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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.
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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?"
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"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.
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