The Dark Tower Companion
Page 47
VENN, RUPERT (4.5)
The foreman at the Tree Sawmill where Tim Ross works after his mother marries Bern Kells.
WALLACE (5)
Vannay’s son. He died of the falling sickness, sometimes called king’s evil.
WEGG, WILL (4.5)
Little Debaria’s constable. A big man with a sand-colored handlebar mustache. He plays Watch Me and bets on the horse races organized for the miners. His winnings keep him in whores and whiskey. The skin-man turns into a poisonous pooky (snake) in the Debaria jail and kills him.
WERTNER, HENRY “HANK” (4)
A horse breeder in Mejis and owner of a small orchard. He takes over as the Barony’s stockliner after Pat Delgado is killed.
WHITE AMMIES (4.5)
Nurses. Roland sent away the ones who tended to Cort.
WHITE, JAKE (4)
A rancher in Mejis. He also owns an orchard. Part of the posse that arrests Roland, Cuthbert and Alain. He hits Alain in the forehead with the butt of a pistol.
WHITMAN, THOMAS (1, M)
A gunslinger apprentice and friend of Roland in Gilead. In the Marvel graphic novels, he is burned to death by a flamethrower at Jericho Hill.
WINSTON (3, 4, 5)
One of the Pubes. He wears a kilt and wields a cutlass. Susannah kills him on his birthday.
WOLVES (5, 6, 7)
Robots that have taken a one-way door from the Fedic Dogan to Thunderclap Station once in each of the past six or seven generations. The door is failing, so it is unpleasant for humans to use. From there they ride their gray robotic horses to the Callas to steal one of every set of twins of a certain age. They are heavily armed and wear protective armor. Their hoods hide their most vulnerable feature—the radar dish that sits atop each head. Beneath their Dr. Doom masks—which look like steel but rot in the sun like flesh—their faces are smooth metal, with microphones at the temples for ears, lenses for eyes and a round mesh grill for a nose or mouth. Their weapons include light sabers and sneetches. Known as Greencloaks by the residents of Algul Siento. When none return from their most recent foray, Finli o’Tego thinks they may have fallen prey to a computer virus.
WURTZ, HEAD TECHNICIAN (M)
One of Farson’s men. He got the laser canon working after three others failed.
ZACHARY (1)
A resident of Tull.
PLACES
ALGUL SIENTO (1, 5, 7)
Literally: Blue Heaven. Also known as Devar-Toi (the Big Prison). The place where Breakers are brought to work on destroying the Beams. A one-hundred-acre, heavily guarded oasis in the middle of Thunderclap, surrounded by desert on all sides. The three hundred and seven inmates wear slippers to discourage escape attempts. There are one hundred and eighty full-time guards. During each eight-hour shift, twenty taheen man the four stone watchtowers, twenty armed humans patrol the perimeter fences (one barbed, one standard electric, one lethal) and twenty low men float among the Breakers.
Lit by artificial sunlight, generally accompanied by music. It never rains, but there is often dry thunder at night. It resembles a college campus or a town out of a Ray Bradbury story. The main building is Damli House, which contains the Study where the Breakers work. There are also dorms for the Breakers, a small town known as Pleasantville, a church and a house for the head of operations. Since most of the buildings are wood, the possibility of fire is a major concern. The food is the best. Algul Siento has all the modern conveniences with classy accommodations, including holographic sex programs. Rodericks live in a village nearby and explore the extensive catacombs beneath Algul Siento.
ALL-A-GLOW (7)
A fairy-tale kingdom where a very young Roland Deschain thought he would live with his mother after he won her from his father and married her.
ALL-WORLD (4, 5, 6, M)
Arthur Eld’s domain, though Walter sometimes claims it as his own.
AMBUSH ARROYO (4.5)
The rocks between the High Pure and the Low Pure north of Debaria where the Crow Gang ambushed Sheriff Pea Anderson and his posse.
ARC 16 EXPERIMENTAL STATION (6, 7)
The Fedic Dogan, a large, rusty Quonset hut known as the Dogan of Dogans or Sixteen. The door beneath the Dixie Pig leads here. One of the many places where the Old People tried to join magic and science together. A maximum-security location that requires both verbal password and eye scan. The Control Suite is four levels down, and requires three ID entry cards used in sequence. From here, armies of robots can be controlled and poison gas released in the event of a hostile takeover. Richard Sayre has an office here in which Roland and Susannah discover a painting of the Dark Tower. The Extraction Room is where the Wolves took the children of the Callas, and where Susannah and Mia have their baby. Mia was made mortal in the Experimental Station. Nearly six hundred of the one-way doors in the rotunda are still operational according to Nigel, who has quarters here. Beneath the Dogan, a passage leads to a one-way door that took the Wolves to the Callas. Another passage goes under Castle Discordia to the Badlands, past the monsters that are trying to dig their way out.
