life, in spite of my pledge never to come to Thayos? For this? To listen to a song?” He frowned. “How badly did that fall injure your head?”
Coll laughed. “Give her half a chance,” he said.
“It's all right,” Maris said. “Val and I are used to each other, aren't we?”
Val smiled thinly. “You have half a chance,” he said. “Tell me what this is all about.”
“Tya,” Maris said. “In a word. And how to mend what was broken in Council.”
Val frowned. “It's too late. Tya is dead. We responded, and now we wait to see what will happen.”
“If we wait then it will be too late. We can't afford to wait for the flyers to close the academies, or limit challenges to those who promise to ignore your sanction. You've given a weapon to Corm and his kind by walking out, by acting without the support of the Council.”
Val shook his head. “I did what had to be done. And there are more one-wings every year. The Landsman of Thayos may laugh now, but he will not laugh forever.”
“You don't have forever,” Maris said. She was silent a moment, her thoughts tumbling so fast that she was afraid to speak. She couldn't afford to alienate Val. They did understand each other, as she had told Coll, but Val was still prickly and temperamental, as his actions in Council had proved. And it would be hard for him to admit that he had been wrong.
“I should have come when you sent for me,” she said after a moment. “But I was afraid, and selfish. Perhaps I could have kept this split from taking place.”
Val said flatly, “That's useless. What happened, happened.”
“That doesn't mean it can't be changed. I understand you felt you had to do something—but what you did may turn out to be a lot worse than doing nothing could have been. What if the flyers decide to strip you of your wings, to ground all the one-wings?”
“Let them try.”
“What could you do? Fight them individually, hand to hand? No. If the flyers should decide to take away the wings from all those who participate in your sanction, there would be nothing you could do. Nothing except, perhaps, to kill a few flyers and see a lot more one-wings die like Tya. The Landsmen would support the flyers with all the power of the landsguard.”
“If that happens . . .” Val stared at Maris, his face dangerously still. “If that happens, you'll live to see your dream die. Does that mean so much to you? Still? When you know that you can never fly again yourself?”
“This is more important than my dream or my life,” Maris said. “It's gone beyond that. You know that. You care too, Val.”
The silence in the little cabin seemed to close around them. Even Coll's fingers were motionless upon the strings of his guitar.
“Yes,” said Val, the word like a sigh. “But what . . . what can I do?”
“Revoke this sanction,” Maris said promptly. “Before your enemies use it against you.”
“Will the Landsman revoke Tya's hanging? No, Maris, this sanction is the only power we have. The other flyers must join us in it, or we must stay split.”
“It's a useless gesture, you know that,” Maris said. “Thayos will not miss the one-wings. The flyer-born will come and go as always, and the Landsman will have plenty of wings to bear his words. It means nothing.”
“It means we will keep our word; that we do not make idle threats. Besides, the sanction was voted by all of us. I could not revoke it alone if I wanted to. You are wasting your breath.”
Maris smiled scornfully, but inside she felt hopeful. Val was beginning to back down. “Don't play games with me, Val. You are the one-wings. That's why I called you here. We both know they will do whatever you suggest.”
“Are you really asking me to forget what the Landsman did? To forget Tya?”
“No one will forget Tya.”
A soft chord sounded. “My song will assure that,” Coll said. “I'll sing it in Port Thayos in a few days. Other singers will steal it. Soon it will be heard everywhere.”
Val stared at him in disbelief. “You mean to sing that song in Port Thayos? Are you mad? Don't you know that the very name of Tya raises curses and fights in Port Thayos? Sing that song there, in any tavern, and I'll wager you'll be left in a gutter with your throat slit open.”
“Singers are given a certain license,” Coll said. “Especially if they are good. The first mention of Tya's name may bring jeers, but after they've heard my song they'll feel differently. Before long, Tya will have become a hero, a tragic victim. That will be because of my song, although few will admit or realize it.”
“I've never heard such arrogance,” Val said, sounding bemused. He looked at Maris. “Did you put him up to this?”
“We discussed it.”
“Did you discuss the fact that he's likely to be killed? Some people may be willing to listen to a song that makes Tya sound noble. But some furious, drunken landsguard will try to stop this singer from spreading his lies, and crush his head in. Did you think of that?”
“I can watch out for myself,” Coll said. “Not all my songs are popular, especially at first.”
“It's yo
“I want you to send some more flyers here,” Maris said. “One-wings who can sing and play at least passably well.”
“You want Coll to train them for the day when they lose their wings?”
“His song must go beyond Thayos, as quickly as possible,” Maris said. “I want flyers who can learn it well enough to teach it to singers wherever they go, and I want them to go everywhere with that song as a message from us. All of Windhaven will know of Tya, and will sing Coll's song of what she tried to do.”
Val looked thoughtful. “Very well,” he said. “I'll send my people here in secret. Away from Thayos, the song may be popular.”
“You will also spread the word that the sanction against Thayos has been revoked.”
“I will not,” he snapped. “Tya must be avenged by more than a song!”
“Did you ever know Tya?” Maris asked. “Don't you know what she tried to do? She tried to prevent war, and to prove to the Landsmen that they could not control the flyers. But this sanction will give us back into the hands of the Landsmen, because it has split and weakened us. Only by acting together, in unison, do flyers have the strength to defy the Landsmen.”
“Tell that to Dorrel,” Val said coldly. “Don't blame me. I called the Council to act together and save Tya, not to bow down before the Landsman of Thayos. Dorrel took the Council away from me, and made us weak. Tell him, and see what answer he can give you!”
“I intend to,” Maris said calmly. “S'Rella is on her way to Laus now.”
“You mean to bring him here?”
“Yes. And others. I can't go to them now. I'm a cripple, as you said.” She smiled grimly.
Val hesitated, obviously trying to put the pieces together in his mind. “You want more than the sanction revoked,” he said finally. “That's just the first step, to unite one-wing and flyer-born. What do you have planned for us, if you can weld us together?”
Maris felt her heart lift, knowing that she would have Val's agreement.