had stopped. There was only a steady thumping of the eagle's heart.
And there was warmth.
Perhaps the bird wanted to thaw his food also?
No. Shadow was being mothered. NailBiter had apparently done something that no other eagle in history had done--he had decided to make friends. His rider was cold and needed rest, and he was treating him like a fledgling. It was unprecedented and unbelievable, but it was warmth and safety. Indeed it was very comfortable, a living tent and sleeping bag combined. But Shadow had never heard of it being done with an unhooded bird.
Now he remembered the strange remarks that Vonimor had made: Birds did funny things in Allaban. Nothing could be stranger than this, so it was true, and the effect extended beyond Allaban itself.
He shivered as the heat seeped through him; the pain in his feet and hands made him want to scream, but in time it must have gone away because he slid easily into sleep.
Chapter 10
'Look before you launch.'
THE walls were paneled in marble, carved in bas-relief. One slab showed a goat being seized by an eagle; King Shadow hit the edge of it with his shoulder and thrust with every atom of his being. It was magnificently balanced, and the bearings were still smooth, even after so great an age, but its sheer mass made it slow to yield. Reluctant as a glacier, it pivoted about its center, and a welcome slit of darkness appeared beside him. He squeezed himself through as soon as it was wide enough. He had forgotten, though, that the opening did not reach to the floor, so he cracked a shin hard against the high lintel and fell forward, striking the opposite wall of the very narrow passage and collapsing sideways on a soft layer of filth.
Heedless of his pains, he struggled to his feet. Now the panel stood wide. He grabbed it and, with the advantage of leverage against the wall, swung it back on its pivot once more. He caught a last glimpse of Aurolron's body starkly bathed in sunlight; he heard the yells as the rescuers piled up in the doorway, then the slab closed with a gentle thump. He fumbled in the dark to find the massive bolts and slid them into place...one...two.
He leaned against the slab, gasping and breathless, hearing the thunder of his own heart and an angry twittering of birds overhead. Just for a moment, perhaps, he had won safety.
'It's very dark!' the queen said, and he choked back a scream.
It was not quite perfect blackness--he could just see the glimmer of her face and hair. While he had come by one side of the slab, she must have stepped through the gap on the other.
'Majesty!' he wailed. 'What are you doing here?' The stone was quite soundproof; there would be bedlam out in the cabinet, yet he could hear nothing.
'Hiding from that madman,' the queen said in a very normal, conversational tone. 'He'd kill us all, you know. He's quite mad. He pulls wings off spiders.'
Great flames of the Ark! He had panicked, yes, but if he had any chance of life left at all, then he must flee at once. He had never intended that the queen should come with him.
The guards were out there--she would have been completely safe. Right behind him was a blank wall; the passage was barely wide enough for one person, and she was between him and the way out, the way down to the secret tunnels. A lifetime of training held him back from brashly attempting to thrust by her--if he could--and what would she do, anyway? She might well scream. She might reopen the panel and give him away. She might not be strong enough...
He would have to kill her.
'What are you doing here?' he demanded again in a low voice.
'Waiting for Vindax,' the queen said calmly, in the sort of voice she might have used to discuss wallpaper or the temperature of soup.
'He is dead! He had an accident! There was a letter--'
'Lies!' the queen snapped, but not loudly. 'Alvo would never do such a thing. It is a trick.'
Shadow was stopped short. Was that possible? With a schemer like Aurolron, anything was possible. 'But the letter?'
'The letter?' she repeated. As his eyes adjusted to the deep gloom, he could make her out better. 'Yes, the letter. Read it to me.' She thrust a crackling parchment into his hands.
She had brought it with her. The implications of that struck him like a lightning bolt. The guards would have found the dead king in an empty room. Jarkadon would now be claiming that he was king, for his father and brother were both dead, but he did not have the letter, and no one but Aurolron had seen it. So they would only have his word for it, and there must be limits to how much credibility would be afforded even a prince in such incriminating circumstances.
So there would be even more chaos than Shadow had expected, and his tiny, tiny chance of escape might just be a little bit greater because of it.
The passage was merely a rough-textured gap between double walls, starting where he stood and curving away around the arc of the egg-shaped cabinet itself. In spite of its narrowness, it was very high; small gaps at the top admitted a trickle of light and air. They had also admitted swallows, whose nests encrusted the upper walls and whose litter had piled thick on the floor. The swallows were jabbering angrily at the intruders, darting in and out of the holes.
'I can't see to read, either, Majesty,' Shadow said. 'Perhaps in a little while...'
'Well, we have lots of time,' the queen said. She steadied herself with both hands and somehow managed to sit down in her fine, rich dress on the heaped bird droppings on the floor. She leaned her arms on her knees.
She had gone mad, obviously.
Aurolron and he had shared one thing: They had both hated the dark and never closed drapes. Yet he knew that the human eye could adapt to darkness for some inexplicable and useless reason. Twenty minutes it took, they said, but already he could see much better. Yes, the document he held was the letter from Ninar Foan, but still not decipherable.
'It was very stupid of me,' the queen sighed. 'I should have explained to Vindax and warned him.' She sounded as though she were talking to herself.
'Warned him of what?' Shadow demanded. He ought to be running like hell, yet he had to plan his moves carefully. Was there any possibility that the queen could be of assistance--or of use? A hostage? The uproar and search going on outside must be mind-wrecking.
'Alvo must have got such a surprise,' she said. 'How proud he will be of Vindax!'
Gods! Was the queen about to admit it?
'They are twins, you know. When I look at Vindax, I see Alvo exactly, as he was. I expect he has aged, but I remember him as he was then, as Vindax is now.'
The passage led to a stairway, and that led down to a cellar. Through such passages and cellars and storerooms, it was theoretically possible to move almost anywhere around the palace complex, if he could remember them all. He had shown many of them to the new Prince Shadow. Aurolon, who had liked to be sure of his backups, had inspected secret doors once in a while. Vindax knew of them. But only those three and himself, he was sure. Two were dead. The fourth might also be dead and was at the far end of the kingdom anyway. He did have time, but not much.
'A man would not kill himself,' the queen said. 'That was what Aurolron thought, but he would never.'
A man ought to kill himself--suicide would be much better than a traitor's death. It would have done no
