One summer he had sent them out into the Baby Forest west of the castle night after uncomfortable night (and it was scary out there, too, at least when one was on ones own, although of course none of them would ever have said so out loud, even to each other), until they could come back to the yard behind the Great Hall at the very minute Cort had specified. It was strange how that clockinthehead thing worked. The thing was, at first it didnt. And didnt. And didnt. Down would come Corts callused hand, down it would come aclout, and Cort would growl Arrr, maggot, back to the woods tomorrow night! You must like it out there! But once that headclock started ticking, it always seemed to run true. For awhile Roland had lost it, just as the world had lost its points of the compass, but now it was back and that cheered him greatly. Did you count the minute? she asked. Mississippione, Mississippitwo, like that? He shook his head. I just know. When a minutes up, or an hour. Bolshevecky! she scoffed. You guessed! If Id guessed, would I have spoken after exactly one revolution of the hand? You mought got lucky, Detta said, and eyed him shrewdly with one eye mostly closed, an expression Roland detested. (But never said so; that would only cause Detta to goad him with it on those occasions when she peeked out.) Do you want to try it again? he asked. No, Susannah said, and sighed. I take your word for it that your watch is keeping perfect time. And that means were not close to the Dark Tower. Not yet. Perhaps not close enough to affect the watch, but closer than Ive ever been, Roland said quietly. Comparatively speaking, were now almost in its shadow. Believe me, SusannahI know. But From over their heads came a cawing that was both harsh and oddly muffled Croo, croo! instead of Caw, caw! Susannah looked up and saw one of the huge blackbirdsthe sort Roland had called Castle Rooksflying overhead low enough so that they could hear the labored strokes of its wings. Dangling from its long hooked bill was a limp strand of something yellowygreen. To Susannah it looked like a piece of dead seaweed. Only not entirely dead. She turned to Roland, looked at him with excited eyes. He nodded. Devilgrass. Probably bringing it back to feather his mates nest. Certainly not for the babies to eat. Not that stuff. But devilgrass always goes last when youre walking into the Nowhere Lands, and always shows up first when youre walking back out of them, as we are. As we finally are. Now listen to me, Susannah, Id have you listen, and Id have you push that tiresome bitch Detta as far back as possible. Nor would I have you waste my time by telling me shes not there when I can see her dancing the commala in your eyes. Susannah looked surprised, then piqued, as if she would protest. Then she looked away without saying anything. When she looked back at him again, she could no longer feel the presence of the one Roland had called that tiresome bitch. And Roland must no longer have detected her presence, because he went on. I think it will soon look like were coming out of the Badlands, but youd do well not to trust what you seea few buildings and maybe a little paving on the roads doesnt make for safety or civilization. And before too long were going to come to his castle, Le Casse Roi Russe. The Crimson King is almost certainly gone from there, but he may have left a trap for us. I want you to look and listen. If theres talking to be done, I want you to let me do it. What do you know that I dont? she asked. What are you holding back? Nothing, he said (with what was, for him, a rare earnestness). Its only a feeling, Susannah. Were close to our goal now, no matter what the watch may say. Close to winning our way to the Dark Tower. But my teacher, Vannay, used to say that theres just one rule with no exceptions before victory comes temptation. And the greater the victory to win, the greater the temptation to withstand. Susannah shivered and put her arms around herself. All I want is to be warm, she said. If nobody offers me a big load of firewood and a flannel union suit to cry off the Tower, I guess well be all right awhile longer. Roland remembered one of Corts most serious maxims Never speak the worst aloud!but kept his own mouth shut, at least on that subject. He put his watch away carefully and then rose, ready to move on. But Susannah paused a moment longer. Ive dreamed of the other one, she said. There was no need for her to say of whom she was speaking. Three nights in a row, scuttering along our backtrail. Do you think hes really there? Oh yes, Roland said. And I think hes got an empty belly. Hungry, Mordreds ahungry, she said, for she had also heard these words in her dream. Susannah shivered again. SEVEN The path they walked widened, and that afternoon the first scabby plates of pavement began to show on its surface. It widened further still, and not long before dark they came to a place where another path (which had surely been a road in the longago) joined it. Here stood a rusty rod that had probably supported a streetsign, although there was nothing atop it now. The next day they came to the first building on this side of Fedic, a slumped wreck with an overturned sign on the remains of the porch. There was a flattened barn out back. With Rolands help Susannah turned the sign over, and they could make out one word LIVERY. Below it was the red eye they had come to know so well. I think the track weve been following was once a coachroad between Castle Discordia and the Le Casse Roi Russe, he said. It makes sense. They began to pass more buildings, more intersecting roads. It was the outskirts of a town or villageperhaps even a city that had once spread around the Crimson Kings castle. But unlike Lud, there was very little of it left. Sprigs of devilgrass grew in listless clumps around the remains of some of the buildings, but nothing else alive. And the cold clamped down harder than ever. On their fourth night after seeing the rooks, they tried camping in the remains of a building that was still standing, but both of them heard whispering voices in the shadows. Roland identified thesewith a matteroffactness Susannah found eerieas the voices of ghosts of what he called housies, and suggested they move back out into the street. I dont believe they could do harm to us, but they might hurt the little fellow, Roland said, and stroked Oy, who had crept into his lap with a timidity very unlike his usual manner. Susannah was more than willing to retreat. The building in which they had tried to camp had a chill that she thought was worse than physical cold. The things they had heard whispering in there might be old, but she thought they were still hungry. And so the three of them huddled together once more for warmth in the middle of Badlands Avenue, beside Ho Fats Luxury Taxi, and waited for dawn to raise the temperature a few degrees. They tried making a fire from the boards of one of the collapsed buildings, but all they succeeded in doing was wasting a double handful of Sterno. The jelly guttered along the splintered pieces of a broken chair they had used for kindling, then went out. The wood simply refused to burn. Why? Susannah asked as she watched the last few wisps of smoke dissipate. Why? Are you surprised, Susannah of New York? No, but I want to know why. Is it too old? Petrified, or something? It wont burn because it hates us, Roland said, as if this should have been obvious to her. This is his place, still his even though hes moved on. Everything here hates us. But  listen, Susannah. Now that were on an actual road, still more paved than not, what do you say to walking at night again? Will you try it? Sure, she said. Anythings got to be better than lying out on the tarvy and shivering like a kitten that just got a ducking in a waterbarrel. So that was what they didthe rest of that first night, all the next, and the two after that. She kept thinking, Im gonna get sick, I cant go on like this without coming down with something, but she didnt. Neither of them did. There was just that pimple to the left of her lower lip, which sometimes popped its top and trickled a little flow of blood before clotting and scabbing over again. Their only sickness was the constant cold, eating deeper and deeper into the center of them. The moon had begun to fatten once more, and one night she realized that they had been trekking southeast from Fedic nearly a month. Slowly, a deserted village replaced the fantastic needlegardens of rock, but Susannah had taken what Roland had said to heart they were still in the Badlands, and although they could now read the occasional sign which proclaimed this to be THE KINGS WAY (with the eye, of course; always there was the red eye), she understood they were really still on Badlands Avenue. It was a weirding village, and she could not begin to imagine what species of freakish people might once have lived here. The sidestreets were cobbled. The cottages were narrow and steeproofed, the doorways thin and abnormally high, as if made for the sort of narrow folk seen in the distorted curves of funhouse mirrors. They were Lovecraft houses, Clark Ashton Smith houses, William Hope Hodgson borderlands houses, all crammed together under a Lee Brown Coye sickle moon, the houses all atilt and alean on the hills that grew up gradually around the way they walked. Here and there one had collapsed, and there was an unpleasantly organic look to these ruins, as if they were torn and rotted flesh instead of ancient boards and glass. Again and again she caught herself seeing dead faces peering at her from some configuration of boards and shadow, faces that seemed to rotate in the rubble and follow their course with terrible zombie eyes. They made her think of the Doorkeeper on Dutch Hill, and that made her shiver. On their fourth night on The Kings Way, they came to a major intersection where the main road made a crooked turn, bending more south than east and thus off the Path of the Beam. Ahead, less than a nights walk (or ride, if one happened to be aboard Ho Fats Luxury Taxi), was a high hill with an enormous black castle dug into it. In the chancy moonlight it had a vaguely Oriental look to Susannah. The towers bulged at the tops, as if wishing they could be minarets. Fantastic walkways flew between them, crisscrossing above the courtyard in front of the castle proper. Some of these walkways had fallen to ruin, but most still held. She could also hear a vast, low rumbling sound. Not machinery. She asked Roland about it. Water, he said. What water? Do you have any idea? He shook his head. But Id not drink what flowed close to that castle, even were I dying of thirst. 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 Rolandits not empty. Susannah, if thee feels spirits knocking for entrance into thy headknocking or gnawingthen bid them away. Will that work? Im not sure it will, he admitted, but Ive heard that such things must be granted entry, and that theyre wily at gaining it by trick and by ruse. She had read Dracula as well as heard Pere Callahans story of Jerusalems Lot, and understood what Roland meant all too well. He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her away from the castlewhich 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 cloudscummed quartermoon. 