Wizard and Glass

He crouched to the left of the opening in the brush and peered around, the wind now striking full in his face. Latigo’s men were closing rapidly. More rapidly than he had expected. If the wind blew out the lucifers-

Never mind the ifs. Hold on, Roland… hold on… wait for them…

He held on, hunkering with an unlit match in each hand, now peering out through a tangle of interlaced branches. The smell of mesquite was strong in his nostrils. Not far behind it was the reek of burning oil. The drone of the thi

Now Latigo and his men were crossing the last three hundred yards to the canyon’s mouth at a full-out gallop, the ones behind closing up fast. It would be hard for the ones riding point to stop suddenly without the risk of being ridden down.

It was time. Roland stuck one of the lucifers between his front teeth and raked it forward. It lit, spilling one hot and sour spark onto the wet bed of his tongue. Before the lucifer’s head could bum away, Roland touched it to the powder in the trench. It lit at once, ru

He lunged across the opening-which might be wide enough for two horses ru

20

Mother and father, was Roland’s first shocked thought-memory so deep and unexpected it was like a slap. At Lake Saroni.

When had they gone there, to beautiful Lake Saroni in the northern part of Gilead Barony? That Roland couldn’t remember. He knew only that he had been very small, and that there had been a beautiful stretch of sandy beach for him to play on, perfect for an aspiring young castle-builder such as he. That was what he had been doing on one day of their (vacation? was it a vacation? did my parents once upon a time actually take a vacation?)

trip, and he had looked up, something-maybe only the cries of the birds circling over the lake-had made him look up, and there were his mother and father, Steven and Gabrielle Deschain, at the water’s edge, standing with their backs to him and their arms around each other’s waists, looking out at blue water beneath a blue summer sky. How his heart had filled with love for them! How infinite was love, twining in and out of hope and memory like a braid with three strong strands, so much the Bright Tower of every human’s life and soul.

It wasn’t love he felt now, however, but terror. The figures standing before him as he ran back to where the canyon ended (where the rational part of the canyon ended) weren’t Steven of Gilead and Gabrielle of Arten but his mollies, Cuthbert and Alain. They didn’t have their arms around each other’s waists, either, but their hands were clasped, like the hands of fairy-tale children lost in a threatening fairy-tale wood. Birds circled, but they were vultures, not gulls, and the shimmering, mist-topped stuff before the two boys wasn’t water.

It was the thi

“Stop!” he screamed. “For your fathers’ sakes, stop!”

They did not stop. They walked hand-in-hand toward the white-edged hem of the smoky green shimmer. The thi

There was no time to reach them, so Roland did the only thing he could think of: raised one of his guns and fired it over their heads. The report was a hammer-blow in the canyon’s enclosure, and for a moment the ricochet whine was louder than that of the thi

He triggered two more shots into the air, the reports hitting the walls and rolling back. “Gunslingers!” he cried. “To me! To me!”

It was Alain who turned toward him first, his dazed eyes seeming to float in his dust-streaked face. Cuthbert continued forward another step, the tips of his boots disappearing in the greenish-silver froth at the edge of the thi

“Gods!” he murmured, and as he scrambled to his feet, Roland saw that the toes of his boots were gone, clipped off neatly, as if with a pair of gardening shears. His great toes stuck out.

“Roland,” he gasped as he and Alain stumbled toward him. “Roland, we were almost gone. It talks!”

“Yes. I’ve heard it. Come on. There’s no time.”

He led them to the notch in the canyon wall, praying that they could get up quick enough to avoid being riddled with bullets… as they certainly would be, if Latigo arrived before they could get up at least part of the way.

A smell, acrid and bitter, began to fill the air-an odor like boiling juniper berries. And the first tendrils of whitish-gray smoke drifted past them.

“Cuthbert, you first. Alain, you next. I’ll come last. Climb fast, boys. Climb for your lives.”

21

Latigo’s men poured through the slot in the wall of brush like water pouring into a fu

Yet something began to intrude on this mantra as he galloped deeper into Eyebolt, his horse’s hooves clattering nimbly through the scree of rocks and

(bones)

whitish piles of cow-skulls and ribcages. This was a kind of low buzzing, a maddening, slobbering whine, insectile and insistent. It made his eyes water. Yet, strong as the sound was (if it was a sound; it almost seemed to be coming from inside him), he pushed it aside, holding onto his mantra

(box canyon box canyon got em in a box canyon)

instead. He would have to face Walter when this was over, perhaps Farson himself, and he had no idea what his punishment would be for losing the tankers… but all that was for later. Now he wanted only to kill these interfering bastards.

Up ahead, the canyon took a jog to the north. They would be beyond that point, and probably not far beyond, either. Backed up against the canyon’s final wall, trying to squeeze themselves behind what fallen rocks there might be. Latigo would mass what guns he had and drive them out into the open with ricochets. They would probably come with their hands up, hoping for mercy. They would hope in vain. After what they’d done, the trouble they’d caused-

As Latigo rode around the jog in the canyon’s wall, already levelling his pistol, his horse screamed-like a woman, it screamed-and reared beneath him. Latigo caught the saddle-horn and managed to stay up, but the horse’s rear hooves slid sideways in the scree and the animal went down. Latigo let go of the horn and threw himself clear, already aware that the sound which had been creeping into his ears was suddenly ten times stronger, buzzing loud enough to make his eyeballs pulse in their sockets, loud enough to make his balls tingle unpleasantly, loud enough to blot out the mantra which had been beating so insistently in his head.