is no more than one hundred and twenty wheels from here.”
Susannah felt a great and fluttery lift-drop in her stomach. One hundred and twenty wheels
was a hundred miles, perhaps even a bit less. Theywere close. So close it was scary.
“You would not want to come upon the Tower after dark,” Bill said. “At least I shouldn’t
think so, considering the new resident. But what’s one more night camped at the side of the
road to such great travelers as yourselves? Not much, I should say! But even with one last
night on the road (and barring breakdowns, which the gods know are always possible),
you’d have your goal in sight by mid-morning of tomorrowday.”
Roland considered this long and carefully. Susannah had to tell herself to breathe while he
did so, because part of her didn’t want to.
I’m not ready,that part thought. And there was a deeper part—a part that remembered
every nuance of what had become a recurring (and evolving) dream—that thought
something else:I’m not meant to go at all. Not all the way.
At last Roland said: “I thank you, Bill—we all say thank you, I’m sure—but I think we’ll
pass on your kind offer. Were you to ask me why, I couldn’t say. Only that part of me
thinks that tomorrowday’s too soon. That part of me thinks we should go the rest of the way
on foot, just as we’ve already traveled so far.” He took a deep breath, let it out. “I’m not
ready to be there yet. Not quite ready.”
You too,Susannah marveled.You too .
“I need a little more time to prepare my mind and my heart. Mayhap even my soul.” He
reached into his back pocket and brought out the photocopy of the Robert Browning poem
that had been left for them in Dandelo’s medicine chest. “There’s something writ in here
about remembering the old times before coming to the last battle…or the last stand. It’s
well-said. And perhaps, really, all I need is what this poet speaks of—a draught of earlier,
happier sights. I don’t know. But unless Susannah objects, I believe we’ll go on foot.”
“Susannah doesn’t object,” she said quietly. “Susannah thinks it’s just what the doctor
ordered. Susannah only objects to being dragged along behind like a busted tailpipe.”
Roland gave her a grateful (if distracted) smile—he seemed to have gone away from her
somehow during these last few days—and then turned back to Bill. “I wonder if you have a
cart I could pull? For we’ll have to take at least some gunna…and there’s Patrick. He’ll
have to ride part of the time.”
Patrick looked indignant. He cocked an arm in front of him, made a fist, and flexed his
muscle. The result—a tiny goose-egg rising on the biceps of his drawing-arm—seemed to
shame him, for he dropped it quickly.
Susannah smiled and reached out to pat his knee. “Don’t look like that, sugar. It’s not your
fault that you spent God knows how long caged up like Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s
house.”
“I’m sure I have such a thing,” Bill said, “and a battery-powered version for Susannah.
What I don’t have, I can make. It would take an hour or two at most.”
Roland was calculating. “If we leave here with five hours of daylight ahead of us, we
might be able to make twelve wheels by sunset. What Susannah would call nine or ten
miles. Another five days at that rather leisurely speed would bring us to the Tower I’ve
spent my life searching for. I’d come to it around sunset if possible, for that’s when I’ve
always seen it in my dreams. Susannah?”
And the voice inside—that deep voice—whispered:Four nights. Four nights to dream.
That should be enough. Maybe more than enough . Of course, ka would have to intervene.
If they had indeed outrun its influence, that wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen. But Susannah
now thought ka reached everywhere, even to the Dark Tower. Was, perhaps, embodiedby
the Dark Tower.
“That’s fine,” she told him in a faint voice.
“Patrick?” Roland asked. “What do you say?”
Patrick shrugged and flipped a hand in their direction, hardly looking up from his pad.
Whatever they wanted, that gesture said. Susannah guessed that Patrick understood little
about the Dark Tower, and cared less. And why would he care? He was free of the monster,
and his belly was full. Those things were enough for him. He had lost his tongue, but he
could sketch to his heart’s content. She was sure that to Patrick, that seemed like more than an even trade. And yet…and yet…
He’s not meant to go, either. Not him, not Oy, not me. But what is to become of us, then?
She didn’t know, but she was queerly unworried about it. Ka would tell. Ka, and her
dreams.
Four
An hour later the three humes, the bumbler, and Bill the robot stood clustered around a
cut-down wagon that looked like a slightly larger version of Ho Fat’s Luxury Taxi. The
wheels were tall but thin, and spun like a dream. Even when it was full, Susannah thought,
it would be like pulling a feather. At least while Roland was fresh. Pulling it uphill would
undoubtedly rob him of his energy after awhile, but as they ate the food they were carrying,
Ho Fat II would grow lighter still…and she thought there wouldn’t be many hills, anyway.
They had come to the open lands, the prairie-lands; all the snow- and tree-covered ridges
were behind them. Bill had provided her with an electric runabout that was more scooter than golf-cart. Her days of being dragged along behind (“like a busted tailpipe”) were
done.
“If you’ll give me another half an hour, I can smooth this off,” Bill said, running a
three-fingered steel hand along the edge where he had cut off the front half of the small
wagon that was now Ho Fat II.
“We say thankya, but it won’t be necessary,” Roland said. “We’ll lay a couple of hides
over it, just so.”
He’s impatient to be off,Susannah thought,and after all this time, why wouldn’t be be? I’m
anxious to be off, myself.
“Well, if you say so, let it be so,” Bill said, sounding unhappy about it. “I suppose I just
hate to see you go. When will I see humes again?”
None of them answered that. They didn’t know.
“There’s a mighty loud horn on the roof,” Bill said, pointing at the Federal. “I don’t know
what sort of trouble it was meant to signal—radiation leaks, mayhap, or some sort of
attack—but I do know the sound of it will carry across a hundred wheels at least. More, if
the wind’s blowing in the right direction. If I should see the fellow you think is following
you, or if such motion-sensors as still work pick him up, I’ll set it off. Perhaps you’ll hear.”
“Thank you,” Roland said.
“Were you to drive, you could outrun him easily,” Bill pointed out. “You’d reach the
Tower and never have to see him.”
“That’s true enough,” Roland said, but he showed absolutely no sign of changing his mind,
and Susannah was glad.
“What will you do about the one you call his Red Father, if he really does command
Can’-Ka No Rey?”
Roland shook his head, although he had discussed this probability with Susannah. He
thought they might be able to circle the Tower from a distance and come then to its base
from a direction that was blind to the balcony on which the Crimson King was trapped.
Then they could work their way around to the door beneath him. They wouldn’t know if
that was possible until they could actually see the Tower and the lay of the land, of course.
“Well, there’ll be water if God wills it,” said the robot formerly known as Stuttering Bill,
“or so the old people did say. And mayhap I’ll see you again, in the clearing at the end of
the path, if nowhere else. If robots are allowed to go there. I hope it’s so, for there’s many I’ve known that I’d see again.”
He sounded so forlorn that Susannah went to him and raised her arms to be picked up, not thinking about the absurdity of wanting to hug a robot. But he did and she did—quite
fervently, too. Bill made up for the malicious Andy, back in Calla Bryn Sturgis, and was
worth hugging for that, if nothing else. As his arms closed around her, it occurred to
Susannah that Bill could break her in two with those titanium-steel arms if he wanted to.
But he didn’t. He was gentle.
“Long days and pleasant nights, Bill,” she said. “May you do well, and we all say so.”
“Thank you, madam,” he said and put her down. “I say thudda-thank, thumma-thank,
thukka—”Wheep! And he struck his head, producing a bright clang. “I say thank ya
kindly.” He paused. “Idid fix the stutter, say true, but as I may have told you, I am not