Black House

Parkus says, "Rational beings have always harbored telepaths among their number; that's true in all the worlds. But they're ordinarily rare creatures. Prodigies, you might say. But since the Age of Poisoned Thought came on your world, Jack ¡ª infested it like a demon ¡ª such beings have become much more common. Not as common as slow mutants in the Blasted Lands, but common, yes. "

"You speak of mind readers," Sophie says, as if wanting to be sure.

"Yes," Parkus agrees, "but not just mind readers. Precognates. Teleports ¡ª world jumpers like old Travelin' Jack here, in other words ¡ª and telekinetics. Mind readers are the most common, telekinetics the rarest . . . and the most valuable. "

"To him, you mean," Jack says. "To the Crimson King. "

"Yes. Over the last two hundred years or so, the abbalah has spent a good part of his time gathering a crew of telepathic slaves. Most of them come from Earth and the Territories. All of the telekinetics come from Earth. This collection of slaves ¡ª this gulag ¡ª is his crowning achievement. We call them Breakers. They . . . " He trails off, thinking. Then: "Do you know how a galley travels?"

Sophie nods, but Jack at first has no idea what Parkus is talking about. He has a brief, lunatic vision of a fully equipped kitchen traveling down Route 66.

"Many oarsmen," Sophie says, then makes a rowing motion that throws her breasts into charming relief.

Parkus is nodding. "Usually slaves chained together. They ¡ª "

From outside the circle, Wendell suddenly sticks his own oar in. "Spart. Cus. " He pauses, frowning, then tries it again. "Spart-a-cus. "

"What's he on about?" Parkus asks, frowning. "Any idea, Jack?"

"A movie called Spartacus," Jack says, "and you're wrong as usual, Wendell. I believe you're thinking about Ben-Hur. "

Looking sulky, Wendell holds out his greasy hands. "More. Meat. "

Parkus pulls the last grouse from its sizzling stick and tosses it between two of the stones, where Wendell sits with his pallid, greasy face peering from between his knees. "Fresh prey for the news hawk," he says. "Now do us a favor and shut up. "

"Or. What. " The old defiant gleam is rising in Wendell's eyes.

Parkus draws his shooting iron partway from its holster. The grip, made of sandalwood, is worn, but the barrel gleams murder-bright. He has to say no more; holding his second bird in one hand, Wendell Green hitches up his robe and hies himself back over the rise. Jack is extremely relieved to see him go. Spartacus indeed, he thinks, and snorts.

"So the Crimson King wants to use these Breakers to destroy the Beams," Jack says. "That's it, isn't it? That's his plan. "

"You speak as though of the future," Parkus says mildly. "This is happening now, Jack. Only look at your own world if you want to see the ongoing disintegration. Of the six Beams, only one still holds true. Two others still generate some holding power. The other three are dead. One of these went out thousands of years ago, in the ordinary course of things. The others . . . killed by the Breakers. All in two centuries or less. "

"Christ," Jack says. He is beginning to understand how Speedy could call the Fisherman small-fry.

"The job of protecting the Tower and the Beams has always belonged to the ancient war guild of Gilead, called gunslingers in this world and many others. They also generated a powerful psychic force, Jack, one fully capable of countering the Crimson King's Breakers, but ¡ª "

"The gunslingers are all gone save for one," Sophie says, looking at the big pistol on Parkus's hip. And, with timid hope: "Unless you really are one, too, Parkus. "

"Not I, darling," he says, "but there's more than one. "

"I thought Roland was the last. So the stories say. "

"He has made at least three others," Parkus tells her. "I've no idea how that can be possible, but I believe it to be true. If Roland were still alone, the Breakers would have toppled the Tower long since. But with the force of these others added to his ¡ª "

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Jack says. "I did, sort of, but you lost me about two turns back. "

"There's no need for you to understand it all in order to do your job," Parkus says.

"Thank God for that. "

"As for what you do need to understand, leave galleys and oarsmen and think in terms of the Western movies your mother used to make. To begin with, imagine a fort in the desert. "

"This Dark Tower you keep talking about. That's the fort. "

"Yes. And surrounding the fort, instead of wild Indians ¡ª "

"The Breakers. Led by Big Chief Abbalah. "

Sophie murmurs: "The King is in his Tower, eating bread

and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money. "

Jack feels a light but singularly unpleasant chill shake up his spine: he thinks of rat paws scuttering over broken glass. "What? Why do you say that?"

