Lord of the Isles #01 - Lord of the Isles by David Drake

Author:David Drake [Drake, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Epic, Fiction, General, Imaginary Places, Magic
ISBN: 9780812522402
Google: GN3MPKqei_kC
Amazon: 0812522400
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 1997-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

“That way, then,” he said aloud. He offered Tenoctris his left hand to help her rise. The sides of knoll were steep, but cracks and gullies formed paths in the friable soil.

A thought struck Garric. He looked around again and said, “Mistress? The doorway we came by doesn't show from this side. How do we get back?”

“Time enough to worry about that after we've killed Strasedon, Garric,” Tenoctris said. “Otherwise it really won't matter.”

CHAPTER

The mob in front of the Serian factory had grown larger with each passing minute after nightfall, the way some of the showiest flowers open in the darkness. A few of the locals had thrown stones, but for the most part they watched with the grinning malice of a cat with its paws spread, waiting for a vole to move.

“Your broker would have done better to come by daylight,” Cashel said uneasily. The killers were prowling around his flock and there was nothing he could do about it.

Frasa extended both little fingers in the equivalent of a shrug. “It was Themo's decision,” he said. “He's lived here for twenty years, so we can only hope that he has better judgment about this sort of situation than we do.”

“He was in Carcosa during the Troubles seventeen years ago,” Jen agreed. “We can only hope.”

Mellie was prowling about the roof, peeking into drains and sometimes reappearing over the coping several feet from where Cashel had last seen her. The sprite was visible in light or shadow as though she were illuminated by a sky different from the one she walked under. Cashel knew he'd never get used to the blithe nonchalance with which Mellie took risks; but like most things, his concern would never reach his tongue.

“The man you're dealing with isn't a Carcosan?” Cashel said aloud. It gave him an odd feeling to be standing on a flat roof looking down on the world. Roofs in Barca's Hamlet were peaked and mostly thatch. Even the ancient slates of the millhouse sloped steeply and fed an equally old cistern with rainwater that Ilna saved for washing delicate fabrics.

“We've used two brokers here in the past,” Frasa explained. “The other one, Sidras or-Morr, is a local man.”

“He seemed honest and satisfactory in the past,” Jen said. “Under the present circumstances, though, we thought that Themo or-Casmon was the better choice. His family is on Ornifal, so he'll he less swayed by local passions.”

“Folks from Ornifal don't hate devil worshippers?” Cashel said with a frown.

Jen stiffened again, then broke into the broadest smile Cashel had thus far seen on his face. Frasa merely said, “Master Cashel, under the present circumstances I wouldn't trust a Serian out of my own family to deal honestly with me; but we decided to choose a broker whose allegiance isn't to Count Lascarg.”

It didn't seem to Cashel that anybody's real allegiance was to Count Lascarg, or that Lascarg felt responsibility for anything except his own skin. Tenoctris had said that outside forces were breaking down society,

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