Shadow

    Vindax looked disappointed. 'Do you wish to beg for mercy?' he asked hopefully.

    Foan merely shook his head and was struck by the guard on the other side.

    This, Shadow reminded himself, was the king's father. But how could a man not beg for mercy when faced with such torments?

    'Well, it wouldn't do any good, anyway,' Vindax said. 'We find you guilty. We sentence you to loss of all titles, ranks, honors, and lands, and then to death as ordained by law. We shall start the first session shortly, I think, as the court is already assembled. Move him over there...'

    He waved a flipper, and the guards dragged the prisoner off to one side. He fell when they released him, and was unable to rise because of his chains.

    The bell in Shadow's empty head tolled again:You can't turn a straight furrow with a bent plow, lad.Karaman had seen in Vindax what Shadow had not. Shadow had not dared to dream of a republic, only a better kingdom, and again Karaman had been wiser.If the soil is fertile.

    'Bring in the prisoner, Elosa Foan,' the king said.

    The earl marshal dropped to his knees.

    'She is dead, sire.'

    'No!' Vindax roared. 'Who killed her? I'll have him flayed. When? How?'

    The earl marshal had turned gray with terror. 'She took her own life, Your Majesty, some eight days ago.'

    Obviously the duke had not known that the previous day.

    Vindax pounded both arms of the throne without producing any sound. 'I wanted her to see what she had done! Why?' He turned his head to look at the prostrate form of the former duke. 'Bring him back here!'

    The duke was dragged over and lifted to his knees before the throne once more.

    'Tell me what happened!' the king ordered.

    'Take off these damn chains first!' the duke shouted, and was instantly prostrate again.

    There was silence. One of the guards drew back a foot to kick, and Vindax yelled at him to stop. He had already sentenced the man to the worst death he could find; he had no threats left.

    'Remove his chains,' he growled.

    With much clattering, Foan was released. He climbed stiffly to his feet beside the heap of shackles and rubbed his wrists. The last of the skymen, Ukarres had called him. He should be a tragic figure, Shadow thought. Nobility in defeat again, the young hero of Allaban grown gracefully to elder statesman--but the duke of Foan was a flawed hero. Always he had found solutions which served his own purpose or that of his daughter. His motives had never flown quite true. If this was the last of the skymen, then it was time to close the book on them.

    'Now talk, traitor!' the king said.

    From somewhere that filthy, half-naked figure drew a pathetic dignity. 'I know only what I learned in your jail, boy.'

    Boy?Son? If Foan confessed to adultery with the queen...but he would not do that.

    Again the guard raised a fist, and again the king stopped him.

    'Which is?'

    'That your brother did it. He invited her as guest...' The duke's voice began to rise. '...and pretended to welcome her. Then he beat her into submission, savagely, brutally. He raped her!'

    'Good!' Vindax said, mollified. 'What else?'

    Foan spoke with contempt. 'When she had recovered from the beating, he held a party for her birthday. She did not know what his parties involved. Afterward she was carried back to her quarters. Before the medics arrived, she somehow managed to drag herself over to the window--' His voice cracked, and he fell silent.

    'Pity!' Vindax said. 'I did not approve of the Lions when they abused innocent victims, but in her case I only regret that they did not leave her for my professionals. Still, they were very inventive amateurs.'

    Now the duke's face was incandescent with fury; hatred hung in the air like a stink. Yet who should presume to judge Vindax? He would never more know life without pain. He had owned the world: youth, power, health--who could lose all that and not desire revenge?

    The courtiers were as silent as a field of rocks.

    Vindax had dealt with his father and sister. 'Bring in the prisoner Jarkadon!' the king snapped.

    The earl marshal prostrated himself.

    Foan laughed.

    Vindax flushed around the scars on his face.

    'You thought that mongrel could survive in a jail in this place?' the duke asked. 'I had the cell directly across the passage. Noisy prisons you keep, King Vindax!'

    'Who?' the king hissed.

    'All sorts of people, Brothers and fathers, I suppose.' Contemptuously the duke added, 'You'll be pleased to hear that he took a whole watch to die. But indulge yourself: Send for the remains and pass them around.'

    Vindax almost overbalanced as he turned his head. 'Shadow! You promised me my revenge! They have cheated me!'

    Now the courtiers were beginning to rustle and stir. Shadow could feel danger rising like vomit, and he was shaking with fatigue and revulsion.

    'Cut off that one's head and be done with it, sire,' he said. If he did not get Vindax safely out of this place, and quickly, there was going to be more bloodshed.

    'No!' the king snarled. He glared at his prisoner. 'He will have to suffer enough for three.'

    Shadow thought: I am not Shadow, Vindax is. Ever since his conception he has been a shadow on the throne of Rantorra, growing and spreading...but that was only fatigue scrambling his mind.

    'There is another traitor!'said a new voice. The queen had risen, and now her tiny form walked slowly across the front of the throne and stood beside the duke. 'I plead guilty to high treason also.'

    The whole court seemed to recoil one step, and Vindax grabbed vainly at the arms of his throne to hold himself steady.

    'Silence!' he said.

    'I will not be silent!' she shouted, and for so flail a figure she was astonishingly loud. 'It was not King Shadow who killed your father, it was Jarkadon. I had to watch that poor man die--I perjured myself at his trail, and that itself is treason!'

    Vindax's sigh of relief was quite audible.

    'Jarkadon is beyond our reach,' he said. 'And I don't give a damn about King Shadow. Go and sit down, Mother!'

    She put her arm around Foan, who seemed to recoil slightly from her touch.

    Once Karaman had seen these two as the ideal romantic couple. Now they were a haggard old pair, and yet Shadow could find little pity for them. He could see nothing noble in their tragedy. They had caused all this trouble by not being honest with themselves and with their children.

    'I plead guilty to high treason!' the queen repeated stubbornly. 'I shall suffer under the same law as this man does.'

    Threat? Blackmail?

    'By God, if you defy me, then you shall!' the king roared.

    Father, sister, brother--now mother?

    The queen spoke again, but clearly she was intent on saving Foan, and to speak of Hiando Keep would drag him down with her.

    'Then there is another traitor!' she shouted, and raised an arm to point at Shadow. 'He is a traitor to his own race! He has freed the eagles!'

    There was a pause.

    'Some of the eagles,' Vindax said.

    'Sire!' Shadow protested.

    'The queen is right!' the duke shouted. 'Without eagles, how can you rule? How will you keep order or