The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
By Stephen King
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet have journeyed together and apart, scattered far and wide across multilayered worlds of wheres and whens. The destinies of Roland, Susannah, Jake, Father Callahan, Oy, and Eddie are bound in the Dark Tower itself, which now pulls them ever closer to their own endings and beginnings...and into a maelstrom of emotion, violence, and discovery.
Stephen King
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
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Titles in the series (9)
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Reviews for The Dark Tower VII
164 ratings87 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be an incredible end to an incredible tale. While some may not like the ending, it is great and provides all the answers needed. The journey to The Dark Tower has been difficult at times, but ultimately worthwhile and satisfying. The book reads quickly and is a must-read for fans of the series. Overall, readers find this title to be a satisfying conclusion to their favorite books by the author.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5GREAT ending!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5great book
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was determined to finish this series before the film is released and I did. It's a chunkster but I enjoyed the conclusion though there were a few shocks along the way. I thought the end worked because as Star Trek The Final Frontier found out, if you search for God (or the Dark Tower), you can't actually find it without losing your audience. So I didn't expect a big reveal at the end. I enjoyed the Dark Tower series but I didn't fall in love with it. Glad I have read it but it won't be a favourite.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The finale of Kings opus is as contoversial as it is long. Sometimes it seems to start tying everything up for the sake of ending the saga, but it's all worth while. Culminating in an ending that will not be to everyone's taste, it is nonetheless an epic conclusion worthy of Roland himself.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finally... the end. A bit anticlimactic, considering I have been reading this series for about 20 years. After all the time I put into this, I am left feeling perplexed and disappointed about the ending and especially about Mordred... I worried so much about his presence and what he was going to do to the ka-tet. Wow, what a let down. Then I felt the whole ending was just really ... blah. I loved the first part of this series, the first four books were wonderful, but after Wizard and Glass it just didn't do anything for me. I almost feel like King lost interest and then he had his accident, and it really changed the feel of the series, but he felt compelled to finish it because so many fans wanted it. The Dark Tower had it's moments though, very sad when our beloved characters start dropping off, and I had a hard time adjusting to the idea of what Susannah does as they get closer to the Tower. And then the whole drawing and erasing thing - I kept thinking - that's the answer?? All I can say is I'm glad I finally finished it. I began reading it in print but switched over to audiobooks with the last three books, maybe that had something to do with my ambivalence towards them, but something tells me they just were not up to the same caliber as the first four.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I do remember crying my eyes out when finished reading this book and the end of the series.
I am going to re read. That is one thing I know for sure. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Finally finished these all after having started them way back in like '86 or '87. Didn't really enjoy them all as much as I would've liked, but the end of it all WAS surprisingly satisfying. King pulled out a trick at the end that I frankly didn't think he had in him.
Overall, I think the journey was worth it for me, since I started them SO long ago and as such have a bit of soft spot in my heart for the story of the gunslinger. Not sure if I'd actively push this on anyone else though. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I liked the ending of this book. It was surprising to me, and a logical fit. I felt a nice sense of accomplishment after finishing this book/series. That is odd for me, as finishing a book doesn't do that for me. King writes this series is a topic that runs through all/most of his stories. I think this concept grew over time. When he wrote Gunslinger back in 1970, I don't think it was with a plan. It feels to me the goal is to sell books, and not the literary / spiritual message that is communicated. That is fine with me because the books are worthy.I read the first five books in 2010. I got sick of the series, but came back to them this year, 2013, and enjoyed the last two books. Here are my comments about the series, with my rating:Gunslinger (Rating: 2 stars)This is the first of seven books. I probably will read the others, but this one didn't make me want to run out and get them. One time a person who works at the library asked me if the Dark Tower was worth it. I hadn't read it so didn't know. Figured I would find out.The Drawing of the Three (Rating: 3 stars)This was a tough one to rate. I liked it better than Dark Tower I. However, it gets the same number of stars. Book one was Roland hiking across his world to get to this book. This book was a few short stories getting the players together. I am not a fan of short stories. EDIT: 3/26/2011 - after finishing the fifth Dark Tower book I went back and re-rated previous books. Thus this one now has more star than the first one.The Waste Lands (Rating: 3 stars)Same reaction to this book as I had to the first two in the series. Okay, but nothing special. I have no urge to start the next book. I will eventually. Here are series I think are better: Hyperion Cantos, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Jack Ryan, Joe Kurtz, John Corey (need to read the Lion EDIT: 4/14/2013 - I hated the Lion), Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter.Wizard and Glass (Rating: 4 stars)This is the first Dark Tower book I really enjoyed, but hated that I knew one thing that was going to happen at the end. The spoiler was in the very first Dark Tower book. Got to give Stephen King a break though. He wrote 'Wizard and Glass' 20 years after the first Dark Tower book.Wolves of the Calla (Rating: 3 stars)King described my feelings about the novel very well on page 476 of this 709 page book: "All the rest had been ritual and preparation, necessary but not terribly helpful." Four hundred seventy six pages of not terribly helpful, not terribly exciting, not terribly page turning, but not terribly terrible material was painful to get through. However, the rest of the book, page 476 to 709, was helpful, exciting, and page turning. Not enough for me though. I will take a short break before picking up the next Dark Tower installment.Song of Susannah (Rating: 4 stars)After a disappointing fifth installment of the Dark Tower series, this book, the sixth and next to last one, was well done. The series is reminding me of the television show Lost: time traveling, supernaturally type beings (others = low men,) and, in a hard to describe way, the feel, plot, scenarios, ka? of the whole thing. I am looking forward to checking the last book of the series out of the library. That is very different from how I felt before checking this one out.The Dark Tower (Rating: 3 stars)I liked the ending of this book. It was surprising to me, and a logical fit...Afterward: I recall reading a comment that it was pretty full of Stephen King to write himself into the books. I didn't feel that way, until I read the afterward when he asked his constant readers not to write him or stop into his home for a visit. Mr. King, I have no interest to do either. However, if you want to write or visit me, I would be honored.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All I can say is that I am utterly dissapointed with how this series ended. I spent over a year reading through the whole series, and also Wind Through the Keyhole...even stopping to read through the entire volume of Everything's Eventual because it had a story about Roland in it. To end like this seems....well, it IS a dissapointment. It was as if Stephen King didn't know how to end it, so he took a cop-out instead. Very very dissapointed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower - Stephen King ****After many thousands of pages Roland finally arrives at the lifes objective, the foot of the Dark Tower. Unlike many of King's books I really enjoyed this ending and felt the story was complete.Many of the familiar characters are present in this 'will they or won't survive' conclusion. I don't want to give too much away but King's dual ending (he gives the reader the choice of whether to stop or not) really was a stroke of brilliance.A fitting conclusion to a magnificent series. :)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Final episode of the Dark Tower. Since i've re-read them all in english, i think they're even better. Amazing twist in how the 'real' and 'fiction' dimensions are interwoven here. Harsh read in the end, no happy ending. But that's how it must be. Ka.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an exceptional series! It took me forever to start reading it. However once I started, I couldn't put it down.
King paints such great images in his stories. It really feels like you are being pulled into the story as well.
