The Dark Tower

“Do you—” Jake began, and then the door to the restaurant burst open. One of the low men rushed in. Jake threw the plate without hesitation. It moaned through the steamy, brilliant air and took off the intruder’s head with gory precision just above the Adam’s apple. The headless body bucked first to the left and then to the right, like a stage comic accepting a round of applause with a whimsical move, and then collapsed.

Jake had another plate in each hand almost immediately, his arms once more crossed over his chest in the position sai Eisenhart called “the load.” He looked at the washerboy, who was still holding the knife and the cleaver. Without much threat, however, Jake thought. He tried again and this time got the whole question out. “Do you speak English?”

“Yar,” the boy said. He dropped the cleaver so he could hold one water-reddened thumb and its matching forefinger about a quarter of an inch apart. “Bout just a liddle. I learn since I come over here.” He opened his other hand and the knife joined the cleaver on the kitchen floor.

“Do you come from Mid-World?” Jake asked. “You do, don’t you?”

He didn’t think the washerboy was terribly bright (“No quiz-kid,” Elmer Chambers would no doubt have sneered), but he was at least smart enough to be homesick; in spite of his terror, Jake saw an unmistakable flash of that look in the boy’s eyes. “Yar,” he said. “Come from Ludweg, me.”

“Near the city of Lud?”

“North of there, if you do like it or if you don’t,” said the washerboy. “Will’ee kill me, lad? I don’t want to die, sad as I am.”

“I won’t be the one to kill you if you tell me the truth. Did a woman come through here?”

The washerboy hesitated, then said: “Aye. Sayre and his closies had ’er. She ’us out on her feet, that ’un, head all lollin…” He demonstrated, rolling his head on his neck and looking more like the village idiot than ever. Jake thought of Sheemie in Roland’s tale of his Mejis days.

“But not dead.”

“Nar. I hurt her breevin, me.”

Jake looked toward the door, but no one came through. Yet. He should go, but—

“What’s your name, cully?”

“Jochabim, that be I, son of Hossa.”

“Well, listen, Jochabim, there’s a world outside this kitchen called New York City, and pubes like you are free. I suggest you get out while you have an opportunity.”

“They’d just bring me back and stripe me.”

“No, you don’t understand how big it is. Like Lud when Lud was—”

He looked at Jochabim’s dull-eyed face and thought, No, I’m the one who doesn’t understand. And if I hang around here trying to convince him to desert, I’ll no doubt get just what I—

The door leading to the restaurant popped open again. This time two low men tried to come through at once and momentarily jammed together, shoulder to shoulder. Jake threw both of his plates and watched them crisscross in the steamy air, beheading both newcomers just as they burst through. They fell backward and once more the door swung shut. At Piper School Jake had learned about the Battle of Thermopylae, where the Greeks had held off a Persian army that had outnumbered them ten to one. The Greeks had drawn the Persians into a narrow mountain pass; he had this kitchen door. As long as they kept coming through by ones and twos — as they must unless they could flank him somehow — he could pick them off.

At least until he ran out of Orizas.

“Guns?” he asked Jochabim. “Are there guns here?”

Jochabim shook his head, but given the young man’s irritating look of density, it was hard to tell if this meant No guns in the kitchen or I don’t ken you.

“All right, I’m going,” he said. “And if you don’t go yourself while you’ve got a chance, Jochabim, you’re an even bigger fool than you look. Which would be saying a lot. There are video games out there, kid — think about it.”

Jochabim continued giving Jake the duh look, however, and Jake gave up. He was about to speak to Oy when someone spoke to him through the door.

“Hey, kid.” Rough. Confidential. Knowing. The voice of a man who could hit you for five or sleep with your girlfriend any time he liked, Jake thought. “Your friend the faddah’s dead. In fact, the faddah’s dinnah. You come out now, with no more nonsense, maybe you can avoid being dessert.”

“Turn it sideways and stick it up your ass,” Jake called. This got through even Jochabim’s wall of stupidity; he looked shocked.

“Last chance,” said the rough and knowing voice. “Come on out.”

“Come on in!” Jake countered. “I’ve got plenty of plates!” Indeed, he felt a lunatic urge to rush forward, bang through the door, and take the battle to the low men and women in the restaurant dining room on the other side. Nor was the idea all that crazy, as Roland himself would have known; it was the last thing they’d expect, and there was at least an even chance that he could panic them with half a dozen quickly thrown plates and start a rout.