The Dark Tower VII

by Stephen King

  Ah, children are such dreamers.

  It didn’t happen, of course, but there had been much more to watch. Some of it was hard to see, though. Because it wasn’t just excitement that made the binoculars tremble. He was dressed warmly now, in layers of Dandelo’s hume clothes, but he was still cold. Except when he was hot. And either way, hot or cold, he trembled like a toothless old gaffer in a chimney corner. This state of affairs had been growing gradually worse since he left Joe Collins’s house behind. Fever roared in his bones like a blizzard wind. Mordred was no longer a-hungry (for Mordred no longer had an appetite), but Mordred was a-sick, a-sick, a-sick.

  In truth, he was afraid Mordred might be a-dying.

  Nonetheless he watched Roland’s party with great interest, and once the fire was replenished, he saw even better. Saw the door come into being, although he could not read the symbols there writ upon. He understood that the Artist had somehow drawn it into being—what a godlike talent that was! Mordred longed to eat him just on the chance such a talent might be transmittable! He doubted it, the spiritual side of cannibalism was greatly overrated, but what harm in seeing for one’s self?

  He watched their palaver. He saw—and also understood—her plea to the Artist and the Mutt, her whining entreaties

  (come with me so I don’t have to go alone, come on, be a sport, in fact be a couple of sports, oh boo-hoo)

