by Bev Vincent
A language spoken by the Little Sisters of Eluria. Words from it appear in the speech of the people of the Callas, the Manni and the Children of Roderick.
LARCHIES (1, M)
A Mid-World product brand.
LEVEL OF THE TOWER (4, 5, 6, 7)
Each level of the Tower represents a different universe. For an individual who enters the Tower, each level represents a different phase in his life.
Crossover to Other Works: This concept was introduced in Insomnia.
LIPPY (7)
Joe Collins’s blind, malnourished and decrepit horse. Roland believes that Stanza XIV of “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” is about her. She runs off during the snowstorm. When she returns, Roland puts her out of her misery. When Mordred feasts on her body, he is poisoned. She was probably named after the Browning poem “Fra Lippo Lippi.”
LLAMREI (7)
Arthur Eld’s snow-white horse. Its image was carried into battle on the pennants of Gilead and was the sigul of all In-World. Patrick Danville depicted it as dead in a painting.
LOBSTROSITIES (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Mutant lobsterlike creatures that dwell in the Western Sea and come out of the water to hunt at nightfall. They are four feet long, a foot high and weigh approximately seventy pounds. One of these creatures cuts off two of Roland’s fingers and a big toe while he sleeps after his palaver with the man in black. They are the sole source of food for Roland, Eddie and Odetta/Detta as they travel up the coast.
LOST BEASTS OF ELD (6)
Creatures from long-ago days that have gone extinct.
LYDIA’S DIPPER (7)
The name for the Big Dipper in Mid-World. It faded from existence before Roland’s time but reemerges after the Beams start to heal. Lydia is another name for the star Old Mother.
MAERLYN’S RAINBOW (4)
See Wizard’s Rainbow.
MAGIC AND SCIENTIFIC DOORS (2, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Roland and his ka-tet encounter two different kinds of doors during their adventure: magic and scientific. The latter, created by North Central Positronics, often allow passage in only one direction and are dedicated—always coming out in the same place. New York is “lousy with portals,” many of which go to different versions of the city, though most don’t work anymore.
There are nearly six hundred scientific doors still operational in the rotunda of the Fedic Dogan. Some are defective, and most are beginning to fail. Those that are failing can make a person feel like he’s being turned inside out and make him physically sick. Their inner workings can sometimes be heard. A defective door can also open on the todash darkness between worlds, where monsters dwell.
The portals at the beginning of each Beam were originally magic, but they were replaced by North Central Positronics. Thus, Roland thinks of them as “old-ones doors.” The Old Ones used them to turn various levels of the Tower into tourist destinations. Many involved tragedy—terrorist attacks and assassinations being particular favorites.
The doorways on the beach, the one Eddie opens in the Speaking Ring and the Unfound Door are all magic, left behind when the Prim receded. They are made of ironwood, designed with a purpose that is governed by ka. They float in the air—their hinges aren’t attached to anything—and are visible only from one side. They can be aimed wherever the traveler or ka desires and allow him to return so long as the door remains open. A traveler can also enter the body of a person on the other side, as Roland does with Eddie, Odetta and Jack Mort (and, perhaps, as Mia does to Susannah). Sheemie Ruiz has a unique talent that allows him to create doors, though the toll it takes on him is tremendous. Though the New Yorkers take magic doors for granted, Roland never saw one before the three he found on the Western Sea.
Crossovers to Other Works: Doorways that transport people from one place or time to another have been part of King’s works almost from the beginning. In his 1971 story “I Am the Doorway,” aliens use an astronaut as a doorway through which they can observe things on Earth. In his 1981 story “The Jaunt,” a character creates a mechanism for sending people across vast distances by crossing a portal. The painting Rosie McClendon purchases in Rose Madder is a doorway to another world that may be Mid-World. The trunk of the Buick Roadmaster in From a Buick 8 is a doorway to an alien world, and the title building in Black House is a portal between Earth and End-World. King allows for the possibility that the Colorado Kid had access to a portal as well. How else could he have made the journey from Colorado to Maine in so short a time? Sheemie Ruiz created a magic doorway to allow Ted Brautigan to escape from Devar-Toi to Connecticut in “Low Men in Little Coats” from Hearts in Atlantis. In 11/22/63, Jake Epping is shown a door that always transports people to the same day in 1959. The rules of travel through this door are a little different from the ones in the Dark Tower series. Each time he revisits the past, any changes he made on previous trips are undone.
