Pilgrimage to Hell d-1

by James Axler

  Krysty said accusingly, "You could make a start by not delivering all this heavy shit to Mocsin." She didn't know anything about the load they were carrying, but she knew all about Jordan Teague and his miniempire out near the Darks.

  Ryan grinned sourly.

  "Funny thing," he said, "Teague ain't gonna be — and you can take that as a nondouble negative that's a great big positive — he ain't gonna be too fireblasted pleased about this load."

  "That's funny?"

  "Well, you see, it just so happens that most of Teague's consignment went up when Truck Four blew. Boom!" He spread his arms high. "All those grenades, all that high explosive, all those old armor-piercing shells. Sent most of his delivery to glory in a great big blaze-out. Lucky for us, though, because that's what creamed most of the stickies and other mad muties that had us in a terrible, terrible fix. And that means that Teague's gonna be getting short supplies. Pity."

  "And did it?"

  "Did it what?"

  "All go up."

  Ryan chuckled.

  "As it happens, no, of course it didn't. But Teague's not to know that. It's the perfect scam. You may not believe this, but we do have a code. Of sorts. I mean, listen — we don't spend sleepless nights gnawing away at the problem, it's too late for that, way too late. The Old Man did it to survive."

  Krysty wrinkled her nose. What Ryan had said sounded to her like special pleading. "You still didn't answer the question," she said. "Would you liketo escape?"

  Ryan shook his head helplessly.

  "To what? There is no escape from the Deathlands."

  "Uncle Tyas thought there was."

  "You mean, get a boat, take a trip, sail across the ocean? You don't know what's out there or under the waves, just waiting for you. You don't know what's waiting for you on the other side, either. Could be worse than here, though that's hard to imagine."

  "No, he didn't mean that."

  Ryan pointed up at the dull metal ceiling of the swaying war wag.

  "You mean up there? How? Why? All there is up there is free-floating garbage. We know the old guys had, I dunno..." he groped for words, "...kind of settlements out in space, huge constructions with their own air supplies. That kind of thing. But how the hell d'you get to them? All the places where they had vehicles, aircraft, what have you, were blitzed in the Nuke. We've stumbled across launching grounds with wrecked machinery, incredible rusting hulks lying around, chunks of dead metal. But there's no way you can get this shit off the ground, believe me. No way at all."

  "No, that's not what I mean, either. Uncle Tyas knew. He'd found something out. But he wouldn't tell me. He and old Peter..."

  "Who?"

  "Peter Maritza, his buddy. His close buddy. They did just about everything together. They were always poking into old books... and papers..." Her voice drifted off.

  "And?" he prompted her.

  "I remember when it happened," she said. "But I was only a kid at the time — maybe fourteen or fifteen, that kind of age."

  * * *

  EVEN AS SHE SPOKE Krysty could see the scene in the candlelit, tightly caulked log cabin that stood at the edge of their hamlet, hidden deep in the rolling hills and forests of the Sanctuary.

  She saw again the hawk-faced man, with the deep-set, piercing eyes, then only in his early fifties, striding around the main room muttering to himself as she sat beside the fire quietly watching him with solemn, uncomprehending eyes.

  She was still a little afraid of him. His tone was harsh, his manner abrupt. She had not as yet been allowed to plumb the depths of kindliness and generosity that were essential parts of his character. You had to know Tyas McCann a long time before you could get past his guard, the steely barrier of his ingrained reserve and suspicion. And to young Krysty Wroth, then, he was still an unknown quantity, for she had only lived with him since Sonja had died and that was less than eighteen months before. Sometimes she still cried at nights, the image of her mother wasted by the sickness for which there was no cure, from which there was no escape, etched into her mind. And she was lonely — soul-achingly lonely. Her mother had been everything to her, and her mother's brother could never take her place.

  Now of course she knew better. Now she knew that it was not a question of Uncle Tyas taking Sonja's place in her love and affection. Uncle Tyas supplied what Sonja had not supplied, and would not have supplied even if she had lived. They were two different branches of the same tree. Her mother had taught her to keep the Secrets; her uncle, how to use them. Her mother taught her knowledge of the Earth Mother; her uncle had expanded and extended this knowledge dramatically, to include just about all he knew about the real world outside, and all he had learned about the catastrophe that had overtaken it: what had happened, how it had happened and why it had happened — though there were more theories than hard facts on that.

