The Dark Tower

Those blue eyes were still clear when thesneetches bolted past above the road. This time one buttonhooked left and theother right. They took evasive action, jigging crazily first one way and thenanother. It made no difference. Roland waited, sitting with his legsoutstretched and his old broken boots cocked into a relaxed V, his heartbeating slow and steady, his eye filled with all the world’s clarity and color(had he seen better on that last day, he believed he would have been able tosee the wind). Then he snapped his gun up, blew both sneetches out of the air,and was once more reloading the empty chambers while the afterimages still pulsedwith his heartbeat in front of his eyes.

He leaned to the corner of the pyramid,plucked up the binoculars, braced them on a convenient spur of rock, and lookedthrough them for his enemy. The Crimson King almost jumped at him, and for oncein his life Roland saw exactly what he had imagined: an old man with anenormous nose, hooked and waxy; red lips that bloomed in the snow of aluxuriant beard; snowy hair that spilled down the Crimson King’s back almostall the way to his scrawny bottom. His pink-flushed face peered toward thepilgrims. The King wore a robe of brilliant red, dotted here and about withlightning strokes and cabalistic symbols. To Susa

“HOW SLOW YOU ARE!” the gunslingercried in a tone of mock amazement. “TRY THREE, PERHAPS THREE AT ONCE WILL DOYA!”

Looking into the binoculars was likelooking into a magic hourglass tipped on its side. Roland watched the Big RedKing leaping up and down, shaking his hands beside his face in a way that wasalmost comic. Roland thought he could see a crate at that robed figure’s feet,but wasn’t entirely sure; the scrolled iron staves between the balcony’s floorand its railing obscured it.

Must be his ammunition supply, hethought. Must be. How many can he have in a crate that size? Twenty? Fifty?It didn’t matter. Unless the Red King could throw more than twelve at a time,Roland was confident he could shoot anything out of the air the old daemon senthis way. This was, after all, what he’d been made for.

Unfortunately, the Crimson King knew it aswell as Roland did.

The thing on the balcony gave anothergruesome, earsplitting cry (Patrick plugged his dirty ears with his dirtyfingers) and made as if to dip down for fresh ammunition. Then, however, hestopped himself. Roland watched him advance to the balcony’s railing… and thenpeer directly into the gunslinger’s eyes. That glare was red and burning.Roland lowered the binoculars at once, lest he be fascinated.

The King’s call drifted to him. “WAITTHEN, A BIT—AND MEDITATE ON WHAT YOU’D GAIN, ROLAND! THINK HOW CLOSE ITIS! AND… LISTEN! HEAR THE SONG YOUR DARLING SINGS!”

He fell silent then. No more whistling; nomore whines; no more oncoming sneetches. What Roland heard instead was thesough of the wind… and what the King wanted him to hear.

The call of the Tower.

Come, Roland, sang the voices. Theycame from the roses of Can’-Ka No Rey, they came from the strengthening Beamsoverhead, they came most of all from the Tower itself, that for which he hadsearched all his life, that which was now in reach… that which was being heldaway from him, now, at the last. If he went to it, he would be killed in theopen. Yet the call was like a fishhook in his mind, drawing him. The CrimsonKing knew it would do his work if he only waited. And as the time passed,Roland came to know it, too. Because the calling voices weren’t constant. Attheir current level he could withstand them. Was withstanding them. Butas the afternoon wore on, the level of the call grew stronger. He began tounderstand—and with growing horror—why in his dreams and visions hehad always seen himself coming to the Dark Tower at sunset, when the light inthe western sky seemed to reflect the field of roses, turning the whole worldinto a bucket of blood held up by one single stanchion, black as midnightagainst the burning horizon.

He had seen himself coming at sunsetbecause that was when the Tower’s strengthening call would finally overcome hiswillpower. He would go. No power on Earth would be able to stop him.

Come… come… became COME… COME…and then COME! COME! His head ached with it. And for it. Againand again he found himself getting to his knees and forced himself to sit downonce more with his back against the pyramid.

Patrick was staring at him with growingfright. He was partly or completely immune to that call—Roland understoodthis—but he knew what was happening.

Five

They had been pi

“TRY AGAIN!” he called. His throatwas rough and dry now, but he knew the words were carrying—the air inthis place was made for such communication. And he knew each one was a daggerpricking the old lunatic’s flesh. But he had his own problems. The call of theTower was growing steadily stronger.

“COME, GUNSLINGER!” the madman’svoice coaxed. “PERHAPS I’LL LET THEE COME, AFTER ALL! WE COULD AT LEASTPALAVER ON THE SUBJECT, COULD WE NOT?”

To his horror, Roland thought he sensed acertain sincerity in that voice.

Yes, he thought grimly. And we’llhave coffee. Perhaps even a little fry-up.

He fumbled the watch out of his pocket andsnapped it open. The hands were ru

(come, Roland come, gunslinger,commala-come-come, now the journey’s done)

was louder, more insistent than ever. Heopened them again and looked up at the unforgiving blue sky and the clouds thatraced across it in columns to the Tower at the end of the rose-field.

And the torture continued.

Six

He hung on for another hour while theshadows of the bushes and the roses growing near the pyramid lengthened, hopingagainst hope that something would occur to him, some brilliant idea that wouldsave him from having to put his life and his fate in the hands of the talentedbut soft-minded boy by his side. But as the sun began to slide down the westernarc of the sky and the blue overhead began to darken, he knew there was nothingelse. The hands of the pocket-watch were turning backward ever faster. Soonthey would be spi

He would die among the roses.

“Patrick,” he said. His voice was husky.

Patrick looked up at him with desperateintensity. Roland stared at the boy’s hands—dirty, scabbed, but in theirway as incredibly talented as his own—and gave in. It occurred to himthat he’d only held out as long as this from pride; he had wanted to kill theCrimson King, not merely send him into some null zone. And of course there wasno guarantee that Patrick could do to the King what he’d done to the sore onSusa