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 the Beam. Above it flowed the moongilded 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 Im not sure, Roland said. Lets have us a rest here. Dawns not far off, and then well both see. And besides, I dont want to approach yonder castle at night. If the Crimson Kings gone, and if the Path of the Beam lies that way She pointed. Why do we need to go to his damn old castle 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 ithes wilybut theres a chance. Hes also young, and the young are sometimes careless. Youd kill him? Rolands smile was wintry in the moonlight. Merciless. Without a moments 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 didnt 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 its 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 herand gladdened her heart more than she would have believed possiblewere the trees beyond the band of snow. Green firtrees. Living things. Oh, Roland, they look lovely! she said. Even with their feet in the snow, they look lovely! Dont 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 theyd 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 MidWorld and EndWorld. 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 InWorld. 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 well go on, and back into living lands. Therell 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 thee? 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 youd 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 Its gone! she said to Roland. The red light from the castleForge of the King, she called it! Its gone! We havent 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 smalltown Main Streets on the Fourth of July. On the faades 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 Vsforvictory and carsalesmen grins (NIXONLODGE, BECAUSE THE WORKS 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 Fats 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 MidWorld, but yes, basically. And the folk of your country choose their dinh for themselves. Its not done on account of fathership. Thats right, she said, a little warily. She halfexpected 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 dont 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 didnt 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 Kings Way like shops and inns in a medieval village (or a movie set of one). She didnt know if they were humans, robots, or maybe just stilloperating TV cameras, but she hadnt mistrusted the feeling even before Roland spoke up and confirmed it. And she only had to look at Oys 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 wasnt 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 didnt, 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 hed promised to do. There was a showdown over a place called Cuba, and he was just as brave as  well, lets 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. Ozwalt. She nodded, not bothering to correct him, thinking that there was nothing to correct, really. Ozwalt. Oz. It all came around again, didnt it? And Johnson took over when Kennedy fell. Yep. How did he do? Was too early to tell when I left, but he was more the kind of fella used to playing the game. Go along to get along, we used to say. Do you ken it? Yes, indeed, he said. And Susannah, I think weve arrived. Roland brought Ho Fats Luxury Taxi to a stop. He stood with the handles wrapped in his fists, looking at Le Casse Roi Russe. TWO Here The Kings Way ended, spilling into a wide cobbled forecourt that had once no doubt been guarded as assiduously by the Crimson Kings men as Buckingham Palace was by the Beefeaters of Queen Elizabeth. An eye that had faded only slightly over the years was painted on the cobbles in scarlet. From groundlevel, one could only assume what it was, but from the upper levels of the castle itself, Susannah guessed, the eye would dominate the view to the northwest. Same damn things probably painted at every other point of the compass, too, she thought. Above this outer courtyard, stretched between two deserted guardtowers, was a banner that looked freshly painted. Stenciled upon it (also in red, white, and blue) was this WELCOME, ROLAND AND SUSANNAH! (OY, TOO!) KEEP ON ROCKIN IN THE FREE WORLD! The castle beyond the inner courtyard (and the caged river which here served as a moat) was indeed of dark red stone blocks that had darkened to nearblack over the years. Towers and turrets burst upward from the castle proper, swelling in a way that hurt the eye and seemed to defy gravity. The castle within these gaudy brackets was sober and undecorated except for the staring eye carved into the keystone arch above the main entrance. Two of the overhead walkways had fallen, littering the main courtyard with shattered chunks of stone, but six others remained in place, crisscrossing at different levels in a way that made her think of turnpike entrances and exits where a number of major highways met. As with the houses, the doors and windows were oddly narrow. Fat black rooks were perched on the sills of the windows and lined up along the overhead walkways, peering at them. Susannah swung down from the rickshaw with Rolands gun stuffed into her belt, within easy reach. She joined him, looking at the main gate on this side of the moat. It stood open. Beyond it, a humped stone bridge spanned the river. Beneath the bridge, dark water rushed through a stone throat forty feet wide. The water smelled harsh and unpleasant, and where it flowed around a number of fangy black rocks, the foam was yellow instead of white. What do we do now? she asked. Listen to those fellows, for a start, he said, and nodded toward the main doors on the far side of the castles cobbled forecourt. The portals were ajar and through them now came two menperfectly ordinary men, not narrow funhouse fellows, as she had rather expected. When they were halfway across the forecourt, a third slipped out and scurried along after. None appeared to be armed, and as the two in front approached the bridge, she was not exactly flabbergasted to see they were identical twins. And the one behind looked the same Caucasian, fairly tall, long black hair. Triplets, then two to meet, and one for good luck. They were wearing jeans and heavy peacoats of which she was instantly (and achingly) jealous. The two in front carried large wicker baskets by leather handles. Put spectacles and beards on them, and theyd look exactly like Stephen King as he was when Eddie and I first met him, Roland said in a low voice. Really? Say true? Yes. Do you remember what I told you? Let you do the talking. And before victory comes temptation. Remember that, too. I will. Roland, are you afraid of em? I think theres little to fear from those three. But be ready to shoot. They dont look armed. Of course there were those wicker baskets; anything might be in those. All the same, be ready. Count on it, said she. THREE Even with the roar of the river rushing beneath the bridge, they could hear the steady tocktock of the strangers bootheels. The two with the baskets advanced halfway across the bridge and stopped at its highest point. Here they put down their burdens side by side. The third man stopped on the castle side and stood with his empty hands clasped decorously before him. Now Susannah could smell the cooked meat that was undoubtedly in one of the boxes. Not long pork, either. Roast beef and chicken all mingled was what it smelled like to her, an aroma that was heavensent. Her mouth began to water. Hile, Roland of Gilead! said the darkhaired man on their right. Hile, Susannah of New York! Hile, Oy of MidWorld! Long days and pleasant nights! Ones ugly and the others are worse, his companion remarked. Dont mind him, said the righthand Stephen King lookalike. Dont mind him, mocked the other, screwing his face up in a grimace so purposefully ugly that it was funny. May you have twice the number, Roland said, responding to the more polite of the two. He cocked his heel and made a perfunctory bow over his outstretched leg. Susannah curtsied in the Calla fashion, spreading imaginary skirts. Oy sat by Rolands left foot, only looking at the two identical men on the bridge. We are uffis, said the man on the right. Do you ken uffis, Roland? Yes, he said, and then, in an aside to Susannah Its an old word  ancient, in fact. He claims theyre shapechangers. To this he added in a much lower voice that could surely not be heard over the roar of the river I doubt its true. Yet it is, said the one on the right, pleasantly enough. Liars see their own kind everywhere, observed the one on the left, and rolled a cynical blue eye. Just one. Susannah didnt believe she had ever seen a person roll just one eye before. The one behind said nothing, only continued to stand and watch with his hands clasped before him. We can take any shape we like, continued the one on the right, but our orders were to assume that of someone youd recognize and trust. Id not trust sai King much further than I could throw his heaviest grandfather, Roland remarked. As troublesome as a trouserseating goat, that one. We did the best we could, said the righthand Stephen King. We could have taken the shape of Eddie Dean, but felt that might be too painful to the lady. The lady looks as if shed be happy to fuck a rope, could she make it stand up between her thighs, remarked the lefthand Stephen King, and leered. Uncalledfor, said the one behind, he with his hands crossed in front of him. He spoke in the mild tones of a contest referee. Susannah almost expected him to sentence Badmouth King to five minutes in the penalty box. She wouldnt have minded, either, for hearing Badmouth King crack wise hurt her heart; it reminded her of Eddie. Roland ignored all the byplay. Could the three of you take three different shapes? he inquired of Goodmouth King. Susannah heard the gunslinger swallow quite audibly before asking this question, and knew she wasnt the only one struggling to keep from drooling over the smells from the foodbasket. Could one of you have been sai King, one sai Kennedy, and one sai Nixon, for instance? A good question, said Goodmouth King on the right. A stupid question, said Badmouth King on the left. Nothing at all to the point. Off we go into the wild blue yonder. Oh well, was there ever an action hero who was an intellectual? Prince Hamlet of Denmark, said Referee King quietly from behind them. But since hes the only one who comes immediately to mind, he may be no more than the exception that proves the rule. Goodmouth and Badmouth both turned to look at him. When it was clear that he was done, they turned back to Roland and Susannah. Since were actually one being, said Goodmouth, and of fairly limited capabilities at that, the answer is no. We could all be Kennedy, or we could all be Nixon, but Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today, said Susannah. She had no idea why this had popped into her head (even less why she should have said it out loud), but Referee King said Exactly! and gave her a gototheheadoftheclass nod. Move