The Dark Tower

Because Oy doesn’t see it, hethought.

He monkeyed with this idea and couldn’tpull it apart. Oy hadn’t smelled it or heard it, either. The conclusion wasinescapable: to Oy the terrible triceratops in the mighty jungle below did notexist.

Which doesn’t change the fact that itdoes to me. It’s a trap that was set for me, or for anyone else equippedwith an imagination who might happen along. Some gadget of the old people, nodoubt. Too bad it’s not broken like most of their other stuff, but it’s not. Isee what I see and there’s nothing I can do about i—

No, wait.

Wait just a second.

Jake had no idea how good his mentalco

“Oy!”

The calling voices of the low men were nowhorribly close. Soon they would see the boy and the bumbler stopped here andbreak into a charge. Oy could smell them coming but looked at Jake calmlyenough anyway. At his beloved Jake, for whom he would die if called upon to doso.

“Oy, can you change places with me?”

It turned out that he could.

Eight

Oy tottered erect with Ake in his arms,swaying back and forth, horrified to discover how narrow the boy’s range ofbalance was. The idea of walking even a short distance on but two legs wasterribly daunting, yet it would have to be done, and done at once. Ake said so.

For his part, Jake knew he would have toshut the borrowed eyes he was looking through. He was in Oy’s head but he couldstill see the triceratops; now he could also see a pterodactyl cruising the hotair above the clearing, its leathery wings stretched to catch the thermalsblowing from the air-exchangers.

Oy! You have to do it on your own. Andif we’re going to stay ahead of them you have to do it now.

Ake! Oy responded, and took atentative step forward. The boy’s body wavered from side to side, out to thevery edge of balance and then beyond. Ake’s stupid two-legs body tumbledsideways. Oy tried to save it and only made the tumble worse, going down on theboy’s right side and bumping Ake’s furry head.

Oy tried to bark his frustration. What cameout of Ake’s mouth was a stupid thing that was more word than sound: “Bark!Ark! Shit-bark!”

“I hear him!” someone shouted. “Run! Comeon, double-time, you useless cunts! Before the little bastard gets to thedoor!”

Ake’s ears weren’t keen, but with the waythe tile walls magnified sounds, that was no problem. Oy could hear theirru

“You have to get up and go!” Jaketried to yell, and what came out was a garbled, barking sentence: “Ake-Ake,affa! Up n go!” Under other circumstances it might have been fu

Oy got up by putting Ake’s back against thewall and pushing with Ake’s legs. At last he was getting the hang of the motorcontrols; they were in a place Ake called Dogan and were fairly simple.Off to the left, however, an arched corridor led into a huge room filled withmirror-bright machinery. Oy knew that if he went into that place—thechamber where Ake kept all his marvelous thoughts and his store ofwords—he would be lost forever.

Luckily, he didn’t need to. Everything heneeded was in the Dogan. Left foot… forward. (And pause.) Right foot…forward. (And pause.) Hold the thing that looks like a billy-bumbler butis really your friend and use the other arm for balance. Resist the urge to dropto all fours and crawl. The pursuers will catch up if he does that; he can nolonger smell them (not with Ake’s amazingly stupid little bulb of a snout), buthe is sure of it, all the same.

For his part, Jake could smell themclearly, at least a dozen and maybe as many as sixteen. Their bodies wereperfect engines of stink, and they pushed the aroma ahead of them in a dirtycloud. He could smell the asparagus one had had for di

Then he heard the triceratops roar again.It was answered by the bird-thing riding the air overhead.

Jake closed his—well,Oy’s—eyes. In the dark, the bumbler’s side-to-side motion was even worse.Jake was concerned that if he had to put up with much of it (especially withhis eyes shut), he would ralph his guts out. Just call him ‘Bama the Sea-sickSailor.

Go, Oy, he thought. Fast as youcan. Don’t fall down again, but… fast as you can!

Nine

Had Eddie been there, he might have beenreminded of Mrs. Mislaburski from up the block: Mrs. Mislaburski in February,after a sleet storm, when the sidewalk was glazed with ice and not yet salteddown. But, ice or no ice, she would not be kept from her daily chop or bit offish at the Castle Avenue Market (or from mass on Sunday, for Mrs. Mislaburskiwas perhaps the most devout Catholic in Co-Op City). So here she came, thicklegs spread, candy-pink in their support hose, one arm clutching her purse toher immense bosom, the other held out for balance, head down, eyes searchingfor the islands of ashes where some responsible building super had already beenout (Jesus and Mother Mary bless those good men), also for the treacherouspatches that would defeat her, that would send her whoopsy with her large pinkknees flying apart, and down she’d come on her sit-upon, or maybe on her back,a woman could break her spine, a woman could be paralyzed like poor Mrs.Bernstein’s daughter that was in the car accident in Mamaroneck, such thingshappened. And so she ignored the catcalls of the children (Henry Dean and hislittle brother Eddie often among them) and went on her way, head down, armoutstretched for balance, sturdy black old lady’s purse curled to hermidsection, determined that if she did go whoopsy-my-daisy she wouldprotect her purse and its contents at all costs, would fall on it like JoeNamath falling on the football after a sack.

So did Oy of Mid-World walk the body ofJake along a stretch of underground corridor that looked (to him, at least)pretty much like all the rest. The only difference he could see was the threeholes on either side, with big glass eyes looking out of them, eyes that made alow and constant humming sound.

In his arms was something that looked likea bumbler with its eyes squeezed tightly shut. Had they been open, Jake mighthave recognized these things as projecting devices. More likely he would nothave seen them at all.

Walking slowly (Oy knew they were gaining,but he also knew that walking slowly was better than falling down), legs spreadwide and shuffling along, holding Ake curled to his chest just as Mrs.Mislaburski had held her purse on those icy days, he made his way past theglass eyes. The hum faded. Was it far enough? He hoped so. Walking like a humanwas simply too hard, too nerve-wracking. So was being close to all of Ake’sthinking machinery. He felt an urge to turn and look at it—all thosebright mirror surfaces!—but didn’t. To look might well bring on hypnosis.Or something worse.

He stopped. “Jake! Look! See!”

Jake tried to reply Okay and barked,instead. Pretty fu

“Oy!” Jake barked, but barking was lameand he switched to thinking, instead.