t I did ar theu never gently, eaving, Music. Iwell."

ked if I en script .1 agreed eins. Andthey asked about making pictures, drawn victures. blue inkon white willow paper."Narneen's voice trembled for the first time and her upper lip crinkled, for weeping. "I said yes, one among us did such drawings. Then I sang and wouldn't answer, forremembered . .Diver gave a startled exclamation in his own tongue. He drew aside and spoke to Brin and Mamor, then turned to comfort Narneen, a.s.suring her that she had done no harm.

We all understood, more or less; I saw us in the cave at Stone Brook with the blizzard coming down, teaching Diver new words while he drew us pictures. By some means those pictilres had reached this scribe from theFire-Town."Ah, but they said one other thing that makes it certain,"

said Narneen sadly. "They spelled a word to me. They asked if I knew what is M-A-N." She spoke the sounds in our tongue ... and we remembered still more. Diver had drawn his own race: a male, a female; then some common objects: a tent, a chair from a fixed house, a sort of wool-deer; and Brin had lettered in our own sounds belowhis script.I said no more," said Narneen, "at least I answered no more. But I asked. The Witness is called Onnar; I asked quickly, and she replied before she could think of otherthings. And the Questioner-"

"You Lot his name?" asked Brin"He is Vel Ragan," said Narneen. She lay back sleepily on the folded bags. "He is a scribe from the Fire-Town, Tsagul. He was surprised when I asked the Witness whatburned his face.""What did he reply?" chuckled Gwin. "Cheeky wretch toquestion a child in this way."I think he said it was a firestone ... a clinger." We shuddered and fell silent at the thought of this terrible violence, brought close to us. Firestone clingers were a fabled device for evil clan-creatures and grandees' quarrels, not for honest mountain folk.

I burst out, finally, as I rocked Tomar inside the tent.

"But there is still the mystery of how they reached Narneen!"

I know the answer to that," said Diver heavily. So it was explained, and we remembered. Diver had drawn Nar- neen's picture, and Brin had marked it with her name.

I have brought this upon the child," said Diver. We all spoke together, rea.s.suring him. We could not bear it when he spoke in this way, or blamed himself.

"Diver," said Narneen, I know one thing ... they spoke truth. They will do us no harm."

The wind had risen, so we could use sail, but still the press of small boats bound for the fair was so heavy we could make no speed at all. When I put Tomar on my back and went on deck, the land had changed around us. We were sailing through tamed country, with fence ropes and bird farms and food gardens on either side of the river. I found Diver sitting astern beside the shaded spinner- basket, lifting the flap to give them sun, as Gwin had taught him to do. An ancient weaver, on the deck of a bird-boat, cried out to him: "Two new hatched . . . for a whole keg of good sunner?"

"Forgive us!" said Diver. "These beauties are not for sale."

"Too bad," cackled the ancient, turning back to his braiding frame. "Ours died a'winter."

I sat on the deck, with Tomar between my knees playing with a string of dried seed gourds. My sib was stron and brown, with his first-fur already lifting. There w!s no doubt that we had the best baby and the best Luck and the best barge and even the best spinners in the world. Far in; the distance, between the bird farm nets and the no shi skeins, I could see one, two balloons tethered, riding abQ the walls of the city of Otolor. The Bird Clan was near.104.

e e ck e ndg of forhisying and s no d the ar in shing above ear.( 105 ).THE LAUNCHER WORE A SCARLET ROBE, kilted up with a cord under his belly, to show his fat, pasty legs and leather boots.

"Va-ban!" he shouted in a voice of thunder. The Bird ~Clan va.s.sals heaved on the ropes; Diver, Mamor and the Harper steadied the framework. Tomarvan slid up the ramp to the level of the Bird Clan grounds. The va.s.sals lifted it bodily onto the wheeled wicker cradle and trundled our precious bird into the enclosure. The Launcher surveyed it calmly, hands on his waist.

"Cullin!" he cried. "Where in blazes will they come from next! Every bush weaver is Antho, this time o' year. And why don't ye fly it in . . . eh? eh? Because flaming thing won't fly, do you suppose?"

"It will fly," said Diver.

He loomed up at the Launcher's side, and the fellow flinched at his height. Diver looked as impressive as we could make him; it was a time for dressing-up, not for hiding away. He wore his own blue suit and, as a cloak, a magnificent silk hanging, one of Gwin's treasures, ordered and not paid for, long ago, by Elbin Tsatroy, a mad old grandee, one of the last of her clan. The fire clan emblem blazed forth, flame on ochre; suns and stars whirled over the silk. I wondered, each time I saw it, how Gwin and her first-Family, Tarr's Five, could, weave and embroider such a fiery piece of work. Diver's hair was a sandy red; his hood was pale blue, over a basket helm, worn by fliers, and he had his own goggles.