on, for your fathers sake, said Badmouth King on the left. I can barely look at these traitors to the Lord of the Red wiout puking. Very well, said his partner. Although calling them traitors seems rather unfair, at least if one adds ka to the equation. Since the names we give ourself would be unpronounceable to you Like Supermans rival, Mr. Mxyzptlk, said Badmouth. you may as well use those Los used. Him being the one you call the Crimson King. Im ego, roughly speaking, and go by the name of Feemalo. This fellow beside me is Fumalo. Hes our id. So the one behind you must be Fimalo, Susannah said, pronouncing it Fiemalo. Whats he, your superego? Oh brilliant! Fumalo exclaimed. I bet you can even say Freud so it doesnt rhyme with lewd! He leaned forward and gave her his knowing leer. But can you spell it, you shorleg New York blackbird? Dont mind him, said Feemalo, hes always been threatened by women. Are you Stephen Kings ego, id, and superego? Susannah asked. What a good question! Feemalo said approvingly. What a dumb question! Fumalo said, disapprovingly. Did your parents have any kids that lived, Blackbird? You dont want to start in playing the dozens with me, Susannah said, Ill bring out Detta Walker and shut you down. Referee King said, I have nothing to do with sai King other than having appropriated some of his physical characteristics for a short time. And I understand that short time is really all the time you have. I have no particular love for your cause and no intention of going out of my way to help younot far out of my way, at leastand yet I understand that you two are largely responsible for the departure of Los. Since he kept me prisoner and treated me as little more than his court jesteror even his pet monkeyIm not at all sorry to see him go. Id help you if I cana little, at leastbut no, I wont go out of my way to do so. Lets get that up front, as your late friend Eddie Dean might have said. Susannah tried not to wince at this, but it hurt. It hurt. As before, Feemalo and Fumalo had turned to look at Fimalo when he spoke. Now they turned back to Roland and Susannah. Honestys the best policy, said Feemalo, with a pious look. Cervantes. Liars prosper, said Fumalo, with a cynical grin. Anonymous. Feemalo said, There were times when Los would make us divide into six, or even seven, and for no other reason than because it hurt. Yet we could leave no more than anyone else in the castle could, for hed set a deadline around its walls. We thought hed kill us all before he left, Fumalo said, and with none of his previous fuckyou cynicism. His face wore the long and introspective expression of one who looks back on a disaster perhaps averted by mere inches. Feemalo He did kill a great many. Beheaded his Minister of State. Fumalo Who had advanced syphilis and no more idea what was happening to him than a pig in a slaughterhouse chute, mores the pity. Feemalo He lined up the kitchen staff and the women o work Fumalo All of whom had been very loyal to him, very loyal indeed Feemalo And made them take poison as they stood in front of him. He could have killed them in their sleep if hed wanted to Fumalo And by no more than wishing it on them. Feemalo But instead he made them take poison. Rat poison. They swallowed large brown chunks of it and died in convulsions right in front of him as he sat on his throne Fumalo Which is made of skulls, do ye ken Feemalo He sat there with his elbow on his knee and his fist on his chin, like a man thinking long thoughts, perhaps about squaring the circle or finding the Ultimate Prime Number, all the while watching them writhe and vomit and convulse on the floor of the Audience Chamber. Fumalo (with a touch of eagerness Susannah found both prurient and extremely unattractive) Some died begging for water. It was a thirsty poison, aye! And we thought we were next! At this Feemalo at last betrayed, if not anger, then a touch of pique.


Will you let me tell this and have done with it so they can go on or back as they please? Bossy as ever, Fumalo said, and dropped into a sulky silence. Above them, the Castle Rooks jostled for position and looked down with beady eyes. No doubt hoping to make a meal of those who dont walk away, Susannah thought. He had six of the surviving Wizards Glasses, Feemalo said. And when you were still in Calla Bryn Sturgis, he saw something in them that finished the job of running him mad. We dont know for sure what it was, for we didnt see, but we have an idea it was your victory not just in the Calla but further on, at Algul Siento. If so, it meant the end of his scheme to bring down the Tower from afar, by breaking the Beams. Of course thats what it was, Fimalo said quietly, and once more both Stephen Kings on the bridge turned to look at him. It could have been nothing else. What brought him to the brink of madness in the first place were two conflicting compulsions in his mind to bring the Tower down, and to get there before you could get there, Roland, and mount to the top. To destroy it  or to rule it. Im not sure he has ever cared overmuch about understanding itjust about beating you to something you want, and then snatching it away from you. About such things hed care much. Itd no doubt please you to know how he raved about you, and cursed your name in the weeks before he smashed his precious playthings, said Fumalo. How he came to fear you, insofar as he can fear. Not this one, Feemalo contradicted, and rather glumly, Susannah thought. It wouldnt please this one much at all. He wins with no better grace than he loses. Fimalo said When the Red King saw that the Algul would fall to you, he understood that the working Beams would regenerate. More! That eventually those two working Beams would recreate the other Beams, knitting them forth mile by mile and wheel by wheel. If that happens, then eventually  Roland was nodding. In his eyes Susannah saw an entirely new expression glad surprise. Maybe he does know how to win, she thought. Then eventually what has moved on might return again, the gunslinger said. Perhaps MidWorld and InWorld. He paused. Perhaps even Gilead. The light. The White. No perhaps about it, Fimalo said. For ka is a wheel, and if a wheel be not broken, it will always roll. Unless the Crimson King can become either Lord of the Tower or its Lord High Executioner, all that was will eventually return. Lunacy, said Fumalo. And destructive lunacy, at that. But of course Big Red always was Gans crazy side. He gave Susannah an ugly smirk and said, Thats Frooood, Lady Blackbird. Feemalo resumed. And after the Balls were smashed and the killing was done This is what wed have you understand, said Fumalo. If, that is, your heads arent too thick to get the sense of it. After those chores were finished, he killed himself, Fimalo said, and once more the other two turned to him. It was as if they were helpless to do otherwise. Did he do it with a spoon? Roland asked. For that was the prophecy my friends and I grew up with. Twas in a bit of doggerel. Yes indeed, said Fimalo. I thought hed cut his throat with it, for the edge of the spoons bowl had been sharpened (like certain plates, ye kenkas a wheel, and always comes around to where it started), but he swallowed it. Swallowed it, can you imagine? Great gouts of blood poured from his mouth. Freshets! Then he mounted the greatest of the gray horseshe calls it Nis, after the land of sleep and dreamsand rode southeast into the white lands of Empathica with his little bit of gunna before him on the saddle. He smiled. There are great stores of food here, but he has no need of it, as you may ken. Los no longer eats. Wait a minute, time out, Susannah said, raising her hands in a Tshape (it was a gesture shed picked up from Eddie, although she didnt realize it). If he swallowed a sharpened spoon and cut himself open as well as choking Lady Blackbird begins to see the light! Fumalo exulted, and shook his hands at the sky. then how could he do anything? Los cannot die, Feemalo said, as if explaining something obvious to a threeyearold. And you You poor saps his partner put in with goodnatured viciousness. You cant kill a man whos already dead, Fimalo finished. As he was, Roland, your guns might have ended him  Roland was nodding. Handed down from father to son, with barrels made from Arthur Elds great sword, Excalibur. Yes, thats also part of the prophecy. As he of course would know. But now hes safe from them. Has put himself beyond them. He is Undead. We have reason to believe that hes been shunted onto a balcony of the Tower, Roland said. Undead or not, he never could have gained the top without some sigul of the Eld; surely if he knew so much prophecy, then he knew that. Fimalo was smiling grimly. Aye, but as Horatio held the bridge in a story told in Susannahs world, so Los, the Crimson King, now holds the Tower. He has found his way into its mouth but cannot climb to the top, tis true. Yet while he holds it hard, neither can you. It seems old King Red wasnt entirely mad, after all, Feemalo said. Crayzee laka de focks! Fumalo added. He tapped his temple gravely  and then burst out laughing. But if you go on, said Fimalo, you bring to him the siguls of the Eld he needs to gain possession of that which now holds him captive. Hed have to take them from me first, Roland said. From us. He spoke without drama, as if merely commenting on the weather. True, Fimalo agreed, but consider, Roland. You cannot kill him with them, but it is possible that he might be able to take them from you, for his mind is devious and his reach is long. If he were to do so  well! Imagine a dead king, and mad, at the top of the Dark Tower, with a pair of the great old guns in his possession! He might rule from there, but I think that, given his insanity, hed choose to bring it down, instead. Which he might be able to do, Beams or no Beams. Fimalo studied them gravely from his place on the far side of the bridge. And then, he said, all would be darkness. FOUR There was a pause during which those gathered in that place considered the idea. Then Feemalo said, almost apologetically The cost might not be so great if one were just to consider this world, which we might call Tower Keystone, since the Dark Tower exists here not as a rose, as it does on many, or an immortal tiger, as it does on some, or the urdog Rover, as it does on at least one A dog named Rover? Susannah asked, bemused. Do you really say so? Lady, you have all the imagination of a halfburnt stick, Fumalo said in a tone of deep disgust. Feemalo paid no heed. In this world, the Tower is itself. In the world where you, Roland, have most lately been, most species still breed true and many lives are sweet. There is still energy and hope. Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the other worlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it was not he that created them, you know. To peek in Gans navel does not make one Gan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all? Were just asking, not trying to convince you, Fimalo said. But the truth is bald now this is only your quest, gunslinger. Thats all it is. Nothing sends you further. Once you pass beyond this castle and into the White Lands, you and your friends pass beyond ka itself. And you need not do it. All you have been through was set in motion so that you might save the Beams, and by saving them ensure the eternal existence of the Tower, the axle upon which all worlds and all life spins. That is done. If you turn back now, the dead King will be trapped forever where he is. Sez you, Susannah put in, and with a rudeness worthy of sai Fumalo. Whether you speak true or speak false, Roland said, I will push on. For I have promised. To whom have you given your promise? Fimalo burst out. For the first time since stopping on the castle side of the bridge, he unclasped his hands and used them to push his hair back from his brow. The gesture was small but expressed his frustration with perfect eloquence. For theres no prophecy of such a promise; I tell you so! There wouldnt be. For its one I made myself, and one I mean to keep. This man is as crazy as Los the Red, Fumalo said, not without respect. All right, Fimalo said. He sighed and once more clasped his hands before him. I have done what I can do. He nodded to his other two thirds, who were looking attentively back at him. Feemalo and Fumalo each dropped to one knee Feemalo his right, Fumalo his left. They lifted away the lids of the wicker boxes they had carried and tilted them forward. (Susannah was fleetingly reminded of how the models on The Price Is Right and Concentration showed off the prizes.) Inside one was food roasts of chicken and pork, joints of beef, great pink rounds of ham. Susannah felt her stomach expand at the sight, as if making ready to swallow all of it, and it was only with a great effort that she stopped the sensual moan rising in her throat. Her mouth flooded with saliva and she raised a hand to wipe it away. They would know what she was doing, she supposed there was no help for that, but she could at least keep them from the satisfaction of seeing the physical evidence of her hunger gleaming on her lips and chin. Oy barked, but kept his seat by the gunslingers left heel. Inside the other basket were big cableknit sweaters, one green and one red Christmas colors. Theres also long underwear, coats, fleecelined shorboots, and gloves, said Feemalo. For Empathicas deadly cold at this time of year, and youll have months of walking ahead. On the outskirts of town weve left you a light aluminum sledge, Fimalo said. You can throw it in the back of your little cart and then use it to carry the lady and your gunna, once you reach the snowlands. You no doubt wonder why we do all this, since we disapprove of your journey, said Feemalo. The fact is, were grateful for our survival We really did think we were done for, Fumalo broke in. The quarterback is toast, Eddie might have said. And this, too, hurt her  but not as much as looking at all that food. Not as much as imagining how it would feel to slip one of those bulky sweaters over her head and let the hem fall all the way to the middle of her thighs. My decision was to try and talk you out of going if I could, said Fimalothe only one who spoke of himself in the firstperson singular, Susannah had noticed. And if I couldnt, Id give you the supplies youd need to go on with. You cant kill him! Fumalo burst out. Dont you see that, you woodenheaded killing machine, dont you see? All you can do is get overeager and play into his dead hands! How can you be so stu Hush, Fimalo said mildly, and Fumalo hushed at once. Hes taken his decision. What will you do? Roland asked. Once weve pushed on, that is? The three of them shrugged in perfect mirror unison, but it was Fimalothe socalled uffis superegowho answered. Wait here, he said. See if the matrix of creation lives or dies. In the meanwhile, try to refurbish Le Casse and bring it to some of its previous glory. It was a beautiful place once. It can be beautiful again. And now I think our palavers done. Take your gifts with our thanks and good wishes. Grudging good wishes, said Fumalo, and actually smiled. Coming from him, that smile was both dazzling and unexpected. Susannah almost started forward. Hungry as she was for fresh food (for fresh meat), it was the sweaters and the thermal underwear that she really craved. Although supplies were getting thin (and would surely run out before they were past the place the uffi called Empathica), there were still cans of beans and tuna and corned beef hash rolling around in the back of Ho Fats Luxury Taxi, and their bellies were currently full. It was the cold that was killing her. That was what it felt like, at least; cold working its way inward toward her heart, one painful inch at a time. Two things stopped her. One was the realization that a single step forward was all it would take to destroy what little remained of her will; shed run to the center of the bridge and fall on her knees before that deep basket of clothes and go grubbing through it like a predatory housewife at the annual Filenes whitesale. Once she took that first step, nothing would stop her. And losing her will wouldnt be the worst of it; she would also lose the selfrespect Odetta Holmes had labored all her life to win, despite the barely suspected saboteur lurking in her mind. Yet even that wouldnt have been enough to hold her back. What did was a memory of the day theyd seen the crow with the green stuff in its beak, the crow that had been going Croo, croo! instead of Caw, caw! Only devilgrass, true, but green stuff, all the same. Living stuff. That was the day Roland had told her to hold her tongue, had told herwhat was it? Before victory comes temptation. She never would have suspected that her lifes greatest temptation would be a cableknit fishermans sweater, but She suddenly understood what the gunslinger must have known, if not from the first then from soon after the three Stephen Kings appeared this whole thing was a shuck. She didnt know what, exactly, was in those wicker baskets, but she doubted like hell that it was food and clothes. She settled within herself. Well? Fimalo asked patiently. Will you come and take the presents Id give you? You must come, if youd have them, for halfway across the bridge is as far as I can go myself. Just beyond Feemalo and Fumalo is the Kings deadline. You and she may pass both ways. We may not. Roland said, We thank you for your kindness, sai, but were going to refuse. We have food, and clothing is waiting for us up ahead, still on the hoof. Besides, its really not that cold. No, Susannah agreed, smiling into the three identical and identically dumbfoundedfaces. Its really not. Well be pushing on, Roland said, and made another bow over his cocked leg. Say thankya, say may ya do well, Susannah put in, and once more spread her invisible skirts. She and Roland began to turn away. And that was when Feemalo and Fumalo, still down on their knees, reached inside the open baskets before them. Susannah needed no instruction from Roland, not so much as a shouted word. She drew the revolver from her belt and shot down the one on her leftFumalojust as he swung a longbarreled silver gun out of the basket. What looked like a scarf was hanging from it. Roland drew from his holster, as blindingly fast as ever, and fired a single shot. Above them the rooks took wing, cawing affrightedly, turning the blue sky momentarily black. Feemalo, also holding one of the silver guns, collapsed slowly forward across his basket of food with a dying expression of surprise on his face and a bullethole dead center in his forehead. FIVE Fimalo stood where he was, on the far side of the bridge. His hands were still clasped in front of him, but he no longer looked like Stephen King. He now wore the long, yellowcomplexioned face of an old man who is dying slowly and not well. What hair he had was a dirty gray rather than luxuriant black. His skull was a peeling garden of eczema. His cheeks, chin, and forehead were lumped with pimples and open sores, some pustulating and some bleeding. What are you, really? Roland asked him. A hume, just as you are, said Fimalo, resignedly. Rando Thoughtful was my name during my years as the Crimson Kings Minister of State. Once upon a time, however, I was plain old Austin Cornwell, from upstate New York. Not the Keystone World, I regret to say, but another. I ran the Niagara Mall at one time, and before that I had a successful career in advertising. You might be interested to know I worked on accounts for both NozzALa and the Takuro Spirit. Susannah ignored this bizarre and unexpected rsum. So he didnt have his top boy beheaded, after all, she said. What about the three Stephen Kings? Just a glammer, said the old man. Are you going to kill me? Go ahead. All I ask is that you make quick work of it. Im not well, as you must see. Was any of what you told us true? Susannah asked. His old eyes looked at her with watery amazement. All of it was, he said, and advanced onto the bridge, where two other old menhis assistants, once upon a time, she had no doubt lay sprawled. All of it, anyway, save for one lie  and this. He kicked the baskets over so that the contents spilled out. Susannah gave an involuntary shout of horror. Oy was up in a flash, standing protectively in front of her with his short legs spread and his head lowered. Its all right, she said, but her voice was still trembling. I was just  startled. The wicker basket which had seemed to contain all sorts of freshly cooked roasts was actually filled with decaying human limbslong pork, after all, and in bad shape even considering what it was. The flesh was mostly blueblack and ateem with maggots. And there were no clothes in the other basket. What Fimalo had spilled out of it was actually a shiny knot of dying snakes. Their beady eyes were dull; their forked tongues flickered listlessly in and out; several had already ceased to move. You would have refreshed them wonderfully, if youd pressed them against your skin, Fimalo said regretfully. You didnt really expect that to happen, did you? Roland asked. No, the old man admitted. He sat on the bridge with a weary sigh. One of the snakes attempted to crawl into his lap and he pushed it away with a gesture that was both absent and impatient. But I had my orders, so I did. Susannah was looking at the corpses of the other two with horrified fascination. Feemalo and Fumalo, now just a couple of dead old men, were rotting with unnatural rapidity, their parchment skins deflating toward the bone and oozing slack rivulets of pus. As she watched, the sockets of Feemalos skull surfaced like twin periscopes, giving the corpse a momentary expression of shock. Some of the snakes crawled and writhed around these decaying corpses. Others were crawling into the basket of maggoty limbs, seeking the undoubtedly warmer regions at the bottom of the heap. Decay brought its own temporary fevers, and she supposed that she herself might be tempted to luxuriate in it while she could. If she were a snake, that was. Are you going to kill me? Fimalo asked. Nay, Roland said, for your duties arent done. You have another coming along behind. Fimalo looked up, a gleam of interest in his rheumy old eyes. Your son? Mine, and your masters, as well. Would you give him a word for me during your palaver? If Im alive to give it, sure. Tell him