Yet there was another problem, one Roland’seye, trained to see every possible snare and ambush, fixed upon at once. He sawthe blasphemous parody of Eld’s Last Fellowship on the wall and understood itssignificance completely in the seconds before it was ripped away. And thesmell: not just flesh but human flesh. This too he would have understoodearlier, had he had time to think about it… only life in Calla Bryn Sturgis hadallowed him little time to think. In the Calla, as in a storybook, life hadbeen one damned thing after another.

Yet it was clear enough now, wasn’t it? Thelow folk might only be taheen; a child’s ogres, if it did ya. Those behind thetapestry were what Callahan had called Type One vampires and what Rolandhimself knew as the Grandfathers, perhaps the most gruesome and powerfulsurvivors of the Prim’s long-ago recession. And while such as the taheenmight be content to stand as they were, gawking at the sigul Callahan held up,the Grandfathers wouldn’t spare it a second glance.

Now clattering bugs came pouring out fromunder the table. They were of a sort Roland had seen before, and any doubts hemight still have held about what was behind that tapestry departed at the sightof them. They were parasites, blood-drinkers, camp-followers:Grandfather-fleas. Probably not dangerous while there was a bumbler present,but of course when you spied the little doctors in such numbers, theGrandfathers were never far behind.

As Oy charged at the bugs, Roland of Gileaddid the only thing he could think of: he swam down to Callahan.

Into Callahan.

Seven

Pere, I am here.

Aye, Roland. What—

No time. GET HIM OUT OF HERE. You must.Get him out while there’s still time!

Eight

And Callahan tried. The boy, of course,didn’t want to go. Looking at him through the Pere’s eyes, Roland thought withsome bitterness: I should have schooled him better in betrayal. Yet all thegods know I did the best I could.

“Go while you can,” Callahan told Jake,striving for calmness. “Catch up to her if you can. This is the commandof your dinh. This is also the will of the White.”

It should have moved him but it didn’t, hestill argued—gods, he was nearly as bad as Eddie!—and Roland couldwait no longer.

Pere, let me.

Roland seized control without waiting for areply. He could already feel the wave, the aven kal, beginning torecede. And the Grandfathers would come at any second.

“Go, Jake!” he cried, using thePere’s mouth and vocal cords like a loudspeaker. If he had thought about howone might do something like this, he would have been lost completely, butthinking about things had also never been his way, and he was grateful to seethe boy’s eyes flash wide. “You have this one chance and must take it! Findher! As dinh I command you!”

Then, as in the hospital ward withSusannah, he felt himself once more tossed upward like something withoutweight, blown out of Callahan’s mind and body like a bit of cobweb or a fluffof dandelion thistle. For a moment he tried to flail his way back, like aswimmer trying to buck a strong current just long enough to reach the shore,but it was impossible.

Roland! That was Eddie’s voice, andfilled with dismay. Jesus, Roland, what in God’s name are those things?

The tapestry had been torn aside. Thecreatures which rushed out were ancient and freakish, their warlock faceswarped with teeth growing wild, their mouths propped open by fangs as thick asthe gunslinger’s wrists, their wrinkled and stubbled chins slick with blood andscraps of meat.

And still—gods, oh gods—the boyremained!

“They’ll kill Oy first!” Callahanshouted, only Roland didn’t think it was Callahan. He thought it wasEddie, using Callahan’s voice as Roland had. Somehow Eddie had found eithersmoother currents or more strength. Enough to get inside after Roland had beenblown out. “They’ll kill him in front of you and drink his blood!”

It was finally enough. The boy turned andfled with Oy running beside him. He cut directly in front of the waseautaheenand between two of the low folken, but none made any effort to grab him.They were still staring at the raised Turtle on Callahan’s palm, mesmerized.

The Grandfathers paid no attention to thefleeing boy at all, as Roland had felt sure they would not. He knew from PereCallahan’s story that one of the Grandfathers had come to the little town of‘Salem’s Lot where the Pere had for awhile preached. The Pere had lived throughthe experience—not common for those who faced such monsters after losingtheir weapons and siguls of power—but the thing had forced Callahan todrink of its tainted blood before letting him go. It had marked him for theseothers.

Callahan was holding his cross-sigul outtoward them, but before Roland could see anything else, he was exhaled backinto darkness. The chimes began again, all but driving him mad with their awfultintinnabulation. Somewhere, faintly, he could hear Eddie shouting. Rolandreached for him in the dark, brushed Eddie’s arm, lost it, found his hand, andseized it. They rolled over and over, clutching each other, trying not to beseparated, hoping not to be lost in the doorless dark between the worlds.

Chapter III:

Eddie Makes a Call

One

Eddie returned to John Cullum’s old car theway he’d sometimes come out of nightmares as a teenager: tangled up and pantingwith fright, totally disoriented, not sure of who he was, let alone where.

He had a second to realize that, incredibleas it seemed, he and Roland were floating in each other’s arms like unborn twinsin the womb, only this was no womb. A pen and a paperclip were drifting infront of his eyes. So was a yellow plastic case he recognized as an eight-tracktape. Don’t waste your time, John, he thought. No true thread there,that’s a dead-end gadget if there ever was one.

Something was scratching the back of hisneck. Was it the domelight of John Cullum’s scurgy old Galaxie? By God hethought it w—

Then gravity reasserted itself and theyfell, with meaningless objects raining down all around them. The floormat whichhad been floating around in the Ford’s cabin landed draped over the steeringwheel. Eddie’s midsection hit the top of the front seat and air exploded out ofhim in a rough whoosh. Roland landed beside him, and on his bad hip. He gave asingle barking cry and then began to pull himself back into the front seat.

Eddie opened his mouth to speak. Before hecould, Callahan’s voice filled his head: Hile, Roland! Hile, gunslinger!

How much psychic effort had it cost thePere to speak from that other world? And behind it, faint but there, thesound of bestial, triumphant cries. Howls that were not quite words.

Eddie’s wide and startled eyes met Roland’sfaded blue ones. He reached out for the gunslinger’s left hand, thinking: He’sgoing. Great God, I think the Pere is going.

May you find your Tower, Roland, andbreach it—

“—and may you climb to the top,”Eddie breathed.

They were back in John Cullum’s car andparked—askew but otherwise peacefully enough—at the side of KansasRoad in the shady early-evening hours of a summer’s day, but what Eddie saw wasthe orange hell-light of that restaurant that wasn’t a restaurant at all but aden of cannibals. The thought that there could be such things, thatpeople walked past their hiding place each and every day, not knowing what wasinside, not feeling the greedy eyes that perhaps marked them and measuredthem—