The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower #7)

The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower #7) Page 17

ONE

Susannah supposed you couldn't classify what came next as pandemonium; surely it took at least a dozen people to induce such a state, and they were but seven. Eight counting the Rod, and you certainly had to count him, because he was creating a large part of the uproar. When he saw Roland he dropped to his knees, raised his hands over his head like a ref signaling a successful extra-point kick, and began salaaming rapidly. Each downstroke was extreme enough to thump his forehead on the ground. He was at the same time babbling at the top of his lungs in his odd, vowelly language. He never took his eyes off Roland while he performed these gymnastics. Susannah had little doubt the gunslinger was being saluted as some kind of god.

Ted also dropped on his knees, but it was Sheemie with whom he was concerned. The old man put his hands on the sides of Sheemie's head to stop it whipping back and forth; already Roland's old acquaintance from his Mejis days had cut one cheek on a sharp bit of stone, a cut that was dangerously close to his left eye. And now blood began to pour from the corners of Sheemie's mouth and run up his modestly stubbled cheeks.

"Give me something to put in his mouth!" Ted cried. "Come on, somebody! Wake up! He's biting the shit out of himself!"

The wooden lid was still leaning against the open crate of sneetches. Roland brought it smartly down on his raised knee-no sign of dry twist in that hip now, she noted-and smashed it to bits. Susannah grabbed a piece of board on the fly, then turned to Sheemie. No need to get on her knees; she was always on them, anyway. One end of the wooden piece was jagged with splinters. She wrapped a protective hand around this and then put die piece of wood in Sheemie's mouth. He bit down on it so hard she could hear the crunch.

The Rod, meanwhile, continued his high, almost falsetto chant. The only words she could pick out of the gibberish were Hile, Roland, Gilead, and Eld.

"Somebody shut him up!" Dinky cried, and Oy began barking.

"Never mind die Rod, get Sheemie's feet!" Ted snapped.

"Hold him still!"

Dinky dropped to his knees and grabbed Sheemie's feet, one now bare, the other still wearing its absurd rubber moc.

"Oy, hush!" Jake said, and Oy did. But he was standing with his short legs spread and his belly low to the ground, his fur bushed out so he seemed nearly double his normal size.

Roland crouched by Sheemie's head, forearms on the dirt floor of the cave, mouth by one of Sheemie's ears. He began to murmur. Susannah could make out very little of it because of the Rod's falsetto babbling, but she did hear Will Dearborn that was and All's well and-she thought-rest.

Whatever it was, it seemed to get through. Litde by litde Sheemie relaxed. She could see Dinky easing his hold on the former tavern-boy's ankles, ready to grab hard again if Sheemie renewed his kicking. The muscles around Sheemie's mouth also relaxed, and his teeth unlocked. The piece of wood, still nailed lightly to his mouth by his upper incisors, seemed to levitate.

Susannah pulled it gently free, looking with amazement at the blood-rimmed holes, some almost half an inch deep, diat had been driven into the soft wood. Sheemie's tongue lolled from the side of his moudi, reminding her of how Oy looked at siesta time, sleeping on his back with his legs spread to the four points of the compass.

Now there was only the rapid auctioneer's babble of die Rod, and die low growl deep in Oy's chest as he stood protectively at Jake's side, looking at die newcomer widi narrowed eyes.

"Shut your mouth and be still," Roland told the Rod, then added something else in another language.

The Rod froze halfway into another salaam, hands still raised above his head, staring at Roland. Eddie saw the side of his nose had been eaten away by a juicy sore, red as a strawberry.

The Rod put his scabbed, dirty palms over his eyes, as if the gunslinger were a thing too bright to look at, and fell on his side.

He drew his knees up to his chest, producing a loud fart as he did so.

"Harpo speaks," Eddie said, ajoke snappy enough to make Susannah laugh. Then there was silence except for the whine of the wind outside the cave, the faint sound of recorded music from the Devar-Toi, and the distant rumble of thunder, that sound of rolling bones.

Five minutes later Sheemie opened his eyes, sat up, and looked around with the bewildered air of one who knows not where he is, how he got there, or why. Then his eyes fixed on Roland, and his poor, tired face lit in a smile.

Roland returned it, and held out his arms. "Can'ee come to me, Sheemie? If not, I'll come to you, sure."

Sheemie crawled to Roland of Gilead on his hands and knees, his dark and dirty hair hanging in his eyes, and laid his head on Roland's shoulder. Susannah felt tears stinging her eyes and looked away.

