Shadow

had been telling the duke that he knew.I think you owe me this.

    'There is a dove cote and a rose tree in the courtyard?' Shadow asked. 'The doves sit on the gables and purr?'

    Karaman turned to stare at the tears on Shadow's face. 'You know it?'

    'Hiando Keep,' Shadow said. 'I also was conceived there.'

    And at Allaban there was Potro, who was the youngest of Karaman's many grandchildren, a collection of bones aged around three kilodays, wearing nothing but skimpy shorts and burned almost black by the sun, his hair bleached white and flying loose in a comic parody of his grandfather's. He whirled everywhere around the homestead without pause like a young eagle himself, flashing teeth and filling the air with impudence and laughter.

    He was, Karaman said, as good a bird speaker as any, and the very day Shadow arrived, after he had been tended and rested and fed, Karaman led him out to sit on the grass under the trees. Then the old man seemed to snatch Potro out of the sky and sent him over to give Shadow a lesson.

    'Right!' Potro said, sitting down cross-legged. 'Eight points on a bird's comb, okay?' And he put his hands together and held up a row of skinny fingers, with his thumbs folded down.

    'Right.'

    'You don't happen to play the flute do you?' Potro asked.

    'Not that I recall.'

    'Pity. I'm teaching a flute player, and he finds it easier.' The words poured out, as they spilled from the birds themselves. 'So each point on the comb can be bent left or right or straight up, right? That's as good as we can do. I mean the birds can do sort of in between, but that's more shade of meaning, if you know what I mean, like being funny or so on. I can read a little of it, but even I can't do it much.

    'So our fingers won't bend backward. We have to do straight for left and a little bent for straight up and bent a lot for right. Try that. Gawrn, you're stiff! So eight points for a word, a one-syllable word. This means 'egg.'' And he arranged eight fingers.

    Shadow muttered under his breath and let his fingers be adjusted.

    'Of course they don't hold it like that--they run it from front to back, and then the next word is starting before they've finished, the last one. Back to front for a question. And that's one-syllable words. Now, the word for 'water' has three syllables: this, this, and then this.'

    'You're too fast for me.'

    'That'sslow!' Potro said. 'Way slow! I mean, they have to learn to slow down; your NailBiter is too fast for me yet, and even Gramps can hardly get what he says. He'll learn. But when you came over the pass, he'd probably been talking to the wilds before you even saw them. And in a minute or two, he'd have told them who he was and you were, and where you'd come from and where you were going and all about himself back to the egg. They can say more in a minute or two than we can talk in a day--If they want to, of course. They prefer to sing about it. Like they make up great long, long poems, and then they can take a whole day to say what a pretty hill that is, or something. Gabby, they are, but gawrn, can they go when they want to!'

    He reached over to Shadow's already cramped hands.

    'Take them two at a time. Two fingers straight: that'sBa.Bend the first one, that'sBe.Bend it more, that'sBo.Now first finger straight and bend the second, that'sNa.Nine of them:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So.So you take the eight two at a time makes four--right? and nine ways to make the two. That word for 'egg' I showed you...no, like this...that'sSaneNEso.'Egg' isSaneNEso! '

    'Why? I mean, why theBostuff?'

    Potro looked impatient. 'Because people remember sounds, not shapes. So Gramps says and he invented this.SaneNEsois easier to remember than what you're looking at. So you learn the sounds and then make the shapes, or watch the shapes the birds make and remember the sounds and what they mean. It's easy once you get the hang of it. That water word, remember this? That'sBoboNEsa-beseSEna- sosoNAbo.'

    'I don't suppose you could just teach the eagles to read, could you?' Shadow asked.

    The twig arms were folded over the wickerwork chest. 'You want this lesson or don't you?'

    'Yes, please.'

    'Then don't be silly. B'sides, how would they write back? Now let's hear it:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So.'

    'Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, Se...Sa...' said Shadow.

    'No!Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So.'

    Five minutes later Potro jumped up. 'That's the first lesson. I'll just confuse you if I do more. You learn the sounds and the shapes and we'll start words tomorrow. And work those fingers; they're really bad. Worst I've seen. 'Scuse me.'

    He glanced up and flickered his hands at the sky, then ran down to the perching wall and scrambled on top of it. A second later a huge feathered shape swooped past him and he was gone. Shadow stifled a cry and then relaxed as he saw the bird soaring away, one foot down with Potro sitting on it, holding on to the leg, his own skinny legs sticking out in front. In a few minutes bird and friend had vanished into the sky.

    And at Allaban most of all there was little wizened Karaman himself. Retired farmer, he said, and even more retired priest, but he was father confessor to the whole country. Everyone came to consult him: the politicians and the priests and the neighbors and the birds. He had no title and no office, and yet nothing seemed to be decided without him. His quiet smile was everywhere and for everyone, calm and understanding. 'A quiet, earthy man,' Ukarres had called him, and Ukarres had known him much better than he had implied.

    But let him start talking about the birds and then the zeal showed. Shadow met it first on his thirteenth day in Allaban. The two of them and a few others were sitting on Karaman's porch, drinking cider and planning Shadow's trip to Ninar Foan. A couple of Karaman's older grandsons were going to accompany him as translators, for Shadow had not yet progressed far in bird talk. Rescuing IceFire was going to be easy, they agreed. They could stay out of sight in the hills until the eagles reported that there were no men in the aerie, then just go and get her--she already knew they were coming.

    Delivering Vindax's letter would be trickier. If Ukarres or Elosa--or even the duke himself--got hold of it, then it might vanish without trace. Ninomar would not suppress it, nor would the countess, but they might be gone already, and obviously accidents could happen to anyone around Ninar Foan. Shadow would have to make sure that many people knew about that letter. That meant attracting attention--and attention meant danger.

    It was Karaman himself who suggested that Shadow stand on the perching wall beside IceFire. That would impress! And have NailBiter hover in the updraft below, he said. If Shadow had to leave in a hurry, NailBiter could catch his sling in midair.

    Shadow gulped. Was an eagle capable of that? he asked.

    He provoked an explosion. The quiet old man suddenly became the prophet, words pouring from him as he stamped up and down the porch. From the expressions on the others' faces, they had heard it all many times before, but it was new to Shadow--this was the rhetoric that had toppled the throne of Allaban.

    'Capable? They are as smart as you are, if not smarter! Stop thinking of them as animals! They are people!

    'It is their world, not ours! You have only to look--they were made for it and we are not. They ruled it and enjoyed it untrammeled until men came.

    'How could they have understood? They saw us come and start killing their game, their food. At first there would be little of that, and perhaps at first they did not mind, for they are generous. But then men started putting up fences and sowing crops, and there was no more game there. And men started breeding livestock! How could the birds have known that those were property? They have no property except their eggs. They could not have understood that those beasts were not there for the taking like all others. They cannot hear our words; men did not see that their combs were speaking. The fault was ours, for they have no hearing, but we have sight. But neither understood, and it was war.

    'Then men discovered that a hooded bird is helpless. How? Perhaps that was wisdom from the Holy Ark. Perhaps it was just a lucky chance discovery--lucky for men.