The Dark Tower

“Are they of wood, do you think, or justmade to look that way? I’m particularly interested in the one called Damli.”

Susa

In it, the desert-dog began to howl again,raising the skin on Jake’s arms into gooseflesh. The sound rose… rose… andsuddenly cut off with one final choked syllable. It sounded like some final cryof surprise, and Jake had no doubt that the desert-dog was dead. Something hadcrept up behind it, and when the big overhead light went out—

There were still lights on down there, hesaw: a double white row that might have been streetlights in “Pleasantville,”yellow circles that were probably arc-sodiums along the various paths of whatSusa

No, Jake thought, not spotlights.Searchlights. Like in a prison movie. “Let’s go back,” he said.“There’s nothing to see anymore, and I don’t like it out here in the dark.”

Roland agreed. They followed him in singlefile, with Eddie carrying Susa

Four

“They were wood,” Jake said. He was sittingcross-legged beneath one of the gas lanterns, letting its welcome white glowshine down on his face.

“Wood,” Eddie agreed.

Susa

“If it fools wandering folk who’d burn itdown,” Roland said, “it does. It does make sense.”

Susa

“I still say wood.”

Roland nodded. “So do I.” He had found alarge green bottle marked PERRIER. Now he opened it and ascertained thatPerrier was water. He took five cups and poured a measure into each. He setthem down in front of Jake, Susa

“Do you call me dinh?” he asked Eddie.

“Yes, Roland, you know I do.”

“Will you share khef with me, and drinkthis water?”

“Yes, if you like.” Eddie had been smiling,but now he wasn’t. The feeling was back, and it was strong. Ka-shume, a ruefulword he did not yet know.

“Drink, bondsman.”

Eddie didn’t exactly like being calledbondsman, but he drank his water. Roland knelt before him and put a brief, drykiss on Eddie’s lips. “I love you, Eddie,” he said, and outside in the ruinthat was Thunderclap, a desert wind arose, carrying gritty poisoned dust.

“Why… I love you, too,” Eddie said. It wassurprised out of him. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing is, because Ifeel it.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Roland said, smiling,but Jake had never heard the gunslinger sound so sad. It terrified him. “It’sonly ka-shume, and it comes to every ka-tet that ever was… but now, while weare whole, we share our water. We share our khef. ‘Tis a jolly thing to do.”

He looked at Susa

“Do you call me dinh?”

“Yes, Roland, I call you dinh.” She lookedvery pale, but perhaps it was only the white light from the gas lanterns.

“Will you share khef with me, and drinkthis water?”

“With pleasure,” said she, and took up theplastic cup.

“Drink, bondswoman.”

She drank, her grave dark eyes neverleaving his. She thought of the voices she’d heard in her dream of the Oxfordjail-cell: this one dead, that one dead, t’other one dead; O Discordia, and theshadows grow deeper.

Roland kissed her mouth. “I love you,Susa

“I love you, too.”

The gunslinger turned to Jake. “Do you callme dinh?”

“Yes,” Jake said. There was no questionabout his pallor; even his lips were ashy. “Ka-shume means death,doesn’t it? Which one of us will it be?”

“I know not,” Roland said, “and the shadowmay yet lift from us, for the wheel’s still in spin. Did you not feel ka-shumewhen you and Callahan went into the place of the vampires?”

“Yes.”

“Ka-shume for both?”

“Yes.”

“Yet here you are. Our ka-tet is strong,and has survived many dangers. It may survive this one, too.”

“But I feel—”

“Yes,” Roland said. His voice was kind, butthat awful look was in his eyes. The look that was beyond mere sadness, the onethat said this would be whatever it was, but the Tower was beyond, the DarkTower was beyond and it was there that he dwelt, heart and soul, ka and khef.“Yes, I feel it, too. So do we all. Which is why we take water, which is to sayfellowship, one with the other. Will you share khef with me, and share thiswater?”

“Yes.”

“Drink, bondsman.”

Jake did. Then, before Roland could kisshim, he dropped the cup, flung his arms about the gunslinger’s neck, andwhispered fiercely into his ear: “Roland, I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said, and releasedhim. Outside, the wind gusted again. Jake waited for something tohowl—perhaps in triumph—but nothing did.

Smiling, Roland turned to thebilly-bumbler.

“Oy of Mid-World, do you call me dinh?”

“Dinh!” Oy said.

“Will you share khef with me, and thiswater?”

“Khef! Wat’!”

“Drink, bondsman.”

Oy inserted his snout into his plasticcup—an act of some delicacy—and lapped until the water was gone.Then he looked up expectantly. There were beads of Perrier on his whiskers.

“Oy, I love you,” Roland said, and leanedhis face within range of the bumbler’s sharp teeth. Oy licked his cheek asingle time, then poked his snout back into the glass, hoping for a missed dropor two.

Roland put out his hands. Jake took one andSusa

“We are ka-tet,” Roland said. “We are onefrom many. We have shared our water as we have shared our lives and our quest.If one should fall, that one will not be lost, for we are one and will notforget, even in death.”

They held hands a moment longer. Roland wasthe first to let go.

“What’s your plan?” Susa

Roland nodded toward the Wollensak taperecorder, still sitting on the barrel. “Perhaps we should listen to thatfirst,” he said. “I do have a plan of sorts, but what Brautigan has to saymight help with some of the details.”

Five

Night in Thunderclap is the very definitionof darkness: no moon, no stars. Yet if we were to stand outside the cave whereRoland and his tet have just shared khef and will now listen to the tapes TedBrautigan has left them, we’d see two red coals floating in that wind-drivendarkness. If we were to climb the path up the side of Steek-Tete toward thosefloating coals (a dangerous proposition in the dark), we’d eventually come upona seven-legged spider now crouched over the queerly deflated body of a mutiecoyote. This can-toi-tete was a literally misbegotten thing in life, with thestub of a fifth leg jutting from its chest and a jellylike mass of fleshhanging down between its rear legs like a deformed udder, but its fleshnourishes Mordred, and its blood—taken in a series of long, steaminggulps—is as sweet as a dessert wine. There are, in truth, all sorts ofthings to eat over here. Mordred has no friends to lift him from place to placevia the seven-league boots of teleportation, but he found his journey fromThunderclap Station to Steek-Tete far from arduous.