The Talisman

ripping her hair out in great chunks. She held one of these chunks out to the Wolf. The bloody roots wavered like the tips of sea-grass as she waltzed in place on the unsteady earth.
    ‘Here!’ she cried, smiling serenely. ‘A bouquet! For you!’
    The Wolf, not a bit serene, tore her head off with a single snap of his jaws and ran on, on, on.
    3
    Jack studied what he had captured, as breathless as a child who has a shy woodland creature come out of the grass and eat from his hand.
    It glowed between his palms, waxing and waning, waxing and waning.
    With my heartbeat , he thought.
    It seemed to be glass, but it had a faintly yielding feeling in his hands. He pressed and it gave a little. Color shot inward from the points of his pressure in enchanting billows: inky blue from his left hand, deepest carmine from the right. He smiled . . . and then the smile faded.
    You may be killing a billion people doing that – fires, floods, God knows what. Remember the building that collapsed in Angola, New York, after –
    No, Jack , the Talisman whispered, and he understood why it had yielded to the gentle pressure of his hands. It was alive; of course it was. No, Jack: All will be well . . . all will be well . . . and all manner of things will be well. Only believe; be true; stand; do not falter now .
    Peace in him – oh such deep peace.
    Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow , Jack thought, and wondered if he could ever bring himself to let this wondrous bauble go.
    4
    On the beach below the wooden walk, Gardener had fallen flat on his belly in terror. His fingers hooked into the loose sand. He was mewling.
    Morgan reeled toward him like a drunk and ripped the pack-set from Gardener’s shoulder.
    ‘Stay outside! ’ he roared into it, and then realized he had forgotten to press the SEND button. He did it now. ‘ STAY OUTSIDE! IF YOU TRY TO GET OUT OF TOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING CLIFFS WILL FALL ON YOU! GET DOWN HERE! COME TO ME! THIS IS NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF GODDAM SPECIAL EFFECTS! GET DOWN HERE! FORM A RING AROUND THE BEACH! THOSE OF YOU WHO COME WILL BE REWARDED! THOSE OF YOU WHO DON’T WILL DIE IN THE PITS AND IN THE BLASTED LANDS! GET DOWN HERE! IT’S OPEN! GET DOWN HERE WHERE NOTHING CAN FALL ON YOU! GET DOWN HERE, DAMMIT! ’
    He threw the pack-set aside. It split open. Beetles with long feelers began to squirm out by the dozens.
    He bent down and yanked the howling, whey-faced Gardener up. ‘On your feet, beautiful,’ he said.
    5
    Richard cried out in his unconsciousness as the table he was lying on bucked him off onto the floor. Jack heard the cry, and it dragged him out of his fascinated contemplation of the Talisman.
    He became aware that the Agincourt was groaning like a ship in a high gale. As he looked around, boards snapped up, revealing dusty beamwork beneath. The beams were sawing back and forth like shuttles in a loom. Albino bugs scuttered and squirmed away from the Talisman’s clear light.
    ‘ I’m coming, Richard! ’ he shouted, and began to work his way back across the floor. He was thrown over once and he went down holding the glowing sphere high, knowing it was vulnerable – if it was hit hard enough, it would break. What then, God knew. He got to one knee, was thrown back down on his butt, and lurched to his feet again.
    From below, Richard screamed again.
    ‘Richard! Coming!’
    From overhead, a sound like sleigh-bells. He looked up and saw the chandelier penduluming back and forth, faster and faster. Its crystal pendants were making that sound. As Jack watched, the chain parted and it hit the unravelling floor like a bomb with diamonds instead of high explosive in its nose. Glass flew.
    He turned and exited the room in big, larruping strides – he looked like a burlesque comic doing a turn as a drunken sailor.
    Down the hall. He was thrown against first one wall and then the other as the floor seesawed and split open. Each time he crashed into a wall he held the Talisman out from him, his arms like tongs in which it glowed like a white-hot coal.
    You’ll never make it down the stairs.
    Gotta. Gotta.
    He reached the landing where he had faced the black knight. The world heaved a new way; Jack staggered and saw the helmet on the floor below roll crazily away.
    Jack continued to look down. The stairs were moving in great tortured waves that made him feel like puking. A stair-level snapped upward, leaving a writhing black hole.
    ‘Jack!’
    ‘Coming, Richard!’
    No way you can make it down those