"Would WindStriker have known of that way?"
Ukarres shrugged. "The eagles have strange ways of finding the best route, Shadow, as you know."
It could be a trap. He was the one shouting murder, so the duke and Ninomar and now Ukarres were all trying to find ways to make him leave and shut him up.
Treachery?
"Vonimor will confirm what I have said," Ukarres suggested. "Of course, we are both the duke's servants and you can doubtless find reasons why the duke may have put us up to this. Basically you have three choices, though. You can stay here, helping in the search, but you will only be one more pair of eyes among seventy.
"Ramo has no more of our birds, and no courier can be here within twelve days at a minimum. He will certainly bring orders for your arrest. You know what will be done to you then. Or you can go through the window the vice-marshal left open for you--dress NailBiter and flee."
"Or you can gamble your life and health and sanity and go to Allaban."
"The rebels?"
Ukarres shrugged. "They will certainly not hand you over to Aurolron. They may take NailBiter from you, of course. If you release him first, he will return here, to IceFire. If the prince is indeed alive, then perhaps they will treat you well--they may be holding him as hostage. The possibilities became innumerable, and we cannot guess..."
Shadow weighed the odds. One more added to seventy was very little, true. Flight to exile was somehow unthinkable, although he did not know why. He rubbed his prickly face. Off the prince's chamber was a bathroom with a bathtub, the only one he had seen on the Rand. A tub of hot water was one of the greatest luxuries in the world.
"Let us talk more while I shave," he said.
"Don't," Ukarres said. "Stubble keeps the cold off."
NailBiter sat alone on the perching in a strangely empty aerie, with only Vak Vonimor in attendance. Ukarres had provided Shadow with a magnificent flying suit in brown calfskin lined with lamb's wool. It would have cost a trooper a kiloday's pay; Shadow had not inquired who owned it. Vonimor eyed it and said sadly, "You fly to rightward, then?"
Shadow nodded.
The older man shook his head. "It is a slim chance for him and not much more for you. But you will need this." He had laid out a daunting heap of equipment.
"I'll fly straight underground with that lot," Shadow complained.
"You'll need it all," the eaglet said grimly. "Ever seen one of these?" He produced a metal cylinder with a black triangular thing on the end of it, and Shadow shook his head.
The object was very ancient, Vonimor told him, dating from the Old Times, and perhaps even from the Holy Ark itself. It contained air, which he had forced into it with an equally ancient pump, and he showed how the black thing fitted over a man's face and how a twist would release a puff of the air. Such a rarity was beyond price, and Shadow now began to believe that the two men were indeed betraying their duke and not him. There was also food and a great coil of thin rope--and that also must be a sacred relic, for it was made of neither silk nor hemp nor any material he had ever seen. There was a grapnel attached to one end.
"Kiting?" he groaned.
"Take it," Vak insisted. "And pray you don't need it. Lad, I would not try that road for anything. I know it's been done, but more have failed."
So NailBiter was dressed and the baggage attached; the bird crouched low in complaint, knowing his master was still to come.
The eagler hesitated. "Did Ukarres say anything about the wilds in Allaban?" he asked. "About the birds there?"
Shadow thought back. "No."
Vonimor seemed surprised--and reluctant to continue. "Well...he has some funny notions that he got from Karaman. I don't hold with them, but I saw less of Allaban than he did."
"What sort of notions?" Shadow asked.
The older man shrugged vaguely. "Just keep your eyes open, lad. There are funny stories--you may see birds doing funny things. Even that NailBiter of yours. Birds act queer when they get to Allaban." He changed the subject. "Good luck, my lord," he said gruffly, holding out a hand.
"I am no lord," Shadow said. "Are you going to be in trouble when the duke returns?"
The ruddy, honest face turned dark. Vonimor turned away and then stopped. "I saw it," he whispered.
"What? Then why did you not speak?" Shadow demanded.
"There was no time," Vonimor said. "It was just as he launched, and I did not believe my eyes." He stalked away across the aerie floor.
Shadow mounted his bird and launched automatically, his mind pondering the monstrous crime and the agony of followers whose lifetime of loyalty to a noble family had been betrayed. They were blaming the duke. Perhaps they were right.
NailBiter soon forgot his sulks, and Shadow followed the fast route that he had been given, the landmarks familiar to him after the long days of search. Twice he saw lonely birds soaring in the far distance, the patrols still hunting for traces of the missing prince, but they were too far off for him to recognize birds or riders, and therefore he would not be identified either. He discovered that he had become convinced--if WindStriker had survived her frenzy, then she had gone to Allaban, and the only question remaining was whether she had been carrying an unconscious cripple or a corpse. Certainly the latter was more probable, and he resisted an inner voice which told him he was crazy and should be going the other way, to sanctuary and refuge in Piatorra. But he knew that then his burden would not be rope and food and bottled air, but a lifetime of wondering and guilt.
Eventually he was over country new to him. It was the first time he had flown alone since his mad rush over the desert from Rakarr to Ramo on the day he became Shadow, and now he had the same problem he had had then: to find the thermals. In theory any especially warm surface created a thermal, but in practice many of those were dissipated by the cold wind and unusable. Pathfinding was the best test of a good skyman. Now he did what he had done in the desert--he let NailBiter choose, for the birds could apparently see the warmer air. Here, high on the Rand, there was little risk in trusting his mount. In the desert things had been different, for had he sunk too low in the red air and been unable to find a good thermal, he would have died, and long before his eagle did. NailBiter could have killed him easily on that journey to Ramo.
Eagle Dome was farther away than he would have believed, the sheer size of it almost beyond comprehension. From Ninar Foan it had seemed smooth and symmetrically rounded; when he at last grew close, he could see the frost cap and the vertical ribbing of the lower slopes that told of springs. The thermal on the sunlit side must be enormous, and a permanent cloud hung above it, streaming away sunward on one edge, continually reforming on the other. He came at last to the great flanking valley which cut back into the Rand and which would provide both his gateway and his trial.
Choosing a projecting rock above a sun-bright cliff, he brought NailBiter in to roost. Having no shackle, he had to leave the bird blinkered, and the scarlet comb throbbed angrily. Shadow dismounted and stretched aching joints; he estimated he had already flown almost a full watch from the caste. Shivering and panting in the cold, thin wind, he sat down in the lee of the rock and ate some of his rations.
He studied the great valley before him. He did not need Ukarres's description to warn him that a monstrous torrent of cold wind flowed down that gully--if he were caught in that, he would be swept out into the darkness over the plain and would die.