2004 The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower

“I’m not worried,” Roland said, and Jake found himself fighting the temptation to look inside his dinh’s head and find out if that was actually true. He still thought looking was a

bad idea, and not just because it was impolite, either. Mistrust was very likely a kind of acid. Their ka-tet was fragile enough already, and there was much work to do.

“Good,” Jake said. “That’s good.”

“Good!” Oy agreed, in a heartythat’s settled tone that made them both grin.

“We know he’s there,” Roland said, “and it’s likely he doesn’t know we know. Under the circumstances, there’s no better way for things to be.”

Jake nodded. The idea made him feel a little calmer.

Susannah came to the mouth of the cave at her usual speedy crawl while they were

walking back toward it. She sniffed at the air and grimaced. When she glimpsed them, the grimace turned into a grin. “I see handsome men! How long have you boys been up?”

“Only a little while,” Roland said.

“And how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Roland said. “I woke up with a headache, but now it’s almost gone.”

“Really?” Jake asked.

Roland nodded and squeezed the boy’s shoulder.

Susannah wanted to know if they were hungry. Roland nodded. So did Jake.

“Well, come on in here,” she said, “and we’ll see what we can do about that situation.”

Three

Susannah found powdered eggs and cans of Prudence corned beef hash. Eddie located a can-opener and a small gas-powered hibachi grill. After a little muttering to himself, he got it going and was only a bit startled when the hibachi began talking.

“Hello! I’m three-quarters filled with Gamry Bottled Gas, available at Wal-Mart,

Burnaby’s, and other fine stores! When you call for Gamry, you’re calling for quality! Dark in here, isn’t it? May I help you with recipes or cooking times?”

“You could help me by shutting up,” Eddie said, and the grill spoke no more. He found himself wondering if he had offended it, then wondered if perhaps he should kill himself and spare the world a problem.

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 theshit 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 the 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 wereHile, Roland, Gilead, andEld .

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

“Never mind the 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 hearWill Dearborn that was andAll’s well

and—she thought—rest.

Whatever it was, it seemed to get through. Little by little 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, that had been driven into the soft wood. Sheemie’s tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, 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 the Rod, and the low growl deep in Oy’s chest as he stood protectively at Jake’s side, looking at the newcomer with 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, a joke 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 lightly.

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

with a smile), Ted pronounced him fit as a fiddle.

Eddie, who could see Sheemie’s eyes perfectly 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 little more time this 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 hiseyes? ”

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 blood-spots 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 hisbecoming —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—facilitatefor 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 beshocked . 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?

“—buthe’s the one who does it,” Eddie finished. “Sheemie.”

“Yuh.”

“The only one whocan 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—hewants 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 itfor 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 day-laborer 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. That 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. Andway 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 little 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 twenty-four 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 little 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-A-La. 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. “Whatwould 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