The Dark Tower (Page 113)

"This place is bad," she muttered, meaning not just the castle but the nameless village of leaning

(leering)

houses that had grown up all around it. "And Roland-it’s not empty."

"Susannah, if thee feels spirits knocking for entrance into thy head-knocking or gnawing-then bid them away."

"Will that work?"

"I’m not sure it will," he admitted, "but I’ve heard that such things must be granted entry, and that they’re wily at gaining it by trick and by ruse."

She had read Dracula as well as heard Pere Callahan’s story of Jerusalem’s Lot, and understood what Roland meant all too well.

He took her gendy by the shoulders and turned her away from the castle-which might not be naturally black after all, she had decided, but only tarnished by the years. Daylight would tell. For the present their way was lit by a cloud-scummed quarter-moon.

Several other roads led away from the place where they had stopped, most as crooked as broken fingers. The one Roland wanted her to look upon was straight, however, and Susannah realized it was the only completely straight street she had seen since the deserted village began to grow silently up around their way. It was smoothly paved rather than cobbled and pointed southeast, along the Path of die Beam. Above it flowed the moon-gilded clouds like boats in a procession.

"Does thee glimpse a darkish blur at the horizon, dear?" he murmured.

"Yes. A dark blur and a whitish band in front of it. What is it? Do you know?"

"I have an idea, but I’m not sure," Roland said. "Let’s have us a rest here. Dawn’s not far off, and then we’ll both see. And besides, I don’t want to approach yonder castle at night."

"If the Crimson King’s gone, and if the Path of the Beam lies that way-" She pointed. "Why do we need to go to his damn old casde at all?"

"To make sure he is gone, for one thing," Roland said.

And we may be able to trap the one behind us. I doubt it-he’s wily-but there’s a chance. He’s also young, and the young are sometimes careless."

"You’d kill him?"

Roland’s smile was wintry in the moonlight. Merciless.

"Without a moment’s hesitation," said he.

EIGHT

In the morning Susannah woke from an uncomfortable doze amid the scattered supplies in the back of the rickshaw and saw Roland standing in the intersection and looking along the Path of the Beam. She got down, moving with great care because she was stiff and didn’t want to fall. She imagined her bones cold and brittle inside her flesh, ready to shatter like glass.

"What do you see?" he asked her. "Now that it’s light, what do you see over that way?"

The whitish band was snow, which did not surprise her given the fact that those were true uplands. What did surprise her-and gladdened her heart more than she would have believed possible-were the trees beyond the band of snow.

Green fir-trees. Living things.

"Oh, Roland, they look lovely!" she said. "Even with their feet in the snow, they look lovely! Don’t they?"

"Yes," he said. He lifted her high and turned her back the way they had come. Beyond the nasty crowding suburb of dead houses she could see some of the Badlands they’d come through, all those crowding spines of rock broken by the occasional butte or mesa.

"Think of this," he said. "Back yonder as you look is Fedic.

Beyond Fedic, Thunderclap. Beyond Thunderclap, the Callas and the forest that marks the borderland between Mid-World and End-World. Lud is further back that way, and River Crossing further still; the Western Sea and the great Mohaine Desert, too.

Somewhere back there, lost in the leagues and lost in time as well is what remains of In-World. The Baronies. Gilead. Places where even now there are people who remember love and light."

"Yes," she said, not understanding.

"That was the way the Crimson King turned to cast his petulance," Roland said. "He meant to go the other way, ye must ken, to the Dark Tower, and even in his madness he knew better than to kill the land he must pass through, he and whatever band of followers he took with him." He drew her toward him and kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made her feel like crying. "We three will visit his castle, and trap Mordred there if our fortune is good and his is ill. Then we’ll go on, and back into living lands. There’ll be wood for fires and game to provide fresh food and hides to wrap around us. Can you go on a little longer, dear? Can theeV

"Yes," she said. "Thank you, Roland."

