The
White
and the
Red
 Do you know the game Castles, Susan?
 Aye. My father showed me when I was small.
 Then you know how the red pieces stand at one end of
the board and the white at the other.
 Overhead, a full moon came out from behind a scrim of cloud, painting
the clearing and the stream in the tawdry hues of pawnshop jewelry. There
was a face in the moon, but not one upon which lovers would wish to look.
It seemed the scant face of a skull, like those in the Candleton Travellers
Hotel; a face which looked upon those few beings still alive and struggling
below with the amusement of a lunatic. In Gilead, before the world had
moved on, the full moon of Year s End had been called the Demon Moon, and
it was considered ill luck to look directly at it.
Now, however, such did not matter. Now there were demons everywhere.
Preface:
The Two Faces of Magic
The White
The High Speech
Powers of the White
The Red
The Speech of the Unformed
The Art
Powers of the Red
The Invisible World
Proving Honesty (new skill)
Todash
The Vagrant Dead
Migrating
Migrate (new skill)
-The Two Faces of Magic-
 Was it like... you know... the mouse? Dean asked. He glanced briefly at
the empty cell when Delacroix had lived with Mr. Jingles, then down at the
restraint room, which had been the mouse s seeming point of origin. His voice
dropped, the way people s voices do when they enter a big church where even
the silence seems to whisper.  Was it a... He gulped.  Shoot, you know what
I mean was it a miracle?
The three of us looked at each other briefly, confirming what we already
knew.  Brought her back from her damn grave is what he did, Harry said.
 Yeah, it was a miracle, all right.
 Ermot, Ermot! she cried.  See what s become of ye!
There was his head, the mouth frozen open, the double fangs still dripping
poison clear drops that shone like prisms in the day s strengthening light.
The glazing eyes glared. She picked Ermot up, kissed the scaly mouth, licked
the last of the venom from the exposed needles, crooning and weeping all the
while. Next she picked up the long and tattered body with her other hand,
moaning at the holes which had been torn into Ermot s satiny hide; the holes
and the ripped red flesh beneath. Twice she put the head against the body and
spoke incantations, but nothing happened. Of course not. Ermot had gone
beyond the aid of her spells.
Powers of the White are granted instantly with no skill roll, and generally ask
little in return (aside from the drain of Magic points). The magic of the Red
is quite different. A Sorcery check is needed to invoke the magic (along with
materials, words of power, or anything else required). A failed check (usually)
produced no result. A successful check yields the spell, at least in accordance
with the caster s ability.
When making Sorcery checks, a roll of 90+ is an overkill. When an overkill
is rolled, the effects of a spell go beyond the caster s intentions. Locks break,
the far-seen sense the caster, etc.
The indicated Sanity Loss may apply to the caster, the recipient, witnesses, or
any combination of the above, at the controller s discretion.
-The White-
That the boy was asking such questions at fourteen and fifteen was bad. That he
was getting comparatively honest answers from such timid, watchful men as the
Kingdom s historians and Roland s advisors was much worse. It meant that, in the
minds of these people, Peter was already almost King and that they were glad. They
welcomed him and rejoiced in him, because he would be an intellectual, like them.
And they also welcomed him because, unlike them, he was a brave boy who might
well grow into a lionhearted King whose tale would be the stuff of legends. In him,
they saw again the coming of the White, that ancient, resilient, yet humble force that
has redeemed humankind again and again and again.
He had to be put out of the way. Had to be.
 Hear me well, Rhea, daughter of none, and understand me well. I have come here
under the name of Will Dearborn, but Dearborn is not my name and it is the Affili-
ation I serve. More,  tis all which lies behind the Affiliation  tis the power of the
White. You have crossed the way of our ka, and I warn you only this once: do not
cross it again. Do you understand?
Jake didn t think that was all. He didn t think so because that sensation of knowing
was creeping over him and through him again, the one which had taken possession
of him three weeks ago, as he approached the corner of Fifth and Forty-sixth. But on
May 9th, it had been a feeling of impending doom. Today it was a feeling of radiance,
a sense of goodness and anticipation. It was as if...
as if . . .
White. This was the word that came to him, and it clanged in his mind with clear
and unquestionable lightness.
 It s the White! he exclaimed aloud.  The coming of the White!
He walked on down Fifty-fourth Street, and as he reached the corner of Second and
Fifty-fourth, he once more passed under the umbrella of ka-tet.
The old woman turned to the others. She spoke in a cracked and ringing voice yet
it was the words she spoke and not the tone in which they were spoken that sent chills
racing down Jake s back:  Behold ye, the return of the White! After evil ways and
evil days, the White comes again! Be of good heart and hold up your heads, for ye
have lived to see the wheel of ka begin to turn once more!
The High Speech
 Speak the High Speech, he said softly. His voice was flat, with a slight, drunken
rasp.  Speak your act of contrition in the speech of civilization for which better men
than you will ever be have died, maggot.
 We mean you no harm, the gunslinger called. He used the High Speech, and at
the sound of it the man s eyes lit up with incredulity. The woman turned back, swing-
ing her blind face in their direction.
 A gunslinger! the man cried. His voice cracked and wavered with excitement.
  Fore God! I knew it were! I knew!
The High Speech is the ancient language spoken in certain enlightened circles. It
is also known as the Old Tongue, or the Tongue. The low speech is the parlance of
everyday interaction, but the High Speech is the language of ritual and magic.
Am - The physical, mortal world.
An-tet - Implies an intimate emotional link. It can also imply sexual intimacy. To sit together
an-tet is to sit in council.
Aven kal - A tidal wave that runs along the path of the Beam. Literally translated, it means
 lifted on the wind or  carried on the wave. The use of kal rather than the more
usual form kas implies a natural force of disastrous proportions.
Aven-car - A hunting term which refers to carrying the kill and preparing to make it into some-
thing else.
Can Calah - Angels.
Can-ah, can-tah, annah, Oriza -  All breath comes from the woman. A prayer to Lady Oriza.
Canda - The distance that assures a pair of outnumbered gunslingers will not be killed by a
single shot.
Can-tah - Little gods.
Can-toi - Low animals (wolves, spiders, snakes, etc.)
Char - Death.
Chary-ka - One whose ka is aligned with death.
Charyou Tree - The ritual bonfire made on the festival of Reap. In the days of Arthur Eld,
people were burned on this fire.
Chassit - Nineteen.
Chisset - Eighteen.
Childe - Holy, chosen by ka. An ancient, formal term for a knight on a quest.
Chussit - Seventeen.
Commala - The rice plant. Also an alternate name for the courting rite of New Earth (the Sow-
ing Night Cotillion).
Dan-dinh -  May I open my heart to your command? To seek a leader s advice and obey without
question.
Dan-tete - Little king or little god.
Dash-dinh - A religious leader.
Delah -  Many. To imply delah is to imply an uncountable number.
Devar - Prison.
Devar-toi -  Little prison or  torture chamber.
Dinh - Leader or father (as in  father of his people ).
Gunna - All one s worldly possessions.
Hile - A formal greeting. Also a rallying cry, as in  Hile, gunslingers! To me!
Howken - The act (and art) of hypnotizing someone.
Irina - The healing madness that comes after terrible loss.
Ka - The universal force that drives all things to their destiny, for good or ill.
Ka-mai - Ka s fool, or destiny s fool.
Ka-mates - Those whose fates (or destinies) are entwined with one s own.
Ka-me - Wisely. It is the opposite of ka-mai.
Kas-ka - Prophets.
Ka-shume - The breaking of a ka-tet.
Ka-tel - Those who enter fully into the circle of ka. A graduating class of gunslingers is a ka-tel.
Ka-tet -  One made from many. The bond between ka-mates.
Kes - Vitality.
Khef -  The sharing of water. Birth, life force, and all that is essential to existence.
Khef-kra - A place of great spiritual power.
Ma sun - A war chest.
Mia - Mother.
Mim - Mother Earth.
Pol-kam - A ritual courtship dance, faster and lighter than a waltz.
Prim - The original magical Discordia, from which the world arose.
Sai - A term of respect, similar to  sir or  madam.
Seppe-sai - A poisoner.
Sill - To desire or to yearn.
Steek - A needle.
Tet - A group of people with the same interests and goals.
Te-ka - Destiny s friend.
Tete -  Little or  Tiny.
Throcken - A billy-bumber.
Todana - The invisible mark of death.
Todash - Traveling while dreaming.
Todash tahken - The holes in reality.
Twim - Two. This can also refer to a twin.
Aven-khef
Magic cost: 5
Sanity Loss: 1/1d3*
 Die! Tyler hears himself screaming.  Die, you old fuck,
GO ON AND DIE!
