How well, he thought, how well radiation poisoning fit with the whole idea of the Blasted Lands! And then he realized something else, as well the west was where the first tests had been carried outwhere the prototype of the Hiroshima bomb had been hung from a tower and then exploded, where any number of suburbs inhabited only by departmentstore mannequins had been destroyed so the Army could get a more or less accurate idea of what a nuclear explosion and the resulting firestorm would really do. And in the end they had returned to Utah and Nevada, among the last of the real American Territories, and had simply resumed testing underground. There was, he knew, a lot of government land out there in those great wastes, those tangles of buttes and mesas and crenellated badlands, and bombs were not all they were testing out there. How much of that shit would Sloat bring over here if the Queen died? How much of that shit had he already brought? Was this stagelinecumrailhead part of the shipping system for it? Ye dont look good, my Lord, not at all. Ye look as white as a sheet; Ill take an oath that ye do! Im fine, Jack said slowly. Sit down. Go on with your story. And light your pipe, its gone out. Anders took his pipe from his mouth, relit it, and looked from Jack to the window again . . . and now his face was not just bleak; it was haggard with fright. But Ill know soon enough if the stories are true, I suppose. Why is that? Because I start through the Blasted Lands tomorrow morning, at first light, Anders said. I start through the Blasted Lands, driving Morgan of Orriss devilmachine in yon shed, and carrying God alone knows what sort of hideous devils work. Jack stared at him, his heart pumping hard, the blood humming in his head. Where? How far? To the ocean? The big water? Anders nodded slowly. Aye, he said. To the water. And His voice dropped, became a strengthless whisper. His eyes rolled toward the dark windows, as if he feared some nameless thing might be peering in, watching, eavesdropping. And there Morgan will meet me, and were to take his goods on. On to where? Jack asked. To the black hotel, Anders finished in a low, trembling voice. 6 Jack felt the urge to break into wild cackles of laughter again. The Black Hotelit sounded like the title of a lurid mystery novel. And yet . . . and yet . . . all of this had begun at a hotel, hadnt it? The Alhambra in New Hampshire, on the Atlantic coast. Was there some other hotel, perhaps even another rambling old Victorian monstrosity of a hotel, on the Pacific coast? Was that where his long, strange adventure was supposed to end? In some analogue of the Alhambra and with a seedy amusement park close at hand? This idea was terribly persuasive; in an odd, yet precise way, it even seemed to pick up the idea of Twinners and Twinning . . . Why do ye look at me so, my Lord? Anders sounded agitated and upset. Jack shifted his gaze away quickly. Im sorry, he said. I was just thinking. He smiled reassuringly, and the liveryman smiled tentatively back at him. And I wish youd stop calling me that. Calling ye what, my Lord? My Lord. My Lord? Anders looked puzzled. He was not echoing what Jack had said but asking for clarification. Jack had a feeling that if he tried to push on with this, he would end up in the middle of a Whos on first, Whats on second sort of sketch. Never mind, Jack said. He leaned forward. I want you to tell me everything. Can you do that? Ill try, my Lord, Anders said. 7 His words came slowly at first. He was a single man who had spent his entire life in the Outposts and he was not used to talking much at the best of times. Now he had been commanded to speak by a boy whom he considered to be at least royalty, and perhaps even something like a god. But, little by little, his words began to come faster, and by the end of his inconclusive but terribly provocative tale, the words were nearly pouring out. Jack had no trouble following the tale he told in spite of the mans accent, which his mind kept translating into a sort of ersatz Robert Burns burr. Anders knew Morgan because Morgan was, quite simply, Lord of the Outposts. His real title, Morgan of Orris, was not so grand, but as a practical matter, the two came to nearly the same. Orris was the easternmost cantonment of the Outposts, and the only really organized part of that large, grassy area. Because he ruled Orris utterly and completely, Morgan ruled the rest of the Outposts by default. Also, the bad Wolfs had begun to gravitate to Morgan in the last fifteen years or so. At first that meant little, because there were only a few bad (except the word Anders used also sounded a bit like rabid to Jacks ear) Wolfs. But in later years there had been more and more of them, and Anders said he had heard tales that, since the Queen had fallen ill, more than half the tribe of skinturning shepherds were rotten with the sickness. Nor were these the only creatures at Morgan of Orriss command, Anders said; there were others, even worsesome, it was told, could drive a man mad at a single look. Jack thought of Elroy, the bogeyman of the Oatley Tap, and shuddered. Does this part of the Outposts were in have a name? Jack asked. My Lord? This part were in now. No real name, my Lord, but Ive heard people call it EllisBreaks. EllisBreaks, Jack said. A picture of Territories geography, vague and probably in many ways incorrect, was finally beginning to take shape in Jacks mind. There were the Territories, which corresponded to the American east; the Outposts, which corresponded to the American midwest and great plains (EllisBreaks? Illinois? Nebraska?); and the Blasted Lands, which corresponded to the American west. He looked at Anders so long and so fixedly that at last the liveryman began to stir uneasily again. Im sorry, Jack said. Go on. His father, Anders said, had been the last stage driver who drove out east from Outpost Depot. Anders had been his prentice. But even in those days, he said, there were great confusions and upheavals in the east; the murder of the old King and the short war which had followed it had seen the beginning of those upheavals, and although the war had ended with the installation of Good Queen Laura, the upheavals had gone on ever since, seeming to work their way steadily eastward, out of the spoiled and twisted Blasted Lands. There were some, Anders said, who believed the evil had begun all the way west. Im not sure I understand you, Jack said, although in his heart he thought he did. At lands end, Anders said. At the edge of the big water, where I am bound to go. In other words, it began in the same place my father came from . . . my father, and me, and Richard . . . and Morgan. Old Bloat. The troubles, Anders said, had come to the Outposts, and now the Wolf tribe was partly rottenjust how rotten none could say, but the liveryman told Jack he was afraid that the rot would be the end of them if it didnt stop soon. The upheavals had come here, and now they had even reached the east, where, he had heard, the Queen lay ill and near death. Thats not true, is it, my Lord? Anders asked . . . almost begged. Jack looked at him. Should I know how to answer that? he asked. Of course, Anders said. Are ye not her son? For a moment, the entire world seemed to become very quiet. The sweet hum of the bugs outside stilled. Richard seemed to pause between heavy, sluggish breaths. Even his own heart seemed to pause . . . perhaps that most of all. Then, his voice perfectly even, he said, Yes . . . I am her son. And its true . . . shes very ill. But dying? Anders persisted, his eyes nakedly pleading now. Is she dying, my Lord? Jack smiled a little and said That remains to be seen. 8 Anders said that until the troubles began, Morgan of Orris had been a littleknown frontier lord and no more; he had inherited his comicopera title from a father who had been a greasy, evilsmelling buffoon. Morgans father had been something of a laughingstock while alive, Anders went on, and had even been a laughingstock in his manner of dying. He was taken with the squitters after a day of drinking peachfruit wine and died while on the trots. People had been prepared to make the old mans son a laughingstock as well, but the laughing had stopped soon after the hangings in Orris began. And when the troubles began in the years after the death of the old King, Morgan had risen in importance as a star of evil omen rises in the sky. All of this meant little this far out in the Outpoststhese great empty spaces, Anders said, made politics seem unimportant. Only the deadly change in the Wolf tribe made a practical difference to them, and since most of the bad Wolfs went to the Other Place, even that didnt make much difference to them (It fashes us little, my Lord was what Jacks ears insisted they had heard). Then, not long after the news of the Queens illness had reached this far west, Morgan had sent out a crew of grotesque, twisted slaves from the orepits back east; these slaves were tended by stolen Wolfs and other, stranger creatures. Their foreman was a terrible man who carried a whip; he had been here almost constantly when the work began, but then he had disappeared. Anders, who had spent most of those terrible weeks and months cowering in his house, which was some five miles south of here, had been delighted to see him go. He had heard rumors that Morgan had called the man with the whip back east, where affairs were reaching some great point of climax; Anders didnt know if this was true or not, and didnt care. He was simply glad that the man, who was sometimes accompanied by a scrawny, somehow gruesomelooking little boy, was gone. His name, Jack demanded. What was his name? My Lord, I dont know. The Wolfs called him He of the Lashes. The slaves just called him the devil. Id say they were both right. Did he dress like a dandy? Velvet coats? Shoes with buckles on the tops, maybe? Anders was nodding. Did he wear a lot of strong perfume? Aye! Aye, he did! And the whip had little rawhide strings with metal caps on them. Aye, my Lord. An evil whip. And he was fearsome good with it, aye, he was. It was Osmond. It was Sunlight Gardener. He was here, overseeing some project for Morgan . . . then the Queen got sick and Osmond was called back to the summer palace, where I first made his cheerful acquaintance. His son, Jack said. What did his son look like? Skinny, Anders said slowly. One eye was afloat. Thats all I can remember. He . . . my Lord, the Whipmans son was hard to see. The Wolfs seemed more afraid of him than of his father, although the son carried no whip. They said he was dim. Dim, Jack mused. Yes. It is their word for one who is hard to see, no matter how hard ye look for that one. Invisibility is impossibleso the Wolfs saybut one can make himself dim if only he knows the trick of it. Most Wolfs do, and this little whoreson knew it, too. So all I remember is how thin he was, and that floating eye, and that he was as ugly as black, syphilitic sin. Anders paused. He liked to hurt things. Little things. He used to take them under the porch and Id hear the most awful screams. . . . Anders shuddered. That was one of the reasons I kept to my house, you know. I dont like to hear wee animals in pain. Makes me feel turrible bad, it does. Everything Anders said raised a hundred fresh questions in Jacks mind. He would particularly have liked to know all that Anders knew about the Wolfsjust