2004 The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower

dreamed of such a place as Algul Siento, and he wasn’t particularly upset by the way formerly hard-and-fast facts of life had begun to bend. “About twenty-five hours from right now,” Roland said. “Or a little less.”

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

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

Five

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

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

Jake raised a hand to his forehead.

Sheemie returned the gesture.

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

Roland didn’t answer, only continued to look serenely toward the mouth of the cave, as if

there were something in the apparently endless murk out there which interested him. And Jake knew what was wanted, as surely as if he had used the touch on Roland’s mind to find

out (which he most certainly had not). They had come to a fork in the road. It had been Jake who’d suggested Sheemie should be the one to tell them which branch to take. At the time

it had seemed like a weirdly good idea—who knew why. Now, looking into that earnest, not-very-bright face and those bloodshot eyes, Jake wondered two things: what had ever

possessed him to suggest such a course of action, and why someone—probably Eddie, who retained a relatively hard head in spite of all they’d been through—hadn’t told him, kindly but firmly, that putting their future in Sheemie Ruiz’s hands was a dumb idea. Totally

noodgy, as his old schoolmates back at Piper might have said. Now Roland, who believed that even in the shadow of death there were still lessons to be learned, wanted Jake to ask the question Jake himself had proposed, and the answer would no doubt expose him as the superstitious scatterbrain he had become. Yet still, why not ask? Even if it were the equivalent of flipping a coin, why not? Jake had come, possibly at the end of a short but undeniably interesting life, to a place where there were magic doors, mechanical butlers, telepathy (of which he was capable, at least to some small degree, himself), vampires, and

were-spiders. So why not let Sheemie choose? Theyhad to go one way or the other, after all, and he’d been through too goddam much to worry about such a paltry thing as looking like an idiot in front of his companions.Besides, he thought,if I’m not among friends here, I

never will be .

“Sheemie,” he said. Looking into those bloody eyes was sort of horrible, but he made himself do it. “We’re on a quest. That means we have a job to do. We—”

“You have to save the Tower,” said Sheemie. “And my old friend is to go in, and mount to the top, and see what’s to see. There may be renewal, there may be death, or there may be both. He was Will Dearborn once, aye, so he was. Will Dearborn to me.”

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

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

“Yes, we’re supposed to save the Dark Tower,” Jake agreed. And thought he understood some of Roland’s lust to see it and enter it, even if it killed him. What lay at the center of

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

Even if looking drove him mad?

“But in order to do that, we have to do two jobs. One involves going back to our world and saving a man. A writer who’s telling our story. The other job is the one we’ve been talking about. Freeing the Breakers.” Honesty made him add: “Or stopping them, at least. Do you understand?”

But this time Sheemie didn’t reply. He was looking where Roland was looking, out into the murk. His face was that of someone who’s been hypnotized. Looking at it made Jake

uneasy, but he pushed on. He had come to his question, after all, and where else was there to go but on?

“The question is, which job do we do first? It’d seem that saving the writer might be easier because there’s no opposition…that we know of, anyway…but there’s a chance that…well…” Jake didn’t want to sayBut there’s a chance that teleporting us might kill you,

and so came to a lame and unsatisfying halt.

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

“I had a dream last night, so I did,” said Sheemie of Mejis, whose life had once been saved by three young gunslingers from Gilead. “I dreamed I was back at the Travellers’ Rest, only Coral wasn’t there, nor Stanley, nor Pettie, nor Sheb—him that used to play the pianer.

There was nobbut me, and I was moppin the floor and singin ‘Careless Love.’ Then the batwings screeked, so they did, they had this funny sound they made…”

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

Jake made no reply. He was dazed. He had dreamed about the same disfigured boy, but not in any saloon; it had been in Gage Park, the one where they’d seen Charlie the Choo-Choo. Last night. Had to have been. He hadn’t remembered until now, would probably never have remembered if Sheemie hadn’t told his own dream. And had Roland, Eddie, and Susannah

also had a version of the same dream? Yes. He could see it on their faces, just as he could see that Ted and Dinky looked moved but otherwise bewildered.

Roland stood up with a wince, clamped his hand briefly to his hip, then said, “Thankee-sai,

Sheemie, you’ve helped us greatly.”

