Saberhagen, Fred - Book of the Gods 2 by Ariadne's web

Author:Ariadne's web
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Eighteen

Alex, after spending a few hours in exploration of the small island, mastered his impatience as best he could, and settled down to wait. For his vigil he chose a spot on one of the higher hills, very near the ruined temple, from which he could conveniently keep an eye on the harbor. Everything he had observed about the island so far suggested that ships put in here fairly frequently, to get fresh water, or to take refuge from bad weather. But it would be important to be able to look each visiting vessel over, from a safe distance, before applying to be taken aboard.

Since coming ashore he had been mentally rehearsing a short speech, in which he intended to present himself to the populace as a shipwrecked mariner, and appeal for their help. But within a couple of hours of his arrival, he had been forced to the conclusion that there was no permanent population at all. He was going to have to make his speech to another crew of sailors.

The ruined temple—on second look he thought it had probably been no more than a shrine—occupied a position where, except for the overgrowth of greenery, it would have been fairly conspicuous, on one of the highest points of the island. Its location was further disguised by the fact that most of the walls and roof had fallen in. What was left of the building was almost completely overgrown by wild grapes and laurel, the latter in the form of evergreen shrubs and small trees.

He had never tried the taste of laurel berries before; he sampled one now, making a face at the bitterness and spitting out the single seed. One was enough to convince him, despite his hunger, that they must be poisonous.

The building, temple, shrine, or whatever it was, could never have been large, even when it was intact; that much was shown by the limited size of the foundation, and the relative thinness of the remaining walls.

The higher portion of one of those walls bore inscriptions, carved with an air of permanence, doubtless as old as the building itself. They appeared to be in several different languages, none of which Alex could begin to read. The only section of roof remaining, a kind of miniature dome, was small and covered a chamber that must once have been a kind of anteroom. Now birds had adopted what was left of the dome, as a good site for nest-building. Well, it would offer some shelter from the rain that was sure to come.

Alex spent what seemed an interminable series of hours impatiently watching for a ship, meanwhile trying to stave off hunger by nibbling such fruit and mushrooms as he could find, and were not too bitter to be eaten. Once, when the tide seemed at its low, he went down to the beach, to search for shellfish in the shallows. The effort proved futile, shellfish being absent while other small creatures darted away over the sandbanks before he

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