The second visit to the North Pilaster began above the roof.
Neri stood on the ridge with a measuring rod while Orret’s riggers raised an ordinary sheer frame behind her. Below them, the pump house’s broken western sheets shone dull red through the reeds.
From this angle Iven could see the side entrance where he had fought.
He could also see how little of the building that entrance served. Habit made a doorway look like the proper way into a place. A machine did not care whether it left through the roof.
Kesh had placed two local watchers on the dry paths around the intake. Nobody blocked the animals’ lower exits. A length of bright cloth marked the nest’s position for the riggers above.
“No smoke unless they come up,” she said.
Iven nodded and clipped his ordinary line to the ridge frame.
He went down the roof’s sound upper slope with Tollis. They moved one sheet at a time, freeing its fastenings from outside and lowering each panel onto battens on the ridge. The iron was old but worth keeping. Neri would have objected to turning a roof into scrap for the convenience of a dramatic entrance.
