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  There were five people there: a whimpering, naked girl, two young men still in the process of undressing, and two already busy. He had last seen those four men a couple of hours earlier around a card table. Jarkadon was not present, but his friends were celebrating in his absence. Shadow had walked into the Lions' den.

  "Let's take it from the beginning," the archbishop said wearily.

  It was all too confusing. A man of his age should not be dragged from his bed before three bells and then expected to deal with some sort of major crisis on the spur of the moment. The messenger from the court--he had some fancy title which the archbishop had already forgotten--was a blithering moron who made no sense at all.

  "The king has been stabbed, Holiness," the dean said.

  "Yes!" the archbishop said. "I got that. Doesn't surprise me...I've been expecting it for kilodays." His first reaction to that news had been one of great annoyance. It meant a state funeral and then a full-blown coronation, and he dreaded the thought of all that effort and work. At his age, he deserved to be left in peace.

  "The crown prince is out of town," the dean said, "and he may be dead also."

  The archbishop held up a blue-veined hand to stop him while he thought about that. Normally the dean made sense. He was his nephew, of course, and he handled all the routine and gave advice and so on. "What do you mean, 'may'? Is he or isn't he?"

  "There was a letter, Holiness, saying he had had an accident. But his body has not been found."

  "Let me see this letter!" the archbishop said triumphantly.

  "It has vanished," said the idiot from the court, and the dean hushed him.

  "It is apparently not available, Holiness," the dean said. "The only persons to have read it were the king and Prince Jarkadon. The prince is too upset to remember exactly what it said."

  "Humph!" the archbishop said. He still could not see why they needed to involve him. He huddled in his gown and wished he could go back to bed or have breakfast or something.

  "It may be a few days before we know about the crown prince," the dean explained slowly. "So there will have to be a regent appointed."

  "The next in line, isn't it?" the old man asked. They had told him that twice.

  "Yes, Holiness, but the next in line is Prince Jarkadon, and there is some doubt..."

  The two younger men glanced at each other and shrugged. The dean winced and put it into words: "It is possible that it was the prince who stabbed the king!"

  "What!" The archbishop blinked. Why couldn't they have said so sooner instead of all this flapping around? "Then he must not be regent! He could not succeed. It would not be proper! Or legal."

  "Exactly, Holiness."

  This really was a matter for the lord chamberlain or the lord chancellor, thought the archbishop; none of his business. "Why not the queen?" he asked.

  "The queen is distraught, Holiness. Quite incapable."

  This was where he kept asking them to start again. He pondered. "Well, if not one of the princes, who comes next in succession?"

  "You do, Holiness."

  "Rubbish!" That was a ridiculous idea and rather frightening. "What about my brother, for heaven's sake?"

  The dean and the messenger exchanged glances again. "He had a stroke two days ago, Holiness. He is still in a coma--and the doctors do not expect him to recover."

  "What?" the archbishop said again. "Why was I not told?"

  "I did mention it to Your Holiness, I am sure."

  "Well..." Yes, he remembered, now that he thought about it. "Well, you mentioned that he was sick. You didn't say he was that bad. I should have been told. I ought to send him some grapes or something."

  "So you are next in line, Holiness."

  "Oh...pish!" the archbishop mumbled. "I refuse to get involved. Separation of church and state. That's why the cathedral is at the far end of town from the palace, you know. Ancient law. It will have to be the prince. Damn, don't you know who killed the king?"

  "There were only three people present, Holiness. The prince says that Shadow did it, and Shadow says that the prince did."

  "Shadow?" the archbishop muttered. "What possible motive could Shadow have?"

  The other two glanced at each other again hopefully. The old relic had seen the problem at last.

  After some more thought the archbishop said, "Three, you said?"

  "The queen was present also, Holiness. But she is under sedation, and not making much sense. She has had a terrible ordeal..."

  "Bah!" the archbishop said. "Surely someone asked her who stabbed the king? Eh?"

  "Well, yes," the messenger admitted. "She said she did. And her ladies identified the dagger as being hers."