TWO

Some short time later Sheemie sat propped against the wall of the cave with the mover's pad that had been over Suzie's Cruisin Trike cushioning his head and back. Eddie had offered him a soda, but Ted suggested water might be better. Sheemie drank the first bottle of Perrier at a single go, and now sat sipping another. The rest of them had instant coffee, except for Ted; he was drinking a can of Nozz-A-La.

"Don't know how you stand that stuff," Eddie said.

"Each to his own taste, said the old maid as she kissed the cow," Ted replied.

Only the Child of Roderick had nothing. He lay where he was, at the mouth of the cave, with his hands pressed firmly over his eyes. He was trembling lighdy.

Ted had checked Sheemie over between Sheemie's first and second bottle of water, taking his pulse, looking in his mouth, and feeling his skull for any soft places. Each time he asked Sheemie if it hurt, Sheemie solemnly shook his head, never taking his eyes off Roland during the examination. After feeling Sheemie's ribs ("Tickles, sai, so it do," Sheemie said widi a smile), Ted pronounced him fit as a fiddle.

Eddie, who could see Sheemie's eyes perfecdy well-one of the gas-lanterns was nearby and cast a strong glow on Sheemie's face-thought that was a lie of near Presidential quality.

Susannah was cooking up a fresh batch of powdered eggs and corned beef hash. (The grill had spoken up again-"More of the same, eh?" it asked in a tone of cheery approval.) Eddie caught Dinky Earnshaw's eye and said, "Want to step outside with me for a minute while Suze makes with the chow?"

Dinky glanced at Ted, who nodded, then back at Eddie. "If you want. We've got a litde more time diis morning, but that doesn't mean we can waste any."

"I understand," Eddie said.

THREE

The wind had strengthened, but instead of freshening the air, it smelled fouler than ever. Once, in high school, Eddie had gone on a field trip to an oil refinery in New Jersey. Until now he thought that was hands-down the worst thing he'd ever smelled in his life; two of the girls and three of the boys had puked. He remembered their tour-guide laughing heartily and saying, "Just remember that's the smell of money-it helps."

Maybe Perth Oil and Gas was still the all-time champeen, but only because what he was smelling now wasn't quite so strong.

And just by the way, what was there about Perth Oil and Gas that seemed familiar? He didn't know and it probably didn't matter, but it was strange, the way things kept coming around over here. Only "coming around" wasn't quite right, was it?

"Echoing back," Eddie murmured. "That's what it is."

"Beg pardon, partner?" Dinky asked. They were once again standing on the path, looking down at the blue-roofed buildings in the distance, and the tangle of stalled traincars, and the perfect little village. Perfect, that was, until you remembered it was behind a triple run of wire, one of those runs carrying an electrical charge strong enough to kill a man on contact.

"Nothing," Eddie said. "What's that smell? Any idea?"

Dinky shook his head, but pointed beyond the prison compound in a direction that might or might not be south or east.

"Something poison out there is all I know," he said. "Once I asked Finli and he said there used to be factories in that direction.

Positronics business. You know that name?"

"Yes. But who's Finli?"

"Finli O'Tego. The top security guy, Prentiss's number one boy, also known as The Weasel. A taheen. Whatever your plans are, you'll have to go through him to make them work. And he won't make it easy for you. Seeing him stretched out dead on the ground would make me feel like it was a national holiday.

By the way, my real name's Richard Earnshaw. Pleased as hell to meetcha." He put out his hand. Eddie shook it.

"I'm Eddie Dean. Known as Eddie of New York out here west of the Pecos. The woman's Susannah. My wife."

Dinky nodded. "Uh-huh. And the boy's Jake. Also of New York."

"Jake Chambers, right. Listen, Rich-"

"I salute the effort," he said, smiling, "but I've been Dinky too long to change now, I guess. And it could be worse. I worked for awhile at the Supr Savr Supermarket with a twentysomething guy known as JJ the Fuckin Blue Jay. People will still be calling him that when he's eighty and wearing a pee-bag."

"Unless we're brave, lucky, and good," Eddie said, "nobody's gonna see eighty. Not in this world or any of the others."

Dinky looked startled, then glum. "You got a point."

"That guy Roland used to know looks bad," Eddie said.

"Did you see his eyes?"

Dinky nodded, glummer than ever. "I think those little spots of blood in the whites are called petechiae. Something like that." Then, in a tone of apology Eddie found rather bizarre, under the circumstances: "I don't know if I'm saying that right."

"I don't care what you call them, it's not good. And him pitching a fit like that-"

"Not a very nice way to put it," Dinky said.

Eddie didn't give a shit if it was or wasn't. "Has it ever happened to him before?"