hearing of them woke simultaneous pleasure and a deep, dully painful longing for his Wolf in his heart. But time was short; this man was scheduled to drive west into the Blasted Lands in the morning, a horde of crazy scholars led by Morgan himself might burst through from what the liveryman called the Other Place at any moment, Richard might wake up and want to know who this Morgan was they were discussing, and who this dim fellow wasthis dim fellow who sounded suspiciously like the fellow who had lived next door to him in Nelson House. They came, he prompted, this crew came, and Osmond was their foremanat least until he was called away or whenever he had to lead the devotions at nightchapel back in Indiana My Lord? Anderss face was again ponderous with puzzlement. They came, and they built . . . what? He was sure he already knew the answer to this, but he wanted to hear Anders himself say it. Why, the tracks, Anders said. The tracks going west into the Blasted Lands. The tracks I must travel myself tomorrow. He shuddered. No, Jack said. A hot, terrible excitement exploded in his chest like a sun, and he rose to his feet. Again there was that click in his head, that terrible, persuasive feeling of great things coming together. Anders fell on his knees with a crash as a terrible, beautiful light filled Jacks face. Richard stirred at the sound and sat sleepily up. Not you, Jack said. Me. And him. He pointed at Richard. Jack? Richard looked at him with sleepy, nearsighted confusion. What are you talking about? And why is that man sniffing the floor? My Lord . . . yer will, of course . . . but I dont understand. . . . Not you, Jack said, us. Well take the train for you. But my Lord, why? Anders managed, not yet daring to look up. Jack Sawyer looked out into the darkness. Because, he said, I think theres something at the end of the tracksat the end of the tracks or near the endthat I have to get. Interlude Sloat in This World (IV) On the tenth of December, a bundledup Morgan Sloat was sitting on the uncomfortable little wooden chair beside Lily Sawyers bedhe was cold, so he had his heavy cashmere coat wrapped around him and his hands thrust deep into its pockets, but he was having a much better time than his appearance suggested. Lily was dying. She was going out, away, to that place from which you never came back, not even if you were a Queen in a football fieldsized bed. Lilys bed was not so grand, and she did not in the least resemble a Queen. Illness had subtracted her good looks, had skinned down her face and aged her a quick twenty years. Sloat let his eyes roam appreciatively over the prominent ridges of bone about her eyes, the tortoiselike shell of her forehead. Her ravaged body barely made a lump beneath the sheets and blankets. Sloat knew that the Alhambra had been well paid to leave Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer alone, for it was he who had paid them. They no longer bothered to send heat up to her room. She was the hotels only guest. Besides the desk clerk and cook, the only employees still in the Alhambra were three Portuguese maids who spent all their time cleaning the lobbyit must have been the maids who kept Lily piled high with blankets. Sloat himself had commandeered the suite across the hall, and ordered the desk clerk and the maids to keep a close eye on Lily. To see if she would open her eyes, he said, Youre looking better, Lily. I really think I see signs of improvement. Without moving anything but her mouth, Lily said, I dont know why you pretend to be human, Sloat. Im the best friend you have, Sloat responded. Now she did open her eyes, and they were not dull enough to suit him. Get out of here, she whispered. Youre obscene. Im trying to help you, and I wish youd remember that. I have all the papers, Lily. All you have to do is sign them. Once you do, you and your son are taken care of for life. Sloat regarded Lily with an expression of satisfied gloom. I havent had much luck in locating Jack, by the way. Spoken to him lately? You know I havent, she said. And did not weep, as he had hoped. I really do think the boy ought to be here, dont you? Piss up a stick, Lily said. I think I will use your bathroom, if you dont mind, he said, and stood up. Lily closed her eyes again, ignoring him. I hope hes staying out of trouble, anyhow, Sloat said, slowly walking down the side of the bed. Terrible things happen to boys on the road. Lily still did not respond. Things I hate to think about. He reached the end of the bed and continued on to the bathroom door. Lily lay under her sheets and blankets like a crumpled piece of tissue paper. Sloat went into the bathroom. He rubbed his hands together, gently closed the door, and turned on both taps over the sink. From the pocket of his suitcoat he extracted a small brown twogram vial, from his inner jacket pocket a small case containing a mirror, a razor blade, and a short brass straw. Onto the mirror he tapped about an eighth of a gram of the purest Peruvian Flake cocaine hed been able to find. Then he chopped it ritualistically with his blade, forming it into two stubby lines. He snorted the lines through the brass straw, gasped, inhaled sharply, and held his breath for a second or two. Aah. His nasal passages opened up as wide as tunnels. Way back there, a drip began to deliver the goodies. 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 Im 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 longheld plan to import modern technology 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, hed be lucky ever to get there in the first place, considering that hed have to make his way across the Blasted Lands. But the drug reminded Sloat that in some ways hed prefer Jack to make it to dangerous, warped little Point Venuti, hed 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 hed 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. Bright and oddly hollow within their circles of bone, her eyes followed him. Uncle Bloat has a new loathsome habit, she said. And youre dying, he said. Which one would you choose? Do enough of that stuff, and youll be dying, too. Undeterred by her hostility, Sloat returned to the rickety wooden chair. For Gods sake, Lily, grow up, he said. Everybody does coke now. Youre out of touchyouve 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? Dont answer, just leave me alone. I dont want to see you again, Bloat. Take your fat ass out of here. Youre going to die alone, Lily, he said, now perversely filled with a cold, hard joy. Youre going to die alone, and this comic little town is going to give you a paupers burial, and your son is going to be killed because he cant possibly handle whats 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 Reportersome issue a few weeks ago. Shot himself in his living room, but his aim wasnt 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 hardbitten old frontier woman with a squirrel rifle in one hand and Scripture in the other. My son is going to save my life, she said. Jack is going to save my life, and you wont be able to stop him. Well, well see, wont we? Sloat answered. Well just see about that. 35 The Blasted Lands 1 But will ye be safe, my Lord? Anders asked, kneeling down before Jack with his whiteandred 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, Ill be about as safe as you would be yourself. Thats all I mean. But my Lord . . . Jack? came Richards querulous voice again. I fell asleep, and now I should be awake, but were still in this weird place, so Im still dreaming . . . but I want to be awake, Jack, I dont want to have this dream anymore. No. I dont want to. And thats why you busted your damn glasses, Jack said to himself. Aloud, he said, This isnt a dream, Richieboy. Were about to hit the road. Were 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 weepwith relief, Jack thought. It is yer will? It is yer will to drive that devilmachine through the Blasted Lands? It sure is, Jack said. Where are we? Richard said. Are you sure theyre not following us? Jack turned toward him. Richard was sitting up on the undulating yellow floor, blinking stupidly, terror still drifting about him like a fog. Okay, he said. Ill answer your question. Were in a section of the Territories called EllisBreaks My head hurts, Richard said. He had closed his eyes. And, Jack went on, were going to take this mans train all the way through the Blasted Lands to the black hotel, or as close to it as we can get. Thats it, Richard. Believe it or not. And the sooner we do it, the sooner well 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. Its a brain tumor, you know, he said to Jack in a tone of perfect reasonableness. Thats what it ismy 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 footkissing all over again. Pretty far advanced, too, Id say, Richard offered. Get up, please, Anders, Jack said, stepping back. Get up, come on, thats 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 Were 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 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 footlong, 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 back and forth until the flame expired in a curl of smoke. Devils? Jack asked. Strange square thingsI believe the devils are contained therein. Sometimes how they spit and spark! I shall show this to ye, Lord Jason. Without another word he swept toward the door, the warm glow of the candle momentarily erasing the wrinkles from his face. Jack followed him outside into the sweetness and amplitude of the deep Territories. He remembered a photograph on the wall of Speedy Parkers office, a photograph even then filled with an inexplicable power, and realized that he was actually near the site of that photograph. Far off rose a familiarlooking mountain. Down the little knoll the fields of grain rolled away in all directions, waving in smooth, wide patterns. Richard Sloat moved hesitantly beside Jack, rubbing his forehead. The silvery bands of metal, out of key with the rest of the landscape, stretched inexorably west. The shed is in back, my Lord, Anders said softly, and almost shyly turned away toward the side of The Depot. Jack took another glance at the faroff mountain. Now it looked less like the mountain in Speedys photographnewera western, not an eastern, mountain. Whats with that Lord Jason business? Richard whispered right into his ear. He thinks he knows you. Its hard to explain, Jack said. Richard tugged at his bandanna, then clamped a hand on Jacks biceps. The old Kansas City Clutch. What happened to the school, Jack? What happened to the dogs? Where are we? Just come along, Jack said. Youre probably still dreaming. Yes, Richard said in the tone of purest relief. Yes, thats it, isnt it? Im still asleep. You told me all that crazy stuff about the Territories, and now Im dreaming about it. Yeah, Jack said, and set off after Anders. The old man was holding up the enormous candle like a torch and drifting down the rear side of the knoll toward another, slightly larger, octagonal wooden building. The two boys followed him through the tall yellow grass. Light spilled from another of the transparent globes, revealing that this second building was open at opposite ends, as if two matching faces of the octagon had been neatly sliced away. The silvery train tracks ran through these open ends. Anders reached the large shed and turned around to