The Dark Tower (Page 57)

The fourth tape is now three-quarters done, and Ted’s voice is little more than a croak. Nevertheless, he gamely pushes on.

"I hadn’t been gone long, but over here time had taken one of its erratic slips forward. Humma O’Tego was out, possibly because of me, and Prentiss of New Jersey, the ki ‘-dam, was in. He and Finli interrogated me in the Master’s suite a good many times. There was no physical torture-I guess they still reckoned me too important to chance spoiling me-but there was a lot of discomfort and plenty of mindgames.

They also made it clear that if I tried to run again, my Connecticut friends would be put to death. I said, ‘don’tyou boys get it? If I keep doing my job, they’re going out, anyway. Everybody’s going out, with the possible exception of the one you call the Crimson King."

"Prentiss steepled his fingers in the annoying way he has and said, ‘That may be or may not be true, sai, but if it is, we won’t suffer when we ‘go out," as you put it. Little Bobby and little Carol, on the other hand… not to mention Carol’s mother and Bobby’s friend,

Sully-John…’He didn’t have to finish. I still wonder if they knew how terribly frightened they’d made me ivith that threat against my young friends. And how terribly angry.

"All their questions came down to two things they really wanted to know: Why had I run, and who helped me do it. I could have fallen back on the old name-rank-serial number routine, but decided to chance being a bit more expansive. I’d wanted to run, I said, because I’d gotten a glimmering from some of the can-toi guards about what we were really doing, and I didn’t like the idea. As for how I’d gotten out, I told them I didn’t know. I went to sleep one night, I said, and just woke up beside the Merritt Parkway. They went from scoffing at this story to semibelieving it, mostly because I never varied it a single jot or tittle, no matter how many times they asked. And of course they already knew how powerful I was, and in ways that were different from the others.

"Do you think you’re a teleport in some subconscious way, sai?" Finli asked me.

"’How could I say?’ I asked in turn-always answer a question with a question is a good rule to follow during interrogation, I think, as long as it’s a relatively soft interrogation, as this one was. ‘I’ve never sensed any such ability, but of course we don’t always know what’s lurking in our subconscious, do we?"

"’You better hope it wasn’t you,’ Prentiss said. ‘We can live with almost any wild talent around here except that one. That one, Mr.

Brautigan, would spell the end even for such a valued employee as yourself.’ Iwasn’t sure I believed that, but later Trampas gave me reason to think Prentiss might have been telling the truth. Anyway, that was my story and I never went beyond it.

"Prentiss’s houseboy, a fellow named Tassa-a hume, if it matiers-would bring in cookies and cans of Nozz-A-La-which I like because it tastes a bit like root beer-and Prentiss would offer me all I wanted… after, that was, I told them where I’d gotten my information and how I’d escaped Algal Siento. Then the whole round of questions would start again, only this time with Prentiss and the Wease munching cookies and drinking Nozzie. But at some point they ‘d always give in and allow me a drink and a bite to eat. As interrogators, I’m afraid there just wasn’t enough Nazi in them to make me give up my secrets.

They tried to prog me, of course, but… have you heard that old saying about never bullshitting a bullshitter?"

Eddie and Susannah both nod. So does Jake, who has heard his father say that during numerous conversations concerning Programming at the Network.

"I bet you have, "Ted resumes. "Well, it’s also fair to say that you can’t prog a progger, at least not one who’s gone beyond a certain level of understanding. And I’d better get to the point before my voice gives out entirely.

"One day about three weeks after the low men hauled me back,

Trampas approached me on Main Street in Pleasantville. By then I’d met Dinky, had identified him as a kindred spirit, and was, with his help, getting to know Sheemie better. A lot was going on in addition to my daily interrogations in Warden’s House. I’d hardly even thought about Trampas since returning, but he’d thought of little else than me.

As I quickly found out.

"I know the answers to the questions they keep asking you," he said.

"What I don’t know is why you haven’t given me up."

"I said the idea had never crossed my mind-that tattle-taking wasn’t the way I’d been raised to do things. And besides, it wasn’t as if they were putting an electrified cattle-prod up my rectum or pulling my fingernails… although they might have resorted to such techniques, had it been anyone other than me. The worst they ‘d done was to make me look at the plate of cookies on Prentiss’s desk for an hour and a half before relenting and letting me have one.

