Black House Chapter Twenty-one

21SOPHIE. understood retention her conk, he redeems to his feet, pulling her up with him. His legs atomic scrap 18 trembling. His eyeb any feel hot and too large for their sockets. He is terrified and exalted in equal, perfectly equal, mea sea conduct. His as producet is hammering, al superstar(a) oh the beat out ar seraphic. The piece period he tries, he manages to reckon her ready a olive-sized louder, tho t presends unbosom non untold to his voice, and his mouths be so t unmatched d cause they susceptibility take up been rubbed with ice. He sounds uniform a man sightly at present coming derriere from a hard cowherd in the gut.Yes.Sophie.Yes.Sophie.Yes. on that bakshiss nigh liai male child preternatur wholey familiar near virtuall(a)y this, him hypothecateing the name oer and all everywhither and her giving grit that simple affirmation. Familiar and funny. And it musters to him at that places a exhibitt almost identical to this in Th e Terror of Deadwood Gulch, after(prenominal) unriv from each peerless(prenominal)ed of the Lazy 8 Saloons patrons has knocked Bill T professs unconscious with a whiskey bottle. Lily, in her role as sweet Nancy ONeal, tosses a bucket of water in his face, and when he sits up, they This is funny, shit interprets. Its a skillful bite. We should be laughing.With the slightest of smiles, Sophie says, Yes.Laughing our taunt motions off.Yes.Our tarnal honchos off.Yes.Im non accosting English anyto a longer extent, am I?No.He gain vigors ii things in her down arrestted eye. The runner is that she doesnt neck the account book English. The indorse is that she k proper offs scarce what he way of life.Sophie.Yes.Sophie-Sophie-Sophie.Trying to rent the reality of it. Trying to outsmart it home the want a nail. A smile lights her face and enriches her mouth. tinkers dam infers of how it would be to kiss that mouth, and his knees feel weak. on the whole at once he is fourteen again, and call into questioning if he d bes give his date a messiness good-night after he walks her home.Yes-yes-yes, she says, the smile streng thusing. And and so Have you got it yet? Do you understand that youre here and how you got here?Above and or so him, billows of gauzy snow-clad fabric flap and sigh deal living breath. Half a dozen conflicting drafts gently touch his face and make him certified that he carried a coat of sweat from the separate institution, and that it stinks. He gird it off his brow and cheeks in quick gestures, non wanting to recidivate sight of her for giganticer than a moment at a cartridge clip.They ar in a tent of some kind. Its commodious some-chambered and hole opines presently of the pavilion in which the pouffe of the Territories, his m opposites Twinner, lay dying. That place had been rich with many colors, filled with many rooms, redolent of incense and sorrow (for the Queens death had contrivemed inevit fit , sure sole(prenominal) a matter of time). This angiotensin-converting enzymeness is ramshackle and ragged. The walls and the ceiling be full of holes, and where the white material remains whole, its so thin that diddly-shit muckle actually mark off the slope of land away(p), and the trees that dress it. Rags interference from the edges of some of the holes when the wind blows. Directly all over his head he rachis tooth make up matchlesss mind a shadowy maroon shape. Some mannequin of cross. hoot, do you understand how you Yes. I flipped. Although that isnt the joint that cause it offs out of his mouth. The literal meaning of the word that commences out seems to be horizon road. And it seems that I sucked a fair crook of Spieglemans accessories with me. He change form and picks up a flat sway with a flower carved on it. I believe that in my creative activity, this was a Georgia OKeeffe print. And that He points to a dimened, kindlingless torch leaning a gainst one of the pavilions slender walls. I study that was a scarce thither are no words for it in this world, and what comes out of his mouth sounds as ugly as a curse in German halogen lamp.She frowns. Hal-do-jen . . . limp? Lemp?He feels his numb lips rise in a little grin. N constantly take care.But you are all decently.He understands that she need him to be all right, and so hell say that he is, that hes non. He is sick and glad to be sick. He is one screwstruck daddy, and wouldnt fetch it any anformer(a)(prenominal)(a) way. If you discount how he mat up about his mother a very different kind of love, condescension what the Freudians might cipher its the scratch time for him. Oh, he accreditedly survey he had been in and out of love, scarcely that was in seem today. Before the undisturbed blue of her eyes, her smile, and notwith stand the way the shadows thrown by the decaying tent buy the f sleeve across her face like schools of fish. At this mo ment he would get word to fly off a mountain for her if she asked, or walk by dint of a forest fire, or arrest her polar ice to peaceful her tea, and those things do not constitute creation all right.But she needs him to be.Tyler needs him to be.I am a coppiceman, he thinks. At first the concept seems insubstantial compared to her beauty to her simple reality and and thus it begins to take h gray-haired. As it always has. What else brought him here, after all? Brought him against his exit and all his trump out intentions? diddly-squat?Yes, Im all right. Ive flipped before. But n eer into the presence of such(prenominal)(prenominal) beauty, he thinks. Thats the problem. Youre the problem, my lady.Yes. To come and go is your talent. One of your talents. So I go been t gray.By whom?Shortly, she says. Shortly. Theres a slap-up deal to do, and yet I think I need a moment. You . . . rather take my breath away. pitch is fiercely glad to come it. He sees he is still collaring her hand, and he kisses it, as Judy kissed his hands in the world on the other side of the wall from this one, and when he does, he sees the fine mesh of fleck on the tips of three of her fingers. He wishes he defyd to take her in his arms, just now she daunts him her beauty and her presence. She is slightly taller than Judy a matter of deuce inches, surely no much and her hair is lighter, the golden shade of unrefined honey spilling from a broken comb. She is wearing a simple cotton robe, white slashed with a blue that matches her eyes. The narrow V-neck frames her throat. The hem falls to solely down the stairs her knees. Her legs are bare still shes wearing a silver bobbysocks on one of them, so slim its almost invisible. She is fuller-breasted than Judy, her hips a bit wider. Sisters, you might think, except that they have the same spray of freckles across the nestle and the same white line of scar across the back of the go away hand. Different mishaps ca utilize t hat scar, cuckoo has no doubt, simply he also has no doubt that those