  And he had taught her how to survive in a world that had been insane for a century. Her mother would never have taught her how to use a firearm. Uncle Tyas had taught her just that.

  She could see him now, outside the large, airy, seven-roomed cabin, holding a squat and ugly-looking metallic shape in both hands — she realized now that it must have been the Detonics Pocket 9; it was the smallest handgun Uncle Tyas had in a wide-ranging collection gathered over the years — and saying, "This is a bad thing, little one, but you have to know about it and you have to be able to use it one day, because there are worse things waiting out beyond the Forest, and you have to sometimes use bad things to deal with worse things, worse situations." Krysty was fourteen when she'd heard this.

  Almost as soon as she had come to stay with him he had begun his instruction, not only in the use of all kinds of weaponry, but in unarmed combat, as well.

  There had been two of them, she and young Carl Lanning, at fifteen the eldest son of Herb Lanning, Harmony's ironsmith. Herb was a big, potbellied, gruff man who had taken over the forge and ironsmith's shop built by his father forty or so years back. He did odd jobs for Uncle Tyas, made strange-looking metal artifacts that Uncle Tyas created on his drawing board from books in his vast library, objects that sometimes worked as Uncle Tyas said they would, and sometimes didn't. And when they didn't, Uncle Tyas would rant and cuss and call Herb the biggest blockhead in the entire Deathlands, say that he couldn't construct a simple metal object when it was handed to him on a set of detailed and meticulously finished drawings. And Big Herb would grin good-naturedly and point out that everything he'd done was from the drawings, and if the thing didn't work it was because the guy who drew it up hadn't got it right in the first place. They used to argue for hours, Uncle Tyas raging, Big Herb smiling complacently, filling a rocking chair with his bulk, both hands clasped across his gut. It had to be said that more often than not Big Herb was right. More often than not, there had been a slight error in transcription from book example to drawing board, because Uncle Tyas worked fast, too fast, often in a white heat of creation, his eager brain far ahead of his fingers, nimble though the latter were. The trouble was, Uncle Tyas invariably wanted things done about half an hour before he thought of them.

  Big Herb's eldest boy, Carl, helped him in the ironsmith's shop. He was a tall, lanky kid with a shock of black hair, an explosion of freckles on his face, an inquiring mind, but a gentle nature. That was why Uncle Tyas had chosen him to partner Krysty in his unarmed combat lessons. Krysty remembered overhearing Uncle Tyas talking enthusiastically to Peter Maritza — not "old" Peter Maritza then; by no means "old," even though he was a good ten years ahead of Uncle Tyas — out on the porch one night when she'd been preparing dinner, his voice an excited hiss, a new idea clamoring in his brain.

  "You get it, Peter? There's Krysty — she's a girl."

  "Tyas, I'm not an imbecile. I know she's a blasted girl."

  "Okay, okay. But she's a girl, right? Weaker sex, right?"

  "Not around here, buddy. Not in Harmony. Talk like that'll get you strung up from the..."

  "All right! In general, Peter
! Generally speaking! Weaker sex in quotes, right? Then there's young Carl..."

  "You saying he's weak? You saying he's some kind of milksop? Why, I've seen him at the forge..."

  "Peter, will you listen to me! Okay, he beats the shit out of all that red-hot metal in his daddy's ironshop, but he's no great shakes when it comes to anything else, right? Sure he's no weakling, but he's not what you or I'd call positive, you get me? Got no drive in him. Just like his father. He's faced with a raving canny, y'know what would happen? He'd just let himself get eaten up, sure as hell. Well, I aim to change all that. Change 'em both. Damn right."

  And he had. Changed them both. Especially Krysty. At the age of fourteen she'd learned how to throw a guy to the ground in one second flat, how to disable an adversary with a single one-handed squeeze, how to cripple a man for life with one well-directed punch.

