Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (52 page)

HAYLIS OF CHAYVEN (CHUCKY):
Haylis of Chayven is a red-haired Rod whose nose has been eaten away by a large, strawberry-shaped sore. EDDIE thinks he looks like Chucky—a nasty killer-toy from a horror movie—but when Haylis smiles he seems sweet and child-like. Like the rest of his kind, Haylis owes allegiance to Roland. Because of this allegiance, he plants sneetches in the DEVAR-TOI, initiating THUNDERCLAP’s final battle. VII:319–24, VII:329–35, VII:337–42, VII:346–49, VII:351, VII:357, VII:406

ONE-EYED WOMAN WITH DEAD CHILD:
EDDIE DEAN sees this WALK-IN by the magical doorway of CARA LAUGHS. VII:130

CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAIN MUTANTS:
The Slow Mutants living beneath the Cyclopean Mountains are some of the most hideously misshapen of all human muties. Their brains are also the most seriously damaged. Like the GREEN FOLK of ELURIA, their skins are greenly phosphorescent, but their appearance is much less humanoid. Many have
developed insect-like eye-nodes and some have suckered tentacles instead of arms. Those that have retained hands tend to have webbed fingers. Roland and JAKE CHAMBERS are attacked by these mutants while they travel beneath the Cyclopean Mountain range in pursuit of the MAN IN BLACK. I:157–58, I:175–80

GREEN FOLK:
See
ELURIA CHARACTERS

MUDMEN:
See
FAGONARD CHARACTERS

SLOW MUTANTS OF GILEAD:
When Roland returned to his home city more than twelve years after its fall to the GOOD MAN, he found Slow Mutants nesting in the ruined kitchens. I:137

TOTAL HOGS:
This desert tribe of Slow Mutants held the Blue Bend of MAERLYN’S RAINBOW fifty years before Roland and his
ka-tet
arrived in HAMBRY. IV:437

WALK-INS:
See
WALK-INS
,
listed separately

VEGETABLES (MUTANTS)

GIANT YELLOW MUSHROOMS:
In the fairy tale “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” recounted in the novel of the same name, Young TIM ROSS saw these giant yellow mushrooms while he and the NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS guidance mechanism DARIA travelled in the region of the ENDLESS FOREST that sat just beyond the FAGONARD swamp. The mushrooms were four feet high and had caps the size of funeral umbrellas. Daria warned Tim not to touch them. Not only were they too poisonous to eat, but if he brushed their dust on his skin, he would die of seizures. W:228

RHEA’S MUTANT VEGETABLE GARDEN:
See
RHEA OF THE CÖOS
,
listed separately

MYSTERY NUMBER

See
NINETEEN;
see also
NINETY-NINE

NASSAU CHARACTERS

See
DEAN, EDDIE
: DELTA FLIGHT 901 CHARACTERS

NEW YORK CUSTOMS

See
DEAN, EDDIE
: DELTA FLIGHT 901 CHARACTERS

NIGEL THE BUTLER

See
NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS

**NINETEEN (CHASSIT, KA-TET OF NINETEEN)

One of the most immediately striking changes made to the 2003 version of
The Gunslinger
is the addition of three front pages. On the first is a quote from the novel
Look Homeward, Angel;
on the second is the lone number 19; and on the third is the single word RESUMPTION. These are all vital clues about the
nature of Roland’s quest, and about what he is going to find over the course of the three final books of the series.

In the 2003
Gunslinger,
we also find out that the number nineteen is a magic number. After WALTER O’DIM resurrects the weed-eater NORT in the dried-up town of TULL, he implants a secret door in Nort’s memory and imagination. That door, which holds back the secret horrors of the afterlife, is locked. But the lock has a key, and the key is nineteen. In a letter written to Roland’s lover ALICE, Walter confides the nature of Nort’s door, what Alice will find when she opens it, and the numerical key to the lock. Driven on by a maddening curiosity, Alice speaks the word
nineteen
and pays the price for it. Nineteen is the key to the Land of Death.

At the beginning of
Wolves of the Calla
, our
tet
refers to the number nineteen as the “mystery number.” They find themselves gathering firewood in bundles of nineteen branches and even see its double digits take shape in the sky’s passing clouds. Many of the important figures they meet or otherwise have dealings with—from DONALD FRANK CALLAHAN and CLAUDIA Y INEZ BACHMAN to RICHARD PATRICK SAYRE—have nineteen-letter names. When EDDIE DEAN questions ANDY, CALLA BRYN STURGIS’s Messenger Robot, about how he predicts the WOLVES’ cyclical invasions, Andy states that he cannot answer. The reason? Directive Nineteen. Directive Nineteen also plays an important part in
Wind Through the Keyhole.
In that book, Directive Nineteen fries the circuits of TIM ROSS’s Portable Guidance System (and good friend), DARIA. Why? Because she offers restricted information to the young gunslinger-to-be.