  and rejoiced in her sorrow and fury when the plea was rejected by both boy and beast; Mordred rejoiced even though he knew it would make his own job harder. (A little harder, anyway; how much trouble could a mute young man and a billy-bumbler really give him, once he changed his shape and made his move?) For a moment he thought that, in her anger, she might shoot Old White Daddy with his own gun, and that Mordred did not want. Old White Daddy was meant to be his. The voice from the Dark Tower had told him so. A-sick he surely was, a-dying he might be, but Old White Daddy was still meant to be his meal, not the Blackbird Mommy’s. Why, she’d leave the meat to rot without taking a single bite! But she didn’t shoot him. Instead she kissed him. Mordred didn’t want to see that, it made him feel sicker than ever, and so he put the binoculars aside. He lay in the grass amid a little clump of alders, trembling, hot and cold, trying not to puke (he had spent the entire previous day puking and shitting, it seemed, until the muscles of his midsection ached with the strain of sending such heavy traffic in two directions at once and nothing came up his throat but thick, mucusy strings and nothing out of his backside but brown stew and great hollow farts), and when he looked through the binoculars again, it was just in time to see the back end of the little electric cart disappear as the Blackbird Mommy drove it through the door. Something swirled out around it. Dust, maybe, but he thought snow. There was also singing. The sound of it made him feel almost as sick as seeing her kiss Old White Gunslinger Daddy. Then the door slammed shut behind her and the singing was gone and the gunslinger just sat there near it, with his face in his hands, boo-hoo, sob-sob. The bumbler went to him and put its long snout on one of his boots as if to offer comfort, how sweet, how puking sweet. By then it was dawn, and Mordred dozed a little. When he woke up, it was to the sound of Old White Daddy’s voice. Mordred’s hiding place was downwind, and the words came to him clearly: “Oy? Will’ee not have at least a bite?” The bumbler would not, however, and the gunslinger had scattered the food that had been meant for the little furry houken. Later, after they moved on (Old White Gunslinger Daddy pulling the cart the robot had made for them, plodding slowly along the ruts of Tower Road with his head down and his shoulders all a-slump), Mordred crept to the campsite. He did indeed eat some of the scattered food—surely it had not been poisoned if Roland had hoped it would go down the bumbler’s gullet—but he stopped after only three or four chunks of meat, knowing that if he went on eating, his guts would spew everything back out, both north and south. He couldn’t have that. If he didn’t hold onto at least some nourishment, he would be too weak to follow them. And he must follow, had to stay close a little while longer. It would have to be tonight. It would have to be, because tomorrow Old White Daddy would reach the Dark Tower, and then it would almost certainly be too late. His heart told him so. Mordred plodded as Roland had, but even more slowly. Every now and then he would double over as cramps seized him and his human shape wavered, that blackness rising and receding under his skin, his heavy coat bulging restlessly as the other legs tried to burst free, then hanging slack again as he willed them back inside, gritting his teeth and groaning with effort. Once he shit a pint or so of stinky brown fluid in his pants, and once he managed to get his trousers down, and he cared little either way. No one had invited him to the Reap Ball, ha-ha! Invitation lost in the mail, no doubt! Later, when it came time to attack, he would let the little Red King free. But if it happened now, he was almost positive he wouldn’t be able to change back again. He wouldn’t have the strength. The spider’s faster metabolism would fan the sickness the way a strong wind fans a low ground-fire into a forest-gobbling blaze. What was killing him slowly would kill him rapidly, instead. So he fought it, and by afternoon he felt a little better. The pulse from the Tower was growing rapidly now, growing in strength and urgency. So was his Red Daddy’s voice, urging him on, urging him to stay within striking distance. Old White Gunslinger Daddy had gotten no more than four hours’ sleep a night for weeks now, because he had been standing watch-and-watch with the now-departed Blackbird Mommy. But Blackbird Mommy hadn’t ever had to pull that cart, had she? No, just rode in it like Queen Shit o’ Turd Hill did she, hee! Which meant Old White Gunslinger Daddy was plenty tired, even with the pulse of the Dark Tower to buoy him up and pull him onward. Tonight Old White Daddy would either have to depend on the Artist and the Mutt to stand the first watch or try to do the whole thing on his own. Mordred thought he could stand one more wakeful night himself, simply because he knew he’d never have to have another. He would creep close, as he had the previous night. He would watch their camp with the old man-monster’s glass eyes for far-seeing. And when they were all asleep, he would change for the last time and rush down upon them. Scrabble-de-dee comes me, hee! Old White Daddy might never even wake up, but Mordred hoped he would. At the very end. Just long enough to realize what was happening to him. Just long enough to know that his son was snatching him into the land of death only hours before he would have reached his precious Dark Tower. Mordred clenched his fists and watched the fingers turn black. He felt the terrible but pleasurable itching up the sides of his body as the spider-legs tried to burst through—seven instead of eight, thanks to the terrible-nastyawful Blackbird Mommy who had been both preg and not-preg at the same time, and might she rot screaming in todash space forever (or at least until one of the Great Ones who lurked there found her). He fought and encouraged the change with equal ferocity. At last he only fought it, and the urge to change subsided. He gave out a victory-fart, but although this one was long and smelly, it was silent. His asshole was now a broken squeezebox that could no longer make music but only gasp. His fingers returned to their normal pinkish-white shade and the itching up and down the sides of his body disappeared. His head swam and slithered with fever; his thin arms (little more than sticks) ached with chills. The voice of his Red Daddy was sometimes loud and sometimes faint, but it was always there: Come to me. Run to me. Hie thy doubleton self. Come-commala, you good son of mine. We’ll bring the Tower down, we’ll destroy all the light there is, and then rule the darkness together.

  Come to me.

  Come.

  Two

  Surely those three who remained (four, counting himself) had outrun ka’s umbrella. Not since the Prim receded had there been such a creature as Mordred Deschain, who was part hume and part of that rich and potent soup. Surely such a creature could never have been meant by ka to die such a mundane death as the one that now threatened: fever brought on by food-poisoning.

  Roland could have told him that eating what he found in the snow around to the side of Dandelo’s barn was
a bad idea; so could Robert Browning, for that matter. Wicked or not, actual horse or not, Lippy (probably named after another, and better-known, Browning poem called “Fra Lippo Lippi”) had been a sick animal herself when Roland ended her life with a bullet to the head. But Mordred had been in his spider-form when he’d come upon the thing which at least looked like a horse, and almost nothing would have stopped him from eating the meat. It wasn’t until he’d resumed his human form again that he wondered uneasily how there could be so much meat on Dandelo’s bony old nag and why it had been so soft and warm, so full of uncoagulated blood. It had been in a snowdrift, after all, and had been lying there for some days. The mare’s remains should have been frozen stiff.

