"Yes," said the gunslinger firmly. He wasn't sure at all. A phrase of Eddie's occurred to him: All bets are off.
They skirted the puddles, being careful not even to touch the ones diat were glowing with what might have been radiation or witchlight. They passed a broken pipe that was exhaling a listless plume of green steam, and Susannah suggested they hold their breadi until diey were well past it. Roland thought that an extremely good idea.
Thirty or forty yards further along she bid him stop. "I don't know, Roland," she said, and he could hear her struggling to keep die panic out of her voice. "I thought we had it made in the shade when I saw the Lincoln door, but now this... this here..." Her voice wavered and he felt her draw a deep breadi, struggling to get herself under control. "This all looks different.
And the sounds... how they get in your head..."
He knew what she meant. On their left was an unmarked door that had setded crookedly against its hinges, and from the gap at the top came the atonal jangle of todash chimes, a sound that was both horrible and fascinating. With the chimes came a steady draft of stinking air. Roland had an idea she was about to suggest they go back while they still could, maybe rethink this whole going-under-the-castle idea, and so he said,
"Let's see what's up there. It's a litde brighter, anyway."
As they neared an intersection from which passages and tiled corridors rayed off in all directions, he felt her shift against him, sitting up. "There!" she shouted. "That pile of rubble! We walked around that! We walked around that,
Roland, / remember!"
Part of the ceiling had fallen into the middle of the intersection, creating a jumble of broken tiles, smashed glass, snags of wire, and plain old dirt. Along the edge of it were tracks.
"Down there!" she cried. "Straight ahead! Ted said, 'I think this is the one they called Main Street' and Dinky said he thought so, too. Dani Rostov said that a long time ago, around the time the Crimson King did whatever it was that darkened Thunderclap, a whole bunch of people used that way to get out.
Only they left some of their thoughts behind. I asked her what feeling that was like and she said it was a litde like seeing dirty soap-scum on the sides of the tub after you let out the water.
"Not nice," she said. Fred marked it and then we went all the way back up to the infirmary. I don't want to brag and queer the deal, but I think we're gonna be okay."
And they were, at least for the time being. Eighty paces beyond the pile of rubble they came upon an arched opening.
Beyond it, flickering white balls of radiance hung down from the ceiling, leading off at a downward-sloping angle. On the wall, in four chalkstrokes that had already started to run because of the moisture seeping through the tiles, was the last message left for them by the liberated Breakers:
They rested here for awhile, eating handfuls of raisins from a vacuum-sealed can. Even Oy nibbled a few, although it was clear from the way he did it that he didn't care for them much.
When they'd all eaten their fill and Roland had once more stored the can in the leather sack he'd found along the way, he asked her: "Are you ready to go on?"
"Yes. Right away, I think, before I lose my-my God, Roland, what was that?"
From behind them, probably from one of the passages leading away from the rubble-choked intersection, had come a low thudding sound. It had a liquid quality to it, as if a giant in water-filled rubber boots had just taken a single step.
"I don't know," he said.
Susannah was looking uneasily back over her shoulder but could see only shadows. Some of them were moving, but that could have been because some of the lights were flickering.
Could have been.
"You know," she said, "I think it might be a good idea if we vacated this areajust about as fast as we can."
"I think you're right," he said, resting on one knee and the splayed tips of his fingers, like a runner getting ready to burst from the blocks. When she was back in the harness, he got to his feet and moved past the arrow on the wall, setting a pace that was just short of a jog.
NINE
They had been moving at that nearjog for about fifteen minutes wjien they came upon a skeleton dressed in the remains of a rotting military uniform. There was still a flap of scalp on its head and tuft of listless black hair sprouting from it. The jaw grinned, as if welcoming them to the underworld. Lying on the floor beside the thing's naked pelvis was a ring that had finally slipped from one of the moldering fingers of the dead man's right Hand. Susannah asked Roland if she could have a closer look. He picked it up and handed it to her. She examined it just long enough to confirm what she had thought, then cast it aside. It made a little clink and then there were only the sounds of dripping water and the todash chimes, fainter now but persistent.
"What I thought," she said.
"Arid what was that?" he asked, moving on again.
"The guy was an Elk. My father had the same damn ring."