Dinky's eyes broke contact with Eddie's and looked down at his own shuffling feet, instead. Eddie thought that was answer enough.

"How many times?" Eddie hoped he didn't sound as appalled as he felt. There were enough pinprick-sized bloodspots in the whites of Sheemie's eyes to make them look as if someone had flung paprika into them. Not to mention the bigger ones in the corners.

Still without looking at him, Dinky raised four fingers.

"Four times?"

"Yuh," Dinky said. He was still studying his makeshift mocs.

"Starting with the time he sent Ted to Connecticut in 1960. It was like doing that ruptured something inside him." He looked up, trying to smile. "But he didn't faint yesterday, when the three of us went back to the Devar."

"Let me make sure I've got this right. In the prison down there, you guys have all sorts of venial sins, but only one mortal one: teleportation."

Dinky considered this. The rules certainly weren't that liberal for the taheen and the can-toi; they could be exiled or lobotomized for all sorts of reasons, including such wrongs as negligence, teasing the Breakers, or the occasional act of outright cruelty. Once-so he had been told-a Breaker had been raped by a low man, who was said to have explained earnestly to the camp's last Master that it was part of his becoming-the Crimson King himself had appeared to this fellow in a dream and told him to do it. For this the can-toi had been sentenced to death. The Breakers had been invited to attend his execution (accomplished by a single pistol-shot to the head), which had taken place in the middle of Pleasantville's Main Street.

Dinky told Eddie about this, then admitted that yes, for the inmates, at least, teleportation was the only mortal sin. That he knew of, anyway.

"And Sheemie's your teleport," Eddie said. 'You guys help him-facilitate for him, to use the Tedster's word-and you cover up for him by fudging the records, somehow-"

"They have no idea how easy it is to cook their telemetry,"

Dinky said, almost laughing. "Partner, they'd be shocked. The hard part is making sure we don't tip over the whole works."

Eddie didn't care about that, either. It worked. That was the only thing that mattered. Sheemie also worked... but for how long?

"-but he's the one who does it," Eddie finished. "Sheemie."

"Yuh."

"The only one who can do it."

"Yuh."

Eddie thought about their two tasks: freeing the Breakers

(or killing them, if there was no other way to make them stop)

and keeping the writer from being struck and killed by a minivan while taking a walk. Roland thought they might be able to accomplish both things, but they'd need Sheemie's teleportation ability at least twice. Plus, their visitors would have to get back inside the triple run of wire after today's palaver was done, and presumably that meant he'd have to do it a third time.

"He says it doesn't hurt," Dinky said. "If that's what you're worried about."

Inside the cave the others laughed at something, Sheemie back to consciousness and taking nourishment, everyone the best of friends.

"It's not," Eddie said. "What does Ted think is happening to Sheemie when he teleports?"

"That he's having brain hemorrhages," Dinky said promptly.

"Little tiny strokes on the surface of his brain." He tapped a finger at different points on his own skull in demonstration.

"Boink, boink, boink."

"Is it getting worse? It is, isn't it?"

"Look, if you think him jaunting us around is my idea, you better think again."

Eddie raised one hand like a traffic cop. "No, no. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on." And what our chances are.

"I hate using him that way!" Dinky burst out. He kept his voice pitched low, so those in the cave wouldn't hear, but Eddie never for a moment considered that he was exaggerating.

Dinky was badly upset. "He doesn't mind-he wants to do it-and that makes it worse, not better. The way he looks at Ted..." He shrugged. "It's the way a dog'd look at the best master in the universe. He looks at your dinh the same way, as I'm sure you've noticed."

"He's doing it for my dinh," Eddie said, "and that makes it okay. You may not believe that, Dink, but-"

"But you do."

"Totally. Now here's the really important question: does Ted have any idea how long Sheemie can last? Keeping in mind that now he's got a little more help at this end?"

Who you tryin to cheer up, bro? Henry spoke up suddenly inside his head. Cynical as always. Him or yourself?

Dinky was looking at Eddie as if he were crazy, or soft in the head, at least. "Ted was an accountant. Sometimes a tutor. A daylaborer when he couldn't get anything better. He's no doctor."

But Eddie kept pushing. "What does he think?"

Dinky paused. The wind blew. The music wafted. Farther away, thunder mumbled out of the murk. At last he said:

"Three or four times, maybe... but the effects are getting worse. Maybe only twice. But there are no guarantees, okay? He could drop dead of a massive stroke the next time he bears down to make that hole we go through."

Eddie tried to think of another question and couldn't.

Ihat last answer pretty well covered the waterfront, and when Susannah called them back inside, he was more than glad to go.

