Shadow Read online

  It was too late. To a sound like the smashing of melons, Sald's arms were wrenched almost from their sockets, pulling him back and throwing him to the ground.

  Haft stunned, dazed, he lay for a moment, watching the wheeling specks in the bright sky, dimly aware of mass screaming echoing from walls as the crowds fled to the doors. Gradually the noise died away and there was peaceful silence.

  He wanted to stay there forever.

  Then he realized that he was lying between two twitching bodies and that his face had been spattered with something wet. He put a hand to his face; it came away red. The bodies had no heads. Shuddering and nauseated, he clambered to his feet. He was alone in the Great Courtyard. Two cast balls?

  No, three. The back of the throne was dripping with blood and brains above the huddled corpse of King Vindax.

  Shadow was too weary to weep.

  "Good-bye, my prince," he said. "Fate dealt you a mean hand."

  He paused, almost as though there should be an answer.

  After a moment he added, "You must have known! You knew that there could be no kingdom without the eagles. You let me smash it so your brother could not have it. Then you wanted me to put it all back together for you!"

  He choked back an angry sob, and the silence returned. He glanced around that great empty solitude and looked back at the corpse.

  "You always wanted too much, Prince. You wanted to be a good king of Rantorra. That is not a possibility. It never was."

  He turned and walked away, and the courtyard was empty.

  Sald dragged his feet along corridors still cluttered with debris and came at last to a balcony. Blinking in the sunlight, he could see one distant gate. People were streaming through it, many carrying bundles on their heads. He raised his hands and signed to the sky.

  There were two bodies still lying there, and one had a golden chain around its neck. He helped himself to it: salary arrears.

  Momentarily the sun darkened as NailBiter landed on the balustrade and fixed his unchanging remorseless glare on Sald.

  Had the eagles been able to look at people in any other way, he thought, then they might have been accepted as sentient right from the First Times. He could read the comb, though, and he saw the excitement.

  "The High Ones speak," NailBiter said. "You have a new name. You are The-one-who-led-us-out-of-the-dark. Also you are Friend-of-eagles." That was Karaman's title, too. Yet "friend" was a poor translation--it meant much more to an eagle.

  "Thank the High Ones for me," Sald signed wearily. Honors? He had had his fill of honors. The gold chain would be useful.

  "Your nest and your mate and your chicks will be guarded and cherished," NailBiter said almost too fast to read. He rocked slightly.

  "Have you also been given an honor?" Sald asked.

  NailBiter's comb darkened. "I have a new name, too. I am Friend-of-Friend-of-eagles. But all kills are your kill."

  "Tell the High Ones that the greatest kill they can give me is that there be no fighting between men and eagles. We shall have to flee the aeries of the Range as we did those of the Rand--The-one-with-broken-legs was not going to help, and the others here will not." But there could not be many birds left now to free.

  The message was passed.

  "And," Sald signaled, "I am proud to be a friend of Friend-of-Friend-of-eagles."

  NailBiter's head cocked slightly to one side, which indicated laughter. "I am proud," he signed, "to be a friend of a friend of Friend-of-Friend-of-eagles."

  With his juvenile humor he would keep the game going until it reached eight and he lost count.

  Sald cut it off. "Me, also."

  "We go now?" NailBiter asked.

  "Yes," Sald said, his weariness settling over him like all the ice on the High Road. "Let us go to the nest of my parents. You know the way."

  "I know it. You will remain there for many-many kills?"

  "Yes." There was nowhere else to go. He could send out his army from there to deal with the other aeries. The eagles would protect Hiando Keep if the neighbors and the countryside sought revenge, and surely his parents and his sisters would welcome him, traitor though he was. There was no one else he could trust except the birds.He who ever trusts a bird...

  But NailBiter was still chatty. "There is a good aerie at the nest of your parents."

  Oh, so that was it.

  "My mate is making an egg."

  Sald felt his face smile, and it was an unfamiliar sensation.Big mutt!

  "My parents and I shall soar very high if you and your mate make your nest there. Let us go and see about it. I may have a quiet time while we fly." He would sleep the whole way; his eyelids were drooping already.

  He walked over and turned his back, and the great beak picked up the sling. He was lifted over the balustrade and then up into the sky. As they circled once over the palace, he saw that fighting had broken out already in the Great Courtyard, rival factions struggling for the throne. What good would it do them?

  Higher and higher he floated in the hot thermal. Now the palace was a mere scribble on its rocky spur, its inhabitants shrunk from sight. He could imagine that it was deserted, given over to wind and sun, fallen already into ruin as it would soon be in truth: a historical curiosity, a disused relic of the fallen kingdom of Rantorra where nothing moved except the shadows of birds.

  IceFire had appeared alongside, and they were floating up over the tops of sunlit hills. There, too, was change. A few hours earlier Sald had seen the peasants at their work; now they were standing in groups and talking. The word would spread.

  Republic? Democracy? He did not think so, although doubtless Karaman would send his missionaries. Every peak would be a kingdom to itself, many tyrannies instead of one, wars and battles. The big men would rule now.

  His eyes were blurring with fatigue, but when he raised his face to the sunlit hills, he saw that he had an escort: tens of thousands. And perhaps he did not feel so bad.

  All the heavens were full of eagles, flying free.