Sheemie smiled uncertainly. “How did I do that?”

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

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

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

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

“Well, yeah, but…” Dinky began.

“Then you’ll be pushing your luck plenty.” That said, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake followed

Roland out of the cave. Oy stayed behind, sitting with his new friend, Haylis of Chayven.

Something about that troubled Jake. It wasn’t a feeling of jealousy but rather one of dread.

As if he were seeing an omen someone wiser than himself—one of the Manni-folk, perhaps—could interpret. But would he want to know?

Perhaps not.

Six

“I didn’t remember my dream until he told his,” Susannah said, “and if hehadn’t told his, I probably never would have remembered.”

“Yeah,” Jake said.

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

Jake said, “I was in Gage Park—”

“And I was at the Markey Avenue playground, where me and Henry used to play one-on-one,” Eddie said. “In my dream, the kid with the bloody face was wearing a

tee-shirt that saidNEVER A DULL MOMENT —”

“—IN MID-WORLD,” Jake finished, and Eddie gave him a startled look.

Jake barely noticed; his thoughts had turned in another direction. “I wonder if Stephen

King ever uses dreams in his writing. You know, as yeast to make the plot rise.”

This was a question none of them could answer.

“Roland?” Eddie asked. “Where were you in your dream?”

“The Travellers’ Rest, where else? Wasn’t I there with Sheemie, once upon a time?”With my friends, now long gone, he could have added, but did not. “I was sitting at the table

Eldred Jonas used to favor, playing one-hand Watch Me.”

Susannah said quietly, “The boy in the dreamwas the Beam, wasn’t he?”

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

“Do any of you have a question?” Roland asked.

One by one, his companions shook their heads.

“We are ka-tet,” Roland said, and in unison they answered: “We are one from many.”

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

“Sheemie,” he said.

“Yes, sai! Yes, Roland, Will Dearborn that was!”

“We’re going to save the boy you told us about. We’re going to make the bad folk stop hurting him.”

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

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

“We can write him down for the sniffles and keep him out of The Study,” Ted agreed. “There are a lot of colds Thunder-side. But you folks need to understand that there are no guarantees. He could get us back inside this time, and then—” He snapped his fingers in the

air.

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

“Iknow that,” Roland said, and although his tone did not change very much, each member

of his ka-tet knew it was a good thing this palaver was almost over. Roland had reached the rim of his patience. “Keep him quiet even if he’s well and feeling fine. We won’t need him for what I have in mind, and thanks to the weapons you’ve left us.”

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

“Will the two of you stand with us, once the fight begins?” Roland asked.

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

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

“Yes,” Jake replied.

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

This time they all nodded.

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

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

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

“And Break,” Dinky added.

“But don’t they understand…” She found she couldn’t finish. She was haunted not so much by the remnants of her own dream as by Sheemie’s.Now you scar me with nails, the

dream-boy had told Sheemie. The dream-boy who had once been fair.

“They don’twant to understand,” Ted told her kindly. He caught a glimpse of Eddie’s dark face and shook his head. “But I won’t let you hate them for it. You—we—may have to kill some of them, but I won’t let you hate them. They did not put understanding away from them out of greed or fear, but from despair.”

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

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

Sheemie surprised them all by picking up one of the Coyote machine-pistols and swinging

it in an arc. Had it been loaded, the great quest for the Dark Tower would have ended right there. “I’ll fight, too!” he cried.“Pow, pow, pow! Bam-bam-bam-ba-dam! ”

Eddie and Susannah ducked; Jake threw himself instinctively in front of Oy; Ted and Dinky raised their hands in front of their faces, as if that could possibly have saved them

from a burst of a hundred high-caliber, steel-jacketed slugs. Roland plucked the machine-pistol calmly from Sheemie’s hands.

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

“Aye, he’s with the Rod.”

“He talks. See if you can get him to talk to you.”

Sheemie obediently went to where Chucky/Haylis was still stroking Oy’s head, dropped to one knee, and commenced trying to get Oy to say his name. The bumbler did almost at

once, and with remarkable clarity. Sheemie laughed, and Haylis joined in. They sounded like a couple of kids from the Calla. The roont kind, perhaps.

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

Seven

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

“To go where?” Dinky asked.