ARC QUADRANT OUTPOST 16 (5)
A medium-security North Central Positronics observation station (or Dogan) near Calla Bryn Sturgis in the Northeast Corridor. It resembles a Quonset hut on a military base. It consists of a control room, a galley and a bunkhouse equipped to sleep eight. Thirty TV monitors show scenes inside and outside the Dogan, as well as several that display feeds from spy cameras hidden in Calla Bryn Sturgis. This Dogan is used to send updates to Finli o’Tego at Algul Siento.
ARTEN (4, 4.5)
A river west of Gilead.
AUDIENCE CHAMBER (7)
The room in Le Casse Roi Russe where the Crimson King sits on a throne of skulls and torments his staff and advisers.
AYJIP (5)
The Manni version of Egypt. The Angel of Death killed the firstborn in every house where the blood of a sacrificial lamb hadn’t been daubed on the doorposts.
BAD GRASS (4, M)
A freeland northwest of Hambry. The grass is more than seven feet tall. It smells and tastes good to cattle and horses, but it swells and bursts their stomachs. Children have gotten lost and died in it. Susan and Roland met in an abandoned squatter’s hut with a red door hidden in the grass. Roland, Alain and Cuthbert wait in it for Farson’s agents to go past so they can ambush them.
BADLANDS (7)
The poisoned and ruined lands between Castle Discordia and the Dark Tower. Nothing grows here, not even devil-grass, though the water from the pumps at fifteen-mile intervals is potable. The weather is cold enough to make people miserable but not enough to kill them. The air is toxic enough to give Susannah skin cancer and Roland pneumonia. They begin at the checkpoint outside Castle Discordia and end at the White Lands of Empathica.
BADLANDS AVENUE (7)
Susannah’s name for the King’s Way, the former coach road between Castle Discordia and Le Casse Roi Russe.
BAR K RANCH (4, M)
The deserted ranch where Roland, Alain and Cuthbert stayed while in Mejis. Located northwest of town, not far from Eyebolt Canyon. The barns, most of the stables and the homeplace burned six or seven years ago after the winds shifted during the annual burning at the mouth of the canyon. Only the L-shaped bunkhouse, one stable and a cook-shack survived. The former owners, the Garbers, gave it up after the fire. It now belongs to the Horsemen’s Association. Eldred Jonas picks it for the boys because it’s away from the Drop and the oil patch.
BAYVIEW HOTEL (4)
A hotel in Mejis on High Street where the upper class drinks instead of at the Travellers’ Rest.
BEELIE (4.5)
A former military outpost west of Debaria that’s now a ghost town. The Beelie Stockade was where the circuit judge sent convicts, each of whom received an ankle tattoo, and where public hangings were held. After the militia left and the stockade closed five years before the adventure of the skin-man, harriers—perhaps Farson’s men—had their way with the place.
BEESFORD-ON-ARTEN (4.5)
Hometown of Gabrielle Deschain. It lies on the Arten River between Gilead and Debaria. Some of Gabrielle’s people still live there, though some of the residents don’t think kindly of Gilead.
BIG EMPTY, THE (3)
The vast plains west of Lud.
BLUE HEAVEN
See Algul Siento.
BORDERLANDS (4.5, 5, 6, 7)
The civilized territory between the forest at the end of Mid-World and the beginning of End-World at Thunderclap. Approximately seventy Callas are distributed along an arc that follows the branches of the Whye River.
BUCKHEAD RANCH (5)
George Telford’s ranch in Calla Bryn Sturgis.
BUSTED LUCK (4.5)
One of three saloons in Debaria, where Roland treats the miners from Little Debaria to drinks.
BUSTLING PIG, THE (L)
One of two saloons in Eluria.