"I was angry at you at first," Trampas said, "but then I realized-reluctantly-that I might have done the same thing in your place. The first week you were back I didn’t sleep much, I can tell you. I’d lie on my bed there in Damli, expecting them to come for me at any minute. You know what they’d do if they found out it was me, don’t you?"

"I told him I did not. He said that he’d be flogged by Gaskie,

Finli’s Second, and then sent raw-backed into the wastes, either to die in theDiscordia or to find service in the castle of the Red King. But such a trip would not be easy. Southeast ofFedic one may also contract such things as the Eating Sickness (probably cancer, but a kind that’s very fast, very painful, and very nasty) or what they just call the Crazy. The Children of Roderick commonly suffer from both these problems, and others, as well. The minor skin diseases of Thunderclap-the eczema, pimples, and rashes-are apparently only the beginning of one’s problems in End-World. But for an exile, service in the Court of the Crimson King would be the only hope. Certainly a can-toi such as Trampas couldn’t go to the Callas. They’re closer, granted, and there’s genuine sunshine there, but you can imagine what would happen to low men or the taheen in the Arc of the Callas."

Roland’s tet can imagine that very well.

"Don’t make too much of it," I said. "As that new fellow Dinky might say, I don’t put my business on the street. It s really as simple as that. There’s no chivalry involved."

"He said he was grateful nevertheless, then looked around and said, very low: ‘I’d pay you back for your kindness, Ted, by telling you to cooperate with them, to the extent that you can. I don’t mean you should get me in trouble, but I don’t want you to get in more trouble yourself, either. They may not need you quite as badly as you may think."

"And I’d have you hear me well now, lady and gentlemen, for this may be very important; I simply don’t know. All I know for certain is that what Trampas told me next gave me a terrible deep chill. He said that of all the other-side worlds, there’s one that’s unique. They call it the Real World. All Trampas seems to know about it is that it’s real in the same way Mid-World was, before the Beams began to weaken and Mid-World moved on. In America-side of this special ‘real’ World, he says, time sometimes jerks but always runs one way: ahead. And in that world lives a man who also serves as a kind of facilitator; he may even be a mortal guardian of Gan’s Beam."

TWELVE

Roland looked at Eddie, and as their eyes met, both mouthed the same word: King.

THIRTEEN

"Trampas told me that the Crimson King has tried to kill this man, but ka has ever protected his life. They say his song has cast the circle," Trampas told me, "although no one seems to know exactly what that means." Now, however, ka-not the Red King but plain old ka-has decreed that this man, this guardian or whatever he is, should die.

He’s stopped, you see. Whatever song it was he was supposed to sing, he’s stopped, and that has finally made him vulnerable. But not to the Crimson King. Trampas kept telling me that. No, it’s ka he’s vulnerable to. "He no longer sings," Trampas said. "His song, the one that matters, has ended. He has forgotten the rose."

FOURTEEN

In the outer silence, Mordred heard this and then withdrew to ponder it.

FIFTEEN

"Trampas told me all this only so I’d understand I was no longer completely indispensable. Of course they want to keep me; presumably there would be honor in bringing down Shardik ‘s Beam before this man’s death could cause Gan ‘s Beam to break."

A pause.

"Do they see the lethal insanity of a race to the brink of oblivion, and then over the edge? Apparently not. If they did, surely they wouldn’t be racing to begin with. Or is it a simple failure of imagination? One doesn’t like to think such a rudimentary failing could bring about the end, yet…"

SIXTEEN

Roland, exasperated, twirled his fingers almost as if the old man to whose voice they were listening could see them. He wanted to hear, very well and every word, what the can-toi guard knew about Stephen King, and instead Brautigan had gotten off onto some rambling, discursive sidetrack. It was understandable-the man was clearly exhausted-but there was something here more important than everything else. Eddie knew it, too. Roland could read it on the young man’s strained face.

Together they watched the remaining brown tape-now no more than an eighth of an inch deep-melt away.

SEVENTEEN

"… yet we’re only poor benighted humies, and I suppose we can’t know about these things, not with any degree of certainty…"

He fetches a long, tired sigh. The tape turns, melting off the final reel and running silently and uselessly between the heads. Then, at last: