Stephen King – The Dark Tower

corridor to his daughter’s office, he had picked a cane out of a faux elephant-foot stand, and now he thumped it on the expensive carpet for emphasis. Marian bore this patiently.

“SayGawd -bomb!”

“My father’s recent friendship with the Reverend Harrigan, who holds court down below,

has not been the high point in my life,” Marian said with a sigh, “but never mind. Did you

read the plaque, Roland?”

He nodded. Nancy Deepneau had used a different word—sign or sigul—but he understood

it came to the same. “The letters changed into Great Letters. I could read it very well.”

“And what did it say?”

“GIVEN BY THE TET CORPORATION, IN HONOR OF EDWARD CANTOR DEAN

AND JOHN “JAKE” CHAMBERS.”He paused. “Then it said ‘Cam-a-cam-mal, Pria-toi,

Gan delah,’ which you might say asWHITE OVER RED, THUS GAN WILLS EVER .”

“And to us it saysGOOD OVER EVIL, THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD ,” Marian said.

“God be praised!” Moses Carver said, and thumped his cane. “May thePrim rise!”

There was a perfunctory knock at the door and then the woman from the outer desk came

in, carrying a silver tray. Roland was fascinated to see a small black knob suspended in

front of her lips, and a narrow black armature that disappeared into her hair. Some sort of

far-speaking device, surely. Nancy Deepneau and Marian Carver helped her set out

steaming cups of tea and coffee, bowls of sugar and honey, a crock of cream. There was

also a plate of sandwiches. Roland’s stomach rumbled. He thought of his friends in the

ground—no more popkins for them—and also of Irene Tassenbaum, sitting in the little

park across the street, patiently waiting for him. Either thought alone should have been

enough to kill his appetite, but his stomach once more made its impudent noise. Some parts

of a man were conscienceless, a fact he supposed he had known since childhood. He helped

himself to a popkin, dumped a heaping spoonful of sugar into his tea, then added honey for good measure. He would make this as brief as possible and return to Irene as soon as he

could, but in the meantime…

“May it do you fine, sir,” Moses Carver said, and blew across his coffee cup. “Over the

teeth, over the gums, look out guts, here it comes! Hee!”

“Dad and I have a house on Montauk Point,” said Marian, pouring cream into her own

coffee, “and we were out there this past weekend. At around five-fifteen on Saturday

afternoon, I got a call from one of the security people here. The Hammarskjöld Plaza

Association employs them, but the Tet Corporation pays them a bonus so we may

know…certain things of interest, let’s say…as soon as they occur. We’ve been watching

that plaque in the lobby with extraordinary interest as the nineteenth of June approached,

Roland. Would it surprise you to know that, until roughly quarter of five on that day, it

readGIVEN BY THE TET CORPORATION, IN HONOR OF THE BEAM FAMILY,

AND IN MEMORY OF GILEAD ?”

Roland considered this, sipped his tea (it was hot and strong and good), then shook his

head. “No.”

She leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “And why do you say so?”

“Because until Saturday afternoon between four and five o’clock, nothing was sure. Even

with the Breakers stopped, nothing was sure until Stephen King was safe.” He glanced

around at them. “Do you know about the Breakers?”

Marian nodded. “Not the details, but we know the Beam they were working to destroy is

safe from them now, and that it wasn’t so badly damaged it can’t regenerate.” She hesitated,

then said: “And we know of your loss. Both of your losses. We’re ever so sorry, Roland.”

“Those boys are safe in the arms of Jesus,” Marian’s father said. “And even if they ain’t,

they’re together in the clearing.”

Roland, who wanted to believe this, nodded and said thankya. Then he turned back to

Marian. “The thing with the writer was very close. He was hurt, and badly. Jake died

saving him. He put his body between King and the van-mobile that would have taken his

life.”

“King is going to live,” Nancy said. “And he’s going to write again. We have that on very

good authority.”

“Whose?”