wait for the boys. With the flaring, sputtering, upheld candle, his long beard and odd clothes, Anders resembled a creature from legend or faery, a sorcerer or wizard. It sits here, as it has since it came, and may the demons drive it hence. Anders scowled at the boys, and all his wrinkles deepened. Invention of hell. A foul thing, dye ken. He looked over his shoulder when the boys were before him. Jack saw that Anders did not even like being in the shed with the train. Half its cargo is aboard, and it, too, stinks of hell. Jack stepped into the open end of the shed, forcing Anders to follow him. Richard stumbled after, rubbing his eyes. The little train sat pointing west on the tracksan oddlooking engine, a boxcar, a flatcar covered with a straining tarp. From this last car came the smell Anders so disliked. It was a wrong smell, not of the Territories, both metallic and greasy. Richard immediately went to one of the interior angles of the shed, sat down on the floor with his back to the wall, and closed his eyes. Dye ken its workings, my Lord? Anders asked in a low voice. Jack shook his head and walked up along the tracks to the head of the train. Yes, there were Anderss demons. They were box batteries, just as Jack had supposed. Sixteen of them, in two rows strung together in a metal container supported by the cabs first four wheels. The entire front part of the train looked like a more sophisticated version of a deliveryboys bicyclecartbut where the bicycle itself should have been was a little cab which reminded Jack of something else . . . something he could not immediately identify. The demons talk to the upright stick, Anders said from behind him. Jack hoisted himself up into the little cab. The stick Anders had mentioned was a gearshift set in a slot with three notches. Then Jack knew what the little cab resembled. The whole train ran on the same principle as a golf cart. Batterypowered, it had only three gears forward, neutral, and reverse. It was the only sort of train that might possibly work in the Territories, and Morgan Sloat must have had it specially constructed for him. The demons in the boxes spit and spark, and talk to the stick, and the stick moves the train, my Lord. Anders hovered anxiously beside the cab, his face contorting into an astonishing display of wrinkles. You were going to leave in the morning? Jack asked the old man. Aye. But the train is ready now? Yes, my Lord. Jack nodded, and jumped down. Whats the cargo? Devilthings, Anders said grimly. For the bad Wolfs. To take to the black hotel. Id be a jump ahead of Morgan Sloat if I left now, Jack thought. And looked uneasily over at Richard, who had managed to put himself asleep again. If it werent for pigheaded, hypochondriacal Rational Richard, he would never have stumbled onto Sloats choochoo; and Sloat would have been able to use the devilthingsweapons of some kind, surelyagainst him as soon as he got near the black hotel. For the hotel was the end of his quest, he was sure of that now. And all of that seemed to argue that Richard, as helpless and annoying as he now was, was going to be more important to his quest than Jack had ever imagined. The son of Sawyer and the son of Sloat the son of Prince Philip Sawtelle and the son of Morgan of Orris. For an instant the world wheeled above Jack and he snagged a seconds insight that Richard might just be essential to whatever he was going to have to do in the black hotel. Then Richard snuffled and let his mouth drop open, and the feeling of momentary comprehension slipped away from Jack. Lets have a look at those devilthings, he said. He whirled around and marched back down the length of the train, along the way noticing for the first time that the floor of the octagonal shed was in two sectionsmost of it was one round circular mass, like an enormous dinner plate. Then there was a break in the wood, and what was beyond the perimeter of the circle extended to the walls. Jack had never heard of a roundhouse, but he understood the concept the circular part of the floor could turn a hundred and eighty degrees. Normally, trains or coaches came in from the east, and returned in the same direction. The tarpaulin had been tied down over the cargo with thick brown cord so hairy it looked like steel wool. Jack strained to lift an edge, peered under, saw only blackness. Help me, he said, turning to Anders. The old man stepped forward, frowning, and with one strong, deft motion released a knot. The tarpaulin loosened and sagged. Now when Jack lifted its edge, he saw that half of the flatcar held a row of wooden boxes stencilled MACHINE PARTS. Guns, he thought Morgan is arming his rebel Wolfs. The other half of the space beneath the tarp was occupied by bulky rectangular packages of a squashylooking substance wrapped in layers of clear plastic sheeting.


Jack had no idea what this substance might be, but he was pretty sure it wasnt Wonder Bread. He dropped the tarpaulin and stepped back, and Anders pulled at the thick rope and knotted it again. Were going tonight, Jack said, having just decided this. But my Lord Jason . . . the Blasted Lands . . . at night . . . dye ken I ken, all right, Jack said. I ken that Ill need all the surprise I can whip up. Morgan and that man the Wolfs call He of the Lashes are going to be looking for me, and if I show up twelve hours before anybody is expecting this train, Richard and I might get away alive. Anders nodded gloomily, and again looked like an oversize dog accommodating itself to unhappy knowledge. Jack looked at Richard againasleep, sitting up with his mouth open. As if he knew what was in Jacks mind, Anders, too, looked toward sleeping Richard. Did Morgan of Orris have a son? Jack asked. He did, my Lord. Morgans brief marriage had issuea boy child named Rushton. And what became of Rushton? As if I couldnt guess. He died, Anders said simply. Morgan of Orris was not meant to be a father. Jack shuddered, remembering how his enemy had torn his way through the air and nearly killed Wolfs entire herd. Were going, he said. Will you please help me get Richard into the cab, Anders? My Lord . . . Anders hung his head, then lifted it and gave Jack a look of almost parental concern. The journey will require at least two days, perhaps three, before ye reach the western shore. Have ye any food? Would ye share my evening meal? Jack shook his head, impatient to begin this last leg of his journey to the Talisman, but then his stomach abruptly growled, reminding him of how long it had been since he had eaten anything but the RingDings and stale Famous Amos cookies in Albert the Blobs room. Well, he said, I suppose another half hour wont make any difference. Thank you, Anders. Help me get Richard up on his feet, will you? And maybe, he thought, he wasnt so eager to cross the Blasted Lands after all. The two of them jerked Richard to his feet. Like the Dormouse, he opened his eyes, smiled, and sagged back to sleep again. Food, Jack said. Real food. You up for that, chum? I never eat in dreams, Richard answered with surreal rationality. He yawned, then wiped his eyes. He gradually had found his feet, and no longer leaned against Anders and Jack. I am pretty hungry, though, to tell you the truth. Im having a long dream, arent I, Jack? He seemed almost proud of it. Yep, said Jack. Say, is that the train were going to take? It looks like a cartoon. Yep. Can you drive that thing, Jack? Its my dream, I know, but Its about as hard to operate as my old electric train set, Jack said. I can drive it, and so can you. I dont want to, Richard said, and that cringing, whining tone came back into his voice again. I dont want to get on that train at all. I want to go back to my room. Come and have some food instead, Jack said, and found himself leading Richard out of the shed. Then were on our way to California. And so the Territories showed one of its best faces to the boys immediately before they entered the Blasted Lands. Anders gave them thick sweet slices of bread clearly made from the grain growing around The Depot, kebabs of tender sections of meat and plump juicy unfamiliar vegetables, a spicy pink juice that Jack for some reason thought of as papaya though he knew it was not. Richard chewed in a happy trance, the juice running down his chin until Jack wiped it off for him. California, he said once. I should have known. Assuming that he was alluding to that states reputation for craziness, Jack did not question him. He was more concerned about what the two of them were doing to Anderss presumably limited stock of food, but the old man kept nipping behind the counter, where he or his father before him had installed a small woodburning stove, and returning with yet more food. Corn muffins, calfsfoot jelly, things that looked like chicken legs but tasted of . . . what? Frankincense and myrrh? Flowers? The taste fairly exploded over his tongue, and he thought that he, too, might begin to drool. The three of them sat around a little table in the warm and mellow room. At the end of the meal Anders almost shyly brought forth a heavy beaker halffilled with red wine. Feeling as if he were following someone elses script, Jack drank a small glassful. 3 Two hours later, beginning to feel drowsy, Jack wondered if that enormous meal had been an equally enormous error. First of all, there had been the departure from EllisBreaks and The Depot, which had not gone easily; secondly, there was Richard, who threatened to go seriously crazy; and thirdly, and above all else, there were the Blasted Lands. Which were far crazier than Richard would ever be, and which absolutely demanded concentrated attention. After the meal the three of them had returned to the shed, and the trouble had started. Jack knew that he was fearful of whatever might be aheadand, he now knew, that fear was perfectly justifiedand perhaps his trepidation had made him behave less well than he should have. The first difficulty had come when he tried to pay old Anders with the coin Captain Farren had given him. Anders responded as if his beloved Jason had just stabbed him in the back. Sacrilege! Outrage! By offering the coin, Jack had done more than merely insult the old liveryman; he had metaphorically smeared mud on his religion. Supernaturally restored divine beings apparently were not supposed to offer coins to their followers. Anders had been upset enough to smash his hand into the devilbox, as he called the metal container for the rank of batteries, and Jack knew that Anders had been mightily tempted to strike another target besides the train. Jack had managed only a semitruce Anders did not want his apologies any more than he wanted his money. The old man had finally calmed down once he realized the extent of the boys dismay, but he did not really return to his normal behavior until Jack speculated out loud that the Captain Farren coin might have other functions, other roles for him. Yere not Jason entire, the old man gloomed, yet the Queens coin may aid ye toward yer destiny. He shook his head heavily. His farewell wave had been distinctly halfhearted. But a good portion of that had been due to Richard. What had begun as a sort of childish panic had quickly blossomed into fullblown terror. Richard had refused to get in the cab. Up until that moment he had mooned around the shed, not looking at the train, seemingly in an uncaring daze. Then he had realized that Jack was serious about getting him on that thing, and he had freakedand, strangely, it had been the idea of ending up in California which had disturbed him most. NO! NO! CANT! Richard had yelled when Jack urged him toward the train. I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM! They might be following us, Richard, Jack said wearily. We have to get going. He reached out and took Richards arm. This is all a dream, remember? Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, Anders had said, moving aimlessly around in the big shed, and Jack understood that for once the liveryman was not addressing him. I HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM! Richard squalled. His eyes were clamped shut so tightly that a single painful crease ran from temple to temple. Echoes of Wolf again. Jack had tried to pull Richard toward the train, but Richard had stuck fast, like a mule. I CANT GO THERE! he yelled. Well, you cant stay here, either, Jack said. He made another futile effort at yanking Richard toward the train, and this time actually budged him a foot or two. Richard, he said, this is ridiculous. Do you want to be here alone? Do you want to be left alone in the Territories? Richard shook his head. Then come with me. Its time. In two days well be in California. Bad business, Anders muttered to himself, watching the boys. Richard simply continued to shake his head, offering a single comprehensive negative. I cant go there, he repeated. I cant get on that train and I cant go there. California? Richard bit his mouth into a lipless seam and closed his eyes again. Oh hell, Jack said. Can you help me, Anders? The huge old man gave him a dismayed, almost disgusted look, then marched across the room and scooped up Richard in his armsas if Richard were the size of a puppy. The boy let out a distinctly puppyish squeal. Anders dropped him onto the padded bench in the cab. Jack! Richard called, afraid that he somehow was going to wind up in the Blasted Lands all by himself. Im here, Jack said, and was in fact already climbing into the other side of the cab. Thank you, Anders, he said to the old liveryman, who nodded gloomily and retreated back into a corner of the shed. Take care. Richard had begun to weep, and Anders looked at him without pity. Jack pushed the ignition button, and two enormous blue sparks shot out from the devilbox just as the engine whirred into life. Here goes, Jack said, and eased the lever forward. The train began to glide out of the shed. Richard whimpered and drew up his knees. Saying something like Nonsense or ImpossibleJack chiefly heard the hiss of the sibilantshe buried his face between his knees. He looked as though he were trying to become a circle. Jack waved to Anders, who waved back, and then they were out of the lighted shed and were covered only by the vast dark sky. Anderss silhouette appeared in the opening through which they had gone, as if he had decided to run after them. The train was not capable of going more than thirty miles an hour, Jack thought, and at present was doing no better than eight or nine. This seemed excruciatingly slow. West, Jack said to himself, west, west, west. Anders stepped back inside the shed, and his beard lay against his massive chest like a covering of frost. The train lurched forwardanother sizzling blue spark snapped upwardand Jack turned around on the padded seat to see what was coming. NO! Richard screamed, almost making Jack fall out of the cab. I CANT! CANT GO THERE! He had drawn his head up from his knees, but he wasnt seeing anythinghis eyes were still clamped shut, and his whole face looked like a knuckle. Be quiet, Jack said. Ahead the tracks arrowed through the endless fields of waving grain; dim mountains, old teeth, floated in the western clouds. Jack glanced one last time over his shoulder and saw the little oasis of warmth and light which was The Depot and the octagonal shed, slipping slowly backward behind him. Anders was a tall shadow in a lighted doorway. Jack gave a final wave, and the tall shadow waved, too. Jack turned around again and looked over the immensity of grain, all that lyric distance. If this was what the Blasted Lands were like, the next two days were going to be positively restful. Of course they were not, not like that at all. Even in the moonlit dark he could tell that the grain was thinning out, becoming scrubbyabout half an hour out of The Depot the change had begun. Even the color seemed wrong now, almost artificial, no longer the beautiful organic yellow he had seen before, but the yellow of something left too near a powerful heat sourcethe yellow of something with most of the life bleached out of it. Richard now had a similar quality. For a time he had hyperventilated, then he had wept as silently and shamelessly as a jilted girl, then he had fallen into a twitchy sleep. Cant go back, he had muttered in his sleep, or such were the words Jack thought he had heard. In sleep he seemed to dwindle. The whole character of the landscape had begun to alter. From the broad sweep of the plains in EllisBreaks, the land had mutated to secretive little hollows and dark little valleys crowded with black trees. Huge boulders lay everywhere, skulls, eggs, giant teeth. The ground itself had changed, become much sandier. Twice the walls of the valleys grew up right alongside the tracks, and all Jack could see on either side were scrubby reddish cliffs covered with low creeping plants. Now and then he thought he saw an animal scurrying for cover, but the light was too weak, and the animal too quick, for him to identify it. But Jack had the eerie feeling that if the animal had frozen absolutely still in the middle of Rodeo Drive at high noon, he would still have been unable to identify ita suggestion that the head was twice the size it should be, that this animal was better off hiding from human sight. By the time ninety minutes had elapsed, Richard was moaning in his sleep and the landscape had passed into utter strangeness. The second time they had emerged from one of the claustrophobic valleys, Jack had been surprised by a sense of sudden opennessat first it was like being back in the Territories again, the Daydreamsland. Then he had noticed, even in the dark, how the trees were stunted and bent; then he had noticed the smell. Probably this had been slowly growing in his consciousness, but it was only after he had seen how the few trees scattered on the black plain had coiled themselves up like tortured beasts that he finally noticed the faint but unmistakable odor of corruption in the air. Corruption, hellfire. Here the Territories stank, or nearly. The odor of longdead flowers overlaid the land; and beneath it, as with Osmond, was a coarser, more potent odor. If Morgan, in either of his roles, had caused this, then he had in some sense brought death to the Territories, or so Jack thought. Now there were no more intricate valleys and hollows; now the land seemed a vast red desert. The queerly stunted trees dotted the sloping sides of this great desert. Before Jack, the twin silver rails of the tracks rolled on through darkened reddish emptiness; to his side, empty desert also rolled away through the dark. The red land seemed empty, anyhow. For several hours Jack never actually caught sight of anything larger than the deformed little animals concealing themselves on the slopes of the railway cuttingsbut there were times when he thought he caught a sudden sliding movement in the corner of one eye, turned to see it, and it was gone. At first he thought he was being followed. Then, for a hectic time, no longer than twenty or thirty minutes, he imagined that he was being tracked by the dogthings from Thayer School. Wherever he looked, something had just ceased to movehad nipped behind one of the coiledup trees or slipped into the sand. During this time the wide desert of the Blasted Lands did not seem empty or dead, but full of slithery, hidden life. Jack pushed forward on the trains gearshift (as if that could help) and urged the little train to go faster, faster. Richard slumped in the ell of his seat, whimpering. Jack imagined all those beings, those things neither canine nor human, rushing toward them, and prayed that Richards eyes would stay closed. NO! Richard yelled, still sleeping. Jack nearly fell out of the cab. He could see Etheridge and Mr. Dufrey loping after them. They gained ground, their tongues lolling, their shoulders working. In the next second, he realized that he had seen only shadows travelling beside the train. The loping schoolboys and their headmaster had winked out like birthday candles. NOT THERE! Richard bawled. Jack inhaled carefully. He, they, were safe. The dangers of the Blasted Lands were overrated, mainly literary. In not very many hours the sun would lift itself up again. Jack raised his watch to the level of his eyes and saw that they had been on the train just under two hours. His mouth opened in a huge yawn, and he found himself regretting that he had eaten so much back in The Depot. A piece of cake, he thought, this is going to be And just as he was about to complete his paraphrase of the Burns lines old Anders had rather startlingly quoted, he saw the first of the fireballs, which destroyed his complacency forever. 4 A ball of light at least ten feet in diameter tumbled over the edge of the horizon, sizzling hot, and at first arrowed straight toward the train. Holy shit, Jack muttered to himself, remembering what Anders had said about the balls of fire. If a man gets too close to one of those fireballs, he gets turrible sick . . . loses his hair . . . soresre apt to raise all over his body . . . he begins to vomit . . . vomits and vomits until his stomach ruptures and his throat bursts. . . . He swallowed, hardit was like swallowing a pound of nails. Please, God, he said aloud. The giant ball of light sped straight toward him, as though it owned a mind and had decided to erase Jack Sawyer and Richard Sloat from the earth. Radiation poisoning. Jacks stomach contracted, and his testicles froze up under his body. Radiation poisoning. Vomits and vomits until his stomach ruptures . . . The excellent dinner Anders had given him nearly leaped out of his stomach. The fireball continued to roll straight toward the train, shooting out sparks and sizzling with its own fiery energy. Behind it lengthened a glowing golden trail which seemed magically to instigate other snapping, burning lines in the red earth. Just when the fireball bounced up off the earth and took a zagging bounce like a giant tennis ball, wandering harmlessly off to the left, Jack had his first clear glimpse of the creatures he had all along thought were following them. The reddishgolden light of the wandering fireball, and the residual glow of the old trails in the earth, illuminated a group of deformedlooking beasts which had evidently been following the train. They were dogs, or once had been dogs, or their ancestors had been dogs, and Jack glanced uneasily at Richard to make sure that he was still sleeping. The creatures falling behind the train flattened out on the ground like snakes. Their heads were doglike, Jack saw, but their bodies had only vestigial hind legs and were, as far as he could see, hairless and tailless. They looked wetthe pink hairless skin glistened like that of newborn mice. They snarled, hating to be seen. It had been these awful mutant dogs that