by Bev Vincent
It appears to be a pillar of sooty gray-black stone, located in End-World in a field of roses. Two Great Roads intersect at its base. A path through the roses leads to nineteen steps at the entrance. The Tower tapers gracefully as it rises. Narrow, slitted windows march about it in a rising spiral. Standing at its base, Roland estimates that the Tower is no more than six hundred feet high. At the top is an oriel window made of glass the colors of the Wizard’s Rainbow, with the black pane representing Black Thirteen at the center. The intersecting clouds that follow the Paths of the Beam flow from the tips of two steel posts that jut from the top of the Tower.
Balconies with waist-high scrolled wrought-iron railings encircle the Tower every two or three stories. The doors on these balconies are all closed and locked. The entrance is made of steel-banded ghostwood. In siguls, it says UNFOUND until Roland presents his guns. Then the word changes to FOUND. Roland realizes the Tower isn’t made of stone at all—it is a living thing, Gan himself.
It emits a strong pulse composed of thousands of voices. The roses feed the Beams with their songs and the Beams feed them. The voices are singing the names of all the worlds. They stop when Roland steps inside.
The stone staircase is wide enough for just one person. There is a landing every nineteen steps, each representing a stage in Roland’s life. The walls contain carvings of people he knew. In each room he finds a token from his life. Few of them are pleasant. After the room containing a charred stake and a carving of Susan Delgado, he stops looking.
The Tower is far taller on the inside than it appeared from the outside. Roland climbs hundreds of floors, maybe thousands, until he reaches the ghostwood door marked ROLAND, the only one that is closed, though it opens to his hand.
DASHERVILLE (3)
The fourth stop on Blaine the Mono’s route from Lud.
DEBARIA (4, 4.5, M)
A busy railroad town on the edge of the alkali flats west of Gilead. From here, cattle are shipped south, east and north. Steven Deschain sends Roland and Jamie DeCurry here to investigate reports of skin-walkers. The high street is wide and paved, but it is crumbling. Sheriff Peavy thinks the town will die when the mines play out in a few years and what remains of the rail line turns to dust. Neighboring towns include Sallywood (south) and Little Debaria in the foothills. Home to Serenity, the retreat where Gabrielle Deschain stayed while Roland was in Mejis after her infidelity was revealed.
DEEP CRACKS (3, 4.5)
Places such as the abyss near Castle Discordia or the wasteland beyond Lud where monsters dwell. Ardelia Smack believes that Marten Broadcloak is one such monster.
DELAIN (L, 1, 7, M)
John Norman’s hometown. One of the East’rd Baronies of In-World. It was sometimes known as Dragon’s Lair, or Liar’s Heaven. All tall tales were said to originate there. Walter o’Dim was once Walter Padick of Delain. Roland encounters Dennis and Thomas from Delain chasing Flagg during his journeys.
Crossover to Other Works: King Roland rules Delain in The Eyes of the Dragon.
DELIGHTFUL VIEW (4.5)
The only hotel in Debaria. Sheriff Peavy doesn’t recommend it.
DERVA (7)
The unknown destination for people from the Fedic Dogan after Susannah killed the people involved with Mordred’s birth.
DESATOYA MOUNTAINS (L, M)
A mountain range Roland passes through before he reaches the Mohaine Desert. Eluria is a village in these mountains.
Crossover to Other Works: Desperation, Nevada, is also located in these mountains.
DESOY (4, M)
One of the places (along with Garlan) where Farson started out as a harrier and a stage-robber.
DEVAR-TETE WHYE (5, 6)
The Little Whye—the eastern branch of the Whye River that runs south past Calla Bryn Sturgis to the South Seas and separates the Borderlands from Thunderclap.
DEVAR-TOI
See Algul Siento.
DEVIL’S ARSE (6, 7)
A name for the monster-filled chasm outside Fedic, next to Castle Discordia. Some people thought the Red Death arose from here.
DISCORDIA (DIS) (4, 6, 7)
Though the word has several meanings, including the soup of creation, it is also applied to the noxious wilderness that lies beyond the Castle on the Abyss, which is also called Castle Discordia. According to rumors, the orange ball from the Wizard’s Rainbow is supposedly located in Dis. Roland believes it corresponds to the White Mountains in the real world.
