Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated

by Robin Furth

  In his human form, Maerlyn was so thin that he appeared to be little more than a skeleton. (This is hardly surprising considering the amount of time he had been trapped inside a cage.) He had a white waist-length beard encrusted with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, and wore a white silk robe, the cuffs of which were covered in silver siguls of moons, stars, and spirals. On his head he wore a conical cap as yellow as the sun and on his feet he sported old black boots.

  During his discussions with Tim, the grave but kindly sorcerer confided a truth which Tim had never suspected. Namely, that the evil Covenant Man was not half so powerful as he seemed, since his gifts were limited to long life and a little magic. Maerlyn also assured Tim that the Covenanter (whom Maerlyn called the Broad Cloak) would be punished by his true master—the Red King—for the foolish game he played with Tim’s life. As for his own transformation into animal form, Maerlyn stated that a spell had been cast upon him by an emissary of the Red King. The emissary came to Maerlyn’s cave pretending to be a wandering peddler. Although the peddler’s magic wasn’t as powerful as that of the old wizard, Maerlyn was drunk at the time and so the peddler got the better of him.

  After their palaver, Maerlyn set Tim atop the folded dibbin, which was now the size of a flying carpet. Instructing the lad to hold the magic FEATHER (also found in the Dogan’s metal box) the sorcerer told Tim to think of home. Tim did so, but before the boy zoomed off, Maerlyn gave him two final but urgent instructions. First, as soon as Tim returned home, he should place the last of the brown bottle’s magic drops in his mother’s eyes. Second, after restoring his mother’s sight, he should hand her Jack Ross’s ax. Luckily Tim obeyed both of Maerlyn’s final commands. Not only did the magic drops cure his mother’s blindness, but when Tim was attacked by his stepfather, Big Kells, Nell Ross was able to bury her former husband’s ax in Kells’s head.

  W:169–70, W:183 (Water Maerlyn), W:207, W:217 (mage), W:222, W:223, W:249–50, W:250–55 (254 Tyger; Tim sees once more), W:256 (furry bedmate), W:259, W:261, W:269 (as tiger)

  MAERLYN AS A TYGER: W:222, W:233–49, W:269

  MAERLYN’S MAGICAL OBJECTS

  TIM ROSS found these three magical objects in a METAL BOX located at the base of the NORTH FOREST KINNOCK DOGAN. The box was opened by a key attached to the collar of the caged TYGER who was actually none other than the mage of ELD, MAERLYN. Although we are never told directly, it is probable that these objects originally belonged to Maerlyn, since even in his tyger form, he knows about their existence and how to use them. In fact, if it weren’t for Maerlyn’s magical objects, Tim would never have survived the STARKBLAST, nor would he have been able to return home to the village of TREE.

  W:239–64

  METAL BOX: Tim found this box at the base of the NORTH FOREST KINNOCK DOGAN’s door. (It reminded Tim of the box his mother used for trinkets and keepsakes, only it was made of metal rather than wood.) When Tim first discovered the box it was locked, though it had an odd-shaped keyhole that looked a little like a letter from High Speech. Engraved upon the box were letters from a language that Tim couldn’t read. When he tried to lift it, the box felt as if it had been anchored to the ground by a powerful force.

  Tim finally opened the box with a key attached to the collar of the caged TYGER he found in the Dogan’s CLEARING. (He wouldn’t have opened the box at all if the tyger—actually MAERLYN trapped in a tyger’s shape by a powerful spell—hadn’t insistently nuzzled it.) The box contained three magical objects which proved to be Tim’s salvation: a BROWN BOTTLE of healing drops, a magic flying FEATHER taken from the wing of GARUDA, the EAGLE GUARDIAN, and a napkin that turned out to be the versatile magic DIBBIN. W:236–37, W:240–41, W:246

  BROWN BOTTLE: This small brown bottle contained a powerful magical liquid. Not only did this liquid transform the magician MAERLYN from tyger shape back into human shape, but it restored sight to NELL ROSS’s blinded eyes. W:241, W:247

  FEATHER: This feather was taken from the tail of GARUDA, the EAGLE GUARDIAN. When TIM sat upon the magical DIBBIN and held the feather, all he had to do was think of home and the dibbin flew him there. W:241, W:247, W:254, W:255

  NAPKIN (DIBBIN): Although TIM ROSS originally mistook this dibbin for an ordinary napkin, it was anything but ordinary. Not only did it expand exponentially when it was shaken out, providing both Tim and Maerlyn with shelter from the raging STARKBLAST, but when used with the magic FEATHER, it became a flying carpet. W:241–47, W:252–55, W:256–57, W:258

  MAERLYN’S RAINBOW (BENDS O’ THE RAINBOW, WIZARD’S RAINBOW, MAERLYN’S MAGIC BALLS)

  There are thirteen glass balls in the Wizard’s Rainbow, one for each GUARDIAN and one for the TOWER itself. (In the original version of The Gunslinger, we were told that the final ball—BLACK THIRTEEN—corresponded to the BEAST that guards the Dark Tower.) Some of these magic balls look into the future; others look into the past or into alternative realities. Still others (chief among them being Black Thirteen) can act as doorways into other worlds. All of the balls are alive and hungry. A person begins by using them, but in the end, he or she is used by them and sucked dry.