CALLA (4.5, 5, 7)
A prefix for the approximately seventy towns that occupy the six-thousand-mile Grand Crescent or Arc along the River Whye in the Borderlands to the west of Thunderclap. The Callas have existed for more than a thousand years. The region is civilized, with roads, law enforcement, trade routes and a system of government. The people aren’t woodsy, preferring the cleared farmland of the Callas, and they aren’t travelers, either. The towns get smaller north of Calla Bryn Sturgis due to increasingly cold climates. Those to the north of Calla Bryn Sturgis include Calla Amity (farming and ranching), Calla Sen Pinder (farming and sheep), and Calla Sen Chre (where the Orizas are manufactured) and others noted for cheese, where people reputedly wear wooden shoes. To the south are Calla Lockwood (farming and ranching), Calla Bryn Bouse (ranching), Calla Staffel (ranching) and Calla Divine. Other Callas are known for manufacturing, fishing (Calla Fundy), mining and gambling. The Manni live in Calla Redpath.
CALLA BRYN STURGIS (4.5, 5, 6, 7)
One of seventy or so villages spread along the Grand Crescent. It sits between the forest at the end of Mid-World and the wasteland and desert that lead to Thunderclap one hundred wheels to the east, four thousand miles from the South Seas on the banks of the Devar-Tete Whye, the eastern branch of the Whye River. It has a population of between seven and eight hundred. For the past two centuries, Wolves from Thunderclap have ravaged it, stealing one of each set of twin children, which are the rule rather than the exception. To the northeast of town lies Manni Redpath and the hill country with arroyos and garnet mines. See also Calla.
CAN’-KA NO REY (7)
The field of roses where the Dark Tower stands. Also called the Red Fields of None.
CANDLETON (3, 4)
The first stop on Blaine the Mono’s route after he leaves Lud. A poisoned and irradiated ruin overrun with mutated insects and animals. A few nuclear-powered robots still run, though they’ve had no people to serve for the last 234 years. Blaine’s sonic boom destroyed some of the things that were still standing in the town.
CAN STEEK-TETE (7)
The Little Needle. A sharp upthrust of rock (or butte) visible from both Thunderclap Station and Algul Siento, though it is about eight or ten miles away. Sheemie teleports the ka-tet to a cave on its slope after they come through the door to Thunderclap Station. A larger cave below them is a war chest of weapons for the battle of Algul Siento.
CASSE ROI RUSSE, LE (7, M)
The Crimson King’s castle, located on the far side of Discordia from the Castle on the Abyss. It is built of red stone that darkened to almost black over the years. Towers and turrets burst upward in a way that seems to defy gravity. The castle is sober and undecorated except for the staring eye carved into the keystone arch over the main entrance. The doors and windows are oddly narrow. Walter o’Dim visited the Crimson King here once and saw him monitoring Stephen King through one of the glass balls in his possession. The castle is in poor upkeep, with two of the eight overhead walkways collapsed into the courtyard. By the time Roland and Susannah arrive, the Forge of the King has gone out and the Crimson King has killed all his staff and fled for the Tower, leaving behind Rando Thoughtful. They never enter the castle. Their palaver is held on the bridge that spans the castle’s moat.
CASTLE DISCORDIA (6, 7)
Also known as Castle on the Abyss. Located deep in End-World on Shardik’s Beam, southeast of Thunderclap and northwest of Le Casse Roi Russe. Between its inner keep and the outer walls lies the dead town of Fedic. Outside its walls is a great abyss filled with monsters. The bridge that spanned the abyss collapsed long ago. One door beneath the castle opens into todash space, used by the Crimson King for his bitterest enemies. The Red Death that killed Fedic may have arisen from an experiment gone wrong inside the castle. Mia imagines she’s in the castle’s kitchen and banquet hall when Susannah forages for food at night. A tapestry in the Dixie Pig shows Arthur Eld and his knights dining at the same banquet table.
One passage from Fedic runs beneath the castle, ending in a one-way door that opens on the Calla side of Thunderclap. Another dark passage—taken by Roland, Oy and Susannah—leads to a carriage road to Le Casse Roi Russe through the Badlands. Monsters from the abyss try to break into these passages. At least one succeeded.
CASTLE-TOWN (7)
The town on the outskirts of the Castle of the Crimson King at the edge of the Badlands. The main street is King’s Way. The side streets are cobbled. The tilting cottages are narrow and steep-roofed, the doorways thin and abnormally high, like something out of Lovecraft.
CAVE OF VOICES (5, 7)
The name of the Doorway Cave before the Unfound Door appeared.
CHEERY FELLOWS SALOON & CAFÉ (4.5)
One of three saloons in Debaria.
