The Dark Tower

A horrid idea came to Susa

He nodded, smiling a little. “Still as deadas ever was. You shot true, Susa

“I’m glad,” she said simply.

“Oy’s standing guard. If anything wereto happen, I’m sure he’d let us know.” He picked the note up from the floor andcarefully puzzled out what was written on the back. The only term she had tohelp him with was medicine cabinet. “ ‘I’ve left you something.’ Do youknow what?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t have time tolook.”

“Where is this medicine cabinet?”

She pointed at the mirror and he swung itout. It squalled on its hinges. There were indeed shelves behind it, butinstead of the neat rows of pills and potions she had imagined, there were onlytwo more brown bottles, like the one on the table beside the La-Z-Boy, and whatlooked to Susa

“Childe?” she asked. “Does that meananything to you?”

He nodded. “It’s a term that describes aknight—or a gunslinger—on a quest. A formal term, and ancient. Wenever used it among ourselves, you must ken, for it means holy, chosen by ka.We never liked to think of ourselves in such terms, and I haven’t thought ofmyself so in many years.”

“Yet you are Childe Roland?”

“Perhaps once I was. We’re beyond suchthings now. Beyond ka.”

“But still on the Path of the Beam.”

“Aye.” He traced the last line on theenvelope: All debts are paid. “Open it, Susa

She did.

Four

It was a photocopy of a poem by RobertBrowning. King had written the poet’s name in his half-script, half-printingabove the title. Susa

“Read the marked ones,” he said hoarsely,“because I can only make out a word here and there, and I would know what theysay, would know it very well.”

“Stanza the First,” she said, then had toclear her throat. It was dry. Outside the wind howled and the naked overheadbulb flickered in its flyspecked fixture.

“My first thought was, he lied inevery word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of hislie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that pursedand scored

Its edge, at one more victim gainedthereby.”

“Collins,” Roland said. “Whoever wrote thatspoke of Collins as sure as King ever spoke of our ka-tet in his stories! ‘Helied in every word!’ Aye, so he did!”

“Not Collins,” she said. “Dandelo.”

Roland nodded. “Dandelo, say true. Go on.”

“Okay; Stanza the Second.

“What else should he be set for, withhis staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies,ensnare

All travellers who might find himposted there,

And ask the road? I guessed whatskull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch ‘gin write myepitaph

For pastime in the dustythoroughfare.”

“Does thee remember his stick, and how hewaved it?” Roland asked her.

Of course she did. And the thoroughfare hadbeen snowy instead of dusty, but otherwise it was the same. Otherwise it wasa description of what had just happened to them. The idea made her shiver.

“Was this poet of your time?” Roland asked.“Your when?”

She shook her head. “Not even of mycountry. He died at least sixty years before my when.”

“Yet he must have seen what just passed. Aversion of it, anyway.”

“Yes. And Stephen King knew the poem.” Shehad a sudden intuition, one that blazed too bright to be anything but thetruth. She looked at Roland with wild, startled eyes. “It was this poem thatgot King going! It was his inspiration!”

“Do you say so, Susa

“Yes!”

“Yet this Browning must have seen us.”

She didn’t know. It was too confusing. Liketrying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg. Or being lost ina hall of mirrors. Her head was swimming.

“Read the next one marked, Susa

“That’s Stanza Thirteen,” she said.

“As for the grass, it grew as scant ashair

In leprosy; thin dry blades prickedthe mud

Which underneath looked kneaded upwith blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bonea-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he camethere;

Thrust out pastservice from the devil’s stud!

“Now Stanza the Fourteenth I read thee.

“Alive? He might be dead for aught Iknow,

With that red gaunt and colloped necka-strain,

And shut eyes underneath the rustymane;

Seldom went such grotesqueness withsuch woe;

I never saw a brute I hated so;

He must be wicked todeserve such pain.”

“Lippy,” the gunslinger said, and jerked athumb back over his shoulder. “Yonder’s pluggit, colloped neck and all, onlyfemale instead of male.”

She made no reply—needed to makenone. Of course it was Lippy: blind and bony, her neck rubbed right down to theraw pink in places. Her an ugly old thing, I know, the old man had said…the thing that had looked like an old man. Ye old ki’-box andgammer-gurt, ye lost four-legged leper! And here it was in black and white,a poem written long before sai King was even born, perhaps eighty or even ahundred years before:… as scant as hair/In leprosy.

“Thrust out past service from the devil’sstud!” Roland said, smiling grimly. “And while she’ll never stud nor ever did,we’ll see she’s back with the devil before we leave!”

“No,” she said. “We won’t.” Her voice soundeddrier than ever. She wanted a drink, but was now afraid to take anythingflowing from the taps in this vile place. In a little bit she would get somesnow and melt it. Then she would have her drink, and not before.

“Why do you say so?”

“Because she’s gone. She went out into thestorm when we got the best of her master.”

“How does thee know it?”

Susa

“Not it! I fancied…”

She ceased.

“Susa

“Are you positive?”

“Read, for I would hear.”

She cleared her throat. “Stanza theSixteenth.

“Not it! I fancied Cuthbert’sreddening face

Beneath its garniture of curly gold,

Dear fellow, till I almost felt himfold

An arm in mine to fix me to the place,