Chapter Eight

 

 

The air was fresh and clean with a hint of rain. The sky was overcast and dull, showing ten-tenths cloud cover, darkening toward the west. The door opened up on a dreary vista of what seemed like dozens of small lakes dotted with forested islands. There was no sign at all of human life.

 

J.B. had taken out his miniature sextant, using it to locate their position, checking with one of a number of tiny maps that he carried with him.

 

"Tennessee's right," he said. "Near as I can tell from this, we're close to the north of the state, but it looks like there's been some serious quake or fire damage up this way."

 

"Don't remember being around here with Trader," Ryan commented. "We went to Memphis a few times and we were going to that place with the country music."

 

"Nashville," Mildred said. "I was going to go there the time I wanted to visit Graceland, Elvis's home. I was real taken with country sounds. Willie and Waylon and Lyle and Dwight and Dolly and all. Wanted to go and see the Grand Ole Opry where they broadcast in the old days."

 

"Look at door," said Jak, who had lost interest in the conversation about predark times. Krysty had once pointed out this aspect of his character. It seemed as if the teenager wanted only to live in the present and the future. The past was an alien land to him.

 

They all turned away from the watery landscape and stared at the entrance to the redoubt, which was gaping like a gigantic maw.

 

"Looks like fire, sleet and candlelight," Doc said, runic as ever.

 

The metal frame was scarred and pitted, though it was made, like the door, of high-tempered vanadium steel. The concrete around the entrance was also scorched with the marks of some old fire that had broken chunks of it away, opening the stones to the elements.

 

"Skydark damage," Ryan commented, examining it more closely. "Must've been close to some serious nuking."

 

J.B. ran his fingers over the pocked concrete, shaking his head. "Amazing that the whole place didn't go. Look at the state of it." He stood back to try to take in the whole frontage of the redoubt. "Dark night, but it's well concealed. If you didn't know it was here, I reckon you could walk within a hundred yards and not spot what it was."

 

It was true.

 

The hillside above the hidden fortress was covered with trees, most of them looking about fifty or sixty years old. There was also the evidence of an earlier fire that had obviously raged with catastrophic force through the region, leaving a number of blackened, brittle corpses of pines to stand among the fresh, greener conifers.

 

"The whole land's changed a lot," J.B. said, peering at his map. "I think this was once close to what was called the Land between the Lakes and it was real near to the Tennessee River. But it wasn't like this then, with all these dozens of lakes and islands and stuff."

 

"Quakes?" Krysty suggested. "Not much of Deathlands is still like it was before sky dark."

 

"Possible." Ryan felt an insect on his cheek and slapped at it before it could sting him. "Whatever it was changed the land. There's not much sign of anyone living here. No smoke. No buildings. Just a lot of nothing."

 

"Where do we go to get some food?" Mildred asked. "Don't see much wildlife, either."

 

"We'll find something," Ryan replied, sounding preoccupied. "Interesting that the redoubt hasn't been broken into. Specially as the entrance has been damaged."

 

"Still take a serious nuke to break it down." The Armorer sniffed. "Like I said. Probably can't see it unless you're on top of it. The trail that used to run from it vanished under water just down yonder."

 

They all looked to where he was pointing with the muzzle of the Uzi.

 

Ryan could follow the rough line of a two-lane blacktop road that sloped down from where they were standing, winding between a jagged bluff and a sheer drop, then disappearing under the limpid water of the nearest lake.

 

"Looks to me like this is an island."

 

Doc clenched his fist and placed it over his heart, as he did when he was about to declaim.

 

"No man is an island, dear friends. For we are all a part of a world of promontories, buttes, mesas, islets, archipelagos and and other geographical features far too numerous to mention here. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, my tried and trusted companions."

 

"Why not, Doc?"

 

"Why not what? What, what?"

 

Mildred tried again. "Why not ask you for whom the bell tolls? Doesn't it toll for thee?"

 

"For me?" asked Doc, looking increasingly harassed and puzzled.

 

"For thee," Mildred intoned solemnly.

 

Ryan kicked at some loose granite chippings, stained with yellow-green lichen. "When you two have finished your one-up brain games," he said, showing his irritation, "then we can all get moving and try and find something to eat."

 

 

 

THEY WALKED DOWN THE TRAIL in the dull midmorning light, winding between the trees. Ryan looked back once they'd gone a hundred paces and wasn't surprised to find that all trace of the huge, hidden redoubt had gone.