"Peace, sir!" said the Launcher. "I believe you. Now, the matter of your fee and escort."

We were perfectly prepared; old Gwin had even re- hea.r.s.ed us in the. proper responses, but in fact the ceremo- ny was not formal. At least two persons must escort aflier into the enclosure, and it is traditional that females are lucky ... because they partake of the nature of the North Wind, our Great Mother. So Brin was first escort, and my prayers were answered, I was the second. Mamor was needed to berth the Ulgan's barge and the Harper to earn credits with his playing. They had withdrawn to the barge while I stood shivering next to Brin at the top of the slope, beside the booth where a pair of scribes entered the records.

The Launcher bowed, as if we were all grandees, and I was pleased that Brin, at any rate, was a splendid person, straight and tall. I stepped forward and presented the fee.

"On the bench, my friend," said the Launcher. "What have we here?"

He examined the bolts of cloth-fine, plain work of three weights and an embroidered robe for good measure-then counted the silver credits. It was correct for him to chaffer a little; he must either demand more or hand a little back.

The scribes were feeling the robe and twitching their eyebrows.

"Fly or not, you can certainly weave," the Launcher muttered. He counted three credits back into my hand; I bowed and uttered the correct response. Brin signed our names and knotted them into the skeins. The elder scribe, a sharp-eyed ancient with a Wentroy pectoral, handed out our tokens: wood and metal on elegant braids of blue ~ilk.

Still tight-browed, we had only time to wave to the others( 106 ).

he e re-0-.

ier are rth my was earn arge ope, rds.

i was rson, fee.

What three.hen affer a back.

theiruncher and; I ed our cribe, a ed out ue silk.

e othersfriends!" she ordered.

The "spies" all scrambled up and drew back a little, then scattered suddenly, on an impulse from elsewhere. Anotheron the barge; Narneen waved a green branch, Old Gwin held up Tomar. They all chorused, "Good Luck" to Diver; Mamor shouted something encouraging to me. The barrier was lifted again, and we strode into the Bird Clan.

We found ourselves on the lower edge of an enormous tilted field, larger by far than the whole fairground at Cullin, and turfed with tough brown gra.s.s. Oval tents, for quartering the machines, blossomed all around, and beside them, to show what exalted company we kept, were the little field tents of the grandees, panelled in silk an& decorated with banners. A va.s.sal in the familiar blue green of the Bird Clan ran up and bowed.

"Garl Brinroyan? Ablo, your humble servant and me- chanic. This way, gentles . . ." He led us to Tomarvan, outside its tent. Five or six of his fellow va.s.sals, all younger and nimbler than Ablo himself, were standing or crouching or lying on the gra.s.s, examining the machine most minute- ly.0."Away!" shouted Ablo. "Flaming spies! Get to your own broken-winged flitterboxes!"

He seized Diver by the arm. "Send them away, Excellence . . . they must not know its capacities!" Diver laughed, drawing off his own strange five-fingered gloves, and the va.s.sals drew up short at the sound of his voice.

"Peace," he said. "The capacities of the Tomarvan are no secret. "

"Excellence," begged Ablo, "n.o.ble escorts ... the vas- sals carry tales and make bets." He lowered his voice and moved closer. "They often have a Witness or an apprentice Diviner who can guess the place this machine will fly and the round that it will reach."

"If you say so," said Brin, smiling. She reached down and dragged a small va.s.sal from beneath the wing. "Begone( 107 ).

pilot was approaching; I stared, taking in a grandee. Spare, short, businesslike, magnificently dressed in dark red over- alls and cloak, a flowing black wig, and with a basket helm of white, dangling from one long hand, marked with a crest. I bent sideways to read it. Two blue flax flowers.

Luntroy, one of the oldest of the five clans.

"Jebbal!" said the newcomer in a bright, harsh voice.

Diver bowed and gestured towards the Tomarvan as if to say: "Look well" or "Be my guest".

jebbal circled warily, twirling the spin-toys with a fingertip; Diver was on hand, with the respectfully chatter- ing Ablo to point out various refinements.

Brin touched my arm, and we moved quickly to raise our own field tent. I saw the townee va.s.sals struggling with the grandees' beautiful b.u.t.terfly houses, but our plain green, with a banner for Cullin, went up in record time. Brin looked around at the hangars and field tents and stalls; some fliers and their escorts were eating and drinking at legged tables of wood and carpet-cloth, set upon the gra.s.s. She whistled for a little greasy-headed va.s.sal, the same she had draaued from under the wing, and sent me off with him, clutching two silver credits. Presently after a discreet scrimmage with some others of about our size outside two of the stalls, we had a table and a tray of refreshments.

