The Lost King Read Online Free PDF Page A

guys
ever did need me, things would be pretty bad. Desperate, in fact. I
got a feeling that describes the situation?"
    Platus stopped and
glanced around. "It does."
    Tusk sauntered up to
him. "One question."
    "I do not promise
to answer."
    "Who's after the
kid? I mean, it's obvious. You're getting him off Syrac Seven 'cause
he's hot. And it might help if I knew who it is we're running from."
    "Yes, it would."
Platus smiled his sad smile. "I planned to tell you tonight. A
Warlord wants the boy."
    "A Warlord! You
guys don't make small enemies. I figured as much, though. It's all
tied in with my father somehow, isn't it?"
    Platus did not reply.
    Tusk tried again. "All
the Warlords, or one in particular?"
    "There is one who
is most dangerous. You know who he is, I do not think I need speak
his name. But avoid them all."
    "Okay. Now. Why do
the Warlords want the kid? What could a seventeen-year-old—"
    Platus's face went
ashen. "Ask no more! For your own protection! Just . . . take
the boy where you will and leave him! I wish I could believe Someone
will be watching over him, but my faith died long ago. Now I must go
and prepare him for his journey. Good-bye, Mendaharin Tusca."
    Platus fled, almost
running.
    "Hey, you!"
Tusk yelled angrily after the man. "Quit calling me by that
name!"
    Standing in the shadows
of the warehouse long after Platus had gone, Tusk stared after him,
pondering everything he'd said—and what he hadn't. All the
Warlords chasing one pimply-faced kid. Which meant, of course, that
Congress wanted the teenager. Which meant—what? Nothing that
made sense to Tusk. Scowling, the mercenary's hand went to the silver
ornament in his earlobe, the ornament that matched the shape of the
jewel Platus wore around his neck.
    Swearing bitterly, Tusk
kicked an empty wooden crate with such force that it split apart.
    "You're still
here, ain't you, Danha Tusca?" he shouted into the empty,
echoing darkness. "Dead and buried, you're still reaching out,
still trying to run my goddam life!"

Chapter Three
    Tears were for Hekabe,
friend, and for Ilion's women, Spun into the dark Web on the day of
their birth, But for you our hopes were great . . .
    Plato

    Twilight came to the
docks earlier than to the rest of the town. The huge freighters
swallowed up the sun, casting their shadows over the dockyards. The
afterglow of sunset lit the sky, the docks became intense patches of
extremely bright light alternated by pools of sharp-edged darkness.
Every few hundred meters, a security lamp shed its harsh white
radiance over the ugly gunmetal-gray paint of the ships' hulls; some
of the more recent arrivals were still splotched black with the
so-called space barnacles that would take work crews days to remove.
Outside the circle of light, the shadows were thicker by contrast.
    The dock crews had gone
home for the day, the sailors— those who had shore leave—were
in the bars, and the docks were relatively quiet. The footsteps of
the watchman making his rounds rapped against the cement, his voice
occasionally called out a greeting or a question to one of the guards
on board the freighters. The wind that shrieked incessantly on Syrac
Seven during the day was nothing but a teasing breeze by night. Faint
sounds of raucous laughter drifted from the bars along the wharf.
Those unfortunates burdened with guard duty glanced longingly in that
direction and muttered beneath their breaths.
    "I hope that
Platus fellow didn't get himself lost!" Tusk looked impatiently,
for the sixth time, at the glowing digits of his watch. Dressed in a
dark fatigue suit, the mercenary was little more than a shadow
himself in the early night. He had taken up a position just inside
the warehouse door, being careful to keep out of a circle of light
cast by a lamp above the entrance. Every now and then he poked his
head around the huge corrugated iron wall, keeping vigil, being
certain of seeing before he was seen.
    The watchman rarely
came