had taken one of his guns with her into the other world. Good, he thought. Good. If it is the darkness she found, there would have been five for the things in it and one for herself.
Good.
But this thought was also dim and distant. He pulled the other revolver as Mordred crouched on his hindquarters and used his remaining middle leg, curling it around Oy’s midsection and pulling the animal, still snarling, away from his torn and bleeding leg. The spider twirled the furry body upward in a terrible spiral. For a moment it blotted out the bright beacon that was Old Mother. Then he hurled Oy away from him and Roland had a moment of deja vu, realizing he had seen this long ago, in the Wizard’s Glass. Oy arced across the fireshot dark and was impaled on one of the cottonwood branches the gunslinger himself had broken off for firewood. He gave an awful hurt cry-a death-cry-and then 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 were his 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 litde 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 die 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 ihis-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 let you pass! 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. /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 billybumbler.
What hurt most was remembering how unpleasantly he had spoken to Oy the day before. Ifee 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 was drawing him! Sitting beneath the cottonwoodjust 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 halfgone 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 to why, 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 it was 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 was how Bill the robot had called the boy). “Nay, I was wrong-again-and will not scold thee. But…”
He walked to where Patrick was sitting. Patrick cringed away from him with a doglike, placatory smile that made Roland angry all over again, but he quashed the emotion easily enough this time. Patrick had loved Oy too, and this was the only way he had of dealing with his sorrow.
Little that mattered to Roland now.
He reached down and gently plucked the eraser out of the boy’s fingers. Patrick looked at him questioningly, then reached out his empty hand, asking with his eyes that the wonderful
(and useful) new toy be given back.
“Nay,” Roland said, as gently as he could. ’You made do for the gods only know how many years without ever knowing such things existed; you can make do the rest of this one day, I think. Mayhap there’ll be something for you to draw-and then undraw-later on. Do’ee ken, Patrick?”
Patrick did not, but once the eraser was safely deposited in Roland’s pocket along with the watch, he seemed to forget about it and just went back to his drawing.
“Put thy picture aside for a little, too,” Roland told him.
Patrick did so without argument. He pointed first to the cart, then to the Tower Road, and made his interrogative hooting sound.
