by Robin Furth
V:236, V:470, VI:13 (Court of the Crimson King), VI:102 (Forge of the King), VI:105 (King’s Eye), VII:47, VII:150, VII:173, VII:300, VII:559, VII:580, VII:581, VII:585 (Roi Rouge), VII:589, VII:590, VII:592, VII:595 (described), VII:599–617 (600, described), VII:618, VII:619–24, VII:625, VII:703, VII:823 (indirect)
CASSE ROI RUSSE RIVER: This foul-smelling river flows around a number of fangy black rocks. Its foam is yellow instead of white. VII:597, VII:600
CASTLE TOWN: This evil town surrounds Le Casse Roi Russe. The cottages are narrow and steep-roofed; the doorways are thin and abnormally high. Many of the buildings are haunted by housies. VII:590 (ruined city near castle), VII:591, VII:592–600, VII:619, VII:624 (named), VII:630, VII:631, VII:703
CASTLE DISCORDIA (CASTLE ON THE ABYSS, THE LAST CASTLE, MIA’S CASTLE, ROOMS OF RUIN)
The first time SUSANNAH DEAN hears the name of this castle is when it is spoken by her demon possessor, MIA. However, even before she and Mia wander along the castle’s ALLURE, Susannah (possessed by Mia) had journeyed to the castle’s phantom BANQUETING HALL so that she could feed the CHAP growing inside her. (At the time, we knew of this imposing architectural nightmare only as Mia’s castle.) Although throughout much of Wolves of the Calla we assume that this castle is a dream place which Susannah-Mio visits to fool herself into thinking that the bog frogs and binnie bugs she eats are actually succulent roasts and caviar, in Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower, we discover that Castle Discordia is a real place, located deep in END-WORLD.
The version of Castle Discordia which Susannah visits to feed her chap is illuminated by electric flambeaux and has long stone corridors floored with black and red marble. It contains the Rooms of Ruin, which we already know about from EDDIE DEAN’s poem fragment, recited first at SHARDIK’s portal and then later on his deathbed in the PROCTOR’S SUITE of the DEVAR-TOI. Beneath the castle lie crypts, as well as some slo-trans engines created by NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS. From the Allure, or wall-walk around the inner keep, one can see southeast to the FORGE OF THE CRIMSON KING.
In its heyday, Castle Discordia would have been well defended. Behind its inner keep is a terrible drop leading to the huge, needle-like rocks of the DISCORDIA. On the other side of the ruined keep are two towers (one of them broken), and beyond the towers is the deserted village of FEDIC. Beyond the village is an outer wall, and beyond the outer wall is the DEVIL’S ARSE, a great crack in the earth filled with monsters that cozen, diddle, increase, and plot to escape. The bridge that once crossed this abyss exists no longer.
Like Fedic, Castle Discordia is located on the far side of THUNDERCLAP, on the PATH OF THE BEAM, on V SHARDIK, V MATURIN. It is the last castle (besides that of the RED KING himself) before reaching the soot-colored DARK TOWER, which rises in its field of shouting red ROSES. According to NIGEL THE BUTLER, Castle Discordia and the FEDIC DOGAN are connected by underground passages. Together, they contain 595 operational DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS. At least one of these doors leads to TODASH SPACE. Another leads to THUNDERCLAP STATION.
V:71–77 (Mia is there), V:370–76, V:385, V:390, V:391, V:478, VI:79, VI:101–18 (on the Allure), VI:124, VI:229, VI:230, VI:232 (Allure), VI:236, VI:240 (Allure), VI:243, VI:247 (passages), VI:248 (Rooms of Ruin), VI:249, VI:254, VI:255 (Allure), VI:364, VI:371, VI:373, VI:374–76 (walkway), VII:52, VII:67, VII:151, VII:158, VII:531 (Allure), VII:539, VII:540, VII:549, VII:554, VII:560–76 (tunnels beneath), VII:577, VII:580, VII:590, VII:595 (Allure), VII:619, VII:658, VII:808
BANQUETING HALL: For MIA and SUSANNAH, the Banqueting Hall is the most important room in Castle Discordia. Here, the dreaming pair comes to feed the CHAP growing inside their shared womb. The Banqueting Hall is forty yards wide, seventy yards long, and is illuminated by brilliant electric torches in crystal sheaths. It also contains a vast ironwood table laden with delicacies both hot and cold. Before each of the several hundred chairs is a white plate with delicate blue webbing. These plates resemble both the deadly weapons flung by the SISTERS OF ORIZA and the forspecial plate given by ODETTA HOLMES’s mother to SISTER BLUE. Standing before the Banqueting Hall where Mia/Susannah feasts is a statue of ARTHUR ELD. It is made of chrome and rose-colored marble. Somewhere in this castle stands an old throne drenched in ancient blood. V:71–77, V:83, V:85, VI:174, VI:198, V:370–76, V:478, V:659, V:674, VI:79
DOOR TO TODASH DARKNESS: See DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS: MAGICAL DOORWAYS
PASSAGES BENEATH DOGAN AND CASTLE: VII:151, VII:553–54, VII:558–76 (tunnels beneath)
ROOMS OF RUIN: V:72, V:371, VI:248, VII:397
ROTUNDA: See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN
WOLF STAGING AREA: See DOGAN: FEDIC DOGAN
CASTLE OF OZ
See OZ
CASTLE OF THE KING
See CASSE ROI RUSSE
CATACOMBS
See DEVAR-TOI
CAVE OF VOICES
See DOORWAY CAVE
CHAYVEN
See RODERICK, CHILDREN OF, in CHARACTERS
CLEARING AT THE END OF THE PATH
See entry in APPENDIX I
COFFAH
Coffah is another term for Hell and is a particularly potent Hell for men like Roland. Unlucky adventurers fall into this pit by following the white-robed bitch-goddess who beckons them forward, always assuring them that the goal they seek will be attained. She lures them on and on, and then, once the goal is in sight, she tricks them into the black pit where they must spend eternity—forever seeing, but not reaching, their desire. According to Roland, this goddess will be laughing when the world finally comes to an end.
VII:265
COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING
See CASSE ROI RUSSE
D
DANDELO’S HOUSE
See EMPATHICA, WHITE LANDS OF
**DARK TOWER (CAN CALYX, HALL OF RESUMPTION)
As every CONSTANT READER knows, the Dark Tower, located deep in END-WORLD, is the focus of Roland Deschain’s lifelong quest. (It could also be argued that it is the focus of STEPHEN KING’s creative quest as well, since he has been writing about it, in one guise or another, for more than thirty years.)
Sitting in the red field of ROSES known as CAN’-KA NO REY, this looming gray-black edifice rears six hundred feet into the sky. (When one enters it, however, it grows exponentially taller.) Narrow, slit windows emitting an eldritch blue glow decorate its barrel in an ascending spiral. The oriel window at its top blazes with many colors, though its black glass center peers at those who approach like the very eye of TODASH. Two steel posts jut from the Tower’s top; the two working BEAMS flow away from their tips, making a great X shape in the sky. The Tower’s door is a steel-banded slab of black ghostwood, upon which is the ancient symbol for UNFOUND.
As the linchpin of the time/space continuum, the Tower contains all worlds and all parallel realities within its many levels. Its stairs murmur with the voices of the lost (or damned) souls trapped within it. Throughout the first six books of the series we are left to wonder whether the room at the top contains God or if it’s empty.
The line of ELD, of which Roland is the last, is sworn to protect the Tower. Yet a terrible illness affects this structure, one that is often compared to a cancer. As this cancer spreads, THINNIES appear and the divisions between worlds soften.