Burny staggers back another step. His mouth drops open,
and part of an upper plate tumbles out and onto the dirt. He
is staring down at two loops of his own innards, stretching
like gristle from the gaping red-black front of his shirt to the
awful child s right hand. And he sees an even more terrible *Sanity loss applies
thing: a kind of white glow has surrounded the boy. It is only to witnesses
feeding him more strength to pull Burny s living guts right
out of his body and how it hurt, how it hurt, how it dud dud
dud hurrrr
Cloak of Coldness
I do not aim with my hand; she who aims with
her hand has forgotten the face of her father.
Magic cost: 4
I can t do it!
Sanity Loss: 0/1d2
I do not shoot with my hand; she who shoots with
her hand has forgotten the face of her father.
I ll miss! I know I ll miss!
I do not kill with my gun; she who kills with her
The sensors exploded like clay pigeons, one
gun
after the other. Pity was gone from Eddie s
 Shoot it! Roland roared.  Susannah, shoot it!
heart; there was only that coldness, and the
With the trigger as yet unpulled, she saw the
knowledge that he would not stop, could not
bullet go home, guided from muzzle to target by
stop, until the job was done.
nothing more or less than her heart s fierce desire
that it should fly true. All fear fell away. What was
left was a feeling of deep coldness and she had time
to think: This is what he feels. My God how does
He could dimly hear Richie bellowing
he stand it?  I kill with my heart, motherfucker,
something, Eddie howling at Beverly to shoot
she said, and the gunslinger s revolver roared in
It, shoot It. But Beverly did not. This was her
her hand.
only other chance. It didn t matter; she intend-
ed that it be the only one she would need. A
clear coldness she never saw again in her life
He didn t know if he was the stuff of which
fell over her sight. In it everything stood out
gunslingers were made the idea seemed fabu-
and forward; never again would she see the
lously unlikely to him, even though he knew he had
three dimensions of reality so clearly denned.
managed to hold up his end pretty well during the
She possessed every color, every angle, every
shootout at Balazar s nightclub but he did know
distance. Fear departed. She felt the hunter s
that part of him liked the coldness that fell over him
simple lust of certainty and oncoming con-
when he spoke the words of the old, old catechism
summation. Her pulse slowed. The hysterical
the gunslinger had taught them; the coldness and
trembling grip in which she had been hold-
the way things seemed to stand forth with their own
ing the Bullseye loosened, then firmed and
breathless clarity. There was another part of him
became natural. She drew in a deep breath. It
which understood that this was just another deadly
seemed to her that her lungs would never fill
drug, not much different from the heroin which had
completely. Dimly, faintly, she heard popping
killed Henry and almost killed him, but that did
sounds. Didn t matter, whatever they were.
not alter the thin, tight pleasure of the moment. It
She tracked left, waiting for the Werewolf s
drummed in him like taut cables vibrating in a high
improbable head to fall with cool perfection
wind.
into the wishbone beyond the extended V of
  I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with
the drawn-back sling.
his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
  I aim with my eye.
  I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his
gun has forgotten the face of his father.  Then,
without knowing he meant to do it, he stepped out
of the trees and spoke to the trundling robots on the
far side of the clearing:
  I kill with my heart. 
Kas-ka-Pria
Magic cost: 1
 I m telling you for the last time to get out, he
Sanity Loss: 0/1
said in a voice he did not recognize as his own. It was
too strong, too sure, too full of power. He understood
he probably could not put an end to the thing which
crouched before him with one cringing hand raised to
shield its face from the shifting spectrum of light, but
he could make it be one. Tonight that power was his...
if he dared to use it. If he dared to stand and be true.
 And I m telling you for the last time that you re going
without this.
 They ll die without me! the Gaunt-thing moaned.
Now its hands hung between its legs; long claws
clicked and clittered in the scattered debris which lay
in the street.  Every single one of them will die without
me, like plants without water in the desert. Is that what
you want? Is it?
Polly was with Alan then, pressed against his side.
 Yes, she said coldly.  Better that they die here and
now, if that s what has to happen, than that they go with
you and live. They we did some lousy things, but
that price is much too high.
The Gaunt-thing hissed and shook its claws at them.
Alan picked up the bag and backed slowly into the
street with Polly by his side. He raised the fountain
of light-flowers so that they cast an amazing, revolv-
ing glow upon Mr. Gaunt and his Tucker Talisman. He
pulled air into his chest more air than his body had
ever contained before, it seemed. And when he spoke,
the words roared from him in a vast voice which was
not his own.  GO HENCE, DEMON! YOU ARE CAST
OUT FROM THIS PLACE!
The Gaunt-thing screamed as if burned by scalding
water.
Khef-kas
[Better send her across, Shorts I m warning you. ] [ No.] [I ll fuck you
over, Shorts. I ll fuck you over big-time. And I ll fuck your friends over.
Do you get me? Do you ] Ralph suddenly raised one hand to shoulder
Magic cost: 10
height with the palm turned inward toward the side of his head, as if he
Sanity Loss: 0/1
meant to administer a karate chop. He brought it down and watched,
Damage: Khef x5
amazed, as a tight blue wedge of light flew off the tips of his fingers and
sliced across the street like a thrown spear.
Doc #3 ducked just in time, clapping one hand to McGovern s Panama
to keep it from flying off. The blue wedge skimmed two or three inches
over that small, clutching hand and struck the front window of the Burry-
Burry. There it spread like some supernatural liquid, and for a moment the
dusty glass became the brilliant, perfect blue of today s sky. It faded after
only a moment and Ralph could see the women inside the laundromat
again, folding their clothes and loading their washers exactly as if nothing
had happened.
Ralph lifted his hand to the side of his head again, but something inside
had changed. He could bring it down in that chopping gesture again, but
he was almost positive that this time no bright blue flying wedge would
result.
Somewhere close by or a thousand miles away Polly shrieked,  Look out, Alan! but there
was no time to look out; the demon, smelling like a mixture of sulphur and fried shoeleather, was
upon him. There was only time to act or time to die.
Alan passed his right hand down the inside of his left wrist, groping for the tiny elastic loop pro-
truding from his watchband. Part of him was announcing that this would never work, even another
miracle of transmutation couldn t save him this time, because the Folding Flower Trick was used
up, it was...
His thumb slipped into the loop.
The tiny paper packet snapped out. Alan thrust his hand forward, sliding the loop free for the
last time as he did so.
 ABRACADABRA, YOU LYING FUCK! he cried, and what suddenly bloomed in his hand was
not a bouquet of flowers but a blazing bouquet of light that lit Upper Main Street with a fabulous,
shifting radiance. Yet he realized the colors rising from his fist in an incredible fountain were one
color, as all the colors translated by a glass prism or a rainbow in the air are one color. He felt a
jolt of power run up his arm, and for a moment he was filled with a great and incoherent ecstasy:
The white! The coming of the white!
Gaunt howled with pain and rage and fear... but did not back away. Perhaps it was as Alan had
suggested: it had been so long since he had lost the game that he had forgotten how.
Pria-kes
The Lesser Pria-kes
Magic cost: 10
Sanity Loss: 0/1d3
Damage:
A jolt slammed through me then, a big painless whack of
Caster: 1d2
something. It made me jerk on the cot and bow my back, made
me think of Old Toot shouting that he was frying, he was fry-
ing, he was a done tom turkey. There was no heat, no feeling
of electricity, but for a moment the color seemed to jump out
of everything, as if the world had been somehow squeezed and
made to sweat. I could see every pore on John Coffey s face, I
could see every bloodshot snap in his haunted eyes, I could see
a tiny healing scrape on his chin. I was aware that my fingers
were hooked down into claws on thin air, and that my feet were
drumming on the floor of Coffey s cell.
Then it was over. So was my urinary infection. Both the heat
and the miserable throbbing pain were gone from my crotch,
and the fever was likewise gone from my head. I could still feel
the sweat it had drawn out of my skin, and I could smell it, but
it was gone, all right.
 What s going on? Delacroix called shrilly. His voice
still came from far away, but when John Coffey bent forward,
breaking eye-contact with me, the little Cajun s voice suddenly
came clear. It was as if someone had pulled wads of cotton or
a pair of shooters plugs out of my ears.  What s he doing to
you?
I didn t answer. Coffey was bent forward over his own lap
with his face working and his throat bulging. His eyes were
bulging, too. He looked like a man with a chicken bone caught
in his throat.
 John! I said. I clapped him on the back; it was all I could
think of to do.  John, what s wrong?
He hitched under my hand, then made an unpleasant gag-
ging, retching sound. His mouth opened the way horses some-
times open their mouths to allow the bit reluctantly, with the
lips peeling back from the teeth in a kind of desperate sneer.
Then his teeth parted, too, and he exhaled a cloud of tiny black
insects that looked like gnats or noseeums. They swirled furi-
ously between his knees, turned white, and disappeared.
Magic cost: 0
The Greater Pria-kes
Sanity Loss: 0/1d2
 Little girl.
 Don t call me that!
Her hand shot out and closed around Frannie s wrist.
Fran went rigid. Her eyes closed. Her head snapped back.
 Don t D-D-Don t... OH MY GOD STU 
 Here! Here! Stu roared.  What are you doing to
her?
