the world from between his own spread fingers. And still that voice rolled on and on, the
voice of some heartless SWAT Squad com- mander bellowing through a bullhorn.
“THERE IS NO DANGER! REPEAT, THERE IS NO DANGER! FIVE SUBNUCLEAR
CELLS ARE DORMANT, TWO SUBNUCLEAR CELLS ARE NOW IN SHUTDOWN
PHASE, ONE SUBNUCLEAR CELL IS OPERATING AT TWO PER CENT
CAPACITY. THESE CELLS ARE OF NO VALUE! REPEAT, THESE CELLS ARE OF
NO VALUE! REPORT LOCATION TO NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LIMITED!
CALL 1-900-44! THE CODE WORD FOR THIS DEVICE IS ‘SHARDIK.’ REWARD IS
OFFERED! REPEAT, REWARD ZS OFFERED!”
The voice fell silent. Eddie saw Roland standing at the edge of the clearing, holding
Susannah in the crook of one arm. They were staring toward the sound of the voice, and as
the recorded announcement began again, Eddie was finally able to shake off the chill
remnants of his nightmare. He got up and joined Roland and Susannah, wondering how
many centuries it had been since that announcement, pro-grammed to broadcast only in the
event of a total system breakdown, had been recorded.
“THIS DEVICE IS SHUTTING DOWN! SHUTDOWN WILL BE COMPLETE IN ONE
HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES! THERE IS NO DANGER! REPEAT—”
Eddie touched Susannah’s arm and she looked around. “How long has this been going on?”
“About fifteen minutes. You were dead to the w—” She broke off. “Eddie, you look
terrible! Are you sick?”
“No. I just had a bad dream.”
Roland was studying him in a way that made Eddie feel uncomfort- able. “Sometimes
there’s truth in dreams, Eddie. What was yours?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“You know, I doubt that.”
Eddie shrugged and favored Roland with a thin smile. “Doubt away, then—be my guest.
And how are you this morning, Roland?”
“The same,” Roland said. His faded blue eyes still conned Eddie’s face.
“Stop it,” Susannah said. Her voice was brisk, but Eddie caught an undertone of
nervousness. “Both of you. I got better things to do than watch you two dance around and
kick each other’s shins like a couple of little kids playin Two for Flinching. Specially this
morning, with that dead bear trying to yell down the whole world.”
The gunslinger nodded, but kept his eyes on Eddie. “All right . . . but are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me, Eddie?”
He thought about it then—really thought about telling. What he had seen in the fire, what
he had seen in his dream. He decided against it. Perhaps it was only the memory of the rose
in the fire, and the roses
which had blanketed that dream-field in such fabulous profusion. Me knew he could not
tell these things as his eyes had seen them and his heart had felt them; he could only
cheapen them. And, at least for the time being, he wanted to ponder these things alone.
But remember, he told himself again . . . except the voice in his mind didn’t sound much
like his own. It seemed deeper, older—the voice of a stranger. Remember the rose . . . and
the shape of the key.
“I will,” he murmured.
“You will what?” Roland asked.
“Tell,” Eddie said. “If anything comes up that seems, you know, really important, I’ll tell you. Both of you. Right now there isn’t. So if we’re going somewhere, Shane, old buddy,
let’s saddle up.”
“Shane? Who is this Shane?”
“I’ll tell you that some other time, too. Meantime, let’s go.”
They packed the gear they had brought with them from the old campsite and headed back,
Susannah riding in her wheelchair again. Eddie had an idea she wouldn’t be riding in it for long.
21
ONCE, BEFORE EDDIE HAD become too interested in the subject of heroin to be
interested in much else, he and a couple of friends had driven over to New Jersey to see a
couple of speed-metal groups— Anthrax and Megadeth—in concert at the Meadowlands.
He believed that Anthrax had been slightly louder than the repeating announcement
coming from the fallen bear, but he wasn’t a hundred per cent sure. Roland stopped them
while they were still half a mile from the clearing in the woods and tore six small scaps of
cloth from his old shirt. They stuffed them in their ears and then went on. Even the cloth
didn’t do much to deaden the steady blast of sound.
