The Dark Tower

Roland sat quiet for a moment or two, gazing at the map, almost seeming to commune with it. When Ted offered him a cigarette, the gunslinger took it. Then he began to talk. Twice he drew on the side of a weapons crate with a piece of chalk. Twice more he drew arrows on the map, one pointing to what they were calling north, one to the south. Ted asked a question; Dinky asked another. Behind them, Sheemie and Haylis played with Oy like a couple of children. The bumbler mimicked their laughter with eerie accuracy.

When Roland had finished, Ted Brautigan said: “You mean to spill an almighty lot of blood.”

“Indeed I do. As much as I can.”

“Risky for the lady,” Dink remarked, looking first at her and then at her husband.

Susannah said nothing. Neither did Eddie. He recognized the risk. He also understood why Roland would want Suze north of the compound. The Cruisin Trike would give her mobility, and they’d need it. As for risk, they were six planning to take on sixty. Or more. Of course there would be risk, and of course there would be blood.

Blood and fire.

“I may be able to rig a couple of other guns,” Susannah said. Her eyes had taken on that special Detta Walker gleam. “Radio-controlled, like a toy airplane. I dunno. But I’ll move, all right. I’m goan speed around like grease on a hot griddle.”

“Can this work?” Dinky asked bluntly.

Roland’s lips parted in a humorless grin. “It will work.”

“How can you say that?” Ted asked.

Eddie recalled Roland’s reasoning before their call to John Cullum and could have answered that question, but answers were for their ka-tet’s dinh to give—if he would—and so he left this one to Roland.

“Because it has to,” the gunslinger said. “I see no other way.”

CHAPTER XI: THE ATTACK ON ALGUL SIENTO

ONE

It was a day later and not long before the horn signaled the morning change of shift. The music would soon start, the sun would come on, and the Breaker night-crew would exit The Study stage left while the Breaker day-crew entered stage right. Everything was as it should be, yet Pimli Prentiss had slept less than an hour the previous night and even that brief time had been haunted by sour and chaotic dreams. Finally, around four (what his bedside clock in fact claimed was four, but who knew anymore, and what did it matter anyway, this close to the end), he’d gotten up and sat in his office chair, looking out at the darkened Mall, deserted at this hour save for one lone and pointless robot who’d taken it into its head to patrol, waving its six pincer-tipped arms aimlessly at the sky. The robots that still ran grew wonkier by the day, but pulling their batteries could be dangerous, for some were booby-trapped and would explode if you tried it. There was nothing you could do but put up with their antics and keep reminding yourself that all would be over soon, praise Jesus and God the Father Almighty. At some point the former Paul Prentiss opened the desk drawer above the kneehole, pulled out the .40 Peacemaker Colt inside, and held it in his lap. It was the one with which the previous Master, Humma, had executed the rapist Cameron. Pimli hadn’t had to execute anyone in his time and was glad of it, but holding the pistol in his lap, feeling its grave weight, always offered a certain comfort. Although why he should require comfort in the watches of the night, especially when everything was going so well, he had no idea. All he knew for sure was that there had been some anomalous blips on what Finli and Jenkins, their chief technician, liked to call the Deep Telemetry, as if these were instruments at the bottom of the ocean instead of just in a basement closet adjacent to the long, low room holding the rest of the more useful gear. Pimli recognized what he was feeling—call a spade a spade—as a sense of impending doom. He tried to tell himself it was only his grandfather’s proverb in action, that he was almost home and so it was time to worry about the eggs.

Finally he’d gone into his bathroom, where he closed the lid of the toilet and knelt to pray. And here he was still, only something had changed in the atmosphere. He’d heard no footfall but knew someone had stepped into his office. Logic suggested who it must be. Still without opening his eyes, still with his hands clasped on the closed cover of the toilet, he called: “Finli? Finli o’ Tego? Is that you?”

“Yar, boss, it’s me.”

What was he doing here before the horn? Everyone, even the Breakers, knew what a fiend for sleep was Finli the Weasel. But all in good time. At this moment Pimli was entertaining the Lord (although in truth he’d nearly dozed off on his knees when some deep sub-instinct had warned him he was no longer alone on the first floor of Warden’s House). One did not snub such an important guest as the Lord God of Hosts, and so he finished his prayer—“Grant me the grace of Thy will, amen!”—before rising with a wince. His damned back didn’t care a bit for the belly it had to hoist in front.