The Tower is held in place by a network of magical magnetic force-rays known as Beams. There are six Beams that terminate in twelve PORTALS. Each Portal has an animal GUARDIAN. Although some believe that the Tower, Beams, Portals, and Guardians were magical things that preceded the destructive technology of the GREAT OLD ONES, it seems fairly certain that the Old Ones re-created the world according to their own laws, seeking to replace outmoded magic with machinery. Yet machinery, like Man, is mortal. Hence the Beams, Portals, and mechanical Guardians are breaking down. If the weakening Beams collapse and the Tower falls, all creation will blink out of existence.
TOWER ROAD, which follows the course of the BEAR-TURTLE Beam through the WHITE LANDS OF EMPATHICA, leads directly t
o this most important of edifices. In fact, Tower Road leads directly onto the circular road which encircles the Dark Tower—a road which appears white against the red of the surrounding rose field. Like both Beams and Roses, the Tower sings in a thousand voices. Its song is a musical tapestry weaving together the names of all the worlds.
When Roland approaches the Tower at the end of the final book of the Dark Tower series, the CRIMSON KING (in his human form) has taken possession of one of its many balconies. There he waits with his piled boxes of sneetches, hoping to keep Roland from achieving his life’s dream. However, ka has other plans. With the help of PATRICK DANVILLE, the young artist whom he and SUSANNAH DEAN rescued from the were-spider DANDELO, Roland uncreates the Red King, leaving nothing but his red eyes floating above the balcony’s waist-high railings. Once Roland lays AUNT TALITHA’s cross, along with his ancient six-shooter, at the Tower’s base, the word Unfound, written upon its door, becomes Found. Roland enters.
Although the Dark Tower appears to be made of gray-black stone, it is actually the body of GAN the creator, initiator of ka, and the first being to rise out of the PRIM. However, when Roland enters the Tower and climbs its spiral staircase, what he sees in room after room is not the incarnations of the macroverse’s many worlds, but the story of his own life. It seems that the Tower—which welcomed him in its wind-like voice as the son of both GILEAD and Eld—has a lesson to teach him, a lesson which Roland has been slow in learning.
Like the Crimson King, Roland darkles and tincts. He is eternal and can live in all worlds and all times. However, although he was born to serve the WHITE, at many times Roland has not fulfilled his obligation to the code of Eld. Due to his lack of foresight as well as his ambitious heart and preternaturally fast hands, he has often, unintentionally, served the death-drive of Discordia rather than the cause of life.
The revelation which awaits Roland in the room located at the apex of the Tower is that he has reached the Tower not just once but at the end of many, many long journeys. He is caught in a loop. Each time his hand touches the knob of the Tower’s final door—the one marked Roland—he does so without memory, without recall. Yet invariably, this door does not lead him to that silent place where the God of All resides, but to the beginning of his own unquestioning pursuit of the MAN IN BLACK across the wastes of the MOHAINE DESERT.
Like so many of us, Roland is caught in a trap. To escape that trap, Roland must first understand that it is of his own creation. According to Gan, Roland’s journey must endlessly repeat because he does not have the HORN OF ELD with him. (He left it on the battlefield of JERICHO HILL next to the body of his dead childhood friend CUTHBERT ALLGOOD.) This lack of foresight, and Roland’s inability, at times, to see the long-term consequences of his actions, is one personal fault which Roland must correct before he can reach the true end of his quest.
The second lesson that Roland has to learn before he finds peace is that life itself, not just the blind pursuit of the quest, is valuable. We often think that the ends justify the means, but what Roland finds when he reaches his life’s goal is that the means can taint the end. Each Tower room represents an event from Roland’s life, but each one contains a loss and a betrayal. What Roland begins to realize as he ascends toward the Tower’s top is that every floor is a place of death, but they are like this only because his fast hands and single-mindedness have made them so.
