The Dark Tower

“ ’Tis a mirage-maker,” the stoat-thing said. Its voice was wet and rumbling and very far from human. “ ‘Yon machine trolls for what ye fear and makes it real. Sayre would’ve turned it on when he and his tet passed with the blackskin jilly. To keep ’is backtrail safe, ye do ken.”

Flaherty nodded. A mind-trap. Very clever. Yet how good was it, really? Somehow the cursed shitting boy had passed, hadn’t he?

“Whatever the boy saw will turn into what we fear,” the taheen said. “It works on imagination.”

Imagination. Flaherty seized on the word. “Fine. Whatevah they see down theah, tell em to just ignore it.”

He raised an arm to motion his men onward, greatly relieved by what Lam had told him. Because they had to press the chase, didn’t they? Sayre (or Walter o’ Dim, who was even worse) would very likely kill the lot of them if they failed to stop yon snot-babby. And Flaherty really did fear the idea of dragons, that was the other thing; had ever since his father had read him a story about such when he was a boy.

The taheen stopped him before he could complete the let’s-go gesture.

“What now, Lam?” Flaherty snarled.

“You don’t understand. What’s down there is real enough to kill you. To kill all of us.”

“What do you see, then?” This was no time to be curious, but that had always been Conor Flaherty’s curse.

Lamla lowered his head. “I don’t like to say. ’Tis bad enough. The point is, sai, we’ll die down there if we’re not careful. What happened to you might look like a stroke or a heart attack to a cut-em-up man, but t’would be whatever you see down there. Anyone who doesn’t think the imagination can kill is a fool.”

The rest had gathered behind the taheen now. They were alternating glances into the hazy clearing with looks at Lamla. Flaherty didn’t like what he saw on their faces, not a bit. Killing one or two of those least willing to veil their sullen eyes might restore the enthusiasm of the rest, but what good would that do if Lamla was right? Cursed old people, always leaving their toys behind! Dangerous toys! How they complicated a man’s life! A pox on every last one!

“Then how do we get past?” Flaherty cried. “For that mat-tah, how did the brat get past?”

“Dunno about the brat,” Lamla said, “but all we need to do is shoot the projectors.”

“What shitting projectors?”

Lamla pointed below…or along the course of the corridor, if what the ugly bastard said was true. “There,” Lam said. “I know you can’t see em, but take my word for it, they’re there. Either side.”

Flaherty was watching with a certain fascination as Jake’s misty jungle clearing continued to change before his eyes into the deep dark forest, as in Once upon a time when everyone lived in the deep dark forest and nobody lived anywhere else, a dragon came to rampage.

Flaherty didn’t know what Lamla and the rest of them were seeing, but before his eyes the dragon (which had been a Tyrannasorbet Wrecks not so long ago) obediently rampaged, setting trees on fire and looking for little Catholic boys to eat.

“I see NOTHING!” he shouted at Lamla. “I think youah out of your shitting MIND!”

“I’ve seen em turned off,” Lamla said quietly, “and can recall near about where they lie. If you’ll let me bring up four men and set em shooting on either side, I don’t believe it will take long to shut em down.”

And what will Sayre say when I tell him we shot the hell out of his precious mind-trap? Flaherty could have said. What will Walter o’ Dim say, for that mattah? For what’s roont can never be fixed, not by such as us who know how to rub two sticks together and make a fire but not much more.

Could have said but didn’t. Because getting the boy was more important than any antique gadget of the old people, even one as amazing as yon mind-trap. And Sayre was the one who turned it on, wasn’t he? Say aye! If there was explaining to be done, let Sayre do it! Let him make his knee to the big boys and talk till they shut him up! Meanwhile, the gods-damned snot-babby continued to rebuild the lead that Flaherty (who’d had visions of being honored for stepping so promptly into the breach) and his men had so radically reduced. If only one of them had been lucky enough to hit the kid when he and his little furbag friend had been in view! Ah, but wish in one hand, shit in the other! See which one fills up first!

“Bring youah best shots,” Flaherty said in his Back Bay/John F. Kennedy accent. “Have at it.”