Mother Abagail didn t answer. The moment spun out,
seemed to stretch into a pocket of eternity, and then the
old woman let go. Slowly, dazedly, Fran began to massage
the wrist Mother Abagail had taken, although there was
no red ring or dent in the flesh to show that pressure had
been applied. Frannie s eyes suddenly widened.
 Hon? Stu asked anxiously.
 Gone, Fran muttered.
 What . . . what s she talking about? Stu looked
around at the others in shaken appeal. Glen only shook
his head. His face was white and strained but not
disbelieving.
 The pain... the whiplash. The pain in my back. It s
gone. She looked at Stu, dazed.  It s all gone. Look.
She bent and touched her toes lightly: once, then twice.
Then she bent a third time and placed her palms flat on
the floor without unlocking her knees. She stood up again
and met Mother Abagail s eyes.
 Is this a bribe from your God? Because if it is, He can
take His cure back. I d rather have the pain if Stu comes
with it.
 God don t lay on no bribes, child, Mother Abagail
whispered.  He just makes a sign and lets people take it
as they will.
Only the lesser form of the pria-kes produces the tam.
If the tam are not expelled, the bearer sickens and dies
within hours.
Transmutation
 I think I ll keep it, Alan said evenly. A small smile, as thin and
sharp as a rind of November ice, touched his mouth.  Let s just call it
Magic cost: 10
evidence, okay?
Sanity Loss: none
 I m afraid you can t do that, Sheriff. Gaunt stepped off the sidewalk
and into the street. Small red pits of light glowed in his eyes.  You can
die, but you can t keep my property. Not if I mean to take it. And I do.
He began to walk toward Alan, the red pinpricks in his eyes deepening.
He left a boot-track in an oatmeal-colored lump of Ace s brains as he
came.
Alan felt his belly try to fold in on itself, but he didn t move. Instead,
prompted by some instinct he made no effort to understand, he put his
hands together in front of the station wagon s left headlight. He crossed
them, made a bird-shape, and began to bend his wrists rapidly back and
forth.
The sparrows are flying again, Mr. Gaunt, he thought.
A large projected shadow-bird more hawk than sparrow and unset-
tlingly realistic for an insubstantial shade suddenly flapped across the
false front of Needful Things. Gaunt saw it from the corner of his eye,
whirled toward it, gasped, and retreated again.
 Get out of town, my friend, Alan said. He rearranged his hands and
now a large shadow-dog perhaps a Saint Bernard slouched across
the front of You Sew and Sew in the spotlight thrown by the station wag-
on s headlights. And somewhere near perhaps coincidentally, perhaps
not a dog began to bark. A large one, by the sound.
Gaunt turned in that direction. He was looking slightly harried now,
and definitely off-balance.
 You re lucky I m cutting you loose, Alan went on.  But what would
I charge you with, come to that? The theft of souls may be covered in the
legal code Brigham and Rose deal with, but I don t think I d find it in
mine. Still, I d advise you to go while you still can.
 Give me my bag!
Alan stared at him, trying to look unbelieving and contemptuous while
his heart hammered away wildly in his chest.  Don t you understand
yet? Don t you get it? You lose, Have you forgotten how to deal with
that?
Gaunt stood looking at Alan for a long second, and then he nodded I
knew I was wise to avoid you, he said. He almost seemed to be speak-
ing to himself.  I knew it very well. All right. You win.
He began to turn away; Alan relaxed slightly.  I ll go  He turned
back, quick as a snake himself, so quick he made Alan look slow. His
face had changed again; its human aspect was entirely gone. It was the
face of a demon now, with long, deeply scored cheeks and drooping eyes
that blazed with orange fire.  But NOT WITHOUT MY PROPERTY!
he screamed, and leaped for the bag.
Transcend
This was that experience to the tenth power. And the hell of it was simply
this: he could not describe exactly what had happened, and how the world had
changed, to make it so wonderful. Things and people, particularly the people, had
Magic Cost: 10
auras, yes, but that was only where this amazing phenomenon began. Things had
Sanity Loss: 2/2d4+1
never been so brilliant, so utterly and completely there. The cars, the telephone
poles, the shopping carts in the Kart Korral in front of the supermarket, the frame
apartment buildings across the street all these things seemed to pop out at him
like 3-D images in an old film. All at once this dingy little strip-mall on Witcham
Street had become wonderland, and although Ralph was looking right at it, he was
not sure what he was looking at, only that it was rich and gorgeous and fabulously
strange. The only things he could isolate were the auras surrounding the people
going in and out of stores, stowing packages in their trunks, or getting in their
cars and driving away. Some of these auras were brighter than others, but even
the dimmest were a hundred times brighter than his first glimpses of the phenom-
enon.
He saw no little bald doctors, but shortly after five-thirty, he observed a
startling shaft of purple light erupt from a manhole cover in the middle of Harris
Avenue; it rose into the sky like a special effect in a Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic
for perhaps three minutes, then simply winked out. He also saw a huge bird that
looked like a prehistoric hawk go floating between the chimneys of the old dairy
building around the corner on Howard Street, and alternating red and blue ther-
mals twisting over Strawford Park in long, lazy ribbons.
Lois dug her elbow into Ralph s side, started to point toward an area be-
yond the Central Information booth, realized there were people all around them,
and settled for lifting her chin in that direction instead. Earlier, Ralph had seen a
shape in the sky which had looked like a prehistoric bird. Now he saw something
which looked like a long translucent snake. It was easing its way across the ceiling
above a sign which read PLEASE WAIT HERE FOR BLOOD-TESTING.
 Is it alive? Lois whispered with some alarm.
Ralph looked more closely and realized the thing had no head... no dis-
cernible tail, either. It was all body. He supposed it was alive he had an idea all
the auras were alive in some fashion but he didn t think it was really a snake,
and he doubted that it was dangerous, at least to the likes of them.
 Don t sweat the small stuff, sweetheart, he whispered back to her as they
joined the short line at Central Information, and as he said it, the snake-thing
seemed to melt into the ceiling and disappear. Ralph didn t know how important
such things as the bird and the cyclone were in the secret world s scheme of things,
but he was positive that people were still the main show. The lobby of Derry Home
Hospital was like a gorgeous Fourth of July fireworks display, a display in which
the parts of the Roman candles and Chinese Fountains were being played by hu-
man beings.
Lois hooked a finger into his collar to make him bend his head toward
her.  You ll have to do the talking, Ralph, she said in a strengthless, amazed little
voice.  I m having all I can do not to wee in my pants.
  That s I.C.U! she snapped.  Can t go But I could have turned her all blue,
up to I.C.U. without a special pass. Orange Ralph thought. Take her offer. Run her around
hooks began to poke their way out of the glow the room like a wind-up toy.
around her head, and her aura began to look Yes, he could probably do almost any-
like barbed wire strung across some ghostly no- thing he wanted with this orange-haloed grump;
man s-land. his batteries were fully charged. The only prob-
 I know, Ralph said, more humbly lem was that the juice in those batteries and in
than ever,  but my friend, Lafayette Chapin, he Lois s, as well was stolen goods.
said 
 Gosh! the woman in the booth inter- When the information-lady s hand
rupted.  It s wonderful, the way everyone s got emerged from beneath the desk, it was holding
a friend. Really wonderful. She rolled a satiric two laminated pink badges marked INTENSIVE
eye toward the ceiling. CARE/VISITOR.
 Faye said Jimmy could have visitors,  Here you are, sir, she said in a cour-
though. You see, he has cancer and he s not ex- teous voice utterly unlike the tone in which she
pected to live much l  had first addressed him.  Enjoy your visit and
 Well, I ll check the files, the woman in thank you for waiting.
the booth said with the grudging air of one who
knows she is being sent upon a fool s errand, Lois glanced back at the woman in the
 but the computer is very slow tonight, so it s information booth. She was dealing with her
going to take awhile. Give me your name, then next customer, but slowly, as if she d just been
you and your wife go sit over there. I ll page you granted some moderately amazing revelation
as soon as  Ralph decided that he had eaten and had to think it over.
enough humble pie in front of this bureaucratic The blue glow was now visible only at
guard dog. It wasn t as if he wanted an exit-visa the very tips of her fingers, and as Lois watched,
from Albania, after all; just a goddam I.C.U. that disappeared as well. Lois looked up at
pass would do. Ralph again and smiled.
There was a slot in the base of the glass [ Yes ... she is all right. So stop beating
booth. Ralph reached through it and grasped up on yourself] [ Was that what I was doing?
the woman s wrist before she could pull it away. [ I think so, yes ... we re talking that way again,
There was a sensation, painless but very clear, Ralph. ] [ I know, ] [ Ralph? ] [ Yes? ] [ This
of those orange hooks passing directly through is all pretty wonderful, isn t it? ] [ Yes. ]
his flesh without finding anything to catch on.
