The Eagle And The Nightingales

those mills and tended the machinery were looking blackly at any nonhuman who crossed their paths.

Other rumors were wilder, less believable, yet some people believed them: that the nonhumans had a new religion that required each new initiate to sacrifice a human child and eat it; that they were spreading diseases deliberately among the humans to weaken or kill them, softening up Lyonarie for future conquest; that the Deliambrens were going to bring in a huge, invulnerable, flying ship and from it lay waste to the Twenty Kingdoms, turning each of the kingdoms over to a specific nonhuman race and making the humans into slaves.

As if we'd want humans as slaves. They'd make poor slaves; not as strong as a Mintak, not as versatile as a Jrrad, not as obedient as a Fenboi. They are too self-determined, strong-willed and clever to be slaves. The spirit that makes them poor slaves is what makes them good friends.

T'fyrr reached the top of his arc, turned, and plunged downward again, his goal a tiny speck among the rest of the rooftops below him. Wind rushed past his face, tore at his feathers, thundered in his ears; he brought the nictating membranes over his eyes to protect them. At this speed, striking a gnat or a speck of dust could bring much pain and temporary blindness.

That last rumor was interesting, since it had just enough truth to supply a seed for the falsehood. The Deliambrens were bringing in a huge flying ship; the platform from which they were doing their intensive survey. It wasn't armed, couldn't be armed, in fact, nor was it invulnerable. It leaked air like a sieve, and couldn't go much higher than treetop level. But it did exist, and to the ignorant, it must look frightening enough. It was certainly larger than most villages and many small towns, and the vast array of nonhumans swarming over it might be taken for an army. The strange surveying instruments often looked like weapons, and the engines that bore it up in the air did sometimes flatten things below. That was one of the reasons for getting the High King's blanket permission to mount the expedition; to keep people from panicking at the sight of it, thinking it was a military operation.

As for turning humans into nonhuman slaves, now that was a clever twisting of the truth, since that was precisely what some of the humans were trying to do to the nonhumans in their midst.

The Law of Degree would do that very nicely.

The rooftop of Freehold rushed up toward him, filling his vision; he flared his wings at the last possible moment, and the air wrenched them open as if they'd been grabbed by a giant and pulled apart. He flipped forward in midair, extending his legs toward the rooftop as he flared his tail as an additional brake. His feet touched the surface; he collapsed his wings and dropped down into a protective crouch, glaring all around him for possible enemies.

As usual, there weren't any. As usual, he was not willing to take the chance that there might be some.

Neither was Nightingale. She slipped out of the shelter of one of the cowlings covering some of Freeholds enormous machines, but stayed within reach of other such machinery as she joined him.

But for one transcendent moment, all caution and fear was cast aside as they embraced.

As always.

Ah, my bright love, my singing bird, my winged heart_She could not hear the endearments he whispered to her in his mind, but he knew she certainly felt the emotion that came with them. Whatever happened, they had this between them_a joy he had never expected to find. If tomorrow a hunter's arrow found him, he would go to the winds with a prayer of thanks for having had this much.

'Anything new?' he asked into the sweet darkness of her hair.

'More of the same,' she replied into his breast feathers. 'I'll tell you inside.'

They sprinted for the door to the roof, hand in hand, but ducking to remain out of the line of sight of possible snipers. Once they were safely on the staircase, she sighed and gave him the news.

'Outright sabotage, this time,' she said. 'Three incidents, all uncovered this morning. Someone burned down a Lashan-owned bakery; the printing presses at Kalian Bindery were smashed, the page proofs and manuscripts there were burned, and the type cases overturned all over the floor. And the furnaces at the new Ursi glassworks were_just blown up. They say that no more than two bricks out of every five will be salvageable.'

'How?' T'fyrr asked astonished. 'That doesn't sound like anything a human could do!'

She shrugged. 'Tyladen has some theory about pouring water into the furnaces while they were hot; I don't know. But do you see a pattern there?'

He nodded; living at the Palace as he was, he would be the first to see it. 'The glassworks was in the process of making a special telescope for Theovere as a presentation piece on behalf of the Deliambren expedition. Kalian Bindery was putting together a library of nonhuman songs in translation_as a presentation piece for Theovere. And the bakery makes those honey-spice cakes he likes so much, that his own cooks at the Palace can't seem to duplicate.'

'All three, places with projects on behalf of Theovere or meant to impress him and gain his favor,' she agreed as they wound their way down the stairs toward the ground floor, his talons clicking on the stair steps. 'And only someone at Court would know that, just as you have been saying.'