And the coincidences continue. GRAN-PERE JAFFORDS was nineteen years old when he and his WOLF POSSE faced down the Greencloaks on the Calla’s EAST ROAD. When Eddie saves CALVIN TOWER from BALAZAR’s thugs (Calla NEW YORK’s version of the Wolves), he discovers that Tower’s great-great-great-grandfather wrote about Roland Deschain in his will, a document drawn up on March 19, 1846. Both Father Callahan and his friend ROWAN MAGRUDER end up in room 577 of Riverside Hospital after being attacked by the HITLER BROTHERS (5+7+7 = 19). When SUSANNAH DEAN and her demon-possessor, MIA, travel to 1999 New York, they stay in room 1919 of the PLAZA–PARK HYATT hotel.

Although nineteen plays an important role throughout
Wolves of the Calla
and
Song of Susannah,
not until the final book of the Dark Tower series do we learn the full significance of this curious number.
Chassit
(High Speech for “nineteen”) is the password for the OLD ONES’ DOOR, which connects our world’s New York with END-WORLD’s FEDIC. When nineteen (the
ka
of our world) joins with NINETY-NINE (the
ka
of Roland’s world), they form 1999, which happens to be the KEYSTONE YEAR in the KEYSTONE WORLD. Nineteen ninety-nine is the year that MORDRED DESCHAIN is born, and on June 19, 1999, our
kas-ka Gan,
STEPHEN KING, is hit by a minivan in LOVELL, MAINE. Hence, it is in 1999 that the fate of the DARK TOWER is decided.

V:37–38, V:41, V:52, V:55, V:68, V:94, V:95, V:98, V:99, V:108, V:111, V:117, V:119, V:130, V:141, V:142, V:164, V:165, V:166–67, V:169, V:175, V:179, V:201, V:215, V:232, V:257, V:284
(Nineteenth Street),
V:302,
(Route 19),
V:315, V:350
(Directive Nineteen),
V:357
(Jamie Jaffords),
V:360, V:367, V:423, V:428
(room),
V:443, V:447
(Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown),
V:449,
V:451
(and Callahan’s death),
V:459, V:525, V:532, V:565, V:573, V:585, V:606, V:620, V:643, V:648, V:678, V:685, V:695, V:707, VI:48
(time),
VI:53
(time),
VI:84, VI:93, VI:95, VI:96, VI:118, VI:178, VI:184, VI:223, VI:225, VI:230, VI:270, VI:288, VI:325, VI:326, VI:328, VI:336
(8+8+3 = 19),
VI:338, VII:7
(plates),
VII:36, VII:130, VII:156
(ka-tet of),
VII:302
(ka of),
VII:303, VII:305, VII:399, VII:405, VII:418, VII:434, VII:436, VII:444, VII:453, VII:505, VII:551, VII:555, VII:556, VII:645, VII:665, VII:689, VII:761, VII:764, VII:821, VII:822, VII:825, VII:827, W:148, W:220, W:222, W:223, W:229, W:234
(and Daria),
W:237

NINETEEN NINETY-NINE (KEYSTONE YEAR IN THE KEYSTONE WORLD)

The year 1999 is considered the Keystone Year in the Keystone World. In it, the number NINETEEN (the
ka
of our world) joins with NINETY-NINE (the
ka
of Roland’s world). It is a year of transformation, either for good or dis. On our level of the TOWER, it is the year that
sai
KING is hit by a Dodge minivan. It is also the year that JAKE CHAMBERS passes into the clearing while trying to save him. It is to 1999 NEW YORK that MIA, the bodyjacking mommy-bitch, takes SUSANNAH DEAN so that the two of them can give birth to MORDRED DESCHAIN, Roland’s half-son and nemesis.

The fates of both the Dark Tower and the Dark Tower series depend upon what our
tet
can accomplish in this year. If they can save Stephen King and destroy Mordred, both Towers will survive. If they fail, then the multiverse will blink out of existence.

On the following pages, action takes place in the year 1999: V:648, V:695, VI:47–75, VI:66, VI:67, VI:72, VI:79–98, VI:86, VI:97, VI:119–25, VI:210, VI:219–34, VI:224, VI:256–61, VI:269, VI:307–85, VI:328, VI:333, VII:302, VII:303, VII:304, VII:305, VII:307, VII:405, VII:406, VII:418, VII:476, VII:485

NINETY-NINE (KA-TET OF NINETY-NINE)

Ninety-nine is another mystery number that continues to pop up throughout
Wolves of the Calla.
When he introduces himself to the
folken
of CALLA BRYN STURGIS, JAKE CHAMBERS claims to be of the
ka-tet
of ninety and nine. ANDY, the Calla’s Messenger Robot (many other functions), will not disclose any information about his nasty programming until EDDIE DEAN recites his password, which is 1999. On the fence surrounding NEW YORK’s Vacant LOT, our TODASH
ka-tet
sees a poem which reads, “Oh SUSANNAH-MIO, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG in the DIXIE PIG, in the year of ’99.”