  There was a pause.

  "Let's take it from the beginning," the archbishop said.

  Chapter 11

  "Coming down is easy."

  --Skyman proverb

  HOW long Shadow slept he never knew. Sleep was supposed to be very difficult at great altitudes, but exhaustion belied that theory. He awoke choking, but suddenly and completely, knowing where he was and astonished that he was still alive. He was hot. At some time he had unfastened his flying suit, but he had no memory of that. He closed it up once more, fumbling in the dark, and wondered if he dared search for his food and water. NailBiter felt him move, tightened his wing slightly, then relaxed it again. The bird would not have slept, of course, but he must be growing perilously hungry.

  Shadow crawled out from under the wing and stood up and looked at that deadly stare.

  "Breakfast?" he asked. "No? Well, let's get going."

  Would he be allowed to dress the monster? He picked up the helmet, and NailBiter lowered his great head slightly to make it easier. Incredible! Birds were smart, Shadow knew, and if they were to be cooperative also, then things were going to be a lot different. The saddle went on, and he clipped back the blinkers as soon as possible, knowing it was a risk but anxious to show appreciation. Perhaps he had just gone mad and this was not happening at all. He scrambled back down the length of the rope to collect the grapnel and then scrambled up it again, coiling. NailBiter turned and stared at him.

  Then he opened his wings a fraction.

  He wanted to fly!He was trying to say that he did not want to kite!

  Shadow was definitely insane.

  "Okay, Naily," he said, tying the coil to the saddle, "you're the boss now." His teeth were chattering again. Every bone in his body was chattering. The stars were still there, but the shining mountaintops had changed since he last studied them; there was certainly a gap in them. That might be a shadow from Eagle Dome, or it might be the central windgap he was seeking--in either case, he must be close to the crest. If it got any higher, he was dead anyway.

  NailBiter rose erect and turned his head back and forth. Then he took a few unsteady steps and stopped.

  Shadow dismounted. The bird paced over the rocks, picking his footing with care--eagles were never good on their feet. He found a better launch pad, where the wind was stronger. Shadow climbed back into the saddle, tempted to pinch himself awake.

  "If only you could talk, old buddy!" he said.

  NailBiter crouched, spread, and leaped. For a tense moment rocky fangs snatched out on all sides, and then man and bird were airborne, fighting once more against the icy wind.

  The bird was allowed to make the decisions now. Once he stopped for a rest, buffeted so roughly by the wind that his talons made scraping noises and he was continually seeking a better grip. Shadow could not have dismounted there if he had tried, so the message was clear. He was not supposed to. No more kiting!

  Then there was turbulence and cold beyond belief, and he knew that he had reached the divide. And suddenly the wind was behind them. They soared and whirled up a steep cliff which must be the back of Eagle Dome, swept forward and upward relentlessly by the great wash coming down from the High Rand, starting to curve over to the right. Shadow heard himself cheering, and he reached out to rub NailBiter's comb in triumph
. Then he blacked out.

  He was awakened by a headache worse than anything he had ever known. NailBiter was gliding, floating down a vast gorge with the sun climbing over the horizon ahead. Shadow was stiff and frozen. His fingers and toes were numb, and when he was conscious enough to think about it, he decided that he probably had frostbite. But straight ahead must be Allaban--he had made it through Dead Man's Pass. One more for the history books.

  Then a turn took them out of the gorge, and they drifted over a green countryside. He had been told that Allaban was a richer spot than the rest of the Rand, but he had seen nothing like this since he had left the Range: terraced fields and cottages and even small woods, and a prosperously cultivated hillside facing toward a white and brilliant sun. Not here the great tilted steps of the typical Rand, but gentle ridges and valleys running sunward, with many tiny dams to catch the spring, and canal's beating their lifeblood to the crops.

  Suddenly the flying suit was outrageously hot and his feet and hands began to thaw in agony.

  NailBiter's head flicked from side to side. Wilds! Several of them, above and to either side.