What Roland must learn, if the Tower’s topmost door is to lead him to a place of final redemption, is forethought and respect for life. And these are the very two lessons which, over the Dark Tower series, he has struggled to learn. Gone is the man who let JAKE CHAMBERS fall into the abyss below the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS, and who killed all the people of TULL, even his lover ALICE, without guilt. And although Gan will not let Roland’s journey end quite yet (ka is never so merciful) he acknowledges our gunslinger’s progress by allowing him to resume his journey with the horn of his fathers at his hip. To an extent at least, Roland has learned forethought, has learned mercy, has learned (once more) to love. Hence, he has regained the right to wear yet another powerful symbol of the White. Perhaps, then, the story we read in the Dark Tower series is Roland’s penultimate journey to the Tower. Maybe, if he is careful, Roland’s next journey to End-World will be his last.
I:80–81, I:113, I:130, I:136, I:140, I:151, I:184, I:191, I:200, I:201, I:202, I:204, I:205, I:206, I:207, I:209, I:212, I:213, I:214, I:216, II:30, II:40, II:55, II:101, II:113, II:120–21, II:155, II:156, II:166, II:170, II:177, II:206, II:231, II:307, II:308, II:310, II:311, II:332, II:333, II:362, II:393, II:395–99, III:39, III:40–41, III:49, III:52–53, III:56, III:70, III:71, III:72, III:73–77, III:78, III:82, III:83, III:155, III:158, III:172, III:176, III:191, III:212, III:232, III:238, III:250, III:252, III:262, III:264, III:267, III:268, III:285, III:349, III:389, III:400, III:409, III:410, III:411, IV:9, IV:17, IV:19, IV:27 (image of Tower’s many levels), IV:30 (worlds as levels of the Tower), IV:63, IV:66, IV:78–79 (and thinnies), IV:86 (structural weakness and thinnies), IV:86 (destiny), IV:102–3 (and roses), IV:164 (Roland as a boy, thinking it is the center of all things), IV:437, IV:447, IV:552 (Rhea dreams of it), IV:572–73 (great description), IV:580–81, IV:588, IV:601, IV:617, IV:618, IV:621, IV:624, IV:635, IV:648, IV:649, IV:651, IV:658, IV:664, IV:666, IV:667, IV:668, E:157, E:161, E:165, E:207, V:36, V:53, V:56, V:72, V:93, V:105, V:110, V:163, V:170, V:171, V:192–94 (described), V:410, V:413, V:463, V:464, V:465, V:481, V:525 (“along this track of possibility”—on this level of the Tower), V:533, V:539, V:555, V:626, V:634, V:660, V:686, V:689, V:706, V:708, VI:13, VI:15, VI:16, VI:17, VI:18, VI:35, VI:38, VI:43, VI:50 (black tower), VI:83, VI:89, VI:91, VI:95, VI:103, VI:106, VI:109–14 (discussed), VI:118, VI:132, VI:147, VI:148, VI:199, VI:200, VI:210, VI:266, VI:269–70, VI:271, VI:275, VI:278, VI:279, VI:280, VI:281, VI:282, VI:283, VI:289, VI:293 (tower-pent), VI:298, VI:302 (title), VI:303 (title), VI:321, VI:339, VI:378, VI:389 (title), VI:390 (title), VI:391 (title), VI:392 (title), VI:393 (title), VI:394 (title), VI:396 (title), VI:398 (title), VI:399 (title), VI:404 (title), VI:407, VI:408 (title), VI:409, VII:16, VII:25, VII:32, VII:37, VII:40, VII:51, VII:76, VII:77, VII:111, VII:112, VII:116, VII:127, VII:138, VII:147, VII:148, VII:150, VII:159, VII:161, VII:169, VII:173, VII:174, VII:175, VII:176, VII:177, VII:179, VII:210, VII:224, VII:228, VII:229, VII:232, VII:238, VII:244, VII:250, VII:253, VII:259, VII:262, VII:266, VII:270, VII:271, VII:279, VII:292, VII:294, VII:296, VII:305, VII:332, VII:338, VII:387, VII:406, VII:410, VII:442, VII:446, VII:447, VII:452, VII:456, VII:483, VII:486, VII:488, VII:506, VII:511, VII:512, VII:513, VII:514, VII:517, VII:519, VII:535, VII:545, VII:550, VII:551, VII:552, VII:555, VII:559, VII:586, VII:588, VII:589, VII:595, VII:606, VII:607, VII:608, VII:609, VII:610, VII:615, VII:616, VII:617, VII:618, VII:626, VII:630, VII:650, VII:655, VII:662–66 (painting of it), VII:670, VII:672, VI:695, VII:706, VII:710, VII:711, VII:717, VII:718 (100 miles/120 wheels from the Federal), VII:719, VII:720, VII:721, VII:725, VII:727, VII:728, VII:729, VII:740, VII:741, VII:745, VII:747, VII:750, VII:752, VII:753, VII:754, VII:755, VII:756, VII:759, VII:760, VII:762, VII:767, VII:771, VI:772, VII:775, VII:777, VII:779–803 (begin to see it), VII:813, VII:817, VII:818–28, VII:830, W:3, W:31, W:162, W:245, W:253, W:269, W:304
CAN’-KA NO REY (THE RED FIELDS OF NONE; FIELD OF SHOUTING RED ROSES): Can’-Ka No Rey is the great sea of ROSES which grows at the heart of END-WORLD, around the base of the Dark Tower. The single Rose which grows in the Vacant LOT of our world’s NEW YORK CITY is an exact replica of one of these roses. However, whereas the song sung by our world’s Rose contains a note of discord (or at least it did before our tet saved both BEAMS and Tower by destroying the DEVAR-TOI), the song sung by the roses of Can’-Ka No Rey is sweet and pure.
Like the Lot’s Rose, the roses which grow in such profusion at the heart of End-World are a light pink shade on the outside but darken to a fierce red on the inside, a shade which Roland believes is the exact color of heart’s desire. Their centers, which are called GAN’S GATEWAYS, burn such a f
ierce yellow that they are almost too bright to look upon. However, this yellow is the yellow of light and love, not destruction. What Roland comes to realize as he travels through their midst is that the roses feed the Beams with their song and perfume, and that the Beams, in turn, feed them. Roses and Beams are actually a living force field, a giving and taking, all of which spins out of the Tower. Interestingly enough, the roses (when mixed with Roland’s blood) are the exact color of the CRIMSON KING’s eyes. Though in the case of the Red King, the red becomes the color of evil and greed, not pure, living energy. See ROSE, in CHARACTERS. For the representation of this field in KEYSTONE WORLD, see GARDEN OF THE BEAM. III:52–53 (Eddie’s dream), III:54–55, III:78, III:83, III:267, E:207 (implied), VII:127, VII:447, VII:483, VII:486, VII:488 (indirect), VII:513, VII:550, VII:551, VII:663, VII:666, VII:721, VII:756–57 (first rose described), VII:759, VII:760–81 (roses begin to grow densely), VII:782–803 (786, they speak), VII:818–20, VII:824
LEVEL NINETEEN OF THE DARK TOWER: According to EDDIE DEAN, the KEYSTONE WORLD is level NINETEEN of the Dark Tower. V:525
TOWER KEYSTONE: See KEYSTONE WORLDS, listed separately
DEEP CRACKS
PRIORESS EVERLYNNE OF SERENITY believed that the SKIN-MAN had divested himself of any remaining humanity. By the time he began slaughtering the people of DEBARIA, he had become nothing more than a monster from the Deep Cracks.
W:48
DERRY
See MAINE (STATE OF): ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS AND THE STATE OF MAINE, in OUR WORLD PLACES
DERVA
What little we know about the Derva comes from NIGEL THE BUTLER, a friendly robot who unfortunately looks much like ANDY, CALLA BRYN STURGIS’s Messenger Robot. According to Nigel, the FEDIC DOGAN is deserted because most of its workers have moved on to the Derva. He can’t explain what the Derva is or what purpose it serves, since such information is classified.
