Read The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy for Free Online Page B

head, which meant that he ended up looking after his brother instead of the other way around.
    For the first time, readers are given an independent assessment of Roland. Though Roland is in bad shape, Eddie can see the strength within him. He respects Roland and develops a nascent love for him, even though he knows this is a man who will likely cause him harm.
    Eddie pulls off a bravura performance at Balazar’s headquarters. Roland’s faith in his inner steel makes him almost unrecognizable to the drug kingpin. He’s assertive and self-confident, taking part in a gunfight while naked. He is driven by the discovery that Henry died from a drug overdose shortly before he got there. He willingly goes to war with Roland, who steps through the doorway to join in the fray. For the first time ever, Roland gives up one of his guns—he can no longer use both at once, thanks to his maimed hand—and they reduce the population of the Leaning Tower to zero, just as Roland did back in Tull.
    Being thrust into such a dangerous situation together is a bonding experience. Eddie’s need for payback is satisfied and Roland gets his antibiotics, though not a large enough dose to cure him. Roland had planned to wrest Eddie back to Mid-World, but in the aftermath of the battle, he offers Eddie the choice to join him on his quest without guaranteeing that he’ll survive. The only thing he can promise is that if they make it to the Tower, Eddie will see something remarkable.
    Even though he’s battling withdrawal, Eddie looks after Roland in the days following the gunfight, providing food—in the form of lobstrosity meat, much to Roland’s horror—and making sure the gunslinger takes his medication. He even builds a serviceable travois and drags Roland up the beach. He’s not cured of his addiction, though. He needs Roland so he can get back to his own world to score drugs.
    Roland knows better than to trust an addict—advice, like most, usually delivered to him in Cort’s chiding voice. He’s also reluctant to get too close to Eddie because he might have to sacrifice him, too. Eddie believes that he is unlikely to survive in Roland’s world, even if they make it to the Dark Tower. He recognizes the addiction in Roland’s personality, too: Roland is a Tower junkie.
    When they reach the second doorway, marked THE LADY OF SHADOWS , Eddie is so determined to go with Roland that he threatens to kill the gunslinger’s defenseless body if he’s left behind. Roland puts his trust in
ka
and plows ahead, ditching Eddie and throwing himself into another strange place. He had warned Eddie that the doorway might take them to a completely alien destination. In a way it does. Roland ends up in Macy’s in New York City, nearly a quarter of a century earlier than the time from which he drew Eddie.
    The second person destined to become part of Roland’s
ka-tet
is Odetta Holmes, a black woman who is in a wheelchair because her legs are missing below the knees. She is a strong, independent woman who is active in the civil rights movement. Inspired by Rosa Parks, she has become nearly as famous as Martin Luther King and has appeared on the cover of
Time
magazine. She has recently returned from a trip to Oxford, Mississippi, where she was jailed and humiliated after attending a protest.
    However, it is not Odetta’s mind Roland enters but that of Detta Walker, a personality of which Odetta is unaware. Detta first materialized after Odetta was hit in the head by a brick when she was five years old, but her appearances were rare until 1958, when Odetta was pushed in front of a subway train, the incident that cost her her legs. Odetta is still the dominant personality, and Detta’s adventures are sufficiently infrequent that Odetta can fill in the blanks the way a person with an eye injury learns to compensate for the missing part of their field of vision. Detta is more aware that