  Then the vomiting began. The fever came next, and with it the struggle not to change until he was close enough to his Old White Daddy to rip him limb from limb. The being whose coming had been prophesied for thousands of years (mostly by the Manni-folk, and usually in frightened whispers), the being who would grow to be half-human and half-god, the being who would oversee the end of humanity and the return of the Prim…that being had finally arrived as a naïve and bad-hearted child who was now dying from a bellyful of poisoned horsemeat.

  Ka could have had no part in this.

  Three

  Roland and his two companions didn’t make much progress on the day Susannah left them. Even had he not planned to travel short miles so that they could come to the Tower at sunset of the day following, Roland wouldn’t have been able to go far. He was disheartened, lonely, and tired almost to death. Patrick was also tired, but he at least could ride if he chose to, and for most of that day he did so choose, sometimes napping, sometimes sketching, sometimes walking a little while before climbing back into Ho Fat II and napping some more.

  The pulse from the Tower was strong in Roland’s head and heart, and its song was powerful and lovely, now seemingly composed of a thousand voices, but not even these things could take the lead from his bones. Then, as he was looking for a shady spot where they could stop and eat a little midday meal (by now it was actually mid-afternoon), he saw something that momentarily made him forget both his weariness and his sorrow.

  Growing by the side of the road was a wild rose, seemingly the exact twin of the one in the vacant lot. It bloomed in defiance of the season, which Roland put as very early spring. It was a light pink shade on the outside and darkened to a fierce red on the inside; the exact color, he thought, of heart’s desire. He fell on his knees before it, tipped his ear toward that coral cup, and listened.

  The rose was singing.

  The weariness stayed, as weariness will (on this side of the grave, at least), but the loneliness and the sadness departed, at least for a little while. He peered into the heart of the rose and saw a yellow center so bright he couldn’t look directly at it.

  Gan’s gateway, he thought, not sure exactly what that was but positive that he was right. Aye, Gan’s gateway, so it is!

  This was unlike the rose in the vacant lot in one crucial way: the feeling of sickness and the faint voices of discord were gone. This one was rich with health as well as full of light and love. It and all the others…they…they must…

  They feed the Beams, don’t they? With their songs and their perfume. As the Beams feed them. It’s a living force-field, a giving and taking, all spinning out from the Tower. And this is only the first, the farthest outrider. In Can’-Ka No Rey there are tens of thousands, just like this.

  The thought made him faint with amazement. Then came another that filled him with anger and fear: the only one with a view of that great red blanket was insane. Would blight them all in an instant, if allowed free rein to do so.

  There was a hesitant tap on his shoulder. It was Patrick, with Oy at his heel. Patrick pointed to the grassy area beside the rose, then made eating gestures. Pointed at the rose and made drawing motions. Roland wasn’t very hungry, but the boy’s other idea pleased him a great deal.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll have a bite here, then maybe I’ll take me a little siesta while you draw the rose. Will you make two pictures of it, Patrick?” He showed the two remaining fingers on his right hand to make sure Patrick understood.

  The young man frowned and cocked his head, still not understanding. His hair hung to one shoulder in a bright sheaf. Roland thought of how Susannah had washed that hair in a stream in spite of Patrick’s hooted protests. It was the sort of thing Roland himself would never have thought to do, but it made the young fellow look a lot better. Looking at that sheaf of shining hair made him miss Susannah in spite of the rose’s song. She had brought grace to his life. It wasn’t a word that had occurred to him until she was gone.

  Meanwhile, here was Patrick, wildly talented but awfully slow on the uptake.

  Roland gestured to his pad, then to the rose. Patrick nodded—that part he got. Then Roland raised two of the fingers on his good hand and pointed to the pad again. This time the light broke on Patrick’s face. He pointed to the rose, to the pad, to Roland, and then to himself.

  “That’s right, big boy,” Roland said. “A picture of the rose for you and one for me. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  Patrick nodded enthusiastically, setting to work while Roland rustled the grub. Once again Roland fixed three plates, and once again Oy refused his share. When Roland looked into the bumbler’s gold-ringed eyes he saw an emptiness there—a kind of loss—that hurt him deep inside. And Oy couldn’t stand to miss many meals; he was far too thin already. Trail-frayed, Cuthbert would have said, probably smiling. In need of some hot sassafras and salts. But the gunslinger had no sassy here.

