Windhaven

"I'm not a stone on Val's geechi board, and the sooner he learns that the better! Val knows what it would cost me to do as he asks. How dare he ask? He sent you to trick me, to lie to me with talk of safety, because he knew I would refuse. I can't bear to see one flyer — do you think I want to be with a thousand of them, watching them play in the sky and listening to them trade stories and finally stand alone, an old cripple, and watch them fly away and leave me? Do you think I'd like that?" Maris realized she had been shouting at him. Her pain was a knot in her stomach.

Arrilan's voice was sullen. "I scarcely know you — how could you expect me to know how you felt? I'm sorry. I'm sure Val is sorry, too. But it can't be helped. This is more important than your feelings.

Everything depends on this Council, and Val wants you there."

"Tell Val that I am sorry," Maris said quietly. "Tell him I wish him luck, but I will not go. I'm old and tired and I want to be left alone."

Arrilan stood up. His eyes were very cold. "I told Val I would not fail him," he said. "There are four of us against you." He made a small gesture, and the woman on his right slid her knife from its sheath. She grinned, and Maris saw that her teeth were made of wood. The man behind her rose, and he, too, held a knife in his hand.

" Get out," said Evan. He was standing near the door to his workroom, and in his hands was the bow he used for hunting, an arrow notched and ready.

"You could take only one of us with that," said the woman with the wooden teeth. "If you were lucky.

And you wouldn't have time to reach for another arrow, old man."

"True," said Evan. "But the point of this arrow is smeared with blue tick venom, so one of you will die."

"Put your knives away," Arrilan said. "Please, put that down. No one need die." He looked at Maris.

Maris said, "Did you really think you could force me into presiding over the Council?" She made a disgusted sound. "You might tell Val that if his strategy is as good as yours, the one-wings are finished."

Arrilan glanced at his companions. "Leave us," he said. "Wait outside." Reluctantly the three shambled to the door. "No more threats," Arrilan said. "I'm sorry, Maris. Maybe you can understand how desperate I feel. We need you."

"You need the flyer I was, perhaps, but she died in a fall. Leave me alone. I'm just an old woman, a healer's apprentice, and that's all I aspire to be. Don't hurt me any more by dragging me into the world."

Contempt was plain on Arrilan's face. "To think that they still sing of a coward like you," he said.

When he had gone, Maris turned to Evan. She was trembling, and her head felt light and dizzy.

The healer lowered the great bow he held and set it aside. He was frowning. "Dead?" he asked bitterly.

"All this time, have you been dead? I thought you were learning how to live again, but all this time you've seen my bed as your grave."

"Oh, Evan, no," she said, dismayed, wanting comfort and not still more reproach.

"It was your own word," he said. "Do you still believe that your life ended with your fall?" His face twisted with pain and anger. "I won't love a corpse."

"Oh, Evan." She sat down abruptly, feeling that her legs could no longer hold her up. "I didn't mean — I meant only that I am dead to the flyers, or they are dead to me. That part of my life is finished."

"I don't think it's that easy," Evan said. "If you try to kill a part of yourself, you risk killing everything. It's like what your brother said — rather, what Barrion said— about trying to change just one note in a song."

"I value our life together, Evan," Maris said. "Please believe me. It's just that Arrilan — this damn Council of Val's — brought it all back to mind. I was reminded of everything I've lost. It made the pain come back."

"It made you feel sorry for yourself," Evan said.

Maris felt a flash of annoyance. Couldn't he understand? Could a land-bound ever understand what she had lost? "Yes," she said, her voice cold. "It made me feel sorry for myself. Don't I have that right?"

"The time for self-pity is long past. You have to come to terms with what you are, Maris."

"I will. I am. I was learning to forget. But to be drawn into this thing, this flyers' dispute, would ruin everything; it would drive me mad. Can't you see that?"

"I see a woman denying everything she has been," Evan said. He might have said more, but a sound made them both look around, and they saw Bari standing in the doorway, looking a little frightened.

Evan's face softened, and he went to her and lifted her in a great bear hug. "We had some visitors," he said. He kissed her.

"Since we're all up, shall I make breakfast?" Maris asked.

Bari grinned and nodded. Evan's face was unreadable. Maris turned away and set to work, determined to forget.