Snippet #1732536

Lute got to his feet and was soon handed a vial by the young sorceress. He was trusting, and so he drank it without question. Indeed, it did burn as it passed from his tongue to his throat to his belly. And the pain in his arm also flared up. He looked at his arm and his flesh closed before his eyes. The wound did not disappear, but looked more compact and clean.

Then the woman began reciting something he didn't understand. His thoughts were abruptly jerked in one direction. All he could think about was his native island, Syma. Even though he was on a beach, he wanted instead to be on a Syman beach, with its rocky cliffs and pebbled shore. He wanted to see the seals and unique shorebirds that came to Syma. He missed the flat lowlands, where the plants were stunted by the persistent wind. And most of all he felt he would give anything to be back in the squat little hovel where his rosy-faced mother was waiting for him.

He was still pining for home when the centaur addressed him. Lute was absolutely dwarfed by the tall centaur knight, but he talked to him as if he were a regular human. "Lute of Syma, sir," he answered in a slow, mellow voice. "The witch took me from my ship, the Procopia, she did. Didn't know it was her at the time, as she was a flying beast. She just grabbed me from my ship. Don't know why…"

When Rion asked for the return of his sword, Lute lifted it up without a word and offered him the handle. He didn't make excuses for his behavior, and couldn't really say why he took it. But at least he had retrieved it, and not Nephelle.

---

The beach was littered now with seagull carcasses. Nephelle was abhorred that they would shoot down all the seagulls, just to find her. The massacring of innocent animals--even shrill shorebirds--was not something she took lightly.

Her seagull self flitted away to safety. She would plot her revenge… Her eyes noted the heraldry of her attackers. And she would certainly remember the girl. She would have to learn more about her, find out her allegiances.

Nephelle flew into a thicket of brushy sea plantain and transformed into a tiny vole. She hid in the brush and waited until the party might come this way. She was on the path that lead up the cliff and into the foothills.