The Talisman

and the nape of the other’s neck lay in ruined flaps.
    The men wailed and leaned forward even farther, their blood the deepest color in the yellowish murk. The thing screeched and gibbered and its grayish, plated right arm flexed as it whirled the whip over the slaves’ heads. With a final staggering jerk, they yanked the cart up and onto the level. One of them fell forward onto his knees, exhausted, and the forward motion of the cart knocked him sprawling. One of the wheels rolled over his back. Jack heard the sound of the downed prisoner’s spine as it broke. It sounded like a track referee’s starter-gun.
    The gargoyle shrieked with rage as the cart tottered and then fell over, dumping its load onto the split, cracked, arid ground at the top of the Pit. He reached the fallen prisoner in two lunging steps and raised his whip. As he did, the dying man turned his head and looked into Jack Sawyer’s eyes.
    It was Ferd Janklow.
    Wolf saw, too.
    They groped for each other.
    And flipped back.
    5
    They were in a tight, closed place – a bathroom stall, in fact – and Jack could barely breathe because Wolf’s arms were wrapped around him in a crushing embrace. And one of his feet was sopping wet. He had somehow managed to flip back with one foot in a toilet-bowl. Oh, great. Things like this never happen to Conan the Barbarian , Jack thought dismally.
    ‘Jack no , Jack no , the Pit, it was the Pit, no , Jack—’
    ‘Quit it! Quit it, Wolf! We’re back!’
    ‘No, no n—’
    Wolf broke off. He opened his eyes slowly.
    ‘Back?’
    ‘You bet, right here and now, so let go of me, you’re breaking my ribs, and besides, my foot’s stuck in the damn—’
    The door between the bathroom and the hall burst open with a bang. It struck the inner tile with enough force to shatter the frosted-glass panel.
    The stall door was torn open. Andy Warwick took one look and spoke three furious, contemptuous words:
    ‘You fucking queers.’
    He grabbed the dazed Wolf by the front of his checked shirt and pulled him out. Wolf’s pants caught on the steel hood over the toilet-paper dispenser and pulled the whole works off the wall. It went flying. The toilet-paper roll broke free and went unspooling across the floor. Warwick sent Wolf crashing into the sinks, which were just the right height to catch him in the privates. Wolf fell to the floor, holding himself.
    Warwick turned to Jack, and Sonny Singer appeared at the stall door. He reached in and grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt.
    ‘All right, you fag—’ Sonny began, and that was as far as he got. Ever since he and Wolf had been dragooned into this place, Sonny Singer had been in Jack’s face. Sonny Singer with his sly dark face that wanted to look just like Sunlight Gardener’s face (and as soon as it could). Sonny Singer who had coined the charming endearment snotface. Sonny Singer whose idea it had undoubtedly been to piss in their beds.
    Jack pistoned his right fist out, not swinging wildly in the Heck Bast style but driving strong and smooth from the elbow. His fist connected with Sonny’s nose. There was an audible crunch. Jack felt a moment of satisfaction so perfect it was sublime.
    ‘There,’ Jack cried. He pulled his foot out of the john. A great grin suffused his face, and he shot a thought at Wolf just as hard as he could:
    We ain’t doing that bad, Wolf – you broke one bastard’s hand, and I broke one bastard’s nose.
    Sonny stumbled backward, screaming, blood spouting through his fingers.
    Jack came out of the stall, his fists held up in front of him in a pretty fair imitation of John L. Sullivan. ‘I told you to watch out for me, Sonny. Now I’m gonna teach you to say hallelujah.’
    ‘Heck!’ Sonny screamed. ‘Andy! Casey! Somebody!’
    ‘Sonny, you sound scared,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t know why—’
    And then something – something that felt like a full hod of bricks – fell on the back of his neck, driving him forward into one of the mirrors over the sinks. If it had been glass, it would have broken and cut Jack badly. But all the mirrors here were polished steel. There were to be no suicides in the Sunlight Home.
    Jack was able to get one arm up and cushion the blow a little, but he still felt woozy as he turned around and saw Heck Bast grinning at him. Heck Bast had hit him with the cast on his right hand.
    As he looked at Heck, an enormous, sickening realization suddenly dawned on Jack. It was you!
    ‘That hurt like