Morgan of Orris blew apart like a wisp of fog, and Jack's 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, 'I'm better, really,' and Jack felt at least a portion of his tension leave him. 'I still have a headache, but I'm 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.' Richard's face worked, but for once Jack did not brace himself against a scream. 'I know I'm not dreaming now, Jack. And I know I don't have a brain tumor.'
'Do you know where you are?'
'On that train. That old man's train. In what he called the Blasted Lands.'
'Well, I'll be double-damned,' Jack said, smiling.
Richard blushed beneath his gray pallor.
'What brought this on?' Jack asked, still not quite sure that he could trust Richard's transformation.
'Well, I knew I wasn't dreaming,' Richard said, and his cheeks grew even redder. 'I guess I . . . I guess it was just time to stop fighting it. If we're in the Territories, then we're in the Territories, no matter how impossible it is.' His eyes found Jack's, 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 wasn't just making everything up. Because I knew I couldn't have made up that thing. Couldn't. Just . . . couldn't. If I were going to invent a primitive clock, it'd have all sorts of wheels, and big pulleys . . . it wouldn't be so simple. So I didn't make it up. Therefore it was real. Therefore everything else was real, too.'
'Well, how do you feel now?' Jack asked. 'You've been asleep for a long time.'
'I'm still so tired I can hardly hold my head up. I don't feel very good in general, I'm afraid.'
'Richard, I have to ask you this. Is there some reason why you'd 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 more - for Jack was suddenly sure that there was more, quite a lot of it - would have to wait. Until they actually reached the black hotel, maybe. Rushton's Twinner, Jason's Twinner: yes, together they would reach the Talisman's home and prison.
'Well, all right,' he said. 'Can you walk okay?'
'I guess so.'
'Good, because there's something I want to do now - since you're not dying of a brain tumor anymore, I mean. And I need your help.'
'What's 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 they'd fly,' Jack said. 'I'm pretty sure somebody's following us.'
'Well, maybe it's 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 Richard's damp, warm forehead. 'Relax.' Richard closed his eyes briefly, then looked into Jack's own eyes with an expression of perfect trust.
'I tried to do it too fast,' he said. 'I'm 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, Richard's face altered, but this time not with pain - a look of almost rubbery astonishment had printed itself there.
Jack followed the direction of his friend's eyes and saw one of the featherless, monkey-faced birds gliding past the front of the train.
'Yeah, there're a lot of funny things out here,' Jack said. 'I'm going to feel a lot better if we can find some guns under that tarp.'