Roland nodded. "But I believe we have a little work to do first, against those who killed Callahan and then tried to kill Jake." His face didn't change as he spoke, but both Eddie Dean and John Cullum felt a chill. For a moment it was almost impossible to look at the gunslinger.
So came-although they did not know it, which was likely more mercy than such as they deserved-the death sentence of Flaherty, the taheen Lamia, and their ka-tet.
EIGHT
Oh my God, Eddie tried to say, but no sound came out.
He had seen brightness growing ahead of them as they drove north along Turtleback Lane, following the one working taillight of Cullum's truck. At first he thought it might be the carriage-lamps guarding some rich man's driveway, then perhaps floodlights. But the glow kept strengthening, a bluegolden brilliance to their left, where the ridge sloped down to the lake. As they approached the source of the light (Cullum's pickup now barely crawling), Eddie gasped and pointed as a circle of radiance broke free of the main body and flew toward them, changing colors as it came: blue to gold to red, red to green to gold and back to blue. In the center of it was something that looked like an insect with four wings. Then, as it soared above the bed of Cullum's truck and into the dark woods on die east side of the road, it looked toward them and Eddie saw the insect had a human face.
"What... dear God, Roland, what-"
"Taheen," Roland said, and said no more. In the growing brilliance his face was calm and tired.
More circles of light broke free of the main body and streamed across the road in cometary splendor. Eddie saw flies and tiny jeweled hummingbirds and what appeared to be winged frogs. Beyond them...
The taillight of Cullum's truck flashed bright, but Eddie was so busy goggling that he would have rear-ended the man had Roland not spoken to him sharply. Eddie threw the Galaxie into Park without bothering to either set the emergency brake or turn off the engine. Then he got out and walked toward the blacktop driveway that descended the steep wooded slope. His eyes were huge in the delicate light, his mouth hung open. Cullum joined him and stood looking down. The driveway was flanked by two signs: CARA LAUGHS on the left and 19 on the right.
"Somethin, ain't it?" Cullum asked quiedy.
You got that right, Eddie tried to reply, and still no words would come out of his mouth, only a breathless wheeze.
Most of the light was coming from the woods to the east of the road and to the left of the Cara Laughs driveway. Here the trees-mosdy pines, spruces, and birches bent from a latewinter ice storm-were spread far apart, and hundreds of figures walked solemnly among them as though in a rustic ballroom, their bare feet scuffing through the leaves. Some were pretty clearly Children of Roderick, and as roont as Chevin of Chayven. Their skins were covered with the sores of radiation sickness and very few had more than a straggle of hair, but the light in which they walked gave them a beauty that was almost too great to look upon. Eddie saw a one-eyed woman carrying what appeared to be a dead child. She looked at him with an expression of sorrow and her mouth moved, but Eddie could hear nothing. He raised his fist to his forehead and bent his leg.
Then he touched the corner of one eye and pointed to her. I see you, the gesture said... or so he hoped. I see you very well. The woman bearing the dead or sleeping child returned the gesture, and then passed from sight.
Overhead, thunder cracked sharply and lightning flashed down into the center of the glow. An ancient fir tree, its lusty trunk girdled with moss, took the bolt and split apart down its center, falling half one way and half the other. The inside was on fire. And a great gust of sparks-not fire, not this, but something with the ethereal quality of swamplight-went twisting up toward the hanging swags of the clouds. In those sparks Eddie saw tiny dancing bodies, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.
It was like watching a squadron of Tinker Bells, there and then gone.
"Look at em," John said reverently. "Walk-ins! Gorry, there's hundreds! 1 wish my friend Donnie was here to see."
Eddie thought he was probably right: hundreds of men,