Ralph squeezed gently and felt a small burst of [ Stop staring at that baby, Ralph. You re
force something that would have been no big- making its mother nervous. ]
ger than a pellet if it had been seen pass from Ralph glanced at the woman in whose
him to the woman. Suddenly the officious orange arms the baby slept and saw that Lois was
aura around her left arm and side turned the right... but it was hard not to look. The baby, no
faded turquoise of Ralph s aura. She gasped and more than three months old, lay within a capsule
jerked forward on her chair, as if someone had of violently shifting yellow-gray aura. This pow-
just dumped a paper cup filled with ice-cubes erful but disquieting thunder light circled the
down the back of her uniform. tiny body with the idiot speed of the atmosphere
[ Never mind the computer. Just give me surrounding a gas giant Jupiter, say, or Saturn.
a couple of passes, please. Right away. ]
 Yes, sir, she said at once, and Ralph let
go of her wrist so she could reach beneath her
desk. The turquoise glow around her arm was
turning orange again, the change in color creep-
ing down from her shoulder toward her wrist.
-The Red-
Old enough to bleed
Old enough to slaughter
The old farmer said
And grinned at the white
Haystack sky
With sweaty teeth
(radiation radiation
your grandchildren will be monsters)
I remember a skeleton
In Death Valley
A cow in the sunbleached throes of antiseptic death
and someone said:
Someday there will be skeletons
on the median strip of the Hollywood Freeway
staring up at exhaust-sooty pigeons
amidst the flapping ruins of Botany 500
 You can mock, but it s true, he said quietly.  It s not King Herod, though it s the
Crimson King. Herod was merely one of his incarnations. The Crimson King jumps from
body to body and generation to generation like a kid using stepping-stones to cross a
brook, Ralph, always looking for the Messiah. He s always missed him, but this time it
could be different. Because Derry s different.
 All lines of force have begun to converge here. I know how difficult that is to believe,
but it s true.
Tom didn t speak for a long time. Stu had decided he wasn t going to answer and he
was preparing to go back to the  script when Tom said:  He looks like anybody you see
on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you
a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and
dies where he spits. He s always outside. He came out of time. He doesn t know himself.
He has the name of a thousand demons. Jesus knocked him into a herd of pigs once. His
name is Legion. He s afraid of us. We re inside. He knows magic. He can call the wolves
and live in the crows. He s the king of nowhere. But he s afraid of us. He s afraid of...
inside. Tom fell silent.
The three of them stared at each other, pallid as gravestones. Ralph had seized his hat
from his head and was kneading it convulsively in his hands. Nick had put one hand over
his eyes. Stu s throat had turned to dry glass.
His name is Legion. He is the king of nowhere.
 Can you say anything else about him? Stu asked in a low voice.
 Only that I m afraid of him, too. But I ll do what you want. But Tom . . . is so afraid.
That dreadful sigh again.
The Speech of the
Unformed
They came up the long aisle of the black infirmary, laughing together like children
out on a prank, carrying long tapers in silver holders, the bells lining the forehead-bands
of their wimples chiming little silver runs of sound. They gathered about the bed of the
bearded man. From within their circle, candleglow rose in a shimmery column that died
before it got halfway to the silken ceiling. Sister Mary spoke briefly. Roland recognized
her voice, but not the words it was neither low speech nor the High, but some other lan-
guage entirely. One phrase stood out can de lach, mi him en tow and he had no idea
what it might mean.
He realized that now he could hear only the tinkle of bells the doctor-bugs had stilled.
 Ras me! On! On! Sister Mary cried in a harsh, powerful voice. The candles went out.
The light which had shone through the wings of their wimples as they gathered around the
bearded man s bed vanished, and all was darkness once more.
A - Variable term which means both  the and  of.
Ah lah? -  Where (is something)?
Ah lah, him en tow -  Sit down. Imposing of one s will on another.
Azka - Also called an azakah. It is a small ball with a spider inside. It eats its victim s pain, swelling
in size and causing the wearer s pain to diminish as long as it is worn.
An Tak - The khef-kra of Tak. It is also another name for The Big Combination.
Abbalah - King or Ruler, pejorative or evil connotations.
Cam-ma - Destroy.
Can Tam - The name for the Doctor Bugs.
Can de lach - The heart of the unformed.
Can - Thinking creatures.
Can fin - An exclamation. Also a derogatory form of address.
Can tah - Little stone carvings or little gods.
Can tah, can tak! -  Little gods, big gods! There are other gods than yours.
Can-Tah Abbalah - The Court of the Crimson King.
Can tak - Big gods.
Can toi -  Children of the desert . This term is also applied to the Low Men, who exist somewhere
between the taheen and the humes.
Cay de mun - Open your mouth.
Chassit - The land of the dead
Dama - Father.
Damane - Son.
Dinnit - Serve.
Din-Tah - The great furnace
Doon - End-World.
En tow - Strong. As in  Our god is strong.
Gorg - Gorg is Malshun s crow. Gorg also means death.
Hais - Silence.
Him en tow - God is (Gods are) strong.
Ini - Well of the worlds, Tak s place.
Kadath - A thinking plant.
Me -  It . Used in the phrase  Ras me! ON! ON!
Me en Tak - Possessed of Tak.
Mi him - The watchman s circle.
Mi him, can de lach, mi him, min en tow. Tak! -  Come to me. Come to Tak, come
to the old one, come to the heart of
the unformed.
Mi him can ini - The empty well of the eye.
Mi him, en tow! - Our god is strong!
Mi tow, can de lach - Fear the unformed.
Min - Come.
Min En Tow -  Come to me or  Come to the old one.
Montah - Mother.
On - Now.
Os dam - Man.
Os pa - Woman.
Pirin moh - A kind of building. This was the underground prison where Tak was held
in the desert.
Pnung -  Be still.
Ram -  Red , or  Crimson as in Crimson King (Ram Abbalah).
Ras - The verb  do as in  Ras me! ON! ON!, which means  Do it! Now! Now!
Samman - Find.
Si em, tow en can de lach -  We speak the language of the unformed.
So cah set! - an exclamation.
Tak - Tak resides in the ini. Tak is also a word in the Dark Speech that means  big .
Tak ah lah -  Go (somewhere) , as in  Tak Ah Lah in de Ini? (I go to the Ini?)
Tak a lah. Timoh. Can de lach. On! On! - Making an animal attack someone.
Tak ah wan! Tak ah lah! Mi him, en tow! - Talking to the spiders.
T eelee -  Come. This is a formal term of End-World.
Ter-Tah - The mortal world. This is a derisive term of End-World.
Timoh - Animals.
Timoh sen cah - Certain low animals; wolves, coyotes, snakes, spiders, rats, bats.
Tulpa - A creature of the invisible world capable of possessing the living
Uhlahg - A word of power to command a zombie
Wan - Follow, guard.
-The Art-
Even then Gramma had been getting senile, having her  bad spells. She had always been a trial to
her family, Gramma had. She was a volcanic woman who had taught school for fifteen years, between
having babies and getting in fights with the Congregational Church she and Granpa and their nine chil-
dren went to. Mom said that Granpa and Gramma quit the Congregational Church in Scarborough at
the same time Gramma decided to quit teaching, but once, about a year ago, when Aunt Flo was up for a
visit from her home in Salt Lake City, George and Buddy, listening at the register as Mom and her sister
sat up late, talking, heard quite a different story. Granpa and Gramma had been kicked out of the church
and Gramma had been fired off her job because she did something wrong. It was something about books.
Why or how someone could get fired from their job and kicked out of the church just because of books,
George didn t understand, and when he and Buddy crawled back into their twin beds under the eave,
George asked.
There s all kinds of books, Senõr El-Stupido, Buddy whispered.
Yeah, but what kind?
How should I know? Go to sleep!
Silence. George thought it through.
Buddy?
What! An irritated hiss.
Why did Mom tell us Gramma quit the church and her job?
Because it s a skeleton in the closet, that s why! Now go to sleep!
So his Mom told him that after Granpa and Gramma had gotten married, they had had a baby that
was born dead, and a year later they had another baby, and that was born dead too, and the doctor
told Gramma she would never be able to carry a child to term and all she could do was keep on having
babies that were dead or babies that died as soon as they sucked air. That would go on, he said, until one
of them died inside her too long before her body could shove it out and it would rot in there and kill her,
too.
The doctor told her that.
Not long after, the books began.
Books about how to have babies?
But Mom didn t or wouldn t say what kind of books they were, or where Gramma got them, or how
she knew to get them. Gramma got pregnant again, and this time the baby wasn t born dead and the
baby didn t die after a breath or two; this time the baby was fine, and that was George s Uncle Larson.
And after that, Gramma kept getting pregnant and having babies. Once, Mom said, Granpa had tried
to make her get rid of the books to see if they could do it without them (or even if they couldn t, maybe
Granpa figured they had enough yowwens by then so it wouldn t matter) and Gramma wouldn t. George
asked his mother why and she said:  I think that by then having the books was as important to her as
having the babies.