I would suggest this series to anyone who loves a great cliff hanger! - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5that ending... i am not happy.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5A Wretched End to a Great StoryI used to rate The Dark Tower among my favorite SF/fantasy stories right up through book 4 (Wizard and Glass), despite the early warning signs even back then. The "Captain Trips"-devastated Kansas that our heroes found themselves in after debarking from Blaine the Mono, and the trip to the Emerald City of Oz at the end of the book, were indications of some of the problems the series was to develop. Tying most of his previous works together into this one epic was unnecessary, and the series as a whole suffered from it. King apparently lost his groove during the long hiatus between books 4 and 5, and never got it back. After peaking with book 3 The Waste Lands and plateau-ing with the story of Roland's youth in book 4, the books 5 and 6 that eventually came out were pale shadows of the preceding volumes.And then we come to the final part of the series. Issue one: Ubervillains like The Ageless Stranger (oftimes known as Flagg, Marten, and a whole legion of other names) and Modred, and even The Crimson King, turn out to be laughable as threats after the buildup they've been given. Two: From almost the very beginning we've been told that there is something wrong with the continuum of all the worlds, and that they face total destruction, and that the only way to save existence is to go to the Tower -- and in this book it turns out that destroying the breaker community at Algul Siento is all that is needed to halt the decay; the remaining beams will heal themselves, and Roland does not have to proceed to the Tower. This basically means Roland's quest was never really what we thought it was, and there should have been no need for the ending we got ... which brings me to ..... Three: I don't know how I would have written the end of the story. It's not my job -- it was King's, and he fell down on the job. After the build-up of the Tower being the linch-pin of all worlds, and the lecture about scale and size in "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" way back in book 1, the cop-out of the "here we go again" ending is an insult to the Constant Readers, and the preemptiveness of King's defensive "stop reading here if you don't want to be disappointed" admonition is just rubbing salt in the wound. A series as good as this one has been for over half of its run deserved better than this.I don't even know where to start with the smarmy, contrived situation that Susannah ends up in, with Eddie, Jake, and even Oy returned to her. It's like saying "it's okay that all the people she loved were killed, because here they are again, almost as good as before!" The replacements cheapen the deaths of their predecessors. And King's presence as a character in the last two books was every kind of suck.I still love this series, and I can see myself rereading it -- but I don't think I can bring myself to go past book 4 any more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not quite as gripping as the earlier ones, or at least not for all 600+ pages. Had a satisfying ending, which is a trick with something like this.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As far as I'm concerned. This book ended the series perfectly. Whether you read the very last section or not. I could not imagine how Stephen King could possibly end this story, and I found that I liked what he did with the story, though I understand how it might frustrate some people! I won't say anything else because I don't want to give away the ending...but honestly, can you actually imagine any different ending than he gives us?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An amazing series and a breathtaking finale. An ending that makes the years invested in this series worth it. Makes you want to go back and read the whole thing again from the beginning.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A wonderful ending to a wonderful series, even though most disliked the ending, i found it to be perfect, as it needed to be. However, the final battle was very anti-climatic which was dissapointing. Other than that i loved it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roland finally catches his Tower in a book that represents a rather amazing rebound from the dreadful Song of Susannah. Looking at the Dark Tower series as a whole, one can track King's progressively self-indulgent writing; The Dark Tower is no different in that regard as the storytelling doesn't even approach being economical. It is, however, an unexpectedly emotional experience- something I'd reckoned we'd be cheated out of after the disaster that was book six. As for the controversial ending, I have no problem with it. I found it to be surprisingly good, and I think it's the right one. It would have been even better, though, if King hadn't broken in on his own story to wonder aloud why anybody even cares what's in the Tower; maybe this is a tacit admission that even he realizes what a turd Susannah had been. In short, The Dark Tower is a reasonably strong conclusion to a series that seemed destined for greatness, then disintegrated, becoming considerably less than the sum of its parts.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love this series of books and was very happry with the ending. I don't think anyone really expected a happy ending for Roland, and if they did, Oh Well. Writing doesn't get any better than this.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I started reading the "Dark Tower" series, I was enthralled with the character of Roland. I thought the concept, while not totally original, was exceptionally well done. After book four, I felt the edge begin to slip from the storyline. King is still a masterful storyteller, however, throughout the saga. It is only through the graces of his storytelling ability, and my personal desire to, like Roland, see my quest through to the end, that I continued to read this last book. It was that bad.There is nothing original in the last book. Every device was telegraphed, so there were no surprises in the plot. I fully anticipated the arrival of characters from previous stories, arriving deus ex mechina, to save the day. Even the trite ending of the book was exactly as expected. It was almost as if the author felt compelled to fill his unwritten contract with his "constant reader" and deliver a final installment, even though his heart had gone out of the project.What kept me slogging trough the pages was King's rich descriptions and wonderful dialog. What is really sad is that even when Stephen King is writing a mediocre story, he is way better than a lot of his contemporaries. If I were rating this on plot alone, it would be a sad two star rating.At points in my reading journey with Roland and friends, I waited several years between installments for the next book to be delivered. I was satisfied with installments when they finally did arrive. Each was a well crafted story, carrying the plot further along, filling in background to Roland's world. I almost wish that King had not delivered the last installments and the we were either forced to wait for a return of the inspiration that gave us the first three volumes or this forever remained an unfinished masterpiece.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although I've read the first three books of this series a half dozen times each, this is only my second reading of this, the final in the series, and it holds up to my initial impressions. I could lose myself forever in King's tales of Roland and his companions. An epic tale and an adequately epic finale. Also, in a move completely uncharacteristic of his previous writings, King takes time to plan an ending that doesn't fall flat and leave the reader disappointed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was the weakest of King's Dark Tower series. It is still a brilliant novel filled with adventure and characters that by this point are nearly tangible. However, this story does seem to drag out, and although everything is neatly wrapped up and the ending is quite satisfying, it kind of reminded me of (the uncut version of) the Stand at the end of which I wondered: why couldn't we have gotten here 200 pages ago?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I LOVE the Dark Tower Series, but wanted to throw this one across the room when he put himself in it. Again. It wasn't a horrible ending, but King could have done better.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There really was no other way this epic story could have ended. I get shivers just thinking about it.I'm not even going to bother summing this book up. If you haven't read the previous books, pick up The Gunslinger right now. I mean, now. I'll wait for you to catch up... If you've read through book 6, you can't just stop (even though Song of Susannah was a little slow at times). If you've finished The Dark Tower, you know what I'm talking about.There are very few books that are able to evoke strong emotions in me, but amazingly, this one still manages to do it on repeated readings. (It's the line "...I can plant something. Is there anything you'd think he would like?" "Yes, a rose." that gets me every time.) I won't be forgetting Jake's innocence, Eddie's sarcasm, Susannah's vulnerability, Oy's wisdom, or Roland's steel blue eyes anytime soon. This book is, as Susannah would say, "the good kind, mit schlag."
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I was left speechless and angry at the end, but upon further thought I understand why King took the path that he did when writing the final installment. I still feel somewhat speechless, but not really angry anymore.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/512-16-2006 I just "finished" this novel. A heart-wrenching ending to this long tale. For now, I'm heeding Sai King's urging not to read the final chapter. It is enough for me. Say thankya.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5One of the more annoying endings to a series you've slogged through seven books to get to. I'm unlikely to re-read this often.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's over, and yet the end has me wishing for ever more. Things wrap up quickly here, and perhaps not in the way we would wish, but in the way it must be. What Roland finds at the Dark Tower, also, is perhaps not what we hoped for, but what we know, deep down, is the only thing he CAN find. After this novel, I found myself more impressed with Stephen King than I even had been. He's always been able to tell a story, but here we see him telling a story purely in the way the story should be told and not, necessarily, the way the audience wants it told. It is better because of that. The Dark Tower has been a wonderful and moving ride. I look forward to rereading this one again and again.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had to wait over 20 years for this book. The first book in the series came out in the early 80s. It's strange, but I was really ready for it to end. I felt like our characters had been searching forever! I really enjoyed the way King provided "the ending," "the epilogue," "coda," poem, and "author's note." It provided the alternative endings and addressed the issues that were still in my mind. That's what I LOVE about Stephen King, he knows his audience, or "Constant Reader" as he called us, so well that he anticipated our thoughts about the conclusion.
