The Dark Tower

Dinky’s eyes broke contact with Eddie’s and looked down at his own shuffling feet, instead. Eddie thought that was answer enough.

“How many times?” Eddie hoped he didn’t sound as appalled as he felt. There were enough pinprick-sized bloodspots in the whites of Sheemie’s eyes to make them look as if someone had flung paprika into them. Not to mention the bigger ones in the corners.

Still without looking at him, Dinky raised four fingers.

“Four times?”

“Yuh,” Dinky said. He was still studying his makeshift mocs. “Starting with the time he sent Ted to Connecticut in 1960. It was like doing that ruptured something inside him.” He looked up, trying to smile. “But he didn’t faint yesterday, when the three of us went back to the Devar.”

“Let me make sure I’ve got this right. In the prison down there, you guys have all sorts of venial sins, but only one mortal one: teleportation.”

Dinky considered this. The rules certainly weren’t that liberal for the taheen and the can-toi; they could be exiled or lobotomized for all sorts of reasons, including such wrongs as negligence, teasing the Breakers, or the occasional act of outright cruelty. Once—so he had been told—a Breaker had been raped by a low man, who was said to have explained earnestly to the camp’s last Master that it was part of his becoming—the Crimson King himself had appeared to this fellow in a dream and told him to do it. For this the can-toi had been sentenced to death. The Breakers had been invited to attend his execution (accomplished by a single pistol-shot to the head), which had taken place in the middle of Pleasantville’s Main Street.

Dinky told Eddie about this, then admitted that yes, for the inmates, at least, teleportation was the only mortal sin. That he knew of, anyway.

“And Sheemie’s your teleport,” Eddie said. “You guys help him—facilitate for him, to use the Tedster’s word—and you cover up for him by fudging the records, somehow—”

“They have no idea how easy it is to cook their telemetry,” Dinky said, almost laughing. “Partner, they’d be shocked. The hard part is making sure we don’t tip over the whole works.”

Eddie didn’t care about that, either. It worked. That was the only thing that mattered. Sheemie also worked . . . but for how long?

“—but he’s the one who does it,” Eddie finished. “Sheemie.”

“Yuh.”

“The only one who can do it.”

“Yuh.”

Eddie thought about their two tasks: freeing the Breakers (or killing them, if there was no other way to make them stop) and keeping the writer from being struck and killed by a minivan while taking a walk. Roland thought they might be able to accomplish both things, but they’d need Sheemie’s teleportation ability at least twice. Plus, their visitors would have to get back inside the triple run of wire after today’s palaver was done, and presumably that meant he’d have to do it a third time.

“He says it doesn’t hurt,” Dinky said. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Inside the cave the others laughed at something, Sheemie back to consciousness and taking nourishment, everyone the best of friends.

“It’s not,” Eddie said. “What does Ted think is happening to Sheemie when he teleports?”

“That he’s having brain hemorrhages,” Dinky said promptly. “Little tiny strokes on the surface of his brain.” He tapped a finger at different points on his own skull in demonstration. “Boink, boink, boink.”

“Is it getting worse? It is, isn’t it?”

“Look, if you think him jaunting us around is my idea, you better think again.”

Eddie raised one hand like a traffic cop. “No, no. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.” And what our chances are.

“I hate using him that way!” Dinky burst out. He kept his voice pitched low, so those in the cave wouldn’t hear, but Eddie never for a moment considered that he was exaggerating. Dinky was badly upset. “He doesn’t mind—he wants to do it—and that makes it worse, not better. The way he looks at Ted . . .” He shrugged. “It’s the way a dog’d look at the best master in the universe. He looks at your dinh the same way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“He’s doing it for my dinh,” Eddie said, “and that makes it okay. You may not believe that, Dink, but—”

“But you do.”

“Totally. Now here’s the really important question: does Ted have any idea how long Sheemie can last? Keeping in mind that now he’s got a little more help at this end?”

Who you tryin to cheer up, bro? Henry spoke up suddenly inside his head. Cynical as always. Him or yourself?

Dinky was looking at Eddie as if he were crazy, or soft in the head, at least. “Ted was an accountant. Sometimes a tutor. A day-laborer when he couldn’t get anything better. He’s no doctor.”

But Eddie kept pushing. “What does he think?”