Windhaven by George R. R. Martin;Lisa Tuttle Page A

senior flyer, since Russ has passed on the wings. I will take custody, until we find someone worthy of being a flyer, someone who will recognize the honor and keep the traditions.”
    “ No! ” Coll shouted. “I want Maris to have the wings.”
    “You have no say in the matter,” Corm told him. “You are a land-bound.” So saying, he stooped and picked up the discarded, broken wings. Methodically he began to fold them.
    Maris looked around for help, but it was hopeless. Barrion spread his hands, Shalli and Helmer would not meet her gaze, and her father stood broken and weeping, a flyer no more, not even in name, only an old cripple. The party-goers, one by one, began to drift away.
    The Landsman came to her. “Maris,” he started. “I am sorry. I would give the wings to you if I could. The law is not meant for this—not as punishment, but only as a guide. But it's flyers' law, and I cannot go against the flyers. If I deny Corm, Lesser Amberly will become like Kennehut and the songs will call me mad.”
    She nodded. “I understand,” she said. Corm, wings under either arm, was stalking off the beach.
    The Landsman turned and left, and Maris went across the sand to Russ. “Father—” she began.
    He looked up. “You are no daughter of mine,” he said, and turned on her deliberately. She watched the old man moving stiffly away, walking with difficulty, going inland to hide his shame.
    Finally the three of them stood alone on the landing beach, wordless and beaten. Maris went to Coll and put her arms around him and hugged him. They held on to each other, both for the moment children seeking comfort they could not give.
    “I have a place,” Barrion said at last, his voice waking them. They parted groggily, watched as the singer slung his guitar across his shoulders, and followed him home.
     
    For Maris, the days that followed were dark and troubled.
    Barrion lived in a small cabin by the harbor, just off a deserted, rotting wharf, and it was there they stayed. Coll was happier than Maris had ever seen him; each day he sang with Barrion, and he knew that he would be a singer after all. Only the fact that Russ refused to see him bothered the boy, and even that was often forgotten. He was young, and he had discovered that many of his own age looked on him with guilty admiration, as a rebel, and he gloried in the feeling.
    But for Maris, things were not so easy. She seldom left the cabin except to wander out on the wharf at sunset and watch the fishing boats come in. She could think only of her loss. She was trapped and helpless. She had tried as hard as she could, she had done the right thing, but still her wings were gone. Tradition, like a mad cruel Landsman, had ruled, and now kept her prisoner.
    Two weeks after the incident on the beach, Barrion returned to the cabin after a day on the docks, where he went daily to gather new songs from the fishermen of Amberly and sing at wharfside inns. As they ate bowls of hot, meaty stew, he looked at Maris and the boy and said, “I have arranged for a boat. In a month I will sail for the Outer Islands.”
    Coll smiled eagerly. “Us too?”
    Barrion nodded. “You, yes, certainly. And Maris?”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    The singer sighed. “You can gain nothing by staying here. Things will be hard for you on Amberly. Even for me, times are getting difficult. The Landsman moves against me, prompted by Corm, and respectable folk are starting to avoid me. Besides, there is a lot of world to see. Come with us.” He smiled. “Maybe I can even teach you how to sing.”
    Maris played idly with her stew. “I sing worse than my brother flies, Barrion. No, I can't go. I'm a flyer. I must stay, and win my wings again.”
    “I admire you, Maris,” he said, “but your fight is hopeless. What can you do?”
    “I don't know. Something. The Landsman, perhaps. I can go to him. The Landsman makes the law, and he sympathizes. If he sees that it is best for the people of