The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (76 page)

A collective of farmers and ranchers in the Barony of Mejis. Francis Lengyll is its president. Most of the members are traitors, siding with John Farson against the Affiliation.

H
UNTRESS
M
OON
(4, 4.5, 5)

The red moon that follows the Peddler's Moon. Some call it the last moon of summer; others call it the first moon of fall. The figure in the moon fills her belly as she goes from new to full. Others say that she grows pale, waxes again and pulls her bow.

I
MPERIUM
(3, M)

The reign of the Great Old Ones.

I
RONWOOD
(L, 1, 2, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)

An enormous tree also known as “seequoiah.” Some are larger in diameter than a house. The people of Tree cut ironwood from the Endless Forest and sell the lumber to the Barony as a source of income. Its wood is used to make boats strong enough for sea travel. Some people believe the trees can think, which is why woodsmen cry their pardon before each day's cutting. The doors on the Western Sea, the log in the golgotha, Rimer's desk in Mejis, the box containing the pink Wizard's Glass, the ringbolt on Bix's ferry, Everlynne's throne, Jack Ross's coffin, the cross in Our Lady of Serenity, the Branni coff, the banquet table in Castle Discordia, the water trough in Eluria, some of the doors beneath Castle Discordia and Cort's stick are all ironwood.

J
AWBONE
(1, 2)

A talisman that Roland carries with him to ward off evil. The first one, found in the basement of the Way Station, may belong to one of the Great Old Ones. Later, Roland carries what he believes to be Walter's jawbone, picked up after the palaver at the golgotha.

J
EWELS OF
E
LD
(4)

The crown jewels of Arthur Eld.

K
A
OF
N
INETEEN
(7)

The
ka
of Keystone Earth.

K
A
OF
N
INETY-NINE
(7)

The
ka
of the Keystone World, which is Roland's Mid-World.

K
ISSING
M
OON
(L, 4)

The moon of Full Earth/midsummer.

L
AMERK
I
NDUSTRIES AND
F
OUNDRY
(1, 3, 4, 5)

A division of North Central Positronics. The LaMerk Industries imprint appears on the pump in the Way Station, on Andy the Messenger Robot and on some of the control panels in the Dogan. The LaMerk Foundry produced the steel that made the Send Bridge and the manhole covers in Lud. Sylvia Pittston thinks LaMerk is the sign of the beast. The bulldozer driver razing the vacant lot in Eddie's dream has LaMerk on his helmet.

L
ANGUAGE OF THE
U
NFORMED
(L, 5, 6, 7, M)

A language spoken by the Little Sisters of Eluria. Words from it appear in the speech of the people of the Callas, the Manni and the Children of Roderick.

L
ARCHIES
(1, M)

A Mid-World product brand.

L
EVEL OF THE
T
OWER
(4, 5, 6, 7)

Each level of the Tower represents a different universe. For an individual who enters the Tower, each level represents a different phase in his life.

Crossover to Other Works:
This concept was introduced in
Insomnia
.

L
IPPY
(7)

Joe Collins's blind, malnourished and decrepit horse. Roland believes that Stanza XIV of “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” is about her. She runs off during the snowstorm. When she returns, Roland puts her out of her misery. When Mordred feasts on her body, he is poisoned. She was probably named after the Browning poem “Fra Lippo Lippi.”

L
LAMREI
(7)

Arthur Eld's snow-white horse. Its image was carried into battle on the pennants of Gilead and was the
sigul
of all In-World. Patrick Danville depicted it as dead in a painting.

L
OBSTROSITIES
(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Mutant lobsterlike creatures that dwell in the Western Sea and come out of the water to hunt at nightfall. They are four feet long, a foot high and weigh approximately seventy pounds. One of these creatures cuts off two of Roland's fingers and a big toe while he sleeps after his palaver with the man in black. They are the sole source of food for Roland, Eddie and Odetta/Detta as they travel up the coast.