CHURCH OF BLOOD EVERLASTING, THE (3)
The tallest building in River Crossing. Though the main sanctuary is a ruin, the basement is neat and orderly. The ka-tet holds palaver here with Aunt Talitha and the other town residents.
CITGO (4, 6, M)
Oilfields northwest of Hambry. According to Susan Delgado, they’ve been there for six centuries or more. Only nineteen of two hundred gantries still pump, and no one has the need or the understanding to repair them. Those that do pump squeak and squeal and can’t be stopped. The oil simply runs back down into the wells—or so people think. Most people also believe that the oil is too thick to be useful and that the pipelines are dry. The locals get earth-gas from it to run a few devices like the refrigerator in the Town Hall. They’ve also been storing up the oil to send to John Farson so he can power the Old People’s machinery in his war against the Affiliation. Roland, Cuthbert and Alain destroy the field, thus cutting off Farson’s source of oil.
CLEAN SEA, THE (1, 4, 5, M)
A sea east of Hambry. The local fishermen work there. To the north it is known as the Salt.
CöOS HILL (4)
A ragged hill five mile east of Hambry. Home to the witch Rhea, who is often called Rhea of the Cöos. Her hut is below the brow of the last hill to protect it from the wind. A path leads to the top, providing a good view northwest to the Bad Grass, the desert, Hanging Rock, and Eyebolt Canyon, the latter some ten miles away.
CORBETT HALL (7)
The dormitory in Algul Siento where Dinky Earnshaw and Sheemie Ruiz live on the third floor. After the battle, Eddie is taken to the first-floor proctor’s suite.
CRADLE OF LUD, THE (3, 4, 5, 7)
Lud’s train station, operated by North Central Positronics and home to Blaine and Patricia the monorails. It stands in the center of a large square at the end of the Street of the Turtle. Its simple square construction of white stone blocks and overhanging roof supported by pillars reminds Eddie of the Roman Colosseum and Susannah of the Parthenon. Unlike the rest of Lud, the station is free of graffiti and cleaned of the pervasive dust by nozzles hidden in the eaves. The top of the building is ringed by sculptures of the Guardians of the Beams in pairs. Dragonlike gargoyles occupy the corners of the roof. A sixty-foot statue made of gold depicting Arthur Eld
stands atop the building. He has a revolver in one hand and an olive branch in the other.
CRAVEN’S UNDERTAKING PARLOR (4)
Mejis’s funeral parlor.
CRESSIA (4, 4.5, M)
A western Barony. Indrie is the Barony Seat. One of the places failed gunslingers went after being sent west. Farson burned Indrie to the ground and slaughtered hundreds of its residents, including the governor, the mayor of Indrie and the high sheriff. Marten was with him at the time. Eldred Jonas, who was sent west, is familiar with local sayings from Cressia.
DAMLI HOUSE (7)
A graceful, rambling Queen Anne–style house next to the Breaker dorms at the far end of the Mall from Pleasantville in Algul Siento. Also known as Heartbreak House or Hotel. Many of the can toi live here. The Breakers work in the Study in the middle of Damli. The telemetry equipment in the basement keeps track of the condition of the Beams and detects unauthorized psychic activity among the Breakers. Not all of the equipment works, and a lot of it either has no use or its function isn’t understood. The staff has a place on the third floor where they can be refreshed by the euphoria of the good mind created by the Breakers when they work. The infirmary is in the west wing of the third floor. It burns during the battle of Algul Siento.
DARK TOWER, THE (THROUGHOUT)
Also known as the Great Portal, the Thirteenth Gate, and Can Calyx, the Hall of Resumption. The central linchpin that holds all of existence, all of time and all size together. It is existence, according to Roland. The world’s great mystery and last awful riddle. It exists in all worlds, but it may not be accessible from them all.
It is the great secret the gunslingers of Gilead keep, holding them together as ka-tet as the world declines. Roland first learns that it is more than a myth from a vision in the pink glass from the Wizard’s Rainbow. The Tower is weakening like a body afflicted with cancer. If it falls, everything will be swept away. There will be chaos beyond imagining. While it weakens, the rose holds everything together. Roland’s hope is not to prevent the fall of the Tower—that is inevitable because of the natural decline of magic—but to slow down its decline, which is being accelerated by the Crimson King and his Breakers. Roland’s true desire is to gain the Tower and climb to the top to confront whoever lives there. He wants to undo the bad things that have happened because of its decline—and because of the things and people he’s sacrificed in pursuit of the Tower. Sheemie tells Roland he may find renewal or death—or perhaps both.