The Dark Tower

She ignored that—she’d heard itbefore—and told him about the dreams of Eddie and Jake, being sure tomention the product-names on the sweatshirts, the choral voices, the offer ofhot chocolate, and the growing panic in their eyes as the nights passed andstill she did not see what the dream had been sent to show her.

“Why didn’t you tell me this dream beforenow?” Roland asked. “Why didn’t you ask for help in interpreting it?”

She looked at him steadily, thinking shehad been right not to ask for his help. Yes—no matter how much that mighthurt him. “You’ve lost two. How eager would you have been to lose me, as well?”

He flushed. Even in the firelight she couldsee it. “Thee speaks ill of me, Susa

“Perhaps I have,” she said. “If so, I saysorry. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted myself. Part of me wants to see theTower, you know. Part of me wants that very badly. And even if Patrick can drawthe Unfound Door into existence and I can open it, it’s not the real world itopens on. That’s what the names on the shirts mean, I’m sure of it.”

“You mustn’t think that,” Roland said.“Reality is seldom a thing of black and white, I think, of is and isn’t, be andnot be.”

Patrick made a hooting sound and they bothlooked. He was holding his pad up, turned toward them so they could see what hehad drawn. It was a perfect representation of the Unfound Door, she thought.THE ARTIST wasn’t printed on it, and the doorknob was plain shinymetal—no crossed pencils adorned it—but that was all right. Shehadn’t bothered to tell him about those things, which had been for her benefitand understanding.

They did everything but draw me a map,she thought. She wondered why everything had to be so damn hard, so damn

(riddle-de-dum)

mysterious, and knew that was a question towhich she would never find a satisfactory answer… except it was the humancondition, wasn’t it? The answers that mattered never came easily.

Patrick made another of those hootingnoises. This time it had an interrogative quality. She suddenly realized thatthe poor kid was practically dying of anxiety, and why not? He had justexecuted his first commission, and wanted to know what his patrono d’artethought of it.

“It’s great, Patrick—terrific.”

“Yes,” Roland agreed, taking the pad. Thedoor looked to him exactly like those he’d found as he staggered along thebeach of the Western Sea, delirious and dying of the lobstrosity’s poisonedbite. It was as if the poor tongueless creature had looked into his head andseen an actual picture of that door—a fottergraff.

Susa

Impatient as she was, she retreated fromthe edge of the light, remembering all too well what had happened to Mordred’sbody-mother, and how quickly it had happened. Yet it hurt to pull back, almostphysically. Roland had told her that he expected to catch his first glimpse ofthe Dark Tower toward the end of the coming day. If she was still with him, ifshe saw it with him, she thought its power might prove too strong for her. Itsglammer. Now, given a choice between the door and the Tower, she knew she couldstill choose the door. But as they drew closer and the power of the Tower grewstronger, its pulse deeper and more compelling in her mind, the singing voicesever sweeter, choosing the door would be harder to do.

“I don’t see it,” she said despairingly.“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is no damn door. Oh, Roland—”

“I don’t think you were wrong,” Roland toldher. He spoke with obvious reluctance, but as a man will when he has a job todo, or a debt to repay. And he did owe this woman a debt, he reckoned, for hadhe not pretty much seized her by the scruff of the neck and hauled her intothis world, where she’d learned the art of murder and fallen in love and beenleft bereaved? Had he not kidnapped her into this present sorrow? If he couldmake that right, he had an obligation to do so. His desire to keep her withhim—and at the risk of her own life—was pure selfishness, andunworthy of his training.

More important than that, it was unworthyof how much he had come to love and respect her. It broke what remained of hisheart to think of bidding her goodbye, the last of his strange and wonderfulka-tet, but if it was what she wanted, what she needed, then he must doit. And he thought he could do it, for he had seen something about theyoung man’s drawing that Susa

“Look thee,” he said gently, showing herthe picture. “Do you see how hard he’s tried to please thee, Susa

“Yes!” she said. “Yes, of course I do,but—”

“It took him ten minutes to do this, Ishould judge, and most of his drawings, good as they are, are the work of threeor four at most, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t understand you!” She nearlyscreamed this.

Patrick drew Oy to him and wrapped an armaround the bumbler, all the while looking at Susa

“He worked so hard to give you what youwant that there’s only the Door. It stands by itself, all alone on the paper.It has no… no…”

He searched for the right word. Va

“It has no context!”

For a moment Susa

Patrick was happy to oblige. For one thing,putting Ho Fat III in front of the door gave him a reason to use his eraser. Heworked much more quickly this time—almost carelessly, an observer mighthave said—but the gunslinger was sitting right next to him and didn’tthink Patrick missed a single stroke in his depiction of the little cart. Hefinished by drawing its single front wheel and putting a reflected gleam offirelight in the hubcap. Then he put his pencil down, and as he did, there wasa disturbance in the air. Roland felt it push against his face. The flames ofthe fire, which had been burning straight up in the windless dark, streamedbriefly sideways. Then the feeling was gone. The flames once more burnedstraight up. And standing not ten feet from that fire, behind the electriccart, was a door Roland had last encountered in Calla Bryn Sturgis, in the Caveof the Voices.

Seventeen

Susa

So she put her gu

Patrick looked at her, then at Roland, whowas squatted on his hunkers, looking at him. “Either way, son,” the gunslingersaid. “You can draw in either world, tell ya true. Although where she’s going,there’ll be more to appreciate it.”