Sophie looks at him, flushes, shakes her head, looks down. "It's what she says, sometimes. Judy. It's how I hear her, sometimes. "

Parkus seizes one of the charred greensticks and draws in the rocky dust beside the figure-eight shape. "Fort here. Marauding Indians here, led by their merciless, evil ¡ª and most likely insane ¡ª chief. But over here ¡ª " Off to the left, he draws a harsh arrow in the dirt. It points at the rudimentary shapes indicating the fort and the besieging Indians. "What always arrives at the last moment in all the best Lily Cavanaugh Westerns?"

"The cavalry," Jack says. "That's us, I suppose. "

"No," Parkus says. His tone is patient, but Jack suspects it is costing him a great effort to maintain that tone. "The cavalry is Roland of Gilead and his new gunslingers. Or so those of us who want the Tower to stand ¡ª or to fall in its own time ¡ª dare hope. The Crimson King hopes to hold Roland back, and to finish the job of destroying the Tower while he and his band are still at a distance. That means gathering all the Breakers he can, especially the telekinetics. "

"Is Tyler Marshall ¡ª "

"Stop interrupting. This is difficult enough without that. "

"You used to be a hell of a lot cheerier, Speedy," Jack says reproachfully. For a moment he thinks his old friend is going to give him another tongue-lashing ¡ª or perhaps even lose his temper completely and turn him into a frog ¡ª but Parkus relaxes a little, and utters a laugh.

Sophie looks up, relieved, and gives Jack's hand a squeeze.

"Oh, well, maybe you're right to yank on my cord a little," Parkus says. "Gettin' all wound up won't help anything, will it?" He touches the big iron on his hip. "I wouldn't be surprised if wearin' this thing has given me a few delusions of grandeur. "

"It's a step or two up from amusement-park janitor," Jack allows.

"In both the Bible ¡ª your world, Jack ¡ª and the Book of Good Farming ¡ª yours, Sophie dear ¡ª there's a scripture that goes something like ¡®For in my kingdom there are many mansions. ' Well, in the Court of the Crimson King there are many monsters. "

Jack hears a short, hard laugh bolt out of his mouth. His old friend has made a typically tasteless policeman's joke, it seems.

"They are the King's courtiers . . . his knights-errant. They have all sorts of tasks, I imagine, but in these last years their chief job has been to find talented Breakers. The more talented the Breaker, the greater the reward. "

"They're headhunters," Jack murmurs, and doesn't realize the resonance of the term until it's out of his mouth. He has used it in the business sense, but of course there is another, more literal meaning. Headhunters are cannibals.

"Yes," Parkus agrees. "And they have mortal subcontractors, who work for . . . one doesn't like to say for the joy of it, but what else could we call it?"

Jack has a nightmarish vision then: a cartoon Albert Fish standing on a New York sidewalk with a sign reading WILL WORK FOR FOOD. He tightens his arm around Sophie. Her blue eyes turn to him, and he looks into them gladly. They soothe him.

"How many Breakers did Albert Fish send his pal Mr. Monday?" Jack wants to know. "Two? Four? A dozen? And do they die off, at least, so the abbalah has to replace them?"

"They don't," Parkus replies gravely. "They are kept in a place ¡ª a basement, yes, or a cavern ¡ª where there is essentially no time. "

"Purgatory. Christ. "

"And it doesn't matter. Albert Fish is long gone. Mr. Monday is now Mr. Munshun. The deal Mr. Munshun has with your killer is a simple one: this Burnside can kill and eat all the children he wants, as long as they are untalented children. If he should find any who are talented ¡ª any Breakers ¡ª they are to be turned over to Mr. Munshun at once. "

"Who will take them to the abbalah," Sophie murmurs.

"That's right," Parkus says.

Jack feels that he's back on relatively solid ground, and is extremely glad to be there. "Since Tyler hasn't been killed, he must be talented. "

" ¡®Talented' is hardly the word. Tyler Marshall is, potentially, one of the two most powerful Breakers in all the history of all the worlds. If I can briefly return to the analogy of the fort surrounded by Indians, then we could say that the Breakers are like fire arrows shot over the walls . . . a new kind of warfare. But Tyler Marshall is no simple fire arrow. He's more like a guided missile.

"Or a nuclear weapon. "

Sophie says, "I don't know what that is. "

"You don't want to," Jack replies. "Believe me. "

He looks down at the scribble of drawings in the dirt. Is he surprised that Tyler should be so powerful? No, not really. Not after experiencing the aura of strength surrounding the boy's mother. Not after meeting Judy's Twinner, whose plain dress and manner can't conceal a character that strikes him as almost regal. She's beautiful, but he senses that beauty is one of the least important things about her.

"Jack?" Parkus asks him. "You all right?" There's no time to be anythin' else, his tone suggests.

"Give me a minute," Jack says.