FOUR

Sheemie Ruiz had rediscovered his appetite, which all of them took as a good sign, and was tucking in happily. The bloodspots in his eyes had faded somewhat, but were still clearly visible. Eddie wondered what the guards back in Blue Heaven would make of those if they noticed them, and also wondered if Sheemie could wear a pair of sunglasses without exciting comment.

Roland had gotten the Rod to his feet and was now conferring with him at the back of the cave. Well... sort of. The gunslinger was talking and the Rod was listening, occasionally sneaking tiny awed peeks at Roland's face. It was gibberish to Eddie, but he was able to pick out two words: Chevin and Chayven. Roland was asking this one about the one they'd met staggering along the road in Lovell.

"Does he have a name?" Eddie asked Dink and Ted, taking a second plate of food.

"I call him Chucky," Dinky said. "Because he looks a little bit like the doll in this horror movie I saw once."

Eddie grinned. "Child's Play, yeah. I saw that one. After your when, Jake. And way after yours, Suziella." The Rod's hair wasn't right, but the chubby, freckled cheeks and the blue eyes were. "Do you think he can keep a secret?"

"If no one asks him, he can," Ted said. Which was not, in Eddie's view, a very satisfactory answer.

After five minutes or so of chat, Roland seemed satisfied and rejoined the others. He hunkered-no problem doing that now that his joints had limbered up-and looked at Ted.

"This fellow's name is Haylis of Chayven. Will anyone miss him?"

"Unlikely," Ted said. "The Rods show up at the gate beyond the dorms in littie groups, looking for work. Fetching and carrying, mostly. They're given a meal or something to drink as pay. If they don't show up, no one misses them."

"Good. Now-how long are the days here? Is it twentyfour hours from now until tomorrow morning at this time?"

Ted seemed interested in the question and considered it for several moments before replying. "Call it twenty-five," he said.

"Maybe a litde longer. Because time is slowing down, at least here. As the Beams weaken, there seems to be a growing disparity in the time-flow between the worlds. It's probably one of the major stress points."

Roland nodded. Susannah offered him food and he shook his head with a word of thanks. Behind them, the Rod was sitting on a crate, looking down at his bare and sore-covered feet.

Eddie was surprised to see Oy approach the fellow, and more surprised still when the bumbler allowed Chucky (or Haylis) to stroke his head with one misshapen claw of a hand.

"And is there a time of morning when things down there might be a little less... I don't know..."

"A little disorganized?" Ted suggested.

Roland nodded.

"Did you hear a horn a little while ago?" Ted asked. "Just before we showed up?"

They all shook their heads.

Ted didn't seem surprised. "But you heard the music start, correct?"

"Yes," Susannah said, and offered Ted a fresh can of Nozz-ALa.

He took it and drank with gusto. Eddie tried not to shudder.

"Thank you, ma'am. In any case, the horn signals the change of shifts. The music starts then."

"I hate that music," Dinky said moodily.

"If there's any time when control wavers," Ted went on,

"that would be it."

"And what o'clock is that?" Roland asked.

Ted and Dinky exchanged a doubtful glance. Dinky showed eight fingers, his eyebrows raised questioningly. He looked relieved when Ted nodded at once.

"Yes, eight o'clock," Ted said, then laughed and gave his head a cynical little shake. "What would be eight, anyway, in a world where yon prison might always lie firmly east and not east by southeast on some days and dead east on others."

But Roland had been living with the dissolving world long before Ted Brautigan had even dreamed of such a place as Algul Siento, and he wasn't particularly upset by the way formerly hard-and-fast facts of life had begun to bend. "About twenty-five hours from right now," Roland said. "Or a little less."

Dinky nodded. "But if you're counting on raging confusion, forget it. They know their places and go to them. They're old hands."

"Still," Roland said, "it's the best we're apt to do." Now he looked at his old acquaintance from Mejis. And beckoned to him.

FIVE

Sheemie set his plate down at once, came to Roland, and made a fist. "Hile, Roland, Will Dearborn that was."

Roland returned this greeting, then turned to Jake. The boy gave him an uncertain look. Roland nodded at him, and Jake came. Now Jake and Sheemie stood facing each other with Roland hunkered between them, seeming to look at neither now that they were brought together.

Jake raised a hand to his forehead.

Sheemie returned the gesture.

Jake looked down at Roland and said, "What do you want?"

Roland didn't answer, only continued to look serenely toward the mouth of the cave, as if there were something in the apparently endless murk out there which interested him. And Jake knew what was wanted, as surely as if he had used the touch on Roland's mind to find out (which he most certainly had not).

