Drake, David - Lord of the Isles 1 by Drake David

Author:Drake, David
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER 24

The wave broke on the shore of the island and ran well up the gentle slope, splashing and spuming as it crossed each deeply weathered channel. “Is the Outer Sea always this calm?” Sharina asked.

The dugout slid a few feet inshore on the lift of the swell. Nonnus gave the hawser another wrap around the pair of long spikes he'd hammered into the rock: the four humans didn't have the strength to drag the heavy dugout above the tide line, so the hermit had taken other measures to prevent it from floating away during the night.

Panting slightly with exertion he said, “Until today, child, I'd have said it's never this calm. This journey has been many kinds of

education for me.”

Asera and Meder were carrying personal effects up the hill to where they'd camp, out of reach of the spray. The island was about a half mile in diameter, solid rock, and only fifty feet above sea level at the top of the central ridge. There hadn't been time yet to explore, but Sharina didn't expect they'd find fresh water. Barnacles and a dozen species of seaweed clung to the rocks as high as she could see; waves had to wash over the island regularly to permit such marine life to flourish.

There were no trees, bushes, or land animals—even insects. Crabs scuttled in the flat-bottomed ravines, raising their claws defiantly if a human came close.

Sharina didn't care for crabs: they always seemed angry, reminding her of her mother. They'd make a change of diet from fish and grain, she supposed.

“Do you have any idea where we are, Nonnus?” she asked, lowering her voice even though the nobles were too distant to hear anything less than a shout.

He sighed and shook his head. “I've never seen anything like it,” he said. “All reck but not volcanic; and in a part of the sea I'd have said you could go a thousand fathoms straight down and not touch bottom.”

“Are we in the part of the world we came from?” Sharina asked. She remembered Tegma and the sky of another time that covered what the trireme's crew had found when they crossed those reefs.

“Oh, yes,” Nonnus said. He laughed. “The currents are . right, the water tastes right; the sun rose where it ought to, and the gulls were the same gulls that've stolen scraps from me a thousand times when I sailed these seas. The only thing that's wrong is there's an island where there never was before.”

The rock had the smooth, slippery feel of a pebble washed for generations in a quick-flowing stream. The broad ravines were its only physical feature. They formed a mosaic covering the entire domed surface, at least on this side of the island. Sharina hadn't seen any gravel; for all she could tell, the whole island was a single reddish-brown mass.

“It's ancient,” she said quietly. The feeling of age was almost overwhelming. Tegma had been alien; this island was simply old.

“Yes,” Nonnus said. “But it didn't grow old here.

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