The Dark Tower

Dink had also wrapped himself in a blanket,but neither Ted nor Stanley seemed to feel the cold.

“Look down there,” Ted invited Roland andthe others. He was pointing at the spiderweb of tracks. Jake could see therambling glass roof of the switching-yard and a green-roofed structure next toit that had to be half a mile long. Tracks led away in every direction. ThunderclapStation, he marveled. Where the Wolves put the kidnapped kids on thetrain and send them along the Path of the Beam to Fedic. And where they bringthem back after they’ve been roont.

Even after all he’d been through, it washard for Jake to believe that they had been down there, six or eight milesaway, less than two minutes ago. He suspected they’d all played a part inkeeping the portal open, but it was the one called Stanley who’d created it inthe first place. Now he looked pale and tired, nearly used up. Once hestaggered on his feet and Dink (a very unfortunate nickname, in Jake’shumble opinion) grabbed his arm and steadied him. Stanley seemed not to notice.He was looking at Roland with awe.

Not just awe, Jake thought, andnot exactly fear, either. Something else. What?

Approaching the station were two motorizedbuckas with big balloon tires—ATVs. Jake assumed it was The Weasel(whoever he was) and his taheen buddies.

“As you may have gleaned,” Ted told them, “there’san alarm in the Devar-Toi Supervisor’s office. The warden’s office, ifyou like. It goes off when anyone or anything uses the door between the Fedicstaging area and yon station—”

“I believe the term you used for him,”Roland said dryly, “wasn’t supervisor or warden but ki’-dam.”

Dink laughed. “That’s a good pickup on yourpart, dude.”

“What does ki’-dam mean?” Jake asked,although he had a fair notion. There was a phrase folks used in the Calla:headbox, heartbox, ki’box. Which meant, in descending order, one’s thoughtprocesses, one’s emotions, and one’s lower functions. Animal functions, somemight say; ki’box could be translated as shitbox if you were of a vulgarturn of mind.

Ted shrugged. “Ki’-dam meansshit-for-brains. It’s Dinky’s nickname for sai Prentiss, the Devar Master. Butyou already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I guess,” Jake said. “Kinda.”

Ted looked at him long, and when Jakeidentified that expression, it helped him define how Stanley was looking atRoland: not with fear but with fascination. Jake had a pretty good idea Ted wasstill thinking about how much he looked like someone named Bobby, and he waspretty sure Ted knew he had the touch. What was the source of Stanley’sfascination? Or maybe he was making too much of it. Maybe it was just thatStanley had never expected to see a gunslinger in the flesh.

Abruptly, Ted turned from Jake and back toRoland. “Now look this way,” he said.

“Whoa!” Eddie cried. “What the hell?”

Susa

What they saw was a single fat and gorgeousbolt of sunlight slanting down from a hole in the sagging clouds. It cutthrough the strangely dark air like a searchlight beam and lit a compound thatmight have been six miles from Thunderclap Station. And “about six miles” wasreally all you could say, because there was no more north or south in thisworld, at least not that you could count on. Now there was only the Path of theBeam.

“Dinky, there’s a pair of binocularsin—”

“The lower cave, right?”

“No, I brought them up the last time wewere here,” Ted replied with carefully maintained patience. “They’re sitting onthat pile of crates just inside. Get them, please.”

Eddie barely noticed this byplay. He wastoo charmed (and amused) by that single broad ray of sun, shining down on agreen and cheerful plot of land, as unlikely in this dark and sterile desertas… well, he supposed, as unlikely as Central Park must seem to tourists fromthe Midwest making their first trip to New York.

He could see buildings that looked likecollege dormitories—nice ones—and others that looked likecomfy old manor houses with wide stretches of green lawn before them. At thefar side of the sunbeam’s area was what looked like a street lined with shops.The perfect little Main Street America, except for one thing: in all directionsit ended in dark and rocky desert. He saw four stone towers, their sidesagreeably green with ivy. No, make that six. The other two were mostlyconcealed in stands of graceful old elms. Elms in the desert!

Dink returned with a pair of binoculars andoffered them to Roland, who shook his head.

“Don’t hold it against him,” Eddie said.“His eyes… well, let’s just say they’re something else. I wouldn’t mind a peek,though.”

“Me, either,” Susa

Eddie handed her the binoculars. “Ladiesfirst.”

“No, really, I—”

“Stop it,” Ted almost snarled. “Ourtime here is brief, our risk enormous. Don’t waste the one or increase theother, if you please.”

Susa

No, she thought coldly. Some ofthem know. That’s why these three showed up to meet us.

“That’s the Devar-Toi,” Roland said flatly.Not a question.

“Yeah,” Dinky said. “The good oldDevar-Toi.” He stood beside Roland and pointed at a large white building nearthe dormitories. “See that white one? That’s Heartbreak House, where thecan-toi live. Ted calls em the low men. They’re taheen-human hybrids. And theydon’t call it the Devar-Toi, they call it Algul Siento, which means—”

“Blue Heaven,” Roland said, and Jakerealized why: all of the buildings except for the rock towers had blue tiledroofs. Not Narnia but Blue Heaven. Where a bunch of folks were busy bringingabout the end of the world.

All the worlds.

Six

“It looks like the pleasantest place inexistence, at least since In-World fell,” Ted said. “Doesn’t it?”

“Pretty nice, all right,” Eddie agreed. Hehad at least a thousand questions, and guessed Suze and Jake probably hadanother thousand between them, but this wasn’t the time to ask them. In anycase, he kept looking at that wonderful little hundred-acre oasis down there.The one su