 I don t get it, George said.
 Well, George s mother said,  I m not sure 1 do, either... I was very small, remember. All I know
for sure is that those books got a hold over her. She said there would be no more talk about it and there
wasn t, either. Because Gramma wore the pants in our family.
What was the picture? It was Gramma, of course, Gramma and her books, Gramma who had been
driven out of town, Gramma who hadn t been able to have babies and then had been able to, Gramma
who had been driven out of the church as well as out of town.
  Get out of my way! Carlos squalls.  Abbalah! Abbalah can tak! Demeter can tah! Gah! Gam!
 Save your spic gabble for someone who gives a rip, the General says. He makes no attempt to get off
his knees, simply sways from side to side, looking as mystic (and as deadly) as any snake ever piped out of
a fakir s basket.  You want to get past me, son? Then come on. Try for it.
Carlos looks over the old man s shoulder and sees there are still green boughs of ivy looped around the
old man s ankles.
 Kadath! Carlos calls.  Cam-ma! Can tak! These words mean nothing in themselves. They are in-
vocatory in nature, Carlos Detweiller s way of shaping a telepathic command. He has told Zenith to yank
the old man again, to pull him right down the hall into the main growth and crush him.
Instead, the knots around the General s ankles untie themselves and slither away.
 No! Carlos bawls. He cannot believe that the Dark Powers have deserted him.  No, come back!
Kadath! Kadath can tak!
Curled atop the box was a slim green snake. When she touched its back, its head came up. Its mouth
yawned in a silent hiss, displaying four pairs of fangs two on top, two on the bottom. She took the snake
up, crooning to it. As she brought its flat face close to her own, its mouth yawned wider and it s hissing be-
came audible. She opened her own mouth; from between her wrinkled gray lips she poked the yellowish,
bad-smelling mat of her tongue. Two drops of poison enough to kill an entire dinner party, if mixed in
the punch fell on it. She swallowed, feeling her mouth and throat and chest bum, as if with strong liquor.
For a moment the room swam out of focus, and she could hear voices murmuring in the stenchy air of
the hut the voices of those she called  the unseen friends. Her eyes ran sticky water down the trenches
time had drawn in her cheeks. Then she blew out a breath and the room steadied. The voices faded.
She kissed Ermot between his lidless eyes (time o the Kissing Moon, all right, she thought) and then
set him aside. The snake slipped beneath her bed, curled itself in a circle, and watched as she passed her
palms over the top of the ironwood box. She could feel the muscles in her upper arms quivering, and that
heat in her loins was more pronounced. Years it had been since she had felt the call of her sex, but she felt
it now, so she did, and it was not the doing of the Kissing Moon, or not much.
The horror was complete. As her shadow fell over him, the paralysis broke and he screamed into the
phone, screamed it over and over again:  Gramma! Gramma! Gramma!
Gramma s cold hands touched his throat. Her muddy, ancient eyes locked on his, draining his will.
Faintly, dimly, as if across many years as well as many miles, he heard Aunt Flo say:  Tell her to lie
down, George, tell her to lie down and be still. Tell her she must do it in your name and the name of her
father. The name of her taken father is Hastur. His name is power in her ear, George tell her Lie down in
the Name of Hastur tell her 
The old, wrinkled hand tore the telephone from George s nerveless grip. There was a taut pop as the
cord pulled out of the phone. George collapsed in the corner and Gramma bent down, a huge heap of
flesh above him, blotting out the light.
George screamed:  Lie down! Be still! Hastur s name! Hastur! Lie down! Be still! 
Her hands closed around his neck
 You gotta do it! Aunt Flo said you did! In my name! In your Father s name! Lie down! Be sti 
 and squeezed.
Though the black arts come naturally to some, the touch of Discordia eventually warps even the strongest
personality. Every time a spell is successfully learned, the caster blacks out a number of Sanity Points
equal to the Sanity cost of the spell, starting from 99 and working backward. Blacked out Sanity points
are a ceiling into which current Sanity Points cannot be increased.
Hearth-light
Magic cost: 3
Rhea took two fat logs from Susan s pile and
Sanity Loss: 0/1
tossed them indifferently onto the coals. Embers
spiraled up the dark and faintly roaring shaft of
the chimney. There, ye ve scattered what s left
of yer fire, ye silly old thing, and will likely have
to rekindle the whole mess, Susan thought. Then
Rhea reached into the fireplace with one splayed
hand, spoke a guttural word, and the logs blazed
up as if soaked in oil.
Rhea shrieked again, this time with rage, and
seized the cat before it could flee. She hurled it
across the room, into the fireplace. That was as
dead a hole as only a summer fireplace can be,
but when Rhea cast a bony, misshapen hand at it,
a yellow gust of flame rose from the single half-
charred log lying in there. Musty screamed and
fled from the hearth with his eyes wide and his
split tail smoking like an indifferently butted cigar.
 Run, aye! Rhea spat after him.  Begone, ye
vile cusk!
Glam
The light was very dim now, the wall-panels across
the way a pinkish-orange that suggested sunset. In
Magic cost: 5/hour
this light, Coquina looked quite young and pretty...
Sanity Loss:
but it was a glamour, Roland was sure; a sorcerous
Caster: 0/1
kind of make-up.
Witness: 1/1d4+1
 Is he, now, and him so young and you so old?
Another of the sisters materialized out of the dark-
ness: Sister Tamra, who had called herself one-and-
twenty. In the moment before she reached Roland s
bed, her face was that of a hag who will never see
eighty again... or ninety. Then it shimmered and
was once more the plump, healthy countenance of
a thirty-year-old matron. Except for the eyes. They
remained yellowish in the corneas, gummy in the
corners, and watchful.
Cay
The box was locked and Jonas had given her no
key, but that was nothing to her, who had lived long
Magic cost: 6
and studied much and trafficked with creatures that
Sanity Loss: 0/1
most men, for all their bold talk and strutting ways,
would run from as if on fire had they caught even
the smallest glimpse of them. She stretched one hand
toward the lock, on which was inlaid the shape of an
eye and a motto in the High Speech (I see who opens
me), and then withdrew it.
 Oh, my beauty, she whispered, and touched the
lock with her gnarled fingers. A faint glimmer of red
light showed between her bunched knuckles, and
there was a click. Breathing hard, like a woman who
has run a race, she put the box down and opened it.
She passed her fingers over the lock on the front of
the box, but it wouldn t fasten. She supposed she had
been overeager to have it open, and had broken some-
thing inside it when she used the touch. The eye and
the motto seemed to mock her: I see who opens me. It
could be put right, and in a jiffy, but right now even a
jiffy was more than she had.
Familiar
The hag, meanwhile, was watching Susan
shrewdly, her bunch-knuckled hands planted on
her hips while her cat twined around her ankles.
Magic cost: 15
Her eyes were rheumy, but Susan saw enough of
Sanity Loss: 1/1d6
them to realize they were the same gray-green
shade as the cat s eyes, and to wonder what sort
of fell magic that might be. She felt an urge a
strong one to drop her eyes, and would not. It
was all right to feel fear, but sometimes a very
bad idea to show it.
Rhea chuckled; the chuckle turned into a
hollow gust of coughing. In the corner, Musty
looked at the old woman hauntedly. Although
far from the emaciated skeleton that his mistress
had become, Musty didn t look good at all.
Min
 Come here, boy, Gramma called in a dead buzzing voice.
 Come in here Gramma wants to hug you.
George tried to scream and no sound came out. No sound at
Magic cost: Target s Anima
all. But there were sounds in the other room. Sounds that he
Sanity Loss:
heard when Mom was in there, giving Gramma her bed-bath,
Caster: 0/1
lifting her bulk, dropping it, turning it, dropping it again. Only
Victim: 1/1d4+1
those sounds now seemed to have a slightly different and yet
utterly specific meaning it sounded as though Gramma was
trying to... to get out of bed.
 Boy! Come in here, boy! Right NOW! Step to it! With
horror he saw that his feet were answering that command. He
told them to stop and they just went on, left foot, right foot, hay
foot, straw foot, over the linoleum; his brain was a terrified
prisoner inside his body a hostage in a tower. She IS a witch,
she s a witch and she s having one of her  bad spells, oh yeah,
it s a  spell all right, and it s bad, it s REALLY bad, oh God
oh Jesus help me help me help me George walked across the
kitchen and through the entryway and into Gramma s room and
yes, she hadn t just tried to get out of bed, she was out, she was
sitting in the white vinyl chair where she hadn t sat for four
years, since she got too heavy to walk and too senile to know
where she was, anyway. But Gramma didn t look senile now.
Her face was sagging and doughy, but the senility was gone if
it had ever really been there at all, and not just a mask she wore
to lull small boys and tired husbandless women. Gramma held
her huge arms out to him.
 I want to hug you, Georgie, that flat and buzzing dead
voice said.  Don t be a scared old crybaby. Let your Gramma
hug you.