Ninety-nine’s true significance lies in that it is the
ka
of Roland’s world, and of END-WORLD. It is also one-half of 1999, the KEYSTONE YEAR in the KEYSTONE WORLD, where the life of our
ka-tet
’s facilitator—STEPHEN KING—is in grave danger. It is also the year that Roland’s nemesis MORDRED DESCHAIN is born.

V:215, V:565, V:567, V:570, V:643, V:648, V:654, V:677, V:695, VI:73, VI:289, VII:302
(
ka
of Mid-World),
VII:303, VII:473, VII:485

NIS

See
GODS OF MID-WORLD

NORDITES

The blond people of Northern IN-WORLD are known as Nordites. Rumor has it that their chief sports are incest and reindeer fucking.

IV:422, IV:583

NORT

See
TULL CHARACTERS
;
see also
CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK
: CALLAHAN AND THE HITLER BROTHERS

**NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS

North Central Positronics was one of the nasty companies set up by the arrogant GREAT OLD ONES. This company and its affiliates created the technology that eventually destroyed MID-WORLD. They were responsible for the highly complex computers which controlled entire cities (as well as their stockpiles of weapons and poisons), and the cyborg GUARDIANS which guarded the PORTALS in and out of Mid-World. It seems highly likely that, through North Central Positronics, the Great Old Ones merged technology and magic. It seems even likelier that these arrogant ancestors believed that they could re-create the fabric of the multiverse and bend it to suit their fancy.

In the 2003 version of
The Gunslinger,
we learn more about North Central Positronics’s unsavory history. One hundred generations before the world moved on, humanity made enough technological advances to chip a few splinters from the great pillar of reality. The company at the forefront of these discoveries was (of course) North Central Positronics. But these so-called technological advances, wondrous as they seemed, were accompanied by little or no insight into the true nature of the universe. Instead, they were seen only in the flat but false light of science. This was where both the Old People and their glorious company fell short. They had no perspective, only an arrogant and dangerous drive toward what they labeled “progress.” The water pump in the WAY STATION may have been created by North Central Positronics, but so were the insane SHARDIK, the psychotic ANDY, and the murderous BLAINE, who liked to play evil god to the people of LUD.

Although North Central Positronics was founded by the Old Ones on Roland’s level of the TOWER, this company seems to exist in the MULTIPLE AMERICAS as well. (The brainy Positronics folks probably designed the MIND-TRAP, which almost kills JAKE under the DIXIE PIG.) The TASSENBAUMS have a North Central Positronics magnet on their refrigerator, and DINKY EARNSHAW, one of the DEVAR-TOI’s BREAKERS, originally worked for a Positronics subsidiary that hired psychic assassins. In conjunction with SOMBRA, North Central Positronics is also in the process of taking over the PLAZA–PARK HYATT, where SUSANNAH-MIO stays during her brief trip to 1999 NEW YORK.

No matter how beneficent the original NCP intended to be (after all, it seems likely that they were hired to redesign the Tower, BEAMS, and Guardians), under the directorship of the CAN-TOI, RICHARD P. SAYRE, it serves the purposes of the CRIMSON KING and the Outer Dark. Like the other subsidiaries of Sombra, they hope to destroy the ROSE and bring down the Dark Tower. Hence, it is little wonder that when EDDIE DEAN and Roland Deschain discuss the founding
of the TET CORPORATION with JOHN CULLUM, they state that Tet must have three primary functions: save the Rose, protect STEPHEN KING, and sabotage both Sombra and North Central Positronics whenever possible. The future of all the worlds depends upon the destruction of this dangerous conglomerate.

III:34, III:54, III:75, V:5, V:72, V:132, V:564, V:702, VI:11, VI:72, VI:91–92, VI:109, VI:219, VI:235, VI:237, VI:238, VI:248, VI:269, VI:270, VI:336, VI:348, VI:377, VI:381, VII:37, VII:75, VII:87–88, VII:125, VII:126, VII:343
(not directly mentioned, but they probably made the booby-trapped robots),
VII:470
(and Tassenbaums),
VII:471, VII:498, VII:517, VII:664–65, W:12, W:220, W:221, W:226, W:235