Book preview
The Dark Tower VII - Stephen King
PRAISE FOR STEPHEN KING’S THE DARK TOWER
THE DARK TOWER VII
"Pure storytelling. . . . An absorbing, constantly surprising novel filled with true narrative magic. . . . An archetypal quest fantasy distinguished by its uniquely Western flavor, its emotional complexity and its sheer imaginative reach. . . . The series as a whole—and this final volume in particular—is filled with brilliantly rendered set pieces, cataclysmic encounters, and moments of desolating tragedy. King holds it all together through sheer narrative muscle and his absolute commitment to his slowly unfolding—and deeply personal—vision. . . . The Dark Tower is a humane, visionary epic and a true magnum opus. . . . It will be around for a very long time."
—The Washington Post
A tale of epic proportions . . . [and] brilliant complexity. . . . Those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy will find their loyalty richly rewarded. . . . King has certainly reached the top of his game.
—Publishers Weekly
Stunning . . . cataclysmic. . . . His writing is as powerful as ever.
—Bookmarks Magazine
Plenty of action and quite a few unforeseen bombshells.
—Booklist
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower is also available from Simon & Schuster Audio.
MORE ACCLAIM FOR STEPHEN KING’S INCREDIBLE DARK TOWER NOVELS
"The Dark Tower series is King’s masterpiece."
—The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
"Equal parts Western, high fantasy, horror and science fiction, the series is one of the wildest pastiches ever put between covers. All through the series there are references and tips of the hat to iconic works of pop culture, including J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, films like The Seven Samurai or the spaghetti Westerns popularized by Clint Eastwood, and even L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. . . . King brilliantly juggles all the plot elements."
—The Denver Post
The suspense master takes readers right over the edge.
—Bangor Daily News
Draws to a feverish, page-turning ending.
—Boston Globe
He’s done it again. . . . Stephen King is no ordinary wordsmith.
—Philadelphia Inquirer
BE SURE TO READ THESE BESTSELLERS BY STEPHEN KING
FROM A BUICK 8
Vintage King. . . . [He] knows how to jolt his readers.
—USA Today
Terrific entertainment. . . . Goes down like a shot of moonshine, hot and clean.
—Publishers Weekly
EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL
Bear[s] the King trademark of creative energy and imagination.
—The Richmond Times -Dispatch
Well-crafted, nuanced stories.
—The Washington Post
DREAMCATCHER
King writes more fluently than ever . . . with simple, unexpected grace.
—The New York Times
A tour de force . . . [with] more passages of power and imagination than some writers produce in a lifetime. . . . [An] entertaining must-read.
—Chicago Tribune
HEARTS IN ATLANTIS
This is wonderful fiction. . . . [King’s] take on the ’60s—including the effects of Vietnam—is scarily accurate.
—Entertainment Weekly
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The Dark Tower VII, by Stephen King, illustrated by Michael Whelan, ScribnerHe who speaks without an attentive ear is mute.
Therefore, Constant Reader, this final book in the Dark Tower cycle
is dedicated to you.
Long days and pleasant nights.
diagramNot hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers, my peers—
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.’
—Robert Browning
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
I was born
Six-gun in my hand,
behind a gun
I’ll make my final stand.
—Bad Company
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
—Trent Reznor
CHAPTER I:
CALLAHAN AND THE VAMPIRES
ONE
Pere Don Callahan had once been the Catholic priest of a town, ’Salem’s Lot had been its name, that no longer existed on any map. He didn’t much care. Concepts such as reality had ceased to matter to him.
This onetime priest now held a heathen object in his hand, a scrimshaw turtle made of ivory. There was a nick in its beak and a scratch in the shape of a question mark on its back, but otherwise it was a beautiful thing.
Beautiful and powerful. He could feel the power in his hand like volts.
How lovely it is,
he whispered to the boy who stood with him. Is it the Turtle Maturin? It is, isn’t it?
The boy was Jake Chambers, and he’d come a long loop in order to return almost to his starting-place here in Manhattan. I don’t know,
he said. "She calls it the sköldpadda, and it may help us, but it can’t kill the harriers that are waiting for us in there." He nodded toward the Dixie Pig, wondering if he meant Susannah or Mia when he used that all-purpose feminine pronoun she. Once he would have said it didn’t matter because the two women were so tightly wound together. Now, however, he thought it did matter, or would soon.
Will you?
Jake asked the Pere, meaning Will you stand. Will you fight. Will you kill.
Oh yes,
Callahan said calmly. He put the ivory turtle with its wise eyes and scratched back into his breast pocket with the extra shells for the gun he carried, then patted the cunningly made thing once to make sure it rode safely. I’ll shoot until the bullets are gone, and if I run out of bullets before they kill me, I’ll club them with the . . . the gun-butt.
The pause was so slight Jake didn’t even notice it. But in that pause, the White spoke to Father Callahan. It was a force he knew of old, even in boyhood, although there had been a few years of bad faith along the way, years when his understanding of that elemental force had first grown dim and then become lost completely. But those days were gone, the White was his again, and he told God thankya.
Jake was nodding, saying something Callahan barely heard. And what Jake said didn’t matter. What that other voice said—the voice of something
(Gan)
perhaps too great to be called God—did.
The boy must go on, the voice told him. Whatever happens here, however it falls, the boy must go on. Your part in the story is almost done. His is not.
They walked past a sign on a chrome post (CLOSED FOR PRIVATE FUNCTION), Jake’s special friend Oy trotting between them, his head up and his muzzle wreathed in its usual toothy grin. At the top of the steps, Jake reached into the woven sack Susannah-Mio had brought out of Calla Bryn Sturgis and grabbed two of the plates—the ’Rizas. He tapped them together, nodded at the dull ringing sound, and then said: Let’s see yours.
Callahan lifted the Ruger Jake had brought out of Calla New York, and now back into it; life is a wheel and we all say thankya. For a moment the Pere held the Ruger’s barrel beside his right cheek like a duelist. Then he touched his breast pocket, bulging with shells, and with the turtle. The sköldpadda.
Jake nodded. Once we’re in, we stay together. Always together, with Oy between. On three. And once we start, we never stop.
Never stop.
Right. Are you ready?
Yes. God’s love on you, boy.
"And on you, Pere. One . . . two . . . three." Jake opened the door and together they went into the dim light and the sweet tangy smell of roasting meat.
TWO
Jake went to what he was sure would be his death remembering two things Roland Deschain, his true father, had said. Battles that last five minutes spawn legends that live a thousand years. And You needn’t die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end and ka is always served.
Jake Chambers surveyed the Dixie Pig with a satisfied mind.
THREE
Also with crystal clarity. His senses were so heightened that he could smell not just roasting flesh but the rosemary with which it had been rubbed; could hear not only the calm rhythm of his breath but the tidal murmur of his blood climbing brainward on one side of his neck and descending heartward on the other.
He also remembered Roland’s saying that even the shortest battle, from first shot to final falling body, seemed long to those taking part. Time grew elastic; stretched to the point of vanishment. Jake had nodded as if he understood, although he hadn’t.
Now he did.
His first thought was that there were too many of them—far, far too many. He put their number at close to a hundred, the majority certainly of the sort Pere Callahan had referred to as low men.
(Some were low women, but Jake had no doubt the principle was the same.) Scattered among them, all less fleshy than the low folken and some as slender as fencing weapons, their complexions ashy and their bodies surrounded in dim blue auras, were what had to be vampires.
Oy stood at Jake’s heel, his small, foxy face stern, whining low in his throat.
That smell of cooking meat wafting through the air was not pork.
FOUR
Ten feet between us any time we have ten feet to give, Pere—so Jake had said out on the sidewalk, and even as they approached the maître d’s platform, Callahan was drifting to Jake’s right, putting the required distance between them.
Jake had also told him to scream as loud as he could for as long as he could, and Callahan was opening his mouth to begin doing just that when the voice of the White spoke up inside again. Only one word, but it was enough.
Sköldpadda, it said.