When jebbal and Diver came up for air, Brin bowed and bade them sit down.

jebbal looked us up and down. "Bush weavers, eh? Is this your officer, Garl Brinroyan?"

"Not so, Highness," said Brin easily, "I have the honor to be the head of Garl's Family. Brinroyan, of Gwin's blood and Tarr's Five and the distant mothering of Abirin, Felin, Felrin and Narbreen. We have lived and woven upon~ Hingstull for more than a great five of years, on land now owned by the Great Elder."

"Good luck to you!" jebbal sat down and sampled,the fruit wine. "Whose is that stripling?" she asked. "Come on,( 108 ).

young Hazel, who is your pouch-mother?""I am Dorn Brinroyan," I stammered, "and Brin is mymother. ""Wind save us!" cried jebbal, rude as ever. "I respect mothering above all things! You may not guess it, Friend Brin, but I pouched four sucklings before I took up flying.

You must send Dorn to my tent to play with my younger clan-brats. Not all Luntroy-which is a mild clan, as youwill find-but infused with Galtroy wildness."

"We know a Hiahness of Galtro " I babbl""Indeed?" she grinned. "Well I guess that it is my cross-cousin Rilpo. He hunts in the mountains. Yes? Ithought so. "e ed he ad M.

eet w 0 ts.

and? Isonor lood elm, upon nowd the e On,She took up a handful of crystal fruits from the table and began to play Hold Stone, a game for two players. We had played three or four hands together-jebbal was winning-when I looked up and saw Brin and Diver laughing aloud at the pair of us. jebbal was like the taste of the crystal fruits: tart, sweet, surprising. She had only two loves in the world: flying and children; everything else we found, bored her "utterly to death".I.Jebbal, having checked out the Tomarvan and declared that it would probably fly but hadn't a chance against the favorites, led Diver and me to marvel at her machine. It was certainlv verv beautiful: a double im roved Pdal fnn tv;than enormous wingspan and lighter than a feather. It was called Peer-lo-vagoba, which means, more or less, "ForeverSoaring in the Blue".While Diver was examining this wonder, I looked for the wild clan-brats; I was anxious-perhaps they would eat me alive. When I peered into the dark red silken tent, I sighed with relief and a touch of disappointment. The two sprigs were nothing like their fierce mother: the male, Valdin, was taller than me and older, the female, Thanar, a little younger. They were beautiful, I admitted, and richly dressed, but timid and engrossed in strange games The I ~~.

A~lihad been at the Bird Clan every year for four years and were still afraid of the young townee va.s.sals who bullied them when the escort was not looking. I sat in the stuffy tent and tried to learn their bead placing; there was no doubt they were grandees-they squabbled in sharp voices and their moods changed. Finally I took out a credit and suggested we buy honeycups at the stalls.

"Those flaming va.s.sals will catch and beat us," whis- pered Valdin.

"Not while I'm around!" I said firmly.

"It's dishonorable to go about without an escort," said Thanar, "for us, I mean."

"Oh come on, I'll be your officer!"

So we slipped under the back flap and marched boldly to the nearest. stall. A few of the young va.s.sals did attempt to jostle us, but I made a feint and sent the largest one into a mud puddle.

"Hands off all cubs of Highness Jebbal!" I said. "For I am their officer!" The townees murmured about Mountain Beasts. "Yes ... and I will fall on you like a mountain wolf!" I said.

We went back to the tent and ate our honeycups. The "cubs" were thrilled with their adventure. They talked confidingly of the place they liked best, a villa on the salt marsh to the east owned by their Galtroy kin, where they had a little sailboat.

The difference between grandees and mountain folk was suddenly ill.u.s.trated.

"In ten days then," said Thanar, "we will go to the villa at Salthaven to be with our father." I blushed, and Valdin looked at me sideways.

"It is no shame," he said. "Jebbal has a pair-marriage with Faldo Galtroy. He is our father."

"We follow the old threads. . . ." I muttered. There was a mirror of silvered gla.s.s on their tent wall, and I had not seen my own face for some time. I loo6d( 110 ).

now, and the two Galtroys smiled.

"Oh come, Dorn," cried Thanar, sweetly. "What do you see? Does it help you to find a father?"

I looked in the mirror and saw what I had always seen, in mountain pools, perhaps, or the Ulgan's metal cooking pots or a gla.s.sed window in a fixed house. "Yes," I mumbled. "I see which is my father."