They had come to a fork in the road. It had been Jake who'd suggested Sheemie should be the one to tell them which branch to take. At the time it had seemed like a weirdly good idea-who knew why. Now, looking into that earnest, not-very-bright face and those bloodshot eyes, Jake wondered two things: what had ever possessed him to suggest such a course of action, and why someone-probably Eddie, who retained a relatively hard head in spite of all they'd been through-hadn't told him, kindly but firmly, that putting their future in Sheemie hands was a dumb idea. Totally noodgy, as his old schoolmates back at Piper might have said. Now Roland, who believed that even in the shadow of death there were still lessons to be learned, wanted Jake to ask the question Jake himself had proposed, and the answer would no doubt expose him as the superstitious scatterbrain he had become. Yet still, why not ask? Even if it were the equivalent of flipping a coin, why not?

Jake had come, possibly at the end of a short but undeniably interesting life, to a place where there were magic doors, mechanical butlers, telepathy (of which he was capable, at least to some small degree, himself), vampires, and were-spiders. So why not let Sheemie choose? They had to go one way or the other, after all, and he'd been through too goddam much to worry about such a paltry thing as looking like an idiot in front of his companions. Besides, he thought, if I'm not among friends here, I never will be.

"Sheemie," he said. Looking into those bloody eyes was sort of horrible, but he made himself do it. "We're on a quest.

That means we have ajob to do. We-"

"You have to save the Tower," said Sheemie. "And my old friend is to go in, and mount to the top, and see what's to see.

There may be renewal, there may be death, or there may be both. He was Will Dearborn once, aye, so he was. Will Dearborn to me."

Jake glanced at Roland, who was still hunkered down, looking out of the cave. But Jake thought his face had gone pale and strange.

One of Roland's fingers made his twirling go-ahead gesture.

"Yes, we're supposed to save the Dark Tower," Jake agreed.

\nd thought he understood some of Roland's lust to see it and snter it, even if it killed him. What lay at the center of the umbrae?

What man (or boy) could but wonder, once the question was thought of, and want to see?

Even if looking drove him mad?

"But in order to do that, we have to do two jobs. One nvolves going back to our world and saving a man. A writer vho's telling our story. The other job is the one we've been talking about. Freeing the Breakers." Honesty made him add:

"Or stopping them, at least. Do you understand?"

But this time Sheemie didn't reply. He was looking where Roland was looking, out into the murk. His face was that of someone who's been hypnotized. Looking at it made Jake uneasy, but he pushed on. He had come to his question, after all, and where else was there to go but on?

"The question is, which job do we do first? It'd seem that saving the writer might be easier because there's no opposition... that we know of, anyway... but there's a chance that... well..." Jake didn't want to say But there's a chance that teleporting us might kill you, and so came to a lame and unsatisfying halt.

For a moment he didn't think Sheemie would make any reply, leaving him with the job of deciding whether or not to try again, but then the former tavern-boy spoke. He looked at none of them as he did so, but only out of the cave and into the dim of Thunderclap.

"I had a dream last night, so I did," said Sheemie of Mejis, whose life had once been saved by three young gunslingers from Gilead. "I dreamed I was back at the Travellers' Rest, only Coral wasn't there, nor Stanley, nor Pettie, nor Sheb-him that used to play the pianer. There was nobbut me, and I was moppin the floor and singin 'Careless Love.' Then the batwings screeked, so they did, they had this funny sound they made..."

Jake saw that Roland was nodding, a trace of a smile on his lips.

"I looked up," Sheemie resumed, "and in come this boy."

His eyes shifted briefly to Jake, then back to the mouth of the cave. "He looked like you, young sai, so he did, close enough to be twim. But his face were covert wi' blood and one of his eye'n were put out, spoiling his pretty, and he walked all a-limp.

Looked like death, he did, and frighten't me terrible, and made me sad to see him, too. I just kept moppin, thinkin that if I did that he might not never mind me, or even see me at all, and go away."

Jake realized he knew this tale. Had he seen it? Had he actually been that bloody boy?

"But he looked right at you... "Roland murmured, still a-hunker, still looking out into the gloom.

"Aye, Will Dearborn that was, right at me, so he did, and said

"Why must you hurt me, when I love you so? When I can do nothing else nor want to, for love made me and fed me and-'"

"'And kept me in better days,'" Eddie murmured. A tear fell from one of his eyes and made a dark spot on the floor of the cave.