Jack had seen on the banks of the railway cutting. Exposed, flattened out like reptiles, they hissed and snarled and began creeping awaythey, too, feared the fireballs and the trails the fireballs left on the earth. Then Jack caught the odor of the fireball, now moving swiftly, somehow almost angrily, toward the horizon again, igniting an entire row of the stunted trees. Hellfire, corruption. Another of the fireballs came cruising over the horizon and blazed away off to the boys left. The stink of missed connections, of blasted hopes and evil desiresJack, with his heart lodged just under his tongue, imagined he found all this in the foul smell broadcast by the fireball. Mewing, the crowd of mutant dogs had dispersed into the threat of glinting teeth, a whisper of surreptitious movement, the hushushush of heavy legless bodies dragged through red dust. How many of them were there? From the base of a burning tree which tried to hide its head in its trunk two of the deformed dogs bared long teeth at him. Then another fireball lurched over the wide horizon, spinning off a wide glowing track a distance from the train, and Jack momentarily glimpsed what looked like a ramshackle little shed set just below the curve of the desert wall. Before it stood a large humanoid figure, male, looking toward him. An impression of size, hairiness, force, malice . . . Jack was indelibly conscious of the slowness of Anderss little train, of his and Richards exposure to anything that might want to investigate them a little more closely. The first fireball had dispatched the horrible dogthings, but human residents of the Blasted Lands might prove more difficult to overcome. Before the light diminished into the glowing trail, Jack saw that the figure before the shed was following his progress, turning a great shaggy head as the train passed by. If what he had seen were dogs, then what would the people be like? In the last of the flaring light from the ball of fire, the manlike being scuttled around the side of its dwelling. A thick reptilian tail swung from its hindquarters, and then the thing had slipped around the side of the building, and then it was dark again and nothingdogs, manbeast, shedwas visible. Jack could not even be sure that he had really seen it. Richard jerked in his sleep, and Jack pushed his hand against the simple gearshift, vainly trying for more speed. The dognoises gradually faded behind them. Sweating, Jack raised his left wrist again to the level of his eyes and saw that only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time hed checked his watch. He astonished himself by yawning again, and again regretted eating so much at The Depot. NO! Richard screamed. NO! I CANT GO THERE! There? Jack wondered. Where was there? California? Or was it anywhere threatening, anywhere Richards precarious control, as insecure as an unbroken horse, might slip away from him? 5 All night Jack stood at the gearshift while Richard slept, watching the trails of the departed fireballs flicker along the reddish surface of the earth. Their odor, of dead flowers and hidden corruption, filled the air. From time to time he heard the chatter of the mutant dogs, or of other poor creatures, rising from the roots of the stunted, ingrown trees which still dotted the landscape. The ranks of batteries occasionally sent up snapping arcs of blue. Richard was in a state beyond mere sleep, wrapped in an unconsciousness he both required and had willed. He made no more tortured outcriesin fact he did nothing but slump into his corner of the cab and breathe shallowly, as if even respiration took more energy than he had. Jack halfprayed for, halffeared the coming of the light. When morning came, he would be able to see the animals; but what else might he have to see? From time to time he glanced over at Richard. His friends skin seemed oddly pale, an almost ghostly shade of gray. 6 Morning came with a relaxation of the darkness. A band of pink appeared along the bowllike edge of the eastern horizon, and soon a rosy stripe grew up beneath it, pushing the optimistic pinkness higher in the sky. Jacks eyes felt almost as red as that stripe, and his legs ached. Richard lay across the whole of the cabs little seat, still breathing in a restricted, almost reluctant way. It was true, Jack sawRichards face did seem peculiarly gray. His eyelids fluttered in a dream, and Jack hoped that his friend was not about to erupt in another of his screams. Richards mouth dropped open, but what emerged was the tip of his tongue, not a loud outcry. Richard passed his tongue along his upper lip, snorted, then fell back into his stupefied coma. Although Jack wished desperately to sit down and close his own eyes, he did not disturb Richard. For the more Jack saw as the new light filled in the details of the Blasted Lands, the more he hoped Richards unconsciousness would endure as long as he himself could endure the conditions of Anderss cranky little train. He was anything but eager to witness the response of Richard Sloat to the idiosyncrasies of the Blasted Lands. A small amount of pain, a quantity of exhaustionthese were a minimal price to pay for what he knew must be a temporary peace. What he saw through his squinting eyes was a landscape in which nothing seemed to have escaped withering, crippling damage. By moonlight, it had seemed a vast desert, though a desert furnished with trees. Now Jack took in that his desert was actually nothing of the sort. What he had taken for a reddish variety of sand was a loose, powdery soilit looked as though a man would sink in it up to his ankles, if not his knees. From this starved dry soil grew the wretched trees. Looked at directly, these were much as they had appeared by night, so stunted they seemed to be straining over in an attempt to flee back under their own coiling roots. This was bad enoughbad enough for Rational Richard, anyhow. But when you saw one of these trees obliquely, out of the side of your eye, then you saw a living creature in tormentthe straining branches were arms thrown up over an agonized face caught in a frozen scream. As long as Jack was not looking directly at the trees, he saw their tortured faces in perfect detail, the open O of the mouth, the staring eyes and the drooping nose, the long, agonized wrinkles running down the cheeks. They were cursing, pleading, howling at himtheir unheard voices hung in the air like smoke. Jack groaned. Like all the Blasted Lands, these trees had been poisoned. The reddish land stretched out for miles on either side, dotted here and there with patches of acridlooking yellow grass bright as urine or new paint. If it had not been for the hideous coloration of the long grass, these areas would have resembled oases, for each lay beside a small round body of water. The water was black, and oily patches floated on its skin. Thicker than water, somehow; itself oily, poisonous. The second of these false oases that Jack saw began to ripple sluggishly as the train went past, and at first Jack thought with horror that the black water itself was alive, a being as tormented as the trees he no longer wished to see. Then he momentarily saw something break the surface of the thick fluid, a broad black back or side which rolled over before a wide, ravenous mouth appeared, biting down on nothing. A suggestion of scales that would have been iridescent if the creature had not been discolored by the pool. Holy cow, Jack thought, was that a fish? It seemed to him to have been nearly twenty feet long, too big to inhabit the little pool. A long tail roiled the water before the entire enormous creature slipped back down into what must have been the pools considerable depth. Jack looked up sharply at the horizon, imagining that he had momentarily seen the round shape of a head peering over it. And then he had another of those shocks of a sudden displacement, similar to that the Loch Ness monster, or whatever it was, had given him. How could a head peer over the horizon, for Gods sake? Because the horizon wasnt the real horizon, he finally understoodall night, and for as long as it took him to really see what lay at the end of his vision, he had drastically underestimated the size of the Blasted Lands. Jack finally understood, as the sun began to force its way up into the world again, that he was in a broad valley, and the rim far off to either side was not the edge of the world but the craggy top of a range of hills. Anybody or anything could be tracking him, keeping just out of sight past the rim of the surrounding hills. He remembered the humanoid being with the crocodiles tail that had slipped around the side of the little shed. Could he have been following Jack all night, waiting for him to fall asleep? The train pooppooped through the lurid valley, moving with a suddenly maddening lack of speed. He scanned the entire rim of hills about him, seeing nothing but new morning sunlight gild the upright rocks far above him. Jack turned around completely in the cab, fear and tension for the moment completely negating his tiredness. Richard threw one arm over his eyes, and slept on. Anything, anybody might have been keeping pace with them, waiting them out. A slow, almost hidden movement off to his left made him catch his breath. A movement huge, slithery . . . Jack had a vision of a halfdozen of the crocodilemen crawling over the rim of the hills toward him, and he shielded his eyes with his hands and stared at the place where he thought he had seen them. The rocks were stained the same red as the powdery soil, and between them a deep trail wound its way over the crest of the hills through a cleft in the highstanding rocks. What was moving between two of the standing rocks was a shape not even vaguely human. It was a snakeat least, Jack thought it was . . . It had slipped into a concealed section of the trail, and Jack saw only a huge sleek round reptilian body disappearing behind the rocks. The skin of the creature seemed oddly ridged; burned, tooa suggestion, just before it disappeared, of ragged black holes in its side . . . Jack craned to see the place where it would emerge, and in seconds witnessed the wholly unnerving spectacle of the head of a giant worm, onequarter buried in the thick red dust, swivelling toward him. It had hooded, filmy eyes, but it was the head of a worm. Some other animal bolted from under a rock, heavy head and dragging body, and as the worms big head darted toward it, Jack saw that the fleeing creature was one of the mutant dogs. The worm opened a mouth like the slot of a corner mailbox and neatly scooped up the frantic dogthing. Jack clearly heard the snapping of bones. The dogs wailing ceased. The huge worm swallowed the dog as neatly as if it were a pill. Now, immediately before the worms monstrous form, lay one of the black trails left by the fireballs, and as Jack watched, the long creature burrowed into the dust like a cruise ship sinking beneath the surface of the ocean. It apparently understood that the traces of the fireballs could do it damage and, wormlike, it would dig beneath them. Jack watched as the ugly thing completely disappeared into the red powder. And then cast his eyes uneasily over the whole of the long red slope dotted with pubic outpatches of the shiny yellow grass, wondering where it would surface again. When he could be at least reasonably certain that the worm was not going to try to