Keepers of the Lost Garden (The Lost Garden Trilogy Book 2) by K.T. Tomb Read Free Book Online Page A

resource that needed protecting above all others. They did so in obscurity and at great sacrifice to themselves, in ways that mortals would never understand. No one thanked them.
    Except her.
    The Mother Daughter.
     
    * * *
     
    She continued down the corridor, moving past the massive cafeteria. Already she could smell bacon and coffee, as her stomach grumbled. The immortals were ravenous eaters, with the appetites of Sumo wrestlers. Much of their food was bought in bulk and brought out here by one of the Daughters, a month or so at a time. Each Daughter was assigned cooking duties, including herself. As the Mother Daughter, she allowed herself some perks, but avoiding cooking duties was not one of them.
    She moved past the cafeteria and its inviting scents.
    There would be time to eat later.
    She hoped.
    Don’t be so pessimistic. It was, after all, only a dream.
    But it had been so vivid. So real. She had seen the faces of the dead and each face she recognized as one of her precious Daughters. She had lost many Daughters over the years and although she recognized them more as companions and fellow guardians, they were still her Daughters.
    After all, she had given birth to each one.
    Her body was eternally fertile. When she lost a daughter, usually through combat, although sometimes through accidents (and twice, her Daughters never came home from their visits into the world of the mortals—she assumed these Daughters had been murdered), she replaced them. She found a proper suitor, usually locally. Often they were big men, hearty men. Men with good genes. And a new generation of Daughters were raised.
    Now, with the loss of Rama, she would need to seek another man. The idea of making love again appealed to her. It had been a while. In fact, there had not been a new daughter born into the family for well over two hundred years.
    That had been a hell of a dry spell for her.
    But first things first.
    She descended another flight of stairs on a broad stone staircase that led down to the second level of the fortress. The Command Level.
    Once on the Command Level, she followed a trail of thick cables that led from two humming generators that were stored at the back of the hall. The cables, placed off to the side, snaked along the passageway and into the Control Room.
    She stepped inside, and the Daughter on duty, Shala, looked up at her in alarm. “Mother, we have a disturbance!”
     
    * * *
     
    Myora stepped into the massive room, hewed from a natural cavern within the porous mountain. Large video screens covered most of the wall space. Most screens depicted visuals from around the mountain, although one or two were real-time topographical satellite images of the immediate region. The room itself was filled with desks and personal computers and laptops, all of which not only ran the Fortress, but also kept surveillance of the Mountain of God.
    Shala sat behind a laptop with a downloaded image of the area.
    Myora’s heart hammered restlessly. She stepped behind the guard on duty and peered over her shoulder. The satellite image was small and blurry. Myora could not directly see what exactly had caused the alarm. “What is it, Daughter?”
    “It appears to be a large cavalcade of trucks.”
    She saw it now, a small cluster of what must be trucks. “Where?”
    “Two hundred miles due east.”
    “Destination?”
    “According to the probability scale, their destination is here.”
    “How many trucks?”
    “Twenty-seven.”
    “ETA?”
    “They are making good progress, cutting across the desert floor. ETA is ten hours.”
    Myora stepped away from the small image on the computer screen. “Bring them up on the third unit.”
    Shala tapped away rapidly and a new image appeared on the massive wall monitor. Now much bigger, Myora could distinctly see twenty-seven vehicles. All appeared to be military trucks scattered across an area of perhaps a half mile.
    “Who are they?”
    “I checked with our contact in the Iranian