"We don't have much t ¡ª "

"That has been made perfectly clear to me," Jack says, biting off the words, and he feels Sophie shift in surprise at his tone of voice. "Now give me a minute. Let me do my job. "

From beneath a ruffle of green feathers, one of the parrot's heads mutters: "God loves the poor laborer. " The other replies: "Is that why he made so fucking many of them?"

"All right, Jack," Parkus says, and cocks his head up at the sky.

Okay, what have we got here? Jack thinks. We've got a valuable little boy, and the Fisherman knows he's valuable. But this Mr. Munshun doesn't have him yet, or Speedy wouldn't be here. Deduction?

Sophie, looking at him anxiously. Parkus, still looking up into the blameless blue sky above this borderland between the Territories ¡ª what Judy Marshall calls Faraway ¡ª and the Whatever Comes Next. Jack's mind is ticking faster now, picking up speed like an express train leaving the station. He is aware that the black man with the bald head is watching the sky for a certain malevolent crow. He is aware that the fair-skinned woman beside him is looking at him with the sort of fascination that could become love, given world enough and time. Mostly, though, he's lost in his own thoughts. They are the thoughts of a coppiceman.

Now Bierstone's Burnside, and he's old. Old and not doing so well in the cognition department these days. I think maybe he's gotten caught between what he wants, which is to keep Tyler for himself, and what he's promised this Munshun guy. Somewhere there's a fuddled, creaky, dangerous mind trying to make itself up. If he decides to kill Tyler and stick him in the stewpot like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel," that's bad for Judy and Fred. Not to mention Tyler, who may already have seen things that would drive a Marine combat vet insane. If the Fisherman turns the boy over to Mr. Munshun, it's bad for everyone in creation. No wonder Speedy said time was blowing in our teeth.

"You knew this was coming, didn't you?" he says. "Both of you. You must have. Because Judy knew. She's been weird for months, long before the murders started. "

Parkus shifts and looks away, uncomfortable. "I knew something was coming, yes ¡ª there have been great disruptions on this side ¡ª but I was on other business. And Sophie can't cross. She came here with the flying men and will go back the same way when our palaver's done. "

Jack turns to her. "You are who my mother once was. I'm sure of it. " He supposes he isn't being entirely clear about this, but he can't help it; his mind is trying to go in too many directions at once. "You're Laura DeLoessian's successor. The Queen of this world. "

Now Sophie is the one who looks uncomfortable. "I was nobody in the great scheme of things, really I wasn't, and that was the way I liked it. What I did mostly was write let

ters of commendation and thank people for coming to see me . . . only in my official capacity, I always said ¡®us. ' I enjoyed walking, and sketching flowers, and cataloging them. I enjoyed hunting. Then, due to bad luck, bad times, and bad behavior, I found myself the last of the royal line. Queen of this world, as you say. Married once, to a good and simple man, but my Fred Marshall died and left me alone. Sophie the Barren. "

"Don't," Jack says. He is surprised at how deeply it hurts him to hear her refer to herself in this bitter, joking way.

"Were you not single-natured, Jack, your Twinner would be my cousin. "

She turns her slim fingers so that now she is gripping him instead of the other way around. When she speaks again, her voice is low and passionate. "Put all the great matters aside. All I know is that Tyler Marshall is Judy's child, that I love her, that I'd not see her hurt for all the worlds that are. He's the closest thing to a child of my own that I'll ever have. These things I know, and one other: that you're the only one who can save him. "

"Why?" He has sensed this, of course ¡ª why else in God's name is he here? ¡ª but that doesn't lessen his bewilderment. "Why me?"

"Because you touched the Talisman. And although some of its power has left you over the years, much still remains. "

Jack thinks of the lilies Speedy left for him in Dale's bathroom. How the smell lingered on his hands even after he had given the bouquet itself to Tansy. And he remembers how the Talisman looked in the murmuring darkness of the Queen's Pavilion, rising brightly, changing everything before it finally vanished.

He thinks: It's still changing everything.

"Parkus. " Is it the first time he's called the other man ¡ª the other coppiceman ¡ª by that name? He doesn't know for sure, but he thinks it may be.

"Yes, Jack. "

"What's left of the Talisman ¡ª is it enough? Enough for me to take on this Crimson King?"

Parkus looks shocked in spite of himself. "Never in your life, Jack. Never in any life. The abbalah would blow you out like a candle. But it may be enough for you to take on Mr. Munshun ¡ª to go into the furnace-lands and bring Tyler out. "

"There are machines," Sophie says. She looks caught in some dark and unhappy dream. "Red machines and black machines, all lost in smoke. There are great belts and children without number upon them. They trudge and trudge, turning the belts that turn the machines. Down in the foxholes. Down in the ratholes where the sun never shines. Down in the great caverns where the furnace-lands lie. "

Jack is shaken to the bottom of his mind and spirit. He finds himself thinking of Dickens ¡ª not Bleak House but Oliver Twist. And, of course he thinks of his conversation with Transy Freneau. At least Irma's not there, he thinks. Not in the furnace-lands, not she. She got dead, and a mean old man ate her leg. Tyler, though . . . Tyler . . .

