The Dark Tower

“As you may have gleaned,” Ted told them, “there’s an alarm in the Devar-Toi Supervisor’s office. The warden’s office, if you like. It goes off when anyone or anything uses the door between the Fedic staging area and yon station—”

“I believe the term you used for him,” Roland said dryly, “wasn’t supervisor or warden but ki’-dam.”

Dink laughed. “That’s a good pickup on your part, dude.”

“What does ki’-dam mean?” Jake asked, although he had a fair notion. There was a phrase folks used in the Calla: headbox, heartbox, ki’box. Which meant, in descending order, one’s thought processes, one’s emotions, and one’s lower functions. Animal functions, some might say; ki’box could be translated as shitbox if you were of a vulgar turn of mind.

Ted shrugged. “Ki’-dam means shit-for-brains. It’s Dinky’s nickname for sai Prentiss, the Devar Master. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I guess,” Jake said. “Kinda.”

Ted looked at him long, and when Jake identified that expression, it helped him define how Stanley was looking at Roland: not with fear but with fascination. Jake had a pretty good idea Ted was still thinking about how much he looked like someone named Bobby, and he was pretty sure Ted knew he had the touch. What was the source of Stanley’s fascination? Or maybe he was making too much of it. Maybe it was just that Stanley had never expected to see a gunslinger in the flesh.

Abruptly, Ted turned from Jake and back to Roland. “Now look this way,” he said.

“Whoa!” Eddie cried. “What the hell?”

Susannah was amused as well as amazed. What Ted was pointing out reminded her of Cecil B. DeMille’s Bible epic The Ten Commandments, especially the parts where the Red Sea opened by Moses had looked suspiciously like Jell-O and the voice of God coming from the burning bush sounded quite a bit like Charles Laughton. Still, it was amazing. In a cheesy Hollywood-special-effects way, that was.

What they saw was a single fat and gorgeous bolt of sunlight slanting down from a hole in the sagging clouds. It cut through the strangely dark air like a searchlight beam and lit a compound that might have been six miles from Thunderclap Station. And “about six miles” was really all you could say, because there was no more north or south in this world, at least not that you could count on. Now there was only the Path of the Beam.

“Dinky, there’s a pair of binoculars in—”

“The lower cave, right?”

“No, I brought them up the last time we were here,” Ted replied with carefully maintained patience. “They’re sitting on that pile of crates just inside. Get them, please.”

Eddie barely noticed this byplay. He was too charmed (and amused) by that single broad ray of sun, shining down on a green and cheerful plot of land, as unlikely in this dark and sterile desert as…well, he supposed, as unlikely as Central Park must seem to tourists from the Midwest making their first trip to New York.

He could see buildings that looked like college dormitories—nice ones — and others that looked like comfy old manor houses with wide stretches of green lawn before them. At the far side of the sunbeam’s area was what looked like a street lined with shops. The perfect little Main Street America, except for one thing: in all directions it ended in dark and rocky desert. He saw four stone towers, their sides agreeably green with ivy. No, make that six. The other two were mostly concealed in stands of graceful old elms. Elms in the desert!

Dink returned with a pair of binoculars and offered them to Roland, who shook his head.

“Don’t hold it against him,” Eddie said. “His eyes…well, let’s just say they’re something else. I wouldn’t mind a peek, though.”

“Me, either,” Susannah said.

Eddie handed her the binoculars. “Ladies first.”

“No, really, I—”

“Stop it,” Ted almost snarled. “Our time here is brief, our risk enormous. Don’t waste the one or increase the other, if you please.”