George cringed back, trying to resist that almost insurmount-
able pull. Outside, the wind shrieked and roared. George s face
was long and twisted with the extremity of his fright; the face
of a woodcut caught and shut up in an ancient book. George
began to walk toward her. He couldn t help himself. Step by
dragging step toward those outstretched arms. He would show
Buddy that he wasn t scared of Gramma, either. He would go to
Gramma and be hugged because he wasn t a crybaby fraidycat.
He would go to Gramma now.
He was almost within the circle of her arms when the window
to his left crashed inward and suddenly a wind-blown branch
was in the room with them, autumn leaves still clinging to it.
The river of wind flooded the room, blowing over Gramma s
pictures, whipping her nightgown and her hair.
Now George could scream. He stumbled backward out of
her grip and Gramma made a cheated hissing sound, her lips
pulling back over smooth old gums; her thick, wrinkled hands
clapped uselessly together on moving air.
Cam-ma
He went up to the room he shared with Buddy
Magic cost: 15
and opened the hot-air register so he could hear
Sanity Loss: 0/1d4
what his mother did next. She wasn t going to talk
Damage: Caster s Anima
to Aunt Flo, not tonight, because the telephone
cord had pulled out; not tomorrow, because shortly
before Mom had come home, George had spoken
a short series of words, some of them bastardized
Latin, some only pre-Druidic grunts, and over two
thousand miles away Aunt Flo had dropped dead of
a massive brain hemorrhage. It was amazing how
those words came back.
How everything came back.
A fish jumped below at us. The man in the black
suit frowned, then pointed a finger at it. The trout
convulsed in the air, its body bending so strenuously
that for a split second it appeared to be snapping at
its own tail, and when it fell back into Castle Stream
it was floating lifelessly. It struck the big gray rock
where the waters divided, spun around twice in the
whirlpool eddy that formed there, and then floated
away in the direction of Castle Rock. Meanwhile,
the terrible stranger turned his burning eyes on me
again, his thin lips pulled back from tiny rows of
sharp teeth in a cannibal smile.
Dim
Invisibility was likewise impossible, at least as far as Flagg
himself had been able to determine. Yet it was possible to make
Magic cost: 3
oneself... dim.
Sanity Loss: none
Yes, dim that was really the best word for it, although others
sometimes came to mind: ghostly, transparent, unobtrusive.
Invisibility was out of his reach, but by first eating a pizzle and
then reciting a number of spells, it was possible to become
dim. When one was dim and a servant approached along a
passageway, one simply drew aside and stood still and let the
servant pass. In most cases, the servant s eyes would drop to
his own feet or suddenly find something interesting to look at
on the ceiling. If one passed through a room, conversation
would falter, and people would look momentarily distressed,
as if all were having gas pains at the same time. Torches and
wall sconces grew smoky. Candles sometimes blew out. It was
necessary to actually hide when one was dim only if one saw
someone whom one knew well for, whether one was dim or
not, these people almost always saw. Dimness was useful, but it
was not invisibility.
He stopped beneath the tree, looking through the open door
twenty paces away. He saw what could have been a kitchen; the
legs of a table, the back of a chair, a filthy hearthstone. No sign
of the lady of the house. But she was there. Roland could feel
her eyes crawling on him like loathsome bugs.
I can t see her because she s used her art to make herself
dim... but she s there.
And just perhaps he did see her. The air had a strange shim-
mer just inside the door to the right, as if it had been heated.
Roland had been told that you could see someone who was dim
by turning your head and looking from the comer of your eye.
He did that now.
 Roland? Cuthbert called from behind him.
 Fine so far, Bert. Barely paying attention to the words he
was saying, because... yes! That shimmer was clearer now, and
it had almost the shape of a woman. It could be his imagina-
tion, of course, but...
But at that moment, as if understanding he d seen her, the
shimmer moved farther back into the shadows. Roland glimpsed
the swinging hem of an old black dress, there and then gone.
Sup
 To the death?
 Aye. Hers or mine.
  Twill be hers, Rhea said,  never fear it. Now refresh me,
Magic cost: 5+
Cordelia. Give me what I need!
Sanity Loss: 1/1d4+1
Cordelia unbuttoned her dress down the front, pushing it open
Damage: 2 per point
to reveal an ungenerous bosom and a middle which had begun to
restored
curve out in the last year or so, making a tidy little potbelly. Yet
she still had the vestige of a waist, and it was here she used the
knife, cutting through her shift and the top layers of flesh beneath.
The white cotton began to bloom red at once along the slit.
 Aye, Rhea whispered.  Like roses. I dream of them often
enough, roses in bloom, and what stands black among em at the
end of the world. Come closer! She put her hand on the small
of Cordelia s back, urging her forward. She raised her eyes to
Cordelia s face, then grinned and licked her lips.  Good. Good
enough.
Cordelia looked blankly over the top of the old woman s head
as Rhea of the Cöos buried her face against the red cut in the
shift and began to drink.
It was at this point, not long after the last toll of noon had faded
into the cold air, that the batwing doors opened and two women
came in. A good many knew the crone in the lead, and several of
them crossed their eyes with their thumbs as a ward against her
evil look. A murmur ran through the room. It was the Cöos, the
old witch-woman, and although her face was pocked with sores
and her eyes sunk so deep in their sockets they could barely be
seen, she gave off a peculiar sense of vitality. Her lips were red,
as if she had been eating winterberries. The woman behind her
walked slowly and stiffly, with one hand pressed against her mid-
section. Her face was as white as the witch-woman s mouth was
red.
If Roland could have raised his hands, he would have put them
to his ears to block those sounds out. As it was, he could only lie
still, listening and waiting for them to stop. For a long time for
ever, it seemed they did not. The women slurped and grunted
like pigs snuffling half-liquefied feed out of a trough. There
was even one resounding belch, followed by more whispered
giggles (these, ended when Sister Mary uttered a single curt
word  Hais! ). And once there was a low, moaning cry - from
the bearded man, Roland was quite sure.
If so, it was his last on this side of the clearing.
Timoh-lach
The cop s good eye fixed on him for a moment, and then his
head lifted. He pointed at the sky with all five fingers of his left
Magic cost: 6
hand.  Tak ah lah, he said in his guttural, gargling voice.
Sanity Loss: 0/1d3
 Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!
There was a flapping sound. like clothes on a line, and a shad-
ow fell over Johnny s face. There was a harsh cry, not quite a
caw, and then something with scabrous, flapping wings dropped
on him, its crooked claws gripping his shoulders and folding
themselves into the fabric of his shirt, its beak digging into his
scalp as it uttered its inhuman cry again.
It was the smell that told Johnny what it was a smell like
meat gone feverish with rot. Its huge, unkempt wings flapped
against the sides of his face as it solidified its position, driving
that stench into his mouth and nose, jamming it in, making him
gag. He saw the Shepherd on its rope, swinging as the peeled-
looking bald things pulled at its tail and feet with their beaks.
Now one of them was roosting on him one which had appar-
ently never heard that buzzards were fundamental cowards that
only attacked dead things and its beak was plowing his scalp in
furrows, bringing blood.
 Get it off  he screamed, completely unnerved. He tried to
grab the wide, beating wings, but got only two fistfuls of feath-
ers. Nor could he see; he was afraid that if he opened his eyes,
the buzzard would shift its position and peck them out.  Jesus.
please, please get it off me!
 Are you going to look at me properly if I do? the cop asked.
 No more insolence? No more disrespect?
 No! No more! He would have promised anything. Whatever
had leaped out of him and spoken against the cop was gone now;
the bird had plucked it out like a worm from an ear of corn.
 Pirin-him
Now she went to the foot of her bed, knelt, and passed
Magic cost: 4
one hand over the earth floor there. Lines appeared in the
Sanity Loss: 0/1
sour dirt as she did. They formed a square. She pushed her
fingers into one of these lines; it gave before her touch. She
lifted the hidden panel (hidden in such a way that no one
without the touch would ever be able to uncover it), reveal-
ing a compartment perhaps a foot square and two feet deep.
Within it was an ironwood box.
The bitch hadn t seen her outside the hut she surely
would have stopped caterwauling, or at least faltered in it if
she had and that was good, but the cursed hidey-hole had
sealed itself up again, and that was bad. There was no time
to open it again, either. Rhea hurried to the bed, knelt, and
pushed the box far back into the shadows beneath.
Fascinate
Susannah tried to pull her gaze from that steadily
pulsing glow and at first couldn t do it. Panic bloomed
Magic cost: 4
in her mind (if he fascinates you and tells you to jump)
Sanity Loss: 0/1
and she seized it as a tool, compressing it to an edge
with which to cut through her frightened immobility.
For a moment nothing happened, and then she threw
herself backward so violently in the shabby little cart
that she had to clutch the edge in order to keep herself
from tumbling to the cobbles. The wind gusted again,
blowing stone-dust and grit against her face and into
her hair, seeming to mock her.