DOGAN (4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)
A generic term for any of North Central Positronics’ many labs and outposts. The Dogan near Calla Bryn Sturgis (Jake’s Dogan) is a medium-security monitoring station that reports to Algul Siento. The North Forest Kinnock Dogan is a low-security outpost at the gateway to Out-World. It has a transmission tower attached to it, but the Dogan is offline due to the presence of magic. The Fedic Dogan (the Dogan of Dogans) was a maximum-security Experimental Station where the essential essence was taken from the brains of the children kidnapped from the Callas. Mia was made mortal in this Dogan, and Mordred Deschain was born here. Susannah creates a mental Dogan based on Jake’s Dogan to control her pregnancy and Jake creates one so Oy can operate his body when they are trying to get past the mind-trap under the Dixie Pig. In the Marvel comics, Sheemie gets his powers from a Dogan he discovered while following Roland back to Gilead.
DOORWAY CAVE (5, 6, 7)
A cave in the hills three hours north of Calla Bryn Sturgis and an hour north of Manni Redpath. Known as the Cave of Voices until Father Callahan arrives with the Unfound Door and Black Thirteen. Called Kra Kammen by the Manni—the House of Ghosts. The entrance is a ragged dark hole nine feet high and five feet wide. A noxious breeze comes out of the entrance carrying the voices of the dead. The Unfound Door stands in the shadows and, eight or nine feet beyond it, the cave floor slopes down at a steep angle until it disappears into a chasm. Henchick believes that the beamquake or the loss of Black Thirteen drove the voices in the cave insane. The freed Breakers hope to use this doorway to return to their world.
DOWNLAND BARONIES (3)
Some of the Greater Kingdoms of the Western Earth. They were overrun by riot and civil war after Roland became a gunslinger. He passed through them on his way from Gilead to the Western Sea.
DRAGON’S GRAVE (3)
A bottomless crack in the ground that gives off a great burst of steam every thirty or forty days.
EAST DOWNE (6)
One of the places Roland visits during his traveling years, where he encountered the walking waters.
EAST ROAD (5, 6, 7)
The road leading east of Calla Bryn Sturgis until it turns north and follows Devar-Tete Whye. This is where Jamie Jaffords and his friends killed one of the Wolves and where Roland and his followers faced down the Wolves.
EASTERN PLAIN (5)
The prairies that run between the forest and the River Whye.
EAST’RD BARONY (7)
Delain.
ELURIA (L, 6, M)
A little western town in the Desatoya Mountains. It has a gate and pink adobe walls that extend twenty feet on either side of the road and then stop. It has a town square, an inn, two saloons, a mercantile, a smithy, a sheriff’s office, a gathering hall and a church with accompanying manse.
EMPATHICA (7)
A snow-covered region between Le Casse Roi Russe and the Dark Tower. The territory magnifies sensitivity to emotions and feelings. Roland and Susannah set up Hide Camp here to turn the carcasses of the deer they kill into food, clothing and medicine. It takes them more than a month to cross the snowfields on foot and snowshoes.
ENDLESS FOREST, THE (4.5)
An unexplored wilderness far north of New Canaan also known as the Great Woods. Filled with ironwood trees, strange and dangerous plants and animals, weird marshes and the often-deadly leavings of the Old People. Subject to starkblasts once or twice a year. Bonfires of dragons are said to live there, and some people believe Maerlyn has a magic home
where time stands still in the forest.
END-WORLD (L, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, M)
A region of Roland’s world. According to Blaine, it begins in Topeka. The Dark Tower is located at the very end of End-World. Sylvia Pittston claims that beyond it is burning darkness. Location of Thunderclap, Castle Discordia and Fedic.
EYEBOLT CANYON (4, 5, 7, M)
A short box canyon northwest of Mejis (four wheels north of Hanging Rock) that has been taken over by a thinny. It resembles a chimney lying on its side that has broken and has a crooked piece in the middle. The thinny occupies the section beyond the crook. The sides are too steep to climb except for in one spot where a groove runs up the wall with enough jutting spurs to provide handholds. The mouth of the canyon is choked with bushes that are burned each fall to silence the thinny. Roland, Alain and Cuthbert lead Latigo’s forces into the canyon, set the brush on fire and let the thinny devour them.
