by Robin Furth
From The Waste Lands through to The Dark Tower, Roland’s dwindling katet travels southeast along the PATH OF THE BEAM. As they do so, they travel through the following End-World regions: Thunderclap (containing the CALLA DOGAN, the DEVAR-TOI, and THUNDERCLAP STATION), the DISCORDIA (containing FEDIC, CASTLE DISCORDIA, the DISCORDIA BADLANDS, and LE CASSE ROI RUSSE), the WHITE LANDS OF EMPATHICA (containing DANDELO’s house and the FEDERAL), and finally CAN’-KA NO REY, the red ROSE fields containing the Dark Tower.
ACTION TAKES PLACE IN END-WORLD ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES: VI:379–84, VII:55–80, VII:137–418, VII:531–803, VII:827–28
END-WORLD DIRECTLY NAMED ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES: III:412, IV:66, IV:580, E:184, V:558, VI:13, VI:103, VI:247, VI:251, VI:406, VI:407, VII:176, VII:407, VII:555, VII:594, VII:696, VII:715, VII:798, VII:800, VII:818, W:10 (the great darkness)
END-WORLD PLACES, MOVING SOUTHEAST ALONG THE PATH OF THE BEAM, FROM THE BORDERLANDS TO THE DARK TOWER:
CALLA BADLANDS (EASTERN PLAIN): See CALLA BADLANDS, listed separately
BOOM-FLURRY HILL: See CALLA BADLANDS, listed separately
DEVIL’S CAUSEWAY: See CALLA BADLANDS, listed separately
CALLA DOGAN (NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS NORTHEAST CORRIDOR ARC QUADRANT OUTPOST 16): See DOGAN, THE, listed separately
CAN’-KA NO REY: See DARK TOWER, listed separately
CASSE ROI RUSSE, LE: See CASSE ROI RUSSE, listed separately
DARK TOWER, THE: See DARK TOWER, listed separately
DISCORDIA (BADLANDS): See DISCORDIA, listed separately
KING’S WAY (BADLANDS AVENUE): This is the coach road between CASTLE DISCORDIA and LE CASSE ROI RUSSE.
REGION OF THE UNDERSNOW: See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF, listed separately
THUNDERCLAP: See THUNDERCLAP, listed separately
BRIDGE OVER THE ABYSS: See FEDIC: DEVIL’S ARSE and FALLEN BRIDGE
CAN-STEKE-TETE (STEKE-TETE): See DEVAR-TOI, listed separately
CASTLE DISCORDIA: See CASTLE DISCORDIA, listed separately
BANQUETING HALL: See CASTLE DISCORDIA, listed separately
DEVAR-TOI (ALGUL SIENTO, BLUE HEAVEN): See DEVAR-TOI, listed separately
DEVIL’S ARSE: See FEDIC: DEVIL’S ARSE and FALLEN BRIDGE, listed separately
FEDIC: See FEDIC, listed separately
FEDIC DOGAN: See DOGAN, listed separately
THUNDERCLAP BADLANDS: See THUNDERCLAP, listed separately
THUNDERCLAP STATION: See DEVAR-TOI, listed separately
WHITE LANDS OF EMPATHICA: See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF, listed separately
ODD LANE (ODD’S LANE): See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF, listed separately
DANDELO’S HOUSE AND BARN: See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF, listed separately
FEDERAL, THE: See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF, listed separately
EXTRACTION ROOM
See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN, above
F
FEDERAL, THE (FEDERAL OUTPOST 19)
See DOGAN: FEDERAL OUTPOST 19
FEDIC (FEDIC O’ THE DISCORDIA)
The deserted village of Fedic (also known as FEDIC O’ THE RED DEATH and Fedic o’ the Discordia) lies on the far side of THUNDERCLAP, on the PATH OF THE SHARDIK-MATURIN BEAM. Fedic sits within the outer wall of the CASTLE ON THE ABYSS (also known as CASTLE DISCORDIA). It consists of a single street, which terminates against the castle’s inner wall. The town contains several deserted shops as well as a number of bars and brothels. (Before the Red Death obliterated its population, boozing and prostitution were popular distractions on this far-flung edge of the world.) In the days of the GREAT OLD ONES, PATRICIA, BLAINE’s twin mono, terminated at FEDIC STATION. Beyond both village and outer castle wall is a great fissure in the earth called the DEVIL’S ARSE. Demons breed here. Long ago, a bridge crossed this crack, but by the time Roland and SUSANNAH visit the town, the bridge is long gone.
Fedic also contains one extremely sinister building, which is still in use. This place is the FEDIC DOGAN, which MIA calls the Dogan of all Dogans. Within the walls of the Fedic Dogan is the ARC 16 EXPERIMENTAL STATION, which is run by the minions of the RED KING. The Fedic Dogan is unique, since it is one of the few places where magic and technology have been integrated successfully.
