Drake, David - Lord of the Isles 5 by Drake David

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

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‘There’s some wine in the cup here,” said a voice in Cashel’s ear. “You’ll feel better if you can drink it.”

Cashel opened... well, no, his eyes were already open. They suddenly focused, though. He blinked twice, clearing them, and thought about getting up. He tried to raise his head first, then thought better of moving at all for at least a little while.

It was late evening. He could tell that because he faced west as he lay on the mound at the base of the marble tank, and so he saw the sun setting. If he hadn't been looking that direction, he'd have just had to guess about the time of day.

Evne waddled around Cashel’s head to face him. “Of course if you prefer to lie here feeling sorry for yourself...,” she said.

Cashel started to laugh. It was just what he needed to do, though the first wracking gulps of air almost killed him, His bruised chest bounced again and again on the ground, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He finally got his laughter enough under control to sit up. It was a good thing he’d landed on the mound rather than digging a trench with his nose across the stony plain. He felt dizzy for a moment and closed his eyes, then realized that was a bad idea and opened them again. When he didn’t have the horizon to look at, he got vertigo.

"You knew I'd get mad if you said I was feeling sorry for myself," Cashel said. "And then I'd see how you'd fooled me, so I'd laugh and that'd bring me around. You're really smart, Evne."

“Yes, I am,” the toad said. "Now the wine."

Cashel looked down at her affectionately. “I don’t like--“ he said.

“I didn’t ask if you liked it,” the toad said. “I said you’d feel better for drinking it. Though of course--“

Cashel took the cup waiting beside where his right hand had been holding the quarterstaff. Duzi, he’d really bruised the knuckles; though he didn’t suppose that was such a terrible thing, given what might’ve happened when he came down.

The cup was crystal and as clear as the air around it. He drank the pale green liquid in three gulps. There weren’t any bubbles in it, but it prickled like there were.

"Oh!" he said wonderingly. "That's wine, Evne? It doesn't taste like any wine I've had before."

"No," said the toad. "I don't suppose it does."

Cashel looked around him, which saved him asking where the wine--and the cup--came from. There were any number of folk, both in bright clothing and in servants' garb, standing among the ruins below the tank and staring up at Cashel. Near each handful of people was a curvy, boatlike thing with a long stem and sternpiece--sort of milkweed pods grown to giant size.

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"Where did they come from?" he asked amazed. And as rough as the slopes had been even for him, how did this lot of soft-living folk from the

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