Eddie had no idea what the t-word might be,but knew Roland wanted to get going. He could feel the gunslinger’s impatiencein his head; could almost see Roland’s impatient finger-twirling gesture, theone that meant Let’s go, let’s go.

“I’m talking ‘bout terrorism,” the powerguy said, then lowered his voice. “People don’t think shit like that can happenin America, buddy, but I got news for you, it can. If not today, then sooner orlater. Someone’s gonna blow up the Statue of Liberty or the Empire StateBuilding, that’s what I think—the right-wingers, the left-wingers, or thegoddam A-rabs. Too many crazy people.”

Eddie, who had a nodding acquaintance withten more years of history than this fellow, nodded. “You’re probably right. Inany case, thanks for the info.”

“Just tryin to save you some time.” And, asEddie opened the driver’s-side door of John Cullum’s Ford sedan: “You been in afight, mister? You look kinda bunged up. Also you’re limping.”

Eddie had been in a fight, all right: hadbeen grooved in the arm and plugged in the right calf. Neither wound wasserious, and in the forward rush of events he had nearly forgotten them. Nowthey hurt all over again. Why in God’s name had he turned down Aaron Deepneau’sbottle of Percocet tablets?

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s why I’m going toLovell. Guy’s dog bit me. He and I are going to have a talk about it.” Bizarrestory, didn’t have much going for it in the way of plot, but he was no writer.That was King’s job. In any case, it was good enough to get him back behind thewheel of Cullum’s Ford Galaxie before the power guy could ask him any morequestions, and Eddie reckoned that made it a success. He drove away quickly.

“You got directions?” Roland asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Everything’s breaking at once,Eddie. We have to get to Susannah as fast as we can. Jake and Pere Callahan,too. And the baby’s coming, whatever it is. May have come already.”

Turn right when you get back out toKansas Road, the power guy had told Eddie (Kansas as in Dorothy, Toto, andAuntie Em, everything breaking at once), and he did. That put them rollingnorth. The sun had gone behind the trees on their left, throwing the two-laneblacktop entirely into shadow. Eddie had an almost palpable sense of timeslipping through his fingers like some fabulously expensive cloth that was toosmooth to grip. He stepped on the gas and Cullum’s old Ford, although wheezy inthe valves, walked out a little. Eddie got it up to fifty-five and pegged itthere. More speed might have been possible, but Kansas Road was both twisty andbadly maintained.

Roland had taken a sheet of notepaper fromhis shirt pocket, unfolded it, and was now studying it (although Eddie doubtedif the gunslinger could actually read much of the document; this world’swritten words would always be mostly mystery to him). At the top of the paper,above Aaron Deepneau’s rather shaky but perfectly legible handwriting (andCalvin Tower’s all-important signature), was a smiling cartoon beaver and thewords DAM IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO. A silly pun if ever there was one.

I don’t like silly questions, I won’tplay silly games, Eddie thought, and suddenly grinned. It was a point ofview to which Roland still held, Eddie felt quite sure, notwithstanding thefact that, while riding Blaine the Mono, their lives had been saved by a fewwell-timed silly questions. Eddie opened his mouth to point out that what mightwell turn out to be the most important document in the history of theworld—more important than the Magna Carta or the Declaration ofIndependence or Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—was headed by adumb pun, and how did Roland like them apples? Before he could get out a singleword, however, the wave struck.

Two

His foot slipped off the gas pedal, andthat was good. If it had stayed on, both he and Roland would surely have beeninjured, maybe killed. When the wave came, staying in control of John Cullum’sFord Galaxie dropped all the way off Eddie Dean’s list of priorities. It waslike that moment when the roller coaster has reached the top of its firstmountain, hesitates a moment… tilts… plunges… and you fall with a suddenblast of hot summer air in your face and a pressure against your chest and yourstomach floating somewhere behind you.

In that moment Eddie saw everything inCullum’s car had come untethered and was floating—pipe ashes, two pensand a paperclip from the dashboard, Eddie’s dinh, and, he realized, his dinh’ska-mai, good old Eddie Dean. No wonder he had lost his stomach! (He wasn’taware that the car itself, which had drifted to a stop at the side of the road,was also floating, tilting lazily back and forth five or six inches above theground like a small boat on an invisible sea.)

Then the tree-lined country road was gone.Bridgton was gone. The world was gone. There was the sound of todash chimes,repulsive and nauseating, making him want to grit his teeth in protest… excepthis teeth were gone, too.

Three

Like Eddie, Roland had a clear sense ofbeing first lifted and then hung, like something that had lostits ties to Earth’s gravity. He heard the chimes and felt himself elevatedthrough the wall of existence, but he understood this wasn’t realtodash—at least not of the sort they’d experienced before. This was verylikely what Vannay called aven kal, words which meant lifted on thewind or carried on the wave. Only the kal form, instead ofthe more usual kas, indicated a natural force of disastrous proportions:not a wind but a hurricane; not a wave but a tsunami.

The very Beam means to speak to you,Gabby, Vannay said in his mind—Gabby, the old sarcastic nicknameVannay had adopted because Steven Deschain’s boy was so close-mouthed. Hislimping, brilliant tutor had stopped using it (probably at Cort’s insistence)the year Roland had turned eleven. You would do well to listen if it does.

I will listen very well, Rolandreplied, and was dropped. He gagged, weightless and nauseated.

More chimes. Then, suddenly, he wasfloating again, this time above a room filled with empty beds. One look wasenough to assure him that this was where the Wolves brought the children theykidnapped from the Borderland Callas. At the far end of the room—

A hand grasped his arm, a thing Rolandwould have thought impossible in this state. He looked to his left and sawEddie beside him, floating naked. They were both naked, their clothes leftbehind in the writer’s world.

Roland had already seen what Eddie waspointing to. At the far end of the room, a pair of beds had been pushedtogether. A white woman lay on one of them. Her legs—the very onesSusannah had used on their todash visit to New York, Roland had no doubt—werespread wide. A woman with the head of a rat—one of the taheen, he feltsure—bent between them.

Next to the white woman was a dark-skinnedone whose legs ended just below the knees. Floating naked or not, nauseated ornot, todash or not, Roland had never in his life been so glad to see anyone.And Eddie felt the same. Roland heard him cry out joyfully in the center of hishead and reached a hand to still the younger man. He had to still him,for Susannah was looking at them, had almost certainly seen them, and if shespoke to them, he needed to hear every word she said. Because although thosewords would come from her mouth, it would very likely be the Beam that spoke;the Voice of the Bear or that of the Turtle.

Both women wore metal hoods over theirhair. A length of segmented steel hose connected them.

Some kind of Vulcan mind-meld, Eddiesaid, once again filling the center of his head and blotting out everythingelse. Or maybe—

Hush! Roland broke in. Hush,Eddie, for your father’s sake!