There was a moment of silence—perhaps they were considering this lurid image—and then Roland said, “You make it sound very easy, and why not? To you three, the concept of doorways between this world and your world of tack-sees and astin and fottergrafs seems almost as mundane as riding a mule would to me. Or strapping on a sixgun. And there’s good reason for you to feel that way. Each of you has been through one of these doors. Eddie has actually gone both ways—into this world and then back into his own.”

“I gotta tell you that the return trip to New York wasn’t much fun,” Eddie said. “Too much gunplay.” Not to mention my brother’s severed head rolling across the floor of Balazar’s office.

“Neither was getting through the door on Dutch Hill,” Jake added.

Roland nodded, ceding these points without yielding his own. “All my life I’ve accepted what you said the first time I knew you, Jake—what you said when you were dying.”

Jake looked down, pale and without answer. He did not like to recall that (it was mercifully hazy in any case), and knew that Roland didn’t, either. Good! he thought. You shouldn’t want to remember! You let me drop! You let me die !

“You said there were other worlds than these,” Roland said, “and there are. New York in all its multiple whens is only one of many. That we are drawn there again and again has to do with the rose. I have no doubt of that, nor do I doubt that in some way I do not understand the rose is the Dark Tower. Either that or—”

“Or it’s another door,” Susannah murmured. “One that opens on the Dark Tower itself.”

Roland nodded. “The idea has done more than cross my mind. In any case, the Manni know of these other worlds, and in some fashion have dedicated their lives to them. They believe todash to be the holiest of rites and most exalted of states. My father and his friends have long known of the glass balls; this I have told you. That the Wizard’s Rainbow, todash, and these magical doors may all be much the same is something we have guessed.”

“Where you going with this, sug?” Susannah asked.