“THIS DEVICE IS SHUTTING DOWN!” the bear blared as they stepped into the clearing
again. It lay as it had lain, at the foot of the tree Eddie had climbed, a fallen Colossus with
its legs apart and its knees in the air, like a furry female giant who had died trying to give
birth. “SHUTDOWN WILL BE COMPLETE IN FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES! THERE IS
NO DANGER—”
Yes, there is, Eddie thought, picking up the scattered hides which had not been shredded in
either the bear’s attack or its flailing death-throes. Plenty of danger. To my fucking ears. He
picked up Roland’s gunbelt and silently handed it over. The chunk of wood he had been
working on lay nearby; he grabbed it and tucked it into the pocket in the hack of Susannah’s
wheelchair as the gunslinger slowly buckled the wide leather belt around his waist and
cinched the rawhide tiedown.
“—IN SHUTDOWN PHASE, ONE SUBNUCLEAR CELL OPERATING AT ONE PER
CENT CAPACITY. THESE CELLS—”
Susannah followed Eddie, holding in her lap a carry-all bag she had sewn herself. As
Eddie handed her the hides, she stuffed them into the bag. When all of them were stored
away, Roland tapped Eddie on the arm and handed him a shoulderpack. What it contained
mostly was deer-meat, heavily salted from a natural lick Roland had found about three
miles up the little creek. The gunslinger had already donned a similar pack. His
purse—restocked and once again bulging with all sorts of odds and ends—hung from his
other shoulder.
A strange, home-made harness with a seat of stitched deerskin dan- gled from a nearby
branch. Roland plucked it off, studied it for a moment, and then draped it over his back and
knotted the straps below his chest. Susannah made a sour face at diis, and Roland saw it. He
did not try to speak—this close to the bear, he couldn’t have made himself heard even by
shouting at the top of his voice—but he shrugged sympatheti- cally and spreadhis hands: You know well need it.
She shrugged back. / know . . . but that doesn’t mean I like it.
The gunslinger pointed across the clearing. A pair of leaning, splin- tered spruce trees
marked the place where Shardik, who had once been known as Mir in these parts, had
entered the clearing.
Eddie leaned toward Susannah, made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then raised
his eyebrows interrogatively. Okay?
She nodded, then pressed the heels of her palms against her ears. Okay—but let’s get out of
here before I go deaf.
The three of them moved across the clearing, Eddie pushing Susan- nah, who held the bag
of hides in her lap. The pocket in the back of her wheelchair was stuffed with other items;
die piece of wood with the slingshot still mostly hidden inside it was only one of them.
From behind them the bear continued to roar out its final communi- cation to the world,
telling them shutdown would be complete in forty minutes. Eddie couldn’t wait. The
broken spruces leaned in toward each other, forming a rude gate, and Eddie thought: This
is where the quest for Roland’s Dark Tower really begins, at least for us.
He thought of his dream again—the spiraling windows issuing their unfurling flags of
darkness, flags which spread over the field of roses like a stain—and as they passed
beneath the leaning trees, a deep shudder gripped him.
22
THEY WERE ABLE TO use the wheelchair longer than Roland had expected. The firs of
this forest were very old, and their spreading branches had created a deep carpet of needles
which discouraged most undergrowth. Susannah’s arms were strong—stronger than
Eddie’s, although Roland did not think that would be true much longer—and she wheeled
herself along easily over the level, shady forest floor. When they came to one of the trees
the bear had pushed over, Roland lifted her out of the chair and Eddie boosted it over the
obstacle.
From behind them, only a little deadened by distance, the bear told them, at the top of its
mechanical voice, that the capacity of its last operating nuclear subcell was now negligible.
“I hope you keep that damn harness lying empty over your shoulders all day!” Susannah
shouted at the gunslinger.
Roland agreed, but less than fifteen minutes later the land began to slope downward and
this old section of the forest began to be invaded with smaller, younger trees: birch, alder,
and a few stunted maples scrab- bling grimly in the soil for purchase. The carpet of needles