The Talisman by Stephen King

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Sloat ran his hands under the water, then for the sake of his nose drew a little of the moisture on his thumb and index finger up into his nostrils. He dried his hands and his face.

That lovely train, he allowed himself to think, that lovely lovely train, I bet I’m prouder of it than I am of my own son.

Morgan Sloat revelled in the vision of his precious train,

which was the same in both worlds and the first concrete

manifestation of his long-held plan to import modern tech-

nology into the Territories, arriving in Point Venuti loaded with its useful cargo. Point Venuti! Sloat smiled as the coke blasted through his brain, bringing its usual message that all would be well, all would be well. Little Jacky Sawyer would be a very lucky boy ever to leave the odd little town of Point Venuti. In fact, he’d be lucky ever to get there in the first place, considering that he’d have to make his way across the Blasted Lands. But the drug reminded Sloat that in some

ways he’d prefer Jack to make it to dangerous, warped little Point Venuti, he’d even prefer Jack to survive his exposure to the black hotel, which was not merely boards and nails, bricks and stone, but was also somehow alive . . . because it was

possible that he might walk out with the Talisman in his thieving little hands. And if that were to happen . . .

Yes, if that absolutely wonderful event were to take place, all would indeed be well.

And both Jack Sawyer and the Talisman would be broken

in half.

And he, Morgan Sloat, would finally have the canvas his

talents deserved. For a second he saw himself spreading his arms over starry vastnesses, over worlds folded together like lovers on a bed, over all that the Talisman protected, and all that he had coveted so when he’d bought the Agincourt, years back. Jack could get all that for him. Sweetness. Glory.

To celebrate this thought, Sloat brought the vial out of his pocket again and did not bother with the ritual of razor and mirror, but simply used the attached little spoon to raise the medicinal white powder to first one nostril, then the other.

Sweetness, yes.

Sniffing, he came back into the bedroom. Lily appeared

slightly more animated, but his mood now was so good that

even this evidence of her continuing life did not darken it.

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Bright and oddly hollow within their circles of bone, her eyes followed him. “Uncle Bloat has a new loathsome habit,” she

said.

“And you’re dying,” he said. “Which one would you

choose?”

“Do enough of that stuff, and you’ll be dying, too.”

Undeterred by her hostility, Sloat returned to the rickety

wooden chair. “For God’s sake, Lily, grow up,” he said.

“Everybody does coke now. You’re out of touch—you’ve

been out of touch for years. You wanna try some?” He lifted the vial from his pocket and swung it by the chain attached to the little spoon.

“Get out of here.”

Sloat waggled the vial closer to her face.

Lily sat up in bed as smartly as a striking snake and spat in his face.

“Bitch!” He recoiled, grabbing for his handkerchief as the

wad of spittle slid down his cheek.

“If that crap is so wonderful, why do you have to sneak

into the toilet to take it? Don’t answer, just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again, Bloat. Take your fat ass out of here.”

“You’re going to die alone, Lily,” he said, now perversely

filled with a cold, hard joy. “You’re going to die alone, and this comic little town is going to give you a pauper’s burial, and your son is going to be killed because he can’t possibly handle what’s lying in wait for him, and no one will ever hear of either one of you again.” He grinned at her. His plump hands were

balled into white hairy fists. “Remember Asher Dondorf, Lily?

Our client? The sidekick on that series Flanagan and Flanagan? I was reading about him in The Hollywood Reporter—

some issue a few weeks ago. Shot himself in his living room, but his aim wasn’t too cool, because instead of killing himself he just blew away the roof of his mouth and put himself in a coma. Might hang on for years, I hear, just rotting away.” He leaned toward her, his forehead corrugating. “You and good

old Asher have a lot in common, it seems to me.”

She stonily looked back. Her eyes seemed to have crawled

back inside her head, and at that moment she resembled some hard-bitten old frontier woman with a squirrel rifle in one hand and Scripture in the other. “My son is going to save my

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life,” she said. “Jack is going to save my life, and you won’t be able to stop him.”

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Sloat answered. “We’ll just

see about that.”

35

The Blasted Lands

1

“But will ye be safe, my Lord?” Anders asked, kneeling down before Jack with his white-and-red kilt pooled out around him like a skirt.

“Jack?” Richard asked, his voice a whiny, irrelevant skirl

of sound.

“Would you be safe yourself?” Jack asked.

Anders twisted his big white head sideways and squinted

up at Jack as if he had just asked a riddle. He looked like a huge puzzled dog.

“I mean, I’ll be about as safe as you would be yourself.

That’s all I mean.”

“But my Lord . . .”

“Jack?” came Richard’s querulous voice again. “I fell

asleep, and now I should be awake, but we’re still in this

weird place, so I’m still dreaming . . . but I want to be awake, Jack, I don’t want to have this dream anymore. No. I don’t

want to.”

And that’s why you busted your damn glasses, Jack said to himself. Aloud, he said, “This isn’t a dream, Richie-boy.

We’re about to hit the road. We’re gonna take a train ride.”

“Huh?” Richard said, rubbing his face and sitting up. If

Anders resembled a big white dog in skirts, Richard looked

like nothing so much as a newly awakened baby.

“My Lord Jason,” Anders said. Now he seemed as if he

might weep—with relief, Jack thought. “It is yer will? It is yer will to drive that devil-machine through the Blasted Lands?”

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“It sure is,” Jack said.

“Where are we?” Richard said. “Are you sure they’re not

following us?”

Jack turned toward him. Richard was sitting up on the un-

dulating yellow floor, blinking stupidly, terror still drifting about him like a fog. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll answer your question. We’re in a section of the Territories called Ellis-

Breaks—”

“My head hurts,” Richard said. He had closed his eyes.

“And,” Jack went on, “we’re going to take this man’s train

all the way through the Blasted Lands to the black hotel, or as close to it as we can get. That’s it, Richard. Believe it or not.

And the sooner we do it, the sooner we’ll get away from whatever just might be trying to find us.”

“Etheridge,” Richard whispered. “Mr. Dufrey.” He looked

around the mellow interior of The Depot as if he expected all their pursuers to suddenly pour through the walls. “It’s a brain tumor, you know,” he said to Jack in a tone of perfect reasonableness. “That’s what it is—my headache.”

“My Lord Jason,” old Anders was saying, bowing so low

that his hair settled down on the rippling floorboards. “How good ye are, O High One, how good to yer lowliest servant,

how good to those who do not deserve yer blessed

presence. . . .” He crawled forward, and Jack saw with horror that he was about to begin that moony foot-kissing all over again.

“Pretty far advanced, too, I’d say,” Richard offered.

“Get up, please, Anders,” Jack said, stepping back. “Get

up, come on, that’s enough.” The old man continued to crawl forward, babbling with his relief at not having to endure the Blasted Lands. “ARISE!” Jack bellowed.

Anders looked up, his forehead wrinkled. “Yes, my Lord.”

He slowly got up.

“Bring your brain tumor over here, Richard,” Jack said

“We’re going to see if we can figure out how to drive this

damn train.”

2

Anders had moved over behind the long, rippling counter, and was rooting in a drawer. “I believe it works on devils, my

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Lord,” he said. “Strange devils, all hurtled down together.

They do not appear to live, yet they do. Aye.” He fetched out of the drawer the longest, fattest candle that Jack had ever seen. From a box atop the counter Anders selected a foot-long, narrow softwood strip, then lowered one of its ends into a glowing lamp. The strip of wood ignited, and Anders used it to light his enormous candle. Then he waved the “match”