"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

the resources to create dwellings more to their liking. That meant there were always those who would
happily trade an older, "precarious perch" for a newly-chiseled burrow. There were wider terraces, of
course, that permitted real buildings and even small gardens, but those were all in the "body" of White
Gryphon and most building space was reserved for public use. It was probably fair to say that
three-quarters of the population of White Gryphon lived in glorified cave dwellings.
That was how Tadrith and his twin, Keenath, had gotten their own aerie, which allowed them to
move out of their parents' home; they'd found a narrow stretch of unexcavated terrace down at the
bottom of White Gryphon's "tail" and had claimed it for themselves, then hired a team of masons to carve
out a long set of six rooms, one after the other, deep into the living rock. This sort of residence was
precisely the kind preferred by den-loving kyree and burrowing hertasi. Once the dwelling had been
roughed in and the twins made it known that they were willing to trade, there was a bidding war going on
even before it was completed.
The result was that Tadrith and Keenath had their own bachelor suite of one main room, a food
storage chamber, and two light and airy bedrooms on either side of the main room. Both bedchambers
had windows overlooking the cliff, as had the main room. The kyree family that had gratefully traded this
aerie for the dark tunnellike series of rooms pronounced themselves overjoyed to be leaving such a
drafty, windswept perch, and had wondered why their parents had ever chosen it!
Which only proves that one creature's cozy nest is another creature's draft-ridden mess of
sticks.
As Tadrith neared his home, which was out on what would be the first primary of the White
Gryphon's right wing, the "avenue" narrowed to a simple pathway, and the balustrade to a knee-high,
narrow ledge of stone. Perhaps that had something to do with the kyree's reluctance to live
there—certainly such an arrangement would be dangerous for young, clumsy cubs. Tadrith and Keenath
had been raised in an aerie virtually identical to this one, but on the first primary of the White Gryphon's
left wing; that distance between them and their beloved parents had played no small part in their final
decision as to which family would win the bidding war.
Tadrith could, if he had chosen to do so, actually have landed on the balustrade right outside his own
door—but landing anywhere other than the public landing platforms was considered a breech of safety,
for it encouraged the just-fledged youngsters, who were by no means as coordinated as they thought
they were, to reckless behavior. No lives had been lost, but several limbs had been broken, when
younglings had missed their landings and slipped off the edge or tumbled into a group of passersby. After
a number of hysterical mothers demanded that the Council do something about the problem, the landing
platforms were installed and gryphons and tervardi were "strongly encouraged" to use them. Tadrith and
Keenath, with every eye in White Gryphon always on them, had been scrupulous in their use of the public
landing platforms.
By daylight, anyway. And no fledge is allowed to fly after dark, so they'll never see us when
we cheat.
In glorious weather like this, the doors and windows always stood wide open, so Tadrith simply
strolled inside his shared dwelling, his claws clicking on the bare stone of the floor. The room they used
for company was airy and full of light, with the rock of the outer wall carved into several tall panels with
thin shafts of wood between them. Translucent panes of the tough material the Kaled'a'in used for
windows were set into wooden frames on hinges, which in turn were set into the stone. The room itself
was furnished only with cushions of various sizes, all covered in fabric in the colors of sandstone and
granite, slate and shale. In the winter, thick sheepskins and wool rugs would cover that cold white floor,
and the doors and windows would be shut tight against the gales, but in the summer all those coverings
were whisked away into storage so that an overheated gryphon could lie belly-down on the cool rock
floor and dump some of that body heat quickly. And, in fact, Keenath was doing just that, spread out on
the floor, with wings fanned, panting slightly.
 "I was just thinking about dinner," his twin greeted him. "I might have known that thoughts of food
would bring you home."