Stephen King – The Dark Tower

that he’d only held out as long as this from pride; he had wanted to kill the Crimson King,

not merely send him into some null zone. And of course there was no guarantee that Patrick

could do to the King what he’d done to the sore on Susannah’s face. But the pull of the

Tower would soon be too strong to resist, and all his other choices were gone.

“Change places with me, Patrick.”

Patrick did, scrambling carefully over Roland. He was now at the edge of the pyramid

nearest the road.

“Look through the far-seeing instrument. Lay it in that notch—yes, just so—and look.”

Patrick did, and for what seemed to Roland a very long time. The voice of the Tower,

meanwhile, sang and chimed and cajoled. At long last, Patrick looked back at him.

“Now take thy pad, Patrick. Draw yonder man.” Not that hewas a man, but at least he

looked like one.

At first, however, Patrick only continued to gaze at Roland, biting his lip. Then, at last, he took the sides of the gunslinger’s head in his hands and brought it forward until they were

brow to brow.

Very hard,whispered a voice deep in Roland’s mind. It was not the voice of a boy at all,

but of a grown man. A powerful man.He’s not entirely there. He darkles. He tincts.

Where had Roland heard those words before?

No time to think about it now.

“Are you saying you can’t?” Roland asked, injecting (with an effort) a note of

disappointed incredulity into his voice. “Thatyou can’t? ThatPatrick can’t? TheArtist

can’t?”

Patrick’s eyes changed. For a moment Roland saw in them the expression that would be

there permanently if he grew to be a man…and the paintings in Sayre’s office said that he

would do that, at least on some track of time, in some world. Old enough, at least, to paint

what he had seen this day. That expression would be hauteur, if he grew to be an old man

with a little wisdom to match his talent; now it was only arrogance. The look of a kid who

knows he’s faster than blue blazes, the best, and cares to know nothing else. Roland knew

that look, for had he not seen it gazing back at him from a hundred mirrors and still pools of water when he had been as young as Patrick Danville was now?

I can,came the voice in Roland’s head.I only say it won’t be easy. I’ll need the eraser .

Roland shook his head at once. In his pocket, his hand closed around what remained of the

pink nubbin and held it tight.

“No,” he said. “Thee must draw cold, Patrick. Every line right the first time. The erasing

comes later.”

For a moment the look of arrogance faltered, but only for a moment. When it returned,

what came with it pleased the gunslinger mightily, and eased him a little, as well. It was a

look of hot excitement. It was the look the talented wear when, after years of just moving

sleepily along from pillar to post, they are finally challenged to do something that will tax their abilities, stretch them to their limits. Perhaps even beyond them.

Patrick rolled to the binoculars again, which he’d left propped aslant just below the notch.

He looked long while the voices sang their growing imperative in Roland’s head.

And at last he rolled away, took up his pad, and began to draw the most important picture

of his life.

Seven

It was slow work compared to Patrick’s usual method—rapid strokes that produced a completed and compelling drawing in only minutes. Roland again and again had to restrain

himself from shouting at the boy:Hurry up! For the sake of all the gods, hurry up! Can’t

you see that I’m in agony here?

But Patrick didn’t see and wouldn’t have cared in any case. He was totally absorbed in his

work, caught up in the unknowing greed of it, pausing only to go back to the binoculars

now and then for another long look at his red-robed subject. Sometimes he slanted the

pencil to shade a little, then rubbed with his thumb to produce a shadow. Sometimes he

rolled his eyes back in his head, showing the world nothing but the waxy gleam of the

whites. It was as if he were conning some version of the Red King that stood a-glow in his

brain. And really, how did Roland know that was not possible?

I don’t care what it is. Just let him finish before I go mad and sprint to what the Old Red

King so rightly called “my darling.”

Half an hour at least three days long passed in this fashion. Once the Crimson King called

more coaxingly than ever to Roland, asking if he would not come to the Tower and palaver,

after all. Perhaps, he said, if Roland were to free him from his balcony prison, they might

bury an arrow together and then climb to the top room of the Tower in that same spirit of

friendliness. It was not impossible, after all. A hard rain made for queer bedfellows at the

inn; had Roland never heard that saying?

The gunslinger knew the saying well. He also knew that the Red King’s offer was

essentially the same false request as before, only this time dressed up in morning coat and

cravat. And this time Roland heard worry lurking in the old monster’s voice. He wasted no

energy on reply.

Realizing his coaxing had failed, the Crimson King threw another sneetch. This one flew

so high over the pyramid it was only a spark, then dove down upon them with the scream of

a falling bomb. Roland took care of it with a single shot and reloaded from a plentitude of

shells. He wished, in fact, that the King would send more of the flying grenados against

him, because they took his mind temporarily off the dreadful call of the Tower.

It’s been waiting for me,he thought with dismay.That’s what makes it so hard to resist, I

think—it’s calling me in particular. Not to Roland, exactly, but to the entire line of

Eld…and of that line, only I am left.

Eight

At last, as the descending sun began to take on its first hues of orange and Roland felt he

could stand it no longer, Patrick put his pencil aside and held the pad out to Roland,

frowning. The look made Roland afraid. He had never seen that particular expression in the

mute boy’s repertoire. Patrick’s former arrogance was gone.

Roland took the pad, however, and for a moment was so amazed by what he saw there that he looked away, as if even the eyes in Patrick’s drawing might have the power to fascinate

him; might perhaps compel him to put his gun to his temple and blow out his aching brains.

It was that good. The greedy and questioning face was long, the cheeks and forehead

marked by creases so deep they might have been bottomless. The lips within the foaming

beard were full and cruel. It was the mouth of a man who would turn a kiss into a bite if the spirit took him, and the spirit often would.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”came that screaming, lunatic voice.“IT

WON’T DO YOU ANY GOOD, WHATEVER IT IS! I HOLD THE

TOWER—EEEEEEEE!—I’M LIKE THE DOG WITH THE GRAPES, ROLAND! IT’S

MINE EVEN IF I CAN’T CLIMB IT! AND YOU’LL COME! EEEEE! SAY TRUE!

BEFORE THE SHADOW OF THE TOWER REACHES YOUR PALTRY

HIDING-PLACE, YOU’LL COME! EEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEE!EEEEEEEE! ”

Patrick covered his ears, wincing. Now that he had finished drawing, he registered those

terrible screams again.

That the picture was the greatest work of Patrick’s life Roland had absolutely no doubt.

Challenged, the boy had done more than rise above himself; he hadsoared above himself

and committed genius. The image of the Crimson King was haunting in its clarity.The

far-seeing instrument can’t explain this, or not all of it, Roland thought.It’s as if he has a third eye, one that looks out from his imagination and sees everything. It’s that eye he looks through when he rolls the other two up. To own such an ability as this…and to express it

with something as humble as a pencil! Ye gods!

He almost expected to see the pulse begin to beat in the hollows of the old man’s temples,

where clocksprings of veins had been delineated with only a few gentle, feathered shadings.

At the corner of the full and sensuous lips, the gunslinger could see the wink of a single

sharp

(tusk)

tooth, and he thought the lips of the drawing might come to life and part as he looked,

revealing a mouthful of fangs: one mere wink of white (which was only a bit of unmarked

paper, after all) made the imagination see all the rest, and even to smell the reek of meat

that would accompany each outflow of breath. Patrick had perfectly captured a tuft of hair