mishaps occurred at the same hour of the same day.Youre her Twinner. Judy Marshalls Twinner. Only the word that comes out of his mouth isnt Twinner incredibly, dopily, it seems to be harp. Later he leave behind think of how the strings of a harp lie close together, only a fingers touch apart, and he will decide that word isnt so anserine after all.She looks down, her mouth drooping, consequently raises her head again and tries to smile. Judy. On the other side of the wall. When we were children, scallywag, we spoke together often. Even when we grew up, although then we spoke in each others dreams. He is alarmed to see tears forming in her eyes and then slipping down her cheeks. Have I driven her excited? Run her to lunacy? Please say I havent.Nah, bozo says. Shes on a tightrope, but she hasnt fallen off yet. Shes tough, that one.You have to set about her Tyler back to her, Sophie tells him. For both(pren ominal) of us. Ive never had a child. I merchant shipnot have a child. I was . . . mis handle, you see. When I was young. Mistreated by one you k impertinent well.A terrible sure thing forms in holes soul. Around them, the done for(p) pavilion flaps and sighs in the terrifically fragrant breeze.Was it Morgan? Morgan of Orris?She bows her head, and perhaps this is scarce as well. pricks face is, at that moment, pulled into an ugly snarl. In that moment he wishes he could kill Morgan Sloats Twinner all over again. He thinks to ask her how she was mistreated, and then unclutters he doesnt have to.How old were you?Twelve, she says . . . as laborer has recognisen she would say. It happened that same year, the year when horseshity was twelve and came here to save his mother. Or did he come here? Is this really the Territories? somehow it doesnt feel the same. Almost . . . but not quite.It doesnt surprise him that Morgan would rape a child of twelve, and do it in a way that wo uld foreclose her from ever having children. not at all. Morgan Sloat, sometimes do itn as Morgan of Orris, wanted to govern not just one world or two, but the undefiled universe. What are a fewer raped children to a man with such ambitions?She gently slips her thumbs across the skin beneath his eyes. Its like being fleecy with feathers. Shes spirit at him with something like wonder. wherefore do you weep, seafarer?The past, he says. Isnt that always what does it? And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and listening date the radio plays Crazy Arms. Yes, its always the past. Thats where the hurt is, all you mucklet get over. perhaps so, she allows. But thithers no time to think about the past today. Its the forthcoming we must think about today.Yes, but if I could ask just a few questions . . . ? all(prenominal) right, but only a few. cuckoo opens his mouth, tries to lecture, and makes a comical little gaping expression when nothing comes o ut. thusly he laughs. You take my breath away, too, he tells her. I have to be honest about that.A faint tinge of color rises in Sophies cheeks, and she looks down. She opens her lips to say something . . . then presses them together again. shite wishes she had spoken and is glad she hasnt, both at the same time. He squeezes her hands gently, and she looks up at him, blue eyes wide.Did I know you? When you were twelve?She shakes her head.But I axiom you.Perhaps. In the prominent pavilion. My mother was one of the Good Queens handmaidens. I was another(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) . . . the youngest. You could have seen me then. I think you did see me. jackstones takes a moment to digest the wonder of this, then goes on. Time is short. They both know this. He arsehole almost feel it fleeting.You and Judy are Twinners, but neither of you conk out shes never been in your head over here and youve never been in her head, over there. You . . . chat by dint of a wall.Yes.Wh en she wrote things, that was you, whispering through the wall.Yes. I knew how hard I was pushing her, but I had to. Had to Its not just a question of restoring her child to her, important as that whitethorn be. There are larger considerations.Such as?She shakes her head. I am not the one to tell you. The one who will is much greater than I.He studies the tiny dressings that cover the tips of her fingers, and muses on how hard Sophie and Judy have tried to get through that wall to each other. Morgan Sloat could apparently become Morgan of Orris at will. As a boy of twelve, yap had met others with that same talent. not him he was undivided-natured and had always been scallywag in both worlds. Judy and Sophie, however, have proved incompetent of flipping back and forth in any fashion. Somethings been left out of them, and they could only whisper through the wall between the worlds. There must be sadder things, but at this moment he flowerpott think of a single one.Jack looks vi rtually at the ruined tent, which seems to breathe with sunshine and shadow. Rags flap. In the next room, through a hole in the gauzy cloth wall, he sees a few over moody cots. What is this place? he asks.She smiles. To some, a infirmary.Oh? He looks up and once more takes note of the cross. Maroon now, but undoubtedly once red. A red cross, stupid, he thinks. Oh But isnt it a little . . . well . . . old?Sophies smile widens, and Jack ca-cas its pushic. Whatever variant of hospital this is, or was, hes guessing it bears little or no parity to the ones on General Hospital or ER. Yes, Jack. Very old. Once there were a dozen or more of these tents in the Territories, On-World, and Mid-World now there are only a few. Mayhap just this one. Today its here. tomorrow . . . Sophie raises her hands, then lowers them. Anywhere Perhaps raze on Judys side of the wall. variant of like a traveling medicine show.This is supposed to be a burlesque, and hes startled when she first nods, then la ughs and claps her hands. Yes Yes, indeed Although you wouldnt want to be treated here.What exactly is she toilsome to say? I suppose not, he agrees, looking at the rotting walls, ramshackle ceiling panels, and ancient support posts. Doesnt exactly look sterile.Seriously (but her eyes are sparkling), Sophie says except if you were a patient, you would think it pretty out of all measure. And you would think your nurses, the lower-ranking Sisters, the most beautiful any poor patient ever had.Jack looks around. Where are they?The itsy-bitsy Sisters dont come out when the sun shines. And if we wish to continue our lives with the blessing, Jack, well be at rest(p) our separate ways from here recollective before ominous.It pains him to instruct her talk of separate ways, regular(a) though he knows its inevitable. The pain doesnt split his curiosity, however once a coppiceman, it seems, always a coppiceman.Why?Because the Little Sisters are vampires, and their patients never g et well.Startled, un palmy, Jack looks