The Talisman

closed, opened and closed.
    Gone to the hotel, yes. Morgan had seen the ridiculous raft with its painted horse’s head and its rubber tail bobbing its way out there.
    ‘My son,’ he said to Gardener. ‘Do your men say he was alive or dead when Jack put him in the raft?’
    Gardener shook his head – but his eyes said what he believed. ‘No one knows for sure, my Lord. Some say they saw him move. Some say not.’
    Doesn’t matter. If he wasn’t dead then, he’s dead now. One breath of the air in that place and his lungs will explode.
    Gardener’s cheeks were full of whiskey-color and his eyes were watering. He didn’t give the flask back but stood holding it. That was fine with Sloat. He wanted neither whiskey nor cocaine. He was on what those sixties slobs had called a natural high.
    ‘Start over,’ Morgan said, ‘and this time be coherent.’
    The only thing Gardener had to tell that Morgan hadn’t gleaned from the man’s first broken outburst was the fact of the old nigger’s presence down on the beach, and he almost could have guessed that. Still, he let Gardener go on. Gardener’s voice was soothing, his rage invigorating.
    As Gardener talked, Morgan ran over his options one final time, dismissing his son from the equation with a brief throb of regret.
    What does it profit a man? It profits a man the world, and the world is enough . . . or, in this case, worlds. Two to start with, and more when and if they play out. I can rule them all if I like – I can be something like the God of the Universe .
    The Talisman. The Talisman is –
    The key?
    No; oh no.
    Not a key but a door; a locked door standing between him and his destiny. He did not want to open that door but to destroy it, destroy it utterly and completely and eternally, so it could never be shut again, let alone locked.
    When the Talisman was smashed, all those worlds would be his worlds.
    ‘Gard!’ he said, and began to pace jerkily again.
    Gardener looked at Morgan questioningly.
    ‘What does it profit a man?’ Morgan chirruped brightly.
    ‘My Lord? I don’t underst—’
    Morgan stopped in front of Gardener, his eyes feverish and sparkling. His face rippled. Became the face of Morgan of Orris. Became the face of Morgan Sloat again.
    ‘It profits a man the world ,’ Morgan said, putting his hands on Osmond’s shoulders. When he took them away a second later, Osmond was Gardener again. ‘It profits a man the world , and the world is enough.’
    ‘My Lord, you don’t understand,’ Gardener said, looking at Morgan as if he might be crazy. ‘I think they’ve gone inside . Inside where IT is. We tried to shoot them, but the creatures . . . the deep-creatures . . . rose up and protected them, just as The Book of Good Farming said they would . . . and if they’re inside . . .’ Gardener’s voice was rising. Osmond’s eyes rolled with mingled hate and dismay.
    ‘I understand,’ Morgan said comfortingly. His face and voice were calm again, but his fists worked and worked, and blood dribbled down onto the mildewy carpet. ‘Yessirreebob, yes-indeedy-doo, rooty-patootie. They’ve gone in, and my son is never going to come out. You’ve lost yours, Gard, and now I’ve lost mine.’
    ‘ Sawyer! ’ Gardener barked. ‘Jack Sawyer! Jason! That—’
    Gardener lapsed into a horrible bout of cursing that went on for nearly five minutes. He cursed Jack in two languages; his voice racketed and perspired with grief and insane rage. Morgan stood there and let him get it all out of his system.
    When Gardener paused, panting, and took another swallow from the flask, Morgan said:
    ‘Right! Doubled in brass! Now listen, Gard – are you listening?’
    ‘Yes, my Lord.’
    Gardener/Osmond’s eyes were bright with bitter attention.
    ‘My son is never going to come out of the black hotel, and I don’t think Sawyer ever will, either. There’s a very good chance that he isn’t Jason enough yet to deal with what’s in there. IT will probably kill him, or drive him mad, or send him a hundred worlds away. But he may come out, Gard. Yes, he may .’
    ‘He’s the baddest baddest bitch’s bastard to ever draw breath,’ Gardener whispered. His hand tightened on the flask . . . tightened . . . tightened . . . and now his fingers actually began to make dents in the shell-steel.
    ‘You say the old nigger man is down on the beach?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Parker,’ Morgan said, and at the same moment Osmond said, ‘Parkus.’
    ‘Dead?’