Green, Simon R by Drinking Midnight Wine

Author:Drinking Midnight Wine
Language: eng
Format: epub

SIX

THE COMFORTS OF STRANGERS

In the dead woods, in the dead house, in the dead room, Nicholas Hob and Angel were drinking winter wine. Old wine, cold wine; wine so cold it frosted the outside of their glasses, and snowflakes swirled endlessly in the ice-clear liquid. Not a drink for mortals, poor delicate mayfly creatures born to die too soon. Winter wine had the delicacy of snow crystals and the strength of glaciers, and a taste like all the cold drinks on all the hot days that ever were. Hob and Angel drank their wine in slow appreciative sips, and their breath steamed thickly on the hot air in the rotten room.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Blackacre farmhouse was in an appalling state, held together by spite and inertia, and the parlour was particularly foul, with its seeping walls and filthy floor; but Hob found the presence of so much corruption consoling, and Angel was above or beyond noticing such things. The room attracted flies, which buzzed aimlessly back and forth on the still air, confused by so much decay without a source. Every now and again they'd stray too close to Hob and spontaneously ignite, burning fiercely for a moment before dropping silently to the floor like so much soot. None of the flies went anywhere near Angel. The light from the hanging oil lamps had a sickly yellow glow, and the sweaty heat in the room came from the continuous process of corruption.

Hob and Angel sat at ease in their comfortable chairs, on either side of a hideously valuable coffee table Hob had picked up for a song some centuries earlier, and tried to find things to talk about. Fate, and the implacable will of The Serpent In The Sun, had made them partners and companions, but for all their more than human characters, they had little in common. And, for all his improbable age and ancestry, Hob was still basically human, while Angel's grasp on her new human state was precarious at best.

'This is good wine,' said Angel. 'I like this. The pleasure of its taste is fleeting, but still it has in it hints of immortality.'

The world turns, but winter always returns,' Hob said smoothly. 'Winter wine would be one of the wonders of the world, if the world only knew it existed. It's rarer than gold or frankincense or myrrh, but you can find pretty much anything in Mysterie, if you know where to look. This fine vintage came to us courtesy of Ultima Thule Distilleries, the old firm; purveyors of the coolest booze in this world or any other. The price for such a treasure of the grapes is normally a lien on your soul, or someone else's, but Ultima were kind enough to send me a whole crate of the stuff, in the hope of... future considerations.

They can feel changes beginning in the patterns of fate, in the warp and weft of destiny, and like others, they are hurrying to hedge their bets by establishing credit with as many sides as possible.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.