The Talisman

Captain said suddenly. ‘Damned lucky. I think he meant to kill you.’
    Jack gaped at him, his mouth dry and hot.
    ‘He’s mad, you know. Mad as the man who chased the cake.’
    Jack had no idea what that might mean, but he agreed that Osmond was mad.
    ‘What—’
    ‘Wait,’ the Captain said. They had come back around to the small tent where the Captain had taken Jack after seeing the shark’s tooth. ‘Stand right here and wait for me. Speak to no one.’
    The Captain entered the tent. Jack stood watching and waiting. A juggler passed him, glancing at Jack but never losing his rhythm as he tossed half a dozen balls in a complex and airy pattern. A straggle of dirty children followed him as the children followed the Piper out of Hamelin. A young woman with a dirty baby at one huge breast told him she could teach him something to do with his little man besides let piss out of it, if he had a coin or two. Jack looked uncomfortably away, his face hot.
    The girl cawed laughter. ‘ Oooooo, this pretty young man’s SHY! Come over here, pretty! Come —’
    ‘Get out, slut, or you’ll finish the day in the under-kitchens.’
    It was the Captain. He had come out of the tent with another man. This second fellow was old and fat, but he shared one characteristic with Farren – he looked like a real soldier rather than one from Gilbert and Sullivan. He was trying to fasten the front of his uniform over his bulging gut while holding a curly, French horn-like instrument at the same time.
    The girl with the dirty baby scurried away with never another look at Jack. The Captain took the fat man’s horn so he could finish buttoning and passed another word with him. The fat man nodded, finished with his shirt, took his horn back, and then strode off, blowing it. It was not like the sound Jack had heard on his first flip into the Territories; that had been many horns, and their sound had been somehow showy: the sound of heralds. This was like a factory whistle, announcing work to be done.
    The Captain returned to Jack.
    ‘Come with me,’ he said.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Outpost Road,’ Captain Farren said, and then he cast a wondering half-fearful eye down on Jack Sawyer. ‘What my father’s father called Western Road. It goes west through smaller and smaller villages until it reaches the Outposts. Beyond the Outposts it goes into nowhere . . . or hell. If you’re going west, you’ll need God with you, boy. But I’ve heard it said He Himself never ventures beyond the Outposts. Come on.’
    Questions crowded Jack’s mind – a million of them – but the Captain set a killer pace and he didn’t have the spare breath to ask them. They breasted the rise south of the great pavillion and passed the spot where he had first flipped back out of the Territories. The rustic fun-fair was now close – Jack could hear a barker cajoling patrons to try their luck on Wonder the Devil-Donkey; to stay on two minutes was to win a prize, the barker cried. His voice came on the sea-breeze with perfect clarity, as did the mouthwatering smell of hot food – roast corn as well as meat this time. Jack’s stomach rumbled. Now safely away from Osmond the Great and Terrible, he was ravenous.
    Before they quite reached the fair, they turned right on a road much wider than the one which led toward the great pavillion. Outpost Road , Jack thought, and then, with a little chill of fear and anticipation in his belly, he corrected himself: No . . . Western Road. The way to the Talisman .
    Then he was hurrying after Captain Farren again.

6
    Osmond had been right; they could have followed their noses, if necessary. They were still a mile outside the village with that odd name when the first sour tang of spilled ale came to them on the breeze.
    Eastward-bearing traffic on the road was heavy. Most of it was wagons drawn by lathered teams of horses (none with two heads, however). The wagons were, Jack supposed, the Diamond Reos and Peterbilts of this world. Some were piled high with bags and bales and sacks, some with raw meat, some with clacking cages of chickens. On the outskirts of All-Hands’ Village, an open wagon filled with women swept by them at an alarming pace. The women were laughing and shrieking. One got to her feet, raised her skirt all the way to her hairy crotch, and did a tipsy bump and grind. She would have tumbled over the side of the wagon and into the ditch – probably breaking her neck – if one of her colleagues hadn’t