About Servant of the Seasons: Summer
by Lee Benoit
58 pages
/ 24000 words
978-1-60370-496-0, 1-60370-496-5
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
When Lys goes missing, Meco must leave his land and his other lovers behind to search for him. His travels lead him first to an old enemy who has betrayed Meco and the Novigi, and then to a toan where he discovers that the Salters and the Domers have joined forces.
Captured by the very people he suspects of having taken Lys, Meco is questioned and tortured in the Salter's effort to discover the Novigi secrets. Will Meco be able to not only rescue Lys, but protect his land and the people he loves? Or is he doomed at the hands of the Salters?
Sample
I laid the final volo pole on the platform I was building in the crotch of the tallest tree on our side of the river, pulled hard on the last avala-sinew fastening, and started to roll out the wool covering I’d made to soften the new perch.
Creaks on the ladder announced Cynar a moment before his raggedy pale hair came into view.
“I may not miss Lys’ embarrassingly vocal lovemaking,” he said, surveying my handiwork with a rakish grin. “But I definitely miss his skill with a loom.”
I extended my hand to help him over the edge of the platform, swatting his head as he rolled past me to lie flat on his back. He grinned up at me loopily, forcing me to look harder into his eyes. Cynar didn’t change with the seasons as dramatically as Lys and Tywyll did -- with them, the changes were almost daily, once I knew what to look for -- but he was different. His skin tawnier (but then, so was mine), his hair bleached by the sun: these could be attributed to the season and not -- necessarily -- to his Novigi ancestry. His eyes had been a goldish green, like fish scales, when we first met. Now, they were the same gray as wet river stones, black in the gloom of the turvy, silvery in the filtered light of our tree house. Looking into them now, I realized something else.
“You’re intoxicated!”
“I’m never,” he groused, and rolled over the platform toward me, coming to rest his head on my outstretched thigh.
I petted his hair, picking out burrs and bits of bean leaf, worrying at the knots I found. He responded by stretching languorously and blinking up at me, distracting me for the moment it took for his hand to dart into the vee of my legs and deal my balls a sharp squeeze.
“What was that for?” I yelped, rolling over to pin him to the lumpy rug with my greater weight.
“For smacking me when I arrived,” he replied equably. “You should be nicer, Mèco.”
I snorted. “Your judgment’s impaired, kibi.” Though we had declared for each other as muliañ -- lovers -- before Lys left to act as steward for the navdi, I retained my original nickname for him as he retained the wild puppy nature of our earliest meetings.
I peered into his face again, his glazed eyes and sloppy smile confirming my suspicions. “Where did you find...” I trailed off, having only experienced the synthetic distillates in the domes and the occasional murky ale in taons along my miserable journey to this place.
“Something to drink besides tea?” He cocked a pale golden eyebrow at me.
“Something you traded for?” I guessed. After our fateful battle with the Salters in the spring, Cynar’s diversionary trading with refugees along the river had changed course, become more furtive, more cautiously opportunistic. He was more determined than ever to assess threats before they reached us, and had become adept at evading chary encounters where possible. Still, such an encounter was the only source I could imagine for whatever had Cynar undulating beneath me as sluggishly and mesmerizingly as the river below our perch.
“I watch the birds and beasts, you know,” he informed me loftily. “Have you ever seen the cudoes after they eat fallen bramble berries?” He made floppy hopping motions with his hips and shoulders, bringing a laugh to my throat and a rush of blood to my groin.
“You ate fallen berries?” I asked. Fermentation was not something I knew how to control, the way Lys did with bread.
Cynar shook his head. “Nah, I put fresh berries in a sealed jar and waited,” he announced in a confidential whisper. “It was an experiment!”
I shook my head in mock disapproval and leaned down to kiss him. When he responded, I could smell the concoction on his breath, taste its sharpness.
I leaned back to rest against the tree’s trunk, played with Cynar’s hair, and listened to the summer afternoon.