“The Great Turtle’s name is Maturin,” Jake said, and shrugged. “If it matters.”
“You have no way of telling which one broke?” Callahan said, studying Roland closely.
Roland shook his head. “All I know is that Jake’s right-it wasn’t ours. If it had been, nothing within a hundred miles of Calla Bryn Sturgis would be standing.” Or maybe within a thousand miles-who could know? “The very birds would have fallen flaming from the sky.”
“You speak of Armageddon,” Callahan said in a low, troubled voice.
Roland shook his head, but not in disagreement. “I don’t know that word, Pere, but I’m speaking of great death and great destruction, sure. And somewhere-along the Beam connecting Fish to Rat, perhaps-that has now happened.”
“Are you positive this is true?” Rosa asked, low.
Roland nodded. He had been through this once before, when Gilead fell and civilization as he then understood it had ended. When he had been cast loose to wander with Cuthbert and Alain and Jamie and the few others of their ka-tet. One of the six Beams had broken then, and almost certainly not the first.
“How many Beams remain to hold the Tower?” Callahan asked.
For the first time, Eddie seemed interested in something other than the fate of his lost wife. He was looking at Roland with what was almost attention. And why not? This was, after all, the crucial question. All things serve the Beam, they said, and although the actual truth was that all things served the Tower, it was the Beams which held the Tower up. If they snapped-
“Two,” Roland said. “There have to be at least two, I’d say. The one running through Calla Bryn Sturgis and another. But God knows how long they’ll hold. Even without the Breakers working on them, I doubt they’d hold for long. We have to hurry.”
Eddie had stiffened. “If you’re suggesting we go on without Suze-”
Roland shook his head impatiently, as if to tell Eddie not to be a fool. “We can’t win through to the Tower without her. For all I know, we can’t win through without Mia’s chap. It’s in the hands of ka, and there used to be a saying in my country. ’Ka has no heart or mind.’”