  Shadow's heart sank again. His bow and quiver had vanished somewhere in the pass--but he probably was not capable of shooting an arrow into the side of a castle, let alone hitting a bird. Frantically he searched the ground below for shelter and selected a group of farm buildings.

  He decided to steer for that. NailBiter ignored his signals.

  On the point of imposing his will by closing the blinkers, Shadow changed his mind and decided to wait and see. He stretched out prone once more, almost too weary to care. Two of the wilds took up station to his right and three more to his left, but they stayed distant and seemed to be posing no threat--he had been given an escort. Was he being taken in under guard?

  He wondered if this was what Vonimor had been warning him about. And Ukarres had said something about Karaman being a fantastic trainer of birds. Was it possible that the men of Allaban could teach eagles to perform without a rider, like dogs?

  The fields raced by below him, and he saw a few men working; they glanced up to stare--as though a skyman were a rarity. There were few fences, and he could see no livestock, but there seemed to be more bicycle traffic than he would have expected.

  Then NailBiter banked without warning, circled around a large huddle of farm buildings, and swooped deftly down to a landing post nearby. A place not large enough to boast an aerie would usually have such a structure, a flight of steps up to a stout wall from which the eagles could take off again.

  Two weary beats of the great wings and NailBiter landed. Then there was stillness and peace and warm sunshine.

  Shadow reached up and stroked the bird's comb--and this time he felt the rumble. NailBiter was pleased, too.

  Shadow pulled off his mitts and counted: eight fingers, two thumbs. They hurt enough for sixty. He started to dismount but slid, fell, and crumpled limply on the platform. He sat there for a moment, trying to gather his wits. His head was spinning, and his throat and lungs felt burned raw.

  First problem: There were no shackles. So NailBiter would have to stay blinkered.

  Second problem: He looked around and could see no hoods or hooding poles.

  With an effort he clambered to his feet, thinking that at least he could remove the saddle.

  "Let us help you," a quiet voice said behind him. In turning around he staggered and sat down again, hard. He was looking at a pair of worn, patched brown trousers and two skinny bare legs. Then a hand took his and he was helped to rise; his arm was draped over thin, bony shoulders.

  "Six steps," said the voice, an elderly voice. "Take your time."

  Shadow wobbled down the steps, leaning on this frail little man. Then he stopped and turned around. The bare legs belonged to a young boy who had scrambled nimbly into NailBiter's saddle and was reaching up, fumbling with the buckles of the helmet.

  "No hood!" Shadow mumbled urgently, feeling as though his mouth were full of sand. "Stop him!"

  "That's all right," the old voice said calmly. "He won't hurt us."

  Then bigger, stronger arms gripped Shadow and made a human chair and lifted him from the ground--husky, bare-chested farm workers, smelling of hay and sweat, grinned on either side of him. NailBiter's helmet fell away beyond the perching wall. NailBiter turned his head and looked ferociously toward Shadow.

  Shadow tried to shout a warning and produced a hoarse croak. The boy jumped down to the platform and started on the saddle girths, and the two bearers turned Shadow around and began to carry him away, ignoring his pitiful struggles.

  He had a vague impression of trees and buildings. The first speaker, the elderly man in brown, who was small and stooped and had a great shock of white hair above his weather-burned face, was walking alongside, regarding Shadow with some amusement, and the two young men were setting their pace to his.

  "Congratulations," the old man said.

  With an effort Shadow managed, "Why?"

  "Dead Man's Pass," the old man said.

  Then a dark shape flashed above them, and Shadow jerked his head back in alarm. A brown wild eagle whirled around once more. He twisted his head to see, so the men stopped and turned him so he could watch as the wild settled down beside NailBiter, a sheep dangling from its beak.

  "What the hell?" Shadow said. At least, he tried to say that, but it didn't sound very distinct, even to him.

  "Your friend is being helped too," the old man said.

  The wild passed the whole sheep to NailBiter, who began tearing it up and swallowing it. That was not cawking ritual--it wasn't anything. Eagles did not do things like that. Vonimor had warned him. The wild spread its wings, jumped, and went flapping away over the meadow.