L
OST
B
EASTS OF
E
LD
(6)

Creatures from long-ago days that have gone extinct.

L
YDIA'S
D
IPPER
(7)

The name for the Big Dipper in Mid-World. It faded from existence before Roland's time but reemerges after the Beams start to heal. Lydia is another name for the star Old Mother.

M
AERLYN'S
R
AINBOW
(4)

See Wizard's Rainbow.

M
AGIC AND
S
CIENTIFIC
D
OORS
(2, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Roland and his
ka-tet
encounter two different kinds of doors during their adventure: magic and scientific. The latter, created by North Central Positronics, often allow passage in only one direction and are dedicated—always coming out in the same place. New York is “lousy with portals,” many of which go to different versions of the city, though most don't work anymore.

There are nearly six hundred scientific doors still operational in the rotunda of the Fedic Dogan. Some are defective, and most are beginning to fail. Those that are failing can make a person feel like he's being turned inside out and make him physically sick. Their inner workings can sometimes be heard. A defective door can also open on the todash darkness between worlds, where monsters dwell.

The portals at the beginning of each Beam were originally magic, but they were replaced by North Central Positronics. Thus, Roland thinks of them as “old-ones doors.” The Old Ones used them to turn various levels of the Tower into tourist destinations. Many involved tragedy—terrorist attacks and assassinations being particular favorites.

The doorways on the beach, the one Eddie opens in the Speaking Ring and
the Unfound Door are all magic, left behind when the Prim receded. They are made of ironwood, designed with a purpose that is governed by
ka
. They float in the air—their hinges aren't attached to anything—and are visible only from one side. They can be aimed wherever the traveler or
ka
desires and allow him to return so long as the door remains open. A traveler can also enter the body of a person on the other side, as Roland does with Eddie, Odetta and Jack Mort (and, perhaps, as Mia does to Susannah). Sheemie Ruiz has a unique talent that allows him to create doors, though the toll it takes on him is tremendous. Though the New Yorkers take magic doors for granted, Roland never saw one before the three he found on the Western Sea.

Crossovers to Other Works:
Doorways that transport people from one place or time to another have been part of King's works almost from the beginning. In his 1971 story “I Am the Doorway,” aliens use an astronaut as a doorway through which they can observe things on Earth. In his 1981 story “The Jaunt,” a character creates a mechanism for sending people across vast distances by crossing a portal. The painting Rosie McClendon purchases in
Rose Madder
is a doorway to another world that may be Mid-World. The trunk of the Buick Roadmaster in
From a Buick 8
is a doorway to an alien world, and the title building in
Black House
is a portal between Earth and End-World. King allows for the possibility that the Colorado Kid had access to a portal as well. How else could he have made the journey from Colorado to Maine in so short a time? Sheemie Ruiz created a magic doorway to allow Ted Brautigan to escape from Devar-Toi to Connecticut in “Low Men in Little Coats” from
Hearts in Atlantis
. In
11/22/63
, Jake Epping is shown a door that always transports people to the same day in 1959. The rules of travel through this door are a little different from the ones in the Dark Tower series. Each time he revisits the past, any changes he made on previous trips are undone.

M
AGIC
T
ALES OF THE
E
LD
(4.5)

A book Roland loved as a child. It had a dozen woodcut illustrations, one of which featured throcken anticipating a starkblast. His favorite story from it was “The Wind Through the Keyhole.” Known by some as
The Great Elden Book
.

M
ATURIN
(5, 6, 7)

The Turtle Guardian of the Beam upon whose shell the world rests. Susannah uses the word to plant a posthypnotic suggestion in Mathiessen van Wyck's mind. King borrowed the name from novels by Patrick O'Brian.

M
IM
(7)

Mother Earth.

M
IND
-T
RAP
(7)

A gadget in the tunnel beneath the Dixie Pig leading to the Fedic door that plucks people's worst fears from their imaginations and makes them real enough to kill them, though the cause of death would probably look like a stroke or a heart attack. Jake switches minds with Oy to escape the trap. Flaherty and Lamla get sharpshooters to destroy the projectors while pursuing Jake.

