The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2)(10)

Roland pulled back―did not leave but pulled back, like a child retreating to the furthest corner of a very long room. He was inside the sky-carriage; he was also inside a man who was not himself. Inside The Prisoner. In that first moment, when he had been close to the front (it was the only way he could describe it), he had been more than inside; he had almost been the man. He felt the man's illness, whatever it was, and sensed that the man was about to retch. Roland understood that if he needed to, he could take control of this man's body. He would suffer his pains, would be ridden by whatever demon-ape rode him, but if he needed to he could.

Or he could stay back here, unnoticed.

When the prisoner's fit of vomiting had passed, the gunslinger leaped forward - this time all the way to the front. He understood very little about this strange situation, and to act in a situation one does not understand is to invite the most terrible consequences, but there were two things he needed to know―and he needed to know them so desperately that the needing outweighed any consequences which might arise.

Was the door he had come through from his own world still there?

And if it was, was his physical self still there, collapsed, untenanted, perhaps dying or already dead without his self's self to go on unthinkingly running lungs and heart and nerves? Even if his body still lived, it might only continue to do so until night fell. Then the lobstrosities would come out to ask their questions and look for shore dinners.

He snapped the head which was for a moment his head around in a fast backward glance.

The door was still there, still behind him. It stood open on his own world, its hinges buried in the steel of this peculiar privy. And, yes, there he lay, Roland, the last gunslinger, lying on his side, his bound right hand on his stomach.

I'm breathing, Roland thought. I'llhave to go back and move me. But there are things to do first. Things ...

He let go of the prisoner's mind and retreated, watching, waiting to see if the prisoner knew he was there or not.

4

After the vomiting stopped, Eddie remained bent over the basin, eyes tightly closed.

Blanked there for a second. Don't know what it was. Did I look around?

He groped for the faucet and ran cool water. Eyes still closed, he splashed it over his cheeks and brow.

When it could be avoided no longer, he looked up into the mirror again.

His own eyes looked back at him.

There were no alien voices in his head.

No feeling of being watched.

You had a momentary fugue, Eddie, the great sage and eminent junkie advised him. A not uncommon phenomenon in one who is going cool turkey.

Eddie glanced at his watch. An hour and a half to New York . The plane was scheduled to land at 4:05 EDT , but it was really going to be high noon. Showdown time.

He went back to his seat. His drink was on the divider. He took two sips and the stew came back to ask him if she could do any thing else for him. He opened his mouth to say no ... and then there was another of those odd blank moments.

5

"I'd like something to eat, please," the gunslinger said through Eddie Dean's mouth.

"We'll be serving a hot snack in―"

"I'm really starving, though," the gunslinger said with perfect truthfulness. "Anything at all, even a popkin―"

"Popkin?" the army woman frowned at him, and the gunslinger suddenly looked into the prisoner's mind. Sandwich ... the word was as distant as the murmur in a conch shell.

"A sandwich, even," the gunslinger said.

The army woman looked doubtful. "Well ... I have some tuna fish ..."

"That would be fine," the gunslinger said, although he had never heard of tooter fish in his life. Beggars could not be choosers.

"You do look a little pale," the army woman said. "I thought maybe it was air-sickness."

"Pure hunger."

She gave him a professional smile. "I'll see what I can rustle up."

Russel? the gunslinger thought dazedly. In his own world to russel was a slang verb meaning to take a woman by force. Never mind. Food would come. He had no idea if he could carry it back through the doorway to the body which needed it so badly, but one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

Russel, he thought, and Eddie Dean's head shook, as if in disbelief.

Then the gunslinger retreated again.

6

Nerves, the great oracle and eminent junkie assured him. Just nerves. All part of the cool turkey experience, little brother.

But if nerves was what it was, how come he felt this odd sleepiness stealing over him―odd because he should have been itchy, ditsy, feeling that urge to squirm and scratch that came before the actual shakes; even if he had not been in Henry's "cool turkey" state, there was the fact that he was about to attempt bringing two pounds of coke through U.S. Customs, a felony punishable by not less than ten years in federal prison, and he seemed to suddenly be having blackouts as well.

Still, that feeling of sleepiness.

He sipped at his drink again, then let his eyes slip shut.

Why'd you black out?

I didn't, or she'd be running for all the emergency gear they carry.

Blanked out, then. It's no good either way. You never blanked out like that before in your life. Nodded out, yeah, but never blanked out.

Something odd about his right hand, too. It seemed to throb vaguely, as if he had pounded it with a hammer.