MAGIC TALES OF THE ELD (4.5)
A book Roland loved as a child. It had a dozen woodcut illustrations, one of which featured throcken anticipating a starkblast. His favorite story from it was “The Wind Through the Keyhole.” Known by some as The Great Elden Book.
MATURIN (5, 6, 7)
The Turtle Guardian of the Beam upon whose shell the world rests. Susannah uses the word to plant a posthypnotic suggestion in Mathiessen van Wyck’s mind. King borrowed the name from novels by Patrick O’Brian.
MIM (7)
Mother Earth.
MIND-TRAP (7)
A gadget in the tunnel beneath the Dixie Pig leading to the Fedic door that plucks people’s worst fears from their imaginations and makes them real enough to kill them, though the cause of death would probably look like a stroke or a heart attack. Jake switches minds with Oy to escape the trap. Flaherty and Lamla get sharpshooters to destroy the projectors while pursuing Jake.
MITSY (4.5)
One of Jack Ross’s female mules.
MORTATA (5)
The dance of death.
MUSTY (4)
Rhea Dubativo’s mutant cat. It has six legs and a split tail. Its fur has an unpleasant wet feel, perhaps because Rhea grooms it with her tongue. She refers to it as a warlock, and it is smart enough to deliver notes on her behalf.
NEW EARTH (1, 4.5, 5, M)
Spring, also known as Fresh Commala. A time when fields are prepared for planting.
NINETEEN (1, 5, 6, 7, M)
The mystery number. After they leave the Green Palace, the ka-tet starts seeing this number in everything. In High Speech, it is “chassit.”
NIS (7)
The greatest of the gray horses at the Castle of the Crimson King. Named after the land of sleep and dreams. The Crimson King rode it across Empathica to the Dark Tower.
NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS (1, 3, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)
A corporation created by the Great Old Ones to replace magical elements with scientific analogs or to fuse the two together. Their experiments were conducted in research stations known as Dogans. They once had factories on the outskirts of Algul Siento. The remnants of their poisonous experiments linger to this day.
Their corporate slogan is “Building the future one circuit at a time.” Their brand name appears on many things encountered by the ka-tet, including: Shardik, the Cradle of Lud and Fedic Station, Andy, the various Dogans, the motorized tricycle Mia uses to get to the Doorway Cave, the microphones in Susannah’s Dogan, the change machine in the World Trade Center basement, the link between Susannah and Mia in the Fedic Dogan, Nigel’s computer, the raft crossing the River Whye, and Daria, the portable guidance module the tribesmen give to Tim Ross. Father Callahan believes they may exist in all worlds. One of their subsidiaries hired Dinky Earnshaw for its assassination program. They are also purchasing the New York Plaza-Park Hyatt, planning to rename it the Regal U.N. Plaza, together with their Keystone subsidiary, Sombra.
Eddie enlists John Cullum, Aaron Deepneau and Moses Carver to form Tet Corporation to try to put North Central Positronics out of business be
fore it can turn into a monster that will mortally wound the Dark Tower.
NOZZ-A-LA (4, 5, 6, 7, M)
A brand of soft drink that exists in certain realities, as well as in Thunderclap. According to Ted Brautigan, who calls it Nozzie, it tastes a bit like root beer. Austin Cornwell worked on the advertising campaign before he became the Crimson King’s minister of state.
OCEAN FOAM (4)
The horse Pat Delgado was riding the day he was killed. Those who were with Delgado claimed that a snake spooked the horse, which threw his rider and rolled on him.
OLD MOTHER (1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)
The southern star, also known as Lydia. The brightest of those close to Mid-World. See Cassiopeia.
OLD STAR (1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)
The northern star, also known as Apon. See Cassiopeia.
OLD WAR (3)
One name for the conflict that brought an end to the civilization of the Great Old Ones. Also known as the Cataclysm, the Great Fire, or the Great Poisoning. It happened well over a thousand years ago and emptied the land. The mutations seen in Roland’s time are a long-lasting effect of this war.