But that pull... fascination... glammer... whatever it
had been, it was gone.
-The Invisible World-
 There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end
of each Beam. This for we re still on it is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond
the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the
world rests.
 Below them is the whole invisible world, those creatures left behind when the Prim
receded. There are speaking demons, demons of house which some call ghosts, ill-sick de-
mons which some makers of machines and worshippers of the great false god rationality,
if it does ya call disease.
The creatures of the invisible world can enter our world through any thin
place, though many demons have a favorite location and dwell only in that
hole between the worlds..
 What are those? she asked in a low voice.  Chips of stone?
 Look again, Roland said.
She did, and saw that they were bones. The bones of small animals, maybe. She hoped.
Eddie switched the sharpened stick to his left hand, dried the palm of his right against
his shirt, and then switched it back again. He opened his mouth, but no sound came from
his dry throat. He cleared it and tried again.  I think I m supposed to go in and draw
something in the dirt.
Roland nodded.  Now?
 Soon. He looked into Roland s face.  There s something here, isn t there? Something
we can t see.
 It s not here right now, Roland said.  At least, I don t think it is. But it will come. Our
khef our life-force will draw it. And, of course, it will be jealous of its place. Give me
my gun back, Eddie.
-Proving Honesty-
 Wouldn t dirty her mouth with the words, would she? Well,
that s all right. Yer Aunt Rhea s not too nice to say what yer
Aunt Cordelia won t. I m to make sure that ye re physically and
spiritually intact, missy. Proving honesty is what the old ones
called it, and it s a good enough name. So it is. Step to me.
Spiritual honesty is determined through a combination of mundane examination and magical
scrutiny. This is a skill only available to the spiritually aware.
Skill Base Chance
Prove Honesty.................05%
Susan took two reluctant steps forward, so And then she felt one of those corpselike
that her bare toes were almost touching the old fingers prod its way into her anus. Susan bit her
woman s slippers and her bare breasts were al- lips to keep from screaming. The invasion was
most touching the old woman s dress.  If a devil mercifully short... but there would be another,
or demon has polluted yer spirit, such a thing as Susan feared.  Turn around.
might taint the child you ll likely bear, it leaves She turned. The old woman passed her hands
a mark behind. Most often it s a suck-mark or a over Susan s breasts, flicked lightly at the
lover s bite, but there s others... open yer mouth! nipples with her thumbs, then examined the un-
Susan did, and when the old woman bent dersides carefully. Rhea slipped a finger into the
closer, the reek of her was so strong that the girl s cup of the girl s navel, then hitched up her own
stomach clenched. She held her breath, praying skirt and dropped to her knees with a grunt of
this would be over soon.  Run out yer tongue. effort. She passed her hands down Susan s legs,
Susan ran out her tongue. first front, then back. She seemed to take special
 Now send yer breezes into my face. pains with the area just below the calves, where
Susan exhaled her held breath. Rhea breathed the tendons ran.
it in and then, mercifully, pulled her head away a  Lift yer right foot, girl.
little. She had been close enough for Susan to see Susan did, and uttered a nervous, screamy
the lice hopping in her hair. laugh as Rhea ran a thumbnail down her instep
 Sweet enough, the old woman said.  Aye, to her heel. The old woman parted her toes,
good s a meal. Now turn around. Susan did, looking between each pair. After this process
and felt the old witch s fingers trail down her had been repeated with the other foot, the old
back and to her buttocks. Their tips were cold as woman still on her knees said:  You know
mud. what comes next.
 Bend over and spread yer cheeks, missy, be  Aye. The word came out of her in a little
not shy, Rhea s seen more than one pultry in her trembling rush.
time!
Face flushing she could feel the beat of her
heart in the center of her forehead and in the hol-
lows of her temples Susan did as told.
-Todash-
 Todash, he said, and explained it to them as well as he could. What he remembered best
from Vannay s teachings was how the Manni spent long periods fasting in order to induce the
right state of mind, and how they traveled around, looking for exactly the right spot in which
to induce the todash state. This was something they determined with magnets and large
plumb-bobs.
It started with a low crackling sound. Roland s first thought was the campfire: one of them
had gotten some green fir boughs in there, the coals had finally reached them, and they were
producing that sound as the needles smoldered. But
The sound grew louder, became a kind of electric buzzing. Roland sat up and looked across
the dying fire. His eyes widened and his heart began to speed up.
Susannah had turned from Eddie, had drawn away a little, too. Eddie had reached out and
so had Jake. Their hands touched. And, as Roland looked at them, they commenced fading in
and out of existence in a series of jerky pulses. Oy was doing the same thing. When they were
gone, they were replaced by a dull gray glow that approximated the shapes and positions of
their bodies, as if something was holding their places in reality. Each time they came back,
there would be flat crackling buzz. Roland could see their closed eyelids ripple as the balls
rolled beneath.
Dreaming. But not just dreaming. This was todash, the passing between two worlds. Sup-
posedly the Manni could do it. And supposedly some pieces of the Wizard s Rainbow could
make you do it, whether you wanted to or not. One piece of it in particular.
They could get caught between and fall, Roland thought. Vannay said that, too. He said that
going todash was full of peril.
 There are endless worlds, your dinh is correct about that, but even when those worlds
are close together like some of the multiple New Yorks there are endless spaces between.
Think ya of the spaces between the inner and outer walls of a house. Places where it s always
dark. But just because a place is always dark doesn t mean it s empty. Does it, Susannah?
There are monsters in the todash darkness.
Who had said that? Roland? She couldn t remember for sure, and what did it matter? She
thought she understood what Mia was saying, and if so, it was horrible.
 Rats in the walls, Susannah. Bats in the walls. All sorts of sucking, biting bugs in the
walls.
 Stop it, I get the picture.
 That door beneath the castle one of their mistakes, I have no doubt goes to nowhere at
all. Into the darkness between worlds. Todash-space. But not empty space. Her voice low-
ered further.  That door is reserved for the Red King s most bitter enemies. They re thrown
into a darkness where they may exist blind, wandering, insane for years. But in the end,
something always finds them and devours them. Monsters beyond the ability of such minds as
outs to bear thought of.
-The Vagrant Dead-
 There! she cried, pointing across the street.  There! Do you see him? Please, Eddie, please
tell me you see him!
Eddie felt the temperature of his blood plummet. What he saw was a naked man who had been
cut open and then sewed up again in what could only be an autopsy tattoo. Another man a
living one bought a paper at the nearby newsstand, checked for traffic, then crossed Second
Avenue. Although he was shaking open the paper to look at the headline as he did it, Eddie saw
the way he swerved around the dead man. The way people swerved around us, he thought.
 There was another one, too, she whispered.  A woman. She was walking. And there was a
worm. I saw a worm c-c-crawling 
They looked. A child was wandering slowly toward them. it was only possible to tell it was a
girl because of the red-and-blue dress she wore. When she got closer, Eddie saw that the blue
was supposed to be the ocean. The red blobs resolved themselves into little candy-colored sail-
boats. Her head had been squashed in some cruel accident, squashed until it was wider than it
was long. Her eyes were crushed grapes. Over one pale arm was a white plastic purse. A little
girl s best I m-going-to-the-car-accident-and-don t-know-it purse.
Susannah drew in breath to scream. The darkness she had only sensed earlier was now almost
visible. Certainly it was palpable; it pressed against her like earth. Yet she would scream. She
must scream. Scream or go mad.
 Not a sound, Roland of Gilead whispered in her ear.  Do not disturb her, poor lost thing.
For your life, Susannah! Susannah s scream expired in a long, horrified sigh.
 They re dead, Jake said in a thin, controlled voice.  Both of them.
 The Vagrant dead, Roland replied.  I head of them from Alain Johns s father.
 In any case, it whas Burning Chris who warned us that if we ever went todash, we might
see vags. He pointed across the street to where the naked dead man still stood.  Such as him
yonder have wither died so suddenly they don t yet understand what s happened to them, or they
simply refuse to accept it. Sooner or later they do go in. I don t think there are many of them.
 There were enough, Callahan said,  and they knew I was there. Mangled people on Park
Avenue, one of them a man without eyes, one a woman missing the arm and leg on the right side
of her body and burned all over, both of them looking at me, as if they thought I could . . . fix
them, somehow.
-Migrating-
He had broken the connection before Gardener could say any more, and lain back on the
bed. He had crossed his hands on his stomach and closed his eyes. There was a moment of
weightlessness... just a moment... and then he felt a sensation of movement beneath him. He
heard the creak of leather traces, the groan and thump of rough iron springs, the curses of his
driver.
He had opened his eyes as Morgan of Orris.