that Im old and crafty, while hes but young. Tell him that if he lies back, he may live awhile yet with his dreams of revenge  although what Ive done to him requiring his vengeance, I know not. And tell him that if he comes forward, Ill kill him as I intend to kill his Red Father. Either you listen and dont hear or hear and dont believe, Fimalo said. Now that his own ruse had been exposed (nothing so glamorous as an uffi, Susannah thought; just a retreaded adman from upstate New York), he seemed unutterably weary. You cannot kill a creature that has killed itself. Nor can you enter the Dark Tower, for there is only one entrance, and the balcony upon which Los is imprisoned commands it. And hes armed with a sufficiency of weapons. The sneetches alone would seek you out and slay you before youd crossed halfway through the field of roses. Thats our worry, Roland said, and Susannah thought hed rarely spoken a truer word she was worrying about it already. As for you, will you pass my message on to Mordred, when you see him? Fimalo made a gesture of acquiescence. Roland shook his head. Dont just flap thy hand at me, cullylet me hear from your mouth. Ill pass along your message, said Fimalo, then added  If I see him, and we palaver. You will. Day to you, sir. Roland began to turn away, but Susannah caught his arm and he turned back. Swear to me that all you told us was true, she bade the ugly ancient sitting on the cobbled bridge and below the cold gaze of the crows, who were beginning to settle back to their former places. What she meant to learn or prove by this she had not the slightest idea. Would she know this mans lies, even now? Probably not. But she pressed on, just the same. Swear it on the name of your father, and on his face, as well. The old man raised his right hand to her, palm out, and Susannah saw there were open sores even there. I swear it on the name of Andrew John Cornwell, of Tioga Springs, New York. And on his face, too. The King of this castle really did run mad, and really did burst those Wizards Glasses that had come into his hands. He really did force the staff to take poison and he really did watch them die. He flung out the hand hed held up in pledge to the box of severed limbs. Where do you think I got those, Lady Blackbird? Body Parts R Us? She didnt understand the reference, and remained still. He really has gone on to the Dark Tower. Hes like the dog in some old fable or other, wanting to make sure that if he cant get any good from the hay, no one else will, either. I didnt even lie to you about what was in these boxes, not really. I simply showed you the goods and let you draw your own conclusions. His smile of cynical pleasure made Susannah wonder if she ought to remind him that Roland, at least, had seen through this trick. She decided it wasnt worth it. I told you only one outright lie, said the former Austin Cornwell. That hed had me beheaded. Are you satisfied, Susannah? Roland asked her. Yes, she said, although she wasnt; not really. Lets go. Climb up in Ho Fat, then, and dont turn thy back on him when thee does. Hes sly. Tell me about it, Susannah said, and then did as she was asked. Long days and pleasant nights, said the former sai Cornwell from where he sat amid the squirming, dying snakes. May the Man Jesus watch over you and all your clanfam. And may you show sense before its too late for sense and stay away from the Dark Tower! SIX They retraced their path to the intersection where they had turned away from the Path of the Beam to go to the Crimson Kings castle, and here Roland stopped to rest for a few minutes. A little bit of a breeze had gotten up, and the patriotic bunting flapped. She saw it now looked old and faded. The pictures of Nixon, Lodge, Kennedy, and Johnson had been defaced by graffiti which was itself ancient. All the glammersuch ragged glammer as the Crimson King had been able to manage, at any ratewas gone. Masks off, masks off, she thought tiredly. It was a wonderful party, but now its finished  and the Red Death holds sway over all. She touched the pimple beside her mouth, then looked at the tip of her finger. She expected to see blood or pus or both. There was neither, and that was a relief. How much of it do you believe? Susannah asked him. Pretty much all of it, Roland replied. So hes up there. In the Tower. Not in it. Trapped outside it. He smiled. Theres a big difference. Is there really? And what will you do to him? I dont know. Do you think that if he did get control of your guns, that he could get back inside the Tower and climb to the top? Yes. The reply was immediate. What will you do about it? Not let him get either of them. He spoke as if this should have been selfevident, and Susannah supposed it should have been. What she had a way of forgetting was how goddamned literal he was. About everything. You were thinking of trapping Mordred, back at the castle. Yes, Roland agreed, but given what we found there and what we were toldit seemed better to move on. Simpler. Look. He took out the watch and snapped open the lid. They both observed the secondhand racing its solitary course. But at the same speed as before? Susannah didnt know for sure, but she didnt think so. She looked up at Roland with her eyebrows raised. Most of the time its still right, Roland said, but no longer all of the time. I think that its losing at least a second every sixth or seventh revolution. Perhaps three to six minutes a day, all told. Thats not very much. No, Roland admitted, putting the watch away, but its a start. Let Mordred do as he will. The Dark Tower lies close beyond the white lands, and I mean to reach it. Susannah could understand his eagerness. She only hoped it wouldnt make him careless. If it did, Mordred Deschains youth might no longer matter. If Roland made the right mistake at the wrong moment, she, he, and Oy might never see the Dark Tower at all. Her thoughts were interrupted by a great fluttering from behind them. Not quite lost within it came a human sound that began as a howl and quickly rose to a shriek. Although distance diminished that cry, the horror and pain in it were all too clear. At last, mercifully, it faded. The Crimson Kings Minister of State has entered the clearing, Roland said. Susannah looked back toward the castle. She could see its blackishred ramparts, but nothing else. She was glad she could see nothing else. Mordreds ahungry, she thought. Her heart was beating fast and she thought she had never been so frightened in her whole lifenot lying next to Mia as she gave birth, not even in the blackness under Castle Discordia. Mordreds ahungry  but now hell be fed. SEVEN The old man who had begun life as Austin Cornwell and who would end it as Rando Thoughtful sat at the castle end of the bridge. The rooks waited above him, perhaps sensing that the days excitement was not yet done. Thoughtful was warm enough thanks to the peacoat he was wearing, and he had helped himself to a mouthful of brandy before leaving to meet Roland and his blackbird ladyfriend. Well  perhaps that wasnt quite true. Perhaps it was Brass and Compson (also known as Feemalo and Fumalo) whod had the mouthfuls of the Kings best brandy, and Loss exMinister of State who had polished off the last third of the bottle. Whatever the cause, the old man fell asleep, and the coming of Mordred RedHeel didnt wake him. He sat with his chin on his chest and drool trickling from between his pursed lips, looking like a baby who has fallen asleep in his highchair. The birds on the parapets and walkways were gathered more thickly than ever. Surely they would have flown at the approach of the young Prince, but he looked up at them and made a gesture in the air the open right hand waved brusquely across the face, then curled into a fist and pulled downward. Wait, it said. Mordred stopped on the town side of the bridge, sniffing delicately at the decayed meat. That smell had been charming enough to bring him here even though he knew Roland and Susannah had continued along the Path of the Beam. Let them and their pet bumbler get fairly back on their way, was the boys thinking. This wasnt the time to close the gap. Later, perhaps. Later his White Daddy would let down his guard, if only for a moment, and then Mordred would have him. For dinner, he hoped, but lunch or breakfast would do almost as well. When we last saw this fellow, he was only (babybunting babydear baby bring your berries here) an infant. The creature standing beyond the gates of the Crimson Kings castle had grown into a boy who looked about nine years old. Not a handsome boy; not the sort anyone (except for his lunatic mother) would have called comely. This had less to do with his complicated genetic inheritance than with plain starvation. The face beneath the dry spall of black hair was haggard and far too thin. The flesh beneath Mordreds blue bombardiers eyes was a discolored, pouchy purple. His complexion was a birdshot blast of sores and blemishes. These, like the pimple beside Susannahs mouth, could have been the result of his journey through the poisoned lands, but surely Mordreds diet had something to do with it. He could have stocked up on canned goods before setting out from the checkpoint beyond the tunnels mouthRoland and Susannah had left plenty behindbut he hadnt thought to do so. He was, as Roland knew, still learning the tricks of survival. The only thing Mordred had taken from the checkpoint Quonset was a rotting railwaymans pillowtick jacket and a pair of serviceable boots. Finding the boots was good fortune indeed, although they had mostly fallen apart as the trek continued. Had he been a hume  or even a more ordinary werecreature, for that matterMordred would have died in the Badlands, coat or no coat, boots or no boots. Because he was what he was, he had called the rooks to him when he was hungry, and the rooks had no choice but to come. The birds made nasty eating and the bugs he summoned from beneath the parched (and still faintly radioactive) rocks were even worse, but he had choked them down. One day he had touched the mind of a weasel and bade it come. It had been a scrawny, wretched thing, on the edge of starvation itself, but it tasted like the worlds finest steak after the birds and the bugs. Mordred had changed into his other self and gathered the weasel into his sevenlegged embrace, sucking and eating until there was nothing left but a torn piece of fur. He would have gladly eaten another dozen, but that had been the only one. And now there was a whole basket of food set before him. It was wellaged, true, but what of that? Even the maggots would provide nourishment. More than enough to carry him into the snowy woods southeast of the castle, which would be teeming with game. But before them, there was the old man. Rando, he said. Rando Thoughtful. The old man jerked and mumbled and opened his eyes. For a moment he looked at the scrawny boy standing before him with a total lack of understanding. Then his rheumy eyes filled with fright. Mordred, son of Los, he said, trying a smile. Hile to you, King that will be! He made a shuffling gesture with his legs, then seemed to realize that he was sitting down and it wouldnt do. He attempted to find his