FAGONARD (4.5)
The great swamp that interrupts the Endless Forest for many leagues, a place more liquid than solid. The men who cut ironwood won’t venture into it. Home to a tribe of mutants who hile Tim Ross as a gunslinger and a dragon. The starkblast laid waste to the swamp, the tribesmen and the dragon alike.
FALLS OF HOUNDS, THE (3, 4)
The third stop on Blaine the Mono’s route from Lud. The falls, which put Niagara to shame, are part of a huge boiling river that plunges off the mountains. Jutting from the center of the falls below the point where the river goes over the edge are two enormous stone protrusions that were either carved or eroded to look like the heads of snarling dogs. Power from the Beam is stored in these dogs. The Great Old Ones may have carved them. Blaine uses them to recharge during his journey.
FEDERAL OUTPOST 19 (7)
Also known as the Federal. A North Central Positronics outpost located on Tower Road at the edge of the White Lands of Empathica, one hundred and twenty wheels from the Dark Tower. Stuttering Bill’s base of operations. Travel beyond the Federal is forbidden. The common room contains more than three dozen TV screens, some of which still operate. The one that used to show the Dark Tower went to static a few months before Roland got there. The cameras that once showed pictures from satellites are also offline.
FEDIC (6, 7)
A ghost town that sits between the inner keep of Castle Discordia and its outer walls, beyond which lies the abyss. The town has been dead for a thousand years. The Red Death killed everyone who once lived there. It consists of a single street that ends at Arc 16 Experimental Station, where the Wolves brought the children of the Callas. Mia brings Susannah here on todash trips so they can palaver. Roland and Susannah spend the night here before continuing on the Path of the Beam toward the Badlands. Among its businesses are the Gin-Puppy Saloon, the Gaiety Bar and Grill, the Fedic Millinery & Ladies’ Wear, Fedic Hotel and Fedic Station, where Patricia the Mono once stopped.
FEDIC HOTEL (7)
Next door to the Gin-Puppy Saloon in Fedic. Roland and Susannah spent the night here before looking for the passage beneath Castle Discordia that took them to the Badlands.
FEDIC STATION (6, 7)
The train station in Fedic. When Mia arrived in Fedic, the trains, including Patricia the Mono, still came, though on no fixed schedule. With the arrival of the plague, everyone left Fedic via this station. The last stop for the Spirit of Topeka.
FEVERAL HALL (7)
The dormitory directly behind Damli House at Algul Siento. One of the places set on fire as a distraction before the battle begins.
FIFTH AVENUE (3)
Eddie’s name for a major thoroughfare in Lud.
FOREST O’BARONY (1, M)
A forest near Gilead. The rather ordinary wood for the gallows at Gallows Hill came from there.
FOREST TREES (4)
A drinking establishment in Pass o’ the River near Hambry that had a female bartender.
GALLOWS HILL (1, M)
Location of Gilead’s executions. On the Taunton Road. Cuthbert and Roland watched Hax’s hanging here.
GARLAN (1, 2, 3, 4, 4.5, 6, 7, M)
A city or kingdom or Barony far west of Gilead. At times, Roland believes it to be mythical. The Great Featherex and dragons lived there. The people of River Crossing say that some of the people there had brown skin. The civil war that ultimately reached Lud supposedly began there. It’s one of the places where John Farson started out as a harrier and a stage-robber. A prostitute at the Travellers’ Rest in Hambry considered herself “exiled royalty from distant Garlan.” Eldred Jonas received the whip scars on his back here after being exiled from Gilead. Also the source of the poison on the knife that Gabrielle Deschain was supposed to use to kill her husband. The Covenant Man’s silver bowl was a relic of Garlan, where he was known as Walter Hodji. Roland’s grandfather Alaric once went there to slay a dragon, but the last one in that part of the world had already been killed by a king, who was later murdered.
GILEAD (L, 1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)
The walled city that is the center of the Affiliation, the Barony seat of New Canaan and Roland’s hometown, established long ago by Arthur Eld. By the time Roland forms his last ka-tet, Gilead has been dust in the wind for a thousand years. The name was inspired by the Bible reference to the balm of Gilead.