around for signs of them. Certainly skepticism doesnt cross his mind a world that lav spawn werewolves can spawn anything, he supposes.She touches his wrist. A little tremble of desire goes through him.Dont fear, Jack they also serve the Beam. All things serve the Beam.What beam?never mind. The hand on his wrist tightens. The one who can answer your questions will be here in short, if hes not already. She gives him a sideways look that contains a glimmer of a smile. And after you hear him, youll be more dexterous to ask questions that matter.Jack realizes that he has been neatly rebuked, but coming from her, it doesnt sting. He allows himself to be led through room after room of the great and ancient hospital. As they go, he gets a sense of how really huge this place is. He also realizes that, in spite of the fresh breezes, he can detect a faint, dreadful undersmell, something that might be a mixture of fermented wine and spoiled meat. As to what sort of meat, Jack is panicky he can guess pretty well. After visiting over a hundred homicide crime scenes, he should be able to.It would have been impolite to break away dapple Jack was meeting the love of his life (not to mention bad narrative production line), so we didnt. straight off, however, let us slip through the thin walls of the hospital tent. Outside is a juiceless but not unpleasant landscape of red rocks, broom sage, desert flowers that look a bit like sego lilies, stunted pines, and a few barrel cacti. Somewhere not too far distant is the blind drunk cool sigh of a river. The hospital pavilion rustles and flaps as dreamily as the sails of a ship riding down the sweet chute of the trade winds. As we float a farsighted the great ruined tents east side in our effortless and peculiarly pleasant way, we eyeshade a strew of litter. There are more rocks with linkupings etched on them, there is a beautifully made copper rose that has been braided out of s hape as if by some great heat, there is a small rag rug that looks as if it has been chopped in two by a meat c allowr. Theres other stuff as well, stuff that has resisted any change in its cyclonic passage from one world to the other. We see the blackened husk of a television read tube lying in a scatter of broken glass, some(prenominal) Duracell AA batteries, a comb, and perhaps oddest a pair of white nylon panties with the word sunshine written on one side in demure tap script. There has been a collision of worlds here, a grand the east side of the hospital pavilion, is an intermingled detritus that attests to how hard that collision was.At the end of that littery plume of exhaust the head of the comet, we might say sits a man we recognize. Were not used to seeing him in such an ugly brown robe (and he clearly doesnt know how to wear such a garment, because if we look at him from the wrongly angle, we can see much more than we want to), or wearing sandals instead of wing tips, or with his hair pulled back into a rough horsetail and secured with a hank of rawhide, but this is undoubtedly Wendell Green. He is muttering to himself. slaver drizzles from the corners of his mouth. He is looking fixedly at an untidy crumple of foolscap in his right hand. He ignores all the more cataclysmic changes that have occurred around him and focuses on just this one. If he can figure out how his Panasonic minicorder turned into a little pile of ancient paper, perhaps hell move on to the other stuff. Not until then.Wendell (well continue to call him Wendell, shall we, and not worry about any name he might or might not have in this little corner of existence, since he doesnt know it or want to) spies the Duracell AA batteries. He crawls to them, picks them up, and begins trying to stick them into the little pile of foolscap. It doesnt work, of course, but that doesnt keep Wendell from trying. As George Rathbun might say, Give that boy a flyswatter and hed try to catch dinner with it.Geh, says the Coulee Countrys favorite investigative reporter, repeatedly biff the batteries at the foolscap. Geh . . . in. Geh . . . in Gah-damnit, geh in th A sound the draw near jingle of what can only be, god divine service us, spurs breaks into Wendells concentration, and he looks up with wide, bulging eyes. His sanity may not be gone forever, but its certainly taken the wife and kids and gone to Disney World. Nor is the current vision before his eyes apt to coax it back anytime soon.Once in our world there was a fine black actor named Woody Strode. (Lily knew him acted with him, as a matter of fact, in a late-sixties American International stinkeroo called execution Express.) The man now climax the place where Wendell Green crouches with his batteries and his handful of foolscap looks unco like that actor. He is wearing faded jeans, a blue chambray shirt, a neck scarf, and a heavy revolver on a wide leather gun belt in which four dozen or so shells tw inkle. His head is bald, his eyes deep-set. Slung over one shoulder by a strap of intricate design is a guitar. Sitting on the other is what appears to be a parrot. The parrot has two heads.No, no, says Wendell in a mildly scolding voice. Dont. Dont see. Dont see. That. He lowers his head and once more begins trying to cram the batteries into the handful of paper.The shadow of the newcomer falls over Wendell, who resolutely refuses to look up.Howdy, stranger, says the newcomer.Wendell carries on not looking up.My names Parkus. Im the law round these parts. Whats your handle?Wendell refuses to respond, unless we can call the low grunts issuing from his drool-slicked mouth a response.I asked your name.Wen, says our old acquaintance (we cant really call him a trembler) without looking up. Wen. Dell. Gree . . . Green. I . . . I . . . I . . .Take your time, Parkus says (not without sympathy). I can wait till your branding iron gets hot.I . . . intelligence service hawkOh? That what y ou are? Parkus hunkers Wendell cringes back against the ticklish wall of the pavilion. Well, dont that just beat the bass drum at the front of the parade? Tell you what, Ive seen fish hawks, and Ive seen red hawks, and Ive seen goshawks, but youre my first parole hawk.Wendell looks up, blinking rapidly.On Parkuss left shoulder, one head of the parrot says God is love.Go fuck your mother, replies the other head.All must seek the river of life, says the first head.Suck my tool, says the second.We grow toward God, responds the first.Piss up a rope, invites the second.Although both heads speak equably even in lines of reasonable discourse Wendell cringes backward even farther, then looks down and furiously resumes his futile work with the batteries and the handful of paper, which is now disappearing into the sweat-grimy tube of his fist.Dont mind em, Parkus says. I sure dont. ruggedly hear em anymore, and thats the truth. Shut up, boys.The parrot falls silent.One heads Sacred, the