The Dark Tower

Chapter III:

The Crimson King andthe Dark Tower

One

The road and the tale have both been long,would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high… but nogreat thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must bebuilt a stone at a time. Now, however, as the end draws closer, you must markyon two travelers walking toward us with great care. The older man—hewith the ta

Never mind. It’s not old ruins we’ve cometo observe near the end of our long journey, but the old gunslinger pulling thehandles of the cart. We stand at the crest of the hill and wait as he comestoward us. He comes. And comes. Relentless as ever, a man who always learns tospeak the language of the land (at least some of it) and the customs of thecountry; he is still a man who would straighten pictures in strange hotelrooms. Much about him has changed, but not that. He crests the hill, so closeto us now that we can smell the sour tang of his sweat. He looks up, a quickand automatic glance he shoots first ahead and then to either side as he topsany hill—Always con yer vantage was Cort’s rule, and the last ofhis pupils has still not forgotten it. He looks up without interest, looksdown… and stops. After a moment of staring at the broken, weed-infested pavingof the road, he looks up again, more slowly this time. Much more slowly. As ifin dread of what he thinks he has seen.

And it’s here we must join him—sinkinto him—although how we will ever con the vantage of Roland’s heart atsuch a moment as this, when the single-minded goal of his lifetime at lastcomes in sight, is more than this poor excuse for a storyman can ever tell.Some moments are beyond imagination.

Two

Roland glanced up quickly as he topped thehill, not because he expected trouble but because the habit was too deeplyingrained to break. Always con yer vantage, Cort had told them, drillingit into their heads from the time when they had been little more than babbies.He looked back down at the road—it was becoming more and more difficultto swerve among the roses without crushing any, although he had managed thetrick so far—and then, belatedly, realized what he had just seen.

What you thought you saw,Roland told himself, still looking down at the road. It’s probably justanother of the strange ruins we’ve been passing ever since we started movingagain.

But even then Roland knew it wasn’t so.What he’d seen was not to either side of the Tower Road, but dead ahead.

He looked up again, hearing his neck creaklike hinges in an old door, and there, still miles ahead but now visible on thehorizon, real as roses, was the top of the Dark Tower. That which he had seenin a thousand dreams he now saw with his living eyes. Sixty or eighty yardsahead, the road rose to a higher hill with an ancient Speaking Ring molderingin the ivy and honeysuckle on one side and a grove of ironwood trees on theother. At the center of this near horizon, the black shape rose in the neardistance, blotting out a tiny portion of the blue sky.

Patrick came to a stop beside Roland andmade one of his hooting sounds.

“Do you see it?” Roland asked. His voicewas dusty, cracked with amazement. Then, before Patrick could answer, thegunslinger pointed to what the boy wore around his neck. In the end, thebinoculars had been the only item in Mordred’s little bit of gu

“Give them over, Pat.”

Patrick did, willingly enough. Roland raisedthem to his eyes, made a minute adjustment to the knurled focus knob, and thencaught his breath as the top of the Tower sprang into view, seemingly closeenough to touch. How much was visible over the horizon? How much was he lookingat? Twenty feet? Perhaps as much as fifty? He didn’t know, but he could see atleast three of the narrow slit-windows which ascended the Tower’s barrel in aspiral, and he could see the oriel window at the top, its many colors blazingin the spring sunshine, the black center seeming to peer back down thebinoculars at him like the very Eye of Todash.

Patrick hooted and held out a hand for thebinoculars. He wanted his own look, and Roland handed the glasses over withouta murmur. He felt light-headed, not really there. It occurred to him that hehad sometimes felt like that in the weeks before his battle with Cort, asthough he were a dream or a moonbeam. He had sensed something coming, some vastchange, and that was what he felt now.

Yonder it is, he thought. Yonderis my destiny, the end of my life’s road. And yet my heart still beats (alittle faster than before, ‘tis true), my blood still courses, and no doubtwhen I bend over to grasp the handles of this becurst cart my back will groanand I may pass a little gas. Nothing at all has changed.

He waited for the disappointment thisthought surely presaged—the letdown. It didn’t come. What he felt insteadwas a queer, soaring brightness that seemed to begin in his mind and thenspread to his muscles. For the first time since setting out at mid-morning,thoughts of Oy and Susa

Patrick lowered the binoculars. When heturned to Roland, his face was excited. He pointed to the black thumb juttingabove the horizon and hooted.

“Yes,” Roland said. “Someday, in someworld, some version of you will paint it, along with Llamrei, Arthur Eld’shorse. That I know, for I’ve seen the proof. As for now, it’s where we mustgo.”

Patrick hooted again, then pulled a longface. He put his hands to his temples and swayed his head back and forth, likesomeone who has a terrible headache.

“Yes,” Roland said. “I’m afraid, too. Butthere’s no help for it. I have to go there. Would you stay here, Patrick? Stayand wait for me? If you would, I give you leave to do so.”

Patrick shook his head at once. And, justin case Roland didn’t take the point, the mute boy seized his arm in a hardgrip. The right hand, the one with which he drew, was like iron.

Roland nodded. Even tried to smile. “Yes,”he said, “that’s fine. Stay with me as long as you like. As long as youunderstand that in the end I’ll have to go on alone.”

Three

Now, as they rose from each dip and toppedeach hill, the Dark Tower seemed to spring closer. More of the spiralingwindows which ran around its great circumference became visible. Roland couldsee two steel posts jutting from the top. The clouds which followed the Pathsof the two working Beams seemed to flow away from the tips, making a great X-shapein the sky. The voices grew louder, and Roland realized they were singing thenames of the world. Of all the worlds. He didn’t know how he could knowthat, but he was sure of it. That lightness of being continued to fill him up.Finally, as they crested a hill with great stone men marching away to the northon their left (the remains of their faces, painted in some blood-red stuff,glared down upon them), Roland told Patrick to climb up into the cart. Patricklooked surprised. He made a series of hooting noises Roland took to mean Butaren’t you tired?