One-Wing

Epub (mine)

Wings are no longer passed down jealously from parent to child in

the flyer families of Windhaven: for seven years there has been a system

of annual competitions to determine who shall make use of the limited

number of cloth-of-metal wings which are the most important method of travel

and communication on this windy, ocean planet. Those who prove themselves

best in a series of aerial contests are allowed to wear the wings,

regardless of their age or background. Academies train those not bom

to a flyer’s household and, theoretically, the sky is open to all.

Yet in seven years, only once has a land-bound won a pair of wings—and he lost

them during the following year’s competition.

Tired of the drain on their purses, the Landsmen of Windhaven are

closing down the academies they once enthusiastically supported. Now,

only Woodwings Academy, on Sea tooth, remains. The Landsman of

Seatooth has supported it in the hope that a Woodwings-trained flyer

would someday settle on Seatooth. But she has grown impatient, and

has threatened to close Woodwings if there are no winners in the

forthcoming competition.

Sena, the crippled flyer who runs Woodwings, has turned to Maris

for help. Maris was the first land-bound to be accepted as a flyer

and, in winning her own wings, she changed the structure of flyer society,

and brought about the opening of the academies. She has been spending

most of her time helping Sena train the young "woodwingers. ’’

Her flyer friends find the time she spends helping land-bound hopefuls

achieve flyer status disturbing, and Maris often feels torn by

conflicting cTemands.

A new student, Val, makes the hazardous ocean voyage to Woodwings,

and Sena announces her intention of sponsoring Val at the competition, along

with her most promising students, S’Rella, Sher, Leya, Damen and Kerr. She

asks Maris to help her ready them.

But Maris has discovered that Val—an arrogant, unpleasant

young man—is the one the flyers have contemptuously dubbed "One-

Wing. ’’ Flyers unanimously despise Val for the way in which he won a

pair of wings, several years before, and Maris holds him personally

responsible for the death of a friend of hers.

As a boy, Val had challenged a young woman named Ari.

Grieving over the recent death of her brother, Ari had flown badly,

and lost her wings to Val. A month later, Ari killed herself. Vat had

never made any apology, or shown any pity, for the flyer he defeated,

and in the following year’s competition, the flyers had ganged up to

challenge Val until he lost the wings again. (Subsequently, multiple

challenges have been prohibited by flyer law.)

Maris wants nothing to do with Val One- Wing. Sena argues that Val

is the best flyer among all the woodwingers, the one with the best

chance of winning wings. His performance might make the difference of

whether or not Woodwings wilt remain open—the flyers might despise

him, but the Landsman of Seatooth would welcome him as her island’s flyer.

Forced to admit that Val is a very good flyer, but still in emotional

conflict, Maris finally agrees to offer Val her advice—if the remote young

man wilt take it—and do what she can to help him, as well as the

other woodwingers, prepare for the competition.

Vat alienates almost everyone with his rude manner and deliberate

flaunting of flyer tradition—he even goes so far as to wear his obsidian

knife (a legacy, he says, from his father) into the air. Only S’Rella

befriends Val, and she is drawn to him in a way that worries Maris.

Maris learns that Val has no intention of becoming a flyer—not, at least, as she and her friends mean the word. He

is interested only in obtaining a pair of wings, which he sees as

his passport to a better life, to a life of relative wealth, ease and

respect. He has no use for tradition, or for the friendship of other

flyers. Maris realizes that Val may be the first of a new breed and

that, like them or not, the old flyers will have to make room for

them.

In an argument with Dorrel, her old friend and lover, Maris tries

to explain her feelings about Val, and others like him: “We can’t

turn our backs on them. The world has changed, and we have to accept

it, and deal with it. We may not like all the results of what we’ve

done, but we can’t deny them.

Val is one of those results. ”