"'-and kept me in better days? Why will you cut me, and disfigure my face, and fill me with woe? I have only loved you for your beauty as you once loved me for mine in the days before the world moved on. Now you scar me with nails and put burning drops of quicksilver in my nose; you have set the animals on me, so you have, and they have eaten of my softest parts.

Around me the can-toi gather and there's no peace from their laughter. Yet still I love you and would serve you and even bring the magic again, if you would allow me, for that is how my heart was cast when I rose from the Prim. And once I was strong as well as beautiful, but now my strength is almost gone.'"

"You cried," Susannah said, and Jake thought: Of course he did. He was crying himself. So was Ted; so was Dinky Earnshaw.

Only Roland was dry-eyed, and the gunslinger was pale, so pale.

"He wept," said Sheemie (tears were rolling down his cheeks as he told his dream), "and I did, too, for I could see that he had been fair as daylight. He said, 'If the torture were to stop now, I might still recover-if never my looks, then at least my strength-'"

""My kes,'" Jake said, and although he'd never heard the word before he pronounced it correcdy, almost as if it were kiss.

"-and my kes. But another week... or maybe five days... or even three... and it will be too late. Even if die torture stops, I'll die. And you'll die too, for when love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask." Then the boy turned and went out.

The batwing door made its same sound. Skree-eek."

He looked at Jake, now, and smiled like one who has just awakened. "I can't answer your question, sai." He knocked a fist on his forehead. "Don't have much in the way of brains up here, me-only cobwebbies. Cordelia Delgado said so, and I reckon she was right."

Jake made no reply. He was dazed. He had dreamed about the same disfigured boy, but not in any saloon; it had been in Gage Park, the one where they'd seen Charlie the Choo-Choo.

Last night. Had to have been. He hadn't remembered until now, would probably never have remembered if Sheemie hadn't told his own dream. And had Roland, Eddie, and Susannah also had a version of the same dream? Yes. He could see it on their faces, just as he could see that Ted and Dinky looked moved but otherwise bewildered.

Roland stood up with a wince, clamped his hand briefly to his hip, then said, "Thankee-sai, Sheemie, you've helped us greatly."

Sheemie smiled uncertainly. "How did I do that?"

"Never mind, my dear." Roland turned his attention to Ted. "My friends and I are going to step outside briefly. We need to speak an-tet."

"Of course," Ted said. He shook his head as if to clear it.

"Do my peace of mind a favor and keep it short," Dinky said. "We're probably still all right, but I don't want to push our luck."

"WilL you need him to jump you back inside?" Eddie asked, nodding; to Sheemie. This was in the nature of a rhetorical question; how else would the three of them get back?

"Well, yeah, but..." Dinky began.

"Then you'll be pushing your luck plenty." That said, Eddie,

Susannah, and Jake followed Roland out of the cave. Oy stayed behind, sitting with his new friend, Haylis of Chayven. Something about that troubled Jake. It wasn't a feeling of jealousy but rather one of dread. As if he were seeing an omen someone wiser than himself-one of the Manni-folk, perhaps-could interpret. But would he want to know?

Perhaps not.

SIX

"I didn't remember my dream until he told his," Susannah said, "and if he hadn't told his, I probably never would have remembered."

"Yeah," Jake said.

"But I remember it clearly enough now," she went on. "I was in a subway station and the boy came down the stairs-"

Jake said, "I was in Gage Park-"

"And I was at the Markey Avenue playground, where me and Henry used to play one-on-one," Eddie said. "In my dream, the kid with the bloody face was wearing a tee-shirt that said NEVER A DULL MOMENT-"

"-IN MID-WORLD," Jake finished, and Eddie gave him a startled look.

Jake barely noticed; his thoughts had turned in another direction. "I wonder if Stephen King ever uses dreams in his writing. You know, as yeast to make the plot rise."

This was a question none of them could answer.

"Roland?" Eddie asked. "Where were you in your dream?"

"The Travellers' Rest, where else? Wasn't I there with Sheemie, once upon a time?" With my friends, now long gone, he could have added, but did not. "I was sitting at the table Eldred Jonas used to favor, playing one-hand Watch Me."

Susannah said quiedy, "The boy in die dream was the Beam, wasn't he?"

As Roland nodded, Jake realized that Sheemie had told them which task came first, after all. Had told them beyond all doubt.

"Do any of you have a question?" Roland asked.

One by one, his companions shook their heads.

"We are ka-tet," Roland said, and in unison they answered:

"We are one from many."

Roland tarried a moment longer, looking at them-more than looking, seeming to savor their faces-and then he led them back inside...

"Sheemie," he said.

"Yes, sai! Yes, Roland, Will Dearborn that was!"

