The Dark Tower

That way he used. Alas, one night’sdisgrace!

Out went my heart’snew fire and left it cold.”

“He writes of Mejis,” Roland said. Hisfists were clenched, although she doubted that he knew it. “He writes of how wefell out over Susan Delgado, for after that it was never the same between us.We mended our friendship as best we could, but no, it was never quite thesame.”

“After the woman comes to the man or theman to the woman, I don’t think it ever is,” she said, and handed him thephotocopied sheets. “Take this. I’ve read all the ones he mentioned. If there’sstuff in the rest about coming to the Dark Tower—or not—puzzle itout by yourself. You can do it if you try hard enough, I reckon. As for me, Idon’t want to know.”

Roland, it seemed, did. He shuffled throughthe pages, looking for the last one. The pages weren’t numbered, but he foundthe end easily enough by the white space beneath that stanza marked XXXIV.Before he could read, however, that thin cry came again. This time the wind wasin a complete lull and there was no doubt about where it came from.

“That’s someone below us, in the basement,”Roland said.

“I know. And I think I know who it is.”

He nodded.

She was looking at him steadily. “It allfits, doesn’t it? It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and we’ve put in all but the lastfew pieces.”

The cry came again, thin and lost. The cryof someone who was next door to dead. They left the bathroom, drawing theirguns. Susa

Five

The bug that had made itself look like ajolly old joker named Joe Collins lay where it had lain, but Oy had backed offa step or two. Susa

The cry came again when they reached thekitchen, and it was louder, but at first they saw no way down to the cellar.Susa

The refrigerator was no longer atop-of-the-line Amana with an icemaker in the door but a squat and dirty thingwith the cooling machinery on top, in a drum-shaped casing. Her mother had hadone like it when Susa

Roland moved it aside easily, for Dandelo,sly monster that he’d been, had put it on a little wheeled platform. Shedoubted that he got many visitors, not way out here in End-World, but he hadbeen prepared to keep his secrets if someone did drop by. As she wassure folken did, every once and again. She imagined that few if any gotany further along their way than the little hut on Odd Lane.

The stairs leading down were narrow andsteep. Roland felt around inside the door and found a switch. It lit two barebulbs, one halfway down the stairs and one below. As if in response to thelight, the cry came again. It was full of pain and fear, but there were nowords in it. The sound made her shiver.

“Come to the foot of the stairs, whoeveryou are!” Roland called.

No response from below. Outside the windgusted and whooped, driving snow against the side of the house so hard that itsounded like sand.

“Come to where we can see you, or we’llleave you where you are!” Roland called.

The inhabitant of the cellar didn’t comeinto the scant light but cried out again, a sound that was loaded with woe and terrorand—Susa

He looked at her. She nodded and spoke in awhisper. “Go first. I’ll back your play, if you have to make one.”

“ ‘Ware the steps that you don’t take atumble,” he said in the same low voice.

She nodded again and made his own impatienttwirling gesture with one hand: Go on, go on.

That raised a ghost of a smile on thegunslinger’s lips. He went down the stairs with the barrel of his gun laid intothe hollow of his right shoulder, and for a moment he looked so like Jake Chambersthat she could have wept.

Six

The cellar was a maze of boxes and barrelsand shrouded things hanging from hooks. Susa

Roland turned to his left and threaded hisway down a zig-zag aisle with crates stacked head-high on either side. Susa

Ahead of her, Roland stopped. “Tears of mymother,” he said in a low voice. She had heard him use this phrase once before,when they had come upon a deer that had fallen into a ravine and lay there withboth back legs and one front one broken, starving and looking up at themsightlessly, for the flies had eaten the unfortunate animal’s living eyes outof their sockets.

She stayed where she was until he gesturedfor her to join him, and then moved quickly up to his right side, boostingherself along on the palms of her hands.

In the stonewalled far corner of Dandelo’scellar—the southeast corner, if she had her directions right—therewas a makeshift prison cell. Its door was made of crisscrossing steel bars.Nearby was the welding rig Dandelo must have used to construct it… but longago, judging from the thick layer of dust on the acetylene tank. Hanging froman S-shaped hook pounded into the stone wall, just out of the prisoner’sreach—left close by to mock him, Susa

(dad-a-chum dad-a-chee)

silver key. The prisoner in question stoodat the bars of his detainment, holding his filthy hands out to them. He was soscrawny that he reminded Susa

Something like that was in PatrickDanville’s eyes as he held out his hands and made his inarticulate pleadingnoises. Close up, they sounded to her like the mocking cries of some junglebird on a movie soundtrack: I-yeee, I-yeee, I-yowk, I-yowk!

Roland took the key from its hook and wentto the door. One of Danville’s hands clutched at his shirt and the gunslingerpushed it off. It was a gesture entirely without anger, she thought, but thescrawny thing in the cell backed away with his eyes bulging in their sockets.His hair was long—it hung all the way to his shoulders—but therewas only the faintest haze of beard on his cheeks. It was a little thicker onhis chin and upper lip. Susa

“No offense, Patrick,” Roland said in apurely conversational voice. He put the key in the lock. “Is thee Patrick? Isthee Patrick Danville?”

The scrawny thing in the dirty jeans andbillowing gray shirt (it hung nearly to his knees) backed into the corner ofhis triangular cell without replying. When his back was against the stone, heslid slowly to a sitting position beside what Susa