The Dark Tower

“Would you mind a little company as you goyour rounds?” Pimli asked.

“Why not?” The Weasel replied. He smiled,revealing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. And sang, in his odd and waveringvoice: “ ‘Dream with me… I’m on my way to the moon of my fa-aathers…’”

“Give me one minute,” Pimli said, and gotup.

“Prayers?” Finli asked.

Pimli stopped in the doorway. “Yes,” hesaid. “Since you ask. Any comments, Finli o’ Tego?”

“Just one, perhaps.” The smiling thing withthe human body and the sleek brown weasel’s head continued to smile. “If prayer’sso exalted, why do you kneel in the same room where you sit to shit?”

“Because the Bible suggests that when oneis in company, one should do it in one’s closet. Further comments?”

“Nay, nay.” Finli waved a negligent hand.“Do thy best and thy worst, as the Ma

Three

In the bathroom, Paul o’ Rahway closed thelid on the toilet, knelt on the tiles, and folded his hands.

If prayer’s so exalted, why do you kneelin the same room where you sit to shit?

Maybe I should have said because itkeeps me humble, he thought. Because it keeps me right-sized. It’s dirtfrom which we arose and it’s dirt to which we return, and if there’s a roomwhere it’s hard to forget that, it’s this one.

“God,” he said, “grant me strength when Iam weak, answers when I am confused, courage when I am afraid. Help me to hurtno one who doesn’t deserve it, and even then not unless they leave me no otherchoice. Lord…”

And while he’s on his knees before theclosed toilet seat, this man who will shortly be asking his God to forgive himfor working to end creation (and with absolutely no sense of irony), we mightas well look at him a bit more closely. We won’t take long, for Pimli Prentissisn’t central to our tale of Roland and his ka-tet. Still, he’s a fascinatingman, full of folds and contradictions and dead ends. He’s an alcoholic whobelieves deeply in a personal God, a man of compassion who is now on the veryverge of toppling the Tower and sending the trillions of worlds that spin onits axis flying into the darkness in a trillion different directions. He wouldquickly put Dinky Earnshaw and Stanley Ruiz to death if he knew what they’dbeen up to… and he spends most of every Mother’s Day in tears, for he loved hisown Ma dearly and misses her bitterly. When it comes to the Apocalypse, here’sthe perfect guy for the job, one who knows how to get kneebound and can speakto the Lord God of Hosts like an old friend.

And here’s an irony: Paul Prentiss could beright out of the ads that proclaim “I got my job through The New York Times!”In 1970, laid off from the prison then known as Attica (he and NelsonRockefeller missed the mega-riot, at least), he spied an ad in the Timeswith this headline:

WANTED: EXPERIENCEDCORRECTIONS OFFICER

FOR HIGHLYRESPONSIBLE POSITION

IN PRIVATE INSTITUTION

High Pay! TopBenefits! Must Be Willing to Travel!

The high pay had turned out to be what hisbeloved Ma would have called “a pure-D, high-corn lie,” because there was nopay at all, not in the sense an America-side corrections officer would haveunderstood, but the benefits… yes, the be

Which was a hundred per cent okey-fine withMaster Prentiss, who had gone through the solemn taheen name-changing ceremonysome twelve years before and had never regretted it. Paul Prentiss had becomePimli Prentiss. It was at that point he had turned his heart as well as hismind away from what he now only called “America-side.” And not because he’d hadthe best baked Alaska and the best champagne of his life here. Not because he’dhad sim sex with hundreds of beautiful women, either. It was because this washis job, and he intended to finish it. Because he’d come to believe that theirwork at the Devar-Toi was God’s as well as the Crimson King’s. And behind theidea of God was something even more powerful: the image of a billion universestucked into an egg which he, the former Paul Prentiss of Rahway, once aforty-thousand-dollar-a-year man with a stomach ulcer and a bad medicalbenefits program okayed by a corrupt union, now held in the palm of his hand.He understood that he was also in that egg, and that he would cease to exist asflesh when he broke it, but surely if there was heaven and a God in it, thenboth superseded the power of the Tower. It was to that heaven he would go, andbefore that throne he would kneel to ask forgiveness for his sins. And he wouldbe welcomed in with a hearty Well done, thou good and faithful servant.His Ma would be there, and she would hug him, and they would enter thefellowship of Jesus together. That day would come, Pimli was quite sure, andprobably before Reap Moon rolled around again.

Not that he considered himself a religiousnut. Not at all. These thoughts of God and heaven he kept strictly to himself.As far as the rest of the world was concerned, he was just a joe doing a job,one he intended to do well to the very end. Certainly he saw himself as novillain, but no truly dangerous man ever has. Think of Ulysses S. Grant, thatCivil War general who’d said he intended to fight it out on this line if it tookall summer.

In the Algul Siento, summer was almostover.

Four

The Master’s home was a tidy Cape Cod atone end of the Mall. It was called Shapleigh House (Pimli had no idea why), andso of course the Breakers called it Shit House. At the other end of the Mallwas a much larger dwelling—a gracefully rambling Queen A

Pimli Prentiss and Finli o’ Tego strolled upthe Mall in companionable silence… except, that was, when they passed off-dutyBreakers, either alone or in company. Pimli greeted each of them with unfailingcourtesy. The greetings they returned varied from the completely cheerful tosullen grunts. Yet each made some sort of response, and Pimli counted this avictory. He cared about them. Whether they liked it or not—manydidn’t—he cared about them. They were certainly easier to deal with thanthe murderers, rapists, and armed robbers of Attica.

Some were reading old newspapers ormagazines. A foursome was throwing horseshoes. Another foursome was on theputting green. Tanya Leeds and Joey Rastosovich were playing chess under agraceful old elm, the sunlight making dapples on their faces. They greeted himwith real pleasure, and why not? Tanya Leeds was now actually TanyaRastosovich, for Pimli had married them a month ago, just like the captain of aship. And he supposed that in a way, that was what this was: the good ship AlgulSiento, a cruise vessel that sailed the dark seas of Thunderclap in her ownsu

“How’s it going, Tanya? Joseph?” AlwaysJoseph and never Joey, at least not to his face; he didn’t like it.