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

startled a harpy in her nest, and nearly toppled from the path in fright of her immense raptor's body and
eerie woman's head. If North had not caught the back of his fuliginous robes, the necromancer would
have fallen hundreds of feet to the Roof below. As it was, he and the necromancer could only weather
the harpy's righteous caws of indignation, and edge their careful way around her territory. The
necromancer offered North brusque thanks, and they continued on their way.

That afternoon, they passed a carilloneur rappelling down the side of the Steeple. He and North had
encountered one another a time or two over the last decade, and were on friendly terms. The carilloneur
had gone above to make repairs to a wheel high in the bell tower, and was on his way back down to his
barrack, just a few miles to the south of North's own shack. The carilloneur, the necromancer, and North
shared a meal together, in the shade of a buttress. The two Roofmen swapped stories and anecdotes of
acquaintances they had in common, as men of the Roof always do on meeting--this being the only way
that news travels in these high places--while the necromancer kept silent, sitting some distance away.
When they had finished eating, the carilloneur refastened his harness to his line, and, with a wave and a
brief word, dropped over the side of the ledge and out of sight. North and the necromancer continued on
their way.

That night, the skies clear and the moon a sliver overhead, they could see the lights of a minaret atop the
Chancel, far on the eastern extremity of the Cathedral. North had never met an Eastern Roofman, but
he'd heard stories of their savagery, and of their strange customs and beliefs. In the East, it was said, it
was forbidden for a Roofman to grow hair upon his face or head, and the flesh of the owl was taboo.
They shared their women in common, the stories held, and no man knew who his father might be.
Thinking to fill the silence with pleasant talk, North asked the necromancer if he knew these tales, and if
he gave them any credit. The necromancer, however, knew nothing of the customs and traditions of the
Roofman who dwelt directly above him all his life--North himself was as strange a creature as the Eastern
Roofmen were to North--and so the conversation withered, and they passed the rest of the night in
silence.

On the third day of their journey, they reached the territory favored by the first of the lingering revenants.
The necromancer began his dread work.
****
On the sixth day, they came upon a nest of yllerion birds, a mother and a clutch of eggs. While the
necromancer did his unsettling rites--exorcising a revenant that stank of rotting flesh and offal, and which
howled like a man on fire--North crept near the nest of the yllerion, and managed to prize away two
eggs, narrowly escaping losing a finger to the wicked beak of the bird.

That night, for their evening meal, North prepared the eggs while the necromancer tested the air using a
powder he'd fashioned in retort and alembic. By the time the eggs were fit for consumption, the
necromancer had determined that only a single lingering revenant remained. Another day, and their work
would be done.

They'd not yet encountered the young woman's shade, which haunted North's dreams. This last, he
knew, would be hers. North slept fitfully that night, on the narrow shelf, the towering Steeple to one side
and the open maw of empty air on the other.

The next morning, they turned a curve in the path spiraling up the Steeple, and caught sight of an
enormous serpent, drowsing in the shade of an overhanging bartizan. North had never seen the like, but
the necromancer identified it as a lindworm. It was a massive thing, larger than any creature North had
ever seen, larger even than the roc he'd once sighted alighting on the West Steeple. The lindworm lay
coiled around an outcropping of spars and spires, hundreds of feet in length, its scaly skin an unsettling