"We're going to save the boy you told us about. We're going to make the bad folk stop hurting him."

Sheemie smiled, but it was a puzzled smile. He didn't remember the boy in his dream, not anymore. "Good, sai, that's good!"

Roland turned his attention to Ted. "Once Sheemie gets you back this time, put him to bed. Or, if that would attract the wrong sort of attention, just make sure he takes it easy."

"We can write him down for the sniffles and keep him out of The Study," Ted agreed. "There are a lot of colds Thunderside.

But you folks need to understand that there are no guarantees.

He could get us back inside this time, and then-" He snapped his fingers in the air.

Laughing, Sheemie imitated him, only snapping both sets of fingers. Susannah looked away, sick to her stomach.

"I know that," Roland said, and although his tone did not change very much, each member of his ka-tet knew it was a good thing this palaver was almost over. Roland had reached the rim of his patience. "Keep him quiet even if he's well and feeling fine. We won't need him for what I have in mind, and thanks to the weapons you've left us."

"They're good weapons," Ted agreed, "but are they good enough to wipe out sixty men, can-toi, and taheen?"

"Will the two of you stand with us, once the fight begins?"

Roland asked.

"With the greatest pleasure," Dinky said, baring his teeth in a remarkably nasty grin.

"Yes," Ted said. "And it might be that I have another weapon. Did you listen to the tapes I left you?"

"Yes," Jake replied.

"So you know the story about the guy who stole my wallet."

This time they all nodded.

"What about that young woman?" Susannah asked. "One tough cookie, you said. What about Tanya and her boyfriend? Or her husband, if that's what he is?"

Ted and Dinky exchanged a brief, doubtful look, then shook their heads simultaneously.

"Once, maybe," Ted said. "Not now. Now she's married. All she wants to do is cuddle with her fella."

"And Break," Dinky added.

"But don't they understand..." She found she couldn't finish.

She was haunted not so much by the remnants of her own dream as by Sheemie's. Now you scar me with nails, the dream-boy had told Sheemie. The dream-boy who had once been fair.

"They don't want to understand," Ted told her kindly. He caught a glimpse of Eddie's dark face and shook his head.

"But I won't let you hate them for it. You-we-may have to kill some of them, but I won't let you hate them. They did not put understanding away from them out of greed or fear, but from despair."

"And because to Break is divine," Dinky said. He was also looking at Eddie. "The way the half an hour after you shoot up can be divine. If you know what I'm talking about."

Eddie sighed, stuck his hands in his pockets, said nothing.

Sheemie surprised them all by picking up one of the Coyote machine-pistols and swinging it in an arc. Had it been loaded, the great quest for the Dark Tower would have ended right there. "I'll fight, too!" he cried. "Pow, pow, pow! Bam-bam-bam-ba-

Eddie and Susannah ducked; Jake threw himself instinctively in front of Oy; Ted and Dinky raised their hands in front of their faces, as if that could possibly have saved them from a burst of a hundred high-caliber, steeljacketed slugs. Roland plucked the machine-pistol calmly from Sheemie's hands.

"Your time to help will come," he said, "but after this first battle's fought and won. Do you see Jake's bumbler, Sheemie?"

"Aye, he's with the Rod."

"He talks. See if you can get him to talk to you."

Sheemie obediently went to where Chucky/Haylis was still stroking Oy's head, dropped to one knee, and commenced trying to get Oy to say his name. The bumbler did almost at once, and with remarkable clarity. Sheemie laughed, and Haylis joined in. They sounded like a couple of kids from the Calla.

The roont kind, perhaps.

Roland, meanwhile, turned to Dinky and Ted, his lips little more than a white line in his stern face.

SEVEN

"He's to be kept out of it, once the shooting starts." The gunslinger mimed turning a key in a lock. "If we lose, what happens to him later on won't matter. If we win, we'll need him at least one more time. Probably twice."

"To go where?" Dinky asked.

"Keystone World America," Eddie said. "A small town in western Maine called Lovell. As early in June of 1999 as one-way time allows."

"Sending me to Connecticut appears to have inaugurated Sheemie's seizures," Ted said in a low voice. "You know that sending you back America-side is apt to make him worse, don't you? Or kill him?" He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. Just askin, gents.

"We know," Roland said, "and when the time comes, I'll make the risk clear and ask him if-"

"Oh man, you can stick that one where the sun don't shine,"

Dinky said, and Eddie was reminded so strongly of himself-the way he'd been during his first few hours on the shore of the Western Sea, confused, pissed off, and jonesing for heroin-that he felt a moment of deja vu. "If you told him you wanted him to set himself on fire, the only thing he'd want to know would be if you had a match. He thinks you're Christ on a cracker."