  She found that wrestling with Carl in a rough-and-tumble scrimmage was sexually arousing. That in close-quarters proximity to him, in a situation in which both were trying their damnedest to conquer the other, in a fierce and breathless and sweaty scuffle on the ground, rolling over and over each other, first one on top, then the other, each desperate to out-tussle the other, she experienced a sudden and overpowering awareness of his maleness, a sharply felt urge to surrender to him yet also a scary and delicious sense of power over him that had nothing at all to do with winning the bout. And the knowledge came to her as, for a split second, they ceased their struggle and stared half fearfully, half defiantly into each other's eyes, that he felt the same. It was partly emotional, she recognized, partly physical. She had never experienced such feelings before.

  At fourteen Krysty Wroth knew all there was to know about physical sex — the full details from ovulation to conception through pregnancy and into childbirth itself. But Sonja had also taught her from an early age that sex was not merely an act of procreation but a powerful experience, an expression of heady passion. It could also, if you were lucky enough to find the right partner, be fun. But you had to look after yourself because if you didn't have the luck to find the right partner, you could land yourself in all kinds of unnecessary trouble.

  Sonja had also told her that years ago, before the Nuke, there had been religions that preached childbirth almost as a necessity, despite the fact that the world was overloaded with people, a good proportion of whom lived in abject misery and squalor. Those old religions had largely disappeared. Only in the Baronies was religion, in one form or another, used as it had been in the bad old days, as a means of keeping the populace quiet and as a means of keeping the populace growing in number. Down there, you bred for the Barons. Boy children were sent by God; girl children were a damned nuisance, fit only to skivvy and breed — breed more and more boy children: the warrior syndrome.

  Contraception was actually banned in certain of the Baronies where the old, ugly Islamic and Judeo-Christian fundamentalist creeds were strong — that women were basically cattle; that they were not only created solely for man's benefit and pleasure but were also inherently sly, lewd and evil creatures and must be kept in a state of subjugation. Although that was not to say that contraception wasn't available. On the contrary, the rich and the powerful could afford the secret and highly expensive prophylactics that did a roaring trade on the various black markets. The poor, as usual, were not so lucky. They had to rely on ill-understood natural methods, altogether a chancy business.

  Those who followed the wisdom of the Earth Mother, which was more a free celebration of natural forces than a sharply defined and disciplined religion — an understanding, brought about to a great degree by the often strange effects of genetic and physical mutation over the years, that the power of the mind and the power of nature had rarely been used to their fullest extent — were more fortunate. They had the benefit of knowledge passed down from mother to daughter of medicaments that had been known to a few long before the Nuke — natural specifics, natural ointments, natural oils and unguents, all derived from a variety of roots, tree barks, mashed-up leaves and berries. Now, three generations after the disaster, this information could be said to have become the solid bedrock upon which the slowly expanding worship of the Earth Mother rested.

  So Krysty theoretically knew all about sex. It was a natural function and a natural pleasure. And she knew, too, exactly how not to get pregnant. The only thing that remained to be conquered was the act itself, the physical and emotional experience firsthand.

  Thinking about her feelings as she'd wrestled with young Carl, and mulling over what her mother had often talked about when she was alive, how if there was any first-time-ever obstacle at all, it was only an insignificant wafer-thin tissue of membrane and it was better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later and when the time came she'd know about it and know what to do, Krysty weighed things up as coolly and calmly as any post-Nuke fourteen-year-old could have and figured that the time had indeed come. She knew what to do, and she did it. Or, rather, she and Carl did it together, and it wasn't the most sensational experience she had ever had, but on the other hand it wasn't half bad, not half bad at all.

  It was only years later — maybe seven or even eight, when she returned to Harmony after one of her bouts of wanderlust — that she discovered, to her amusement, that Uncle Tyas had been deliberate in instigating that, as he was deliberate in most things. That he'd purposely thrown her and Carl together, hoping they'd like each other, because he'd figured Carl for an essentially good, honest, caring kid.

  Krysty's amusement at this discovery, which was let drop, again deliberately, by Uncle Tyas, was tinged with mild annoyance. No one likes to find out that someone else has been pulling her strings.

  "That was gross interference, Uncle Tyas. What if I hadn't liked him?"

  "You did like him," he pointed out, arms wide, an innocent expression on his hawklike face.

  "Yeah, but..."

