"Mercedes Lackey - Owl Mage 3 - Owlknight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

playing “tag” with a crow, flying in and out of the branches. In open air, the falcon would have had the
advantage, but not in among the trees. The streamer trailing from the falcon’s bracelets was less than half
its original length, but the crow still had most of his streamer, and mocked the falcon enthusiastically. Both
were bondbirds, of course, the specially bred, highly intelligent companions of the Hawkbrothers, and the
falcon seemed to be taking his imminent defeat in good humor. Crows took just about everything in good
humor; of all the birds bred by the Hawkbrothers as bondbirds, the crows had the liveliest sense of
humor. Ravens were more sardonic, most of the falcons tended to be quick-witted but extremely
focused, hawks a little slower but more deliberate, and owls somewhat ponderous in their thinking.
Darian’s own bondbird was an owl; in fact, it was one of largest birds in the Vale. Kuari was an
eagle-owl, a bird which dwarfed all other birds except the bondbird eagles. Since there were no
Tayledras with eagles in this Vale, Kuari and his parents Hweel and Huur were the largest birds here.
Now that the temperature was under control, the flora of the Vale was in the process of
undergoing a shift from what had been native to this place to plants and even trees that could only be
found in Tayledras Vales. There were more flowers; they were not necessarily bigger, but they bloomed
all year long, their subtle perfume filling the air. The leaves of these new plants were enormous, and not
just green - veins traced scarlet pathways, and pinks, oranges, and even blues made patterns that
resembled flowers, enormous insects, or abstract collages on their surfaces.
It would take a very long time before this Vale looked anything like k’Vala, several generations,
perhaps, but the beginnings were there, and Darian took a great deal of pleasure in seeing them. As he
walked along the sand-softened pathway, he glanced up now and again, catching brief glimpses of new
ekeles in the enormous trees. The treehouses of k’Valdemar were a bit more inventive than the ones in
k’Vala; perhaps spurred on by hertasi creativity, there were experiments in Hawkbrother housing going
on up there. Not all of them were successful, but the failure rate was low, and failures were never
disasters. If one plan didn’t work out, would-be home builder and hertasi just put their heads together
and tried a new direction.
All this building had been spurred on by the existence of the Veil, making it possible to have
ekeles that took full advantage of the constant balmy conditions. The hedonistic Tayledras loved it. So
did those ubiquitous residents of established Vales, the hummingbirds and messenger-birds. Strictly
off-limits as dinner or snacks for the predatory bondbirds, these feathered gems frolicked fearlessly from
the ground to the treetops. The messenger-birds sported feathers of every hue possible, and in
combinations that sometimes made Darian blink. Their natural voices were a bit shrill, but fortunately the
heavy foliage tended to disperse and muffle their joyful shrieks. The voice they used to repeat messages
was a bit more pleasant, a kind of hoarse chuckle, and when they chose to permit someone to scratch or
tickle them, they would chortle and chirp their pleasure in a way that was quite funny.
A flock of the messenger-birds hurtled overhead, screaming with delight, apparently in pursuit of
the falcon and the crow. A hummingbird hovered at a flower cluster just beside the path, paying no
attention to Darian as he walked by.
He should have been contented; there should have been nothing more he could have wanted. But
underneath, he was restless and uneasy.
Perhaps it had been the dream he’d had last night, that had sent him up out of sleep with a feeling
of something threatening. He couldn’t remember it though, that was the problem. All he could recall were
the eyes of the Ghost Cat he had seen so long ago, and an odd sort of raven with the same kind of eyes.
...
It’s probably just that I’ve gotten used to crisis, he told himself wryly. Once you get to the
point that you watch for signs of crisis everywhere, totally innocuous events seem like grave
portents. I should be glad that the worst crisis is where we’re going to put the latest batch of
“pilgrims” to the “Holy Dyheli!”
That was an ongoing problem; every new group that made it down from the tribal lands of the
North seemed to arrive with the potential to spread a new and different illness. Keeping them all
quarantined from Ghost Cat and from each other until their ailments were identified and a cure devised