The Talisman

by Stephen King

It wasn’t Busch, it

was Kingsland. Not beer but ale—the Queen’s Own.

“Daddy Plays the Horn. It is a nice old record, isn’t it?”

Because over there was the country of Jack’s Daydreams.

“This guy would really turn em around, wouldn’t he? They’d probably make him Duke of the Blasted Lands, or something.”

The Daydreams were real, and Jacky somehow shared them with his father. That was half his joy.

“They have magic like we have physics, right? We’re talking about an agrarian monarchy, using magic instead of science.”

“Sure,” Phil Sawyer said. “And presumably they’ve gone on like that for centuries. Their lives have never changed very much.”

“Except for political upheavals, t...

“Well, forget about the political stuff. Suppose we think about us for a change. You’ll say—and I’d agree with you, Phil—that we’ve done pretty well out of the Territories already, and that we’d

have to be careful about how we introduce changes there. I have no problems at all with that position. I feel the same way myself.”

“Okay,” Sloat continued. “Let’s go with the concept that, within a situation basically advantageous to ourselves, we can sp...

on our side. We don’t sacrifice the advantage, but we’re not greedy about the bounty it brings. We owe these people, Phil. Look what they’ve done for us. I think we could put ourselves into a really synergistic situation over there. Our energy can feed their energy and come up wit...

which we are—but which also doesn...

“Of course I don’t have a total window on this situation, you know that, but I think the synergy alone is worth the price of admission, to tell you the truth. But Phil—can you imagine how much ...

If

we got modern weapons to the right guys over there? Do you have any idea? I think i...

“I don’t want to catch you unprepared or anything, but I thought it might be time for us to think along those lines—to think, Territories-w...

“Okay. I think we have to be careful about what we do over there, partner. I think anything major—any real changes we bring about—just might turn around and bite

our asses back here. Everything has consequences, and some of those consequences might be on the uncomfortable side.”

“Like war.” “That’s nuts, Phil. We’ve never seen anything . . . unless you mean Bledsoe. . . .” “I do mean Bl...

That little war over there lasted about three weeks. When it was over, maybe a hundred people had been killed. Fewer, probably. Did anyone ever tell you when that war began? What year it was? What day?”

“It was the first of September, 1939. Over here, it was the day Germany invaded Poland.”

said. “I believe a three-week squabble over there in some way sparked off a war here that lasted six years and killed millions of people. Yes.”

“There’s more. I’ve talked to lots of people over there about this, and the feeling

get is that the stranger who assassinated the King was a real Stranger, if you see what I mean.

“That’s not the only other world out there.”

What killed Jerry Bledsoe?

Jerry Bledsoe had been, at least part of the time, Sawyer & Sloat’s electrician and handyman.

God pounds all His nails sooner or later.

And what happens to little people when they meddle into the affairs of the great is that they get hurt.”

Jack suddenly thought of Hank Scoffler’s mom and smiled.

Hank was one of the kids Jack and Richard Sloat had hung around with in L.A.

“Laddie, you looked as if you only had one friend left on this side o’ the moon and you just saw the Wild White Wolf come out o’ the north an’ gobble him down with a silver spoon.”

my store come tenmonth. Mothers bring their little ’uns over and they try it but they don’t buy it.” “Well, at least you don’t deny it,” Jack said.

Beyond the Outposts the Western Road goes into nowhere . . . or into hell. I’ve heard it said that God Himself never ventures beyond the Outposts. . . .

When I’m having a dream, the only time I really KNOW it’s a dream is when I’m starting to wake up. If I’m dreaming and just wake up all at once—if the alarm clock goes off, or something—then I’m the most surprised guy alive. At first it’s the waking that seems like a dream. And I’m

no stranger over here when the dream gets deep—is that what I mean? No, but it’s getting close. I bet my dad dreamed deep a lot. And I’ll bet Uncle Morgan almost never does.

He had gnawed the apple right down to the core, and without thinking about what he was doing or even taking his eyes off the tower, he dug a hole in the tough, springy earth with

his fingers and buried the apple-core in it.

“Everything has consequences, and some of those consequences might be on the uncomfortable side.”

Maybe something big, maybe no more than tossing a rock . . . or burying an apple core in the dirt. And it somehow . . . it echoed over there. It echoed over there and it killed Jerry Bledsoe.

it suggested that just by being over here he could be doing something terrible in the other world.

The first earthquake in the history of Angola, New York, had occurred on the day he had flipped away from the Western Road and landed on the town’s border.

he wanted to get to Illinois, where Richard Sloat was, in the next two or three days.

some folks are to put the blame on themselves for things others might have got started.

Sometimes people get killed because somebody does somethin . . . but if somebody didn’t do that somethin, a whole lot of more people would have got killed. Do you see where I’m pushin, son?”

“Go tell your mother she wants you, kid,” the first cop said curtly.

Elroy had been goatish while Wolf was . . . well, wolfish.

Except for this humble tin key. Which, in the other world, was a queer kind of lightning-rod—and which Sloat now hung around his neck on a fine silver chain.