The Place
Roostspire is a single colossal tree standing alone on the grey plain, and it has no neighbor, no grove, and no apology, and the alone is the watch. The trunk is wider than a hold, a black-brown that is more bark than wood, and the trunk is the city, and the city is the watch. The branches are wide enough to hold a roost, branches that reach out forty meters in every direction, and the forty meters is the yard, and the yard is the day. The canopy is a city of bone-and-feather art, a roof of woven branch and bone, and the bone is the color of old ivory, the color of the trade, which is to say it is a color you can feel in the hand. The roots are deep enough to hold a secret, roots that run three meters down and lie in the soft dark, and the roots are the floor, and the floor is the law. The sky above is a hard blue, the color of the plain when it is not grey, and the light on the bark is thin and mean, the kind of light that does not flatter a face or a seam. It smells of old bone and cold air, a smell that is the tree and is also the warning, and the one sound is the watch, a soft rustle in the canopy that is the tree's only word, and the word is the day. There is no landmark the way a tree has a landmark, but there is one: the First Roost, a hollow in the trunk at the base of the first branch, the oldest roost and the first watch, and the roost is the door, and the door is the eye. What makes Roostspire itself is the see: the eye sees, and the seeing is the trade, and the trade is the secret, and the secret is the price.
How They Live
The Crow Men keep this place in the see, building their roosts in the canopy, chambers of woven branch and bone, lined with feather and hide, their entrances low, and a roost is set one branch at a time, because a branch is the season and a branch is the calendar. Light comes from the dark, the black of the canopy, which glows faintly in the deep, and the black is the color of the day. Food is the dead: the carrion, the bone, the feather, and the information that keeps the trade honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is drawn from the roots, two black threads at the base of the trunk, which the watchers tend the way you tend a secret, because the roots are the store and the store is the law. Heat comes from the fire, small and kept low, because the fire is a location and the tree reads locations, and a fire that is not kept low is a fire that is a map. The defense is the watch itself: a visitor who steps into the tree is already in the eye's path, and the eye is the alarm, and the alarm is the welcome, and the welcome is the sentence. The day is measured by the watch, because the watch is the only clock the carrion has, and the clock does not lie about the count. Every crow-man that is born must watch once in the First Roost before the tree will call it one of its own, and the watching is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the eye ever gives back.
People
Home of the Crow Men, whose roosts are counted by branch. Nine branches are set at last count, and the count is kept in the watch, which is to say the count is as fixed as the eye, which is to say it does not lie. The watchers lead, and rank is decided by the seeing, because a watcher who can see a face the tree has not seen is the watcher the watch trusts. Nothing that cannot keep a secret is welcome, and the secret is not needed, because the tree has a roost, and the roost has an eye, and the eye has a ledger. A surface traveler who once stood at the base of the trunk, the last one to be let into the canopy, called it the only tree where the air makes you be seen before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the eye paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the watcher is the only honest eye, and the eye is the trade, and the trade is the secret, and the secret is the price. The Forgotten have not been to the Roostspire, but Uaellaen has been watched by it once, at a distance, and the watching read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.