Circle Thrice

“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.”