The Dark Tower

She started to lie down, then stopped. Shetouched the sore beside her mouth. “This isn’t a pimple, Roland.”

“No?” He sat quiet, watching her.

“I had a friend in college who got one justlike it,” Susa

Roland was silent, waiting. The term shehad used clanged in his head: blood-tumor. He thought it might have beencoined to describe the Crimson King himself. Mordred, as well.

“We don’t have no novocaine, Baby-Boots,”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 off’n me. Goan do itfaster than yon bum’blah c’n snatch a fly out de air. You u

“Yes. Now lie over. Take some rest.”

She lay over. Five minutes after she hadappeared to go to sleep, Detta Walker opened her eyes and gave him

(I watchin you, white boy)

a glare. Roland nodded to her and sheclosed her eyes again. A minute or two later, they opened a second time. Now itwas Susa

He had promised to wake her at midnight,but let her sleep two hours longer, knowing that in the heat of the fire herbody was really resting, at least for this one night. At what his finenew watch said was one o’ the clock, he finally felt the gaze of their pursuerslip away. Mordred had lost his fight to stay awake through the darkest watchesof the night, as had i

And does his mouth, still caked with saiThoughtful’s blood, purse and quiver, as if dreaming of the nipple it knew butonce, the milk it never tasted?

Roland didn’t know. Didn’t particularlywant 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 diequickly, he thought. The wood was newer than that of which the townhouses wereconstructed, but it was still ancient, hardened to a substance that was nearlystone.

Tomorrow they would see trees. The firstsince Calla Bryn Sturgis, if one set aside those growing beneath Algul Siento’sartificial sun and those he’d seen in Stephen King’s world. That would be good.Meanwhile, the dark held hard. Beyond the circle of the dying fire a windmoaned, lifting Roland’s hair from his temples and bringing a faint, sweetsmell of snow. He tilted his head back and watched the clock of the stars turnin the blackness overhead.

Chapter IV:

Hides

One

They had to go fireless three nights insteadof one or two. The last was the longest, most wretched twelve hours ofSusa

Yes. This was worse. She hatedknowing it, and would never admit it to anyone else, but the deep, endless coldof that last night was far worse. She came to dread every light breathof breeze from the snowlands to the east and south. It was both terrible andoddly humbling to realize how easily physical discomfort could take control,expanding like poison gas until it owned all the floor-space, took over theentire playing field. Grief? Loss? What were those things when you could feelcold on the march, moving in from your fingers and toes, crawling up yourmotherfucking 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 werenothing but words. No, not even that. Only sounds. So much meaninglessquack as you sat shuddering under the stars, waiting for a morning that wouldnever come.

What made it worse was knowing there werepotential bonfires all around them, for they’d reached the live region Rolandcalled “the undersnow.” This was a series of long, grassy slopes (most of thegrass now white and dead) and shallow valleys where there were isolated standsof trees, and brooks now plugged with ice. Earlier, in daylight, Roland hadpointed out several holes in the ice and told her they’d been made by deer. Hepointed out several piles of scat, as well. In daylight such sign had beeninteresting, even hopeful. But in this endless ditch of night, listening to thesteady low click of her chattering teeth, it meant nothing. Eddie meantnothing. Jake, neither. The Dark Tower meant nothing, nor did the bonfirethey’d had out the outskirts of Castle-town. She could remember the look of it,but the feel of heat warming her skin until it brought an oil of sweat wasutterly lost. Like a person who has died for a moment or two and has brieflyvisited 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. Susa

Once—shortly before dawn finallybegan to stain the sky in the east, this was—she saw orange lightsswirl-dancing far ahead, past the place where the snow began. She asked Rolandif he had any idea what they were. She had no real interest, but hearing hervoice reassured her that she wasn’t dead. Not yet, at least.

“I think they’re hobs.”

“W-What are th-they?” She now stuttered andstammered everything.

“I don’t know how to explain them to you,”he said. “And there’s really no need. You’ll see them in time. Right now if youlisten, you’ll hear something closer and more interesting.”

At first she heard only the sigh of thewind. Then it dropped and her ears picked up the dry swish of the grass belowas something walked through it. This was followed by a low crunching sound.Susa

Had she thought she had been cold before?That was quite fu

“What about Mordred?” she asked. “Is he outthere, do you think?”

“Yes.”

“And does he feel the cold like we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t stand much more of this,Roland—I really can’t.”

“You won’t have to. It’ll be dawn soon, andI expect we’ll have a fire tomorrow come dark.” He coughed into his fist, thenput his arm back around her. “You’ll feel better once we’re up and in thedoings. Meantime, at least we’re 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 shuddereduncontrollably, and had lined his mouth with dead grass when he became afraidthat Roland’s sharp ears might pick up the sound of his chattering teeth. Therailwayman’s jacket was no help; he had thrown it away when it had fallen intoso many pieces that he could no longer hold it together. He’d worn the arms of itout of Castle-town, but then they had fallen to pieces as well, starting at theelbows, and he’d cast them into the low grass beside the old road with apetulant curse. He was only able to go on wearing the boots because he’d beenable to weave long grass into a rough twine. With it he’d bound what remainedof them to his feet.