feet, fell back with a bump that amused the boy (amusement had been hard to come by in the Badlands, and he welcomed it), then tried again. This time he managed to get up. I see no bodies except for those of two fellows who look like they died even older than you, Mordred remarked, looking around in exaggerated fashion. I certainly see no dead gunslingers, of either the longleg or shorleg variety. You say trueand I say thankya, ocourse I dobut I can explain that, sai, and quite easily Oh, but wait! Hold thy explanation, excellent though Im sure it is! Let me guess, instead! Is it that the snakes have bound the gunslinger and his lady, long fat snakes, and youve had them removed into yonder castle for safekeeping? My lord If so, Mordred continued, there must have been an almighty lot of snakes in thy basket, for I still see many out here. Some appear to be dining on what should have been my supper. Although the severed, rotting limbs in the basket would still be his supperpart of it, anywayMordred gave the old fellow a reproachful look. Have the gunslingers been put away, then? The old mans look of fright departed and was replaced by one of resignation. Mordred found this downright infuriating. What he wanted to see in old sai Thoughtfuls face was not fright, and certainly not resignation, but hope. Which Mordred would snatch away at his leisure. His shape wavered. For a moment the old man saw the unformed blackness which lurked beneath, and the many legs. Then it was gone and the boy was back. For the moment, at least. May I not die screaming, the former Austin Cornwell thought. At least grant me that much, you gods that be. May I not die screaming in the arms of yonder monstrosity. You know whats happened here, young sai. Its in my mind, and so its in yours. Why not take the mess in that basketthe snakes, too, do ya like emand leave an old man to what little life he has left? For your fathers sake, if not your own. I served him well, even at the end. I could have simply hunkered in the castle and let them go their course. But I didnt.


I tried. You had no choice, Mordred replied from his end of the bridge. Not knowing if it was true or not. Nor caring. Dead flesh was only nourishment. Living flesh and blood still rich with the air of a mans last breath ah, that was something else. That was fine dining! Did he leave me a message? Aye, you know he did. Tell me. Why dont you just pick it out of my mind? Again there came that fluttering, momentary change. For a moment it was neither a boy nor a boysized spider standing on the far end of the bridge but something that was both at the same time. Sai Thoughtfuls mouth went dry even while the drool that had escaped during his nap still gleamed on his chin. Then the boyversion of Mordred solidified again inside his torn and rotting coat. Because it pleases me to hear it from your drooping old stewhole, he told Thoughtful. The old man licked his lips. All right; may it do ya fine. He said that hes crafty while youre young and without so much as a sip of guile. He said that if you dont stay back where you belong, hell have your head off your shoulders. He said hed like to hold it up to your Red Father as he stands trapped upon his balcony. This was quite a bit more than Roland actually said (as we should know, having been there), and more than enough for Mordred. Yet not enough for Rando Thoughtful. Perhaps only ten days before it would have accomplished the old mans purpose, which was to goad the boy into killing him quickly. But Mordred had seasoned in a hurry, and now withstood his first impulse to simply bolt across the bridge into the castle courtyard, changing as he charged, and tearing Rando Thoughtfuls head from his body with the swipe of one barbed leg. Instead he peered up at the rookshundreds of them, nowand they peered back at him, as intent as pupils in a classroom. The boy made a fluttering gesture with his arms, then pointed at the old man. The air was at once filled with the rising whir of wings. The Kings Minister turned to flee, but before hed gotten a single step, the rooks descended on him in an inky cloud. He threw his arms up to protect his face as they lit on his head and shoulders, turning him into a scarecrow. This instinctive gesture did no good; more of them alit on his upraised arms until the very weight of the birds forced them down. Bills nipped and needled at the old mans face, drawing blood in tiny tattoo stipples. No! Mordred shouted. Save the skin for me  but you may have his eyes. It was then, as the eager rooks tore Rando Thoughtfuls eyes from their living sockets, that the exMinister of State uttered the rising howl Roland and Susannah heard as they neared the edge of Castletown. The birds who couldnt find a roostingplace hung around him in a living thunderhead. They turned him on his levitating heels and carried him toward the changeling, who had now advanced to the center of the bridge and squatted there. The boots and rotted pillowtick coat had been left behind for the nonce on the town side of the bridge; what waited for sai Thoughtful, reared up on its back legs, forelegs pawing the air, red mark on its hairy belly all too visible, was DanTete, the Little Red King. The man floated to his fate, shrieking and eyeless. He thrust his hands out in front of him, making wardingoff gestures, and the spiders front legs seized one of them, guided it into the bristling maw of its mouth, and bit it off with a candycane crunch. Sweet! EIGHT That night, beyond the last of the oddly narrow, oddly unpleasant townhouses, Roland stopped in front of what had probably been a smallhold farm. He stood facing the ruin of the main building, sniffing. What, Roland? What? Can you smell the wood of that place, Susannah? She sniffed. I can, as a matter of factwhat of it? He turned to her, smiling. If we can smell it, we can burn it. This turned out to be correct. They had trouble kindling the fire, even aided by Rolands slyest tricks of trailcraft and half a can of Sterno, but in the end they succeeded. Susannah sat as close to it as she could, turning at regular intervals in order to toast both sides equally, relishing the sweat that popped out first on her face and her breasts, then on her back. She had forgotten what it was to be warm, and went on feeding wood to the flames until the campfire was a roaring bonfire. To animals in the open lands further along the Path of the healing Beam, that fire must have looked like a comet that had fallen to Earth, still blazing. Oy sat beside her, ears cocked, looking into the fire as if mesmerized. Susannah kept expecting Roland to objectto tell her to stop feeding the damned thing and start letting it burn down, for her fathers sakebut he didnt. He only sat with his disassembled guns before him, oiling the pieces. When the fire grew too hot, he moved back a few feet. His shadow danced a skinny, wavering commala in the firelight. Can you stand one or two more nights of cold? he asked her at last. She nodded. If I have to. Once we start climbing toward the snowlands, it will be really cold, he said. And while I cant promise you well have to go fireless for only a single night, I dont believe itll be any longer than two. You think itll be easier to take game if we dont build a fire, dont you? Roland nodded and began putting his guns back together. Will there be game as early as day after tomorrow? Yes. How do you know? He considered this, then shook his head. I cant saybut I do. Can you smell it? No. Touch their minds? Its not that, either. She let it go. Roland, what if Mordred sends the birds against us tonight? He smiled and pointed to the flames. Below them, a deepening bed of bright red coals waxed and waned like dragons breath. Theyll not come close to thy bonfire. And tomorrow? Tomorrow well be further from Le Casse Roi Russe than even Mordred can persuade them to go. And how do you know that? He shook his head yet again, although he thought he knew the answer to her question. What he knew came from the Tower. He could feel the pulse of it awakening in his head. It was like green coming out of a dry seed. But it was too early to say so. Lie down, Susannah, he said. Take your rest. Ill watch until midnight, then wake you. So now we keep a watch, she said. He nodded. Is he watching us? Roland wasnt sure, but thought that Mordred was. What his imagination saw was a skinny boy (but with a potbelly pooched out in front of him now, for hed have eaten well), naked inside the rags of a filthy, torn coat. A skinny boy laid up in one of those unnaturally skinny houses, perhaps on the third floor, where the sightline was good. He sits at a window with his knees pulled up against his chest for warmth, the scar on his side perhaps aching in the bony cold, looking out at the flare of their fire, jealous of it. Jealous of their companionship, as well. Halfmother and White Father, with their backs turned to him. Its likely, he said. She started to lie down, then stopped. She touched the sore beside her mouth. This isnt a pimple, Roland. No? He sat quiet, watching her. I had a friend in college who got one just like it, Susannah said. Itd bleed, then stop, then almost heal up, then darken and bleed a little more. At last she went to see a doctora special kind we call a dermatologist  and he said it was an angioma. A bloodtumor. He gave her a shot of novocaine and took it off with a scalpel. He said it was a good thing she came when she did, because every day she waited that thing was sinking its roots in a little deeper. Eventually, he said, it would have worked its way right through the roof of her mouth, and maybe into her sinuses, too. Roland was silent, waiting. The term she had used clanged in his head bloodtumor. He thought it might have been coined to describe the Crimson King himself. Mordred, as well. We dont have no novocaine, BabyBoots, Detta Walker said, and Ah know dat, sho! But if de time come and Ah tell you, you goan whip out yo knife and cut dat ugly mahfah right offn me. Goan do it faster than yon bumblah cn snatch a fly out de air. You unnerstand me? Kitch mah drift? Yes. Now lie over. Take some rest. She lay over. Five minutes after she had appeared to go to sleep, Detta Walker opened her eyes and gave him (I watchin you, white boy) a glare. Roland nodded to her and she closed her eyes again. A minute or two later, they opened a second time. Now it was Susannah who looked at him, and this time when her eyes closed, they didnt open again. He had promised to wake her at midnight, but let her sleep two hours longer, knowing that in the heat of the fire her body was really resting, at least for this one night. At what his fine new watch said was one o the clock, he finally felt the gaze of their pursuer slip away. Mordred had lost his fight to stay awake through the darkest watches of the night, as had innumerable children before him. Wherever his room was, the unwanted, lonely child now slept in it with his wreck of a coat pulled around him and his head in his arms. And does his mouth, still caked with sai Thoughtfuls blood, purse and quiver, as if dreaming of the nipple it knew but once, the milk it never tasted? Roland didnt know. Didnt particularly want