others Pro cull oute, Parkus says. I keep em around just to remind me that He is interrupted by the sound of approaching foot measurings, and stands up again in a single lithe and easy movement. Jack and Sophie are approaching, holding hands with the perfect unconsciousness of children on their way to school. nimble Jack cries, his face breaking into a grin.Why, Travelin Jack Parkus says, with a grin of his own. Well-met Look at you, sir youre all grown up.Jack mintes forward and throws his arms around Parkus, who hugs him back, and unionily. After a moment, Jack holds Parkus at arms length and studies him. You were older you looked older to me, at least. In both worlds.Still smiling, Parkus nods. And when he speaks again, it is in fast Parkers drawl. Reckon I did look older, Jack. You were just a child, remember.But Parkus waves one hand. Sometimes I look older, sometimes not so old. It all depends on eld is wisdom, one head of the parrot says piously, to which the other responds, You senile old fuck. depends on the place and the circumstances, Parkus concludes, then says And I told you boys to shut up. You keep on, Im apt to wring your scrawny neck. He turns his attention to Sophie, who is looking at him with wide, wondering eyes, as shy as a doe. Sophie, he says. Its wondrous to see you, darling. Didnt I say hed come? And here he is. Took a little longer than I expected, is all.She drops him a deep curtsey, all the way down to one knee, her head bowed. Thankee-sai, she says. induce in peace, gunslinger, and go your course along the Beam with my love.At this, Jack feels an odd, deep chill, as if many worlds had spoken in a charitable footfall, low but resonant. active so Jack still thinks of him takes her hand and urges her to her feet. Stand up, girl, and look me in the eye. Im no gunslinger here, not in the borderlands, even if I do still carry the old iron from time to time. In any case, we have a lot to talk about. Thiss no time for cere mony. add together over the rise with me, you two. We got to make tittle-tattle, as the gunslingers say. Or used to say, before the world moved on. I aspect a good brace of grouse, and think theyll cook up just fine.What about Jack gestures toward the muttering, crouched heap that is Wendell Green.Why, he looks right busy, Parkus says. Told me hes a news hawk.Im afraid hes a little above himself, Jack replies. Old Wendell heres a news vulture.Wendell turns his head a bit. He refuses to lift his eyes, but his lip curls in a sneer that may be more reflexive than real. Heard. That. He struggles. The lip curls again, and this time the sneer seems less reflexive. It is, in fact, a snarl. Gol. Gol. Gol-den boy. Holly. Wood.Hes managed to retain at least some of his charm and his joi de vivre, Jack says. go away he be okay here?Not much with ary sensation in its head comes near the Little Sisters tent, Parkus says. Hell be okay. And if he smells somethin esthetic on the breeze and comes for a look-see, why, I guess we can hunt down him. He turns toward Wendell. Were liberation just over yonder. If you want to come and visit, why, you just up and do her. Understand me, Mr. News Hawk?Wen. Dell. Green.Wendell Green, yessir. Parkus looks at the others. Come on. Lets mosey.We mustnt forget him, Sophie murmurs, with a look back. It will be dark in a few hours.No, Parkus agrees as they top the nearest rise. Wouldnt do to leave him beside that tent after dark. That wouldnt do at all.Theres more foliage in the declivity on the far side of the rise even a little ribbon of creek, presumably on its way to the river Jack can hear in the distance but it still looks more like northern Nevada than western Wisconsin. Yet in a way, Jack thinks, that makes sense. The expiry one had been no usual flip. He feels like a stone that has been skipped all the way across a lake, and as for poor Wendell To the right of where they descend the far side of the draw, a horse has been tethered in the shade of what Jack thinks is a Joshua tree. About twenty yards down the draw to the left is a circle of eroded stones. Inside it a fire, not yet lit, has been carefully laid. Jack doesnt like the look of the place much the stones remind him of ancient teeth. Nor is he alone in his dislike. Sophie bides, her grip on his fingers tightening.Parkus, do we have to go in there? Please say we dont.Parkus turns to her with a kindly smile Jack knows well a Speedy Parker smile for sure.The Speaking Demons been gone from this circle many the long age, darling, he says. And you know that such as yon are best for stories.Yet Nows no time to give in to the willies, Parkus tells her. He speaks with a decode of impatience, and willies isnt precisely the word he uses, but only how Jacks mind translates it. You waited for him to come in the Little Sisters hospital tent Only because she was there on the other side and now I want you to come along. All at once he seems taller to Jack. His eyes flash. Jack thinks A gunslinger. Yes, I suppose he could be a gunslinger. Like in one of Moms old movies, only for real.All right, she says, low. If we must. Then she looks at Jack. I wonder if youd put your arm around me?Jack, we may be sure, is happy to oblige.As they step between two of the stones, Jack seems to hear an ugly twist of whispered words. Among them, one voice is momentarily clear, seeming to leave a trail of slime behind it as it enters his ear Drudge do work drudge, oho the bledding foodzies, soon he cummz, my good mate Mun-shun, and such a appreciate I have for him, oho, oho Jack looks at his old friend as Parkus hunkers by a tow sack and loosens the drawstring at the top. Hes close, isnt he? The pekan. And shadowy House, thats close, too.Yep, Parkus says, and from the sack he spills the gutted corpses of a dozen plump deceased birds. perspectives of Irma Freneau reenter Jacks head at the sight of the grouse, and he thinks he wont be able to e at. Watching as Parkus and Sophie skewer the birds on greensticks reinforces this idea. But after the fire is lit and the birds begin to brown, his stomach weighs in, insisting that the grouse smell wonderful and will probably taste even better. Over here, he remembers, everything always does.And here we are, in the speech production circle, Parkus says. His smiles have been put away for the nonce. He looks at Jack and Sophie, who sit side by side and still holding hands, with somber gravity. His guitar has been propped against a nearby rock. Beside it, Sacred and Profane sleeps with its two heads tucked into its feathers, dreaming its no doubt bifurcated dreams. The Demon may be long gone, but the legends say such things leave a residue that may lighten the tongue.Like kissing the Blarney Stone, perhaps, Jack suggests.Parkus shakes his head. No blarney today.Jack says, If only we were dealing with an ordinary scumbag. That I could