As always, his first reaction was pure delight: this made coke seem like baby aspirin. His
chest was narrower, his weight less. Morgan Sloat s heartbeat ran anywhere from eighty-five
beats a minute to a hundred and twenty when he was pissed off; Orris s rarely went higher
than sixty-five or so. Morgan Sloat s eyesight was tested at 20/20, but Morgan of Orris none-
theless saw better. He could see and trace the course of every minute crack in the sidewall of
the diligence, could marvel over the fineness of the mesh curtains which blew through the win-
dows. Cocaine had clogged Sloat s nose, dulling his sense of smell; Orris s nose was totally
clear and he could smell dust and earth and air with perfect fidelity it was as if he could
sense and appreciate every molecule.
Behind him he had left an empty double bed still marked with the shape of his large body.
Here he was sitting on a bench seat plusher than the seat in any Rolls-Royce ever made, riding
west toward the end of the Outposts, toward a place which was called Outpost Depot. Toward
a man named Anders. He knew these things, knew exactly where he was, because Orris was
still here, inside his head speaking to him the way the right side of the brain may speak to
the rational left during daydreams, in a low but perfectly clear voice. Sloat had spoken to Or-
ris in this same low undervoice on the few occasions when Orris had Migrated to what Jack
had come to think of as the American Territories. When one Migrated and entered the body
of one s Twinner, the result was a kind of benign possession. Sloat had read of more violent
cases of possession, and although the subject did not greatly interest him, he guessed that the
poor, unlucky slobs so afflicted had been taken over by mad hitchhikers from other worlds or
perhaps it was the American world itself which had driven them mad. That seemed more than
possible; it had certainly done a number on poor old Orris s head the first two or three times
he had popped over, although he had been wildly excited as well as terrified.
As the taste filled his throat, the world swayed under them, around them. Wolf cried out,
 Jacky, it s working!
It startled him out of his fierce concentration and for a moment he became aware that it
was only a trick, like trying to get to sleep by counting sheep, and the world steadied again.
The smell of the Lysol flooded back. Faintly he heard someone answer the phone querulously:
 Yes, hello, who is it?
Never mind, it s not a trick, not a trick at all  it s magic. It s magic and I did it before
when I was little and I can do it again, Speedy said so that blind singer Snowball said so, too,
THE MAGIC JUICE IS IN MY MIND 
 He bore down with all his force, all his effort of will... and the ease with which they flipped
was stupefying, as if a punch aimed at something which looked like granite hit a cleverly
painted papier-mâché shell instead, so that the blow you thought would break all your knuck-
les instead encountered no resistance at all.
To Jack, with his eyes screwed tightly shut, it felt as if the floor had first crumbled under
his feet... and then disappeared completely. Oh shit we re going to fall anyway, he thought
dismally.
But it wasn t really a fall, only a minor sideslip. A moment later he and Wolf were standing
firmly, not on hard bathroom tile but on dirt. A reek of sulphur mingled with what smelled like
raw sewage flooded in. It was a deathly smell, and Jack thought it meant the end of all hope.
 Jason! What s that smell? Wolf groaned.  Oh Jason that smell, can t stay here, Jacky, can t
stay 
Jack s eyes snapped open. At the same moment Wolf let go of Jack s hands and blundered
forward, his own eyes still tightly shut. Jack saw that Wolf s ill-fitting chinos and checked
shirt had been replaced by the Oshkosh biballs in which Jack had originally seen the big
herdsman. The John Lennon glasses were gone. And
 and Wolf was blundering toward the edge of a precipice less than four feet away.
The only thing that had kept Jack alive this long was the maddening fact of his single
nature when the whelp flipped to a place, he was always in the analogue of the place he
had left. Sloat, however, always ended up where Orris was, which might be miles away from
where he needed to be... as was the case now. He had been lucky at the rest area, but Sawyer
had been luckier.
Migrating is the learned ability to travel between worlds at will. There are two forms of mi-
grating, the horizon road and the an-te-tet, also called an-tah or an-twim.
The horizon road can only be traveled by singletons (those without any Twinners in the entire
multiverse). Those who share an-twim that is, those with a Twinner, or harp in the Terri-
tories or elsewhere can transpose their being into their Twinner s body, but cannot physically
travel to a world where their Twinner lives.
He studies the tiny dressings that cover the tips of her fingers, and muses on how hard
Sophie and Judy have tried to get through that wall to each other. Morgan Sloat could ap-
parently become Morgan of Orris at will. As a boy of twelve, Jack had met others with that
same talent. Not him; he was single-natured and had always been Jack in both worlds.
Judy and Sophie, however, have proved incapable of flipping back and forth in any fashion.
Something s been left out of them, and they could only whisper through the wall between the
worlds. There must be sadder things, but at this moment he can t think of a single one.
-Learning to Flip-
The first time someone Migrates is usually an accident. In some instances, the ability can be
shown and taught to others, especially if they share khef.
Horizon road:
The first Migration may happen through accident or outside forces. A Sanity Check is needed
as soon as the singleton appears in the other world. If successful, Sanity is raised by 1d4
points, as the true nature of the multiverse becomes clearer.
An-twim:
As soon as the Migration occurs, both Twinners must roll a Sanity Check to cope with the
shock of the experience. If the roll succeeds, both are stunned for 1d3 rounds while they sort
each other out. After this initial period of confusion, they almost always operate in complete
harmony, with either one controlling the physical body, and Sanity is raised by 1d2 points.
After the first Migration, further traveling can be accomplished with the newly-gained skill:
Skill Base Chance
Migration......................15%
The chance of success can be augmented by physical means (like magic juice), the outpour-
ing of khef from one who shares one s own ka, or by attempting the flip in a thin place.
Unlike other skills that only increase once per game, the chance of a successful Migration
increases by 1d6 with every flip, to a maximum of the character s Anima x5.
-Can-ini-
It is possible for Twinners who serve the Red to invoke can-ini, or the empty well between
worlds. In doing this, the Migrator forces open a hole between two realities, through which
he and his Twinner can travel. While there are certain objects that ka has decreed carry the
power of can-ini, it is unknown whether or not Twinners can achieve this on their own.
 Wolf stopped talking and looked around, startled.
 Wolf ? What s wr 
 Shhhh!
Then Jack heard it. Wolf s more sensitive ears had picked the sound up first, but it swelled
quickly; before long, a deaf man would have heard it, Jack thought. The cattle looked around
and then began to move away from the source of the sound in a rough, uneasy clot. It was like
a radio sound-effect where someone is supposed to be ripping a bedsheet down the middle,
very slowly. Only the volume kept going up and up and up until Jack thought he was going to
go crazy. Wolf leaped to his feet, looking stunned and confused and frightened. That ripping
sound, a low, ragged purr, continued to grow. The bleating of the cattle became louder.
 Wolf! Jack shouted, but Wolf couldn t hear him. Jack could barely hear himself over that
ragged ripping sound. He looked a little to the right, on this side of the stream, and gaped
with amazement. Something was happening to the air. A patch of it about three feet off the
ground was rippling and blistering, seeming to twist and pull at itself. Jack could see the
Western Road through this patch of air, but the road seemed blurry and shimmery, as if seen
through the heated, rippling air over an incinerator.
Something s pulling the air open like a wound something s coming through from our
side? Oh Jason, is that what I do when I come through? But even in his own panic and confu-
sion he knew it was not.
Jack had a good idea who would come through like this, like a rape in progress.
Panting, his soaked hair hanging in his eyes, Jack looked over his shoulder... and directly
into the rest area on I-70 near Lewisburg, Ohio. He was seeing it as if through ripply, badly
made glass... but he was seeing it. The edge of the brick toilet was on the left side of that blis-
tered, tortured patch of air. The snout of what looked like a Chevrolet pick-up truck was on
the right, floating three feet above the field where he and Wolf had been sitting peacefully and
talking not five minutes ago. And in the center, looking like an extra in a film about Admiral
Byrd s assault on the South Pole, was Morgan Sloat, his thick red face twisted with murderous
rage. Rage, and something else. Triumph? Yes. Jack thought that was what it was. He stood
at midstream in water that was crotch-deep, cattle passing on either side of him, baaing and
bleating, staring at that window which had been torn in the very fabric of reality, his eyes
wide, his mouth wider.
He s found me, oh dear God, he s found me.
 There you are, you little shithead! Morgan bellowed at him. His voice carried, but it had a
muffled, dead quality as it came from the reality of that world into the reality of this one. It
was like listening to a man shout inside a telephone booth.  Now we ll see, won t we? Won t
we?
Morgan started forward, his face swimming and rippling as if made of limp plastic, and
Jack had time to see there was something clutched in his hand, something hung around his
neck, something small and silvery. Jack stood, paralyzed, as Sloat bulled his way through
the hole between the two universes. As he came he did his own werewolf number, changing
from Morgan Sloat, investor, land speculator, and sometime Hollywood agent, into Morgan
of Orris, pretender to the throne of a dying Queen. His flushed, hanging jowls thinned. The
color faded out of them. His hair renewed itself, growing forward, first tinting the rondure of
his skull, as if some invisible being were coloring Uncle Morgan s head, then covering it. The
hair of Sloat s Twinner was long, black, flapping, somehow dead-looking.


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