  She could find no words of condemnation because none applied.

  "Better to let it go to someone you like than by force to a stranger or someone you hate," Uncle Tyas continued. "Virginity means nothing. It's a moralistic ideal from an age that in a certain way was darker and more twisted than our own. But that first time, the way it happens, Krysty, maybe influences your whole life."

  Which was true.

  The thought and memories and emotions tumbled and shifted around in Krysty's mind as the war wag, like some primeval brute animal, bucked and shook along the blacktop. The images sharpened, then defocused. Became clear again, then vague.

  Now Uncle Tyas was dead, he and all his companions on that strange pilgrimage. Rest in peace, she thought.

  * * *

  "You were remembering," said Ryan.

  He had watched her as she'd stared blank-eyed at the floor. The pause had drifted on for maybe thirty heartbeats, and it was clear from her face, from the shadows that flickered across those drawn features, that memories were flooding into her mind, memories of those now dead. She seemed to him to be a strong person, a woman of courage, a woman who could cope with disaster, yet even the toughest individuals had their limits.

  "Yeah, I was." Her voice was low. "There's so much I recall." She gazed at Ryan now, as if deciding whether to tell him one thing more.

  "Later, when I was older," she said, "I came back to the house in the afternoon, and Uncle Tyas — I'll never forget it — he yelled something at me as I went in the door. He said, They're there! I know it! I can feel it in my bones! It's not a joke! Bastards didn't have a sense of humor!'"

  "Which particular bastards?" queried Ryan patiently.

  "Scientists is what he meant. Old-time technics. Uncle Tyas was certain they all had no sense of humor. He claimed that was why the world blew up, because the scientists had had no sense of humor, that they were all cold fish without a joke among them."

  "Maybe he had a point."

  Ryan did not mind her talking on like this, although he doubted very much that there was anything to be gained from her story
. He had an idea what the punch line was going to be. He'd heard it, in one form or another, before. Many times. But that didn't matter in the least. It was therapy, he knew — a torrent of words pouring out of her, some kind of emotional release. It was all to the good if it somehow flushed her system of the horror of the past couple of days.

  Ryan said gently, "Okay, so what was he talking about?"

  She took a breath, bit her lower lip and said, "A couple of months ago I got back to the Forest. I'd been away for a year or more. I've been doing a great deal of moving around myself. Things happen. Change." She shrugged. "I got back and Uncle Tyas opened the door to me. He didn't know I was coming, but as soon as he saw me he said, 'My God, Krysty, I had it all the time and I never knew.' He was shaken, totally shaken. And drawn, too, and ill. He said there was a 'land of lost happiness.' Those were his words. A land of milk and honey beyond the Deathlands. And he'd found the gateway to it, and he knew how to open it.

  Ryan thought about what she was saying. He had heard stories like this before, although only stories. Hints, rumors, whispers. A land of lost contentment. No one, to his knowledge, had ever tried to do something about finding the place. Which, in any case, wasn't to be found. It was a myth, a dream. Something to compensate for the horrors of Deathlands existence. Sometimes the stories told of a fabulous treasure hidden somewhere — significantly, always in the most wild and inaccessible places: the Hotlands in the southwest, the icy regions to the north, those mysterious and plague-stricken swamps that glowed in the dark down in the south. Or across the simmering seas to the west. Or even, he'd once heard, up in the sky.

  And that was it. Pie in the sky. Heaven. Somewhere — anywhere— other than this hell on earth known as the Deathlands.

  On the other hand "...more hidden underground than had ever been discovered..." Sure, he thought, that was true enough. He and the Trader and J. B. Dix knew very well that it was so, that there were far more Stockpiles hidden away in man-made caverns than they had stumbled across thus far. That had to be admitted. But strange weaponry? Bizarre secrets? Just a dream. The only bizarre shit they'd ever uncovered was a sea of nerve gas in the hills of old Kentucky, and they'd reburied it in very short order. For the rest — although a manufacturing industry was alive in the Baronies, creakingly primitive as it was for the most part — people were still living with mainly late-twentieth-century artifacts and weapons, and if they were creating new materiel it was based on the old. There were no new kinds of weapons in the here and now. None whatsoever.