hung, suspended and limp, above Patrick’s head.
Mordred came at Roland without a pause, but his charge was a slow, shambling thing; one
of his legs had been shot away only minutes after his birth, and now another hung limp and
broken, its pincers jerking spasmodically as they dragged on the grass. Roland’s eye had
never been clearer, the chill that surrounded him at moments like this never deeper. He saw
the white node and the blue bombardier’s eyes that werehis eyes. He saw the face of his
only son peering over the back of the abomination and then it was gone in a spray of blood
as his first bullet tore it off. The spider reared up, legs clashing at the black and star-shot sky. Roland’s next two bullets went into its revealed belly and exited through the back,
pulling dark sprays of liquid with it. The spider slewed to one side, perhaps trying to run
away, but its remaining legs would not support it. Mordred Deschain fell into the fire,
casting up a flume of red and orange sparks. It writhed in the embers, the bristles on its
belly beginning to burn, and Roland, grinning bitterly, shot it again. The dying spider
rolled out of the now scattered fire on its back, its remaining legs twitching together in a
knot and then spreading apart. One fell back into the fire and began to burn. The smell was
atrocious.
Roland started forward, meaning to stamp out the little fires the scattered embers had
started in the grass, and then a howl of outraged fury rose in his head.
My son! My only son! You’ve murdered him!
“He was mine, too,” Roland said, looking at the smoldering monstrosity. He could own the
truth. Yes, he could do that much.
Come then! Come, son-killer, and look at your Tower, but know this—you’ll die of old
age at the edge of the Can’-Ka before you ever so much as touch its door! I will never let
you pass! Todash space itself will pass away before I letyoupass! Murderer! Murderer of
your mother, murderer of your friends—aye, every one, for Susannah lies dead with her
throat cut on the other side of the door you sent her through—and now murderer of your
own son!
“Who sent him to me?” Roland asked the voice in his head.
“Who sent yonder child—for that’s what he is, inside that black skin—to his death, ye red
boggart?”
To this there was no answer, so Roland re-holstered his gun and put out the patches of fire
before they could spread. He thought of what the voice had said about Susannah, decided
he didn’t believe it. She might be dead, aye,might be, but he thought Mordred’s Red Father
knew for sure no more than Roland himself did.
The gunslinger let that thought go and went to the tree, where the last of his ka-tet hung,
impaled…but still alive. The gold-ringed eyes looked at Roland with what might almost
have been weary amusement.
“Oy,” Roland said, stretching out his hand, knowing it might be bitten and not caring in the
least. He supposed that part of him—and not a small one, either—wanted to be bitten. “Oy,
we all say thank you.I say thank you, Oy.”
The bumbler did not bite, and spoke but one word.“Olan, ” said he. Then he sighed, licked
the gunslinger’s hand a single time, hung his head down, and died.
Eleven
As dawn strengthened into the clear light of morning, Patrick came hesitantly to where the
gunslinger sat in the dry streambed, amid the roses, with Oy’s body spread across his lap
like a stole. The young man made a soft, interrogative hooting sound.
“Not now, Patrick,” Roland said absently, stroking Oy’s fur. It was dense but smooth to
the touch. He found it hard to believe that the creature beneath it had gone, in spite of the stiffening muscles and the tangled places where the blood had now clotted. He combed
these smooth with his fingers as best he could. “Not now. We have all the livelong day to
get there, and we’ll do fine.”
No, there was no need to hurry; no reason why he should not leisurely mourn the last of his
dead. There had been no doubt in the old King’s voice when he had promised that Roland
should die of old age before he so much as touched the door in the Tower’s base. They
would go, of course, and Roland would study the terrain, but he knew even now that his
idea of coming to the Tower on the old monster’s blind side and then working his way
around was not an idea at all, but a fool’s hope. There had been no doubt in the old villain’s voice; no doubt hiding behind it, either.
And for the time being, none of that mattered. Here was another one he had killed, and if
there was consolation to be had, it was this: Oy would be the last. Now he was alone again
except for Patrick, and Roland had an idea Patrick was immune to the terrible germ the
gunslinger carried, for he had never been ka-tet to begin with.
I only kill my family,Roland thought, stroking the dead billy-bumbler.
What hurt most was remembering how unpleasantly he had spoken to Oy the day
before.If’ee wanted to go with her, thee should have gone when thee had thy chance!
Had he stayed because he knew that Roland would need him? That when push came down
to shove (it was Eddie’s phrase, of course), Patrick would fail?
Why will’ee cast thy sad houken’s eyes on me now?
Because he had known it was to be his last day, and his dying would be hard?
“I think you knew both things,” Roland said, and closed his eyes so he could feel the fur
beneath his hands better. “I’m so sorry I spoke to’ee so—would give the fingers on my
good left hand if I could take the words back. So I would, every one, say true.”
But here as in the Keystone World, time only ran one way. Done was done. There would
be no taking back.
Roland would have said there was no anger left, that every bit of it had been burned away,
but when he felt the tingling all over his skin and understood what it meant, he felt fresh
fury rise in his heart. And he felt the coldness settle into his tired but still talented hands.
Patrick wasdrawing him! Sitting beneath the cottonwood just as if a brave little creature
worth ten of him—no, a hundred!—hadn’t died in that very tree, and for both of them.
It’s his way,Susannah spoke up calmly and gently from deep in his mind.It’s all he has,
everything else has been taken from him—his home world as well as his mother and his
tongue and whatever brains he might once have had. He’s mourning, too, Roland. He’s
frightened, too. This is the only way he has of soothing himself.
Undoubtedly all true. But the truth of it actually fed his rage instead of damping it down.
He put his remaining gun aside (it lay gleaming between two of the singing roses) because
having it close to hand wouldn’t do, no, not in his current mood. Then he rose to his feet,
meaning to give Patrick the scolding of his life, if for no other reason than it would make
Roland feel a little bit better himself. He could already hear the first words:Do you enjoy
drawing those who saved your mostly worthless life, stupid boy? Does it cheer your heart?
He was opening his mouth to begin when Patrick put his pencil down and seized his new
toy, instead. The eraser was half-gone now, and there were no others; as well as Roland’s
gun, Susannah had taken the little pink nubbins with her, probably for no other reason than
that she’d been carrying the jar in her pocket and her mind had been studying other, more
important, matters. Patrick poised the eraser over his drawing, then looked up—perhaps to
make sure he really wanted to erase at all—and saw the gunslinger standing in the
streambed and frowning at him. Patrick knew immediately that Roland was angry,
although he probably had no idea under heaven as towhy, and his face cramped with fear
and unhappiness. Roland saw him now as Dandelo must have seen him time and time again,
and his anger collapsed at the thought. He would not have Patrick fear him—for
Susannah’s sake if not his own, he would not have Patrick fear him.
And discovered that itwas for his own sake, after all.
Why not kill him, then?asked the sly, pulsing voice in his head.Kill him and put him out of
his misery, if thee feels so tender toward him? He and the bumbler can enter the clearing
together. They can make a place there for you, gunslinger.
Roland shook his head and tried to smile. “Nay, Patrick, son of Sonia,” he said (for that