M
ITSY
(4.5)

One of Jack Ross's female mules.

M
ORTATA
(5)

The dance of death.

M
USTY
(4)

Rhea Dubativo's mutant cat. It has six legs and a split tail. Its fur has an unpleasant wet feel, perhaps because Rhea grooms it with her tongue. She refers to it as a warlock, and it is smart enough to deliver notes on her behalf.

N
EW
E
ARTH
(1, 4.5, 5, M)

Spring, also known as Fresh Commala. A time when fields are prepared for planting.

N
INETEEN
(1, 5, 6, 7, M)

The mystery number. After they leave the Green Palace, the
ka-tet
starts seeing this number in everything. In High Speech, it is “chassit.”

N
IS
(7)

The greatest of the gray horses at the Castle of the Crimson King. Named after the land of sleep and dreams. The Crimson King rode it across Empathica to the Dark Tower.

N
ORTH
C
ENTRAL
P
OSITRONICS
(1, 3, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)

A corporation created by the Great Old Ones to replace magical elements with scientific analogs or to fuse the two together. Their experiments were
conducted in research stations known as Dogans. They once had factories on the outskirts of Algul Siento. The remnants of their poisonous experiments linger to this day.

Their corporate slogan is “Building the future one circuit at a time.” Their brand name appears on many things encountered by the
ka-tet
, including: Shardik, the Cradle of Lud and Fedic Station, Andy, the various Dogans, the motorized tricycle Mia uses to get to the Doorway Cave, the microphones in Susannah's Dogan, the change machine in the World Trade Center basement, the link between Susannah and Mia in the Fedic Dogan, Nigel's computer, the raft crossing the River Whye, and Daria, the portable guidance module the tribesmen give to Tim Ross. Father Callahan believes they may exist in all worlds. One of their subsidiaries hired Dinky Earnshaw for its assassination program. They are also purchasing the New York Plaza-Park Hyatt, planning to rename it the Regal U.N. Plaza, together with their Keystone subsidiary, Sombra.

Eddie enlists John Cullum, Aaron Deepneau and Moses Carver to form Tet Corporation to try to put North Central Positronics out of business before it can turn into a monster that will mortally wound the Dark Tower.

N
OZZ
-A-L
A
(4, 5, 6, 7, M)

A brand of soft drink that exists in certain realities, as well as in Thunderclap. According to Ted Brautigan, who calls it Nozzie, it tastes a bit like root beer. Austin Cornwell worked on the advertising campaign before he became the Crimson King's minister of state.

O
CEAN
F
OAM
(4)

The horse Pat Delgado was riding the day he was killed. Those who were with Delgado claimed that a snake spooked the horse, which threw his rider and rolled on him.

O
LD
M
OTHER
(1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)

The southern star, also known as Lydia. The brightest of those close to Mid-World. See Cassiopeia.

O
LD
S
TAR
(1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)

The northern star, also known as Apon. See Cassiopeia.

O
LD
W
AR
(3)

One name for the conflict that brought an end to the civilization of the Great Old Ones. Also known as the Cataclysm, the Great Fire, or the Great Poisoning. It happened well over a thousand years ago and emptied the land. The mutations seen in Roland's time are a long-lasting effect of this war.

O
RIZA
(5, 6, 7)

A specially weighted titanium plate a foot in diameter manufactured in Calla Sen Chre. The rim is sharpened for three-quarters of the circumference. The only safe place to grip the plate is by a section that is dull and slightly thicker than the rest. A small metal pod affixed to the bottom makes the weapon whistle as the plate flies. The front of the blue plate is decorated by rice stalks crossed into the shape of the Great Letter Zn. Named for Lady Oriza, who used a similar plate to kill Gray Dick, who murdered her father. The word also refers to the rice plant. Both Susannah and Jake learn to master the weapon.