The Wind Through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower 4.5)

Inside was a brushed metal disc the size of a small plate. There was writing on the top side that Tim couldn't read. Below the writing were three buttons. Helmsman pushed one of these, and a short stick emerged from the plate with a low whining sound. The tribesmen, who had gathered round in a loose semicircle, laughed and applauded some more. They were clearly having a wonderful time. Tim, with his thirst slaked and his feet on solid (semisolid, at least) ground, decided he was having a pretty good time himself.

"Is that from the Old People, sai?"

Helmsman nodded.

"Such things are held to be dangerous where I come from."

Helmsman at first didn't seem to understand this, and from their puzzled expressions, none of the other plant-fellas did, either. Then he laughed and made a sweeping gesture that took in everything: the sky, the water, the oozing land upon which they stood. As if to say everything was dangerous.

And in this place, Tim thought, everything probably is.

Helmsman poked Tim's chest, then gave an apologetic little shrug: Sorry, but you must pay attention.

"All right," Tim said. "I'm watching." And forked two fingers at his eyes, which made them all chuckle and elbow each other, as if he had gotten off an especially good one.

Helmsman pushed a second button. The disc beeped, which made the watchers murmur appreciatively. A red light came on below the buttons. Helmsman began to turn in a slow circle, holding the metal device out before him like an offering. Three quarters of the way around the circle, the device beeped again and the red light turned green. Helmsman pointed one overgrown finger in the direction the device was now pointing. As well as Tim could ken from the mostly hidden sun, this was north. Helmsman looked to see if Tim understood. Tim thought he did, but there was a problem.

"There's water that way. I can swim, but . . ." He bared his teeth and chomped them together, pointing toward the tussock where he had almost become some scaly thing's breakfast. They all laughed hard at this, none harder than Helmsman, who actually had to bend and grip his mossy knees to keep from falling over.

Yar, Tim thought, very funny, I almost got eaten alive.

When his throe had passed and Helmsman was able to stand up straight again, he pointed at the rickety boat.

"Oh," Tim said. "I forgot about that."

He was thinking that he made a very stupid gunslinger.

Helmsman saw Tim onboard, then took his accustomed place beneath the pole where the decaying boar's head had been. The crew took theirs. The food and water were handed in; the little leather case with the compass (if that was what it was) Tim had stowed in the Widow's cotton sack. The four-shot went into his belt on his left hip, where it made a rough balance for the hand-ax on his right side.

There was a good deal of hile-ing back and forth, then Tallman--who Tim believed was probably Headman, although Helmsman had done most of the communicating--approached. He stood on the bank and looked solemnly at Tim in the boat. He forked two fingers at his eyes: Attend me.

"I see you very well." And he did, although his eyes were growing heavy. He couldn't remember when he had last slept. Not last night, certainly.

Headman shook his head, made the forked-finger gesture again--with more emphasis this time--and deep in the recesses of Tim's mind (perhaps even in his soul, that tiny shining splinter of ka), he seemed to hear a whisper. For the first time it occurred to him that it might not be his words that these swampfolk understood.

"Watch?"

Headman nodded; the others muttered agreement. There was no laughter or merriment in their faces now; they looked sorrowful and strangely childlike.

"Watch for what?"

Headman got down on his hands and knees and began turning in rapid circles. This time instead of growls, he made a series of doglike yipping sounds. Every now and then he stopped and raised his head in the northerly direction the device had pointed out, flaring his green-crusted nostrils, as if scenting the air. At last he rose and looked at Tim questioningly.

"All right," Tim said. He didn't know what Headman was trying to convey--or why all of them now looked so downcast--but he would remember. And he would know what Headman was trying so hard to show him, if he saw it. If he saw it, he might understand it.

"Sai, do you hear my thoughts?"

Headman nodded. They all nodded.

"Then thee knows I am no gunslinger. I was but trying to spark my courage."

Headman shook his head and smiled, as if this were of no account. He made the attend me gesture again, then clapped his arms around his sore-ridden torso and began an exaggerated shivering. The others--even the seated crewmembers on the boat--copied him. After a little of this, Headman fell over on the ground (which squelched under his weight). The others copied this, too. Tim stared at this litter of bodies, astonished. At last, Headman stood up. Looked into Tim's eyes. The look asked if Tim understood, and Tim was terribly afraid he did.

"Are you saying--"

He found he couldn't finish, at least not aloud. It was too terrible.

(Are you saying you're all going to die)

Slowly, while looking gravely into his eyes--yet smiling a little, just the same--Headman nodded. Then Tim proved conclusively that he was no gunslinger. He began to cry.

Helmsman pushed off with a long stick. The oarsmen on the left side turned the boat, and when it had reached open water, Helmsman gestured with both hands for them to row. Tim sat in the back and opened the food hamper. He ate a little because his belly was still hungry, but only a little, because the rest of him now wasn't. When he offered to pass the basket around, the oarsmen grinned their thanks but declined. The water was smooth, the steady rhythm of the oars lulling, and Tim's eyes soon closed. He dreamed that his mother was shaking him and telling him it was morning, that if he stayed slugabed, he'd be too late to help his da' saddle the mollies.

Is he alive, then? Tim asked, and the question was so absurd that Nell laughed.

He was shaken awake, that much did happen, but not by his mother. It was Helmsman who was bending over him when he opened his eyes, the man smelling so powerfully of sweat and decaying vegetable matter that Tim had

to stifle a sneeze. Nor was it morning. Quite the opposite: the sun had crossed the sky and shone redly through stands of strange, gnarled trees that grew right out of the water. Those trees Tim could not have named, but he knew the ones growing on the slope beyond the place where the swamp boat had come to ground. They were ironwoods, and real giants. Deep drifts of orange and gold flowers grew around their bases. Tim thought his mother would swoon at their beauty, then remembered she would no longer be able to see them.

They had come to the end of the Fagonard. Ahead were the true forest deeps.

Helmsman helped Tim over the side of the boat, and two of the oarsmen handed out the basket of food and the waterskin. When his gunna was at Tim's feet--this time on ground that didn't ooze or quake--Helmsman motioned for Tim to open the Widow's cotton sack. When Tim did, Helmsman made a beeping sound that brought an appreciative chuckle from his crew.

Tim took out the leather case that held the metal disc and tried to hand it over. Helmsman shook his head and pointed at Tim. The meaning was clear enough. Tim pulled the tab that opened the seam and took out the device. It was surprisingly heavy for something so thin, and eerily smooth.

Mustn't drop it, he told himself. I'll come back this way and return it as I'd return any borrowed dish or tool, back in the village. Which is to say, as it was when it was given to me. If I do that, I'll find them alive and well.

They were watching to see if he remembered how to use it. Tim pushed the button that brought up the short stick, then the one that made the beep and the red light. There was no laughter or hooting this time; now it was serious business, perhaps even a matter of life and death. Tim began to turn slowly, and when he was facing a rising lane in the trees--what might once have been a path--the red light changed to green and there was a second beep.

"Still north," Tim said. "It shows the way even after sundown, does it? And if the trees are too thick to see Old Star and Old Mother?"

Helmsman nodded, patted Tim on the shoulder . . . then bent and kissed him swiftly and gently on the cheek. He stepped back, looking alarmed at his own temerity.