Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (94 page)
Read Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated Online
Authors: Robin Furth
See
LOT, THE
,
in
PORTALS
VANDERBILT COLLEGE
JOHN CULLUM’s friend DON RUSSERT was a history professor at Vanderbilt College before he retired and moved to WATERFORD, MAINE.
VI:151, VI:152, VI:180
VASSAR COLLEGE
JUSTINE ANDERSON and ELVIRA TOOTHAKER, the two women who see BRYAN SMITH careering along ROUTE 7 in LOVELL, MAINE, met at Vassar College.
VII:439–40
VERMONT (STATE OF)
JOHN CULLUM once worked at the MAINE STATE PRISON with a man who later moved to Vermont. When Roland states that it is no longer safe for Cullum to stay in EAST STONEHAM, MAINE (after all, he helped our
tet
battle BALAZAR’S MEN, and those folks aren’t exactly forgiving), John says that he will go visit his friend and former coworker. Not surprisingly, Cullum never makes it across the state border. Instead, he helps EDDIE and Roland find CARA
LAUGHS, a magical DOORWAY BETWEEN WORLDS. Roland calls the state of Vermont “Vermong.”
V:308, VI:181, VI:182, VI:211, VII:38
(Vermong),
VII:39, VII:41, VII:45, VII:47, VII:128
MONTPELIER:
VII:46
STOWE:
VI:402
VIENNA
See
AUSTRIA
VIETNAM
EDDIE DEAN’s bossy older brother, HENRY DEAN, fought in Vietnam. He returned home with a bad knee and a worse drug habit.
II:169, II:174, II:207, II:239, II:242, II:337–38, V:254, V:264, V:468, VI:136, VI:285, VI:407, VI:409, VII:173
WASHINGTON (STATE OF)
GRAND COULEE DAM:
The Grand Coulee Dam is located on the Columbia River in central Washington. It is the largest concrete structure in the United States. VI:241, VI:242
SEATTLE:
VI:241
WASHINGTON, D.C.
II:114, VII:116
GEORGETOWN:
II:114
PENTAGON:
VI:41
WATERFORD
See
MAINE (STATE OF)
: OXFORD COUNTY
WATERVILLE
See
MAINE (STATE OF)
: KENNEBEC COUNTY
WEST VIRGINIA (STATE OF)
V:302
ROUTE 19:
V:302
WESTPORT
WHITE MOUNTAINS
New England’s White Mountains, located in northern NEW HAMPSHIRE and southwestern MAINE, are part of the Appalachian system. The White Mountains
of our world parallel the dry, poisoned mountains of the DISCORDIA in END-WORLD.
VI:397, VII:117
WICHITA
See
KANSAS (STATE OF)
;
see also
ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND SANTA FE RAILROAD
WILKES-BARRE
WINDHAM
See
MAINE (STATE OF)
: CUMBERLAND
WISCONSIN (STATE OF)
BELOIT:
V:425, V:426, VII:183
FRENCH LANDING:
French Landing, Wisconsin, is the setting for the KING/Straub novel
Black House.
Evidently, the nasty WALTER traveled there to get his “thinking cap.” Unfortunately for him, the thinking cap (so effective in the DEVAR-TOI) cannot keep baby MORDRED from spying on his thoughts. VII:183
GREEN BAY:
V:102
WOOLWORTH’S
See also
ALABAMA (STATE OF)
II:64
WORLD TRADE CENTER
See
NEW YORK CITY
: MANHATTAN
WYOMING (STATE OF)
IV:32
YAZOO
YOSEMITE
ZABAR’S
See
NEW YORK CITY
: MANHATTAN
ZION
VI:319
Beyond the reach of human range
A drop of hell, a touch of strange . . .
Line from a Manni poem, I:127
All is silent in the halls of the dead. All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. Behold the stairways which stand in darkness; behold the rooms of ruin. These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.
III:76–77
This is a place between . . . a place where shadows are canceled and time holds its breath.
VI:240
ABYSS
According to the
Oxford English Reference Dictionary,
26
the word
abyss
has several related meanings. They are: 1. A deep or seemingly bottomless chasm. 2a. An immeasurable depth (as in
an abyss of despair
). 2b. A catastrophic situation as contemplated or feared
(his loss brought him a step nearer the abyss).
And finally, when preceded by the word
the
(as in
the abyss
): 3. Primal chaos, or Hell.
In the Dark Tower series, all of these definitions apply. When Roland first touches the ghostwood box containing BLACK THIRTEEN, the voice of MAERLYN’s evil magic ball warns him that if he is not careful, his mind, body, and soul could all be swallowed by its dark magic. “Do you see how little it all matters?” it says. “How quickly and easily I can take it all away, should I choose to do so? Beware gunslinger! Beware shaman! The abyss is all around you. You float or fall into it at my whim.”
CASTLE DISCORDIA, which abuts the town of FEDIC, is also known as the Castle on the Abyss. The abyss for which it is named is actually a great crack in the earth, located just beyond its adjoining town. This abyss is filled with terrible monsters that cozen, diddle, and plot to escape. Although we cannot be completely certain, it seems likely that these creatures originated in the TODASH darkness located between worlds.
According to MID-WORLD folklore, GAN bore the world and then moved on. If the great TURTLE had not caught the plummeting universe on his back, all of the worlds would have landed in yet another version of the abyss.
Finally, in
The Gunslinger,
JAKE CHAMBERS died for the second time when his adopted father, Roland, let him fall into an abyss located below the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS. While he fell, Jake uttered the famous phrase “There are other worlds than these.” In Jake’s case, perhaps the abyss turned out to be yet another DOORWAY BETWEEN WORLDS.
