The Dark Tower

“Of course that’s what it was,” Fimalo saidquietly, 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 inthe first place were two conflicting compulsions in his mind: to bring theTower down, and to get there before you could get there, Roland, andmount to the top. To destroy it… or to rule it. I’m not sure he has ever caredovermuch about understanding it—just about beating you tosomething you want, and then snatching it away from you. About such things he’dcare much.”

“It’d no doubt please you to know how heraved about you, and cursed your name in the weeks before he smashed hisprecious playthings,” said Fumalo. “How he came to fear you, insofar as he canfear.”

“Not this one,” Feemalo contradicted, andrather glumly, Susa

Fimalo said: “When the Red King saw thatthe Algul would fall to you, he understood that the working Beams wouldregenerate. More! That eventually those two working Beams would re-create the otherBeams, knitting them forth mile by mile and wheel by wheel. If that happens,then eventually…”

Roland was nodding. In his eyes Susa

“No perhaps about it,” Fimalo said. “For kais a wheel, and if a wheel be not broken, it will always roll. Unless theCrimson King can become either Lord of the Tower or its Lord High Executioner,all that was will eventually return.”

“Lunacy,” said Fumalo. “And destructivelunacy, at that. But of course Big Red always was Gan’s crazy side.” Hegave Susa

Feemalo resumed. “And after the Balls weresmashed and the killing was done—”

“This is what we’d have you understand,”said Fumalo. “If, that is, your heads aren’t too thick to get the sense of it.”

“After those chores were finished, hekilled 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 ofdoggerel.”

“Yes indeed,” said Fimalo. “I thought he’dcut his throat with it, for the edge of the spoon’s bowl had been sharpened(like certain plates, ye ken—ka’s a wheel, and always comes around towhere it started), but he swallowed it. Swallowed it, can you imagine?Great gouts of blood poured from his mouth. Freshets! Then he mountedthe greatest of the gray horses—he calls it Nis, after the land of sleepand dreams—and rode southeast into the white lands of Empathica with hislittle bit of gu

“Wait a minute, time out,” Susa

“Lady Blackbird begins to see the light!”Fumalo exulted, and shook his hands at the sky.

“—then how could he do anything?”

“Los’ ca

“You poor saps—” his partnerput in with good-natured viciousness.

“You can’t kill a man who’s already dead,”Fimalo finished. “As he was, Roland, your guns might have ended him…”

Roland was nodding. “Handed down fromfather to son, with barrels made from Arthur Eld’s great sword, Excalibur. Yes,that’s also part of the prophecy. As he of course would know.”

“But now he’s safe from them. Has puthimself beyond them. He is Un-dead.”

“We have reason to believe that he’s beenshunted onto a balcony of the Tower,” Roland said. “Un-dead or not, he nevercould have gained the top without some sigul of the Eld; surely if he knew so muchprophecy, then he knew that.”

Fimalo was smiling grimly. “Aye, but asHoratio held the bridge in a story told in Susa

“It seems old King Red wasn’t entirely mad,after all,” Feemalo said.

“Cray-zee lak-a de focks!” Fumaloadded. He tapped his temple gravely… and then burst out laughing.

“But if you go on,” said Fimalo, “you bringto him the siguls of the Eld he needs to gain possession of that which nowholds him captive.”

“He’d have to take them from me first,”Roland said. “From us.” He spoke without drama, as if merely commentingon the weather.

“True,” Fimalo agreed, “but consider,Roland. You ca

Fimalo studied them gravely from his placeon the far side of the bridge.

“And then,” he said, “all would bedarkness.”

Four

There was a pause during which thosegathered in that place considered the idea. Then Feemalo said, almostapologetically: “The cost might not be so great if one were just to considerthis world, which we might call Tower Keystone, since the Dark Tower existshere not as a rose, as it does on many, or an immortal tiger, as it does onsome, or the ur-dog Rover, as it does on at least one—”

“A dog named Rover?” Susa

“Lady, you have all the imagination of ahalf-burnt stick,” Fumalo said in a tone of deep disgust.

Feemalo paid no heed. “In this world, theTower is itself. In the world where you, Roland, have most lately been, mostspecies still breed true and many lives are sweet. There is still energy andhope. Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the otherworlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it wasnot he that created them, you know. To peek in Gan’s navel does not make oneGan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all?”

“We’re just asking, not trying to convinceyou,” Fimalo said. “But the truth is bald: now this is only your quest,gunslinger. That’s all it is. Nothing sends you further. Once you passbeyond this castle and into the White Lands, you and your friends pass beyondka itself. And you need not do it. All you have been through was set in motionso that you might save the Beams, and by saving them ensure the eternalexistence of the Tower, the axle upon which all worlds and all life spins. Thatis done. If you turn back now, the dead King will be trapped forever where heis.”

“Sez you,” Susa

“Whether you speak true or speak false,”Roland said, “I will push on. For I have promised.”

“To whom have you given yourpromise?” Fimalo burst out. For the first time since stopping on the castleside of the bridge, he unclasped his hands and used them to push his hair backfrom his brow. The gesture was small but expressed his frustration with perfecteloquence. “For there’s no prophecy of such a promise; I tell you so!”

“There wouldn’t be. For it’s one I mademyself, and one I mean to keep.”