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“A sigul?”
“Yes.”
Eddie was intrigued. “What kind?”
But before Roland could answer, they sawsomething that made Eddie stomp on the brake-pedal. They were in Lovell now,and on Route 7. Ahead of them, staggering unsteadily along the shoulder, was anold man with snarled and straggly white hair. He wore a clumsy wrap of dirtycloth that could by no means be called a robe. His scrawny arms and legs werewhipped with scratches. There were sores on them as well, burning a dull red.His feet were bare, and equipped with ugly and dangerous-looking yellow talonsinstead of toes. Clasped under one arm was a splintery wooden object that mighthave been a broken lyre. Eddie thought no one could have looked more out ofplace on this road, where the only pedestrians they had seen so far wereserious-looking exercisers, obviously from “away,” looking ever so put-togetherin their nylon jogging shorts, baseball hats, and tee-shirts (one jogger’sshirt bore the legend DON’T SHOOT THE TOURISTS).
The thing that had been trudging along theberm of Route 7 turned toward them, and Eddie let out an involuntary cry ofhorror. Its eyes bled together above the bridge of its nose, reminding him of adouble-yolked egg in a frypan. A fang depended from one nostril like a bonebooger. Yet somehow worst of all was the dull green glow that baked out fromthe creature’s face. It was as if its skin had been painted with some sort ofthin fluorescent gruel.
It saw them and immediately dashed into thewoods, dropping its splintered lyre behind.
“Christ!” Eddie screamed. If thatwas a walk-in, he hoped never to see another.
“Stop, Eddie!” Roland shouted, then braced theheel of one hand against the dashboard as Cullum’s old Ford slid to a dustyhalt close to where the thing had vanished.
“Open the backhold,” Roland said as heopened the door. “Get my widowmaker.”
“Roland, we’re in kind of a hurry here, andTurtleback Lane’s still three miles north. I really think we ought to—”
“Shut your fool’s mouth and get it!”Roland roared, then ran to the edge of the woods. He drew a deep breath, andwhen he shouted after the rogue creature, his voice sent gooseflesh racing upEddie’s arms. He had heard Roland speak so once or twice before, but in betweenit was easy to forget that the blood of a King ran in his veins.
He spoke several phrases Eddie could notunderstand, then one he could: “So come forth, ye Child of Roderick, ye spoiled,ye lost, and make your bow before me, Roland, son of Steven, of the Line ofEld!”
For a moment there was nothing. Eddieopened the Ford’s trunk and brought Roland his gun. Roland strapped it onwithout so much as a glance at Eddie, let alone a word of thanks.
Perhaps thirty seconds went by. Eddieopened his mouth to speak. Before he could, the dusty roadside foliage began toshake. A moment or two later, the misbegotten thing reappeared. It staggeredwith its head lowered. On the front of its robe was a large wet patch. Eddiecould smell the reek of a sick thing’s urine, wild and strong.
Yet it made a knee and raised one misshapenhand to its forehead, a doomed gesture of fealty that made Eddie feel likeweeping. “Hile, Roland of Gilead, Roland of Eld! Will you show me some sigul,dear?”
In a town called River Crossing, an oldwoman who called herself Aunt Talitha had given Roland a silver cross on afine-link silver chain. He’d worn it around his neck ever since. Now he reachedinto his shirt and showed it to the kneeling creature—a slow mutie dyingof radiation sickness, Eddie was quite sure—and the thing gave a crackedcry of wonder.
“Would’ee have peace at the end of yourcourse, thou Child of Roderick? Would’ee have the peace of the clearing?”
“Aye, my dear,” it said, sobbing, thenadded a great deal more in some gibberish tongue Eddie couldn’t understand.Eddie looked both ways along Route 7, expecting to see traffic—this wasthe height of the summer season, after all—but spied nothing in either direction.For the moment, at least, their luck still held.
“How many of you are there in these parts?”Roland asked, interrupting the walk-in. As he spoke, he drew his revolver andraised that old engine of death until it lay against his shirt.
The Child of Roderick tossed its hand atthe horizon without looking up. “Delah, gunslinger,” he said, “for here theworlds are thin, say anro con fa; sey-sey desene fa
“How many dan devar?”
It thought about Roland’s question, thenspread its fingers (there were ten, Eddie noted) five times. Fifty.Although fifty of what, Eddie didn’t know.
“And Discordia?” Roland asked sharply. “Doyou truly say so?”
“Oh aye, so says me, Chevin of Chayven, sonof Hamil, minstrel of the South Plains that were once my home.”
“Say the name of the town that stands nearCastle Discordia and I’ll release you.”
“Ah, gunslinger, all there are dead.”
“I think not. Say it.”
“Fedic!” screamed Chevin of Chayven, awandering musica who could never have suspected its life would end insuch a far, strange place—not the plains of Mid-World but the mountainsof western Maine. It suddenly raised its horrid, glowing face to Roland. Itspread its arms wide, like something which has been crucified. “Fedic on thefar side of Thunderclap, on the Path of the Beam! On V Shardik, V Maturin, theRoad to the Dark T—”
Roland’s revolver spoke a single time. Thebullet took the kneeling thing in the center of its forehead, completing theruin of its ruined face. As it was flung backward, Eddie saw its flesh turn togreenish smoke as ephemeral as a hornet’s wing. For a moment Eddie could seeChevin of Chayven’s floating teeth like a ghostly ring of coral, and then theywere gone.
Roland dropped his revolver back into hisholster, then pronged the two remaining fingers of his right hand and drew themdownward in front of his face, a benedictory gesture if Eddie had ever seenone.
“Give you peace,” Roland said. Then heunbuckled his gunbelt and began to roll the weapon into it once more.
“Roland, was that… was it a slow mutant?”
“Aye, I suppose you’d say so, poor oldthing. But the Rodericks are from beyond any lands I ever knew, although beforethe world moved on they gave their grace to Arthur Eld.” He turned to Eddie,his blue eyes burning in his tired face. “Fedic is where Mia has gone to haveher baby, I have no doubt. Where she’s taken Susa
“He said he felt sad for someone. Who?”
Roland only shook his head, not answeringEddie’s question. A Coca-Cola truck blasted by, and thunder rumbled in the farwest.
“Fedic o’ the Discordia,” the gunslingermurmured instead. “Fedic o’ the Red Death. If we can save Susa
“What?” Eddie asked uneasily. “What then,Roland?”
“Then there’s no stopping until we reachthe Tower.” He held out his hands, watched them tremble minutely. Then helooked up at Eddie. His face was tired but unafraid. “I have never been soclose. I hear all my lost friends and their lost fathers whispering to me. Theywhisper on the Tower’s very breath.”
Eddie looked at Roland for a minute,fascinated and frightened, and then broke the mood with an almost physicaleffort. “Well,” he said, moving back toward the driver’s door of the Ford, “ifany of those voices tells you what to say to Cullum—the best way toconvince him of what we want—be sure to let me know.”
Eddie got in the car and closed the doorbefore Roland could reply. In his mind’s eye he kept seeing Roland leveling hisbig revolver. Saw him aiming it at the kneeling figure and pulling the trigger.This was the man he called both dinh and friend. But could he say with anycertainty that Roland wouldn’t do the same thing to him… or Suze… or Jake… ifhis heart told him it would take him closer to his Tower? He could not. And yethe would go on with him. Would have gone on even if he’d been sure in hisheart—oh, God forbid!—that Susa