VI:105, VI:229, VI:234–55, VI:382, VII:13, VII:51, VII:52, VII:89, VII:106, VII:110, VII:111, VII:146, VII:149, VII:150, VII:152, VII:153, VII:158, VII:167, VII:206, VII:207 (staging area), VII:223, VII:246, VII:297, VII:300, VII:306, VII:407, VII:409, VII:477 (Faydag), VII:485, VII:520, VII:531–42, VII:553, VII:554, VII:556–58, VII:559, VII:590, VII:594
DEVAR-TETE: See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN
DEVIL’S ARSE AND FALLEN BRIDGE: The Devil’s Arse is a great crack in the earth located just northeast of the town of Fedic. It contains horrific monsters that cozen, diddle, and plot to escape. According to TED BRAUTIGAN and the other BREAKERS who travel to Fedic with SUSANNAH, the monsters from the Devil’s Arse have been tunneling through to the catacombs beneath CASTLE DISCORDIA and the FEDIC DOGAN for years, and they are close to breaking through. VI:105 (not yet named), VI:243 (not yet named), VI:244, VII:536, VII:539, VII:557, VII:567
EXTRACTION ROOM: See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN
FEDIC CAFÉ: VI:252
FEDIC DOGAN: See DOGAN, listed separately
FEDIC GOOD-TIME SALOON AND DANCE EMPORIUM: VI:235, VI:245 (where Mia met Walter), VII:557 (saloon next door to hotel)
FEDIC HOTEL: VI:235, VII:534, VII:553, VII:556–58
FEDIC STATION: Although it appears somewhat derelict, Fedic Station plays its own small but important role in the plans of the CRIMSON KING. After the WOLVES arrive in THUNDERCLAP with the CALLAS’ kidnapped children, they and their prisoners board a train at THUNDERCLAP STATION. This train terminates at Fedic Station. From here, the children are brought to the FEDIC DOGAN’s EXTRACTION ROOM, where a twin-telepathy chemical is extracted from their brains, leaving them ROONT. Once upon a time (before she threw herself into the RIVER SEND), BLAINE’s twin, the blue mono called PATRICIA, ran from LUD to Fedic Station. VI:237, VII:531, VII:537
GAIETY BAR AND GRILLE: VII:536
GIN PUPPY SALOON: VI:239–55 (sitting outside), VII:149, VII:532
LIVERY: VI:235
MILLINERY AND LADIES WEAR (FEDIC MILLINERY AND LADIES WEAR): VI:239, VI:534
SERVICE’S MALAMUTE SALOON: VI:235–36
FEDIC DOGAN
See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN
FIELD O’ END-WORLD
See DARK TOWER: CAN’-KA NO REY
FIELD OF RED ROSES
See DARK TOWER: CAN’-KA NO REY
FORGE OF THE KING
See CASTLE DISCORDIA and CASSE ROI RUSSE
FOUND DOOR
See DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS: MAGICAL DOORS: UNFOUND DOOR
G
GAGE PARK
See KANSAS (STATE OF), in OUR WORLD PLACES
GALEE
See TAHEEN: STOAT-HEADED TAHEEN, in CHARACTERS
GARDEN OF THE BEAM
See LOT, THE, below
GEM THEATER
See DEVAR-TOI
GINGERBREAD HOUSE
The Gingerbread House, where TED BRAUTIGAN, DINKY EARNSHAW, and SHEEMIE RUIZ go to escape the constant surveillance of the DEVAR-TOI guards, was actually created by Roland’s old friend Sheemie. Unlike any of the other Breakers, Sheemie can create fistulas in time, which are like balconies on the DARK TOWER. Since the Gingerbread House exists outside the time/space continuum, our rebel Breakers can spend many hours recuperating here and yet return to the Devar at the same instant in which they left. Hence, no one ever detects their absence.
Like the edible witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel, Sheemie’s Gingerbread House is made entirely of sweets. The walls are of green, yellow, and red candy. The stairs are chocolate; the banister is a candy cane. VII:266–302 (Ted Brautigan tells his story here)
TWIZZLER AVENUE: Although it is impossible to step outside the Gingerbread House and onto this licorice-like street, you can see it from the Gingerbread House w
indow. The cars that drive along Twizzler Avenue look suspiciously like bonbons. VII:267
GLASS PALACE
See GREEN PALACE
GOLGOTHA, THE
Roland and the MAN IN BLACK (WALTER) hold palaver here in this ancient killing ground located on the western slopes of the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS. To Roland, the golgotha is “the place of the skull.” Its floor is dusty with bonemeal and contains the skeletal remains of many small animals. It is here that Walter tells Roland’s fortune, and it is here that Roland experiences a ten-year-long night as well as a tremendous vision of the multiverse.
