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22
AFTER THEY HAD RUN for God kne long (all Jake knew for sure was that the druain), Gasher once ed to keep his feet He had gotten his second wind Gasher, ould never see eleven again, had not
"Hoo! My old pu nip-ups, sweetie"
"Too bad," Jake said unfeelingly, then stunarled hand connected with the side of his face
"Yar, you&039;d cry a bitter tear if I dropped dead right here, woontcher? Too likely! But no such luck,squint - old Gasher&039;s seen eo, and I wasn&039;t born to drop dead at the feet of any little sweetcheeks berry like you"
Jake listened to these incoherencies impassively He ht take Jake with hier cared about that He dabbed blood frohtfully, wondering at how quickly the desire to do murder could invade and conquer the hu at his bloody fingers and grinned "Sap&039;s runnin, ennet? Nor will it be the last your old pal Gasher beats out of your young tree, unless you look sharp; unless you look wery sharp indeed" He pointed down at the cobbled surface of the narrow alley they were currently negotiating There was a rusty manhole cover there, and Jake realized he had seen the words stao: LaMERK FOUNDRY, they said
"There&039;s a grip on the side," Gasher said "Yer see? Get your hands into that and pull away Step lively, now, and maybe ye&039;ll still have all your teeth when ye rasped the steel cover and pulled He pulled hard, but not quite as hard as he could have done The h which Gasher had run hiine what it ht be like in the underworld below the city, where the blackness would preclude even dreams of escape, and he didn&039;t intend to find out unless he absolutely had to
Gasher quickly made it clear to him that he did
"It&039;s too heavy for - " Jake began, and then the pirate seized him by the throat and yanked hih the alleys had brought a thin, sweaty flush to his cheeks and turned the sores eating into his flesh an ugly yellow-purple color Those which were open exuded thick infected ht just a whiff of Gasher&039;s thick stench before his as cut off by the hand which had encircled his throat
"Listen, you stupid cull, and listen well, for this is your last warning You yank that fucking streethead off right now or I&039;ll reach into your ht out of it And feel free to bite all you hile I do it, for what I have runs in the blood and you&039;ll see the first blossoms on yer own face before the week&039;s out - if yer lives that long Now, do you see?"
Jake nodded frantically Gasher&039;s face was disappearing into deepen-ing folds of gray, and his voice seeht" Gasher shoved hiing and retching He finallybreath that burned like liquid fire He spat out a blood-flecked wad of stuff and alht of it
"Now yank back that cover, ht, and let&039;s have no more natter about it
Jake crawled over to it, slid his hands into the grip, and this tiht he was still not going to be able to budge it Then he i into his ue, and found a little extra There was a dull, spreading agony in his lower back as soave there, but the circular lid slipped slowly aside, grinding on the cobbles and exposing a grinning crescent of darkness
"Good, cully, good!" Gasher cried cheerfully "What a little ive up now!"
When the crescent had become a half-moon and the pain in Jake&039;s lower back was a white-hot fire, Gasher booted hiood!" Gasher said, peering in "Now, cully, go smartly down the ladder on the side Mind you don&039;t lose your grip and tus are fearsoreezy There&039;s twenty or so, as I reet to the bottoht feel like runnin froood idea?"
"No," Jake said "I suppose not"
"Wery intelligent, old son!" Gasher&039;s lips spread in his hideous s teeth "It&039;s dark down there, and there are a thousand tunnels going every which-a-way Yer old pal Gasher knows em like the back of his hand, so he does, but you&039;d be lost in no tiry they are So you just wait"
"I will"
Gasher regarded hiie, you do, but you&039;re no Pube - I&039;ll set my watch and warrant to that Where are you fro
"Buht; Tick-Tock&039;ll get it all out of you, so he will He&039;s got a way about him, Ticky does; just naturally wants to oin, they sometimes talks so fast and screams so loud someone has to hit em over the head to slow eue around the Tick-Tock Man, not even fine young triggers like you Now get the fuck down that ladder Hup!"
He lashed out with his foot This tie the blow He looked into the half-open manhole, saw the ladder, and started down He was still chest-high to the alley when a tremendous stonelike crash hammered the air It came from ato be told A cry of pure ed at the corners of Gasher&039;s mouth "Your hard-case friend trailed ye a little better than ye thought he would, didn&039;t he?
