"Chris Roberson - Companion to Owls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Chris)

specialist.
North caught one of the homing owls that roosted near his shack, and affixed to its clawed foot a small
canister containing his request for assistance. Then he fed the bird a special strain of millet, bred by the
Sostren of the Vegetative Cloisters to compel flight to centralized message depots before returning home,
and set the owl free in the mouth of an air-vent near the cupola's base.

A month later, while North was polishing a spar on the eastern face of the Steeple, the necromancer
arrived.
****
North welcomed the necromancer into his home, as he was accustomed to receiving the psychopomp.
The necromancer was from downbelow, a native of Middle Floors, and had never before been up on the
Roof. While North prepared a simple meal for them both, and endeavored to exchange what pleasantries
seemed appropriate, the necromancer continuously glanced through the open door at the Roof beyond,
blanching. He complained of the thin air and chill, when North inquired after his health, and retired to a
cot in the corner of the shack as soon as the meal was concluded. North could not imagine why anyone
would be disquieted by the peaceful open spaces of the Roof, especially one accustomed to the
cramped, confined Middle Floors.

North had once traveled down below the rafters as far as the Middle Floors, when he was invested as a
master steeple jack by the Castellan, but he hadn't felt at ease until he was back up on the Roof, with
only the open sky above his head. He'd felt confined and claustrophobic below the rafters, even when
he'd passed through chambers large enough to support their own micro-climates--he'd weathered a
brutal storm in an immense gallery filled with statues, ikons, and votives, finding what shelter he could
beneath a pew, passing the time in dismal conversation with a palmer on a pilgrimage from the far distant
Basement, whose manner was inscrutable and strange.

Come the morning, the necromancer was ready to begin his journey up the Steeple, to exorcise the
remaining revenants. North, eager to return to his regular rounds, was dismayed when the necromancer
demanded that North accompany him on his ascent. The necromancer, unaccustomed as he was to these
climes and altitudes, insisted that he would be unable to make the journey unaccompanied, and that if
North did not agree to be his guide, he would return to downbelow immediately, leaving North and his
lingering revenants to go hang.

North, seeing little choice, outfitted himself for the expedition.
****
Their journey around the circumference of the Steeple took several days, slowing winding their way from
the base to a point some thousands of feet above the Roof. Luckily for them, most revenants shied from
the highest reaches, and so pressure suits and breathing apparatuses were not needed. Even so, the
necromancer frequently complained about the thin air, and insisted that North carry along a store of
bottled air for his frequent consumption.

The first night out, as they ate their simple meal, their backs to the soothing stones of a chimney, warmed
by smoke carried up from hundreds of feet below, they caught sight of ercinee birds, whose feathers
glow with a brilliant bioluminescence and whose cry is unsettlingly like that of human children. The
necromancer drew strange symbols in the air in front of him, abjuring foul spirits, while North laughed
behind a gloved hand. Like all Roofmen, North knew that it was an auspicious sign to catch sight of
ercinee at the beginning of a journey; it meant that both weather and fortune would favor the traveler. To
see an ercinee on the return trip, however, meant that bad news awaited the traveler back at home.

The next morning, working their way around the wide circumference of the Steeple, the necromancer