I:197–216, II:20, III:47 (indirect), III:48, V:314, VI:284, VII:176–77 (indirect)
GREEN PALACE (GLASS PALACE)
This palace, which FANNIN/FLAGG maintains is in OZ, is actually located along the I-70 THINNY in the ALTERNATIVE TOPEKA, which Roland’s ka-tet travels through at the end of Wizard and Glass. R.F. probably created it as a kind of practical joke. Like the buildings of Oz’s Emerald City, it is entirely green.
The Green Palace’s gate is made of twelve colored bars (six on each gate wing). They represent the twelve bends of MAERLYN’S RAINBOW. The central bar (which is broad instead of flat and round) is dead black. All of the bars contain strange little life-forms. The Green Palace hums like a thinny, but the sound isn’t as unpleasant.
While here, our tet travels through MAERLYN’S GRAPEFRUIT back to GILEAD, where they witness Roland’s matricide. At the beginning of Wolves of the Calla, we find out that just before our tet arrived in the BORDERLANDS, a green palace appeared and then disappeared near the western branch of the RIVER WHYE. The novel The Wind Through the Keyhole begins just after Roland’s tet leaves the Green Palace.
IV:97 (in distance), IV:103–5, IV:626, IV:632–51 (632 hums), IV:659, IV:660, IV:662, IV:666, V:18, V:36, V:121, V:166, VI:290, VII:173 (Castle of Oz), W:3, W:12, W:31
GREY HAVENS
In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the Grey Havens was an Elvish port. According to STEPHEN KING, tired characters go to the Grey Havens to rest.
VII:817
H
HALL OF RESUMPTION
See DARK TOWER
HAUNTED MANSION
See DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS
HEAD, THE
See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN: CONTROL CENTER
HEARTBREAK HOUSE
See DEVAR-TOI
HELL OF DARKNESS
This is where bad TAHEEN go after death, especially ones who have had their tails docked.
VII:224
HENRY GRAHAM’S DRUG STORE AND SODA FOUNTAIN
See DEVAR-TOI: PLEASANTVILLE
HIDDEN HIGHWAYS (HIGHWAYS IN HIDING, TODASH TURNPIKES, SECRET HIGHWAYS, DARKSIDE ROADS)
Although the DARK TOWER contains only one KEYSTONE EARTH and that Keystone Earth contains only one North America and one United States, other levels of the Tower also contain ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS, or alternative versions of North America and of the United States. These Alternative Americas are linked by hidden highways. Often, the hidden highways lead us to our destinies. JAKE CHAMBERS followed one of these from his apartment door to CO-OP CITY in BROOKLYN and then to the haunted DUTCH HILL MANSION. Each BEAM is also a kind of hidden highway.
The hidden highways are not just bridges between worlds. They are darkside roads where people can lose themselves, their memories, and their identities. To ordinary people, these roads are dim, or almost invisible, but to those in need of their slightly poisonous freedom, they are an escape route. After the death of his dear friend LUPE DELGADO in NEW YORK CITY, PERE CALLAHAN traveled these highways for five years. In The Stand, we find out that RANDALL FLAGG follows America’s hidden highways as well.
III:83, III:122, III:158, V:260, V:263–64, V:289, V:292–93, V:299 (and multiple Americas), V:300–310 (302 and Rose), V:444, V:461, V:543
HIGHWAYS IN HIDING
See HIDDEN HIGHWAYS
HOGAN HOUSE
See DEVAR-TOI
J
JAKE’S DOOR
See DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS
JAKE’S MIND-DOGAN
See DOGAN
JERUSALEM’S LOT
See MAINE (STATE OF): ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS AND THE STATE OF MAINE, in OUR WORLD PLACES
K
KANSAS
See KANSAS (STATE OF), in OUR WORLD PLACES
KEYSTONE EARTH
See KEYSTONE WORLDS
KEYSTONE WORLDS
KEY WORLD, KEYSTONE EARTH, REAL WORLD: The Keystone World is the version of Earth that STEPHEN KING inhabits and is the one in which he writes his books. (I assume it is also the world in which you and I read them.) Keystone Earth has many twinners—EDDIE DEAN and TED BRAUTIGAN both come from such parallel realities—but Keystone World is the only true version of Earth. On Keystone, time flows in one direction only, and what is done there can’t be undone. In other words (to quote Dorrance Marstellar, one of my favorite characters from the novel Insomnia), on Keystone, what’s “done-bun can’t be undone.”
