The Talisman

said jovially. ‘I know you’re awake. You can’t fool Wolf.’
    Jack opened his eyes and looked at Wolf with bleary resentment. ‘How did you know?’
    ‘People have a sleep-smell and a wake-smell,’ Wolf said. ‘Even Strangers must know that, don’t they?’
    ‘I guess we don’t,’ Jack said.
    ‘Anyway, you have to drink this. It’s medicine. Drink it up, Jack, right here and now.’
    ‘I don’t want it,’ Jack said. The smell coming from the can was swampy and rancid.
    ‘Jack,’ Wolf said, ‘you’ve got a sick-smell, too.’
    Jack looked at him, saying nothing.
    ‘Yes,’ Wolf said. ‘And it keeps getting worse. It’s not really bad, not yet, but – Wolf! – it’s going to get bad if you don’t take some medicine.’
    ‘Wolf, I’ll bet you’re great at sniffing out herbs and things back in the Territories, but this is the Country of Bad Smells, remember? You’ve probably got ragweed in there, and poison oak, and bitter vetch, and—’
    ‘They’re good things,’ Wolf said. ‘Just not very strong, God pound them.’ Wolf looked wistful. ‘Not everything smells bad here, Jack. There are good smells, too. But the good smells are like the medicine plants. Weak. I think they were stronger, once.’
    Wolf was looking dreamily up at the moon again, and Jack felt a recurrence of his earlier unease.
    ‘I’ll bet this was a good place once,’ Wolf said. ‘Clean and full of power . . .’
    ‘Wolf?’ Jack asked in a low voice. ‘Wolf, the hair’s come back on your palms.’
    Wolf started and looked at Jack. For a moment – it might have been his feverish imagination, and even if not, it was only for a moment – Wolf looked at Jack with a flat, greedy hunger. Then he seemed to shake himself, as if out of a bad dream.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to talk about that, and I don’t want you to talk about that. It doesn’t matter, not yet. Wolf! Just drink your medicine, Jack, that’s all you have to do.’
    Wolf was obviously not going to take no for an answer; if Jack didn’t drink the medicine, then Wolf might feel duty-bound to simply pull open his jaws and pour it down his throat.
    ‘Remember, if this kills me, you’ll be alone,’ Jack said grimly, taking the can. It was still warm.
    A look of terrible distress spread over Wolf’s face. He pushed the round glasses up on his nose. ‘Don’t want to hurt you, Jack – Wolf never wants to hurt Jack.’ The expression was so large and so full of misery that it would have been ludicrous had it not been so obviously genuine.
    Jack gave in and drank the contents of the can. There was no way he could stand against that expression of hurt dismay. The taste was as awful as he had imagined it would be . . . and for a moment didn’t the world waver? Didn’t it waver as if he were about to flip back into the Territories?
    ‘Wolf!’ he yelled. ‘Wolf, grab my hand!’
    Wolf did, looking both concerned and excited. ‘Jack? Jacky? What is it?’
    The taste of the medicine began to leave his mouth. At the same time, a warm glow – the sort of glow he got from a small sip of brandy on the few occasions his mother had allowed him to have one – began to spread in his stomach. And the world grew solid around him again. That brief wavering might also have been imagination . . . but Jack didn’t think so.
    We almost went. For a moment there it was very close. Maybe I can do it without the magic juice . . . maybe I can!
    ‘Jack? What is it?’
    ‘I feel better,’ he said, and managed a smile. ‘I feel better, that’s all.’ He discovered that he did, too.
    ‘You smell better, too,’ Wolf said cheerfully. ‘ Wolf! Wolf! ’
    2
    He continued to improve the next day, but he was weak. Wolf carried him ‘horseyback’ and they made slow progress west. Around dusk they started looking for a place to lie up for the night. Jack spotted a woodshed in a dirty little gully. It was surrounded by trash and bald tires. Wolf agreed without saying much. He had been quiet and morose all day long.
    Jack fell asleep almost at once and woke up around eleven needing to urinate. He looked beside him and saw that Wolf’s place was empty. Jack thought he had probably gone in search of more herbs in order to administer the equivalent of a booster shot. Jack wrinkled his nose, but if Wolf wanted him to drink more of the stuff, he would. It surely had made him feel one hell of a lot better.
    He went around to the side of the shed, a