to know. He was only glad to be awake in the stillwatch of the night, feeding the occasional piece of wood to the lowering fire. It would die quickly, he thought. The wood was newer than that of which the townhouses were constructed, but it was still ancient, hardened to a substance that was nearly stone. Tomorrow they would see trees. The first since Calla Bryn Sturgis, if one set aside those growing beneath Algul Sientos artificial sun and those hed seen in Stephen Kings world. That would be good. Meanwhile, the dark held hard. Beyond the circle of the dying fire a wind moaned, lifting Rolands hair from his temples and bringing a faint, sweet smell of snow. He tilted his head back and watched the clock of the stars turn in the blackness overhead. CHAPTER IV HIDES  ONE They had to go fireless three nights instead of one or two. The last was the longest, most wretched twelve hours of Susannahs life. Is it worse than the night Eddie died? she asked herself at one point. Are you really saying this is worse than lying awake in one of those dormitory rooms, knowing that was how youd be lying from then on? Worse than washing his face and hands and feet? Washing them for the ground? Yes. This was worse. She hated knowing it, and would never admit it to anyone else, but the deep, endless cold of that last night was far worse. She came to dread every light breath of breeze from the snowlands to the east and south. It was both terrible and oddly humbling to realize how easily physical discomfort could take control, expanding like poison gas until it owned all the floorspace, took over the entire playing field. Grief? Loss? What were those things when you could feel cold on the march, moving in from your fingers and toes, crawling up your motherfucking nose, and moving where? Toward the brain, do it please ya. And toward the heart. In the grip of cold like that, grief and loss were nothing but words. No, not even that. Only sounds. So much meaningless quack as you sat shuddering under the stars, waiting for a morning that would never come. What made it worse was knowing there were potential bonfires all around them, for theyd reached the live region Roland called the undersnow. This was a series of long, grassy slopes (most of the grass now white and dead) and shallow valleys where there were isolated stands of trees, and brooks now plugged with ice. Earlier, in daylight, Roland had pointed out several holes in the ice and told her theyd been made by deer. He pointed out several piles of scat, as well. In daylight such sign had been interesting, even hopeful. But in this endless ditch of night, listening to the steady low click of her chattering teeth, it meant nothing. Eddie meant nothing. Jake, neither. The Dark Tower meant nothing, nor did the bonfire theyd had out the outskirts of Castletown. She could remember the look of it, but the feel of heat warming her skin until it brought an oil of sweat was utterly lost. Like a person who has died for a moment or two and has briefly visited some shining afterlife, she could only say that it had been wonderful. Roland sat with his arms around her, sometimes voicing a dry, harsh cough. Susannah thought he might be getting sick, but this thought also had no power. Only the cold. Onceshortly before dawn finally began to stain the sky in the east, this was  she saw orange lights swirldancing far ahead, past the place where the snow began. She asked Roland if he had any idea what they were. She had no real interest, but hearing her voice reassured her that she wasnt dead. Not yet, at least. I think theyre hobs. WWhat are ththey? She now stuttered and stammered everything. I dont know how to explain them to you, he said. And theres really no need. Youll see them in time. Right now if you listen, youll hear something closer and more interesting. At first she heard only the sigh of the wind. Then it dropped and her ears picked up the dry swish of the grass below as something walked through it. This was followed by a low crunching sound. Susannah knew exactly what it was a hoof stamping through thin ice, opening the running water to the cold world above. She also knew that in three or four days time she might be wearing a coat made from the animal that was now drinking nearby, but this also had no meaning. Time was a useless concept when you were sitting awake in the dark, and in constant pain. Had she thought she had been cold before? That was quite funny, wasnt it? What about Mordred? she asked. Is he out there, do you think? Yes. And does he feel the cold like we do? I dont know. I cant stand much more of this, RolandI really cant. You wont have to. Itll be dawn soon, and I expect well have a fire tomorrow come dark. He coughed into his fist, then put his arm back around her. Youll feel better once were up and in the doings. Meantime, at least were together. TWO Mordred was as cold as they were, every bit, and he had no one. He was close enough to hear them, though not the actual words, but the sound of their voices. He shuddered uncontrollably, and had lined his mouth with dead grass when he became afraid that Rolands sharp ears might pick up the sound of his chattering teeth. The railwaymans jacket was no help; he had thrown it away when it had fallen into so many pieces that he could no longer hold it together. Hed worn the arms of it out of Castletown, but then they had fallen to pieces as well, starting at the elbows, and hed cast them into the low grass beside the old road with a petulant curse. He was only able to go on wearing the boots because hed been able to weave long grass into a rough twine. With it hed bound what remained of them to his feet. Hed considered changing back to his spiderform, knowing that body would feel the cold less, but his entire short life had been plagued by the specter of starvation, and he supposed that part of him would always fear it, no matter how much food he had at hand. The gods knew there wasnt much now; three severed arms, four legs (two partially eaten), and a piece of a torso from the wicker basket, that was all. If he changed, the spider would gobble that little bit up by daylight. And while there was game out herehe heard the deer moving around just as clearly as his White Daddy didMordred wasnt entirely confident of his ability to trap it, or run it down. So he sat and shivered and listened to the sound of their voices until the voices ceased. Maybe they slept. He might have dozed a little, himself. And the only thing that kept him from giving up and going back was his hatred of them. That they should have each other when he had no one. No one at all. Mordreds ahungry, he thought miserably. Mordreds acold. And Mordred has no one. Mordreds alone. He slipped his wrist into his mouth, bit deep, and sucked the warmth that flowed out. In the blood he tasted the last of Rando Thoughtfuls life  but so little! So soon gone! And once it was, there was nothing but the useless, recycled taste of himself. In the dark, Mordred began to cry. THREE Four hours after dawn, under a white sky that promised rain or sleet (perhaps both at the same time), Susannah Dean lay shivering behind a fallen log, looking down into one of the little valleys. Youll hear Oy, the gunslinger had told her. And youll hear me, too. Ill do what I can, but Ill be driving them ahead of me and youll have the best shooting. Make every shot count. What made things worse was her creeping intuition that Mordred was very close now, and he might try to bushwhack her while her back was turned. She kept looking around, but they had picked a relatively clear spot, and the open grass behind her was empty each time save once, when she had seen a large brown rabbit lolloping along with its ears dragging the ground. At last she heard Oys highpitched barking from the copse of trees on her left. A moment later, Roland began to yell. Hyah! Hyah! Get on brisk! Get on brisk, I tell thee! Never tarry! Never tarry a single Then the sound of him coughing. She didnt like that cough. No, not at all. Now she could see movement in the trees, and for one of the few times since Roland had forced her to admit there was another person hiding inside of her, she called on Detta Walker. I need you. If you want to be warm again, you settle my hands so I can shoot straight. And the ceaseless shivering of her body stopped. As the herd of deer burst out of the treesnot a small herd, either; there had to be at least eighteen of them, led by a buck with a magnificent rackher hands also stopped their shaking. In the right one she held Rolands revolver with the sandalwood grips. Here came Oy, bursting out of the woods behind the final straggler. This was a mutie doe, running (and with eerie grace) on four legs of varying sizes with a fifth waggling bonelessly from the middle of her belly like a teat. Last of all came Roland, not really running at all, not anymore, but rather staggering onward at a grim jog. She ignored him, tracking the buck with the gun as the big fellow ran across her field of fire. This way, she whispered. Break to your right, honeychild, lets see you do it. Commalacomecome. And while there was no reason why he should have, the buck leading his little fleeing herd did indeed veer slightly in Susannahs direction. Now she was filled with the sort of coldness she welcomed. Her vision seemed to sharpen until she could see the muscles rippling under the bucks hide, the white crescent as his eye rolled, the old wound on the nearest does foreleg, where the fur had never grown back. She had a moment to wish Eddie and Jake were lying on either side of her, feeling what she was feeling, seeing what she was seeing, and then that was gone, too. I do not kill with my gun; she who kills with her gun has forgotten the face of her father. I kill with my heart, she murmured, and began shooting. The first bullet took the lead buck in the head and he crashed over on his left side. The others ran past him. A doe leaped over his body and Susannahs second bullet took her at the height of her leap, so that she crashed down dead on the other side, one leg splayed and broken, all grace gone. She heard Roland fire three times, but didnt look to see how hed done; she had her own business to attend to, and she attended to it well. Each of the last four bullets in the cylinder took down a deer, and only one was still moving when he fell. It didnt occur to her that this was an amazing piece of shooting, especially with a pistol; she was a gunslinger, after all, and shooting was her business. Besides, the morning was windless. Half the herd now lay dead in the grassy valley below. All the remainder save one wheeled left and pelted away downslope toward the stream. A moment later they were lost in a screen of willows. The last one, a yearling buck, ran directly toward her. Susannah didnt bother trying to reload from the little pile of bullets lying beside her on a square of buckskin but took one of the Riza plates instead, her hand automatically finding the dull grippingplace. Riza! she screamed, and flung it. It flew across the dry grass, elevating slightly as it did, giving off that weird moaning sound. It struck the racing buck at midneck. Droplets of blood flew in a garland