not shoot with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father."
At that last one, Roland had taken Eddie's hand in the gloom (for the shades had been drawn) and squeezed it. "Aye,
Eddie, you say true. Will you open your eyes and see my face, dear?"
But Eddie hadn't opened his eyes. Instead, chilling Jake's heart more deeply yet, the young man who now wore a useless bandage about his head had murmured, "All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one."
After that there was nothing intelligible for awhile, only that ceaseless muttering. Jake had refilled the basin of water, and when he had come back, Roland saw his drawn white face and told him he could go.
"But-"
"Go on and go, sugarbunch," Susannah said. "Only be careful.
Might still be some of em out there, looking for payback."
"But how will I-"
"I'll call you when it's time," Roland said, and tapped Jake's temple with one of the remaining fingers on his right hand.
"You'll hear me."
Jake had wanted to kiss Eddie before leaving, but he was afraid. Not that he might catch death like a cold-he knew better than that-but afraid that even the touch of his lips might be enough to push Eddie into the clearing at the end of the path.
And then Susannah might blame him.
SIX
Outside in the hallway, Dinky asked him how it was going.
"Real bad," Jake said. "Do you have another cigarette?"
Dinky raised his eyebrows but gave Jake a smoke. The boy tamped it on his thumbnail, as he'd seen the gunslinger do with tailor-made smokes, then accepted a light and inhaled deeply.
The smoke still burned, but not so harshly as the first time. His head only swam a little and he didn't cough. Pretty soon I'll be a natural, he thought. If I ever make it back to New York, maybe I can go to work for the Network, in my Dad's department. I'm already getting good at The Kill.
He lifted the cigarette in front of his eyes, a little white missile with smoke issuing from the top instead of the bottom. The word CAMEL was written just below the filter. "I told myself I'd never do this," Jake told Dinky. "Never in life. And here I am with one in my hand." He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, an adult laugh, and the sound of it coming out of his mouth made him shiver.
"I used to work for this guy before I came here," Dinky said.
"Mr. Sharpton, his name was. He used to tell me that never's the word God listens for when he needs a laugh."
Jake made no reply. He was thinking of how Eddie had talked about the rooms of ruin. Jake had followed Mia into a room like that, once upon a time and in a dream. Now Mia was dead. Callahan was dead. And Eddie was dying. He thought of all the bodies lying out there under blankets while thunder rolled like bones in the distance. He thought of the man who'd shot Eddie snap-rolling to the left as Roland's bullet finished him off. He tried to remember the welcoming party for them back in Calla Bryn Sturgis, the music and dancing and colored torches, but all that came clear was the death of Benny Slightman, another friend. Tonight the world seemed made of death.
He himself had died and come back: back to Mid-World and back to Roland. All afternoon he had tried to believe the same thing might happen to Eddie and knew somehow that it would not. Jake's part in the tale had not been finished. Eddie's was. Jake would have given twenty years of his life-thirty!-not to believe that, but he did. He supposed he had progged it somehow.
The rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.
Jake knew a spider. Was Mia's child watching all of this? Having fun? Maybe rooting for one side or the other, like a fucking Yankee fan in the bleachers?
He is. I know he is. I feel him.
"Are you all right, kiddo?" Dinky asked.
"No," Jake said. "Not all right." And Dinky nodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer. Well, Jake thought, probably he expected it. He's a telepath, after all.
As if to underline this, Dinky had asked who Mordred was.
"You don't want to know," Jake said. "Believe me." He