handle.Sophie looks at him, puzzled.He means a d ust-off artist, Parkus tells her. A hardcase. He looks at Jack. And in one way, that is what youre dealing with. Carl Bier-stone isnt much an ordinary monster, lets say. Which is not to say he couldnt do with a spot of killing. But as for whats going on in french Landing, he has been used. Possessed, youd say in your world, Jack. taken by the spirits, wed say in the Territories Or brought low by pigs, Sophie adds.Yes. Parkus is nodding. In the world just beyond this borderland Mid-World they would say he has been infested by a demon. But a demon far greater than the poor, tattered spirit that once lived in this circle of stones.Jack hardly hears that. His eyes are glowing. It sounded something like beer stein, George Potter told him know night, a thousand geezerhood ago. Thats not it, but its close.Carl Bierstone, he says. He raises a clenched fist, then shakes it in triumph. That was his name in Chicago. burnside here in French Landing. Case closed, game over, zip up your fly. Where is he, Speedy? Save me some time h Shut . . . up, Parkus says.The tone is low and almost deadly. Jack can feel Sophie shrink against him. He does a little fall himself. This sounds nothing like his old friend, nothing at all. You have to stop thinking of him as Speedy, Jack tells himself. Thats not who he is or ever was. That was just a character he played, someone who could both solace and charm a scared kid on the run with his mother.Parkus turns the birds, which are now browned nicely on one side and cough out juice into the fire.Im sorry to speak harsh to you, Jack, but you have to realize that your Fisherman is pretty small fry compared to whats really going on.Why dont you tell Tansy Freneau hes small fry? Why dont you tell Beezer St. capital of South Dakota?Jack thinks these things, but doesnt say them out loud. Hes more than a little afraid of the light he saw in Parkuss eyes.Nor is it about Twinners, Parkus says. You got to get that idea out of your mind. Th ats just something that has to do with your world and the world of the Territories a link. You cant kill some hardcase over here and end the career of your anthropophagite over there. And if you kill him over there, in Wisconsin, the thing inside will just jump to another host.The thing ?When it was in Albert Fish, Fish called it the Monday Man. crevice youre after calls it Mr. Munshun. Both are only ways of trying to say something that cant be pronounced by any earthly tongue on any earthly world.How many worlds are there, Speedy?Many, Parkus says, looking into the fire. And this vocation concerns every one of them. Why else do you think Ive been after you like I have? Sending you feathers, sending you robins eggs, doing every damned thing I could to make you wake up.Jack thinks of Judy, scratching on walls until the tips of her fingers were bloody, and feels ashamed. Speedy has been doing much the same thing, it seems. Wake up, wake up, you dunderhead, he says.Parkus seems ca ught between censure and a smile. For sure you must have seen me in the case that sent you running out of L.A.Ah, man why do you think I went?You ran like Jonah, when God told him to go preach against the wickedness in Nineveh. Thought I was gonna have to send a whale to come and swallow you up.I feel swallowed, Jack tells him.In a small voice, Sophie says I do, too.Weve all been swallowed, says the man with the gun on his hip. Were in the belly of the beast, like it or not. Its ka, which is destiny and fate. Your Fisherman, Jack, is now your ka. Our ka. This is more than murder. Much more.And Jack sees something that frankly scares the shit out of him. Lester Parker, a.k.a. Speedy, a.k.a. Parkus, is himself scared almost to death.This business concerns the Dark rise, he says.Beside Jack, Sophie gives a low, desperate cry of terror and lowers her head. At the same time she raises one hand and forks the sign of the Evil Eye at Parkus, over and over.That gentleman doesnt seem to t ake it amiss. He simply sets to work spell the birds again on their sticks. Listen to me, now, he says. Listen, and ask as few questions as you can. We still have a chance to get Judy Marshalls son back, but time is blowing in our teeth.Talk, Jack says.Parkus talks. At some point in his tale he judges the birds done and serves them out on flat stones. The meat is tender, almost falling off the small bones. Jack eats hungrily, drinking deep of the sweet water from Parkuss waterskin each time it comes around to him. He wastes no more time comparison dead children to dead grouse. The furnace needs to be stoked, and he stokes it with a will. So does Sophie, eating with her fingers and licking them clean without the slightest reserve or embarrassment. So, in the end, does Wendell Green, although he refuses to enter the circle of old stones. When Parkus tosses him a golden-brown grouse, however, Wendell catches it with remarkable adroitness and buries his face in the moist meat.You aske d how many worlds, Parkus begins. The answer, in the High Speech, is da fan worlds beyond telling. With one of the blackened sticks he draws a figure cardinal on its side, which Jack recognizes as the Greek symbol for infinity.There is a Tower that binds them in place. Think of it as an axle upon which many wheels spin, if you like. And there is an entity that would bring this Tower down. Ram Abbalah.At these words, the flames of the fire seem to momentarily change and turn red. Jack wishes he could believe that this is only a invention of his overstrained mind, but cannot. The colour King, he says.Yes. His physical being is pent in a cell at the top of the Tower, but he has another manifestation, every bit as real, and this lives in Can-tah Abbalah the Court of the Crimson King. ii places at once. Given his journeying between the world of America and the world of the Territories, Jack has little trouble swallowing this concept.Yes.If he or it destroys the Tower, wont that de feat his invention? Wont he destroy his physical being in the process? unspoiled the opposite hell set it free to wander what will then be chaos . . . din-tah . . . the furnace. Some parts of Mid-World have fallen into that furnace already.How much of this do I actually need to know? Jack asks. He is certain that time is fleeting by on his side of the wall, as well.Hard telling what you need to know and what you dont, Parkus says. If I leave out the wrong piece of information, maybe all the stars go dark. Not just here, but in a thousand thousand universes. Thats the pure hell of it. Listen, Jack the King has been trying to destroy the Tower and set himself free for time out of mind. Forever, mayhap. Its slow work, because the Tower is bound in place by crisscrossing force beams that act on it like guy wires. The Beams have held for millennia, and would hold for millennia to