“I listen and hear,” Eddie said, but Roland’s hand was still on his shoulder, and he could feel the younger man trembling.

“Even were we willing to go, we couldn’t persuade enough of the others to come wi’ us,” Henchick said.

“You’re their dinh—”

“Aye, so you call it, and so I suppose I am, although it isn’t our word, ye ken. In most things they’d follow me, and they know the debt they owe your ka-tet out of this day’s work and would say thank ya any way they could. But they wouldn’t go up that path and into that haunted place after dark.” Henchick was shaking his head slowly and with great certainty. “No—that they will not do.

“Listen, young man. Cantab and I can be back at Redpath Kra-ten well before full dark. There we’ll call our men-folk to the Tempa, which is to us as the Meeting Hall is to the forgetful folk.” He glanced briefly at Callahan. “Say pardon, Pere, if the term offends ye.”

Callahan nodded absently without looking up from the book, which he was turning over and over in his hands. It had been covered in protective plastic, as valuable first editions often are. The price lightly penciled on the flyleaf was $950. Some young man’s second novel. He wondered what made it so valuable. If they ran into the book’s owner, a man named Calvin Tower, he would surely ask. And that would only be the start of his questioning.

“We’ll explain what it is ye want, and ask for volunteers. Of the sixty-eight men of Redpath Kra-ten, I believe all but four or five will agree to help—to blend their forces together. It will make powerful khef. Is that what ye call it? Khef? The sharing?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “The sharing of water, we say.”

“You couldn’t fit anywhere that number of men in the mouth of that cave,” Jake said. “Not even if half of them sat on the other half’s shoulders.”

“No need,” Henchick said. “We’ll put the most powerful inside—what we call the senders. The others can line up along the path, linked hand to hand and bob to bob. They’ll be there before the sun goes rooftop tomorrow. I set my watch and warrant on it.”

“We’ll need tonight to gather our mags and bobs, anyway,” Cantab said. He was looking at Eddie apologetically, and with some fear. The young man was in terrible pain, that was clear. And he was a gunslinger. A gunslinger might strike out, and when one did, it was never blindly.

“It could be too late,” Eddie said, low. He looked at Roland with his hazel eyes. They were now bloodshot and dark with exhaustion. “Tomorrow could be too late even if the magic hasn’t gone away.”

Roland opened his mouth and Eddie raised a finger.

“Don’t say ka, Roland. If you say ka one more time, I swear my head’ll explode.”

Roland closed his mouth.

Eddie turned back to the two bearded men in their dark, Quakerish cloaks. “And you can’t be sure the magic will stay, can you? What could be opened tonight could be closed against us forever tomorrow. Not all the magnets and plumb-bobs in Manni creation could open it.”