 

He had quietly checked the small rad counter that he wore in his lapel, finding that it was barely shaded out of the green toward the yellow, meaning that they were about as safe as they could be anywhere in Deathlands.

 

The labor that had gone into building the redoubt, and many others like it, was staggering, and the cost incalculable. All of them had been constructed in a hurry at the very end of the twentieth century, when the new cold war was raging with a particular threatening bitterness.

 

This one, built in a back-country area of rural Tennessee, was almost invisible. Much of it was below the surface of the land and, Ryan guessed, also below the levels of the surrounding lake, now blending perfectly into the much-changed landscape so that nobody had entered it for close to a hundred years.

 

"If it's an island, then how get off?" Jak asked, materializing at Ryan's elbow like a silver-haired ghost.

 

The one-eyed man had been wondering the same thing himself. Now he patted the teenager on the shoulder. "Like Trader used to say. There's always a way. Over, under, around or through. In this case it looks like it'll have to be over. Plenty of wood to make some kind of raft."

 

"You miss Trader?" the albino asked. "Lost track of how long since last saw him."

 

"Long enough and too long," Ryan replied, carefully stepping over a lightning-blasted branch that had fallen across the faint trail.

 

"Think he's still alive?"

 

Ryan thought back to the last glimpse of his old mentor and friend. Loyal little Abe was at his side, facing the forces of darkness, led by that swift and evil bastard, Straub. He could still see the man, with his shaved head and his silver-and-black hypnotic eyes.

 

"Heart says he's living. Brain tells me that he has to be chilled."

 

Jak shuddered and hunched his narrow shoulders. "Goose walked on grave," he said. "Thinking about Straub."

 

"Better not."

 

"He the worst?"

 

Ryan smiled at Jak's urgent, eager question. "The worst? You're asking someone who's lived all his time in Deathlands, much of it scraping scum off the wheel of life. Like asking someone what was the happiest moment of his life. Best meal he ever ate. Cleanest chilling."

 

"Straub worst of them?" Jak pressed. "Or was it Russkie? Was bad."

 

"Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin." Ryan sniffed. "Guess he would run Straub close as a powerful and dangerous man. But he wasn't somehow as wicked. Brutal and cruel. Not top-drawer evil like Straub."

 

Krysty had been walking close behind, listening to the conversation. "Cort Strasser?"

 

"Gets my unanimous vote for sicko bastard numero uno," J.B. said.

 

"At least most of these gibbering demons from the past are long dead," Doc stated. "And the earth a much cleaner place for their passing."

 

"And there's the legends you've talked about." Mildred swatted away a cloud of tiny iridescent flies from her face. "The Magus. The Warlock. The Sorcerer."

 

"Three names for a single man," Ryan said. "Steel eyes and half a face. First man to try and buy and sell stickies. Most decent folks would run a hundred miles before crossing up those muties. He used to sell them to Gert Wolfram. The ringmaster of the greatest traveling freak show in all of Deathlands history. Now, there's a truly evil couple."

 

Krysty heard the grating note in Ryan's voice, almost tasting the flatness of fear that overlaid his words. "But they're dead, aren't they, lover?"

 

"Nobody knows. Some folk say that the Magus was never really alive."

 

Now it was Krysty's turn to huddle up as though she were cold. "Ooooh, let's find something else to talk about. Just thinking of men like Straub and Strasser makes me feel sick to my stomach. Perversions of humanity."

 

"Moral muties," Mildred said.

 

They'd reached an open clearing that ran down toward a gently sloping beach, with open water beyond.

 

"Still hungry," Jak stated.

 

"You and your stomach!" Krysty chided.

 

"You one said change subject," the teenager protested. "Just done that."

 

 

 

FORTUNATELY RYAN'S SUPPOSITION that the redoubt was now set in the heart of an island proved to be false. It was lucky because they found little or no fallen timber suitable for making a raft to get them off.

 

As they walked along the beach, Ryan in the lead and J.B. bringing up the rear, they found that their land mass was linked to another, larger body of land. A narrow causeway, less than six feet wide in parts, ran across, roughly southerly, with small waves lapping at it.

 

"Still no sign of wildlife," Jak said. "Mebbe fish? Could try?"

 

Ryan was walking cautiously along the path, constantly watching the water, aware of how vulnerable they were if any large mutie monster should attack them.

