Lost Gates Read Online Free PDF

the fields,” J.B. added. “No, it’s got to be something from the inside.”
    “Well, we haven’t had time to do anything except work like dogs then sleep,” Krysty said. “Nothing to draw any attention to ourselves.”
    “Then I’d say we be on the ball and alert with Valiant, and don’t give anything away.” Millie sighed. “It isn’t much, but it’s all we got for now.”
     
    R YAN WATCHED carefully. His muscles cramped and he wanted to grimace, to grunt through the pain. But he couldn’t give any sign of being conscious. He was pretty sure now that Doc—whose head was still banging rhythmically on the floor of the wag with every lurch and bump—was the only one of them who was still suffering the effects of the drug.
    Krysty had regained consciousness. She hadn’t moved, but her hair betrayed her. While her head still lolled, her hair falling over her face to disguise any movement of the eyes, he could see that her prehensile hair was no longer hanging limply. Now it had become suffused with a life of its own. It moved subtly, waving in tendrils that seemed to curl around her neck and then reach out, as though seeking something. The movement seemed to be in sync with the rhythm of thevehicle, so that it would be unseen to the guards that sat, bored and unmoving, between them. Only someone who knew Krysty would appreciate what it meant.
    So, only Doc was still out.
    At least the majority of them would be ready for what lay ahead.
     
    “C OME, SIT WITH ME and eat, drink. We must talk, but only after you have sated yourselves. The day’s work is hard, and you aren’t yet used to our ways.”
    Valiant gestured them to be seated. He lived in what had once been the diner near the old freeway. The tables still remained, as did the bar and grill. In one corner, where there had once been space for jukeboxes and slot machines, a drape-hidden area now housed his sleeping quarters. Some of the nearby tables used for business were covered with papers and boxes of goods and jack. Only two sec men were in the diner with them.
    The other tables were bare. The booths along the windows facing the gas station had their padded seats covered with all manner of colored drapes and throws. This area was undoubtedly where the baron would relax. But even then, it was austere by the standards of most barons, even if luxuriant by the harsh standard of the ville as a whole.
    The table he directed them to was in the center of the diner. The fluorescent lighting running overhead had long since ceased to work, and illumination was provided by tallow candles in beaten metal holders. The light from these formed a shallow pool that threw the rest of the diner into darkness as the evening began to close in. In the distance, they could hear the people congregate at the old gas station, a distant buzz of background noise.
    Food was prepared for them at the grill behind the old counter. Some sort of brew was placed in front of them in jugs. After tasting their food and brew, Doc in particular had formed the theory that the food was nothing more than nutrition to the ville people, their taste buds having been scoured since birth by the harsh alcohol on which they were raised.
    The food that was carried out from behind the counter and placed in front of them by two women and the man who prepared it did little to dispel that theory. But the companions ate, washing it down with the raw spirit, each waiting for the baron to reveal his purpose.
    Two courses had been served from a communal pot, the indeterminate meal served onto their plates with ladles. The first course had contained some kind of pickled meat in a sauce that looked a little like the mud from which they dug the vegetables. It tasted a little like that would probably taste. Doc steeled himself, having no expectations. Jak could eat anything, and so passed no comment. But for the others, it was an effort to force down the food, which Valiant seemed to enjoy so much.
    As, indeed,