Marian leaned forward. “In a minute,” she said. “The point is, Roland, we believe it, we’re

sure of it, and King’s safety over the next few years means that your work in the matter of

the Beams is done: Ves’-Ka Gan.”

Roland nodded. The song would continue.

“There’s plenty of work for us ahead,” Marian went on, “thirty years’ worth at least, we

calculate, but—”

“But it’sour work, not yours,” Nancy said.

“You have this on the same ‘good authority’?” Roland asked, sipping his tea. Hot as it was,

he’d gotten half of the large cup inside of him already.

“Yes. Your quest to defeat the forces of the Crimson King has been successful. The

Crimson King himself—”

“That wa’n’tnever this man’s quest and you know it!” the centenarian sitting next to the

handsome black woman said, and he once more thumped his cane for emphasis. “His

quest—”

“Dad, that’s enough.” Her voice was hard enough to make the old man blink.

“Nay, let him speak,” Roland said, and they all looked at him, surprised by (and a little

afraid of) that dry whipcrack. “Let him speak, for he says true. If we’re going to have it out, let us have it all out. For me, the Beams have always been no more than means to an end.

Had they broken, the Tower would have fallen. Had the Tower fallen, I should never have

gained it, and climbed to the top of it.”

“You’re saying you cared more for the Dark Tower than for the continued existence of the

universe,” Nancy Deepneau said. She spoke in a just-let-me-make

-sure-I’ve-got-this-right voice and looked at Roland with a mixture of wonder and

contempt. “For the continued existence ofall the universes.”

“The Dark Toweris existence,” Roland said, “and I have sacrificed many friends to reach it

over the years, including a boy who called me father. I have sacrificed my own soul in the

bargain, lady-sai, so turn thy impudent glass another way. May you do it soon and do it

well, I beg.”

His tone was polite but dreadfully cold. All the color was dashed from Nancy Deepneau’s

face, and the teacup in her hands trembled so badly that Roland reached out and plucked it

from her hand, lest it spill and burn her.

“Take me not amiss,” he said. “Understand me, for we’ll never speak more. What was

done was done in both worlds, well and ill, for ka and against it. Yet there’s more beyond

all worlds than you know, and more behind them than you could ever guess. My time is

short, so let’s move on.”

“Well said, sir!” Moses Carver growled, and thumped his cane again.

“If I offended, I’m truly sorry,” Nancy said.

To this Roland made no reply, for he knew she was not sorry a bit—she was only afraid of

him. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence that Marian Carver finally broke. “We

don’t have any Breakers of our own, Roland, but at the ranch in Taos we employ a dozen

telepaths and precogs. What they make together is sometimes uncertain but always greater

than the sum of its parts. Do you know the term ‘good-mind’?”

The gunslinger nodded.

“They make a version of that,” she said, “although I’m sure it’s not so great or powerful as

that the Breakers in Thunderclap were able to produce.”

“B’cause they had hundreds,” the old man grumped.“And they were better fed.”

“Also because the servants of the King were more than willing to kidnap any who were

particularly powerful,” Nancy said, “they always had what we’d call ‘the pick of the litter.’

Still, ours have served us well enough.”

“Whose idea was it to put such folk to work for you?” Roland asked.

“Strange as it might seem to you, partner,” Moses said, “it was Cal Tower. He never

contributed much—never did much but c’lect his books and drag his heels, greedy

highfalutin whitebread sumbitch that he was—”

His daughter gave him a warning look. Roland found he had to struggle to keep a straight

face. Moses Carver might be a hundred years old, but he had pegged Calvin Tower in a

single phrase.

“Anyway, he read about putting tellypaths to work in a bunch of science fiction books. Do

you know about science fiction?”

Roland shook his head.

“Well, ne’mine. Most of it’s bullshit, but every now and then a good idear crops up. Listen

to me and I’ll tell you a good ’un. You’ll understand if you know what Tower and your

friend Mist’ Dean talked about twenty-two years ago, when Mist’ Dean come n saved

Tower from them two honky thugs.”

“Dad,” Marian said warningly. “You quit with the nigger talk, now. You’re old but not