 

But the lake remained calm and placid, and they all made the crossing safely.

 

Only then did he answer Jak's question. "Fish? Didn't see sign of any."

 

"Could be good trout country," Doc said.

 

Ryan stooped and cupped his hand, bringing water to his mouth, tasting it and spitting it out hurriedly. "No fish in that. Nothing living in that."

 

Everyone followed his example, wanting to try it for himself or herself. All of them reacted the same way to the brackish bitterness.

 

"Polluted filth!" Doc gasped.

 

Mildred cautiously touched her tongue to the liquid, puckering her mouth. "Iron. Sulfur. Where there's pollution, there always seems to be sulfur. And some other metals. Lithium? Zinc. Just a hideous cocktail of poisons."

 

"Least we had plenty to drink in the redoubt," Ryan said, wiping his wet hands on his pants. "But the sooner we get right away from this ruined place the better."

 

"Trees look healthy." Krysty stared around. "But I can't feel any sort of life."

 

"No game. No fish. Not a bird in the sky." J.B. took off his fedora and fanned it in front of his face to shoo away more of the bothersome insects. "Just these bastard flies. And I don't fancy eating them." He flicked at his neck. "Though they don't seem to have any objection to eating me."

 

Ryan looked around, spotting what could have been the twisted wreckage of an old fire watchtower, jutting out several hundred feet above them.

 

"If I go up there, I should get a view all around. Mebbe find the best way out of this blighted maze of water and islands. Take me about a half hour there and back."

 

"Could we all come?" Krysty asked.

 

"No. We got no way of knowing how far we're going to have to walk to get something to eat. And drink. Best everyone conserve energy."

 

"I confess that I am already feeling just a trifle fatigued," Doc said. "I shall lay down beneath yonder ridgepole pine and await your return. All that I lack is a jug of wine and a slim volume of verse."

 

 

 

THE TRACK WAS DUSTY and narrow. Since there appeared to be nothing living in the region, Ryan wondered what kind of creature had made the trail.

 

As he climbed quickly upward, the sun broke through the sullen cloud cover, casting his shadow ahead of him, making him glad of the cover of the surrounding trees.

 

Ryan couldn't get a snatch of an old song out of his mind. He could remember only the first couplet, which was about the letter T standing for both Texas and Tennessee. It dogged him, so that he found himself walking in time to it.

 

The path wound clear around the peak, offering him views in every direction, though the pines still prevented his seeing too far. Hopefully, by the time he reached the top, it might be possible to work out a route that would take them away from this timbered wilderness toward some sort of civilization.

 

A large dragonfly, nearly a foot long, hovered in front of him, the light catching its magnificent amethyst-and-onyx scales. Ryan watched it with some caution, knowing that some of these mutie insects could turn out triple-nasty.

 

But it flew away, wings shimmering like lightning gauze, vanishing among the trees.

 

Ryan finally reached the top, breathing hard from the tough climb, finding that he had been right. There were the four bent and broken legs of what had once been a fire tower, the cabin overgrown with long grass and fireweed, broken glass tinkling underfoot as he walked up to it.

 

The view was everything that he'd hoped.

 

Now that he was above the treeline, he had an uninterrupted vista for several miles in every direction.

 

The land that they were on at the moment was connected with the narrow causeway to the place that hid the redoubt. There was water nearly all around, but in the one direction, south, there was a stretch about a hundred yards wide that linked up with what looked like mainland.

 

Ryan shaded his eye, peering toward what seemed to be a thin column of gray smoke rising into the still air. Smoke almost always meant human habitation, and that would mean food. It might mean confrontation, but that was something to face when they needed to.

 

He didn't take a bearing on the smoke. There was no point. He had complete confidence in his own sense of direction and knew that he could lead the others toward the fire as soon as he had descended the mysterious little trail.

 

 

 

RYAN HAD BEEN WALKING down the track for only a couple of minutes when he had the odd but unmistakable sensation that someone, or something, was watching him.

 

There was the familiar prickling at the back of the neck, and his hand was reaching for the butt of the SIG-Sauer before he was fully aware what was happening.

 

The air seemed still and heavy, but a quick look all around showed him nothing.

 

He began to holster the blaster again when his acute hearing caught a strange, almost metallic clicking, like a safety being repeatedly snapped on and off.

 

And he finally saw the creature that had made the narrow, twisting path.