The Dark Tower

“Change places with me, Patrick.”

Patrick did, scrambling carefully overRoland. He was now at the edge of the pyramid nearest the road.

“Look through the far-seeing instrument.Lay it in that notch—yes, just so—and look.”

Patrick did, and for what seemed to Rolanda very long time. The voice of the Tower, meanwhile, sang and chimed andcajoled. At long last, Patrick looked back at him.

“Now take thy pad, Patrick. Draw yonderman.” Not that he was a man, but at least he looked like one.

At first, however, Patrick only continuedto gaze at Roland, biting his lip. Then, at last, he took the sides of thegunslinger’s head in his hands and brought it forward until they were brow tobrow.

Very hard, whispered a voice deep inRoland’s mind. It was not the voice of a boy at all, but of a grown man. Apowerful man. He’s not entirely there. He darkles. He tincts.

Where had Roland heard those words before?

No time to think about it now.

“Are you saying you can’t?” Roland asked,injecting (with an effort) a note of disappointed incredulity into his voice.“That you can’t? That Patrick can’t? The Artist can’t?”

Patrick’s eyes changed. For a moment Rolandsaw in them the expression that would be there permanently if he grew to be aman… and the paintings in Sayre’s office said that he would do that, at leaston some track of time, in some world. Old enough, at least, to paint what hehad seen this day. That expression would be hauteur, if he grew to be an oldman with a little wisdom to match his talent; now it was only arrogance. The lookof a kid who knows he’s faster than blue blazes, the best, and cares to knownothing else. Roland knew that look, for had he not seen it gazing back at himfrom a hundred mirrors and still pools of water when he had been as young asPatrick Danville was now?

I can, came the voice in Roland’shead. I only say it won’t be easy. I’ll need the eraser.

Roland shook his head at once. In hispocket, his hand closed around what remained of the pink nubbin and held ittight.

“No,” he said. “Thee must draw cold, Patrick.Every line right the first time. The erasing comes later.”

For a moment the look of arrogancefaltered, but only for a moment. When it returned, what came with it pleasedthe gunslinger mightily, and eased him a little, as well. It was a look of hotexcitement. It was the look the talented wear when, after years of just movingsleepily along from pillar to post, they are finally challenged to do somethingthat will tax their abilities, stretch them to their limits. Perhaps evenbeyond them.

Patrick rolled to the binoculars again,which he’d left propped aslant just below the notch. He looked long while thevoices sang their growing imperative in Roland’s head.

And at last he rolled away, took up hispad, and began to draw the most important picture of his life.

Seven

It was slow work compared to Patrick’susual method—rapid strokes that produced a completed and compellingdrawing in only minutes. Roland again and again had to restrain himself fromshouting at the boy: Hurry up! For the sake of all the gods, hurry up! Can’tyou see that I’m in agony here?

But Patrick didn’t see and wouldn’t havecared in any case. He was totally absorbed in his work, caught up in theunknowing greed of it, pausing only to go back to the binoculars now and thenfor another long look at his red-robed subject. Sometimes he slanted the pencilto shade a little, then rubbed with his thumb to produce a shadow. Sometimes herolled his eyes back in his head, showing the world nothing but the waxy gleamof the whites. It was as if he were co

I don’t care what it is. Just let himfinish before I go mad and sprint to what the Old Red King so rightly called“my darling.”

Half an hour at least three days longpassed in this fashion. Once the Crimson King called more coaxingly than everto Roland, asking if he would not come to the Tower and palaver, after all.Perhaps, he said, if Roland were to free him from his balcony prison, theymight bury an arrow together and then climb to the top room of the Tower inthat same spirit of friendliness. It was not impossible, after all. A hard rainmade for queer bedfellows at the i

The gunslinger knew the saying well. Healso knew that the Red King’s offer was essentially the same false request asbefore, only this time dressed up in morning coat and cravat. And this timeRoland heard worry lurking in the old monster’s voice. He wasted no energy onreply.

Realizing his coaxing had failed, theCrimson King threw another sneetch. This one flew so high over the pyramid itwas only a spark, then dove down upon them with the scream of a falling bomb.Roland took care of it with a single shot and reloaded from a plentitude ofshells. He wished, in fact, that the King would send more of the flyinggrenados against him, because they took his mind temporarily off the dreadfulcall of the Tower.

It’s been waiting for me, he thoughtwith dismay. That’s what makes it so hard to resist, I think—it’scalling me in particular. Not to Roland, exactly, but to the entire line ofEld… and of that line, only I am left.

Eight

At last, as the descending sun began totake on its first hues of orange and Roland felt he could stand it no longer,Patrick put his pencil aside and held the pad out to Roland, frowning. The lookmade Roland afraid. He had never seen that particular expression in the muteboy’s repertoire. Patrick’s former arrogance was gone.

Roland took the pad, however, and for amoment was so amazed by what he saw there that he looked away, as if even theeyes in Patrick’s drawing might have the power to fascinate him; might perhapscompel him to put his gun to his temple and blow out his aching brains. It wasthat good. The greedy and questioning face was long, the cheeks and foreheadmarked by creases so deep they might have been bottomless. The lips within thefoaming beard were full and cruel. It was the mouth of a man who would turn akiss into a bite if the spirit took him, and the spirit often would.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”came that screaming, lunatic voice. “IT WON’T DO YOU ANY GOOD, WHATEVER ITIS! I HOLD THE TOWER—EEEEEEEE!—I’M LIKE THE DOG WITH THE GRAPES,ROLAND! IT’S MINE EVEN IF I CAN’T CLIMB IT! AND YOU’LL COME! EEEEE! SAY TRUE!BEFORE THE SHADOW OF THE TOWER REACHES YOUR PALTRY HIDING-PLACE, YOU’LL COME!EEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEE!”

Patrick covered his ears, wincing. Now thathe had finished drawing, he registered those terrible screams again.

That the picture was the greatest work ofPatrick’s life Roland had absolutely no doubt. Challenged, the boy had donemore than rise above himself; he had soared above himself and committedgenius. The image of the Crimson King was haunting in its clarity. Thefar-seeing instrument can’t explain this, or not all of it, Roland thought.It’s as if he has a third eye, one that looks out from his imagination andsees everything. It’s that eye he looks through when he rolls the other two up.To own such an ability as this… and to express it with something as humble as apencil! Ye gods!

He almost expected to see the pulse beginto beat in the hollows of the old man’s temples, where clocksprings of veinshad been delineated with only a few gentle, feathered shadings. At the cornerof the full and sensuous lips, the gunslinger could see the wink of a singlesharp

(tusk)

tooth, and he thought the lips of thedrawing might come to life and part as he looked, revealing a mouthful offangs: one mere wink of white (which was only a bit of unmarked paper, afterall) made the imagination see all the rest, and even to smell the reek of meatthat would accompany each outflow of breath. Patrick had perfectly captured atuft of hair curling from one of the King’s nostrils, and a tiny thread of scarthat wove in and out of the King’s right eyebrow like a bit of string. It was amarvelous piece of work, better by far than the portrait the mute boy had doneof Susa