The Dark Tower

Perhaps two dozen floors above Ringo’s Roomwas a scattering of breadcrumbs and a limp bundle of feathers that had oncebelonged to a hawk named David—no pet he, but certainly a friend. Thefirst of Roland’s many sacrifices to the Dark Tower. On one section of the wallRoland saw David carved in flight, his stubby wings spread above all thegathered court of Gilead (Marten the Enchanter not least among them). And tothe left of the door leading onto the balcony, David was carved again. Here hiswings were folded as he fell upon Cort like a blind bullet, heedless of Cort’supraised stick.

Old times.

Old times and old crimes.

Not far from Cort was the laughing face ofthe whore with whom the boy had sported that night. The smell in David’s Room washer perfume, cheap and sweet. As the gunslinger drew it in, he rememberedtouching the whore’s pubic curls and was shocked to remember now what he hadremembered then, as his fingers slid toward her slicky-sweet cleft: being freshout of his baby’s bath, with his mother’s hands upon him.

He began to grow hard, and Roland fled thatroom in fear.

Six

There was no more red to light his way now,only the eldritch blue glow of the windows—glass eyes that were alive,glass eyes that looked upon the gunless intruder. Outside the Dark Tower, theroses of Can’-Ka No Rey had closed for another day. Part of his mind marveledthat he should be here at all; that he had one by one surmounted the obstaclesplaced in his path, as dreadfully single-minded as ever. I’m like one of theold people’s robots, he thought. One that will either accomplish thetask for which it has been made or beat itself to death trying.

Another part of him was not surprised atall, however. This was the part that dreamed as the Beams themselves must, andthis darker self thought again of the horn that had fallen from Cuthbert’sfingers—Cuthbert, who had gone to his death laughing. The horn that mightto this very day lie where it had fallen on the rocky slope of Jericho Hill.

And of course I’ve seen these roomsbefore! They’re telling my life, after all.

Indeed they were. Floor by floor and taleby tale (not to mention death by death), the rising rooms of the Dark Towerrecounted Roland Deschain’s life and quest. Each held its memento; each its signaturearoma. Many times there was more than a single floor devoted to a single year,but there was always at least one. And after the thirty-eighth room (which isnineteen doubled, do ya not see it), he wished to look no more. This onecontained the charred stake to which Susan Delgado had been bound. He did notenter, but looked at the face upon the wall. That much he owed her. Roland,I love thee! Susan Delgado had screamed, and he knew it was the truth, forit was only her love that rendered her recognizable. And, love or no love, inthe end she had still burned.

This is a place of death, hethought, and not just here. All these rooms. Every floor.

Yes, gunslinger, whispered the Voiceof the Tower. But only because your life has made it so.

After the thirty-eighth floor, Rolandclimbed faster.

Seven

Standing outside, Roland had judged theTower to be roughly six hundred feet high. But as he peered into the hundredthroom, and then the two hundredth, he felt sure he must have climbed eight timessix hundred. Soon he would be closing in on the mark of distance his friendsfrom America-side had called a mile. That was more floors than there possiblycould be—no Tower could be a mile high!—but still he climbed,climbed until he was nearly ru

Soon now, quite likely.

The light he sensed behind his eyes wasbrighter now, and did not seem so blue. He passed a room containing Zoltan, thebird from the weed-eater’s hut. He passed a room containing the atomic pumpfrom the Way Station. He climbed more stairs, paused outside a room containinga dead lobstrosity, and by now the light he sensed was much brighter andno longer blue.

It was…

He was quite sure it was…

It was sunlight. Past twilight it might be,with Old Star and Old Mother shining from above the Dark Tower, but Roland wasquite sure he was seeing—or sensing—sunlight.

He climbed on without looking into any moreof the rooms, without bothering to smell their aromas of the past. Thestairwell narrowed until his shoulders nearly touched its curved stone sides.No songs now, unless the wind was a song, for he heard it soughing.

He passed one final open door. Lying on thefloor of the tiny room beyond it was a pad from which the face had been erased.All that remained were two red eyes, glaring up.

I have reached the present. I havereached now.

Yes, and there was sunlight, commala sunlightinside his eyes and waiting for him. It was hot and harsh upon his skin. Thesound of the wind was louder, and that sound was also harsh. Unforgiving.Roland looked at the stairs curving upward; now his shoulders wouldtouch the walls, for the passage was no wider than the sides of a coffin.Nineteen more stairs, and then the room at the top of the Dark Tower would behis.

“I come!” he called. “If’ee hear me, hearme well! I come!”

He took the stairs one by one, walking withhis back straight and his head held up. The other rooms had been open to hiseye. The final one was closed off, his way blocked by a ghostwood door with asingle word carved upon it. That word was

ROLAND.

He grasped the knob. It was engraved with awild rose wound around a revolver, one of those great old guns from his fatherand now lost forever.

Yet it will be yours again,whispered the voice of the Tower and the voice of the roses—these voiceswere now one.

What do you mean?

To this there was no answer, but the knobturned beneath his hand, and perhaps that was an answer. Roland opened the doorat the top of the Dark Tower.

He saw and understood at once, theknowledge falling upon him in a hammerblow, hot as the sun of the desert thatwas the apotheosis of all deserts. How many times had he climbed these stairsonly to find himself peeled back, curved back, turned back? Not to thebegi

“Oh, no!” he screamed. “Please, notagain! Have pity! Have mercy!”

The hands pulled him forward regardless.The hands of the Tower knew no mercy.

They were the hands of Gan, the hands ofka, and they knew no mercy.

He smelled alkali, bitter as tears. Thedesert beyond the door was white; blinding; waterless; without feature save forthe faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on thehorizon. The smell beneath the alkali was that of the devil-grass which broughtsweet dreams, nightmares, death.

But not for you, gunslinger. Never foryou. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.

And each time you forget the last time.For you, each time is the first time.