Nightmare journey

asked.
    “Forget it. I'm staying here.”
    “They'll have you in less than an hour.”
    “Nevertheless, I stay.”
    The bruin bent, picked up the sack and handed it to him again, saying, “You're coming along, so get used to the idea.”
    Jask dropped the sack again. He was shaking so badly that his teeth rattled in the still of the storage chamber. “No.”
    This time the tainted creature did not pick up the sack, but he picked up Jask instead, gripped him by the collar of his cloak and hoisted him off the floor, so that they were eye-to-eye. He peeled his black lips away from his teeth and grinned that Satanic grin of his. His dark tongue licked the points of all those white teeth, as if he were anticipating the first bite. When he spoke, his voice was like a carefully controlled peal of thunder, all the force of his big lungs behind it. “Either you come with me, little man, or you die here, now.”
    Jask sputtered but could not find any words. He had begun to think he should never have resisted the death sentence that had been passed on him the day before, in the enclave court.
    “I can't afford to leave you behind for those others to pick apart. You know I have a pack, well provisioned, and that I intend to set out across the Wildlands. When I reach the other side, I don't want to find that those Pure friends of yours have radioed others of their sort on the other shore. It would make the trek seem wasted.”
    “You'll never make it anyway,'' Jask said. “You'll die in the Wildlands. Therefore, everything else is academic.”
    The bruin's breath was not especially pleasant, and he let Jask have a strong whiff of it, square in the face. “One thing you've forgotten, though. It will take me the better part of the day to reach the Wildlands. If I leave you here, you'll have spilled everything long before then. I'll be caught before I enter the forbidden lands.”
    “I promise not to tell them,'' Jask said, swinging gently from the creature's clenched fist.
    The bruin spoke with undisguised anger and disgust, his eyes squinted beneath the heavy, bony brow. “You? Hell, you'll squeal like a pinned pig, tell them everything they want to know. You'll break in ten minutes, you puny little bigot.”
    Then he opened his hand and let go of the Pure.
    Jask fell in a heap at the tainted creature's broad, flat feet.
    “Get up, now.”
    Jask got up, hating the big mutant but hating himself more. He rubbed his thin arms and wished that he did have a bit more muscle, enough to deal with the mutant.
    Five minutes later they had packed the sack and were ready to leave the warehouse.
    Jask said, “Where do you intend to go if you ever manage to get out of the Wildlands? No matter where you settle down, you'll be rediscovered. Your talent will flare up, unexpectedly. Or you'll use it too often to gain things you want and end up giving yourself away.”
    “I intend to find the Black Presence,” the bruin said. “And once I've done that, I'll have no need to live anywhere on this world.”
    For a moment Jask was speechless. When he could find his voice, he said, “Foolishness! There is no Black Presence. Do you sincerely believe in all those silly myths about other worlds, that man once traveled to the stars and is still being watched by an-an alien who's waiting to judge him?”
    “Why not?” the bruin asked. “It's history, not myth.”
    Jask grimaced, for he had realized that the bruin's world view was even more heretical, more unorthodox, then he had at first understood. “Then you must also believe that the Last War was fought between two different groups of men-instead of between man and the Ruiner, who had come to undo Lady Nature's work?”
    The bear-man laughed aloud. “My friend, the Ruiner you fear so much is only a myth. It is you who must relearn history, the true history of this sorry world.”
    “Heresy,” Jask said, apalled.
    “No, nothing of the sort. It is merely the truth,” the bruin said. “But all of this can wait until we're free of that pack of dogs baying at our heels. Let's go.”
    At the opposite end of the great chamber into which they had clambered from the sewer the bruin lifted away another stone slab, revealing a second drain. “It's only a different branch of the same system,'' he said. “This way, there's less likelihood of encountering those bastards hunting us.” He dropped his heavy rucksack through, went in after it, looked up at Jask, who stood trembling at the edge of the entrance. “I could be out of this hole