There's plenty to occupy em right where they come out-they might find the reception a trifle hot!
Had Roland and his children perhaps been killed on the other side? Ambushed? Mordred believed he would have known had that happened. Would have felt it in his mind like a Beamquake.
In any case he would wait awhile before creeping through the door with the cloud-and-lightning sigul on it. And when he was through? Why, he'd find them. And overhear their palaver.
And watch them, both awake and asleep. Most of all, he would watch the one Walter had called his White Father. His only real father now, if Walter had been right about the Crimson King's having gone insane.
And for the present?
Now, for a little while, I may sleep.
The spider ran up the wall of this room, which was full of great hanging objects, and spun a web. But it was the baby-naked, and now looking fully a year old-that slept in it, head down and high above any predators that might come hunting.
Chapter IV:THE DOOR INTO THUNDERCLAP
ONE
When the four wanderers woke from their sleep (Roland first, and after six hours exactly), there were more popkins stacked on a cloth-covered tray, and and also more drinks. Of the domestic robot, however, there was no sign.
"All right, enough," Roland said, after calling Nigel for the third time. "He told us he was on his last legs; seems that while we slept, he fell off em."
"He was doing something he didn't want to do," Jake said.
His face looked pale and puffy. From sleeping too heavily was Roland's first thought, and then wondered how he could be such a fool. The boy had been crying for Pere Callahan.
"Doing what?" Eddie asked, slipping his pack over one shoulder and then hoisting Susannah onto his hip. "For who?
And why?"
"I don't know," Jake said. "He didn't want me to know, and I didn't feel right about prying. I know he was just a robot, but with that nice English voice and all, he seemed like more."
"That's a scruple you may need to get over," Roland said, as gently as he could.
"How heavy am I, sugar?" Susannah asked Eddie cheerfully.
"Or maybe what I should ask is 'How bad you missin that good old wheelchair?' Not to mention the shoulder-rig."
"Suze, you hated that piggyback rig from the word go and we both know it."
"Wasn't askin about that, and you know it."
It always fascinated Roland when Detta crept unheard into Susannah's voice, or-even more spooky-her face. The woman herself seemed unaware of these incursions, as her husband did now.
"I'd carry you to the end of the world," Eddie said sentimentally, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Unless you put on another ten pounds or so, that is. Then I might have to leave you and look for a lighter lady."
She poked him-not gently, either-and then turned to Roland. "This is a damn big place, once you're down underneath.
How're we gonna find the door that goes through to Thunderclap?"
Roland shook his head. He didn't know.
"How bout you, Cisco?" Eddie asked Jake. "You're the one who's strong in the touch. Can you use it to find the door we want?"
"Maybe if I knew how to start," Jake said, "but I don't."
And with that, all three of them again looked at Roland. No, make it four, because even the gods-cursed bumbler was staring.
Eddie would have made a joke to dispel any discomfort he felt at such a combined stare, and Roland actually fumbled for one. Something about how too many eyes spoiled the pie, maybe? No. That saying, which he'd heard from Susannah, was about cooks and broth. In the end he simply said, "We'll cast about a little, the way hounds do when they've lost the scent, and see what we find."
"Maybe another wheelchair for me to ride in," Susannah said brighdy. "This nasty white boy has got his hands all over my purity."
Eddie gave her a sincere look. "If it was really pure, hon," he said, "it wouldn't be cracked like it is."
TWO
It was Oy who actually took over and led them, but not until they returned to the kitchen. The humans were poking about with a kind of aimlessness that Jake found rather unsettling when Oy began to bark out his name: "Ake! Ake-Ake!"
Theyjoined the bumbler at a chocked-open door that read C-LEVEL. Oy went a little way along the corridor then looked back over his shoulder, eyes brilliant. When he saw they weren't following, he barked his disappointment.
"What do you think?" Roland asked. "Should we follow him?"
"Yes," Jake said.
"What scent has he got?" Eddie asked. "Do you know?"
"Maybe something from the Dogan," Jake said. "The real one, on the other side of the River Whye. Where Oy and I overheard Ben Slightman's Da' and the... you know, the robot."