ingest the train, Jack went back to inspecting the ridge of rocky hills about him. 7 Before Richard woke up late that afternoon, Jack saw at least one unmistakable head peering over the rim of the hills; two more jouncing and deadly fireballs careering down at him; the headless skeleton of what he at first took to be a large rabbit, then sickeningly knew was a human baby, picked shining clean, lying beside the tracks and closely followed by the round babyish gleaming skull of the same baby, halfsunk in the loose soil. And he saw a pack of the bigheaded dogs, more damaged than the others he had seen, pathetically come crawling after the train, drooling with hunger; three board shacks, human habitations, propped up over the thick dust on stilts, promising that somewhere out in that stinking poisoned wilderness which was the Blasted Lands other people schemed and hunted for food; a small leathery bird, featherless, withthis a real Territories toucha bearded monkeylike face, and clearly delineated fingers protruding from the tips of its wings; and worst of all (apart from what he thought he saw), two completely unrecognizable animals drinking from one of the black poolsanimals with long teeth and human eyes and forequarters like those of pigs, hindquarters like those of big cats. Their faces were matted with hair. As the train pulled past the animals, Jack saw that the testicles of the male had swollen to the size of pillows and sagged onto the ground. What had made such monstrosities? Nuclear damage, Jack supposed, since scarcely anything else had such power to deform nature. The creatures, themselves poisoned from birth, snuffled up the equally poisoned water and snarled at the little train as it passed. Our world could look like this someday, Jack thought. What a treat. 8 Then there were the things he thought he saw. His skin began to feel hot and itchyhe had already dumped the serapelike overgarment which had replaced Myles P. Kigers coat onto the floor of the cab. Before noon he stripped off his homespun shirt, too. There was a terrible taste in his mouth, an acidic combination of rusty metal and rotten fruit. Sweat ran from his hairline into his eyes. He was so tired he began to dream standing up, eyes open and stinging with sweat. He saw great packs of the obscene dogs scuttling over the hills; he saw the reddish clouds overhead open up and reach down for Richard and himself with long flaming arms, devils arms.


When at last his eyes finally did close, he saw Morgan of Orris, twelve feet tall and dressed in black, shooting thunderbolts all around him, tearing the earth into great dusty spouts and craters. Richard groaned and muttered, No, no, no. Morgan of Orris blew apart like a wisp of fog, and Jacks painful eyes flew open. Jack? Richard said. The red land ahead of the train was empty but for the blackened trails of the fireballs. Jack wiped his eyes and looked at Richard, feebly stretching. Yeah, he said. How are you? Richard lay back against the stiff seat, blinking out of his drawn gray face. Sorry I asked, Jack said. No, Richard said, Im better, really, and Jack felt at least a portion of his tension leave him. I still have a headache, but Im better. You were making a lot of noise in your . . . um . . . Jack said, unsure of how much reality his friend could stand. In my sleep. Yeah, I guess I probably did. Richards face worked, but for once Jack did not brace himself against a scream. I know Im not dreaming now, Jack. And I know I dont have a brain tumor. Do you know where you are? On that train. That old mans train. In what he called the Blasted Lands. Well, Ill be doubledamned, Jack said, smiling. Richard blushed beneath his gray pallor. What brought this on? Jack asked, still not quite sure that he could trust Richards transformation. Well, I knew I wasnt dreaming, Richard said, and his cheeks grew even redder. I guess I . . . I guess it was just time to stop fighting it. If were in the Territories, then were in the Territories, no matter how impossible it is. His eyes found Jacks, and the trace of humor in them startled his friend. You remember that gigantic hourglass back in The Depot? When Jack nodded, Richard said, Well, that was it, really . . . when I saw that thing, I knew I wasnt just making everything up. Because I knew I couldnt have made up that thing. Couldnt. Just . . . couldnt. If I were going to invent a primitive clock, itd have all sorts of wheels, and big pulleys . . . it wouldnt be so simple. So I didnt make it up. Therefore it was real. Therefore everything else was real, too. Well, how do you feel now? Jack asked. Youve been asleep for a long time. Im still so tired I can hardly hold my head up. I dont feel very good in general, Im afraid. Richard, I have to ask you this. Is there some reason why youd be afraid to go to California? Richard looked down and shook his head. Have you ever heard of a place called the black hotel? Richard continued to shake his head. He was not telling the truth, but as Jack recognized, he was facing as much of it as he could. Anything morefor Jack was suddenly sure that there was more, quite a lot of itwould have to wait. Until they actually reached the black hotel, maybe. Rushtons Twinner, Jasons Twinner yes, together they would reach the Talismans home and prison. Well, all right, he said. Can you walk okay? I guess so. Good, because theres something I want to do nowsince youre not dying of a brain tumor anymore, I mean. And I need your help. Whats that? Richard asked. He wiped his face with a trembling hand. I want to open up one or two of those cases on the flatcar and see if we can get ourselves some weapons. I hate and detest guns, Richard said. You should, too. If nobody had any guns, your father Yeah, and if pigs had wings theyd fly, Jack said. Im pretty sure somebodys following us. Well, maybe its my dad, Richard said in a hopeful voice. Jack grunted, and eased the little gearshift out of the first slot. The train appreciably began to lose power. When it had coasted to a halt, Jack put the shift in neutral. Can you climb down okay, do you think? Oh sure, Richard said, and stood up too quickly. His legs bowed out at the knees, and he sat down hard on the bench. His face now seemed even grayer than it had been, and moisture shone on his forehead and upper lip. Ah, maybe not, he whispered. Just take it easy, Jack said, and moved beside him and placed one hand on the crook of his elbow, the other on Richards damp, warm forehead. Relax. Richard closed his eyes briefly, then looked into Jacks own eyes with an expression of perfect trust. I tried to do it too fast, he said. Im all pins and needles from staying in the same position for so long. Nice and easy, then, Jack said, and helped a hissing Richard get to his feet. Hurts. Only for a little while. I need your help, Richard. Richard experimentally stepped forward, and hissed in air again. Ooch. He moved the other leg forward. Then he leaned forward slightly and slapped his palms against his thighs and calves. As Jack watched, Richards face altered, but this time not with paina look of almost rubbery astonishment had printed itself there. Jack followed the direction of his friends eyes and saw one of the featherless, monkeyfaced birds gliding past the front of the train. Yeah, therere a lot of funny things out here, Jack said. Im going to feel a lot better if we can find some guns under that tarp. What do you suppose is on the other side of those hills? Richard asked. More of the same? No, I think there are more people over there, Jack said. If you can call them people. Ive caught somebody watching us twice. At the expression of quick panic which flooded into Richards face, Jack said, I dont think it was anybody from your school. But it could be something just as badIm not trying to scare you, buddy, but Ive seen a little more of the Blasted Lands than you have. The Blasted Lands, Richard said dubiously. He squinted out at the red dusty valley with its scabrous patches of pisscolored grass. Ohthat treeah . . . I know, Jack said. You have to just sort of learn to ignore it. Who on earth would create this kind of devastation? Richard asked. This isnt natural, you know. Maybe well find out someday. Jack helped Richard leave the cab, so that both stood on a narrow running board that covered the tops of the wheels. Dont get down in that dust, he warned Richard. We dont know how deep it is. I dont want to have to pull you out of it. Richard shudderedbut it may have been because he had just noticed out of the side of his eye another of the screaming, anguished trees. Together the two boys edged along the side of the stationary train until they could swing onto the coupling of the empty boxcar. From there a narrow metal ladder led to the roof of the car. On the boxcars far end another ladder let them descend to the flatcar. Jack pulled at the thick hairy rope, trying to remember how Anders had loosened it so easily. I think its here, Richard said, holding up a twisted loop like a hangmans noose. Jack? Give it a try. Richard was not strong enough to loosen the knot by himself, but when Jack helped him tug on the protruding cord, the noose smoothly disappeared, and the tarpaulin collapsed over the nest of boxes. Jack pulled the edge back over those closestMACHINE PARTSand over a smaller set of boxes Jack had not seen before, marked LENSES. There they are, he said. I just wish we had a crowbar. He glanced up toward the rim of the valley, and a tortured tree opened its mouth and silently yowled. Was that another head up there, peering over? It might have been one of the enormous worms, sliding toward them. Come on, lets try to push the top off one of these boxes, he said, and Richard meekly came toward him. After six mighty heaves against the top of one of the crates, Jack finally felt movement and heard the nails creak. Richard continued to strain at his side of the box. Thats all right, Jack said to him. Richard seemed even grayer and less healthy than he had before exerting himself. Ill get it, next push. Richard stepped back and almost collapsed over one of the smaller boxes. He straightened himself and began to probe further under the loose tarpaulin. Jack set himself before the tall box and clamped his jaw shut. He placed his hands on the corner of the lid. After taking in a long breath, he pushed up until his muscles began to shake. Just before he was going to have to ease up, the nails creaked again and began to slide out of the wood. Jack yelled AAAGH! and heaved the top off the box. Stacked inside the carton, slimy with grease, were half a dozen guns of a sort Jack had never seen beforelike greaseguns metamorphosing into butterflies, halfmechanical, halfinsectile. He pulled one out and looked at it more closely, trying to see if he could figure out how it worked. It was an automatic weapon, so it would need a clip. He bent down and used the barrel of the weapon to pry off the top of one of the LENSES cartons. As he had expected, in the second, smaller box stood a little pile of heavily greased clips packed in plastic beads. Its an Uzi, Richard said behind him. Israeli machinegun. Pretty fashionable weapon, I gather. The terrorists favorite toy. How do you know that? Jack asked, reaching in for another of the guns. I watch television. How do you think? Jack experimented with the clip, at first trying to fit it into the cavity upsidedown, then