The Dark Tower

Mordred waited. And after a moment or two,he felt the pulse from the Dark Tower change.

Eight

Patrick felt that change, too. The pulsebecame soothing. And there were words in it, ones that blunted his eagerness todraw. He made another line, paused, then put his pencil aside and only lookedup at Old Mother, who seemed to pulse in time with the words he heard in hishead, words Roland would have recognized. Only these were sung in an old man’svoice, quavering but sweet:

“Baby-bunting, darling one,

Now another day is done.

May your dreams be sweet and merry,

May you dream of fields and berries.

Baby-bunting, baby-dear,

Baby, bring your berries here.

Oh chussit, chissit, chassit!

Bring enough to fill your basket!”

Patrick’s head nodded. His eyes closed…opened…

slipped closed again.

Enough to fill my basket, hethought, and slept in the firelight.

Nine

Now, my good son, whispered the coldvoice in the middle of Mordred’s hot and melting brains. Now. Go to him andmake sure he never rises from his sleep. Murder him among the roses and we’llrule together.

Mordred came from hiding, the binocularstumbling from a hand that was no longer a hand at all. As he changed, a feelingof huge confidence swept through him. In another minute it would be done. Theyboth slept, and there was no way he could fail.

He rushed down on the camp and the sleepingmen, a black nightmare on seven legs, his mouth opening and closing.

Ten

Somewhere, a thousand miles away, Rolandheard barking, loud and urgent, furious and savage. His exhausted mind tried toturn away from it, to blot it out and go deeper. Then there was a horriblescream of agony that awoke him in a flash. He knew that voice, even asdistorted by pain as it was.

“Oy!” he cried, leaping up. “Oy,where are you? To me! To m—”

There he was, twisting in thespider’s grip. Both of them were clearly visible in the light of the fire.Beyond them, sitting propped against the cottonwood tree, Patrick gazed stupidlythrough a curtain of hair that would soon be dirty again, now that Susa

If he’d not rushed out of the tallgrass, Roland thought, that would be me in Mordred’s grip.

Oy sent his teeth deep into one of thespider’s legs. In the firelight Roland could see the coin-sized dimples of thebumbler’s jaw-muscles as he chewed deeper still. The thing squalled and itsgrip loosened. At that moment Oy might have gotten free, had he chosen to doso. He did not. Instead of jumping down and leaping away in the momentaryfreedom granted him before Mordred was able to re-set his grip, Oy used thetime to extend his long neck and seize the place where one of the thing’s legsjoined its bloated body. He bit deep, bringing a flood of blackish-red liquorthat ran freely from the sides of his muzzle. In the firelight it gleamed withorange sparks. Mordred squalled louder still. He had left Oy out of hiscalculations, and was now paying the price. In the firelight, the two writhingforms were figures out of a nightmare.

Somewhere nearby, Patrick was hooting interror.

Worthless whoreson fell asleep afterall, Roland thought bitterly. But who had set him to watch in the firstplace?

“Put him down, Mordred!” he shouted. “Puthim down and I’ll let you live another day! I swear it on my father’s name!”

Red eyes, full of insanity and malevolence,peered at him over Oy’s contorted body. Above them, high on the curve of thespider’s back, were tiny blue eyes, hardly more than pinholes. They stared atthe gunslinger with a hate that was all too human.

My own eyes, Roland thought withdismay, and then there was a bitter crack. It was Oy’s spine, but in spite ofthis mortal injury he never loosened his grip on the joint where Mordred’s legjoined his body, although the steely bristles had torn away much of his muzzle,baring sharp teeth that had sometimes closed on Jake’s wrist with gentleaffection, tugging him toward something Oy wanted the boy to see. Ake!he would cry on such occasions. Ake-Ake!

Roland’s right hand dropped to his holsterand found it empty. It was only then, hours after she had taken her leave, thathe realized Susa

But this thought was also dim and distant.He pulled the other revolver as Mordred crouched on his hindquarters and usedhis remaining middle leg, curling it around Oy’s midsection and pulling theanimal, still snarling, away from his torn and bleeding leg. The spider twirledthe furry body upward in a terrible spiral. For a moment it blotted out thebright beacon that was Old Mother. Then he hurled Oy away from him and Rolandhad a moment of déjà vu, realizing he had seen this longago, in the Wizard’s Glass. Oy arced across the fireshot dark and was impaledon one of the cottonwood branches the gunslinger himself had broken off forfirewood. He gave an awful hurt cry—a death-cry—and then hung,suspended and limp, above Patrick’s head.

Mordred came at Roland without a pause, buthis charge was a slow, shambling thing; one of his legs had been shot away onlyminutes after his birth, and now another hung limp and broken, its pincersjerking spasmodically as they dragged on the grass. Roland’s eye had never beenclearer, the chill that surrounded him at moments like this never deeper. Hesaw the white node and the blue bombardier’s eyes that were his eyes. Hesaw the face of his only son peering over the back of the abomination and thenit was gone in a spray of blood as his first bullet tore it off. The spiderreared up, legs clashing at the black and star-shot sky. Roland’s next twobullets went into its revealed belly and exited through the back, pulling darksprays of liquid with it. The spider slewed to one side, perhaps trying to runaway, but its remaining legs would not support it. Mordred Deschain fell intothe fire, casting up a flume of red and orange sparks. It writhed in theembers, the bristles on its belly begi

Roland started forward, meaning to stampout the little fires the scattered embers had started in the grass, and then ahowl of outraged fury rose in his head.

My son! My only son! You’ve murderedhim!

“He was mine, too,” Roland said, looking atthe smoldering monstrosity. He could own the truth. Yes, he could do that much.

Come then! Come, son-killer, and look atyour Tower, but know this—you’ll die of old age at the edge of theCan’-Ka before you ever so much as touch its door! I will never let you pass!Todash space itself will pass away before I let you pass! Murderer!Murderer of your mother, murderer of your friends—aye, every one, forSusa