  The Wizard’s Rainbow represents a corruption of the pure energy of the WHITE. If the White represents wholeness, and the best human beings can strive for in ideal and action, then the debased colors of the rainbow represent the baser emotions, or the fallen drives of a fallen world. For example, the Pink One resonates with sexual energy, but it is desire, possessiveness, and cruelty without the higher emotions that true love can instill in us. Not surprisingly, the gate of the sinister GREEN PALACE is made to resemble Maerlyn’s Rainbow. The gate’s two wings consist of six colored bars each; one for every bend. The central bar (which is broad instead of flat and round), is dead black.

  Since the thirteen colored balls reflect the baser aspects of human nature, then it seems likely that they correspond not to the twelve Guardians and the Tower, but to the twelve aspects of the DEMON ELEMENTALS and the CRIMSON KING, the were-spider who wishes to bring the Tower crashing down.

  When Roland was a boy, it was believed that only three or four of these magic balls were still in existence. In The Dark Tower, we realize there must have been more, since Roland has had temporary control of two of them (MAERLYN’S GRAPEFRUIT and Black Thirteen), and the Crimson King—until about halfway through Wolves of the Calla—owned six. (Never a good loser, the Red King smashed his once they foretold Roland’s victories in both CALLA BRYN STURGIS and the DEVAR-TOI.)

  GENERAL REFERENCES FOR ALL THE BALLS: IV:437–39 (Steven Deschain describes), IV:442, IV:443, IV:452–53, IV:485–93 (Jonas takes from) IV:634–35 (gate of Green Palace), V:79, V:80, V:89 (glass balls), V:90, V:105, V:116, V:142, V:176, VI:8 (bends o’ the rainbow), VII:550, VII:606–7 (Crimson King had six of them), VII:674, VII:770, W:169–70

  BLACK THIRTEEN: According to Roland Deschain, Black Thirteen is the most terrible object left over from the days of ELD. In fact, Roland suspects that its wickedness even predates the time of his illustrious ancestor. If Roland is correct and the ancient magician MAERLYN is actually none other than our tet’s nemesis, WALTER O’DIM, then this magic ball probably dates from the time of the GREAT OLD ONES, who tried, in their hubris, to unite magic and technology.

  Although we don’t see Black Thirteen until Wolves of the Calla, we hear of it through Roland’s father STEVEN DESCHAIN as early as Wizard and Glass. According to the elder Deschain, it is unlucky to even speak of Thirteen, as it may hear its name called and roll the speaker away to unknown worlds.

  Black Thirteen enters our tale directly via an unlikely person—namely FATHER CALLAHAN, formerly of ’SALEM’S LOT, MAINE. Before coming to rest beneath the floorboards of Callahan’s church in CALLA BRYN STURGIS, Thirteen was in Walter’s possession. In fact, it seems likely that the ball was in Walter’s hands throughout much of The Gunslinger, since when that nasty multifaced magician forces Thirteen upon an unwilling Callahan in the WAY STATION between worlds, we catch a glimpse of
Roland and JAKE distantly struggling up an incline toward the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS.

  Before we see the malevolence of Thirteen at work, we are told that it looks like the slick eye of a monster that grew outside of God’s shadow. As Callahan removes it from its hidey-hole beneath his church floor and unwraps it from its altar boy’s surplice, Roland feels the ball’s low hum vibrating in his bones, a sound and sensation he compares to a swarm of angry bees. Once Callahan removes the surplice, Roland sees Thirteen’s ghostwood box, upon which is carved a ROSE, a stone, a door, and the word unfound. With the exception of the Rose, the engraved images come from Thomas Wolfe’s novel Look Homeward, Angel. (In Wolfe’s book, the “rose” is actually a leaf, but within the context of the Dark Tower series, a rose is a more appropriate image.) The word unfound refers to the UNFOUND DOOR, which Black Thirteen inevitably opens.

  It seems likely that Thirteen’s box (like the altar boy’s surplice that Callahan wraps it in) is meant to minimize the ball’s evil vibrations. After Roland touches the magical ghostwood, his fingers smell of camphor, fire, and the flowers of the north country—the ones that bloom in the snow.