  “Why do’ee look so?” Roland asked the bumbler crossly. “If’ee wanted to go with her, thee should have gone when thee had the chance! Why will’ee cast thy sad houken’s eyes on me now?”

  Oy looked at him a moment longer, and Roland saw that he had hurt the little fellow’s feelings; ridiculous but true. Oy walked away, little squiggle of tail drooping. Roland felt like calling him back, but that would have been more ridiculous yet, would it not? What plan did he have? To apologize to a billy-bumbler?

  He felt angry and ill at ease with himself, feelings he had never suffered before hauling Eddie, Susannah, and Jake from America-side into his life. Before they’d come he’d felt almost nothing, and while that was a narrow way to live, in some ways it wasn’t so bad; at least you didn’t waste time wondering if you should apologize to animals for taking a high tone to them, by the gods.

  Roland hunkered by the rose, leaning into the soothing power of its song and the blaze of light—healthy light—from its center. Then Patrick hooted at him, gesturing for Roland to move away so he could see it and draw it. This added to Roland’s sense of dislocation and annoyance, but he moved back without a word of protest. He had, after all, asked Patrick to draw it, hadn’t he? He thought of how, if Susannah had been here, their eyes would have met with amused understanding, as the eyes of parents do over the antics of a small child. But she wasn’t here, of course; she’d been the last of them and now she was gone, too.

  “All right, can’ee see howgit rosen-gaff a tweakit better?” he asked, striving to sound comic and only sounding cross—cross and tired.

  Patrick, at least, didn’t react to the harshness in the gunslinger’s tone; probably didn’t even ken what I said, Roland thought. The mute boy sat with his ankles crossed and his pad balanced on his thighs, his half-finished plate of food set off to one side.

  “Don’t get so busy you forget to eat that,” Roland said. “You mind me, now.” He got another distracted nod for his pains and gave up. “I’m going to snooze, Patrick. It’ll be a long afternoon.” And an even longer night, he added to himself…and yet he had the same consolation as Mordred: tonight would likely be the last. He didn’t know for sure what waited for him in the Dark Tower at the end of the field of roses, but even if he managed to put paid to the Crimson King, he felt quite sure that this was his last march. He didn’t believe he would ever leave Can�
��-Ka No Rey, and that was all right. He was very tired. And, despite the power of the rose, sad.

  Roland of Gilead put an arm over his eyes and was asleep at once.

  Four

  He didn’t sleep for long before Patrick woke him with a child’s enthusiasm to show him the first picture of the rose he’d drawn—the sun suggested no more than ten minutes had passed, fifteen at most.

  Like all of his drawings, this one had a queer power. Patrick had captured the rose almost to the life, even though he had nothing but a pencil to work with. Still, Roland would much have preferred another hour’s sleep to this exercise in art appreciation. He nodded his approval, though—no more grouch and grump in the presence of such a lovely thing, he promised himself—and Patrick smiled, happy even with so little. He tossed back the sheet and began drawing the rose again. One picture for each of them, just as Roland had asked.

  Roland could have slept again, but what was the point? The mute boy would be done with the second picture in a matter of minutes and would only wake him again. He went to Oy instead, and stroked the bumbler’s dense fur, something he rarely did.

  “I’m sorry I spoke rough to’ee, fella,” Roland said. “Will you not set me on with a word?”

  But Oy would not.

  Fifteen minutes later, Roland re-packed the few things he’d taken out of the cart, spat into his palms, and hoisted the handles again. The cart was lighter now, had to be, but it felt heavier.

  Of course it’s heavier, he thought. It’s got my grief in it. I pull it along with me everywhere I go, so I do.

  Soon Ho Fat II had Patrick Danville in it, as well. He crawled up, made himself a little nest, and fell asleep almost at once. Roland plodded on, head down, shadow growing longer at his heels. Oy walked beside him.