Eat it.

Bah! It´s nothing! Shaking my head at my own foolishness, I gulped down the hot soup. As expected, it was delicious, a perfect blend of root, leaves and sinew, each simple ingredient used in the best possible way, with a slight sharp zest that might be wine or maybe vinegar and a strange, peppery aftertaste that I couldn´t quite pinpoint. This little witch may have the tablemanners of a prison inmate, but she had cooking skills worthy of the foodmaster of the High Sultan´s own court!

Washing it down with a gulp of water from a cup she had laid down for me, I began to dig in with the gusto of a man who had had nothing but dock-leaves and saltrag to eat for the last three weeks. I felt the warmth spread through my weary body, filling my empty stomach and loosening my tired muscles.

Shortly after getting started on my third bowl, I noticed something was up. Solmina was sitting there, staring at me with an unreadable expression. I looked up from my bowl, curious as to her silence.

"Mwossup?" I slurred. Slurred? My mouth wasn´t even full. "Izzumthin´da mattuh?" I asked, tongue feeling too big in my mouth.

"Nothing´s up." came the deadpan reply, "It´s just, it should be kicking in about now." Her eyes, still calculatedly expressionless, were so blue. Different shades of blue, from pale eggshell-blue to the deepest indigo, like the last remnant afterglow of the setting desert sun. They seemed too big for her face, too big for the room even. In a hazy panic, I lurched to my feet and I suddenly knew what that peppery aftertaste had been. I was such an idiot! There was no way she would have pepper this far north! Even in the Grand Bazaar of Al-Thracis, pepper was well worth its weight in silver. Up here, it would be paid for in diamonds, or in blood.

"Wellribble..." I burbled, gripping the edge of the table for stability. I recalled the entry from de Mauritte´s Herbaria Nordica: ´Wellripple, a type of lichen, native to the northern deep-forest. Known for its powerful sedative, aphrodisiac and psychoactive properties, used by the heathen clans of the Ancient North in orgiastic rites and referred to as "Evening Fire". Culinary use unadvisable, but taste is described as similar to pepper. Antiflatulent.´

The room was a shifting, undulating tapestry of light and colour, my heartbeat a wild, syncopated drumbeat. Solmina appeared as an intricately-carved Icon, hewn from smooth ivory, draped in the skins of sacrificed animals with two pristine lazurite stones for eyes. My cock was painfully stiff. I wanted to dance. The floor was soft as wax and suddenly, the table gave way, as if whisked out from under my hand. I fell to the side, dragging the whole world down with me.

I plummeted into a swirling, stoic abyss of rhythmically pulsing blue...