She hugged him, and as she did, she looked toward the red castle. In the growing light she could see that the stone of which it had been made, although darkened by the years, had once been the color of spilled blood. This called forth a memory of her palaver with Mia on the Castle Discordia allure, a memory of steadily pulsing crimson light in the distance. Almost from where they now were, in fact.

Come to me now, if you ‘d come at all, Susannah, Mia had told her. For the King can fascinate, even at a distance.

It was that pulsing red glow of which she had been speaking, but-

"It’s gone!" she said to Roland. "The red light from the castle-

Forge of the King, she called it! It’s gone! We haven’t seen it once in all this time!"

"No," he said, and this time his smile was warmer. "I believe it must have stopped at the same time we ended the Breakers"

work. The Forge of the King has gone out, Susannah. Forever, if the gods are good. That much we have done, although it has cost us much."

That afternoon they came to Le Casse Roi Russe, which turned out not to be entirely deserted, after all.

Chapter III:THE CASTLE OF THE CRIMSON KING

ONE

They were a mile from the castle and the roar of the unseen river had become very loud when bunting and posters began to appear. The bunting consisted of red, white, and blue swags-the kind Susannah associated with Memorial Day parades and small-town Main Streets on the Fourth of July. On the facades of these narrow, secretive houses and the fronts of shops long closed and emptied from basement to attic, such decoration looked like rouge on the cheeks of a decaying corpse.

The faces on the posters were all too familiar to her.

Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge flashed V’s-for-victory and car-salesmen grins (NIXON/LODGE, BECAUSE THE WORK’s NOT DONE, these read). John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson stood with their arms around each other and their free hands raised.

Below their feet was the bold proclamation WE STAND ON THE EDGE OF A NEW FRONTIER.

"Any idea who won?" Roland asked over his shoulder.

Susannah was currently riding in Ho Fat’s Luxury Taxi, taking in the sights (and wishing for a sweater: even a light cardigan would do her just fine, by God).

"Oh, yes," she said. There was no doubt in her mind that these posters had been mounted for her benefit. "Kennedy did."

"He became your dinh?"

"Dinh of the entire United States. And Johnson got the job when Kennedy was gunned down."

"Shot? Do you say so?" Roland was interested.

"Aye. Shot from hiding by a coward named Oswald."

"And your United States was the most powerful country in the world."

"Well, Russia was giving us a run for our money when you grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into Mid-World, but yes, basically."

"And the folk of your country choose their dinh for themselves.

It’s not done on account of fathership."

"That’s right," she said, a little warily. She half-expected Roland to blast the democratic system. Or laugh at it.

Instead he surprised her by saying, "To quote Blaine the Mono, that sounds pretty swell."

"Do me a favor and don’t quote him, Roland. Not now, not ever. Okay?"

"As you like," he said, then went on without a pause, but in a much lower voice. "Keep my gun ready, may it do ya."

"Does me fine," she agreed at once, and in the same low voice. It came out Does ‘ee ‘ine, because she didn’t even want to move her lips. She could feel that they were now being watched from within the buildings that crowded this end of The King’s Way like shops and inns in a medieval village (or a movie set of one). She didn’t know if they were humans, robots, or maybe just still-operating TV cameras, but she hadn’t mistrusted the feeling even before Roland spoke up and confirmed it. And she only had to look at Oy’s head, ticktocking back and forth like the pendulum in a grandfather clock, to know he felt it, too.

"And was he a good dinh, this Kennedy?" Roland asked, resuming his normal voice. It carried well in the silence. Susannah realized a rather lovely thing: for once she wasn’t cold, even though this close to the roaring river the air was dank as well as chill. She was too focused on the world around her to be cold. At least for the present.

"Well, not everyone thought so, certainly the nut who shot him didn’t, but I did," she said. "He told folks when he was running that he meant to change things. Probably less than half the voters thought he meant it, because most politicians lie for the same reason a monkey swings by his tail, which is to say because he can. But once he was elected, he started in doin the things he’d promised to do. There was a showdown over a olace called Cuba, and he was just as brave as… well, let’s just say you would have been pleased to ride with him. When some folks saw just how serious he was, the motherfucks hired the nut to shoot him."