V:317, VI:105
(Castle on the Abyss),
VI:295
(and Turtle),
VI:299
(and Jake)
AFTERLIFE, PLANET
**ALGUL SIENTO
See
DEVAR-TOI
ALL-A-GLOW
The All-A-Glow is the magical kingdom which children inhabit. As adults, we spend years trying to return to this place.
VII:23
ALLURE
ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS
See
MULTIPLE AMERICAS
,
in
OUR WORLD PLACES;
see also
ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS
and
MULTIPLE AMERICAS
,
in
APPENDIX I
ARC 16 EXPERIMENTAL STATION (FEDIC DOGAN)
See
DOGAN
: FEDIC DOGAN
ARC 16 STAGING AREA
See
DOGAN
: FEDIC DOGAN
ATCHISON
See
KANSAS
,
in
OUR WORLD PLACES;
see also
ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND SANTA FE RAILROAD
,
also in
OUR WORLD PLACES
AVEN KAL
See
APPENDIX I
;
see also
BEAMS, PATH OF THE
,
below
AYJIP
According to the Book of the MANNI, when the Angel of Death passed over Ayjip, he killed the firstborn in every house where the blood of a sacrificial lamb hadn’t been daubed on the doorposts. The Book of the Manni sounds very much like the Bible, and this story, which the Manni recount in CALLA BRYN STURGIS’s TOWN GATHERING HALL, is similar to one found in the Book of Exodus. According to Exodus, God imposed ten plagues upon the Egyptians because Pharaoh would not release the Israelites from captivity. The smiting of the firstborn was the tenth of these plagues.
V:16
BADLANDS (CALLA BADLANDS)
BADLANDS (THE BADS)
See
DISCORDIA
BADLANDS AVENUE
See
DISCORDIA
: BADLANDS AVENUE
BANQUETING HALL, THE
BEACH DOORS
BEAM, GARDEN OF THE
See
LOT, THE
: GARDEN OF THE BEAM
BEAM PORTALS
See
BEAMS, PATH OF THE
,
and
PORTALS OF THE BEAM
,
below
BEAMQUAKE
**BEAMS, PATH OF THE (BEAM PORTALS, BEAMQUAKE)
In
The Waste Lands,
Roland draws a metaphysical map of his world. According to this map, MID-WORLD is shaped like a wheel. At the hub of this Earth-wheel sits the DARK TOWER, the linchpin of the time/space continuum. The spokes radiating out from this hub are BEAMS. Each end of a Beam terminates in a PORTAL, which is a doorway leading into, and out of, Mid-World. The twelve Portals are watched over by twelve animal GUARDIANS.
The six Beams, which connect opposite Portals and which pass through the nexus of the Dark Tower, are like invisible high-tension wires. Their energy can be felt by those who pass close to them, and their stream-like paths can be detected in the movement of nearby clouds. As well as affecting gravity and the proper alignment of time, space, size, and dimension, the Beams hold the Dark Tower in place. Their purpose is to bind the multiverse together while simultaneously holding the separate worlds—which spin upon the Tower like sequins upon a needle—apart. As the Beams break down, and as the Tower becomes unstable, the effects are felt in all worlds. The coherence of the time/space/size continuum weakens and THINNIES appear.
Although the Beams may not be visible in all worlds, they affect all of them. In
The Waste Lands,
JAKE follows the path of the Beam to the MANHATTAN RESTAURANT OF THE MIND and later to the DUTCH HILL MANSION. While Jake follows the Beam in his version of Earth, Roland, EDDIE, and SUSANNAH follow the same Beam from its origin at SHARDIK’S LAIR through the GREAT WEST WOODS and finally on to the GREAT ROAD, which leads southeast toward the decaying and dangerous city of LUD. Along the Path of the Beam, Roland, Susannah, and Eddie use a magical SPEAKING RING—one of the places where the divisions between worlds are thin—to draw Jake into their
where
and
when.
Perhaps the fact that they are on the path of the BEAR-TURTLE Beam makes this drawing easier. In the 2003 version of
The Gunslinger,
Roland
follows WALTER (the MAN IN BLACK) southeast. Both of them are drawn in the direction of the Bear-Turtle Beam.
In
Wolves of the Calla,
Roland and his
tet
discover just how far the crazed CRIMSON KING has progressed in his desire to destroy both the Beams and the Tower. For approximately 140 years, the servants of the Red King have been sending robotic WOLF-masked horse-riders into Mid-World’s BORDERLANDS to steal one of every pair of prepubescent twins born there. From the brains of these innocent victims, the workers in the FEDIC DOGAN withdraw the chemical which causes twin-telepathy. This chemical is then fed to the psychic BREAKERS, whose wild talents are being used to erode the Beams.
Although Roland has experienced only two Beamquakes in his life (Beamquakes are similar to earthquakes, but are caused by the snapping of a Beam), many more must have taken place over the centuries. By the time our
tet
reaches the DEVAR-TOI, the Beams guarded by RAT and FISH, BAT and HARE, EAGLE and LION, and DOG and HORSE have all collapsed. The only two Beams left to hold the Tower in place are our
tet
’s Beam (the Bear-Turtle) and GAN’s Beam (the ELEPHANT-WOLF). These two remaining Beams are in place, but they are not healthy, as the wounded and disfigured BEAM BOY can attest. Luckily, Roland and his
tet
manage to destroy the Devar-Toi and stop the terrible erosion of the macroverse’s framework before the whole thing comes crashing down. We readers are also assured that the future of the Tower is secure. Either the collapsed Beams will regenerate, or the two existing Beams will generate more Beams to support the macroverse’s linchpin.