Not better than I thought, though, cully, for I got a look at his eyes - wery pert and cunning they were I thought he&039;d coht smart, if he was to come at all, and so he did He spied the tripwires, but the fountain&039;s got hiht Get on, sweetcheeks"
He ai head Jake ducked it, but one foot slipped on the ladder bolted to the side of the sewer shaft and he only saved hi Gasher&039;s scab-raddled ankle He looked up, pleading, and saw no softening on that dying, infected face
"Please," he said, and heard the word trying to break into a sob He kept seeing Roland lying crushed beneath the huge fountain What had Gasher said? If anyone wanted him, they would have to pick hi if you want, dear heart Just don&039;t expect no good to coe, so it does Now go down, or I&039;ll kick your bleedin brains right outcher bleedin ears"
So Jake went down, and by the tie to cry had passed He waited, shoulders slumped and head down, for Gasher to descend and lead him to his fate
23
ROLAND HAD COME CLOSE to tripping the crossed wires which held back the avalanche of junk, but the dangling fountain was absurd - a trap which ht them to constantly check all visual quadrants as they moved in enemy territory, and that included above as well as behind and below
"Stop," he told Oy, raising his voice to be heard over the drureed, then looked ahead and ier took another look up at the suspendedfor the trigger There were two, he saw Perhaps their cae as cobblestones had once been effective, but that ti past Roland bent down, hands on his knees, and spoke into Oy&039;s upturned face "Going to pick you up for a minute now Don&039;t fuss, Oy"
"Oy!"
Roland put his arms around the bumbler At first Oy stiffened and atteive in He wasn&039;t happy about being this close to someone asn&039;t Jake, but he clearly intended to put up with it Roland found hient Oy was
He carried hi Fountain of Lud, stepping carefully over the o As he did, the drums stopped
"Ake!" Oy said impatiently "Ake-Ake!"
"Yes - but there&039;s a little piece of business to attend to first"
He led Oy fifteen yards farther down the alley, then bent and picked up a chunk of concrete He tossed it thoughtfully from hand to hand, and as he did, he heard the sound of a pistol-shot from the east The amplified thump of the drums had buried the sound of Eddie and Susan-nah&039;s battle with the ragged band of Pubes, but he heard this gunshot clearly and smiled - it almost surely meant that the Deans had reached the cradle, and that was the first good news of this day, which already see
Roland turned and threw the piece of concrete His aim was as true as it had been when he had thrown at the ancient traffic signal in River Crossing; the ers dead center, and one of the rusty cables snapped with a harsh twang Theover as the other cable snubbed it for a h so that a man with fast reflexes could have cleared the drop-zone anyway, Roland reckoned Then it too let go, and the fountain fell like a pink, misshapen stone
Roland dropped behind a pile of rusty steel beams and Oy jumped nimbly into his lap as the fountain hit the street with a vast, shattery thuh the air Several s Roland&039;s face He brushed others out of Oy&039;s fur He looked over the makeshift barricade The fountain had cracked in two like a vast plate We won&039;t be coeway, narrow to begin with, was now com-pletely blocked
He wondered if Jake had heard the fall of the fountain, and what he had made of it if he had He didn&039;t waste such speculation on Gasher; Gasher would think he had been crushed to paste, which was exactly what Roland wanted hi? The boy should know better than to believe a gunslinger could be killed by such a siht not be thinking that clearly Well, it was too late to worry about it now, and if he had it to do over again, he would do exactly the sae and aniuard now, the trick orth it
Roland got to his feet "Oy - find Jake"
"Ake!" Oy stretched his head forward on his long neck, sniffed around in a seain with Roland running after Ten minutes later he came to a stop at a manhole cover in the street, sniffed all the way around it, then looked up at Roland and barked shrilly
The gunslinger dropped to one knee and observed both the confu-sion of tracks and a wide path of scratches on the cobbles He thought this particular manhole cover had been moved quite often His eyes narrowed as he saw the wad of bloody phlegm in a crease between two nearby cobbles
"The bastard keeps hitting him," he murmured
He pulled the manhole cover back, looked down, then untied the rawhide lacings which held his shirt closed He picked the bumbler up and tucked him into his shirt Oy bared his teeth, and for a ainst the flesh of his chest and belly like small sharp knives Then they withdrew and Oy only peered out of Roland&039;s shirt with his bright eyes, panting like a steaer could feel the rapid beat of Oy&039;s heart against his own He pulled the rawhide lace froer, lace in his purse