And then he explained the obvious: The eagles could free themselves.
"God the Pilot!" the old man exclaimed. "You sure? It doesn't make sense!"
Shadow was aware that he was grinning like a monkey, and he couldn't help it. "What's the last time you ate with your feet?" he asked.
Yes, he was sure this would work--and how simple it was! It wasn't a case of thinking from a different viewpoint. It was a case of putting it all together--what Karaman had taught him of the birds and what he knew as a skyman and what had happened in Dead Man's Pass. And NailBiter cleaning his talons.
Karaman shook his head in wonderment. "You certain?"
"Yes! How many skymen did you have on your side in the war?"
The old man sniffed. "About two, more or less. I just can't believe it could be so easy!"
"That's the problem," Shadow said. "If the word gets out, then Jarkadon could block it just as easily. We'll have to go like a stooping eagle, hit them so fast that they don't know and have no time to take countermeasures."
Karaman was still skeptical. "Why has it never been done?"
"Who cares? It'll work," Shadow said, "won't it?"
"Yes, I think so," the old man said, and took hold of his arm. "But do you know what you're letting loose, lad?"
Shadow hesitated. "Yes."
A pair of sad old eyes regarded him from a face as brown and wrinkled as the Rand. "Do you? Life is not the same after, you know. And why? Why are you doing this?"
Why? "To free the eagles? Is that not what you have always wanted?" Shadow asked.
The silver mane waved in a nod. "Me, yes. But you? And I wanted to make a republic, as the First Ones had. You are putting another king on the throne."
"Vindax will be a good king!" Shadow protested. "I always thought so, and now he has seen poverty as no king of Rantorra ever has."
Karaman turned and stared at the group of watchers, at the back of Vindax's head. He sighed. "You can't turn a straight furrow with a bent plow, lad."
"Perhaps not!" Shadow snapped. "But good things can grow in crooked furrows!"
The old man studied him in silence and then sighed. "Only if the soil is fertile. All right, if you're sure. Come along." He led the way back into the circle.
"Yes, it will work," he announced. Astonishment swept the ring of faces. He started to sign to Eagle Speaker, translating as he went. "The-one-who-came-through-the-dark has shown me an updraft, and I follow him. He can free the eagles, if the eagles will do as he says. Not-many eagles will die and many-many-many eagles will be freed. But he cannot signal the way now--if he hatches the egg too soon, then the dark ones may kill the chick."
Flicker. Pause. Flicker.
Karaman nodded. "She says they will follow you if I vouch for you. As long as you do not start killing many-many eagles."
"We want peace, though," Shadow said. "Will the eagles be merciful? We do not want many-many-many men killed, either. When a slave bird is freed, will it turn on its rider?"
Fingers flickered; comb replied.
"She says 'what would you do?'" Karaman asked grimly.
Revenge?
"The High Ones will ask the slaves to be merciful?" Shadow asked. "The birds of Allaban and the men live together without war. That's what we need in Rantorra, too."
There was more flickering, then a pause for discussion in the sky. It was a long pause by bird standards. Was a big argument going on? Finally the birds replied.
"She says they will try," Karaman said. "They can't sign contracts, Shadow--that's they best they can do."
"Right!" Shadow said. He turned and grinned at Vindax. "What size crown do you take, King?"
Teeth were bared in the inhuman face. "You will give me my revenge?" Vindax said.
Not justice?
"Yes!" Shadow said as confidently as he could.
NailBiter was rocking with excitement. Shadow would have to negotiate that sentence of banishment.
"What do we do about this letter from Ramo?" the president demanded.
"Stuff it!" Shadow snapped. "They can't be sure you've even received it. I know Jarkadon! He's probably far more scared of you than you are of him."
The spice merchant looked doubtful.
"We're going to depose him anyway," Shadow said. "And I also know the Royal Guard. They're scattered all over the Range. They're great at evicting old ladies who can't pay taxes, but they can't put more than three hundred decent fighters in the air."
Vindax raised his eyebrows but did not speak.
Chapter 16
"Rapture is a state of mind."
THE Range was everything Elosa had expected and a thousand times more. Its fertility amazed her after the barren lands of the Rand: vineyards and orchards and brilliant greenery. The slopes were crowded with hamlets and little towns; there were roads with traffic on them, and the distant birds in the sky were mounts being ridden, not dangerous wilds to avoid.
But then, Ramo was a thousand times more again--she could hardly believe the size of the city floating endlessly below her, and when the palace itself came into view, she wondered if it was real. Surely it would have stretched from Ninar Foan to Vinok. She saw marble porticoes set amid flowers, palm trees and fountains, roofs of every hue, courtyards and lawns, cupolas and balconies and ornamental lakes...the place was huge! And it was beautiful beyond imagining--paradise.
The palace aerie alone was larger than her father's castle, with ten layers of roosting.Ten!And her guides took her to none of those but to yet another perch close to the ground, reserved for the arrival of honored guests. She was hardly out of the saddle before a groom had flown her mount away to be cared for.
Her father was waiting, greatly handsome but hardly recognizable in splendid court dress. She rushed into his arms, and they hugged. "Father!"
"Fledgling!"
Yes, she had had a wonderful flight and it was all marvelous and the fairy-tale palace was amazing and she was ecstatically happy to be here.
His hug was warm, but his face was strained. She looked again and saw that he had aged. There were worry lines there that she did not remember and gray on the temples, and he had certainly lost a lot of weight. She inquired anxiously how he was, and he said he was fine and now she must meet her welcoming party.
They were a dozen or more--a couple of men but mostly ladies, some young, some old--and her head started to spin madly with the effort of trying to remember so many names. Yet the first face of all was familiar--the very beautiful woman she had been told was called Feysa, the spurious lady's maid who had been Shadow's mistress on the journey. Her name was not really Feysa, and she was a marchioness, no less.
The whirling dream sensation grew stronger and stronger. She was swept out to a landau with two white horses and driven off before she had remembered that she ought to thank those who had brought her so far. Feysa was beside her and her father behind, so she could not speak to him, but in any case she was too entranced by all the sights of the palace as the carriage jingled along to have said much to anyone. The extent of it overwhelmed her--the beauty, the crowds of gorgeously dressed people, the innumerable servants who seemed to spring out of nowhere as soon as anything was needed, the stupendous staircase of onyx and marble, the tapestries and the ankle-deep rugs, the enormous silk-draped bedroom that she was told was to be hers, with its adjoining bathroom. There were gold taps on a tub large enough to drown an eagle.