ORIZA (5, 6, 7)
A specially weighted titanium plate a foot in diameter manufactured in Calla Sen Chre. The rim is sharpened for three-quarters of the circumference. The only safe place to grip the plate is by a section that is dull and slightly thicker than the rest. A small metal pod affixed to the bottom makes the weapon whistle as the plate flies. The front of the blue plate is decorated by rice stalks crossed into the shape of the Great Letter Zn. Named for Lady Oriza, who used a similar plate to kill Gray Dick, who murdered her father. The word also refers to the rice plant. Both Susannah and Jake learn to master the weapon.
THE OVER (5, 6)
The Manni concept of God. The soup of creation, also known as the Prim.
OXEN (4)
Rare animals in Mid-World. Prior to going to Mejis, Cuthbert has seen them only in pictures.
PATH OF THE BEAM (3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)
The route marked out by thousands of years of the flow of the Beams that support the Dark Tower. The Guardians at either end are used to name these paths.
PEDDLER’S MOON (1, 4, 4.5, 5, 7)
The moon after the Kissing Moon, also known as Late-summer’s Moon. The Peddler who appears on the face of this orange moon is a hunched figure with a nasty, complicitous squint-and-grin and a sackful of squealing souls thrown over one cringing shoulder.
POINTS (1, 4.5, 5)
Also called Wickets. A game compared to bowling, polo and croquet. Uses a mallet and blue balls.
PORTALS (3, 4, 6, 7)
The twelve doorways at the far ends of the Beams that support the Dark Tower. They lead in and out of the world. They may be as natural as the constellations or built by the Great Old Ones. Roland doesn’t know where they lead and is open to the possibility that they might be outside ka.
PRESENTATION CEREMONIES (2)
The ceremony at which an apprentice was officially promoted to gunslinger. Pupils first kneel at Cort’s feet, presenting defenseless necks, then rise and receive his congratulatory kiss and allow him to load their guns for the first time.
PRIM (6, 7, M)
The greater Discordia or magical soup of creation. Known as the Over by the Manni. Some people think of it as a void. Life in Mid-World arose after the Prim receded. Certain magical creatures were also beached when this happened, and some survived as demons. The Beams rose from the Prim on the airs of magic. When the Prim receded, most magic receded, too, but there was enough left to support the Beams and the Dark Tower forever.
PYLON (4, M)
A two-year-old rosillo, one of three horses given to Susan Delgado by Mayor Hart Thorin as an earnest gift to fulfill their contract. Susan helped foal it, but their horses and land were lost after Pat Delgado died.
PYRAMID (4, 7)
According to one version of the legend, Arthur Eld retrieved his sword Excalibur from the pyramid in which it was entombed. Five miles from the Dark Tower, Roland encounters a steel pyramid about thirty feet high covered with boulders to disguise it as a cairn. It has a ring of roses around its base. Could this be the same pyramid?
REAP OR REAPTIDE (1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 7, M)
Autumn. One of the seven seasons of Mid-World. It occurs between Full Earth and Year’s End.
REAP MOON (7)
The name for the moon during Reaptide.
REAP MORN (4)
The day after the Reap Fair, the first day of winter. The traditional time for burning. In Hambry, the ranchers would burn brush at the mouth of Eyebolt Canyon to silence the thinny.
REAPING DAY FAIR (4, 4.5, 5)
A day of festivities celebrating the closing of the year, the end of the harvest and the changing of the seasons. Men steal Reap-kisses from women. Reap charms are hung around town and secreted in the bosoms of women. There are dances and fireworks. The hands of stuffy-guys are painted red in preparation for throwing them into the bonfire. After the exhausting work of finishing the harvest, putting up food and preparing for winter, sexual intercourse resumes on Reap Night, usually leading to a crop of Full Earth babies the next year.
RED DEATH (6, 7)
The plague that killed everyone in Fedic a thousand years ago. Some people believe someone in Castle Discordia unleashed it accidentally. Others believe it came out of the abyss next to the castle. Perhaps related to the Great Poisoning unleashed by the Great Old Ones. A name inspired by an Edgar Allan Poe short story.
RICE SONG (5, 7)
A traditional song about a young man and woman planting rice and children in the spring of the year. Roland knew it when he was young. It begins “Come-come-commala, rice come a-falla,” but after that the words are difficult to understand, especially because the pace of the song increases from verse to verse. It contains hard and soft rhymes, off-rhymes and forced rhymes. It is chanted more than sung and is often accompanied by a frenetic dance that Roland performs for the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis.
RING-A-LEVIO (7)
Roland’s first dog, known as Ringo. It died when he was three.
