Windhaven

Maris leaned forward. "Join the black flyers," she said. "Mourn Tya. Join the others. When word goes out that Dorrel of Laus has joined the one-wings in mourning, others will follow."

"Mourn?" He frowned. "You want me to dress in black and fly in a circle?" His voice was suspicious.

"And what else? What else am I to join your black flyers in? Is it your plan to enforce the sanction against Thayos by keeping all the flyers in formation above it?"

"No. Not a sanction. They don't stop any flyers who bring a message to or from Thayos, and if you, or any of your followers, had to leave the circle, no one would stop you. Just make the gesture."

"This is more than a gesture, and more than mourning. I'm certain of it," Dorrel said. "Maris, be honest with me. We have known each other for a very long time. For the love I still bear for you I would do much. But I can't go against what I believe, and I won't be tricked. Please don't play one of Val One-Wing's games and try to use me. I think you owe me honesty."

Maris looked steadily back into his eyes, but she felt a pang of guilt. She was trying to use him — he was an important part of her plan, and because of what they had once meant to each other she had felt certain he would not let her down. But she did not mean to deceive him.

She said quietly, "I've always thought of you as my friend, Dorr, even when we were opposed. But I'm not asking you to do this for me just out of friendship. It's more important than that. I think it is equally important to you that this rift between the one-wings and the flyer-born be healed."

"Tell me the whole truth, then. Tell me what you want me to do, and why."

"I want you to join the black flyers, to prove that the one-wings do not fly alone. I want to bring flyers and one-wings together again, to show the world that they can still act as one."

"You think that if Val One-Wing and I fly together we will forget all our differences?"

Maris smiled ruefully. "Perhaps once, long ago, I was that naive. No more. I hope that the one-wings and the flyer-born will act together."

"How? In what way beyond this odd mourning ceremony?"

"The black flyers carry no weapons, make no threats, and do not even land on Thayos," she said. "They are mourners, nothing more. But their presence makes the Landsman of Thayos very nervous. He does not understand. Already he is so frightened he has called his landsguard from Thrane — and therefore the black flyers have succeeded where Tya failed, and ended the war."

"But surely the Landsman will get over his fear. And the black flyers cannot circle Thayos forever."

"The Landsman here is an impetuous, bloody-minded, and fearful man," Maris said. "The violent always suspect others of violence. And it is not his way to wait for someone else to act. I think he will do something before long. I think he will give the flyers cause to act."

Dorrel frowned. "By doing what? Shooting a flight of arrows to knock us from the sky?"

" 'Us'?"

Dorrel shook his head, but he was smiling. "It could be dangerous, Maris. Trying to provoke him to action…"

His smiled heartened her. "The black flyers do nothing but fly. If Port Thayos grows agitated in their shadows, that is the work of the Landsman and his subjects."

"Especially the singers and the healers — we know what troublemakers they can be! I'll do as you ask, Maris. It will make a good story to tell my grandchildren, when they come along. I won't have my wings much longer now anyway, with Jan getting to be such a good flyer."

"Oh, Dorr!"

He held up one hand. "I will wear black as a sign of grief for Tya," he said carefully. "And I will join the great circle that flies to mourn her. But I will do nothing that might be seen as condoning her crime, or expressing a sanction against Thayos for her death." He stood up and stretched. "Of course, if anything should happen, if the Landsman should presume to exceed his powers and threaten the flyers, why then, we should all, one-wings and flyer-born, have to act together."

Maris also stood. She was smiling. "I knew you would see it that way," she said.

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her in an affectionate hug. Then Dorrel lifted her face and kissed her, perhaps just for old times' sake, but for a moment it was as if all the years that lay between them had never been, and they were youths again, and lovers, and the sky was theirs from horizon to horizon, and all that lay beneath it.

But the kiss ended, and they stood apart again: old friends linked by memories and faint regrets.

"Go safely, Dorr," said Maris. "Come back soon."

Returning from the sea cliffs, where she had seen Dorrel launch himself for Laus, Maris felt full of hope.

There was sadness, too, beneath it — the old familiar longing had swept over her again as she helped Dorrel unfold his wings, and watched him mount the warm blue sky.