Susannah waited, with a mixture of dread and almost prurient interest, for Roland's response. There was none. Roland only stared at Dinky, his thumbs hooked into his gunbelt.

"Surely you realize that a dead man can't bring you back from America-side," Ted said in a more reasonable tone.

"We'll jump that fence when and if we come to it," Roland said. "In the meantime, we've got several other fences to get over."

"I'm glad we're taking on the Devar-Toi first, whatever the risk," Susannah said. "What's going on down there is an abomination."

"Yes, ma'am," Dinky drawled, and pushed up an imaginary hat. "Ah reckon that's the word."

The tension in die cave eased. Behind them, Sheemie was telling Oy to roll over, and Oy was doing so willingly enough.

The Rod had a big, sloppy smile on his face. Susannah wondered when Haylis of Chayven had last had occasion to use his smile, which was childishly charming.

She thought of asking Ted if there was any way of telling what day it was in America right now, then decided not to bother. If Stephen King was dead, diey'd know; Roland had said so, and she had no doubt he was right. For now the writer was fine, happily frittering away his time and valuable imagination on some meaningless project while the world he'd been born to imagine continued to gather dust in his head. If Roland was pissed at him, it was really no wonder. She was a little pissed at him herself.

"What's your plan, Roland?" Ted asked.

"It relies on two assumptions: that we can surprise them and then stampede them. I don't think they expect to be interrupted in these last days; from Pimli Prentiss down to the lowliest hume guard outside the fence, they have no reason to believe they'll be bothered in their work, certainly not attacked. If my assumptions are correct, we'll succeed. If we fail, at least we won't live long enough to see the Beams break and the Tower fall."

Roland found the crude map of die Algul and put it on the floor of the cave. They all gathered around it.

"These railroad sidetracks," he said, indicating the hashmarks labeled 10. "Some of the dead engines and traincars on them stand widiin twenty yards of the south fence, it looks like through the binoculars. Is that right?"

"Yeah," Dinky said, and pointed to the center of die nearest line. "Might as well call it south, anyway-it's as good a word as any. There's a boxcar on this track that's real close to the fence.

Only ten yards or so. It says soo LINE on the side."

Ted was nodding.

"Good cover," Roland said. "Excellent cover." Now he pointed to the area beyond the north end of the compound.

"And here, all sorts of sheds."

"There used to be supplies in them," Ted said, "but now most are empty, I think. For awhile a gang of Rods slept there, but six or eight months ago, Pimli and the Wease kicked them out."

"But more cover, empty or full," Roland said. "Is the ground behind and around them clear of obstacles and pretty much smooth? Smooth enough for that thing to go back and forth?"

He cocked a thumb at Suzie's Cruisin Trike.

Ted and Dinky exchanged a glance. "Definitely," Ted said.

Susannah waited to see if Eddie would protest, even before he knew what Roland had in mind. He didn't. Good. She was already thinking about what weapons she'd want. What guns.

Roland sat quiet for a moment or two, gazing at the map, almost seeming to commune with it. When Ted offered him a cigarette, the gunslinger took it. Then he began to talk. Twice he drew on the side of a weapons crate with a piece of chalk.

Twice more he drew arrows on the map, one pointing to what they were calling north, one to the south. Ted asked a question;

Dinky asked another. Behind them, Sheemie and Haylis played with Oy like a couple of children. The bumbler mimicked their laughter with eerie accuracy.

When Roland had finished, Ted Brautigan said: 'You mean to spill an almighty lot of blood."

"Indeed I do. As much as I can."

"Risky for the lady," Dink remarked, looking first at her and then at her husband.

Susannah said nothing. Neither did Eddie. He recognized the risk. He also understood why Roland would want Suze north of the compound. The Cruisin Trike would give her mobility, and they'd need it. As for risk, they were six planning to take on sixty. Or more. Of course there would be risk, and of course there would be blood.

Blood and fire.

"I may be able to rig a couple of other guns," Susannah said. Her eyes had taken on that special Detta Walker gleam.

"Radio-controlled, like a toy airplane. I dunno. But I'll move, all right. I'm goan speed around like grease on a hot griddle."

"Can this work?" Dinky asked bluntly.

Roland's lips parted in a humorless grin. "It a?7/work."

"How can you say that?" Ted asked.

Eddie recalled Roland's reasoning before their call to John Cullum and could have answered that question, but answers were for their ka-tet's dinh to give-if he would-and so he left this one to Roland.

"Because it has to," the gunslinger said. "I see no other way."