Stephen King – The Dark Tower

breaking through. Once they do, they’ll be free to roam wherever they want.”

Roland considered this silently for a few moments, rocking back and forth on the eroded

heels of his boots. He hoped he and Susannah would be long gone before that breakthrough

happened…but perhaps it would happen before Mordred got here, and the halfling would

have to face them, if he wanted to follow. Baby Mordred against the ancient monsters from

under the earth—that was a happy thought.

At last he nodded for Susannah to go on.

“We heard todash chimes coming from some of the passages, too. Not just from behind the

doors but from passages with no doors to block em off! Do you see what that means?”

Roland did. If they picked the wrong one—or if Ted and his friends were wrong about the

passageway they had marked—he, Susannah, and Oy would likely disappear forever

instead of coming out on the far side of Castle Discordia.

“They wouldn’t leave me down there—they took me back as far as the infirmary before

going on themselves—and I was damned glad. I wasn’t looking forward to finding my way

alone, although I guess I probably could’ve.”

Roland put an arm around her and gave her a hug. “And their plan was to use the door that

the Wolves used?”

“Uh-huh, the one at the end of theORANGE PASS corridor. They’ll come out where the

Wolves did, find their way to the River Whye, and then across it to Calla Bryn Sturgis. The

Calla-folkenwill take them in, won’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And once they hear the whole story, they won’t…won’t lynch them or anything?”

“I’m sure not. Henchick will know they’re telling the truth and stand up for them, even if

no one else will.”

“They’re hoping to use the Doorway Cave to get back America-side.” She sighed. “I hope

it works for them, but I have my doubts.”

Roland did, as well. But the four of them were powerful, and Ted had struck him as a man

of extraordinary determination and resource. The Manni-folk were also powerful, in their

way, and great travelers between the worlds. He thought that, sooner or later, Ted and his

friends probablywould get back to America. He considered telling Susannah that it would

happen if ka willed it, then thought better of it. Ka was not her favorite word just now, and

he could hardly blame her for that.

“Now hear me very well and think hard, Susannah. Does the wordDandelo mean anything

to you?”

Oy looked up, eyes bright.

She thought about it. “It might have some faint ring,” she said, “but I can’t do better than

that. Why?”

Roland told her what he believed: that as Eddie lay dying, he had been granted some sort

of vision about a thing…or a place…or a person. Something named Dandelo. Eddie had

passed this on to Jake, Jake had passed it to Oy, and Oy had passed it on to Roland.

Susannah was frowning doubtfully. “It’s maybe been handed around too much. There was

this game we used to play when we were kids. Whisper, it was called. The first kid would

think something up, a word or a phrase, and whisper it to the next kid. You could only hear

it once, no repeats allowed. The next kid would pass on what he thoughthe’d heard, and the

next, and the next. By the time it got to the last kid in line, it was something entirely

different, and everyone would have a good laugh. But if this is wrong, I don’t think we’ll be laughing.”

“Well,” Roland said, “we’ll keep a lookout and hope that I got it right. Mayhap it means

nothing at all.” But he didn’t really believe that.

“What are we going to do for clothes, if it gets colder than this?” she asked.

“We’ll make what we need. I know how. It’s something else we don’t need to worry about

today. What wedo need to worry about is finding something to eat. I suppose if we have to,

we can find Nigel’s pantry—”

“I don’t want to go back under the Dogan until we have to,” Susannah said. “There’s got to

be a kitchen near the infirmary; they must have fed those poor kids something.”

Roland considered this, then nodded. It was a good idea.

“Let’s do it now,” she said. “I don’t even want to be on the top floor of that place after

dark.”

Four

On Turtleback Lane, in the year of ’02, month of August, Stephen King awakes from a

waking dream of Fedic. He types“I don’t even want to be on the top floor of that place after

dark.” The words appear on the screen before him. It’s the end of what he calls a

subchapter, but that doesn’t always mean he’s done for the day. Being done for the day

depends on what he hears. Or, more properly, on what he doesn’t. What he listens for is

Ves’-Ka Gan, the Song of the Turtle. This time the music, which is faint on some days and so loud on others that it almost deafens him, seems to have ceased. It will return tomorrow.

At least, it always has.

He pushes the control-key and the S-key together. The computer gives a little chime,

indicating that the material he’s written today has been saved. Then he gets up, wincing at

the pain in his hip, and walks to the window of his office. It looks out on the driveway

slanting up at a steep angle to the road where he now rarely walks. (And on the main road,

Route 7, never.) The hip is very bad this morning, and the big muscles of his thigh are on

fire. He rubs the hip absently as he stands looking out.

Roland, you bastard, you gave me back the pain,he thinks. It runs down his right leg like a

red-hot rope, can ya not say Gawd, can ya not say Gawd-bomb, and he’s the one who got

stuck with it in the end. It’s been three years since the accident that almost took his life and the pain is still there. It’s less now, the human body has an amazing engine of healing

inside it (a hot-enj,he thinks, and smiles), but sometimes it’s still bad. He doesn’t think

about it much when he’s writing, writing’s a sort of benign todash, but it’s always stiff after he’s spent a couple of hours at his desk.

He thinks of Jake. He’s sorry as hell that Jake died, and he guesses that when this last book is published, the readers are going to be justwild . And why not? Some of them have known

Jake Chambers for twenty years, almost twice as long as the boy actually lived. Oh, they’ll

be wild, all right, and when he writes back and says he’s as sorry as they are, assurprised as they are, will they believe him? Not on your tintype, as his grandfather used to say. He

thinks ofMisery —Annie Wilkes calling Paul Sheldon a cockadoodie brat for trying to get

rid of silly, bubbleheaded Misery Chastain. Annie shouting that Paul was thewriter and the

writer is God to his characters, he doesn’t have to kill any of them if he doesn’t want to.

But he’snot God. At least not in this case. He knows damned well that Jake Chambers

wasn’t there on the day of his accident, nor Roland Deschain, either—the idea’s laughable,

they’re make-believe, for Christ’s sake—but he also knows that at some point the song he

hears when he sits at his fancy Macintosh writing-machine became Jake’s death-song, and

to ignore that would have been to lose touch with Ves’-Ka Gan entirely, and he must not do

that. Not if he is to finish. That song is the only thread he has, the trail of breadcrumbs he must follow if he is ever to emerge from this bewildering forest of plot he has planted,

and—

Are you sureyouplanted it?

Well…no. In fact he is not. So call for the men in the white coats.

And are you completely sure Jake wasn’t there that day? After all, how much of the

damned accident do you actually remember?

Not much. He remembers seeing the top of Bryan Smith’s van appear over the horizon,

and realizing it’s not on the road, where it should be, but on the soft shoulder. After that he

remembers Smith sitting on a rock wall, looking down at him, and telling him that his leg was broke in at least six places, maybe seven. But between these two memories—the one

of the approach and the one of the immediate aftermath—the film of his memory has been

burned red.

Oralmost red.

But sometimes in the night, when he awakes from dreams he can’t quite remember…

Sometimes there are…well…

“Sometimes there are voices,” he says. “Why don’t you just say it?”

And then, laughing: “I guess I just did.”

He hears the approaching click of toenails down the hall, and Marlowe pokes his long nose