I had hazel eyes, a strong, squarish face; everyone who saw me in our family or out of it must have known at once; I looked exactly like Mamor.

Before I left, with Diver, I saw jebbal with the two children, absorbed in their games, chivying them a little, like a mother and a child at the same time. I trailed on the way back to our tent-the bright days never seemed to end, and there was never time to sleep-trying to piece together all I had learned about grandees. They were something like a honeycup, a treat now and then; or perhaps they were like a visit to the fair, an excitement once a year. There was too much jebbal did not know about her children: they feared and hated the Bird Clan and were all for sailing at Salthaven. But I still found the Bird Clan a marvellous place, except that our Five could not be together.

"Enough!" said Brin, standing over me. "Sleeping bag for this n.o.ble escort."

I staggered into our green tent. "Wake me . . . wake meif anything else happens!"There were fifteen entries in the Bird Clan rounds that spring, the highest for twenty years. Most flew in and were in signalled down. A few came to the river gate as we had done and were wheeled into the enclosure. A red and white ge Antho, with a dirigible rudder and two small balloons called ere rose. It made a few daring and illegal pa.s.ses over the vast nd complex of fairgrounds across the river and hovered over ked the citadel of Otolor on its island where the stream divided.wind-catchers flew in from the west as the Great Sun( III ).

Then it flew in steadily to land, but the wind-catchers worked too well. It was twisted up into a spiral of warm air, the balloons became interlocked, then one deflated over the pilot's chair. The machine blundered down, bounced, with a scattering of marshals and va.s.sals, then splayed its runners and broke a wing. The pilot, a young Dohtroy, climbed out cursing.

It was not the first elimination. Three of the earlier arrivals had elected to do their first exercises on the first day, while I slept. Two were traditional gliders, the third, a strange patched-up craft called Tildee, entered by a mer- chant from Rintoul. One of the gliders snapped in half at the starting blocks, the other, a silver gray, piloted by another sprig of the peaceable Dohtroy clan, caught its air currents well and soared normally. The Tildee took off and flew doggedly with a thrusting motion, which Brin de- scribed to me.

Diver laughed and shook his head. "Tildee will be hard to beat!"

"That one?" I asked, "but it is ill-made, of patched fabric."

."This merchant . . . is his name Mattroyan?

been dabbling in fire-metal-magic.". . has"True, Excellence," put in Ablo, "you are a good judge machines. For I have seen this ugly Tildee on the groundi~ it rings when a hand hits the panels, and it gives off a stink. White air comes in puffs through wooden pip behind the pilot's chair."

"What merchandise does Mattroyan sell?" asked Diver.

He was fishing for information but could not ask more plainly in front of Ablo.

"Excellence, he is a tanning-factor who runs horri hide-boats up and down the coast of the Great Ocean Sea.

Ablo grimaced as he told it. "He visits Itsik."

As soon as I had a chance, I explained about Itsik to Diver."It is a strange place, barely respectable, between( 112 ).

daof it ot ipesiver oreorrid Sea."sik to tweenRintoul and the Fire-Town, on the coast. "Go to Itsik" or "Go back to Itsik" is a common insult meaning, "You havenot washed . . . you stink". All the burning, the tanning of hides, the curing of fish, the rendering of fat and lamp oil necessary for the great city of Rintoul is done at Itsik.

Lawbreakers are sometimes sent to Itsik for a term, or if their offence is less serious, to Gavan in the east, on the saltmarshes.As I told this, we were wandering around the edges of the ground, between the tents and hangars, a pilot and his young escort. We came to Mattroyan's hangar, where Tildee was housed out of sight, guarded by an escort of monstrous omor. Mattroyan himself came out presently: a burly brute who put me in mind of no one so much as Hunter Geer, although he wore very fine garments of silk and wool floss. The pilot was with him, a young, dark- skinned, blood-haired flier, with a strong likeness to Matt-royan."Must be the merchant's child," whispered Diver "Yes, but don't say so if you speak to him.""I'll remember my manners," said Diver. "I must not say your child' to a male person. Only'a child of your Famil ' "

We staved at a discreet distance ho ever and did notapproach the merchant"I wonder how this custom came about?" asked Diver"Is it because a nerson's familv tree is reckoned frommother to mother.""Partly. And partly because the child belongs to the family, not to any person. To say 'your child' to a pouch-mother does not mean that she owns the child. But if the child has, well, a father singled out . . . Do youunderstand?""Partly," said DiverA splendid craft lit down: a double tier of scalloped wings, the upper span set forward and both activated in a flapping motion. We went through the tents and saw the pilot being lifted out by the escort; the Wentroy crest, a bird's head, was on their tunics. They had hardly time to set their Highness upright before the clappers were sounded all around the field and three more entrants began their exercises. Two were set in the blocks attached to the launching catapults and the third had chosen the tower.

