The Dark Tower

Jake sat down on the bed next to Roland,looked at Eddie, looked at Susa

“Ted says to tell you it’s almost June 19thAmerica-side, please and thankya. Also that time could slip a notch.”

Roland nodded. “Yet we’ll wait for this tobe finished, I think. It won’t be much longer, and we owe him that.”

“How much longer?” Jake murmured.

“I don’t know. I thought he might be gonebefore you got here, even if you ran—”

“I did, once I got to the grassypart—”

“—but, as you see…”

“He fights hard,” Susa

Ten

And so he did. Five endless minutes afterJake had slipped into the bedroom, Eddie’s eyes opened. “Sue…” He said, “Su…sie—”

She leaned close, still holding his hands,smiling into his face, all her concentration fiercely narrowed. And with aneffort Jake wouldn’t have believed possible, Eddie freed one of his hands,swung it a little to the right, and grasped the tight kinks of her curls. Ifthe weight of his arm pulled at the roots and hurt her, she showed no sign. Thesmile that bloomed on her mouth was joyous, welcoming, perhaps even sensuous.

“Eddie! Welcome back!”

“Don’t bullshit… a bullshitter,” hewhispered. “I’m goin, sweetheart, not comin.”

“That’s just plain sil—”

“Hush,” he whispered, and she did. The handcaught in her hair pulled. She brought her face to his willingly and kissed hisliving lips one last time. “I… will… wait for you,” he said, forcing each wordout with immense effort.

Jake saw beads of sweat surface on hisskin, the dying body’s last message to the living world, and that was when theboy’s heart finally understood what his head had known for hours. He began tocry. They were tears that burned and scoured. When Roland took his hand, Jakesqueezed it fiercely. He was frightened as well as sad. If it could happen toEddie, it could happen to anybody. It could happen to him.

“Yes, Eddie. I know you’ll wait,” she said.

“In…” He pulled in another of those great,wretched, rasping breaths. His eyes were as brilliant as gemstones. “In theclearing.” Another breath. Hand holding her hair. Lamplight casting them bothin its mystic yellow circle. “The one at the end of the path.”

“Yes, dear.” Her voice was calm now, but atear fell on Eddie’s cheek and ran slowly down to the line of jaw. “I hear youvery well. Wait for me and I’ll find you and we’ll go together. I’ll be walkingthen, on my own legs.”

Eddie smiled at her, then turned his eyesto Jake.

“Jake… to me.”

No, Jake thought, panicked, no, Ican’t, I can’t.

But he was already leaning close, into thatsmell of the end. He could see the fine line of grit just below Eddie’shairline turning to paste as more tiny droplets of sweat sprang up.

“Wait for me, too,” Jake said through numblips. “Okay, Eddie? We’ll all go on together. We’ll be ka-tet, just like wewere.” He tried to smile and couldn’t. His heart hurt too much for smiling. Hewondered if it might not explode in his chest, the way stones sometimesexploded in a hot fire. He had learned that little fact from his friend Be

Eddie was shaking his head. “Not… so fast,buddy.” He drew in another breath and then grimaced, as if the air had grownquills only he could feel. He whispered then—not from weakness, Jakethought later, but because this was just between them. “Watch… for Mordred.Watch… Dandelo.”

“Dandelion? Eddie, I don’t—”

“Dandelo.” Eyes widening. Enormouseffort. “Protect… your… dinh… from Mordred. From Dandelo. You… Oy. Yourjob.” His eyes cut toward Roland, then back to Jake. “Shhh.” Then:“Protect…”

“I… I will. We will.”

Eddie nodded a little, then looked atRoland. Jake moved aside and the gunslinger leaned in for Eddie’s word to him.

Eleven

Never, ever, had Roland seen an eye sobright, not even on Jericho Hill, when Cuthbert had bade him a laughinggoodbye.

Eddie smiled. “We had… some times.”

Roland nodded again.

“You… you…” But this Eddie couldn’t finish.He raised one hand and made a weak twirling motion.

“I danced,” Roland said, nodding. “Dancedthe commala.”

Yes, Eddie mouthed, then drew inanother of those whooping, painful breaths. It was the last.

“Thank you for my second chance,” he said. “Thankyou… Father.”

That was all. Eddie’s eyes still looked athim, and they were still aware, but he had no breath to replace the oneexpended on that final word, that father. The lamplight gleamed on thehairs of his bare arms, turning them to gold. The thunder murmured. ThenEddie’s eyes closed and he laid his head to one side. His work was finished. Hehad left the path, stepped into the clearing. They sat around him a-circle, butka-tet no more.

Twelve

And so, thirty minutes later.

Roland, Jake, Ted, and Sheemie sat on abench in the middle of the Mall. Dani Rostov and the bankerly-looking fellowwere nearby. Susa

“We have to go, and right away,” Rolandsaid. His hand had gone to his hip and was rubbing, rubbing. Jake had seen himtake a bottle of aspirin (gotten God knew where) from his purse and dry-swallowthree. “Sheemie, will you send us on?”

Sheemie nodded. He had limped to the bench,leaning on Dinky for support, and still none of them had had a chance to lookat the wound on his foot. His limp seemed so minor compared to their otherconcerns; surely if Sheemie Ruiz were to die this night it would be as a resultof opening a makeshift door between Thunder-side and America. Another strenuousact of teleportation might be lethal to him—what was a sore foot comparedto that?

“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll try my veryhardest, so I will.”

“Those who helped us look into New Yorkwill help us do this,” Ted said.

It was Ted who had figured out how todetermine the current when on America-side of the Keystone World. He, Dinky,Fred Worthington (the bankerly-looking man), and Dani Rostov had all been toNew York, and were all able to summon up clear mental images of Times Square:the lights, the crowds, the movie marquees… and, most important, the giantnews-ticker which broadcast the events of the day to the crowds below, making acomplete circuit of Broadway and Forty-eighth Street every thirty seconds orso. The hole had opened long enough to inform them that UN forensics expertswere examining supposed mass graves in Kosovo, that Vice President Gore hadspent the day in New York City campaigning for President, that Roger Clemenshad struck out thirteen Texas Rangers but the Yankees had still lost the nightbefore.

With the help of the rest, Sheemie couldhave held the hole open a good while longer (the others had been staring intothe brilliance of that bustling New York night with a kind of hungry amazement,not Breaking now but Opening, Seeing), only there turned out to be no need forthat. Following the baseball score, the date and time had gone speeding pastthem in brilliant yellow-green letters a story high: JUNE 18, 1999 9:19 PM.

Jake opened his mouth to ask how they couldbe sure they had been looking into Keystone World, the one where Stephen Kinghad less than a day to live, and then shut it again. The answer was in thetime, stupid, as the answer always was: the numbers comprising 9:19 also addedup to nineteen.