The Talisman

registration desk in the lobby had split down the middle. The double doors were ajar, however, and a bright wedge of sunlight came through them – the old dank carpet seemed to sizzle and steam in protest at that light.
    The clouds have broken , Jack thought. Sun’s shining outside . And then: Going out those doors, Richie-boy. You and me. Big as life and twice as proud .
    The corridor which led past the Heron Bar and down to the dining room reminded him of sets in some of the old Twilight Zone shows, where everything was askew and out of kilter. Here the floor tilted left; here to the right; here it was like the twin humps of a camel. He negotiated the dimness with the Talisman lighting his way like the world’s biggest flashlight.
    He shoved into the dining room and saw Richard lying on the floor in a tangle of tablecloth. Blood was running from his nose. When he got closer he saw that some of those hard red bumps had split open and white bugs were working their way out of Richard’s flesh and crawling sluggishly over Richard’s cheeks. As he watched, one birthed itself from Richard’s nose.
    Richard screamed, a weak, bubbling, wretched scream, and clawed at it. It was the scream of someone who is dying in agony.
    His shirt humped and writhed with the things.
    Jack stumbled across the distorted floor toward him . . . and the spider swung down from the dimness, squirting its poison blindly into the air.
    ‘ Fushing feef! ’ it gibbered in its whining, droning insect’s voice. ‘ Oh you fushing feef, put it back put it back put it back! ’
    Without thinking, Jack raised the Talisman. It flashed clean white fire – rainbow fire – and the spider shrivelled and turned black. In only a second it was a tiny lump of smoking coal penduluming slowly to a dead stop in the air.
    No time to gawp at this wonder. Richard was dying.
    Jack reached him, fell on his knees beside him, and stripped back the tablecloth as if it were a sheet.
    ‘Finally made it, chum,’ he whispered, trying not to see the bugs crawling out of Richard’s flesh. He raised the Talisman, considered, and then placed it on Richard’s forehead. Richard shrieked miserably and tried to writhe away. Jack placed an arm on Richard’s scrawny chest and held him – it wasn’t hard to do. There was a stench as the bugs beneath the Talisman fried away.
    Now what? There’s more, but what?
    He looked across the room and his eye happened to fix upon the green croaker marble that he had left with Richard – the marble that was a magic mirror in that other world. As he looked, it rolled six feet of its own volition, and then stopped. It rolled, yes. It rolled because it was a marble, and it was a marble’s job to roll. Marbles were round. Marbles were round and so was the Talisman.
    Light broke in his reeling mind.
    Holding Richard, Jack slowly rolled the Talisman down the length of his body. After he reached Richard’s chest, Richard stopped struggling. Jack thought he had probably fainted, but a quick glance showed him this wasn’t so. Richard was staring at him with dawning wonder . . .
    . . . and the pimples on his face were gone! The hard red bumps were fading!
    ‘Richard!’ he yelled, laughing like a crazy loon. ‘Hey, Richard, look at this! Bwana make juju!’
    He rolled the Talisman slowly down over Richard’s belly, using his palm. The Talisman glowed brightly, singing a clear, wordless harmonic of health and healing. Down over Richard’s crotch. Jack moved Richard’s thin legs together and rolled it down the groove between them to Richard’s ankles. The Talisman glowed bright blue . . . deep red . . . yellow . . . the green of June meadow-grass.
    Then it was white again.
    ‘Jack,’ Richard whispered. ‘Is that what we came for?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ Richard said. He hesitated. ‘May I hold it?’
    Jack felt a sudden twist of Scrooge-miserliness. He snatched the Talisman close to himself for a moment. No! You might break it! Besides, it’s mine! I crossed the country for it! I fought the knights for it! You can’t have it! Mine! Mine! Mi—
    In his hands the Talisman suddenly radiated a terrible chill, and for a moment – a moment more frightening to Jack than all the earthquakes in all the worlds that ever had been or ever would be – it turned a Gothic black. Its white light was extinguished. In its rich, thundery, thanatropic interior he saw the black hotel. On turrets and gambrels and gables, on the