"Charles Stross - Examination Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

followed at her own pace, pausing to stare at her reflection in a beaten brass mirror set in a
gallows-wood frame. Dark oil paintings of former Deans and Chancellors stared
disapprovingly down as she paused on her way upstairs. Candid appreciation, they seemed
to suggest, was not the response that this hallway was intended to induce in visitors.
At the uppermost landing Sebastian marched straight along the passage and threw
open a wide pair of doors at the end. Another staircase lay beyond them, a twisted corkscrew
of black iron that resembled a dissection of the spine of a felon broken upon the wheel. It
tolled like a bell as Sebastian's boots thumped from step to step. She followed him lightly, her
gait as quiet as that of any cat. Finally he reached the top of the spiral and paused. "We must
knock first," he hissed. "My master has a short way with intruders."
"I don't think so," Anya said lightly. Brusquely shouldering him aside she rapped a
brief tattoo on the mahogany panel, then turned the brass handle and pushed on through.
"Well, you took your time," said Vargas, looking up from his lectern. "What kept
you?" Sebastian, heart in mouth, followed her into the room. "Oh, I see," his master
continued, replacing the brass nut-crackers he had been using in the bowl on his desk. "Well
then. What can I do for you, my lady? Was your journey easy?"
"Sufficiently so." Anya strode over to the window and perched upon the trunk in the
casement. Sebastian closed the door silently; meanwhile, Vargas shuffled across to the tall
book-case beneath the stuffed crocodile and withdrew a crystal decanter from the shelf
reserved for spirits. "I discovered your apprentice in a tavern, by the way. He was busy
consigning his academic career to oblivion in the hope that a lifetime's inherited mastery over
a dung-heap infested with serfs was in some way superior to seeking the world's salvation."
"Hah. I can't say I expected any better of him."
The student felt his ears burn as he stood by the door, watching while Vargas poured
two crystal goblets full of liquid fire and offered one to the Invigilator.
"There has been a degree of truancy this past month that has startled even the
Chancellor. (Complacant fat bastard that he is.) I suppose you could put the blame firmly at
the feet of Kerein or Frankenburg for dropping off at the altar and on the throne respectively,
save that they did so the very same week and under surpassingly suspicious circumstances.
Not to mention the other deaths. And then there's the matter of the gargoyle that didn't fly."
"It had wings, didn't it?" said Anya.
"That, my lady, is exactly the point." Vargas raised his glass to his nose and sniffed,
delicately, then unexpectedly threw back the entire contents in a single gulp. After much
smacking of lips and a small belch, he continued. "Two students in a single day is a bit much,
you will agree. And it was only a parenthetical summoning, at that, the interrogation of a lost
shade from the depths of the eleventh segmentation of the abyss – if, that is, you adhere to
the nomenclature and conventions proposed by the upstart di Michaelis. The gargoyle was a
different matter. It took wing, it's true, after gathering moss for a matter of some centuries,
and that suggests a degree of enthusiasm for flight on its part. Nevertheless, animations of
stone are not easily endowed with the lightness of feathers, and a young oneiromancer
happened to be practicing her cardinal divinations beneath it at the time. If only it had learned
to flap its wings on the way down ..." he shook his head morosely then blew his nose on the
stained black sleeve of his gown.
"Was anything discovered around the joist from which the gargoyle leapt?" asked
Anya.
Vargas sniffed. "Pigeon droppings," he said, his voice muffled by a double layer of
damp velvet. "Perhaps the birds were of subversive intent, but I do believe our inquisitors
might have a difficult time inducing them to confess."
"You really ought to adopt the pocket-kerchief," Anya suggested; "you've been
snuffling like that ever since I met you, and I assure you that it is not considered the most