“We are uffis,” said the man on the right.“Do you ken uffis, Roland?”

“Yes,” he said, and then, in an aside toSusannah: “It’s an old word… ancient, in fact. He claims they’reshape-changers.” To this he added in a much lower voice that could surely notbe heard over the roar of the river: “I doubt it’s true.”

“Yet it is,” said the one on the right,pleasantly enough.

“Liars see their own kind everywhere,” observedthe one on the left, and rolled a cynical blue eye. Just one. Susannah didn’tbelieve she had ever seen a person roll just one eye before.

The one behind said nothing, only continuedto stand and watch with his hands clasped before him.

“We can take any shape we like,” continuedthe one on the right, “but our orders were to assume that of someone you’drecognize and trust.”

“I’d not trust sai King much further than Icould throw his heaviest grandfather,” Roland remarked. “As troublesome as atrousers-eating goat, that one.”

“We did the best we could,” said therighthand Stephen King. “We could have taken the shape of Eddie Dean, but feltthat might be too painful to the lady.”

“The ‘lady’ looks as if she’d be happy tofuck a rope, could she make it stand up between her thighs,” remarked theleft-hand Stephen King, and leered.

“Uncalled-for,” said the one behind, hewith his hands crossed in front of him. He spoke in the mild tones of a contestreferee. Susannah almost expected him to sentence Badmouth King to five minutesin the penalty box. She wouldn’t have minded, either, for hearing Badmouth Kingcrack wise hurt her heart; it reminded her of Eddie.

Roland ignored all the byplay.

“Could the three of you take threedifferent shapes?” he inquired of Goodmouth King. Susannah heard the gunslingerswallow quite audibly before asking this question, and knew she wasn’t the onlyone struggling to keep from drooling over the smells from the food-basket.“Could one of you have been sai King, one sai Kennedy, and one sai Nixon, forinstance?”

“A good question,” said Goodmouth King onthe right.

“A stupid question,” said Badmouth King onthe left. “Nothing at all to the point. Off we go into the wild blue yonder. Ohwell, was there ever an action hero who was an intellectual?”

“Prince Hamlet of Denmark,” said RefereeKing quietly from behind them. “But since he’s the only one who comesimmediately to mind, he may be no more than the exception that proves therule.”

Goodmouth and Badmouth both turned to lookat him. When it was clear that he was done, they turned back to Roland andSusannah.

“Since we’re actually one being,” saidGoodmouth, “and of fairly limited capabilities at that, the answer is no. Wecould all be Kennedy, or we could all be Nixon, but—”

“ ‘Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but neverjam today,’” said Susannah. She had no idea why this had popped into her head(even less why she should have said it out loud), but Referee King said“Exactly!” and gave her a go-to-the-head-of-the-class nod.

“Move on, for your father’s sake,” saidBadmouth King on the left. “I can barely look at these traitors to the Lord ofthe Red wi’out puking.”

“Very well,” said his partner. “Althoughcalling them traitors seems rather unfair, at least if one adds ka to theequation. Since the names we give ourself would be unpronounceable toyou—”

“Like Superman’s rival, Mr. Mxyzptlk,” saidBadmouth.

“—you may as well use those Los’used. Him being the one you call the Crimson King. I’m ego, roughly speaking,and go by the name of Feemalo. This fellow beside me is Fumalo. He’s our id.”

“So the one behind you must be Fimalo,”Susannah said, pronouncing it Fie-ma-lo. “What’s he, your superego?”

“Oh brilliant!” Fumalo exclaimed. “I betyou can even say Freud so it doesn’t rhyme with lewd!” He leaned forward andgave her his knowing leer. “But can you spell it, you shor’-leg New Yorkblackbird?”

“Don’t mind him,” said Feemalo, “he’salways been threatened by women.”

“Are you Stephen King’s ego, id, andsuperego?” Susannah asked.

“What a good question!” Feemalo saidapprovingly.

“What a dumb question!” Fumalo said,disapprovingly. “Did your parents have any kids that lived, Blackbird?”

“You don’t want to start in playing thedozens with me,” Susannah said, “I’ll bring out Detta Walker and shut youdown.”

Referee King said, “I have nothing to dowith sai King other than having appropriated some of his physicalcharacteristics for a short time. And I understand that short time is reallyall the time you have. I have no particular love for your cause and nointention of going out of my way to help you—not far out of myway, at least—and yet I understand that you two are largely responsiblefor the departure of Los’. Since he kept me prisoner and treated me as littlemore than his court jester—or even his pet monkey—I’m not at allsorry to see him go. I’d help you if I can—a little, at least—butno, I won’t go out of my way to do so. ‘Let’s get that up front,’ as your latefriend Eddie Dean might have said.”

Susannah tried not to wince at this, but ithurt. It hurt.

As before, Feemalo and Fumalo had turned tolook at Fimalo when he spoke. Now they turned back to Roland and Susannah.

“Honesty’s the best policy,” said Feemalo,with a pious look. “Cervantes.”

“Liars prosper,” said Fumalo, with acynical grin. “Anonymous.”

Feemalo said, “There were times when Los’would make us divide into six, or even seven, and for no other reason thanbecause it hurt. Yet we could leave no more than anyone else in thecastle could, for he’d set a dead-line around its walls.”

“We thought he’d kill us all before heleft,” Fumalo said, and with none of his previous fuck-you cynicism. His facewore the long and introspective expression of one who looks back on a disasterperhaps averted by mere inches.

Feemalo: “He did kill a great many.Beheaded his Minister of State.”

Fumalo: “Who had advanced syphilis and nomore idea what was happening to him than a pig in a slaughterhouse chute,more’s the pity.”

Feemalo: “He lined up the kitchen staff andthe women o’ work—”

Fumalo: “All of whom had been very loyal tohim, very loyal indeed—”

Feemalo: “And made them take poison as theystood in front of him. He could have killed them in their sleep if he’d wantedto—”

Fumalo: “And by no more than wishing it onthem.”

Feemalo: “But instead he made them takepoison. Rat poison. They swallowed large brown chunks of it and died inconvulsions right in front of him as he sat on his throne—”

Fumalo: “Which is made of skulls, do yeken—”

Feemalo: “He sat there with his elbow onhis knee and his fist on his chin, like a man thinking long thoughts, perhapsabout squaring the circle or finding the Ultimate Prime Number, all the whilewatching them writhe and vomit and convulse on the floor of the AudienceChamber.”

Fumalo (with a touch of eagerness Susannahfound both prurient and extremely unattractive): “Some died begging forwater. It was a thirsty poison, aye! And we thought we werenext!”

At this Feemalo at last betrayed, if notanger, then a touch of pique. “Will you let me tell this and have done with itso they can go on or back as they please?”

“Bossy as ever,” Fumalo said, and droppedinto a sulky silence. Above them, the Castle Rooks jostled for position andlooked down with beady eyes. No doubt hoping to make a meal of those whodon’t walk away, Susannah thought.

“He had six of the surviving Wizard’sGlasses,” Feemalo said. “And when you were still in Calla Bryn Sturgis, he sawsomething in them that finished the job of running him mad. We don’t know forsure what it was, for we didn’t see, but we have an idea it was your victorynot just in the Calla but further on, at Algul Siento. If so, it meant the endof his scheme to bring down the Tower from afar, by breaking the Beams.”