“All right,” Callahan said. “I have an object of great power. Although you are still many wheels from my church in the Calla, where this object is hidden, I think it’s already reached out to you. Inducing the todash state is only one of the things it does.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “If you will render us—for the Calla is my town now, too, ye ken, where I hope to finish my days and then be buried—the service I beg, I will give you this…this thing.”

“For the last time, I’d ask you to speak no more so,” Roland said. His tone was so harsh that Jake looked around at him with dismay. “It dishonors me and my an-tet. We’re bound to do as you ask, if we judge your Calla in the White and those you call Wolves as agents of the outer dark: Beam-breakers, if you ken. We may take no reward for our services, and you must not offer. If one of your own mates were to speak so—the one you call Tian or the one you call Overholster—”

(Eddie thought to correct the gunslinger’s pronunciation and then decided to keep his mouth shut—when Roland was angry, it was usually best to stay silent.)

“—that would be different. They know nothing but legends, mayhap. But you, sai, have at least one book which should have taught you better. I told you we deal in lead, and so we do. But that doesn’t make us hired guns.”

“All right, all right—”

“As for what you have,” Roland said, his voice rising and overriding Callahan’s, “you’d be rid of it, would you not? It terrifies you, does it not? Even if we decide to ride on past your town, you’d beg us to take it with us, would you not? Would you not? ”

“Yes,” Callahan said miserably. “You speak true and I say thankee. But…it’s just that I heard a bit of your palaver…enough to know you want to go back…to pass over, as the Manni say…and not just to one place but two…or maybe more…and time…I heard you speak of aiming time like a gun…”

Jake’s face filled with understanding and horrified wonder. “Which one is it?” he asked. “It can’t be the pink one from Mejis, because Roland went inside it, it never sent him todash. So which one?”

A tear spilled down Callahan’s right cheek, then another. He wiped them away absently. “I’ve never dared handle it, but I’ve seen it. Felt its power. Christ the Man Jesus help me, I have Black Thirteen under the floorboards of my church. And it’s come alive. Do you understand me?” He looked at them with his wet eyes. “It’s come alive.”

Callahan put his face in his hands, hiding it from them.

Ten