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"Sure." The sec man produced a small glass flask, bound in silver and leather, with a screw top. It was beautifully made by the hand of a craftsman, and was part-filled with a scented, fiery liqueur that Ryan didn't recognize. But it flowed down his throat and into his stomach, carrying its heat to every part of his body. "Thanks." He handed back the flask. "You collect predarkies like this?" Guiteau laughed. "No. Baron does. Sometimes he gives a present to someone if he's pleased with them. Gave me this for chilling an assassin, couple of years back. Bunch-backed half-breed, hopped about like a bottled spider." He slipped the flask back inside his jerkin. "Looks like your friend is recovering. I thought that was well done, Cawdor." Doc was spluttering, coughing up what looked like half of the south fork of the Antelope. "Take it easy," Krysty cautioned. "Just lie still awhile, Doc. You came close to the last train to the coast." "I blameblame Master Cawdor for his foolish lack-brained advice for mefor me to change my horse in the middle of the stream." Ryan grinned. "Sorry about that, Doc." file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...-%20Deathlands%2020%20-%20Cold% 20Asylum.html (100 of 213) [12/29/2004 6:16:57 PM] Deathlands - Cold Asylum The rheumy eyes considered him. "By the soggy and disordered state of your clothing, I draw the deduction that, once again, I owe you my life, do I?" "Sort of, Doc." The old man sat up, supported by Krysty on one side, the Armorer on the other. He was badly shaken by his ordeal and touched his bruised face with fingers that were trembling. "The angel of death came damnably close this time, did he not?" Mildred had appeared at the top of the bank, with Michael and most of the hunting group. Sitting her mare a little away from everyone else was the mistress of Sun Crest, her face quite blank, showing not a hint of any emotion. "Oh, perdition!" "What's up, Doc?" For some quite inexplicable reason, Ryan's question made Mildred giggle, sticking out her front teeth as though she were impersonating a rabbit. "My gun!" "The Le Mat?" Doc was right. The dark leather holster that had held the enormously heavy old blaster for so many adventurous months was empty. "Fireblast!" Ryan himself had always felt great affection for the archaic weapon. Doc gestured to them to help him to his feet, seeing Mildred picking her way over the muddy ground. Page 66 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "I am well, madam, and have not the least need of your dubious professional skills." The black woman favored him with a wry smile. "If you can still talk to me in that waspish way, Dr. Tanner, then I guess you haven't been much harmed by your unscheduled dip." She turned to Ryan. "Next time it happens, try to let him go around for one more spin cycle, will you?" J.B. was staring at the fast-flowing river. "If we could rig up a grapnel and cast for it, we might manage to snag the trigger guard of the Le Mat." Ryan patted him on the shoulder. "Seen any pigs flying by, lately? No? Nor me, J.B., so I reckon we can forget about trying to find the blaster." "I feel lost without it at my hip." Doc was gradually reassembling a form of control over himself. "I shall file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...-%20Deathlands%2020%20-%20Cold% 20Asylum.html (101 of 213) [12/29/2004 6:16:57 PM] Deathlands - Cold Asylum no longer have that macho gunfighter's swagger that made me irresistible to the ladies." "That's the way the prune wrinkles." Mildred grinned. "And that's not a bad metaphor for you, Doc." The cold voice of Marie Mandeville cut across their teasing. "My father will not be pleased if we arrive late. We will move now." She looked at Doc. "I suggest you avoid falling off your horse again, outlander." Ryan was about to snap at her when he caught the look on Harry Guiteau's face, a look that said to let it lie and not argue with her. So he kept quiet. AFTER THE WILDERNESS of the forest, they soon found themselves riding paths much more traveled, trails that widened, eventually turning into a well-tended blacktop. Evening had come creeping quickly across the plains on Kansas. By the time they finally came within sight of the outer walls of the ville of Sun Crest, it was full dusk. But Mandeville had built well and skillfully, choosing the top of a hill for his mansion, so that it caught the last crimson rays of the setting sun. "Gaia!" Krysty exclaimed as they all rounded a bend from within the forest and saw the ville for the first time. It was one of the grandest baronial homes that any of them had ever seen, rising in towers and pinnacles and endless Gothic crenellations. The rich green of copper sheathing and silver and gilt danced in the fading glow of the western sun. Doc leaned on the pommel. "'In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,'" he said softly. Dean put it even better. "That's the hottest piping house I ever saw." Chapter Nineteen file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...-%20Deathlands%2020%20-%20Cold% 20Asylum.html (102 of 213) [12/29/2004 6:16:57 PM] Deathlands - Cold Asylum "Reminds me of San Simeon," Mildred said. Michael nodded. "I saw pictures of that place. It wasn't all that far away from Nil-Vanity, close to the coast. The home of I forget." "William Randolph Hearst." Doc, now fully recovered from his ordeal, sat with them all, reined in a few yards from vast double gates of iron-studded wood. "A man who owned dozens of newspapers and thousands of people. He built himself the biggest and richest home in America. So he said. I must agree with you, Mildred. This ville does have certain similarities." He lowered his voice so that none of the surrounding sec men could hear him. "Particularly with regard to its gross and baroque bad taste." Page 67 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Seen close up, Sun Crest was a staggering building. Ryan's knowledge of architecture could have been written large on the head of a pin, but even he could see that it was a bizarre mixture of styles. A moorish minaret towered from a black-and-white, half-timbered Tudor hall. One end of the ville was a heavily ornamented Gothic spue. The opposite flank to that gargoyled monstrosity was a grossly mismatching copy of a Norman keep. Sturdy and plain, decorated only with arrow slits and a lowered drawbridge across a decorative moat filled with blue-tinted water. "If this is the outside, then what on earth can the inside be like?" Michael wondered. The main gates had swung open, revealing an inner courtyard. Harry Guiteau had walked his horse into the group, hearing the teenager's comment. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |