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Finli: (I see him)
But it was more than seeing. They felthim. The moment Brautigan came into the room, those on the balcony—and,much more important, those on the floor—felt the power-level rise. Theystill weren’t completely sure what they’d gotten in Brautigan, and the testingequipment didn’t help in that regard (the old dog had blown out several piecesof it himself, and on purpose, the Master was quite sure). If there were otherslike him, the low men had found none on their talent hunts (now suspended; theyhad all the talent they needed to finish the job). One thing that didseem clear was Brautigan’s talent as a facilitator, a psychic who was not justpowerful by himself but was able to up the abilities of others just by beingnear them. Finli’s thoughts, ordinarily unreadable even to Breakers, now burnedin Pimli’s mind like neon.
Finli: (He is extraordinary)
Pimli: (And, so far as we know, uniqueHave you seen the thing)
Image: Eyes growing and shrinking, growingand shrinking.
Finli: (Yes Do you know what causes it)
Pimli: (Not at all Nor care dear Finlinor care That old)
Image: An elderly mongrel with burdocks inhis matted fur, limping along on three legs.
(has almost finished his work almosttime to)
Image: A gun, one of the hume guards’Berettas, against the side of the old mongrel’s head.
Three stories below them, the subject oftheir conversation picked up a newspaper (the newspapers were all old, now, oldlike Brautigan himself, years out of date), sat in a leather-upholstered clubchair so voluminous it seemed almost to swallow him, and appeared to read.
Pimli felt the psychic force rising pastthem and through them, to the skylight and through that, too, rising to theBeam that ran directly above Algul, working against it, chipping and erodingand rubbing relentlessly against the grain. Eating holes in the magic. Workingpatiently to put out the eyes of the Bear. To crack the shell of the Turtle. Tobreak the Beam which ran from Shardik to Maturin. To topple the Dark Towerwhich stood between.
Pimli turned to his companion and wasn’tsurprised to realize he could now see the cu
—Here Finli o’ Tego was at peace. Hisconcerns
(hinky-di-di)
were gone. At least for the time being.
Pimli sent Finli a series of bright images:a champagne bottle breaking over the stern of a boat; hundreds of flat blackgraduation caps rising in the air; a flag being planted on Mount Everest; alaughing couple escaping a church with their heads bent against a pelting stormof rice; a planet—Earth—suddenly glowing with fierce brilliance.
Images that all said the same thing.
“Yes,” Finli said, and Pimli wondered howhe could ever have thought those eyes hard to read. “Yes, indeed. Success atthe end of the day.”
Neither of them looked down at that moment.Had they done, they would have seen Ted Brautigan—an old dog, yes, andtired, but perhaps not quite as tired as some thought—looking upat them.
With a ghost of his own smile.
Nine
There was never rain out here, at least notduring Pimli’s years, but sometimes, in the Stygian blackness of its nights,there were great volleys of dry thunder. Most of the Devar-Toi’s staff hadtrained themselves to sleep through these fusillades, but Pimli often woke up,heart hammering in his throat, the Our Father ru
Earlier that day, talking to Finli, theMaster of Algul Siento had used the phrase hinky-di-di with aself-conscious smile, and why not? It was a child’s phrase, almost, like allee-allee-in-freeor eenie-meenie-minie-moe.
Now, lying in his bed at Shapleigh House(known as Shit House to the Breakers), a full Mall’s length away from DamliHouse, Pimli remembered the feeling—the flat-out certainty—thateverything was going to be okay; success assured, only a matter of time. On thebalcony Finli had shared it, but Pimli wondered if his Security Chief was nowlying awake as Pimli himself was, and thinking how easy it was to be misledwhen you were around working Breakers. Because, do ya, they sent up thathappy-gas. That good-mind vibe.
And suppose… just suppose, now…someone was actually cha
Ridiculous idea, totally paranoid. Still,when another double-boom of thunder rolled out of what might still be thesoutheast—from the direction of Fedic and the Discordia,anyway—Pimli Prentiss sat up and turned on the bedside lamp.
Finli had spoken of doubling the guardtonight, both in the watchtowers and along the fences. Perhaps tomorrow theymight triple it. Just to be on the safe side. And because complacency thisclose to the end would be a very bad thing, indeed.
Pimli got out of bed, a tall man with ahairy slab of gut, now wearing blue pajama pants and nothing else. He pissed,then knelt in front of the toilet’s lowered lid, folded his hands, and prayeduntil he felt sleepy. He prayed to do his duty. He prayed to see trouble beforetrouble saw him. He prayed for his Ma, just as Jim Jones had prayed for his ashe watched the line move toward the tub of poisoned Kool-Aid. He prayed untilthe thunder had died to little more than a senile mutter, then went back tobed, calm again. His last thought before drifting off was about tripling theguard first thing in the morning, and that was the first thing he thought ofwhen he woke to a room awash in artificial sunlight. Because you had to takecare of the eggs when you were almost home.
Chapter VII:
Ka-Shume
One
A feeling both blue and strange crept amongthe gunslingers after Brautigan and his friends left, but at first no one spokeof it. Each of them thought that melancholy belonged to him or her alone.Roland, who might have been expected to know the feeling for what it was(ka-shume, Cort would have called it), ascribed it instead to worries about thefollowing day and even more to the debilitating atmosphere of Thunderclap,where day was dim and night was as dark as blindness.
Certainly there was enough to keep thembusy after the departure of Brautigan, Earnshaw, and Sheemie Ruiz, that friendof Roland’s childhood. (Both Susa
The first thing Roland noticed was thesleeping-bags: a quartet lined up against the left-hand wall, eachconsiderately placed on an inflated air mattress. The tags on the bags readPROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY. Beside the last of these, a fifth air mattress had beencovered with a layer of bath towels. They were expecting four people and oneanimal, the gunslinger thought. Precognition, or have they been watchingus somehow? And does it matter?