“Keystone World America,” Eddie said. “A small town in western Maine called Lovell.

As early in June of 1999 as one-way time allows.”

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

“We know,” Roland said, “and when the time comes, I’ll make the risk clear and ask him if—”

“Oh man, you can stickthat one where the sun don’t shine,” Dinky said, and Eddie was reminded so strongly of himself—the way he’d been during his first few hours on the shore

of the Western Sea, confused, pissed off, and jonesing for heroin—that he felt a moment ofdéjà vu . “If you told him you wanted him to set himself on fire, the only thing he’d want to know would be if you had a match. He thinks you’re Christ on a cracker.”

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

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

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

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

“Yes, ma’am,” Dinky drawled, and pushed up an imaginary hat. “Ah reckon that’s the word.”

The tension in the cave eased. Behind them, Sheemie was telling Oy to roll over, and Oy was doing so willingly enough. The Rod had a big, sloppy smile on his face. Susannah wondered when Haylis of Chayven had last had occasion to use his smile, which was childishly charming.

She thought of asking Ted if there was any way of telling what day it was in America right now, then decided not to bother. If Stephen King was dead, they’d know; Roland had said

so, and she had no doubt he was right. For now the writer was fine, happily frittering away his time and valuable imagination on some meaningless project while the world he’d been

born to imagine continued to gather dust in his head. If Roland was pissed at him, it was really no wonder. She was a little pissed at him herself.

“What’s your plan, Roland?” Ted asked.

“It relies on two assumptions: that we can surprise them and then stampede them. I don’t

think they expect to be interrupted in these last days; from Pimli Prentiss down to the lowliest hume guard outside the fence, they have no reason to believe they’ll be bothered in their work, certainly not attacked. If my assumptions are correct, we’ll succeed. If we fail, at least we won’t live long enough to see the Beams break and the Tower fall.”

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

“These railroad sidetracks,” he said, indicating the hash-marks labeled 10. “Some of the

dead engines and traincars on them stand within twenty yards of the south fence, it looks like through the binoculars. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Dinky said, and pointed to the center of the nearest line. “Might as well call it south, anyway—it’s as good a word as any. There’s a boxcar on this track that’s real close to the fence. Only ten yards or so. It saysSOO LINE on the side.”

Ted was nodding.

“Good cover,” Roland said. “Excellent cover.” Now he pointed to the area beyond the north end of the compound. “And here, all sorts of sheds.”

“There used to be supplies in them,” Ted said, “but now most are empty, I think. For

awhile a gang of Rods slept there, but six or eight months ago, Pimli and the Wease kicked them out.”

“But more cover, empty or full,” Roland said. “Is the ground behind and around them clear of obstacles and pretty much smooth? Smooth enough for that thing to go back and forth?” He cocked a thumb at Suzie’s Cruisin Trike.

Ted and Dinky exchanged a glance. “Definitely,” Ted said.

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

guns.

Roland sat quiet for a moment or two, gazing at the map, almost seeming to commune with it. When Ted offered him a cigarette, the gunslinger took it. Then he began to talk. Twice he drew on the side of a weapons crate with a piece of chalk. Twice more he drew arrows on the map, one pointing to what they were calling north, one to the south. Ted asked a question; Dinky asked another. Behind them, Sheemie and Haylis played with Oy like a couple of children. The bumbler mimicked their laughter with eerie accuracy.

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

“Indeed I do. As much as I can.”

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

Susannah said nothing. Neither did Eddie. He recognized the risk. He also understood why

Roland would want Suze north of the compound. The Cruisin Trike would give her mobility, and they’d need it. As for risk, they were six planning to take on sixty. Or more.

Of course there would be risk, and of course there would be blood.

Blood and fire.

“I may be able to rig a couple of other guns,” Susannah said. Her eyes had taken on that special Detta Walker gleam. “Radio-controlled, like a toy airplane. I dunno. But I’ll move, all right. I’m goan speed around like grease on a hot griddle.”

“Can this work?” Dinky asked bluntly.

Roland’s lips parted in a humorless grin. “Itwill work.”

“How can you say that?” Ted asked.

Eddie recalled Roland’s reasoning before their call to John Cullum and could have answered that question, but answers were for their ka-tet’s dinh to give—if he would—and

so he left this one to Roland.

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