The Dragon Never Sleeps Read Online Free PDF

had been many years since he had been to the High City.
    "I'm Carla. Lona was my mother."
    It
had
been a long time. And he had forgotten that the Canon lords—those who stayed ahead of their enemies—rejuvenated themselves alone, not those who served them.
    This woman might not have been born when last he had visited Merod Schene High City.
     
    Lord Askenasry was a frail old stick figure, wrinkled, so black his skin had indigo highlights. A phalanx of machines kept him breathing. He had been past his prime when last Turtle had visited, but then had been healthy and virile and in command of himself and his environment.
    One other man shared the sickroom. He stood out of the way, motionless, features concealed inside a cowled black robe, arms folded, hands hidden inside his sleeves. One of the physicians of House Troqwai, the unknowns, as much priests as healers, as much a harbinger of the inevitable as a hope. Turtle was uncomfortable under the creature's impassive gaze.
    He thought of it as man, but it could as well have been woman or nonhuman. There was no evidence obvious to the eye.
    The stench of decay permeated the room. Time, the great assassin, rested heavily there, its presence patient and implacable. The myriad sorceries of House Troqwai could hold the killer at bay for a time that seemed unimaginable to the harried children of DownTown, but still the murmurer gnawed and clawed and insinuated its dark tentacles through cracks in the walls. There was no escape for even the rich and the powerful.
    Turtle recalled Askenasry as a merry youth, rambling the sinks of DownTown with rowdy contemporaries, accumulating the debt he would have an opportunity to discharge now. All those friends had fallen already. Now he was alone of his kind, like Turtle.
    His eyes were open in slits. They tracked Turtle without emotion or apparent interest.
    "I have come."
    Askenasry's response came from a machine, a laryngal whisper amplified. "You have taken your time." His words came in little rattle-tat bursts interspersed with soft coughing.
    "I have come before."
    "At my insistence. Refusing payment for a service."
    The argument was ancient. Turtle refused the bait. Let the man fade into the darkness not understanding that he would have helped anyone that faraway night. The ancient did not need the strain of a clash of philosophical sabers. "I have come now."
    "To collect? At last?"
    "Yes."
    "What is it? Passage? Credit? Documentation?"
    "No. I want you to save some hotheaded young fools from the consequences of their foolishness. As I once saved other youngsters from their foolishness."
    Askenasry stared the grey steel stare that had made him so intimidating in his prime.
    "A krekelen came to Merod Schene. It carried the old whisper of rebellion. There were ears to hear it. And now there are hands to dabble at revolution."
    "The krekelen were exterminated when I was a pup."
    "A krekelen came. I saw it."
    Askenasry did not argue. "Where is this fabulous monster now?"
    "Aboard the Cholot Traveler
Glorious Spent
bound for P. Jaksonica 3. Cholot Varagona."
    Disbelief faded to doubt in old grey eyes. "What do you want?"
    "This time they call themselves the Concord. They have the usual plan for taking down the High City and making a punitive landing impossible by seizing the garrison arsenal. They are immune to reason. They do not believe in Guardships. I want you to whisper in the right ears. I want them forestalled till the Guardship comes."
    "What Guardship?"
    "The Guardship that will come after the krekelen tries landing on P. Jaksonica. Cholot Varagona lies under the Ban."
    "This is all you require?"
    "It is enough. Lives for lives."
    "I have no power these days."
    "People still listen when you speak, Lord."
    "You would be surprised at their deafness."
    "I doubt it. Your species' indifference to reason ceased to amaze me long before you were born. Let the garrison make a show of force. Let them round up known instigators. Let the boot