Lost Gates Read Online Free PDF Page B

he relished the second course. Rice, which tasted as though it was seasoned by the gasoline that was their staple, was heaped on their plates. There it was joined by overcooked vegetables in a sauce that once more seemed to be made of mud, and some stringy lumps of fiber and gristle that may have been meat. Again, only the nullifying fire of the raw spirit could erase the cloying taste from their mouths.
    While they ate, Valiant spoke to them of the ville,his plans for it and how he hoped to fulfill the dreams and hopes of his ancestors. The only thing that could hurry the process beyond hard work, he had decided, was to bring more jack into the ville. Jack meant power in the world outside their valley. It may not reflect on their own codes of behavior, but if they were to use the world around them to further the aims of their forefathers, then they had to adapt in some ways.
    By this time, despite the best efforts of each of them, the brew they had ingested to ease the passage of the food was beginning to take effect. The light from the candles seemed to grow haloes of luminescence that spread out in ripples. The distant sounds of the gas station bar became distorted and echoed. And the long, rambling plans of Valiant seemed to grow more and more incomprehensible.
    The third and final course was laid in front of them. Sweet meats in individual dishes that had been sugared by the raw cane that grew limp and rotting in the mud, colored by who knew what kinds of dyes into lurid colors that were still matt and dull, like all else in the ville.
    They were doughy, stodgy and indigestible. But, unwilling to offend the baron before they had some idea of exactly why he had asked them to this meal, they forced them down.
    Licking his fingers, Valiant sat back with the hint of a smile playing around his lean, hatchet features. It looked uncharacteristic, and set alarm bells ringing at the back of Ryan’s brain, fogged as it was by the potent brew.
    “Your plans have something to do with why you pulled us out of work and got us here,” Ryan said. Hespoke slowly and carefully, aware of the way in which the brew had crept up and fogged his brain. His voice sounded distant and echoed to him. “Why you were having us watched.”
    “You noticed that, then?” Valiant questioned. “I was hoping my people were a bit more subtle that that. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We don’t really do that sort of thing.”
    “Then why start now?” Ryan countered. “And why not when we first got here?”
    Valiant took a hefty drink of the brew in his cup. “It didn’t occur to me for a day or two. I don’t know why. But then it just sprang into my head. I guess it had been there since I first saw you all, but it had to come to the surface. See, there’s a baron less than a hundred miles from here who has this mission in life. I guess we all have them. Mine’s about fulfilling the destiny that our forefathers foretold for us. His… Well, it doesn’t really make that much sense to me, but it has to do with this trader who knows something about secret places that are left from before skydark. Now, he’s long gone, but he had this right-hand man. Well, two of them. One was a big guy with one eye. The other was smaller. Hat, glasses, liked blasters. Now you tell me, who does that sound like to you?”
    Alarm bells and sirens went off in the one-eyed man’s head. Ryan and J.B. were pretty unmistakable. But who was this Baron? He tried to move but found that his limbs were sluggish. It was as if he was trying to make himself move from a very long way off. The commands from his brain, as urgent as they were, seemed to be taking aeons to filter through to his armsand legs. Even then it was as though the message was diluted so that the desire to spring up came out as a feeble twitch.
    He tried to look around at the others. Even moving his head required an effort that it took supreme will to summon. From the corner of his eye he could see