The Talisman

roofs of cupolas which bulged like warts stuffed with thick malignancies, the cabalistic symbols turned – wolf and crow and twisted genital star.
    Would you be the new Agincourt, then? the Talisman whispered. Even a boy can be a hotel . . . if he would be .
    His mother’s voice, clear in his head: If you don’t want to share it, Jack-O, if you can’t bring yourself to risk it for your friend, then you might as well stay where you are. If you can’t bring yourself to share the prize – risk the prize – don’t even bother to come home. Kids hear that shit all their lives, but when it comes time to put up or shut up, it’s never quite the same, is it? If you can’t share it, let me die, chum, because I don’t want to live at that price.
    The weight of the Talisman suddenly seemed immense, the weight of dead bodies. Yet somehow Jack lifted it, and put it in Richard’s hands. His hands were white and skeletal . . . but Richard held it easily, and Jack realized that sensation of weight had been only his own imagination, his own twisted and sickly wanting. As the Talisman flashed into glorious white light again, Jack felt his own interior darkness pass from him. It occurred to him dimly that you could only express your ownership of a thing in terms of how freely you could give it up . . . and then that thought passed.
    Richard smiled, and the smile made his face beautiful. Jack had seen Richard smile many times, but there was a peace in this smile he had never seen before; it was a peace which passed his understanding. In the Talisman’s white, healing light, he saw that Richard’s face, although still ravaged and haggard and sickly, was healing. He hugged the Talisman against his chest as if it were a baby, and smiled at Jack with shining eyes.
    ‘If this is the Seabrook Island Express,’ he said, ‘I may just buy a season ticket. If we ever get out of this.’
    ‘You feel better?’
    Richard’s smile shone like the Talisman’s light. ‘Worlds better,’ he said. ‘Now help me up, Jack.’
    Jack moved to take his shoulder. Richard held out the Talisman.
    ‘Better take this first,’ he said. ‘I’m still weak, and it wants to go back with you. I feel that.’
    Jack took it and helped Richard up. Richard put an arm around Jack’s neck.
    ‘You ready . . . chum ?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Richard said. ‘Ready. But I somehow think the seagoing route’s out, Jack. I think I heard the deck out there collapse during the Big Rumble.’
    ‘We’re going out the front door,’ Jack said. ‘Even if God put down a gangway over the ocean from the windows back there to the beach, I’d still go out the front door. We ain’t ditching this place, Richie. We’re going out like paying guests. I feel like I’ve paid plenty. What do you think?’
    Richard held out one thin hand, palm-up. Healing red blemishes still glared on it.
    ‘I think we ought to go for it,’ he said. ‘Gimme some skin, Jacky.’
    Jack slapped his palm down on Richard’s, and then the two of them started back toward the hallway, Richard with one arm around Jack’s neck.
    Halfway down the hall, Richard stared around at the litter of dead metal. ‘What in heck?’
    ‘Coffee cans,’ Jack said, and smiled. ‘Maxwell House.’
    ‘Jack, what in the world are you t—’
    ‘Never mind, Richard,’ Jack said. He was grinning, and he still felt good, but wires of tension were working into his body again just the same. The earthquake was over . . . but it wasn’t over. Morgan would be waiting for them now. And Gardener.
    Never mind. Let it come down the way it will.
    They reached the lobby and Richard looked around wonderingly at the stairs, the broken registration desk, the tumbled trophies and flag-stands. The stuffed head of a black bear had its nose in one of the pigeonholes of the mail depository, as if smelling something good – honey, perhaps.
    ‘Wow,’ Richard said. ‘Whole place just about fell down.’
    Jack got Richard over to the double doors, and observed Richard’s almost greedy appreciation of that little spray of sunlight.
    ‘Are you really ready for this, Richard?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Your father’s out there.’
    ‘No, he’s not. He’s dead. All that’s out there is his . . . what do you call it? His Twinner.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Richard nodded. In spite of the Talisman’s proximity, he was beginning to look exhausted again. ‘Yes.’
    ‘There’s apt to be a hell of a fight.’
    ‘Well, I’ll do what I can.’
    ‘I