  In both Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah, our tet carries Black Thirteen in a TODASH version of Jake’s pink bowling bag. Although Jake’s original bag bore the motto, “Nothing but Strikes at Mid-Town Lanes,” the todash version reads, “Nothing but Strikes at Mid-World Lanes.” Despite Thirteen’s evil nature, our tet uses it to travel between Calla Bryn Sturgis and Calla NEW YORK. At the end of Wolves of the Calla, SUSANNAH DEAN (now under the control of her invading demon, MIA) uses Black Thirteen to escape through the Unfound Door to 1999, where Mia plans to give birth to her CHAP. With some help from STEPHEN KING, Jake and Callahan retrieve the magic ball from Susannah-Mio’s room in the PLAZA–PARK HYATT before it can fall into the hands of the WARRIORS OF THE SCARLET EYE. The two of them store it in a locker located below the TWIN TOWERS. We can presume that the ball has since been destroyed.

  Like the singing Rose, Thirteen’s hum speaks of power, but it is the dangerous power of the void, a colossal malevolent emptiness which, if aroused, could send its unwary victims to all NINETEEN points of nowhere. Throughout the Dark Tower series, our tet believes that this nasty ball is the eye of the CRIMSON KING himself. Although the Red King may use Thirteen to spy upon our tet’s movements, by the final book of the Dark Tower series we realize that it is not his actual eye. Los’s eyes are as red as the roses of CAN’-KA NO REY, and when we see him, shouting madly from the DARK TOWER’s balcony, he has both his ruby orbs. In fact, once PATRICK DANVILLE erases the Red King from MID-WORLD, all that he leaves are the Lord of Discordia’s floating eyes. IV:437–39 (Steven Deschain describes), V:31 (indirect), V:48–70 (Eddie and Jake travel via todash; 53–56 reality of Black Thirteen), V:114–16, V:117, V:142 (worst of the bunch), V:172–97 (traveling in it via todash; 176 origins, 180, 196), V:235 (indirect), V:238 (indirect), V:252, V:271 (thing in church), V:311, V:313–18 (described), V:338, V:383 (indirect), V:393, V:400, V:409 (box), V:413 (box), V:414, V:415, V:461–65, V:468–70, V:502–5, V:506–49 (Eddie’s New York trip; 507–8 keep Black Thirteen in todash bag), V:591–600 (Callahan to our world), V:618–27 (Callahan to Stoneham, Maine), V:688, V:697, V:704 (indirect), V:705, VI:4, VI:7, VI:8 (and glammer, the sum of all the bends o’ the rainbow), VI:21 (dark glass), VI:28, VI:49 (in bag), VI:68 (in box), VI:74–97 (in bag), VI:178, VI:234, VI:300, VI:326–38, VI:342, VII:147, VII:302, VII:550, VII:689

  THE BLUE: Fifty years before Roland’s first ka-tet sets off for MEJIS, this Bend o’ the Rainbow was in the possession of a desert tribe of SLOW MUTANTS called the TOTAL HOGS.

  THE GREEN: This one is thought to be hidden in the city of LUD.

  THE ORANGE: This ball was last seen in the ruined city of DIS.

  MAERLYN’S GRAPEFRUIT (THE PINK ONE): Maerlyn’s Grapefruit played a large part in Roland’s MEJIS adventures, recounted in the novel Wizard and Glass. Until Roland and his friends stole the Pink One for the AFFILIATION, it was in the hands of FARSON’s followers. (Through much of the novel it is held by the wicked witch RHEA OF THE CÖOS.) Like all of Maerlyn’s magic glasses, the Grapefruit is hungry and feeds on the minds of those who use it. Roland was lucky to survive his travels within its pink glare. Like the other Bends o’ the Rainbow, the pink ball is alive. On the lid of its box (now lost) was the High Speech motto I SEE WHO OPENS ME. The Grapefruit’s energy is sexual, and its color is often described as labial pink. It is one of the balls that exposes people’s secrets. IV:116–21, IV:122, IV:134, IV:141, IV:164, IV:290–91, IV:299, IV:319–20, IV:325–26, IV:335, IV:353–54, IV:356, IV:374–75, IV:378, IV:413, IV:424–25, IV:437–39 (Steven Deschain describes), IV:442, IV:443, IV:452–53, IV:485–93 (Jonas takes from Rhea), IV:528 (voice of the ball), IV:532–33, IV:536, IV:542–44, IV:545–46, IV:558–60 (Roland takes ball from Jonas), IV:570–75 (Roland’s vision; he’s trapped within the glass), IV:579–81 (Roland decides to leave Susan), IV:601–2, IV:604–11, IV:618–21, IV:634–35 (gate of Green Palace), IV:648–58 (650 the Grapefruit; 652 Roland’s matricide), V:36, V:37, V:38, V:49, V:53 (Wizard’s Glass), V:79, V:116, V:176

  MAGGIE

  See HAX

  MAGICAL WAND/MAGICAL BASIN/MAGICAL PAIL

  For generations, the BARONY COVENANTER had been coming to the village of TREE to collect taxes. Mounted on top of his tall black stallion, his gaunt black silhouette was a familiar, if unwelcome, sight. Just as familiar, if more puzzling, was the silver basin roped to the Covenant Man’s gunna. No one seemed to know the purpose of this priceless basin which the Covenant Man claimed was a relic from GARLAN-that-was, but TIM ROSS was destined to find out.