Callahan was still holding the Ruger up by his right cheek. Now he dipped into his breast pocket with his left hand. His awareness of the scene before him wasn’t as hyper-alert as his young companion’s, but he saw a great deal: the orangey-crimson electric flambeaux on the walls, the candles on each table immured in glass containers of a brighter, Halloweenish orange, the gleaming napkins. To the left of the dining room was a tapestry showing knights and their ladies sitting at a long banquet table. There was a sense in here—Callahan wasn’t sure exactly what provoked it, the various tells and stimuli were too subtle—of people just resettling themselves after some bit of excitement: a small kitchen fire, say, or an automobile accident on the street.
Or a lady having a baby, Callahan thought as he closed his hand on the Turtle. That’s always good for a little pause between the appetizer and the entrée.
Now come Gilead’s ka-mais!
shouted an excited, nervous voice. Not a human one, of that Callahan was almost positive. It was too buzzy to be human. Callahan saw what appeared to be some sort of monstrous bird-human hybrid standing at the far end of the room. It wore straight-leg jeans and a plain white shirt, but the head rising from that shirt was painted with sleek feathers of dark yellow. Its eyes looked like drops of liquid tar.
"Get them!" this horridly ridiculous thing shouted, and brushed aside a napkin. Beneath it was some sort of weapon. Callahan supposed it was a gun, but it looked like the sort you saw on Star Trek. What did they call them? Phasers? Stunners?
It didn’t matter. Callahan had a far better weapon, and wanted to make sure they all saw it. He swept the place-settings and the glass container with the candle in it from the nearest table, then snatched away the tablecloth like a magician doing a trick. The last thing he wanted to do was to trip over a swatch of linen at the crucial moment. Then, with a nimbleness he wouldn’t have believed even a week ago, he stepped onto one of the chairs and from the chair to the table-top. Once on the table, he lifted the sköldpadda with his fingers supporting the turtle’s flat undershell, giving them all a good look at it.
I could croon something, he thought. Maybe Moonlight Becomes You
or I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
At that point they had been inside the Dixie Pig for exactly thirty-four seconds.
FIVE
High school teachers faced with a large group of students in study hall or a school assembly will tell you that teenagers, even when freshly showered and groomed, reek of the hormones which their bodies are so busy manufacturing. Any group of people under stress emits a similar stink, and Jake, with his senses tuned to the most exquisite pitch, smelled it here. When they passed the maître d’s stand (Blackmail Central, his Dad liked to call such stations), the smell of the Dixie Pig’s diners had been faint, the smell of people coming back to normal after some sort of dust-up. But when the bird-creature in the far corner shouted, Jake had smelled the patrons more strongly. It was a metallic aroma, enough like blood to incite his temper and his emotions. Yes, he saw Tweety Bird knock aside the napkin on his table; yes, he saw the weapon beneath; yes, he understood that Callahan, standing on the table, was an easy shot. That was of far less concern to Jake than the mobilizing weapon that was Tweety Bird’s mouth. Jake was drawing back his right arm, meaning to fling the first of his nineteen plates and amputate the head in which that mouth resided, when Callahan raised the turtle.
It won’t work, not in here, Jake thought, but even before the idea had been completely articulated in his mind, he understood it was working. He knew by the smell of them. The aggressiveness went out of it. And the few who had begun to rise from their tables—the red holes in the foreheads of the low people gaping, the blue auras of the vampires seeming to pull in and intensify—sat back down again, and hard, as if they had suddenly lost command of their muscles.
" Get them, those are the ones Sayre . . ." Then Tweety stopped talking. His left hand—if you could call such an ugly talon a hand—touched the butt of his high-tech gun and then fell away. The brilliance seemed to leave his eyes. They’re the ones Sayre . . . S-S-Sayre . . .
Another pause. Then the bird-thing said, Oh sai, what is the lovely thing that you hold?
You know what it is,
Callahan said. Jake was moving and Callahan, mindful of what the boy gunslinger had told him outside—Make sure that every time I look on my right, I see your face—stepped back down from the table to move with him, still holding the turtle high. He could almost taste the room’s silence, but—
But there was another room. Rough laughter and hoarse, carousing yells—a party from the sound of it, and close by. On the left. From behind the tapestry showing the knights and their ladies at dinner. Something going on back there, Callahan thought, and probably not Elks’ Poker Night.
He heard Oy breathing fast and low through his perpetual grin, a perfect little engine. And something else. A harsh rattling sound with a low and rapid clicking beneath. The combination set Callahan’s teeth on edge and made his skin feel cold. Something was hiding under the tables.
Oy saw the advancing insects first and froze like a dog on point, one paw raised and his snout thrust forward. For a moment the only part of him to move was the dark and velvety skin of his muzzle, first twitching back to reveal the clenched needles of his teeth, then relaxing to hide them, then twitching back again.
The bugs came on. Whatever they were, the Turtle Maturin upraised in the Pere’s hand meant nothing to them. A fat guy wearing a tuxedo with plaid lapels spoke weakly, almost questioningly, to the bird-thing: They weren’t to come any further than here, Meiman, nor to leave. We were told . . .
Oy lunged forward, a growl coming through his clamped teeth. It was a decidedly un-Oylike sound, reminding Callahan of a comic-strip balloon: Arrrrrr!
No!
Jake shouted, alarmed. No, Oy!
At the sound of the boy’s shout, the yells and laughter from behind the tapestry abruptly ceased, as if the folken back there had suddenly become aware that something had changed in the front room.
Oy took no notice of Jake’s cry. He crunched three of the bugs in rapid succession, the crackle of their breaking carapaces gruesomely clear in the new stillness. He made no attempt to eat them but simply tossed the corpses, each the size of a mouse, into the air with a snap of the neck and a grinning release of the jaws.
And the others retreated back under the tables.
He was made for this, Callahan thought. Perhaps once in the long-ago all bumblers were. Made for it the way some breeds of terrier are made to—
A hoarse shout from behind the tapestry interrupted these thoughts: "Humes!" one voice cried, and then a second: "Ka-humes!"
Callahan had an absurd impulse to yell Gesundheit!
Before he could yell that or anything else, Roland’s voice suddenly filled his head.
SIX
Jake, go.
The boy turned toward Pere Callahan, bewildered. He was walking with his arms crossed, ready to fling the ’Rizas at the first low man or woman who moved. Oy had returned to his heel, although he was swinging his head ceaselessly from side to side and his eyes were bright with the prospect of more prey.
We go together,
Jake said. They’re buffaloed, Pere! And we’re close! They took her through here . . . this room . . . and then through the kitchen—
Callahan paid no attention. Still holding the turtle high (as one might hold a lantern in a deep cave), he had turned toward the tapestry. The silence from behind it was far more terrible than the shouts and feverish, gargling laughter. It was silence like a pointed weapon. And the boy had stopped.
Go while you can,
Callahan said, striving for calmness. "Catch up to her if you can. This is the command of your dinh. This is also the will of the White."
But you can’t—
Go, Jake!
The low men and women in the Dixie Pig, whether in thrall to the sköldpadda or not, murmured uneasily at the sound of that shout, and well they might have, for it was not Callahan’s voice coming from Callahan’s mouth.
"You have this one chance and must take it! Find her! As dinh I command you!"
Jake’s eyes flew wide at the sound of Roland’s voice issuing from Callahan’s throat. His mouth dropped open. He looked around, dazed.
In the second before the tapestry to their left was torn aside, Callahan saw its black joke, what the careless eye would first surely overlook: the roast that was the banquet’s main entrée had a human form; the knights and their ladies were eating human flesh and drinking human blood. What the tapestry showed was a cannibals’ communion.
Then the ancient ones who had been at their own sup tore aside the obscene tapestry and burst out, shrieking through the great fangs that propped their deformed mouths forever open. Their eyes were as black as blindness, the skin of their cheeks and brows—even the backs of their hands—tumorous with wild teeth. Like the vampires in the dining room, they were surrounded with auras, but these were of a poisoned violet so dark it was almost black. Some sort of ichor dribbled from the corners of their eyes and mouths. They were gibbering and several were laughing: seeming not to create the sounds but rather to snatch them out of the air like something that could be rent alive.
