The Talisman

it, he’s gone, must be, let him go, get out of here –
    But he struggled on toward Wolf, pushing a dying, weakly convulsing cow-sheep out of his way to get there.
    ‘ Jason! ’ Morgan of Orris screamed, and Jack realized that Morgan was not cursing in the Territories argot; he was calling his, Jack’s, name. Only here he was not Jack. Here he was Jason.
    But the Queen’s son died an infant, died, he –
    The wet, sizzling zap of electricity again, seeming almost to part his hair. Again it struck the other bank, this time vaporizing one of Wolf’s cattle. No, Jack saw, at least not utterly. The animal’s legs were still there, mired in the mud like shakepoles. As he watched, they began to sag tiredly outward in four different directions.
    ‘ TURN AND LOOK AT ME, GOD POUND YOU! ’
    The water, why doesn’t he throw it at the water, fry me, Wolf, all these animals at the same time?
    Then his fifth-grade science came back to him. Once electricity went to water, it could go anywhere . . . including back to the generator of the current.
    Wolf’s dazed face, floating underwater, drove these thoughts from Jack’s flying mind. Wolf was still alive, but partially pinned under a cow-sheep, which, although apparently unhurt, had frozen in panic. Wolf’s hands waved with pathetic, flagging energy. As Jack closed the last of the distance, one of those hands dropped and simply floated, limp as a water-lily.
    Without slowing, Jack lowered his left shoulder and hit the cow-sheep like Jack Armstrong in a boy’s sports story.
    If it had been a full-sized cow instead of a Territories compact model, Jack would probably not have budged it, not with the stream’s fairly stiff current working against him. But it was smaller than a cow, and Jack was pumped up. It bawled when Jack hit it, floundered backward, sat briefly on its haunches, and then lunged for the far bank. Jack grabbed Wolf’s hands and pulled with all of his might.
    Wolf came up as reluctantly as a waterlogged tree-trunk, his eyes now glazed and half-closed, water streaming from his ears and nose and mouth. His lips were blue.
    Twin forks of lightning blazed to the right and left of where Jack stood holding Wolf, the two of them looking like a pair of drunks trying to waltz in a swimming pool. On the far bank, another cow-sheep flew in all directions, its severed head still bawling. Hot rips of fire zigzagged through the marshy area, lighting the reeds on the tussocks and then finding the drier grass of the field where the land began to rise again.
    ‘Wolf!’ Jack screamed. ‘Wolf, for Christ’s sake!’
    ‘Auh,’ Wolf moaned, and vomited warm muddy water over Jack’s shoulder. ‘ Auhhhhhhhhhhh . . .’
    Now Jack saw Morgan standing on the other bank, a tall, Puritanical figure in his black cloak. His hood framed his pallid, vampirelike face with a kind of cheerless romance. Jack had time to think that the Territories had worked their magic even here, on behalf of his dreadful uncle. Over here, Morgan was not an overweight, hypertensive actuarial toad with piracy in his heart and murder in his mind; over here, his face had narrowed and found a frigid masculine beauty. He pointed the silver rod like a toy magic wand, and blue fire tore the air open.
    ‘ Now you and your dumb friend! ’ Morgan screamed. His thin lips split in a triumphant grin, revealing sunken yellow teeth that spoiled Jack’s blurred impression of beauty once and forever.
    Wolf screamed and jerked in Jack’s aching arms. He was staring at Morgan, his eyes orange and bulging with hate and fear.
    ‘You, devil!’ Wolf screamed. ‘You, devil! My sister! My litter-sister! Wolf! Wolf! You, devil!’
    Jack pulled the bottle out of his jerkin. There was a single swallow left anyway. He couldn’t hold Wolf up with his one arm; he was losing him, and Wolf seemed unable to support himself. Didn’t matter. Couldn’t take him back through into the other world anyway . . . or could he?
    ‘You, devil!’ Wolf screamed, weeping, his wet face sliding down Jack’s arm. The back of his bib overalls floated and belled in the water.
    Smell of burning grass and burning animals.
    Thunder, exploding.
    This time the river of fire in the air rushed by Jack so close that the hairs in his nostrils singed and curled.
    ‘OH YES, BOTH OF YOU, BOTH OF YOU!’ Morgan howled. ‘I’LL TEACH YOU TO GET IN MY WAY, YOU LITTLE BASTARD! I’LL BURN BOTH OF YOU! I’LL POUND YOU DOWN!’
    ‘Wolf, hold on!’