  After discovering his dead father’s LUCKY COIN in his murderous stepfather’s trunk (the magical skeleton key that Tim used had been a gift from the treacherous Covenanter), young Tim rode his father’s mule into the ENDLESS FOREST to find the Barony tax collector. There, surrounded by ancient IRONWOODS, the Covenanter asked Tim to fill his basin with the nearby stream’s putrid, bug-infested water. Once Tim collected the water (avoiding a dangerous POOKY as he did so), the Covenant Man twice waved a magic wand over the basin to clear away the flesh-eating bugs it contained. (The wand was actually the gearshift of an old Dodge Dart.) Once the water was pure, the evil magician waved his wand a third time, and the water in the basin became a kind of scrying mirror—one which showed both future events and events happening at a great distance. The image that the Covenant Man conjured was a cruel one—it was of Tim’s steppa, BIG KELLS, beating Tim’s mother, NELL, into unconsciousness for opening his precious trunk. Soon after, the Covenanter showed Tim an even more horrific sight—the body of his father, Big Ross, floating in a nearby stream.

  Later in the folktale, after Tim informed the men of Tree where they could locate his father’s corpse, Tim found yet another silver water-holder and magic wand. This time the scrying vessel was a battered silver pail, and the wand—which Tim discovered sticking out of the ground as if someone had plunged it into the dirt with amazing force—was of stainless steel and had a white tip that looked like ivory. Remembering the Covenant Man’s words that, in the proper hand, any object could be magic, Tim used this bucket and gearshift to glimpse his destiny. In the magical water he saw a vision of the Covenant Man and a beautiful green female SIGHE beckoning him deep into the heart of the forest where the FAGONARD swamp lay. Beyond the swamp, he saw a version of himself—water-Tim—finding the home of the great magician MAERLYN who gave him a magic blindfold which would cure his mother’s blindness.

  Unfortunately, as with every other gift given by the Covenant Man, Tim’s visions proved to be cruelly misleading. Although beautiful, the sighe named ARMANEETA turned out to be both faithless and treacherous, and Maerlyn was stuck in TYGER form, locked in a cage in the clearing of the NORTH FOREST KINNOCK DOGAN. The Covenant Man’s silver pail played one final trick on Tim before the end of the tale. Tim discovered it sitting upside down in front of tyger-Maer
lyn’s cage. Beneath it was a mocking note from the wicked Covenanter.

  W:137, W:141, W:150–60, W:165, W:167, W:169, W:181–84, W:188, W:194, W:206, W:237, W:242, W:247

  MAGRUDER, GEORGE

  See CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK: CALLAHAN’S HOME SHELTER ASSOCIATES: MAGRUDER, ROWAN

  MAGRUDER, ROWAN

  See CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK: CALLAHAN’S HOME SHELTER ASSOCIATES

  MAGRUDER, ROWENA

  See CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK: CALLAHAN’S HOME SHELTER ASSOCIATES: MAGRUDER, ROWAN: RAWLINGS, ROWENA MAGRUDER

  MAINE CHARACTERS

  ANGSTROM, JUNIOR: Junior Angstrom is one of the many western Maine residents who sighted a WALK-IN. Angstrom’s walk-in was a naked man, traveling up the center of ROUTE 5. For more information on the supernatural walk-ins, those beings that “walk in” to our world from other worlds, see WALK-INS. VI:151

  BARKER, GARY: Gary Barker has photographs of the bizarre weather patterns that affect KEZAR LAKE in LOVELL. VII:113

  BARKER, JUNIOR: Junior Barker runs JOHN CULLUM’s caretaking business whenever Cullum is out of town. VII:44

  BECKHARDT, DICK/BECKHARDTS: Dick Beckhardt owns one of the many beautiful houses located along TURTLEBACK LANE in LOVELL. JOHN CULLUM is his caretaker. The Beckhardt cabin is the site of Cullum’s final palaver with Roland Deschain and EDDIE DEAN. The Beckhardts are friends of the TASSENBAUMS. VII:117, VII:118, VII:120, VII:123, VII:126, VII:432, VII:518

  BEEMER, CHARLIE: He is the husband of RUTH BEEMER, one of the women killed in the EAST STONEHAM GENERAL STORE shoot-out in 1977. VII:46