finding the correct position. Next he found the safety and clicked it off, then on again. Those things are so damn ugly, Richard said. You get one, too, so dont complain. Jack took a second clip for Richard, and after a moments consideration took all the clips out of the box, put two in his pockets, tossed two to Richard, who managed to catch them both, and slid the remaining clips into his haversack. Ugh, Richard said. I guess its insurance, Jack said. 9 Richard collapsed on the seat as soon as they got back to the cabthe trips up and down the two ladders and inching along the narrow strip of metal above the wheels had taken nearly all of his energy. But he made room for Jack to sit down and watched with heavylidded eyes while his friend started the train rolling again. Jack picked up his serape and began massaging his gun with it. What are you doing? Rubbing the grease off. Youd better do it, too, when Im done. For the rest of the day the two boys sat in the open cab of the train, sweating, trying not to take into account the wailing trees, the corrupt stink of the passing landscape, their hunger. Jack noticed that a little garden of open sores had bloomed around Richards mouth. Finally Jack took Richards Uzi from his hand, wiped it free of grease, and pushed in the clip. Sweat burned saltily in cracks on his lips. Jack closed his eyes. Maybe he had not seen those heads peering over the rim of the valley; maybe they were not being followed after all. He heard the batteries sizzle and send off a big snapping spark, and felt Richard jump at it. An instant later he was asleep, dreaming of food. 10 When Richard shook Jacks shoulder, bringing him up out of a world in which he had been eating a pizza the size of a truck tire, the shadows were just beginning to spread across the valley, softening the agony of the wailing trees. Even they, bending low and spreading their hands across their faces, seemed beautiful in the low, receding light. The deep red dust shimmered and glowed. The shadows printed themselves out along it, almost perceptibly lengthening. The terrible yellow grass was melting toward an almost mellow orange. Fading red sunlight painted itself slantingly along the rocks at the valleys rim. I just thought you might want to see this, Richard said. A few more small sores seemed to have appeared about his mouth. Richard grinned weakly. It seemed sort of specialthe spectrum, I mean. Jack feared that Richard was going to launch into a scientific explanation of the color shift at sunset, but his friend was too tired or sick for physics. In silence the two boys watched the twilight deepen all the colors about them, turning the western sky into purple glory. You know what else youre carrying on this thing? Richard asked. What else? Jack asked. In truth, he hardly cared. It could be nothing good. He hoped he might live to see another sunset as rich as this one, as large with feeling. Plastic explosive. All wrapped up in twopound packagesI think two pounds, anyhow. Youve got enough to blow up a whole city. If one of these guns goes off accidentally, or if someone else puts a bullet into those bags, this train is going to be nothing but a hole in the ground. I wont if you wont, Jack said. And let himself be taken by the sunsetit seemed oddly premonitory, a dream of accomplishment, and led him into memories of all he had undergone since leaving the Alhambra Inn and Gardens. He saw his mother drinking tea in the little shop, suddenly a tired old woman; Speedy Parker sitting at the base of a tree; Wolf tending his herd; Smokey and Lori from Oatleys horrible Tap; all the hated faces from the Sunlight Home Heck Bast, Sonny Singer, and the others. He missed Wolf with a particular and sharp poignancy, for the unfolding and deepening sunset summoned him up wholly, though Jack could not have explained why. He wished he could take Richards hand. Then he thought, Well, why not? and moved his hand along the bench until he encountered his friends rather grubby, clammy paw. He closed his fingers around it. I feel so sick, Richard said. This isnt likebefore. My stomach feels terrible, and my whole face is tingling. I think youll get better once we finally get out of this place, Jack said. But what proof do you have of that, doctor? he wondered. What proof do you have that youre not just poisoning him? He had none. He consoled himself with his newly invented (newly discovered?) idea that Richard was an essential part of whatever was going to happen at the black hotel. He was going to need Richard Sloat, and not just because Richard Sloat could tell plastic explosive from bags of fertilizer. Had Richard ever been to the black hotel before? Had he actually been in the Talismans vicinity? He glanced over at his friend, who was breathing shallowly and laboriously. Richards hand lay in his own like a cold waxen sculpture. I dont want this gun anymore, Richard said, pushing it off his lap. The smell is making me sick. Okay, Jack said, taking it onto his own lap with his free hand. One of the trees crept into his peripheral vision and howled soundlessly in torment. Soon the mutant dogs would begin foraging. Jack glanced up toward the hills to his leftRichards sideand saw a manlike figure slipping through the rocks. 11 Hey, he said, almost not believing. Indifferent to his shock, the lurid sunset continued to beautify the unbeautifiable. Hey, Richard. What? You sick, too? I think I saw somebody up there. On your side. He peered up at the tall rocks again, but saw no movement. I dont care, Richard said. Youd better care. See how theyre timing it? They want to get to us just when its too dark for us to see them. Richard cracked his left eye open and made a halfhearted inspection. Dont see anybody. Neither do I, now, but Im glad we went back and got these guns. Sit up straight and pay attention, Richard, if you want to get out of here alive. Youre such a cornball. Jeez. But Richard did pull himself up straight and open both his eyes. I really dont see anything up there, Jack. Its getting too dark. You probably imagined Hush, Jack said. He thought he had seen another body easing itself between the rocks at the valleys top. Theres two. I wonder if therell be another one? I wonder if therell be anything at all, Richard said. Why would anyone want to hurt us, anyhow? I mean, its not Jack turned his head and looked down the tracks ahead of the train. Something moved behind the trunk of one of the screaming trees. Something larger than a dog, Jack recorded. Uhoh, Jack said. I think another guy is up there waiting for us. For a moment, fear castrated himhe could not think of what to do to protect himself from the three assailants. His stomach froze. He picked up the Uzi from his lap and looked at it dumbly, wondering if he really would be able to use this weapon. Could Blasted Lands hijackers have guns, too? Richard, Im sorry, he said, but this time I think the shit is really going to hit the fan, and Im going to need your help. What can I do? Richard asked, his voice squeaky. Take your gun, Jack said, handing it to him. And I think we ought to kneel down so we dont give them so much of a target. He got on his knees and Richard imitated him in a slowmoving, underwater fashion. From behind them came a long cry, from above them another. They know we saw them, Richard said. But where are they? The question was almost immediately answered. Still visible in the dark purplish twilight, a manor what looked like a manburst out of cover and began running down the slope toward the train. Rags fluttered out behind him. He was screaming like an Indian and raising something in his hands. It appeared to be a flexible pole, and Jack was still trying to work out its function when he heardmore than sawa narrow shape slice through the air beside his head. Holy mackerel! Theyve got bows and arrows! he said. Richard groaned, and Jack feared that he would vomit all over both of them. I have to shoot him, he said. Richard gulped and made some noise that wasnt quite a word. Oh, hell, Jack said, and flicked off the safety on his Uzi. He raised his head and saw the ragged being behind him just loosing off another arrow. If the shot had been accurate, he would never have seen another thing, but the arrow whanged harmlessly into the side of the cab. Jack jerked up the Uzi and depressed the trigger. He expected none of what happened. He had thought that the gun would remain still in his hands and obediently expel a few shells. Instead, the Uzi jumped in his hands like an animal, making a series of noises loud enough to damage his eardrums. The stink of powder burned in his nose. The ragged man behind the train threw out his arms, but in amazement, not because he had been wounded. Jack finally thought to take his finger off the trigger. He had no idea of how many shots he had just wasted, or how many bullets remained in the clip. Didja get him, didja get him? Richard asked. The man was now running up the side of the valley, huge flat feet flapping. Then Jack saw that they were not feetthe man was walking on huge platelike constructions, the Blasted Lands equivalent of snowshoes. He was trying to make it to one of the trees for cover. He raised the Uzi with both hands and sighted down the short barrel. Then he gently squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands, but less than the first time. Bullets sprayed out in a wide arc, and at least one of them found its intended target, for the man lurched over sideways as though a truck had just smacked into him. His feet flew out of the snowshoes. Give me your gun, Jack said, and took the second Uzi from Richard. Still kneeling, he fired half a clip into the shadowy dark in front of the train and hoped he had killed the creature waiting up there. Another arrow rattled against the train, and another thunked solidly into the side of the boxcar. Richard was shaking and crying in the bottom of the cab. Load mine, Jack said, and jammed a clip from his pocket under Richards nose. He peered up the side of the valley for the second attacker. In less than a minute it would be too dark to see anything beneath the rim of the valley. I see him, Richard shouted. I saw himright there! He pointed toward a shadow moving silently, urgently, among the rocks, and Jack spent the rest of the second Uzis clip noisily blasting at it. When he was done, Richard took the machinegun from him and placed the other in his hands. Nize boyz, goot boyz, came a voice from the right sidehow far ahead of them it was impossible to tell. You stop now, I stop now, too, geddit? All done now, dis bizness. You nize boys, maybe you zell me dat gun. You kill plenty goot dat way, I zee. Jack! Richard whispered frantically, warning him. Throw away the bow and arrows, Jack yelled, still crouching beside Richard. Jack, you cant! Richard whispered. I trow dem way now, the voice came, still ahead of them. Something light puffed into the dust. You boyz stop going, zell me gun, geddit? Okay, Jack said. Come up here where we can see you. Geddit, the voice said. Jack pulled back on the gearshift, letting the train coast to a halt. When I holler, he whispered to Richard, jam it forward as fast as you can, okay? Oh, Jesus, Richard breathed. Jack checked that the safety was off on the gun Richard had just given him. A trickle of sweat ran from his forehead directly into his right eye. All goot now, yaz, the