Keystone Earth is the true twin of Roland’s world, which is also known as TOWER KEYSTONE. The ka of Keystone Earth is NINETEEN. VI:200, VI:270 (no do-overs), VI:271 (only world that matters), VII:121 (twin of Roland’s world), VII:174 (indirect), VII:242 (Keystone Earth), VII:280 (Keystone Earth), VII:300 (Real World), VII:302–3, VII:304, VII:304, VII:307, VII:339, VII:400 (Real World), VII:405, VII:416, VII:488, VII:493, VII:511, VII:528, VII:627 (Stephen King’s world), VII:728, VII:773, VII:807
TOWER KEYSTONE: Tower Keystone is Roland’s world (MID-WORLD). It is the true twin of KEYSTONE EARTH. Tower Keystone takes its name from the DARK TOWER, which exists here in its true form, not disguised as a ROSE, as it is on Keystone Earth. The ka of Tower Keystone is NINETY-NINE. VII:121 (called key world), VII:609, VII:773
KING’S CHILDHOOD BARN
The first time STEPHEN KING saw the CRIMSON KING, he was seven years old and sawing wood in his uncle and aunt’s barn. (He and his brother were on punishment duty because they had tried to run away.) This barn was also the site of our author’s first meeting with CUTHBERT ALLGOOD and EDDIE DEAN.
VI:292–93, VI:389
KING’S HOUSE IN LOVELL
See DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS: CARA LAUGHS
KING’S WAY
See DISCORDIA
KRA KAMMEN
See DOORWAY CAVE
L
LAND OF DARKNESS
See THUNDERCLAP
**LAND OF DEATH (LAND OF NINETEEN)
This is the place that the weed-eater NORT of TULL journeyed to. Unlike most people, he came back again. After the sorcerer WALTER raised Nort from the dead, he sealed Nort’s memories of the Land of Death behind an imaginary door, or blockade. This door could only be opened—and Nort’s memories released—by uttering the word NINETEEN. ALICE of TULL is the unlucky person who does so. What she learns drives her mad. The Land of NINETEEN is also the land of bizarre coincidences. Sometimes it seems to be the land of failed plans as well. See NINETEEN, in CHARACTERS
V:169, VII:36
LAND OF THE DRUMS
The PUBES of LUD believe that they must sacrifice one of their own each time they hear the god-drums pounding out over the city’s loudspeakers. If they don’t give a life, the GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES will animate the city’s many corpses and rise up to eat the living. It is thought that once a Pube is sacrificed, he or she journeys to the Land of the Drums. We can assume that the Land of the Drums isn’t a very nice place, since the Ghosts must be there, hungrily beating their instruments.
Although the Pubes don’t know it, the god-drums are actually no more than the backbeat of the ZZ Top song “Velcro Fly.” They are operated by the city’s rival gang, the GRAYS, with a little help from BLAINE the insane computer brain.
III:317
LAND OF UNDERTABLE
A strange kingdom of wet mud and scampering feet. It exists below the feast-laden table of MIA’s BANQUETING HALL. (Although Mia dreams she is in CASTLE DISCORDIA, in actuality Mia’s Ba
nqueting Hall is nothing but a BOG.)
V:74
LE CASSE ROI RUSSE
See CASSE ROI RUSSE
LICORICE AVENUE
See GINGERBREAD HOUSE
LITTLE SISTERS’ HOSPITAL
When Roland awakes in the Little Sisters’ Hospital he believes he is in a vast and airy pavilion of white silk, one hung with tiny silver bells. However, like the beauty of the LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA, the pavilion’s loveliness is no more than a glammer. In reality it is an old, fraying canvas tent so thin and worn in places that it lets in the light of the Kissing Moon.
E:158–99, E:200–201
LOS ZAPATOS
See MEXICO, in OUR WORLD PLACES
LOT, THE (VACANT LOT)
“The Lot” refers to the magical Vacant Lot, located on the corner of FORTY-SIXTH STREET and SECOND AVENUE in NEW YORK CITY. The Lot contains the magical singing ROSE, which is our world’s version of the DARK TOWER. It was also once the home of TOM AND JERRY’S ARTISTIC DELI. The Lot (also known as LOT #298, BLOCK #19, in MANHATTAN) is owned by CALVIN TOWER (also known as Calvin TOREN).
In 1977, SOMBRA REAL ESTATE (secret servants of the CRIMSON KING) approached Calvin Tower about buying the Lot. In fact, they paid him $100,000 for first right of sale. Luckily, their plans to buy the Lot and bulldoze the Rose are foiled by EDDIE DEAN, our ka-mai, whose brilliant flash of intuition leads him to spontaneously create the TET CORPORATION while palavering with Calvin Tower in the back room of his bookshop.