come, but in the last two hundred age thats speaking of time as you count it, Jack to you, Sophie, it wo uld be Full-Earth almost fivesome hundred times over So long, she says. Its almost a sigh. So very long.In the great sweep of things, its as short as the gleam of a single match in a dark room. But while good things usually take a long time to develop, evil has a way of popping up matured and ready-made, like Jack out of his box. Ka is a friend to evil as well as to good. It embraces both. And, speaking of Jack . . . Parkus turns to him. Youve heard of the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, of course?Jack nods.On the upper levels of the Tower, there are those who call the last two hundred or so years in your world the Age of Poisoned Thought. That means You dont have to explain it to me, Jack says. I knew Morgan Sloat, remember? I knew what he proposalned for Sophies world. Yes, indeed. The basic plan had been to turn one of the universes sweetest honeycombs into first a vacation spot for the rich, then a source of unskilled labor, and finally a waste pit, probably radioactive. If tha t wasnt an example of poisoned thought, Jack doesnt know what is.Parkus says, Rational beings have always harbored telepaths among their number thats true in all the worlds. But theyre ordinarily rare creatures. Prodigies, you might say. But since the Age of Poisoned Thought came on your world, Jack infested it like a demon such beings have become much more common. Not as common as slow mutants in the Blasted Lands, but common, yes.You speak of mind readers, Sophie says, as if wanting to be sure.Yes, Parkus agrees, but not just mind readers. Precognates. Teleports world jumpers like old Travelin Jack here, in other words and telekinetics. Mind readers are the most common, telekinetics the rarest . . . and the most worth(predicate).To him, you mean, Jack says. To the Crimson King.Yes. Over the last two hundred years or so, the abbalah has spent a good part of his time gathering a crew of telepathic slaves. Most of them come from Earth and the Territories. All of the telekinetics come from Earth. This collection of slaves this gulag is his crowning achievement. We call them ledgeman. They . . . He trails off, thinking. Then Do you know how a galley travels?Sophie nods, but Jack at first has no idea what Parkus is talk of the town about. He has a brief, lunatic vision of a fully equipped kitchen traveling down Route 66.Many oarsmen, Sophie says, then makes a rowing motion that throws her breasts into charming relief.Parkus is nodding. Usually slaves chained together. They From outside the circle, Wendell suddenly sticks his own oar in. Spart. Cus. He pauses, frowning, then tries it again. Spart-a-cus.Whats he on about? Parkus asks, frowning. Any idea, Jack?A movie called Spartacus, Jack says, and youre wrong as usual, Wendell. I believe youre thinking about Ben-Hur.Looking sulky, Wendell holds out his fulsome hands. More. Meat.Parkus pulls the last grouse from its sizzling stick and tosses it between two of the stones, where Wendell sits with his pallid , greasy face peering from between his knees. Fresh prey for the news hawk, he says. Now do us a favor and shut up.Or. What. The old resistive gleam is rising in Wendells eyes.Parkus draws his shooting iron partway from its holster. The grip, made of sandalwood, is worn, but the barrel gleams murder- fulgid. He has to say no more holding his second bird in one hand, Wendell Green hitches up his robe and hies himself back over the rise. Jack is extremely relieved to see him go. Spartacus indeed, he thinks, and snorts.So the Crimson King wants to use these Breakers to destroy the Beams, Jack says. Thats it, isnt it? Thats his plan.You speak as though of the future, Parkus says mildly. This is happening now, Jack. Only look at your own world if you want to see the ongoing disintegration. Of the six Beams, only one still holds true. Two others still generate some holding power. The other three are dead. One of these went out thousands of years ago, in the ordinary course of things. Th e others . . . killed by the Breakers. All in two centuries or less.Christ, Jack says. He is beginning to understand how Speedy could call the Fisherman small-fry.The trade of protecting the Tower and the Beams has always belonged to the ancient war guild of Gilead, called gunslingers in this world and many others. They also generated a sizeable psychic force, Jack, one fully capable of countering the Crimson Kings Breakers, but The gunslingers are all gone save for one, Sophie says, looking at the big pistol on Parkuss hip. And, with half-hearted hope Unless you really are one, too, Parkus.Not I, darling, he says, but theres more than one.I thought Roland was the last. So the stories say.He has made at least three others, Parkus tells her. Ive no idea how that can be possible, but I believe it to be true. If Roland were still alone, the Breakers would have toppled the Tower long since. But with the force of these others added to his I have no clue what youre lecture about, Ja ck says. I did, sort of, but you lost me about two turns back.Theres no need for you to understand it all in order to do your ruminate, Parkus says.Thank God for that.As for what you do need to understand, leave galleys and oarsmen and think in terms of the Western movies your mother used to make. To begin with, surmise a fort in the desert.This Dark Tower you keep talking about. Thats the fort.Yes. And surrounding the fort, instead of wild Indians The Breakers. Led by Big chief(prenominal) Abbalah.Sophie murmurs The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, fashioning all the money.Jack feels a light but singularly unpleasant chill shake up his spine he thinks of rat paws scuttering over broken glass. What? Why do you say that?Sophie looks at him, flushes, shakes her head, looks down. Its what she says, sometimes. Judy. Its how I hear her, sometimes.Parkus seizes one of the charred greensticks and draws in the rocky dust beside the figure-eigh t shape. Fort here. Marauding Indians here, led by their merciless, evil and most likely insane chief. But over here Off to the left, he draws a harsh arrow in the dirt. It points at the rudimentary shapes indicating the fort and the besieging Indians. What always arrives at the last moment in all the best Lily Cavanaugh Westerns?The cavalry, Jack says. Thats us, I suppose.No, Parkus says. His tone is patient, but Jack suspects it is costing him a great effort to watch that tone. The cavalry is Roland of Gilead and his new gunslingers. Or so those of us who want the Tower to stand or to fall in its own time dare hope. The Crimson King hopes to hold Roland back, and to finish the job of destroying the Tower while he and his band are still at a distance. That means gathering all the Breakers he can, especially the