ROCK-CATS (5)
Pumas or cougars.
ROMP, THE (4, 7)
A monstrous two-headed elk with a rack of antlers like a forest grove and four glaring eyes, mounted behind the bar at the Travellers’ Rest in Hambry.
ROOK’S SKULL (4, M)
Cuthbert’s good-luck charm. He carries it on the horn of his saddle and wears it around his neck on a gold chain, calling it his lookout. It is used as evidence against the Affiliation Brats when Eldred Jonas finds it at Citgo and plants it on Mayor Thorin’s body.
RUSHER (4)
The horse Roland rides to Mejis. A big, sensitive, quick, delicate and well-behaved gelding.
SAITA (5, M)
A great snake slain by Arthur Eld. In the Marvel graphic novels, a stained-glass window in Gilead depicts this scene.
SALT HOUSES (4.5)
Caverns in the cliff faces near Little Debaria. Miners and their families live in them, and the tunnels into the mine extend from the back of them. Steven Deschain and Deputy Hugh Peavy ambushed the Crow Gang in one.
SANDALWOOD (THROUGHOUT)
The yellow and finely grained wood used in the stocks of Roland’s guns.
SATAN’S ALLEY (4)
A table in the Travellers’ Rest in Hambry where a game that resembles craps is played.
SATAN’S FIRST LAW OF MALIGNITY (4, M)
If the worst can happen, it usually will.
SEVEN DIALS OF MAGIC (5)
Something Vannay taught student gunslingers, though he refused to say if he believed in any of them.
SHAKE LOOP (4)
A kind of knot that can be shaken free after you climb down the rope.
SHARDIK (3, 5, 6, 7)
The Guardian of the Portal of the Bear. Built by North Central Positronics. His serial number is AA 24123 CX 755431297 L 14. He stands seventy feet tall and is hundr
eds, if not thousands, of years old. The Old People tried to kill him, but incited his anger instead. He spared the warriors and killed the women and children instead. He was infected with a parasite that, coupled with old age, drove him insane as his batteries began to run down. He had a satellite dish atop his head.
SHIPMATE’S DISEASE (2)
Roland’s term for scurvy, a disease caused by subsisting on a diet that does not provide all the required vitamins. He sees signs of it in Eddie after they eat only lobstrosity meat for weeks.
SLO-TRANS ENGINES (3, 4, 5, 6)
Power source for Blaine the Mono. Also heard in the Green Palace and at Castle Discordia.
SMA’ TOOT (4.5)
A steam-driven train that runs between Gilead and Debaria.
SNEETCH (5, 6, 7)
A name for the self-guided hand grenades used by the Wolves when they raid the Callas. Also called buzz-balls and stealthies. According to legend, they produce swirling blades as sharp as razors that slash people top to bottom in seconds. Spherical, about three inches in diameter, they look like they’re made of steel but feel like hard rubber. The surface is gridded with lines of latitude and longitude. Next to the nameplate that identifies them as the Harry Potter model, there is a fingertip depression at the bottom of which is a button. Once activated, a curved section slides away to reveal a programmable timer. When a drone locks onto a target, it will pursue it until running out of power. The ka-tet use sneetches to start fires on a delayed schedule at Algul Siento. The Crimson King takes a crate of them to the Dark Tower.
SNUGGLEBUTT (5)
Father Callahan’s cat in Calla Bryn Sturgis.
SONG OF THE TOWER (7)
The irresistible song that comes from the Dark Tower on the Beam and is carried by the roses, calling anyone from the line of Eld to draw near. Roland realizes that he has always heard this song, even when he lived in Gilead, where it hid in his mother’s voice as she sang to him. The song stops when he enters the Tower.
SONG OF THE TURTLE (3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
A voice that provides advice, guidance, warnings and condemnation. The voice of ka or the Beam or Gan. Roland believes the Beam is sentient enough to understand how seriously it is threatened and wants to protect itself. He hears it inside the pink Wizard’s Glass. It tells Stephen King when to write about Roland. It may also tell Calvin Tower to keep the vacant lot. Known as Ves’-Ka Gan, the Voice of the Turtle, the Voice of the Beam, Susannah’s Song and the Cry of the Bear. It chides Roland for failing to pick up the Horn of Eld in Jericho Hill, which seems pointless at the time, but the Beam may be telling Roland what he needs to learn to succeed.