The Launcher stood on his platform, far away across the field, but when he shouted through his gourd, the sound seemed to echo around the world.

"U-va-ban!" The va.s.sals hauled the lever and stood from the drums on the first catapult and a yellow Antho sailed off, straight and light.

"Uto-va-ban!" A black glider with an enormous wing- span went up and twisted from the second catapult.

"Yo-va-ban!" All eyes were on the tower. It was taller than the tallest tree, and flimsy, with crazy ladders and a ramp for the flying machines. More points were allotted for a tower takeoff; it made me feel dizzy just to see the va.s.sals crawling on the upper beams, and I was mountain-bred.

Diver and I stood near the tower's base, and we could see through the maze of bentw,ood poles and flax ropes to the very runners of the machine. It was squarish, rather ugly, like a child's kite, with the pilot spread in its rigging. There was a tw.a.n.g, and the thing was launched, soaring down from the tower in a long curving arc, lower and lower over the field. just as we felt sure it must ground, the blunt nose turned upward and the "Kite" rose gracefully. The pilot caught one of the mapped currents over the field, "stole the wind" of the black glider and went into the qualifying turns. The black glider, called Hadeel, staggered in the air and shook, then the pilot, who was very skillful, bore straight upward, in the only current near enough, and reeled into the turns. The yellow Antho, meanwhile, flew carefully in circles further down the field. Its turns were in fact oval ... not true circles; all gliders had this difficulty on circular turns.( 114 ).

see the gly '

ere own overnose Pilot e the fying e air bore and flew ere in cultyThis was not a speed test; when the three machines had done the turns and performed any simple maneuvers that the pilot felt the marshals must see, they lit out, one after the other, to the First Mark, inland to the east. Another tower was there, and to complete these first exercises the machines must round it and come back to land. These three easily completed their exercises, but later that day two machines were not so lucky. A pedal fan that had come upriver from Linlor on a barge tipped the First Mark and blundered into a strange craft, one of Diver's favorites, a dirigible balloon that everyone had christened "The Pod".

The wretched pedal fan twisted away and came down in the sandy plain beyond the First Mark, which is called Gwervanin or Bird Bone Place, because so many finemachines have fallen there.

When this happens, according to the threads, the pilot should climb out and walk away from the wreck "withoutlooking back". The machine must lie where it has fallen, struck down by the winds' bane, unless another can send it into the air again, proving that the winds have been appeased. So Diver soon came to understand that we had acted correctly in "refloating" the Tomarvan. This judge- ment of the winds could be harsh; in old times it had been a subiect of debate at the Bird Clan and throu hout Torin asto whether an injured pilot could be dragged out of awrecked machine. There had been quarrels between the clans on the one hand and the weavers and townspeople on the other, for the common folk would not leave a pilot to suffer. They rushed straight in, chanting to avert the winds'bane, and rescued a fallen flierThis day the pilot of the pedal fan did climb out unharmed and limped back, shame-faced, to the enclosure.

"The Pod", poor creature, struggled round the First Mark and flew back leaking. It touched down with a loud, sad, hissing sound, like a giant tree-bear, and the beautiful striped casing crumpled slowly before our eves. The two pilots, a pair of young town grandees from Otolor, stood and wept. The third machine to exercise at this time was Peer-lo-vagoba, and jebbal was in fine form. She made a perfect tower takeoff, exquisite circular turns and a quick, clear run to the First Mark. She was given a special ovation as the only one of this group to survive the test, for clearly she had "averted the winds' bane" or proved her superior skill.

I was determined to stay awake for a full thirty hours or more until the lists closed at the next rising of Esto. At about the third hour past midday the marshals came and told Diver to get ready for his first exercises. He had inspected the launching catapults carefully, with Ablo, and decided to use one, rather than the tower. The weather was perfect, with a great head of white cloud coming in from the east to provide a wild current besides the ones that lived over the field. There were only two machines exercising at the time: Tomarvan and Utofarl, or Double Hope, the splendid Wentroy flap-wing. The Wentroy pilot and a numerous escort took the field proudly. Too proudly, I thought, knees knocking as I shaped up with Brin and Diver for the formal salute. I had the luck skein in my hand, ready to exchange, but we stood there, emptily waiting, and the Wentroy contingent went straight to their catapult without a glance in our direction. I heard Ablo, the mechanic, muttering angrily behind me and turned to Brin, questioning.

:,We've been insulted?" whispered Diver.