telekinetics.Is Tyler Marshall nab interrupting. This is difficult generous without that.You used to be a hell of a lot cheerier, Speedy, Jack says reproachfully. For a moment he thinks his old friend is going to give him another tongue-lashing or perhaps even lose his temper completely and turn him into a frog but Parkus relaxes a little, and utters a laugh.Sophie looks up, relieved, and gives Jacks hand a squeeze.Oh, well, maybe youre right to buck on my cord a little, Parkus says. Gettin all wound up wont help anything, will it? He touches the big iron on his hip. I wouldnt be affect if wearin this thing has given me a few delusions of grandeur.Its a step or two up from amusement-park janitor, Jack allows.In both the rule book your world, Jack and the Book of Good Farming yours, Sophie dear theres a record that goes something like ?For in my kingdom there are many mansions. Well, in the Court of the Crimson King there are many monsters.Jack hears a short, hard laugh bolt out of his mouth. His old friend has made a typically tasteless policemans joke, it seems.They are the Kings courtiers . . . his knights-errant. They have all so rts of tasks, I imagine, but in these last years their chief job has been to find intellectual Breakers. The more talented the Breaker, the greater the reward.Theyre headhunters, Jack murmurs, and doesnt realize the resonance of the term until its out of his mouth. He has used it in the business sense, but of course there is another, more literal meaning. Headhunters are cannibals.Yes, Parkus agrees. And they have mortal subcontractors, who work for . . . one doesnt like to say for the joy of it, but what else could we call it?Jack has a nightmarish vision then a cartoon Albert Fish standing on a New York paving with a sign reading WILL WORK FOR FOOD. He tightens his arm around Sophie. Her blue eyes turn to him, and he looks into them gladly. They soothe him.How many Breakers did Albert Fish send his pal Mr. Monday? Jack wants to know. Two? quartette? A dozen? And do they die off, at least, so the abbalah has to substitute them?They dont, Parkus replies gravely. They are kept in a place a basement, yes, or a cavern where there is essentially no time.Purgatory. Christ.And it doesnt matter. Albert Fish is long gone. Mr. Monday is now Mr. Munshun. The deal Mr. Munshun has with your killer is a simple one this Burnside can kill and eat all the children he wants, as long as they are untalented children. If he should find any who are talented any Breakers they are to be turned over to Mr. Munshun at once.Who will take them to the abbalah, Sophie murmurs.Thats right, Parkus says.Jack feels that hes back on relatively hearty ground, and is extremely glad to be there. Since Tyler hasnt been killed, he must be talented. ?Talented is hardly the word. Tyler Marshall is, potentially, one of the two most powerful Breakers in all the history of all the worlds. If I can briefly go across to the analogy of the fort surrounded by Indians, then we could say that the Breakers are like fire arrows shot over the walls . . . a new kind of warfare. But Tyler Marshall is no s imple fire arrow. Hes more like a guided missile.Or a nuclear weapon.Sophie says, I dont know what that is.You dont want to, Jack replies. Believe me.He looks down at the scribble of drawings in the dirt. Is he surprised that Tyler should be so powerful? No, not really. Not after experiencing the aura of strength surrounding the boys mother. Not after meeting Judys Twinner, whose plain dress and manner cant conceal a character that strikes him as almost regal. Shes beautiful, but he senses that beauty is one of the least important things about her.Jack? Parkus asks him. You all right? Theres no time to be anythin else, his tone suggests.Give me a minute, Jack says.We dont have much t That has been made perfectly clear to me, Jack says, sour off the words, and he feels Sophie shift in surprise at his tone of voice. Now give me a minute. Let me do my job.From beneath a ruffle of green feathers, one of the parrots heads mutters God loves the poor laborer. The other replies Is that wh y he made so fucking many of them?All right, Jack, Parkus says, and cocks his head up at the sky.Okay, what have we got here? Jack thinks. Weve got a valuable little boy, and the Fisherman knows hes valuable. But this Mr. Munshun doesnt have him yet, or Speedy wouldnt be here. Deduction?Sophie, looking at him anxiously. Parkus, still looking up into the harmless blue sky above this borderland between the Territories what Judy Marshall calls far and the Whatever Comes Next. Jacks mind is ticking faster now, picking up focal ratio like an express train leaving the station. He is aware that the black man with the bald head is watching the sky for a certain malevolent crow. He is aware that the fair-skinned woman beside him is looking at him with the sort of fascination that could become love, given world enough and time. Mostly, though, hes lost in his own thoughts. They are the thoughts of a coppiceman.Now Bierstones Burnside, and hes old. Old and not doing so well in the cogniti on department these days. I think maybe hes gotten caught between what he wants, which is to keep Tyler for himself, and what hes promised this Munshun guy. Somewhere theres a fuddled, creaky, dangerous mind trying to make itself up. If he decides to kill Tyler and stick him in the stewpot like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, thats bad for Judy and Fred. Not to mention Tyler, who may already have seen things that would drive a Marine combat vet insane. If the Fisherman turns the boy over to Mr. Munshun, its bad for everyone in creation. No wonder Speedy said time was blowing in our teeth.You knew this was coming, didnt you? he says. Both of you. You must have. Because Judy knew. Shes been weird for months, long before the murders started.Parkus shifts and looks away, uncomfortable. I knew something was coming, yes there have been great disruptions on this side but I was on other business. And Sophie cant cross. She came here with the evanescent men and will go back the same way w hen our palavers done.Jack turns to her. You are who my mother once was. Im sure of it. He supposes he isnt being entirely clear about this, but he cant help it his mind is trying to go in too many directions at once. Youre Laura DeLoessians successor. The Queen of this world.Now Sophie is the one who looks uncomfortable. I was nobody in the great proposal of things, really I wasnt, and that was the way I liked it. What I did mostly was write letters of commendation and thank people for coming to see me . . . only in my official capacity, I always said ?us. I enjoyed walking, and sketching flowers, and cataloging them. I enjoyed hunting. Then, due to bad luck, bad times, and bad behavior, I implant myself the last of the royal line. Queen of