And Callahan knew them. Of course he did. Had he not been sent hence by one of their number? Here were the true vampires, the Type Ones, kept like a secret and now loosed on the intruders.
The turtle he held up did not slow them in the slightest.
Callahan saw Jake staring, pale, eyes shiny with horror and bulging from their sockets, all purpose forgotten at the sight of these freaks.
Without knowing what was going to come out of his mouth until he heard it, Callahan shouted: "They’ll kill Oy first! They’ll kill him in front of you and drink his blood!"
Oy barked at the sound of his name. Jake’s eyes seemed to clear at the sound, but Callahan had no time to follow the boy’s fortunes further.
Turtle won’t stop them, but at least it’s holding the others back. Bullets won’t stop them, but—
With a sense of déjà vu—and why not, he had lived all this before in the home of a boy named Mark Petrie—Callahan dipped into the open front of his shirt and brought out the cross he wore there. It clicked against the butt of the Ruger and then hung below it. The cross was lit with a brilliant bluish-white glare. The two ancient things in the lead had been about to grab him and draw him into their midst. Now they drew back instead, shrieking with pain. Callahan saw the surface of their skin sizzle and begin to liquefy. The sight of it filled him with savage happiness.
Get back from me!
he shouted. "The power of God commands you! The power of Christ commands you! The ka of Mid-World commands you! The power of the White commands you!"
One of them darted forward nevertheless, a deformed skeleton in an ancient, moss-encrusted dinner suit. Around its neck it wore some sort of ancient award . . . the Cross of Malta, perhaps? It swiped one of its long-nailed hands at the crucifix Callahan was holding out. He jerked it down at the last second, and the vampire’s claw passed an inch above it. Callahan lunged forward without thought and drove the tip of the cross into the yellow parchment of the thing’s forehead. The gold crucifix went in like a red-hot skewer into butter. The thing in the rusty dinner suit let out a liquid cry of pained dismay and stumbled backward. Callahan pulled his cross back. For one moment, before the elderly monster clapped its claws to its brow, Callahan saw the hole his cross had made. Then a thick, curdy, yellow stuff began to spill through the ancient one’s fingers. Its knees unhinged and it tumbled to the floor between two tables. Its mates shrank away from it, screaming with outrage. The thing’s face was already collapsing inward beneath its twisted hands. Its aura whiffed out like a candle and then there was nothing but a puddle of yellow, liquefying flesh spilling like vomit from the sleeves of its jacket and the legs of its pants.
Callahan strode briskly toward the others. His fear was gone. The shadow of shame that had hung over him ever since Barlow had taken his cross and broken it was also gone.
Free at last, he thought. Free at last, great God Almighty, I’m free at last. Then: I believe this is redemption. And it’s good, isn’t it? Quite good, indeed.
H’row it aside!
one of them cried, its hands held up to shield its face. Nasty bauble of the ’heep-God, h’row it aside if you dare!
Nasty bauble of the sheep-God, indeed. If so, why do you cringe?
Against Barlow he had not dared answer this challenge, and it had been his undoing. In the Dixie Pig, Callahan turned the cross toward the thing which had dared to speak.
I needn’t stake my faith on the challenge of such a thing as you, sai,
he said, his words ringing clearly in the room. He had forced the old ones back almost to the archway through which they had come. Great dark tumors had appeared on the hands and faces of those in front, eating into the paper of their ancient skin like acid. "And I’d never throw away such an old friend in any case. But put it away? Aye, if you like." And he dropped it back into his shirt.
Several of the vampires lunged forward immediately, their fang-choked mouths twisting in what might have been grins. Callahan held his hands out toward them. The fingers (and the barrel of the Ruger) glowed, as if they had been dipped into blue fire. The eyes of the turtle had likewise filled with light; its shell shone.
Stand away from me!
Callahan cried. The power of God and the White commands you!
SEVEN
When the terrible shaman turned to face the Grandfathers, Meiman of the taheen felt the Turtle’s awful, lovely glammer lessen a bit. He saw that the boy was gone, and that filled him with dismay, yet at least he’d gone further in rather than slipping out, so that might still be all right. But if the boy found the door to Fedic and used it, Meiman might find himself in very bad trouble, indeed. For Sayre answered to Walter o’ Dim, and Walter answered only to the Crimson King himself.
Never mind. One thing at a time. Settle the shaman’s hash first. Turn the Grandfathers loose on him. Then go after the boy, perhaps shouting that his friend wanted him after all, that might work—
Meiman (the Canaryman to Mia, Tweety Bird to Jake) crept forward, grasping Andrew—the fat man in the tux with the plaid lapels—with one hand and Andrew’s even fatter jilly with the other. He gestured at Callahan’s turned back.
Tirana shook her head vehemently. Meiman opened his beak and hissed at her. She shrank away from him. Detta Walker had already gotten her fingers into the mask Tirana wore and it hung in shreds about her jaw and neck. In the middle of her forehead, a red wound opened and closed like the gill of a dying fish.
Meiman turned to Andrew, released him long enough to point at the shaman, then drew the talon that served him as a hand across his feathered throat in a grimly expressive gesture. Andrew nodded and brushed away his wife’s pudgy hands when they tried to restrain him. The mask of humanity was good enough to show the low man in the garish tuxedo visibly gathering his courage. Then he leaped forward with a strangled cry, seizing Callahan around the neck not with his hands but his fat forearms. At the same moment his jilly lunged and struck the ivory turtle from the Pere’s hand, screaming as she did so. The sköldpadda tumbled to the red rug, bounced beneath one of the tables, and there (like a certain paper boat some of you may remember) passes out of this tale forever.
The Grandfathers still held back, as did the Type Three vampires who had been dining in the public room, but the low men and women sensed weakness and moved in, first hesitantly, then with growing confidence. They surrounded Callahan, paused, and then fell on him in all their numbers.
Let me go in God’s name!
Callahan cried, but of course it did no good. Unlike the vampires, the things with the red wounds in their foreheads did not respond to the name of Callahan’s God. All he could do was hope Jake wouldn’t stop, let alone double back; that he and Oy would go like the wind to Susannah. Save her if they could. Die with her if they could not. And kill her baby, if chance allowed. God help him, but he had been wrong about that. They should have snuffed out the baby’s life back in the Calla, when they had the chance.
Something bit deeply into his neck. The vampires would come now, cross or no cross. They’d fall on him like the sharks they were once they got their first whiff of his life’s blood. Help me God, give me strength, Callahan thought, and felt the strength flow into him. He rolled to his left as claws ripped into his shirt, tearing it to ribbons. For a moment his right hand was free, and the Ruger was still in it. He turned it toward the working, sweaty, hate-congested face of the fat one named Andrew and placed the barrel of the gun (bought for home protection in the long-distant past by Jake’s more than a little paranoid TV-executive father) against the soft red wound in the center of the low man’s forehead.
"No-ooo, you daren’t!" Tirana cried, and as she reached for the gun, the front of her gown finally burst, spilling her massive breasts free. They were covered with coarse fur.
Callahan pulled the trigger. The Ruger’s report was deafening in the dining room. Andrew’s head exploded like a gourd filled with blood, spraying the creatures who had been crowding in behind him. There were screams of horror and disbelief. Callahan had time to think, It wasn’t supposed to be this way, was it? And: Is it enough to put me in the club? Am I a gunslinger yet?
Perhaps not. But there was the bird-man, standing right in front of him between two tables, its beak opening and closing, its throat beating visibly with excitement.
Smiling, propping himself on one elbow as blood pumped onto the carpet from his torn throat, Callahan leveled Jake’s Ruger.
