Gunslinger

“Excellent,” the man in black said. “How exceptional you are! How methodical! I salute you!” He giggled, and the gunslinger dropped the wood at his feet with a crash that ballooned up bone dust.

The man in black did not start or jump; he merely began laying the fire. The gunslinger watched, fascinated, as the idiogram (fresh, this time) took shape. When it was finished, it resembled a small and complex double chim ney about two feet high. The man in black lifted his hand skyward, shaking back the voluminous sleeve from a tapered, handsome hand, and brought it down rapidly, index and pinky fingers forked out in the traditional sign of the evil eye. There was a blue flash of flame, and their fire was lighted.

“I have matches,” the man in black said jovially, “but I thought you might enjoy the magic. For a pretty, gunslinger. Now cook our di

The folds of his robe shivered, and the plucked and gutted carcass of a plump rabbit fell on the dirt.

The gunslinger spitted the rabbit wordlessly and roasted it. A savory smell drifted up as the sun went down.

Purple shadows drifted hungrily over the bowl where the man in black had chosen to finally face him. The gunslinger felt hunger begin to rumble endlessly in his belly as the rabbit browned; but when the meat was cooked and its juices sealed in, he handed the entire skewer wordlessly to the man in black, rummaged in his own nearly flat knapsack, and withdrew the last of his jerky. It was salty, painful to his mouth, and tasted like tears.

“That’s a worthless gesture,” the man in black said, managing to sound angry and amused at the same time.

“Nevertheless,” the gunslinger said. There were tiny sores in his mouth, the result of vitamin deprivation, and the salt taste made him grin bitterly.

“Are you afraid of enchanted meat?”

“Yes.”

The man in black slipped his hood back.

The gunslinger looked at him silently. In a way, the face of the man in black was an uneasy disappointment. It was handsome and regular, with none of the marks and twists which indicate a person who has been through awesome times and who has been privy to great and unknown secrets. His hair was black and of a ragged, matted length. His forehead was high, his eyes dark and brilliant. His nose was nondescript. The lips were full and sensual. His complexion was pallid, as was the gunslinger’s own.

‘‘

He said finally, “I expected an older man.

“Not necessary. I am nearly immortal. I could have taken a face that you more expected, of course, but I elected to show you the one I was – ah – born with. See, gunslinger, the sunset.”

The sun had departed already, and the western sky was filled with a sullen furnace light.

“You won’t see another sunrise for what may seem a very long time,” the man in black said softly.

The gunslinger remembered the pit under the mountains and then looked at the sky, where the constellations sprawled in clockspring profusion.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly, “now.”

The man in black shuffled the cards with flying, merging rapidity. The deck was huge, the design on the backs of the cards convoluted. “These are tarot cards,” the man in black was saying, “a mixture of the standard deck and a selection of my own development Watch closely gunslinger.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to tell your future, Roland. Seven cards must be turned, one at a time, and placed in conjunction with the others. I’ve not done this for over three hundred years. And I suspect I’ve never read one quite like yours.” The mocking note was creeping in again, like a Kuvian night-soldier with a killing knife gripped in one hand. “You are the world’s last adventurer. The last crusader. How that must please you, Roland! Yet you have no idea how close you stand to the Tower now, how close in time. Worlds turn about your head.”

“Read my fortune then,” he said harshly.

The first card was turned.

“The Hanged Man,” the man in black said. The darkness had given him back his hood. “Yet here, in conjunction with nothing else, it signifies strength and not death. You, gunslinger, are the Hanged Man, plodding ever onward toward your goal over all the pits of Hades. You have already dropped one co-traveler into the pit, have you not?”

He turned the second card. “The Sailor. Note the clear brow, the hairless cheeks, the wounded eyes. He drowns, gunslinger, and no one throws out the line. The boy Jake.”

The gunslinger winced, said nothing.

The third card was turned. A baboon stood gri

astride a young man’s shoulder. The young man’s face was turned up, a grimace of stylized dread and horror on his features. Looking more closely, the gunslinger saw the ba boon held a whip.

“The Prisoner,” the man in black said. The fire cast uneasy, flickering shadows over the face of the ridden man, making it seem to move and writhe in wordless terror. The gunslinger flicked his eyes away.

“A trifle upsetting, isn’t he?” The man in black said, and seemed on the verge of sniggering.

He turned the fourth card. A woman with a shawl over her head sat spi

“The Lady of Shadows,” the man in black remarked. “Does she look two-faced to you, gunslinger? She is. A veritable Janus.”

“Why are you showing me these?”

“Don’t ask!” The man in black said sharply, yet he smiled. “Don’t ask. Merely watch. Consider this only pointless ritual if it eases you and cools you to do so. Like church.”

He tittered and turned the fifth card.

A gri

“Death,” the man in black said simply. “Yet not for you.

The sixth card.

The gunslinger looked at it and felt a strange, crawling anticipation in his guts. The feeling was mixed with horror and joy, and the whole of the emotion was u

“The Tower,” the man in black said softly.

The gunslinger’s card occupied the center of the pattern; each of the following four stood at one corner, like satellites circling a star.

“Where does that one go?” The gunslinger asked.

The man in black placed the Tower over the Hanged Man, covering it completely.

“What does that mean?” The gunslinger asked. The man in black did not answer.

“What does that mean?” He asked raggedly. The man in black did not answer.

“God damn you!” No answer.

“Then what’s the seventh card?”

The man in black turned the seventh. A sun rose in a luminously blue sky. Cupids and sprites sported around it

“The seventh is Life,” the man in black said softly. “But not for you. “

“Where does it fit the pattern?”

“That is not for you to know,” the man in black said. “Or for me to know.” He flipped the card carelessly into the dying fire. It charred, curled and flashed to flame. The gunslinger felt his heart quail and turn icy in his chest.

“Sleep now,” the man in black said carelessly. “Perchance to dream and that sort of thing.”

“I’m going to choke you dead,” the gunslinger said. His legs coiled with savage, splendid sudde

He dreamed.

The universe was void. Nothing moved. Nothing was.

The gunslinger drifted, bemused.

“Let us have light,” the voice of the man in black said nonchalantly, and there was light. The gunslinger thought in a detached way that the light was good.

“Now darkness overhead with stars in it. Water down

below.” It happened. He drifted over endless seas. Above, the stars twinkled endlessly.