voice said. Boyz can siddup, yaz. Siddup, boys. Waygup, waygup, pleeze, pleeze. The train coasted toward the speaker. Put your hand on the shift, Jack whispered. Its coming soon. Richards trembling hand, looking too small and childlike to accomplish anything even slightly important, touched the gear lever. Jack had a sudden, vivid memory of old Anders kneeling before him on a rippling wooden floor, asking, But will you be safe, my Lord? He had answered flippantly, hardly taking the question seriously. What were the Blasted Lands to a boy who had humped out kegs for Smokey Updike? Now he was a lot more afraid that he was going to soil his pants than that Richard was going to lose his lunch all over the Territories version of Myles P. Kigers loden coat. A shout of laughter erupted in the darkness beside the cab, and Jack pulled himself upright, bringing up the gun, and yelled just as a heavy body hit the side of the cab and clung there. Richard shoved the gearshift forward, and the trainjerked forward. A naked hairy arm clamped itself on the side of the cab. So much for the wild west, Jack thought, and then the mans entire trunk reared up over them. Richard screeched, and Jack very nearly did evacuate his bowels into his underwear. The face was nearly all teethit was a face as instinctively evil as that of a rattler baring its fangs, and a drop of what Jack as instinctively assumed to be venom fell off one of the long, curved teeth. Except for the tiny nose, the creature looming over the boys looked very like a man with the head of a snake. In one webbed hand he raised a knife. Jack squeezed off an aimless, panicky shot. Then the creature altered and wavered back for a moment, and it took Jack a fraction of a second to see that the webbed hand and the knife were gone. The creature swung forward a bloody stump and left a smear of red on Jacks shirt. Jacks mind conveniently left him, and his fingers were able to point the Uzi straight at the creatures chest and pull the trigger back. A great hole opened redly in the middle of the mottled chest, and the dripping teeth snapped together. Jack kept the trigger depressed, and the Uzi raised its barrel by itself and destroyed the creatures head in a second or two of total carnage. Then it was gone. Only a large bloodstain on the side of the cab, and the smear of blood on Jacks shirt, showed that the two boys had not dreamed the entire encounter. Watch out! Richard yelled. I got him, Jack breathed. Whered he go? He fell off, Jack said. Hes dead. You shot his hand off, Richard whispered. Howd you do that? Jack held up his hands before him and saw how they shook. The stink of gunpowder encased them. I just sort of imitated someone with good aim. He put his hands down and licked his lips. Twelve hours later, as the sun came up again over the Blasted Lands, neither boy had sleptthey had spent the entire night as rigid as soldiers, holding their guns in their laps and straining to hear the smallest of noises. Remembering how much ammunition the train was carrying, every now and then Jack randomly aimed a few rounds at the lip of the valley. And that second entire day, if there were people or monsters in this far sector of the Blasted Lands, they let the boys pass unmolested. Which could mean, Jack tiredly thought, that they knew about the guns. Or that out here, so near to the western shore, nobody wanted to mess with Morgans train. He said none of this to Richard, whose eyes were filmy and unfocused, and who seemed feverish much of the time. 12 By evening of that day, Jack began to smell saltwater in the acrid air. 36 Jack and Richard Go to War 1 The sunset that night was widerthe land had begun to open out again as they approached the oceanbut not so spectacular. Jack stopped the train at the top of an eroded hill and climbed back to the flatcar again. He poked about for nearly an houruntil the sullen colors had faded from the sky and a quarter moon had risen in the eastand brought back six boxes, all marked LENSES. Open those, he told Richard. Get a count. Youre appointed Keeper of the Clips. Marvelous, Richard said in a wan voice. I knew I was getting all that education for something. Jack went back to the flatcar again and pried up the lid of one of the crates marked MACHINE PARTS. While he was doing this he heard a harsh, hoarse cry somewhere off in the darkness, followed by a shrill scream of pain. Jack? Jack, you back there? Right here! Jack called. He thought it very unwise for the two of them to be yelling back and forth like a couple of washerwomen over a back fence, but Richards voice suggested that he was close to panicking. You coming back pretty soon? Be right there! Jack called, levering faster and harder with the Uzis barrel. They were leaving the Blasted Lands behind, but Jack still didnt want to stand at a stop for too long. It would have been simpler if he could have just carried the box of machineguns back to the engine, but it was too heavy. They aint heavy, theyre my Uzis, Jack thought, and giggled a little in the dark. Jack? Richards voice was highpitched, frantic. Hold your water, chum, he said. Dont call me chum, Richard said. Nails shrieked out of the crates lid, and it came up enough for Jack to be able to pull it off. He grabbed two of the greaseguns and was starting back when he saw another boxit was about the size of a portableTV carton. A fold of the tarp had covered it previously. Jack went skittering across the top of the boxcar under the faint moonlight, feeling the breeze blow into his face. It was cleanno taint of rotted perfume, no feeling of corruption, just clean dampness and the unmistakable scent of salt. What were you doing? Richard scolded. Jack, we have guns! And we have bullets! Why did you want to go back and get more? Something could have climbed up here while you were playing around! More guns because machineguns have a tendency to overheat, Jack said. More bullets because we may have to shoot a lot. I watch TV, too, you see. He started back toward the flatcar again. He wanted to see what was in that square box. Richard grabbed him. Panic turned his hand into a birdlike talon. Richard, its going to be all right Something might grab you off! I think were almost out of the Bl Something might grab me off! Jack, dont leave me alone! Richard burst into tears. He did not turn away from Jack or put his hands to his face; he only stood there, his face twisted, his eyes spouting tears. He looked cruelly naked to Jack just then. Jack folded him into his arms and held him. If something gets you and kills you, what happens to me? Richard sobbed. How would I ever, ever, get out of this place? I dont know, Jack thought. I really dont know. 2 So Richard came with him on Jacks last trip to the travelling ammo dump on the flatcar. This meant boosting him up the ladder and then supporting him along the top of the boxcar and helping him carefully down, as one might help a crippled old lady across a street. Rational Richard was making a mental comebackbut physically he was growing steadily worse. Although preservative grease was bleeding out between its boards, the square box was marked FRUIT. Nor was that completely inaccurate, Jack discovered when they got it open. The box was full of pineapples. The exploding kind. Holy Hannah, Richard whispered. Whoever she is, Jack agreed. Help me. I think we can each get four or five down our shirts. Why do you want all this firepower? Richard asked. Are you expecting to fight an army? Something like that. 3 Richard looked up into the sky as he and Jack were recrossing the top of the boxcar, and a wave of faintness overtook him. Richard tottered and Jack had to grab him to keep him from toppling over the side. He had realized that he could recognize constellations of neither the Northern Hemisphere nor the Southern. Those were alien stars up there . . . but there were patterns, and somewhere in this unknown, unbelievable world, sailors might be navigating by them. It was that thought which brought the reality of all this home to Richardbrought it home with a final, undeniable thud. Then Jacks voice was calling him back from far away Hey, Richie! Jason! You almost fell over the side! Finally they were in the cab again. Jack pushed the lever into the forward gear, pressed down on the accelerator bar, and Morgan of Orriss oversized flashlight started to move forward again. Jack glanced down at the floor of the cab four Uzi machineguns, almost twenty piles of clips, ten to a pile, and ten hand grenades with pullpins that looked like the poptops of beercans. If we havent got enough stuff now, Jack said, we might as well forget it. What are you expecting, Jack? Jack only shook his head. Guess you must think Im a real jerk, huh? Richard asked. Jack grinned. Always have, chum. Dont call me chum! Chumchumchum! This time the old joke raised a small smile. Not much, and it rather highlighted the growing line of lipblisters on Richards mouth . . . but better than nothing. Will you be okay if I go back to sleep? Richard asked, brushing machinegun clips aside and settling in a corner of the cab with Jacks serape over him. All that climbing and carrying . . . I think I really must be sick because I feel really bushed. Ill be fine, Jack said. Indeed, he seemed to be getting a second wind. He supposed he would need it before long. I can smell the ocean, Richard said, and in his voice Jack heard an amazing mixture of love, loathing, nostalgia, and fear. Richards eyes slipped closed. Jack pushed the accelerator bar all the way down. His feeling that the endsome sort of endwas now close had never been stronger. 4 The last mean and miserable vestiges of the Blasted Lands were gone before the moon set. The grain had reappeared. It was coarser here than it had been in EllisBreaks, but it still radiated a feeling of cleanness and health. Jack heard the faint calling of birds which sounded like gulls. It was an inexpressibly lonely sound, in these great open rolling fields which smelled faintly of fruit and more pervasively of ocean salt. After midnight the train began to hum through stands of treesmost of them were evergreens, and their piney scent, mixed with the salty tang in the air, seemed to cement the connection between this place he was coming to and the place from which he had set out. He and his mother had never spent a great deal of time in northern Californiaperhaps because Bloat vacationed there oftenbut he remembered Lilys telling him that the land around Mendocino and Sausalito looked very much like New England, right down to the saltboxes and Cape Cods. Film companies in need of New England settings usually just went upstate rather than travelling all the way across the country, and most audiences never knew the difference. This is how it should be. In a weird way, Im coming back to the place I left behind. Richard Are you expecting to fight an army? He was glad Richard had gone to sleep, so he wouldnt have to answer that questionat least, not yet. Anders Devilthings. For the bad Wolfs. To take to the black hotel. The devilthings were Uzi machineguns, plastic explosive, grenades. The devilthings were here. The bad Wolfs were not. The boxcar, however, was empty, and Jack found that fact terribly persuasive. Heres a story for you, Richieboy, and Im very glad youre asleep so I dont have to tell it to you. Morgan knows Im coming, and hes planning a surprise party.