When she spoke again, she worked very hardto sound calm, and thought she succeeded tolerably well. “It’s something fromthat crack in the earth, do you think?”

“It might be,” Roland said. “Or it might besomething that got through from todash space. Now hush.”

The gunslinger went on more quickly,finally reaching jogging pace and then passing it. She was amazed by hismobility now that the pain that had troubled his hip was gone, but she couldhear his breathing as well as feel it in the rise and fall of hisback—quick, gasping intakes followed by rough expulsions that soundedalmost like cries of annoyance. She would have given anything to be runningbeside him on her own legs, the strong ones Jack Mort had stolen from her.

The overhead globes pulsed faster now, thepulsation easier to see because there were fewer of them. In between, theircombined shadow would stretch long ahead of them, then shorten little by littleas they approached the next light. The air was cooler; the ceramic stuff whichfloored the passage less and less even. In places it had split apart and piecesof it had been tossed aside, leaving traps for the unwary. These Oy avoidedwith ease, and so far Roland had been able to avoid them, too.

She was about to tell him that she hadn’theard their follower for awhile when something behind them pulled in a greatgasping breath. She felt the air around her reverse direction; felt the tightcurls on her head spring wildly about as the air was sucked backward. There wasan enormous slobbering noise that made her feel like screaming. Whatever wasback there, it was big.

No.

Enormous.

Eleven

They pelted down another of those shortstairways. Fifty yards beyond it, three more of the pulsing globes bloomed withunsteady light, but after that there was just darkness. The ragged tiled sidesof the passage and its uneven, decaying floor melted into a void so deep thatit looked like a physical substance: great clouds of loosely packed black felt.They would run into it, she thought, and at first their momentum would continueto carry them forward. Then the stuff would shove them backward like a spring,and whatever was back there would be on them. She would catch a glimpse of it,something so awful and alien her mind would not be able to recognize it, andthat might be a mercy. Then it would pounce, and—

Roland ran into the darkness withoutslowing, and of course they did not bounce back. At first there was a littlelight, some from behind them and some from the globes overhead (a few werestill giving off a last dying core of radiance). Just enough to see anothershort stairway, its upper end flanked by crumbling skeletons wearing a fewwretched rags of clothing. Roland hurried down the steps—there were ninein this flight—without stopping. Oy ran at his side, ears back againsthis skull, fur rippling sleekly, almost dancing his way down. Then they were inpure dark.

“Bark, Oy, so we don’t run into eachother!” Roland snapped. “Bark!”

Oy barked. A thirty-count later, he snappedthe same order and Oy barked again.

“Roland, what if we come to anotherstairway?”

“We will,” he said, and a ninety-countafter that, they did. She felt him tip forward, feet stuttering. She felt themuscles in his shoulders jump as he put his hands out before him, but they didnot fall. Susannah could only marvel at his reflexes. His boots rappedunhesitatingly downward in the dark. Twelve steps this time? Fourteen? Theywere back on the flat surface of the passageway before she could get a goodcount. So now she knew he was capable of negotiating stairs even in the dark,even at a dead run. Only what if he stuck his foot in a hole? God knew it waspossible, given the way the flooring had rotted. Or suppose they came to astacked bone-barrier of skeletons? In the flat passageway, at the speed he wasnow running, that would mean a nasty tumble at the very least. Or suppose theyran into a jumble of bones at the head of one of the little stairways? Shetried to block the vision of Roland swooping out into blackness like a crippledhigh-diver and couldn’t quite do it. How many of their bones would bebroken when they crash-landed at the bottom? Shit, sugar, pick a number,Eddie might have said. This flat-out run was insanity.

But there was no choice. She could hear thething behind them all too clearly now, not just its slobbering breath but asandpapery rasping sound as something slid across one of the passagewaywalls—or maybe both. Every now and then she’d also hear a clink and aclitter as a tile was torn off. It was impossible not to construct a picturefrom these sounds, and what Susannah began to see was a great black worm whosesegmented body filled the passage from side to side, occasionally ripping offloose ceramic squares and crushing them beneath its gelatinous body as itrushed ever onward, hungry, closing the gap between it and them.

And closing it much more rapidly now.Susannah thought she knew why. Before, they had been running in a moving islandof light. Whatever that thing behind them was, it didn’t like the light. Shethought of the flashlight Roland had added to their gunna, but without fresh batteries,it would be next to useless. Twenty seconds after flicking the switch on itslong barrel, the damn thing would be dead.

Except… wait a minute.

Its barrel.

Its long barrel!

Susannah reached into the leather bagbouncing around at Roland’s side, finding tins of food, but those weren’t thetins she wanted. At last she found one that she did, recognizing it by thecircular gutter running around the lid. There was no time to wonder why itshould feel so immediately and intimately familiar; Detta had her secrets, andsomething to do with Sterno was probably one of them. She held the can up tosmell and be sure, then promptly bashed herself on the bridge of the nose withit when Roland stumbled over something—maybe a chunk of flooring, maybeanother skeleton—and had to battle again for balance. He won this time,too, but eventually he’d lose and the thing back there might be on them beforehe could get up. Susannah felt warm blood begin to course down her face and thething behind them, perhaps smelling it, let loose an enormous damp cry. Shethought of a gigantic alligator in a Florida swamp, raising its scaly head tobay at the moon. And it was so close.

Oh dear God give me time, shethought. I don’t want to go like this, getting shot’s one thing, but gettingeaten alive in the dark—

That was another.

“Go faster!” she snarled at Roland,and thumped at his sides with her thighs, like a rider urging on a weary horse.

Somehow, Roland did. His respiration wasnow an agonized roar. He had not breathed so even after dancing the commala. Ifhe kept on, his heart would burst in his chest. But—

“Faster, Tex! Let it all out,goddammit! I might have a trick up my sleeve, but in the meantime you give itevery-damn-everything you got!”

And there in the dark beneath CastleDiscordia, Roland did.

Twelve

She plunged her free hand once more intothe bag and it closed on the flashlight’s barrel. She pulled it out and tuckedit under her arm (knowing if she dropped it they were gone for sure), thensnapped back the tab-release on the Sterno can, relieved to hear the momentaryhiss as the vacuum-seal broke. Relieved but not surprised—if the seal hadbeen broken, the flammable jelly inside would have evaporated long ago and thecan would have been lighter.

“Roland!” she shouted. “Roland, I needmatches!”

“Shirt… pocket!” he panted. “Reach forthem!”

But first she dropped the flashlight intothe seam where her crotch met the middle of his back, then snatched it up justbefore it could slide away. Now, with a good hold on it, she plunged the barrelinto the can of Sterno. To grab one of the matches while holding the can andthe jelly-coated flashlight would have taken a third hand, so she jettisonedthe can. There were two others in the bag, but if this didn’t work she’d neverhave a chance to reach for one of them.