"No! Meiman cried, raising his misshapen hands to his face in an utterly fruitless gesture of protection.
No, you CAN’T—"
Can so, Callahan thought with childish glee, and fired again. Meiman took two stumble-steps backward, then a third. He struck a table and collapsed on top of it. Three yellow feathers hung above him on the air, seesawing lazily.
Callahan heard savage howls, not of anger or fear but of hunger. The aroma of blood had finally penetrated the old ones’ jaded nostrils, and nothing would stop them now. So, if he didn’t want to join them—
Pere Callahan, once Father Callahan of ’Salem’s Lot, turned the Ruger’s muzzle on himself. He wasted no time looking for eternity in the darkness of the barrel but placed it deep against the shelf of his chin.
Hile, Roland!
he said, and knew
(the wave they are lifted by the wave)
that he was heard. Hile, gunslinger!
His finger tightened on the trigger as the ancient monsters fell upon him. He was buried in the reek of their cold and bloodless breath, but not daunted by it. He had never felt so strong. Of all the years in his life he had been happiest when he had been a simple vagrant, not a priest but only Callahan o’ the Roads, and felt that soon he would be let free to resume that life and wander as he would, his duties fulfilled, and that was well.
"May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it, and may you climb to the top!"
The teeth of his old enemies, these ancient brothers and sisters of a thing which had called itself Kurt Barlow, sank into him like stingers. Callahan felt them not at all. He was smiling as he pulled the trigger and escaped them for good.
CHAPTER II:
LIFTED ON THE WAVE
ONE
On their way out along the dirt camp-road which had taken them to the writer’s house in the town of Bridgton, Eddie and Roland came upon an orange pickup truck with the words CENTRAL MAINE POWER MAINTENANCE painted on the sides. Nearby, a man in a yellow hardhat and an orange high-visibility vest was cutting branches that threatened the low-hanging electrical lines. And did Eddie feel something then, some gathering force? Maybe a precursor of the wave rushing down the Path of the Beam toward them? He later thought so, but couldn’t say for sure. God knew he’d been in a weird enough mood already, and why not? How many people got to meet their creators? Well . . . Stephen King hadn’t created Eddie Dean, a young man whose Co-Op City happened to be in Brooklyn rather than the Bronx—not yet, not in that year of 1977, but Eddie felt certain that in time King would. How else could he be here?
Eddie nipped in ahead of the power-truck, got out, and asked the sweating man with the brush-hog in his hands for directions to Turtleback Lane, in the town of Lovell. The Central Maine Power guy passed on the directions willingly enough, then added: If you’re serious about going to Lovell today, you’re gonna have to use Route 93. The Bog Road, some folks call it.
He raised a hand to Eddie and shook his head like a man forestalling an argument, although Eddie had not in fact said a word since asking his original question.
It’s seven miles longer, I know, and jouncy as a bugger, but you can’t get through East Stoneham today. Cops’ve got it blocked off. State Bears, local yokels, even the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department.
You’re kidding,
Eddie said. It seemed a safe enough response.
The power guy shook his head grimly. No one seems to know exactly what’s up, but there’s been shootin—automatic weapons, maybe—and explosions.
He patted the battered and sawdusty walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. I’ve even heard the t-word once or twice this afternoon. Not s’prised, either.
Eddie had no idea what the t-word might be, but knew Roland wanted to get going. He could feel the gunslinger’s impatience in his head; could almost see Roland’s impatient finger-twirling gesture, the one that meant Let’s go, let’s go.
I’m talking ’bout terrorism,
the power guy said, then lowered his voice. People don’t think shit like that can happen in America, buddy, but I got news for you, it can. If not today, then sooner or later. Someone’s gonna blow up the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, that’s what I think—the right-wingers, the left-wingers, or the goddam A-rabs. Too many crazy people.
Eddie, who had a nodding acquaintance with ten more years of history than this fellow, nodded. You’re probably right. In any case, thanks for the info.
Just tryin to save you some time.
And, as Eddie opened the driver’s-side door of John Cullum’s Ford sedan: You been in a fight, mister? You look kinda bunged up. Also you’re limping.
Eddie had been in a fight, all right: had been grooved in the arm and plugged in the right calf. Neither wound was serious, and in the forward rush of events he had nearly forgotten them. Now they hurt all over again. Why in God’s name had he turned down Aaron Deepneau’s bottle of Percocet tablets?
Yeah,
he said, that’s why I’m going to Lovell. Guy’s dog bit me. He and I are going to have a talk about it.
Bizarre story, didn’t have much going for it in the way of plot, but he was no writer. That was King’s job. In any case, it was good enough to get him back behind the wheel of Cullum’s Ford Galaxie before the power guy could ask him any more questions, and Eddie reckoned that made it a success. He drove away quickly.
You got directions?
Roland asked.
Yeah.
Good. Everything’s breaking at once, Eddie. We have to get to Susannah as fast as we can. Jake and Pere Callahan, too. And the baby’s coming, whatever it is. May have come already.
Turn right when you get back out to Kansas Road, the power guy had told Eddie (Kansas as in Dorothy, Toto, and Auntie Em, everything breaking at once), and he did. That put them rolling north. The sun had gone behind the trees on their left, throwing the two-lane blacktop entirely into shadow. Eddie had an almost palpable sense of time slipping through his fingers like some fabulously expensive cloth that was too smooth to grip. He stepped on the gas and Cullum’s old Ford, although wheezy in the valves, walked out a little. Eddie got it up to fifty-five and pegged it there. More speed might have been possible, but Kansas Road was both twisty and badly maintained.
Roland had taken a sheet of notepaper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and was now studying it (although Eddie doubted if the gunslinger could actually read much of the document; this world’s written words would always be mostly mystery to him). At the top of the paper, above Aaron Deepneau’s rather shaky but perfectly legible handwriting (and Calvin Tower’s all-important signature), was a smiling cartoon beaver and the words DAM IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO. A silly pun if ever there was one.
I don’t like silly questions, I won’t play silly games, Eddie thought, and suddenly grinned. It was a point of view to which Roland still held, Eddie felt quite sure, notwithstanding the fact that, while riding Blaine the Mono, their lives had been saved by a few well-timed silly questions. Eddie opened his mouth to point out that what might well turn out to be the most important document in the history of the world—more important than the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence or Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—was headed by a dumb pun, and how did Roland like them apples? Before he could get out a single word, however, the wave struck.
TWO
His foot slipped off the gas pedal, and that was good. If it had stayed on, both he and Roland would surely have been injured, maybe killed. When the wave came, staying in control of John Cullum’s Ford Galaxie dropped all the way off Eddie Dean’s list of priorities. It was like that moment when the roller coaster has reached the top of its first mountain, hesitates a moment . . . tilts . . . plunges . . . and you fall with a sudden blast of hot summer air in your face and a pressure against your chest and your stomach floating somewhere behind you.
In that moment Eddie saw everything in Cullum’s car had come untethered and was floating—pipe ashes, two pens and a paperclip from the dashboard, Eddie’s dinh, and, he realized, his dinh’s ka-mai, good old Eddie Dean. No wonder he had lost his stomach! (He wasn’t aware that the car itself, which had drifted to a stop at the side of the road, was also floating, tilting lazily back and forth five or six inches above the ground like a small boat on an invisible sea.)
Then the tree-lined country road was gone. Bridgton was gone. The world was gone. There was the sound of todash chimes, repulsive and nauseating, making him want to grit his teeth in protest . . . except his teeth were gone, too.
THREE
Like Eddie, Roland had a clear sense of being first lifted and then hung, like something that had lost its ties to Earth’s gravity. He heard the chimes and felt himself elevated through the wall of existence, but he understood this wasn’t real todash—at least not of the sort they’d experienced before. This was very likely what Vannay called aven kal, words which meant lifted on the wind or carried on the wave. Only the kal form, instead of the more usual kas, indicated a natural force of disastrous proportions: not a wind but a hurricane; not a wave but a tsunami.