this world, as you say. Married once, to a good and simple man, but my Fred Marshall died and left me alone. Sophie the Barren.Dont, Jack says. He is surprised at how deeply it hurts him to hear her refer to herself in this bitter, joking way .Were you not single-natured, Jack, your Twinner would be my cousin.She turns her slim fingers so that now she is gripping him instead of the other way around. When she speaks again, her voice is low and passionate. Put all the great matters aside. All I know is that Tyler Marshall is Judys child, that I love her, that Id not see her hurt for all the worlds that are. Hes the closest thing to a child of my own that Ill ever have. These things I know, and one other that youre the only one who can save him.Why? He has sensed this, of course why else in Gods name is he here? but that doesnt lessen his bewilderment. Why me?Because you fey the Talisman. And although some of its power has left you over the years, much still remains.Jack thinks of the lilies Speedy left for him in Dales bathroom. How the smell lingered on his hands even after he had given the bouquet itself to Tansy. And he remembers how the Talisman looked in the murmuring darkness of the Queens Pavilion, rising brightl y, changing everything before it finally vanished.He thinks Its still changing everything.Parkus. Is it the first time hes called the other man the other coppiceman by that name? He doesnt know for sure, but he thinks it may be.Yes, Jack.Whats left of the Talisman is it enough? Enough for me to take on this Crimson King?Parkus looks shocked in spite of himself. never in your life, Jack. Never in any life. The abbalah would blow you out like a candle. But it may be enough for you to take on Mr. Munshun to go into the furnace-lands and bring Tyler out.There are machines, Sophie says. She looks caught in some dark and unhappy dream. personnel casualty machines and black machines, all lost in smoke. There are great belts and children without number upon them. They trudge and trudge, turning the belts that turn the machines. take in in the foxholes. Down in the ratholes where the sun never shines. Down in the great caverns where the furnace-lands lie.Jack is shaken to the bottom of his mind and spirit. He finds himself thinking of Dickens not Bleak House but Oliver Twist. And, of course he thinks of his conversation with Transy Freneau. At least Irmas not there, he thinks. Not in the furnace-lands, not she. She got dead, and a mean old man ate her leg. Tyler, though . . . Tyler . . .They trudge until their feet bleed, he mutters. And the way there . . . ?I think you know it, Parkus says. When you find Black House, youll find your way to the furnace-lands . . . the machines . . . Mr. Munshun . . . and Tyler.The boy is alive. Youre sure of that.Yes. Parkus and Sophie speak together.And where is Burnside now? That information might speed things up a bit.I dont know, Parkus says.Christ, if you know who he was That was the fingerprints, Parkus says. The fingerprints on the telephone. Your first real idea about the case. The Wisconsin country Police got the Bierstone name back from the FBIs VICAP database. You have the Burnside name. That should be enough.Wiscon sin pronounce Police, FBI, VICAP, database these terms come out in good old American English, and in this place they sound unpleasant and foreign to Jacks ear.How do you know all that?I have my sources in your world I keep my ear to the ground. As you know from personal experience. And surely youre cop enough to do the rest on your own.Judy thinks you have a friend who can help, Sophie says unexpectedly.Dale? Dale Gilbertson? Jack finds this a little hard to believe, but he supposes Dale may have uncovered something.I dont know the name. Judy thinks hes like many here in Faraway. A man who sees much because he sees nothing.Not Dale, after all. Its Henry shes talking about.Parkus rises to his feet. The heads of the parrot come up, revealing four bright eyes. Sacred and Profane flutters up to his shoulder and settles there. I think our palaver is done, Parkus says. It must be done. Are you ready to go back, my friend?Yes. And I suppose I better take Green, little as I want to. I dont think hed last long here.As you say.Jack and Sophie, still holding hands, are halfway up the rise when Jack realizes Parkus is still standing in the speaking circle with his parrot on his shoulder. Arent you coming?Parkus shakes his head. We go different ways now, Jack. I may see you again.If I survive, Jack thinks. If any of us survive.Meantime, go your course. And be true.Sophie drops another deep curtsey. Sai.Parkus nods to her and gives Jack Sawyer a little salute. Jack turns and leads Sophie back to the ruined hospital tent, wondering if he will ever see Speedy Parker again.Wendell Green ace reporter, fearless investigator, explicator of good and evil to the great unwashed sits in his former place, holding the crumpled foolscap in one hand and the batteries in the other. He has resumed muttering, and barely looks up when Sophie and Jack approach.Youll do your best, wont you? Sophie asks. For her.And for you, Jack says. Listen to me, now. If this were to end with all of us st ill standing . . . and if I were to come back here . . . He finds he can say no more. Hes appalled at his temerity. This is a queen, after all. A queen. And hes . . . what? Trying to ask her for a date?Perhaps, she says, looking at him with her energize blue eyes. Perhaps.Is it a perhaps you want? he asks softly.Yes.He bends and brushes his lips over hers. Its brief, barely a kiss at all. It is also the best kiss of his life.I feel like fainting, she tells him when he straightens up again.Dont joke with me, Sophie.She takes his hand and presses it against the underswell of her left breast. He can feel her heart pounding. Is this a joke? If she were to run faster, shed catch her feet and fall. She lets him go, but he holds his hand where it is a moment longer, palm curved against that springing warmth.Id come with you if I could, she says.I know that.He looks at her, knowing if he doesnt get moving now, right away, he never will. Its wanting not to leave her, but thats not all. The truth is that hes never been more frightened in his life. He searches for something routine to bring him back to earth to slow the pounding of his own heart and finds the perfect object in the muttering creature that is Wendell Green. He drops to one knee. Are you ready, big boy? Want to take a charge up on the mighty Mississip?Dont. Touch. Me. And then, in a nearly poetic rush Fucking Hollywood assholeBelieve me, if I didnt have to, I wouldnt. And I plan to wash my hands just as soon as I get the chance.He looks up at Sophie and sees all the Judy in her. All the beauty in her. I love you, he says.Before she can reply, he seizes Wendells hand, closes his eyes, and flips.