around its head, black against the white sky. A butchers cleaver could not have done a neater job. For a moment the buck ran on, heedless and headless, blood jetting from the stump of its neck as its racing heart gave up its last half a dozen beats. Then it crashed to its splayed forelegs less than ten yards in front of her hide, staining the dry yellow grass a bright red. The previous nights long misery was forgotten. The numbness had departed her hands and her feet. There was no grief in her now, no sense of loss, no fear. For the moment Susannah was exactly the woman that ka had made her. The mixed smell of gunpowder and blood from the downed buck was bitter; it was also the worlds sweetest perfume. Standing up straight on her stumps, Susannah spread her arms, Rolands pistol clenched in her right hand, and made a Y against the sky. Then she screamed. There were no words in it, nor could there have been. Our greatest moments of triumph are always inarticulate. FOUR Roland had insisted that they eat a huge breakfast, and her protests that cold corned beef tasted like so much lumpy mush cut zero ice with him. By two that afternoon according to his fancyschmancy pocketwatch  right around the time the steady cold rain fattened into an icy drizzle, in other wordsshe was glad. She had never done a harder day of physical labor, and the day wasnt finished. Roland was by her all the while, matching her in spite of his worsening cough. She had time (during their brief but crazily delicious noon meal of seared deersteaks) to consider how strange he was, how remarkable. After all this time and all these adventures, she had still not seen the bottom of him. Not even close. She had seen him laughing and crying, killing and dancing, shed seen him sleeping and on the squat behind a screen of bushes with his pants down and his ass hung over what he called the Log of Ease. Shed never slept with him as a woman does with a man, but she thought shed seen him in every other circumstance, and  no. Still no bottom. That coughs sounding more and more like pneumonia to me, Susannah remarked, not long after the rain had started. They were then in the part of the days activities Roland called avencar carrying the kill and preparing to make it into something else. Never let it worry you, Roland said. I have what I need here to cure it. Say true? she asked doubtfully. Yar. And these, which I never lost. He reached into his pocket and showed her a handful of aspirin tablets. She thought the expression on his face was one of real reverence, and why not? It might be that he owed his life to what he called astin. Astin and cheflet. They loaded their kill into the back of Ho Fats Luxury Taxi and dragged it down to the stream. It took three trips in all. After theyd stacked the carcasses, Roland carefully placed the head of the yearling buck atop the pile, where it looked at them from its glazed eyes. What you want that for? Susannah asked, with a trace of Detta in her voice. Were going to need all the brains we can get, Roland said, and coughed dryly into his curled fist again. Its a dirty way to do the job, but its quick, and it works. FIVE When they had their kill piled beside the icy stream (At least we dont have the flies to worry about, Roland said), the gunslinger began gathering deadwood. Susannah looked forward to the fire, but her terrible need of the previous night had departed. She had been working hard, and for the time being, at least, was warm enough to suit her. She tried to remember the depth of her despair, how the cold had crept into her bones, turning them to glass, and couldnt do it. Because the body had a way of forgetting the worst things, she supposed, and without the bodys cooperation, all the brain had were memories like faded snapshots. Before beginning his woodgathering chore, Roland inspected the bank of the icy stream and dug out a piece of rock. He handed it to her, and Susannah rubbed a thumb over its milky, watersmoothed surface. Quartz? she asked, but she didnt think it was. Not quite. I dont know that word, Susannah. We call it chert. It makes tools that are primitive but plenty useful axeheads, knives, skewers, scrapers. Its scrapers well want. Also at least one handhammer. I know what were going to scrape, but what are we going to hammer? Ill show you, but first will you join me here for a moment? Roland got down on his knees and took her cold hand in one of his. Together they faced the deers head. We thank you for what we are about to receive, Roland told the head, and Susannah shivered. It was exactly how her father began when he was giving the grace before a big meal, one where all the family was gathered. Our own family is broken, she thought, but did not say; done was done. The response she gave was the one she had been taught as a young girl Father, we thank thee. Guide our hands and guide our hearts as we take life from death, Roland said. Then he looked at her, eyebrows raised, asking without speaking a word if she had more to say. Susannah found that she did. Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowd be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from evil; Thou art the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Thats a lovely prayer, he said. Yes, she agreed. I didnt say it just rightits been a long timebut its still the best prayer. Now lets do our business, while I can still feel my hands. Roland gave her an amen. SIX Roland took the severed head of the yearling deer (the antlernubs made lifting it easy), set it in front of him, then swung the fistsized chunk of rock against the skull. There was a muffled cracking sound that made Susannahs stomach cringe. Roland gripped the antlers and pulled, first left and then right. When Susannah saw the way the broken skull wiggled under the hide, her stomach did more than cringe; it did a slow looptheloop. Roland hit twice more, wielding the piece of chert with nearsurgical precision. Then he used his knife to cut a circle in the headhide, which he pulled off like a cap. This revealed the cracked skull beneath. He worked the blade of his knife into the widest crack and used it as a lever. When the deers brain was exposed, he took it out, set it carefully aside, and looked at Susannah. Well want the brains of every deer we killed, and thats what we need a hammer for. Oh, she said in a choked voice. Brains. To make a tanning slurry. But theres more use for chert than that. Look. He showed her how to bang two chunks together until one or both shattered, leaving large, nearly even pieces instead of jagged lumps. She knew that metamorphic rocks broke that way, but schists and such were generally too weak to make good tools. This stuff was strong. When you get chunks that break thick enough to hold on one side but thin to an edge on the other, Roland said, lay them by. Those will be our scrapers. If we had more time we could make handles, but we dont. Our hands will be plenty sore by bedtime. How long do you think it will take to get enough scrapers? Not so long, Roland said. Chert breaks lucky, or so I used to hear. While Roland dragged deadwood for a fire into a copse of mixed willows and alders by the edge of the frozen stream, Susannah inspected her way along the embankments, looking for chert. By the time shed found a dozen large chunks, she had also located a granite boulder rising from the ground in a smooth, weatherworn curve. She thought it would make a fine anvil. The chert did indeed break lucky, and she had thirty potential scrapers by the time Roland was bringing back his third large load of firewood. He made a little pile of kindling which Susannah shielded with her hands. By then it was sleeting, and although they were working beneath a fairly dense clump of trees, she thought it wouldnt be long before both of them were soaked. When the fire was lit, Roland went a few steps away, once more fell on his knees, and folded his hands. Praying again? she asked, amused. What we learn in our childhood has a way of sticking, he said. He closed his eyes for a few moments, then brought his clasped hands to his mouth and kissed them. The only word she heard him say was Gan. Then he opened his eyes and lifted his hands, spreading them and making a pretty gesture that looked to her like birds flying away. When he spoke again, his voice was dry and matteroffact Mr. TakingCareofBusiness. Thats very well, then, he said. Lets go to work. SEVEN They made twine from grass, just as Mordred had done, and hung the first deerthe one already headlessby its back legs from the low branch of a willow. Roland used his knife to cut its belly open, then reached into the guts, rummaged, and removed two dripping red organs that she thought were kidneys. These for fever and cough, he said, and bit into the first one as if it were an apple. Susannah made a gurking noise and turned away to consider the stream until he was finished. When he was, she turned back and watched him cut circles around the hanging legs close to where they joined the body. Are you any better? she asked him uneasily. I will be, he said. Now help me take the hide off this fellow. Well want the first one with the hair still on itwe need to make a bowl for our slurry. Now watch. He worked his fingers into the place where the deers hide still clung to the body by the thin layer of fat and muscle beneath, then pulled. The hide tore easily to a point halfway down the deers midsection. Now do your side, Susannah. Getting her fingers underneath was the only hard part. This time they pulled together, and when they had the hide all the way down to the dangling forelegs, it vaguely resembled a shirt. Roland used his knife to cut it off, then began to dig in the ground a little way from the roaring fire but still beneath the shelter of the trees. She helped him, relishing the way the sweat rolled down her face and body. When they had a shallow bowlshaped depression two feet across and eighteen inches deep, Roland lined it with the hide. All that afternoon they took turns skinning the eight other deer they had killed. It was important to do it as quickly as possible, for when the underlying layer of fat and muscle dried up, the work would become slower and harder. The gunslinger kept the fire burning high and hot, every now and then leaving her to rake ashes out onto the ground. When they had cooled enough so they would not burn holes in their bowlliner, he pushed them into the hole theyd made. Susannahs back and arms were aching fiercely by five oclock, but she kept at it. Rolands face, neck, and hands were comically smeared with ash. You look like a fella in a minstrel show, she said at one point. Rastus Coon. Whos that? Nobody but the white folks fool, she said. Do you suppose Mordreds out there, watching us work? All day shed kept an eye peeled for him. No, he said, pausing to rest. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, leaving a fresh smear and now making her think of penitents on Ash Wednesday. I think hes gone off to make his own kill. Mordreds ahungry, she said. And then You can touch him a little, cant you? At least enough to know if hes here or if hes gone. Roland considered this, then said simply Im his father.