  GLOSSARY

  AIR: The composition of the atmosphere is not known, but it probably contains less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than standard (terrestrial) atmosphere. This is normal for planets without oceans or with plant life restricted to small areas.

  BICYCLE: One of the great inventions of the human mind. Almost no culture has ever regressed far enough to lose the bicycle.

  BIRD: Usually an eagle, but also used for a whole family of flying creatures similar to terrestrial birds.

  CAWKING TIME: Pairing or mating time (falconry term).

  COLD WIND: The steady surface wind flowing from dark pole to hot pole. The temperature is relative: Where the flow falls off the Rand(qv), the drop causes adiabatic warming.

  COVER: A flier positioned above and behind another as protection from attack by wilds.

  DAY: An artificial human division of time, apparently close to a terrestrial day in length. The world is gravitationally locked on its primary, rotating once in a year. The presence of life and of crustal differentiation (seeRand)suggests that at one time the world had oceans. Possibly, therefore, it did rotate, even if very slowly, and meteor impact or, more probably, tidal drag stopped this rotation in remote times; an alternative explanation would be that the sun had a binary companion now lost or too far cooled to be effective in warming the Darkside.

  EAGLE: The dominant life form of the world, resembling a terrestrial eagle, but of greater size and intelligence and having an eight-pointed comb.

  FEAK: To clean a beak by rubbing it on the perch (falconry term).

  GOAT: A rock-dwelling mammal. Like many other species of plant and animal named in the text, the goat may be either a terrestrial import or a local form of similar appearance. Human settlers anywhere tend to use familiar names whenever possible: for example, the North American "buffalo."

  HIGH RAND: Probably mountains standing high on the continental crust, and very high above the oceanic crust of the plains. (SeeRand.)
/>   HOT WIND: The high-altitude return of air from hot pole to dark pole. Note that the descent of this air over the dark pole warms it: The coldest part of the world is just darkward from the terminator, where water is precipitated. (SeeIce.)

  ICE: Almost all the free water of the world is locked up in vast ice sheets on the dark hemisphere. Geothermal heat keeps the base of the ice plastic; slow flowage and local continental drift move enough of this ice to the terminator to provide a very minor circulation of water in local areas of the world, as in Rantorra, and thus permit life to continue.

  MUTES: Bird droppings (falconry term).

  PLAINS: Flat, low-lying area of oceanic crust, equivalent to the abyssal plains of Earth. Atmospheric pressure is too great for humans. (SeeAir.)On the dark hemisphere, of course, the plains are buried in ice.

  RAND: In terrestrial terms, the continental slope. On Earth the slopes are smoothed by a cover of sediment; on this world they retain their block-faulted ruggedness. Vertical relief is obviously extreme, perhaps even greater than on Earth, where it can reach several miles: for example, between the Andes mountains and the floor of the Pacific. The continental surfaces lie above breathable atmosphere for mankind, partly because air has replaced water within the ocean basins, but perhaps also because of a less favorable atmospheric composition than the terrestrial standard. (SeeAir.)

  RANGE: In terrestrial terms, a volcanic island arc marking the edge of a crustal plate, such as the Aleutians or Antilles. In the absence of oceans, the whole ridge is exposed.

  RED AIR: Skyman term for conditions of very high pressure at low elevations. Carbon dioxide or nitrogen poisoning is indicated. (SeeAir.)

  SHEAR ZONE: The interface between the cold wind flowing sunward and the overlying hot wind returning; a zone of great turbulence and electrical activity.

  SINGLE: A paired bird separated from its mate, to which it will attempt to return.

  SPARE: A paired bird accompanying its mate without a rider and hence able to carry small loads.

  STOOP: To dive in attack (falconry term).

  TAKING (HIS) AIR: To be above (him) (falconry term).

  TERMINATOR: The boundary between light and dark hemispheres. Life is impossible elsewhere on the planet, and human life also requires favorable elevations.

  THERMAL: A plume of relatively warm air ascending from a sun-warmed surface. The prevailing (cold) wind bends the column sunward.

  THIRD WATCH: The final watch of the day, reserved for sleeping.

  TWO BELLS: Start of the third watch.

  UPDRAFT: A skyman term for wind moving upward over a surface elevation, but at times also including thermals(qv).

  WATCH: One-third of a day, or eight hours, signaled in major population areas by a bell.

  WILD: An undomesticated eagle.

  WORLD: The world of the story is never named in the text and has not been identified with any known inhabited planet, although much effort has been spent in searching for it. It was apparently settled in the First Diaspora. The tale of Shadow has been found in many forms in early literature throughout the Galaxy and must therefore date from early in the Second Diaspora, when settled planets were first reestablishing interstellar communication. Its wide distribution suggests that it enjoyed much popularity at that time, perhaps due to a morbid fascination with the problem of cultural regression, which was a very real risk for settlers of inhospitable worlds. The earliest known version is found in the Sirian Sector in a very primitive inflected language descended from one of the many Indo-European tongues of Earth.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVE DUNCAN was born in Scotland in 1933 and educated at Dundee High School and the University of St. Andrews. He moved to Western Canada in 1955 and has lived in Calgary ever since. He is married, with three grown-up children.

  When a career in petroleum geology began to pall after thirty years, he turned his hand to writing, thinking it would make an interesting hobby. Less than two years later, he had sold two novels and switched to writing full time.

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