  "He's a fine fellow," the stranger said. He wore a brown smock and brown trousers and a curiously placid, friendly expression.

  "Who are you?" That came out clearly enough.

  "I am Ryl Karaman."

  If Shadow had been standing, he would have fallen.

  "The rebel?"

  Karaman chuckled, motioned for the helpers to bring their burden, and walked alongside once more.

  "I suppose. And you are Shadow...and Master NailBiter?"

  "How do you know that?" It was very hard to talk, and the world was fading and solidifying all the time.

  He received no reply, but he was carried up steps onto a porch and laid down on a couch, boots and all. Someone gave him a mug of something wet.

  "Try not to gulp it," Karaman said. "Sip it. Oh, well. Sip the next one, or you'll throw up. You're dried out like a prune."

  Shadow finished the second cupful and wanted more, but they took the mug away and firm hands were stripping his clothes off. He was suddenly racked by coughing.

  "Fingers all right. Looks like you may lose a couple of toes, though. And half an ear, possibly." Karaman laid a blanket over him, and someone else was tucking a pillow under his head. The roof swayed pleasantly overhead.

  "The doctor will be here shortly," the old man remarked. "Try to stay awake until he gets here." He settled into a rocking chair, and the others faded back, out of Shadow's field of thought.

  Shadow turned his head and forced his eyes to focus; he saw that NailBiter had finished his meal and was feaking, the equivalent of picking his teeth if he had teeth. Karaman's chair squeaked as he rocked quietly. "How did you know my name?"

  The cheerful expression faded from Karaman's leathery old face. "Your friend kept calling it out."

  Now Shadow remembered why he had come. "He's here? Alive?"

  "He made it," Karaman said cautiously, "but only just. He's in a very bad way."

  "How bad?"

  "Very bad. The doctors will not say if he will live--and he will never be the man he was."

  Another Ukarres? Shadow choked back sobs. "WindStriker came through the pass with him?"

  "Oh, no! Not at her age. She came around the face of Eagle Dome."

  "Then the wilds let him
through?" Shadow asked. Someone gave him another earthenware mug, and he tasted hot milk and honey.

  Karaman rocked back. "They letherthrough--she was a returning native. They thought she was carrying a corpse, and they brought her to me to get it off her thought he was a corpse, too, at first."

  "I want to see him. Now!"

  "He isn't here. Yes, he's in Allaban, but we rushed him down to a little place cared Femie, very low. He's being well treated, but I don't think he would know you yet."

  NailBiter spread one enormous wing and set to work preening it.

  Shadow's eyelids started to droop.

  "You're the first man ever to make it through Dead Man's Pass," Karaman said.

  The eyes opened by themselves. "Not what I was told!"

  Karaman shrugged. "Eight or ten have done it from this side. None has ever succeeded coming from the left. Many have tried."

  The words lay like a lump in Shadow's mind until meaning seeped out of them. Vonimor? No, not he. He was basically a decent man. He had known that the pass could be crossed, but not that it was a one-way proposition--he had been duped by Ukarres, and Ukarres had been trying to kill Shadow.

  "NailBiter did it, not me."

  Karaman nodded. "You unhooded him. That was very trusting of you."

  Sleep was creeping up every limb, and Shadow was fighting it and losing...but now his eyes popped open again. "How do you know that? What did you do to him? How do you make the birds safe, like this? How did he know to come to this house?"

  "That's too long a tale for now," the gentle old voice said. "But I did nothing to NailBiter in the pass--that was your doing. You must be a remarkable trainer. You must trust your bird greatly, and he knew that. He was greatly surprised when you unhooded him, but then he was sympathetic. He knows what you were trying to do, or thinks he does."

  "What?" Shadow asked, getting sleepy again already. Karaman was trying to keep him awake until the doctor came. It wasn't going to work.

  Karaman smiled, and his ridiculous comb of white hair waved back and forth as he rocked. "He had just cawked a few days before, right? A silver. Very beautiful, I am told, and very fierce. He was missing her greatly, and you were searching for your mate, too."