GIN-PUPPY [PUPPIE] SALOON (7)
Saloon next door to the Fedic Hotel. Mia and Susannah sit out front while Mia tells about the deal she struck with Walter. Susannah meets Roland here after he returns from New York.
GINGERBREAD HOUSE, THE (7)
A place that exists in a fistula outside of time and reality, created by Sheemie Ruiz and Dinky Earnshaw and inspired by Hansel and Gretel. Ted Brautigan, Sheemie and Dinky go here to conspire against Algul Siento. Ted needs a place where he doesn’t have to keep his guard up against the can toi all the time. For a while, it had a second floor, but Sheemie forgot about it so it disappeared. Ted thinks of it as a balcony on the Tower. When they go there, they are outside of—but still attached to—the Tower. It’s real enough to leave candy stains on people’s clothes.
GITTY’S SALOON (4.5)
Tree’s drinking establishment, which Bern Kells likes to frequent. The Covenant Man’s first stop in town.
GLENCOVE (4)
A town in Tavares, up the coast from Hambry.
GLORIA (5)
A garnet mine one mile from the Cave of Voices north of Calla Bryn Sturgis where Roland claimed he was planning to hide the twins on the day the Wolves came.
GOODVIEW (4.5)
Jack Ross’s home in Tree Village.
GOOK (4.5)
The deserted village where Roland and his ka-tet take cover from the starkblast. According to Roland, the word means “a deep well.” After the starkblast, nothing is left standing except the stone meeting hall.
GRAND CRESCENT (5)
Also known as the Rim and the Arc of the Callas. A borderland region between Mid-World and Thunderclap where roughly seventy towns run in a gentle arc along a six-thousand-mile stretch of the River Whye all the way to the South Seas. See also Callas.
GRANITE CITY (3)
Home to North Central Positronics, Ltd. In the Northeast Corridor, according to a tag found on Shardik.
GREAT CANYON (4.5)
An enormous chasm, at least a hundred wheels across, next to the North Forest Kinnock Dogan, located in Bend Quadrant in the Endless Forest.
GREAT HALL OF GILEAD (1, 3, 4, 7, M)
Also known as the Hall of the Grandfathers or the West’rd Hall. Normally reserved for the upper class and functions of state, it is opened to commoners for Fair-Days Riddling competitions. It still has a few working filament lights in its five chandeliers. The Sowing Night Cotillion (the Commala or the Dance of Easterling) is held there once a year. As a boy, Roland and his friends hid in a balcony and spied on the Cotillion, where he first observed the unusual relationship between Marten and his mother. The courtyard behind the Great Hall (on the eastern side) is the traditional place of proving
for gunslingers.
GREAT HOUSE (L)
The main residence building in Gilead. As boys, Roland and Cuthbert made early-morning begging expeditions to the kitchens there.
GREAT ROAD (3, 4, 5, M)
The Mid-World equivalent of an interstate highway. One follows the Path of the Beam into Lud. Another runs between Gilead and Mejis.
GREAT WEST WOODS (3)
The ancient forest east of the Western Sea. The Great Old Ones once lived there, as did Shardik, the Guardian of the Portal of the Bear.
GREAT WOODS (4.5)
The ancient forest north of New Canaan. See also Endless Forest.
GREEN HEART (4)
Hambry’s main park fifty yards up Hill Street from the jail and the Town Gathering Hall. Roland thinks it’s the most pleasant place in Hambry. It has quaint paths, umbrella-shaded tables, a grassy dancing pavilion and a menagerie. Midway booths and a pony train are set up there for the Fair-Days. Susan and Roland sometimes left notes for each other behind a stone in the rock wall between the pavilion and the menagerie.
HALL OF THE GRANDFATHERS
See Great Hall of Gilead.
HAMBRY (4, M)
The capital of the Barony of Mejis, over five hundred miles east of Gilead along the Great Road.
HANGING ROCK (4, M)
A jutting upthrust of rock that looks like a finger bent at the first knuckle, located two miles south of Eyebolt Canyon. It has a spring at its base, the only one in the Hambry area. It’s the only real geographic feature of the flatlands that run six miles beyond the Drop and the Bad Grass. This is supposed to be the rendezvous point for the Big Coffin Hunters and Latigo. Latigo brings the oil tankers here after they’re moved from Citgo, which makes them easy targets for Roland, Cuthbert and Alain.