"They trudge until their feet bleed," he mutters. "And the way there . . . ?"

"I think you know it," Parkus says. "When you find Black House, you'll find your way to the furnace-lands . . . the machines . . . Mr. Munshun . . . and Tyler. "

"The boy is alive. You're sure of that. "

"Yes. " Parkus and Sophie speak together.

"And where is Burnside now? That information might speed things up a bit. "

"I don't know," Parkus says.

"Christ, if you know who he was ¡ª "

"That was the fingerprints," Parkus says. "The fingerprints on the telephone. Your first real idea about the case. The Wisconsin State Police got the Bierstone name back from the FBI's VICAP database. You have the Burnside name. That should be enough. "

Wisconsin State Police, FBI, VICAP, database: these terms come out in good old American English, and in this place they sound unpleasant and foreign to Jack's ear.

"How do you know all that?"

"I have my sources in your world; I keep my ear to the ground. As you know from personal experience. And surely you're cop enough to do the rest on your own. "

"Judy thinks you have a friend who can help," Sophie says unexpectedly.

"Dale? Dale Gilbertson?" Jack finds this a little hard to believe, but he supposes Dale may have uncovered something.

"I don't know the name. Judy thinks he's like many here in Faraway. A man who sees much because he sees nothing. "

Not Dale, after all. It's Henry she's talking about.

Parkus rises to his feet. The heads of the parrot come up, revealing four bright eyes. Sacred and Profane flutters up to his shoulder and settles there. "I think our palaver is done," Parkus says. "It must be done. Are you ready to go back, my friend?"

"Yes. And I suppose I better take Green, little as I want to. I don't think he'd last long here. "

"As you say. "

Jack and Sophie, still holding hands, are halfway up the rise when Jack realizes Parkus is still standing in the speaking circle with his parrot on his shoulder. "Aren't you coming?"

Parkus shakes his head. "We go different ways now, Jack. I may see you again. "

If I survive, Jack thinks. If any of us survive.

"Meantime, go your course. And be true. "

Sophie drops another deep curtsey. "Sai. "

Parkus nods to her and gives Jack Sawyer a little salute. Jack turns and leads Sophie back to the ruined hospital tent, wondering if he will ever see Speedy Parker again.

Wendell Green ¡ª ace reporter, fearless investigator, explicator of good and evil to the great unwashed ¡ª sits in his former place, holding the crumpled foolscap in one hand and the batteries in the other. He has resumed muttering, and barely looks up when Sophie and Jack approach.

"You'll do your best, won't you?" Sophie asks. "For her. "

"And for you," Jack says. "Listen to me, now. If this were to end with all of us still standing . . . and if I were to come back here . . . " He finds he can say no more. He's appalled at his temerity. This is a queen, after all. A queen. And he's . . . what? Trying to ask her for a date?

"Perhaps," she says, looking at him with her steady blue eyes. "Perhaps. "

"Is it a perhaps you want?" he asks softly.

"Yes. "

He bends and brushes his lips over hers. It's brief, barely a kiss at all. It is also the best kiss of his life.

"I feel like fainting," she tells him when he straightens up again.

"Don't joke with me, Sophie. "

She takes his hand and presses it against the underswell of her left breast. He can feel her heart pounding. "Is this a joke? If she were to run faster, she'd catch her feet and fall. " She lets him go, but he holds his hand where it is a moment longer, palm curved against that springing warmth.

"I'd come with you if I could," she says.

"I know that. "

He looks at her, knowing if he doesn't get moving now, right away, he never will. It's wanting not to leave her, but that's not all. The truth is that he's never been more frightened in his life. He searches for something mundane to bring him back to earth ¡ª to slow the pounding of his own heart ¡ª and finds the perfect object in the muttering creature that is Wendell Green. He drops to one knee. "Are you ready, big boy? Want to take a trip on the mighty Mississip'?"

"Don't. Touch. Me. " And then, in a nearly poetic rush: "Fucking Hollywood asshole!"

"Believe me, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't. And I plan to wash my hands just as soon as I get the chance. "

He looks up at Sophie and sees all the Judy in her. All the beauty in her. "I love you," he says.

Before she can reply, he seizes Wendell's hand, closes his eyes, and flips.