The very Beam means to speak to you, Gabby, Vannay said in his mind—Gabby, the old sarcastic nickname Vannay had adopted because Steven Deschain’s boy was so close-mouthed. His limping, brilliant tutor had stopped using it (probably at Cort’s insistence) the year Roland had turned eleven. You would do well to listen if it does.
I will listen very well, Roland replied, and was dropped. He gagged, weightless and nauseated.
More chimes. Then, suddenly, he was floating again, this time above a room filled with empty beds. One look was enough to assure him that this was where the Wolves brought the children they kidnapped from the Borderland Callas. At the far end of the room—
A hand grasped his arm, a thing Roland would have thought impossible in this state. He looked to his left and saw Eddie beside him, floating naked. They were both naked, their clothes left behind in the writer’s world.
Roland had already seen what Eddie was pointing to. At the far end of the room, a pair of beds had been pushed together. A white woman lay on one of them. Her legs—the very ones Susannah had used on their todash visit to New York, Roland had no doubt—were spread wide. A woman with the head of a rat—one of the taheen, he felt sure—bent between them.
Next to the white woman was a dark-skinned one whose legs ended just below the knees. Floating naked or not, nauseated or not, todash or not, Roland had never in his life been so glad to see anyone. And Eddie felt the same. Roland heard him cry out joyfully in the center of his head and reached a hand to still the younger man. He had to still him, for Susannah was looking at them, had almost certainly seen them, and if she spoke to them, he needed to hear every word she said. Because although those words would come from her mouth, it would very likely be the Beam that spoke; the Voice of the Bear or that of the Turtle.
Both women wore metal hoods over their hair. A length of segmented steel hose connected them.
Some kind of Vulcan mind-meld, Eddie said, once again filling the center of his head and blotting out everything else. Or maybe—
Hush! Roland broke in. Hush, Eddie, for your father’s sake!
A man wearing a white coat seized a pair of cruel-looking forceps from a tray and pushed the rathead taheen nurse aside. He bent, peering up between Mia’s legs and holding the forceps above his head. Standing close by, wearing a tee-shirt with words of Eddie and Susannah’s world on it, was a taheen with the head of a fierce brown bird.
He’ll sense us, Roland thought. If we stay long enough, he’ll surely sense us and raise the alarm.
But Susannah was looking at him, the eyes below the clamp of the hood feverish. Bright with understanding. Seeing them, aye, say true.
She spoke a single word, and in a moment of inexplicable but perfectly reliable intuition, Roland understood the word came not from Susannah but from Mia. Yet it was also the Voice of the Beam, a force perhaps sentient enough to understand how seriously it was threatened, and to want to protect itself.
Chassit was the word Susannah spoke; he heard it in his head because they were ka-tet and an-tet; he also saw it form soundlessly on her lips as she looked up toward the place where they floated, onlookers at something that was happening in some other where and when at this very moment.
The hawk-headed taheen looked up, perhaps following her gaze, perhaps hearing the chimes with its preternaturally sharp ears. Then the doctor lowered his forceps and thrust them beneath Mia’s gown. She shrieked. Susannah shrieked with her. And as if Roland’s essentially bodiless being could be pushed away by the force of those combined screams like a milkweed pod lifted and carried on a gust of October wind, the gunslinger felt himself rise violently, losing touch with this place as he went, but holding onto that one word. It brought with it a brilliant memory of his mother leaning over him as he lay in bed. In the room of many colors, this had been, the nursery, and of course now he understood the colors he’d only accepted as a young boy, accepted as children barely out of their clouts accept everything: with unquestioning wonder, with the unspoken assumption that it’s all magic.
The windows of the nursery had been stained glass representing the Bends o’ the Rainbow, of course. He remembered his mother leaning toward him, her face pied with that lovely various light, her hood thrown back so he could trace the curve of her neck with the eye of a child
(it’s all magic)
and the soul of a lover; he remembered thinking how he would court her and win her from his father, if she would have him; how they would marry and have children of their own and live forever in that fairy-tale kingdom called the All-A-Glow; and how she sang to him, how Gabrielle Deschain sang to her little boy with his big eyes looking solemnly up at her from his pillow and his face already stamped with the many swimming colors of his wandering life, singing a lilting nonsense song that went like this:
Baby-bunting, baby-dear,
Baby, bring your berries here.
Chussit, chissit, chassit!
Bring enough to fill your basket!
Enough to fill my basket, he thought as he was flung, weightless, through darkness and the terrible sound of the todash chimes. The words weren’t quite nonsense but old numbers, she’d told him once when he had asked. Chussit, chissit, chassit: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.
Chassit is nineteen, he thought. Of course, it’s all nineteen. Then he and Eddie were in light again, a fever-sick orange light, and there were Jake and Callahan. He even saw Oy standing at Jake’s left heel, his fur bushed out and his muzzle wrinkled back to show his teeth.
Chussit, chissit, chassit, Roland thought as he looked at his son, a boy so small and terribly outnumbered in the dining room of the Dixie Pig. Chassit is nineteen. Enough to fill my basket. But what basket? What does it mean?
FOUR
Beside Kansas Road in Bridgton, John Cullum’s twelve-year-old Ford (a hundred and six thousand on the odometer and she was just getting wa’amed up, Cullum liked to tell people) seesawed lazily back and forth above the soft shoulder, front tires touching down and then rising so the back tires could briefly kiss the dirt. Inside, two men who appeared not only unconscious but transparent rolled lazily with the car’s motion like corpses in a sunken boat. And around them floated the debris which collects in any old car that’s been hard-used: the ashes and pens and paperclips and the world’s oldest peanut and a penny from the back seat and pine needles from the floormats and even one of the floormats itself. In the darkness of the glove compartment, objects rattled timidly against the closed door.
Someone passing would undoubtedly have been thunderstruck at the sight of all this stuff—and people! people who might be dead!—floating around in the car like jetsam in a space capsule. But no one did come along. Those who lived on this side of Long Lake were mostly looking across the water toward the East Stoneham side even though there was really nothing over there to see any longer. Even the smoke was almost gone.
Lazily the car floated and inside it, Roland of Gilead rose slowly to the ceiling, where his neck pressed against the dirty roof-liner and his legs cleared the front seat to trail out behind him. Eddie was first held in place by the wheel, but then some random sideways motion of the car slid him free and he also rose, his face slack and dreaming. A silver line of drool escaped the corner of his mouth and floated, shining and full of minuscule bubbles, beside one blood-crusted cheek.
FIVE
Roland knew that Susannah had seen him, had probably seen Eddie, as well. That was why she’d labored so hard to speak that single word. Jake and Callahan, however, saw neither of them. The boy and the Pere had entered the Dixie Pig, a thing that was either very brave or very foolish, and now all of their concentration was necessarily focused on what they’d found there.
Foolhardy or not, Roland was fiercely proud of Jake. He saw the boy had established canda between himself and Callahan: that distance (never the same in any two situations) which assures that a pair of outnumbered gunslingers cannot be killed by a single shot. Both had come ready to fight. Callahan was holding Jake’s gun . . . and another thing, as well: some sort of carving. Roland was almost sure it was a can-tah, one of the little gods. The boy had Susannah’s ’Rizas and their tote-sack, retrieved from only the gods knew where.
The gunslinger spied a fat woman whose humanity ended at the neck. Above her trio of flabby chins, the mask she’d been wearing hung in ruins. Looking at the rathead beneath, Roland suddenly understood a good many things. Some might have come clearly to him sooner, had not his attention —like that of the boy and the Pere at this very moment—been focused on other matters.
Callahan’s low men, for instance. They might well be taheen, creatures neither of the Prim nor of the natural world but misbegotten things from somewhere between the two. They certainly weren’t the sort of beings Roland called slow mutants, for those had arisen as a result of the old ones’ ill-advised wars and disastrous experiments. No, they might be genuine taheen, sometimes known as the third people or the can-toi, and yes, Roland should have known. How many of the taheen now served the being known as the Crimson King? Some? Many?
All?
If the third answer was the correct one, Roland reckoned the road to the Tower would be difficult indeed. But to look beyond the horizon was not much in the gunslinger’s nature, and in this case his lack of imagination was surely a blessing.
SIX
He saw what he needed to see. Although the can-toi—Callahan’s low folk—had surrounded Jake and Callahan on all sides (the two of them hadn’t even seen the duo behind them, the ones who’d been guarding the doors to Sixty-first Street), the Pere had frozen them with the carving, just as Jake had been able to freeze and fascinate people with the key he’d found in the vacant lot. A yellow taheen with the body of a man and the head of a waseau had some sort of gun near at hand but made no effort to grab it.
Yet there was another problem, one Roland’s eye, trained to see every possible snare and ambush, fixed upon at once. He saw the blasphemous parody of Eld’s Last Fellowship on the wall and understood its significance completely in the seconds before it was ripped away. And the smell: not just flesh but human flesh. This too he would have understood earlier, had he had time to think about it . . . only life in Calla Bryn Sturgis had allowed him little time to think. In the Calla, as in a storybook, life had been one damned thing after another.
Yet it was clear enough now, wasn’t it? The low folk might only be taheen; a child’s ogres, if it did ya. Those behind the tapestry were what Callahan had called Type One vampires and what Roland himself knew as the Grandfathers, perhaps the most gruesome and powerful survivors of the Prim’s long-ago recession. And while such as the taheen might be content to stand as they were, gawking at the sigul Callahan held up, the Grandfathers wouldn’t spare it a second glance.
Now clattering bugs came pouring out from under the table. They were of a sort Roland had seen before, and any doubts he might still have held about what was behind that tapestry departed at the sight of them. They were parasites, blood-drinkers, camp-followers: Grandfather-fleas. Probably not dangerous while there was a bumbler present, but of course when you spied the little doctors in such numbers, the Grandfathers were never far behind.
As Oy charged at the bugs, Roland of Gilead did the only thing he could think of: he swam down to Callahan.
Into Callahan.
SEVEN
Pere, I am here.
Aye, Roland. What—
No time. GET HIM OUT OF HERE. You must. Get him out while there’s still time!
EIGHT
And Callahan tried. The boy, of course, didn’t want to go. Looking at him through the Pere’s eyes, Roland thought with some bitterness: I should have schooled him better in betrayal. Yet all the gods know I did the best I could.
Go while you can,
Callahan told Jake, striving for calmness. "Catch up to her if you can. This is the command of your dinh. This is also the will of the White."
It should have moved him but it didn’t, he still argued—gods, he was nearly as bad as Eddie!—and Roland could wait no longer.
Pere, let me.
Roland seized control without waiting for a reply. He could already feel the wave, the aven kal, beginning to recede. And the Grandfathers would come at any second.
"Go, Jake!" he cried, using the Pere’s mouth and vocal cords like a loudspeaker. If he had thought about how one might do something like this, he would have been lost completely, but thinking about things had also never been his way, and he was grateful to see the boy’s eyes flash wide. You have this one chance and must take it! Find her! As dinh I command you!
Then, as in the hospital ward with Susannah, he felt himself once more tossed upward like something without weight, blown out of Callahan’s mind and body like a bit of cobweb or a fluff of dandelion thistle. For a moment he tried to flail his way back, like a swimmer trying to buck a strong current just long enough to reach the shore, but it was impossible.
Roland! That was Eddie’s voice, and filled with dismay. Jesus, Roland, what in God’s name are those things?
The tapestry had been torn aside. The creatures which rushed out were ancient and freakish, their warlock faces warped with teeth growing wild, their mouths propped open by fangs as thick as the gunslinger’s wrists, their wrinkled and stubbled chins slick with blood and scraps of meat.
And still—gods, oh gods—the boy remained!
"They’ll kill Oy first!" Callahan shouted, only Roland didn’t think it was Callahan. He thought it was Eddie, using Callahan’s voice as Roland had. Somehow Eddie had found either smoother currents or more strength. Enough to get inside after Roland had been blown out. "They’ll kill him in front of you and drink his blood!"
It was finally enough. The boy turned and fled with Oy running beside him. He cut directly in front of the waseau-taheen and between two of the low folken, but none made any effort to grab him. They were still staring at the raised Turtle on Callahan’s palm, mesmerized.
The Grandfathers paid no attention to the fleeing boy at all, as Roland had felt sure they would not. He knew from Pere Callahan’s story that one of the Grandfathers had come to the little town of ’Salem’s Lot where the Pere had for awhile preached. The Pere had lived through the experience—not common for those who faced such monsters after losing their weapons and siguls of power—but the thing had forced Callahan to drink of its tainted blood before letting him go. It had marked him for these others.
Callahan was holding his cross-sigul out toward them, but before Roland could see anything else, he was exhaled back into darkness. The chimes began again, all but driving him mad with their awful tintinnabulation. Somewhere, faintly, he could hear Eddie shouting. Roland reached for him in the dark, brushed Eddie’s arm, lost it, found his hand, and seized it. They rolled over and over, clutching each other, trying not to be separated, hoping not to be lost in the doorless dark between the worlds.
CHAPTER III:
EDDIE MAKES A CALL
ONE
Eddie returned to John Cullum’s old car the way he’d sometimes come out of nightmares as a teenager: tangled up and panting with fright, totally disoriented, not sure of who he was, let alone where.
He had a second to realize that, incredible as it seemed, he and Roland were floating in each other’s arms like unborn twins in the womb, only this was no womb. A pen and a paperclip were drifting in front of his eyes. So was a yellow plastic case he recognized as an eight-track tape. Don’t waste your time, John, he thought. No true thread there, that’s a dead-end gadget if there ever was one.
Something was scratching the back of his neck. Was it the domelight of John Cullum’s scurgy old Galaxie? By God he thought it w—
Then gravity reasserted itself and they fell, with meaningless objects raining down all around them. The floormat which had been floating around in the Ford’s cabin landed draped over the steering wheel. Eddie’s midsection hit the top of the front seat and air exploded out of him in a rough whoosh. Roland landed beside him, and on his bad hip. He gave a single barking cry and then began to pull himself back into the front seat.
Eddie opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, Callahan’s voice filled his head: Hile, Roland! Hile, gunslinger!
How much psychic effort had it cost the Pere to speak from that other world? And behind it, faint but there, the sound of bestial, triumphant cries. Howls that were not quite words.
Eddie’s wide and startled eyes met Roland’s faded blue ones. He reached out for the gunslinger’s left hand, thinking: He’s going. Great God, I think the Pere is going.
May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it——and may you climb to the top,
Eddie breathed.
They were back in John Cullum’s car and parked—askew but otherwise peacefully enough—at the side of Kansas Road in the shady early-evening hours of a summer’s day, but what Eddie saw was the orange hell-light of that restaurant that wasn’t a restaurant at all but a den of cannibals. The thought that there could be such things, that people walked past their hiding place each and every day, not knowing what was inside, not feeling the greedy eyes that perhaps marked them and measured them—
Then, before he could think further, he cried out with pain as phantom teeth settled into his neck and cheeks and midriff; as his mouth was violently kissed by nettles and his testicles were skewered. He screamed, clawing at the air with his free hand, until Roland grabbed it and forced it down.
Stop, Eddie. Stop. They’re gone.
A pause. The connection broke and the pain faded. Roland was right, of course. Unlike the Pere, they had escaped. Eddie saw that Roland’s eyes were shiny with tears. "He’s gone, too. The Pere."
"The