“Your Red Father is… indisposed. As a result of having lived so close to the Tower for so long, and having thought upon it so deeply, I have no doubt. It’s down to you to finish what he began. I’ve come to help you in that work.”
Mordred nodded, as if pleased. He was pleased. But ah, he was also so hungry.
“You may have wondered how I reached you in this supposedly secure chamber,” Walter said. “In truth I helped build this place, in what Roland would call the long-ago.”
That phrase again, as obvious as a wink.
He had put the gun in the left pocket of his parka. Now, from the right, he withdrew a gadget the size of a cigarettepack, pulled out a silver antenna, and pushed a button. A section of the gray tiles withdrew silently, revealing a flight of stairs.
Mordred nodded. Walter-or Randall Flagg, if that was what he was currently calling himself-had indeed come out of the floor. A neat trick, but of course he had once served Roland’s father Steven as Gilead’s court magician, hadn’t he? Under the name of Marten. A man of many faces and many neat tricks was Walter o’ Dim, but never as clever as he seemed to think. Not by half. For Mordred now had the final thing he had been looking for, which was the way Roland and his friends had gotten out of here. There was no need to pluck it from its hiding place in Walter’s mind, after all. He only needed to follow the fool’s backtrail.
First, however…
Walter’s smile had faded a little. “Did’ee say something, sire? For I thought I heard the sound of your voice, far back in my mind.”
The baby shook his head. And who is more believable than a baby? Are their faces not the very definition of guilelessness and innocence?
“I’d take you with me and go after them, if you’d come,” Walter said. “What a team we’d make! They’ve gone to the devar-toi in Thunderclap, to release the Breakers. I’ve already promised to meet your father-your White Father-and his katet should they dare go on, and that’s a promise I intend to keep. For, hear me well, Mordred, the gunslinger Roland Deschain has stood against me at every turn, and I’ll bear it no more. No more! Do you hear?” His voice was rising in fury.
Mordred nodded innocently, widening his pretty baby’s eyes in what might have been taken for fear, fascination, or both.
Certainly Walter o’ Dim seemed to preen beneath his regard, and really, the only question now was when to take him-immediately or later? Mordred was very hungry, but thought he would hold off at least a bit longer. There was something oddly compelling about watching this fool stitching the last few inches of his fate with such earnestness.
Once again Mordred drew the shape of a question mark in the air.
Any last vestige of a smile faded from Walter’s face. “What do I truly want? Is that what you’re asking for?”
Mordred nodded yes.
“’Tisn’t the Dark Tower at all, if you want the truth; it’s Roland who stays on my mind and in my heart. I want him dead.” Walter spoke with flat and unsmiling finality. “For the long and dusty leagues he’s chased me; for all the trouble he’s caused me; and for the Red King, as well-the tmeKing, ye do ken; for his presumption in refusing to give over his quest no matter what obstacles were placed in his path; most of all for the death of his mother, whom I once loved.” And, in an undertone:
“Or at least coveted. In either case, it was he who killed her. No matter what part I or Rhea of the Coos may have played in that matter, it was the boy himself who stopped her breath with his damned guns, slow head, and quick hands.
“As for the end of the universe… I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare? All I know is that Roland of Gilead has lived too long and I want that son of a bitch in the ground. And those he’s drawn, too.”
For the third and last time, Mordred drew the shape of a question in the air.
“There’s only a single working door from here to the devartoi, young master. It’s the one the Wolves use… or used; I think they’ve made their last run, so I do. Roland and his friends have gone through it, but that’s all right, there’s plenty to occupy em right where they come out-they might find the reception a bit hot! Mayhap we can take care of em while they’ve got the Breakers and the remaining Children of Roderick and the true guards o’ die watch to worry about. Would you like that?”
The infant nodded an affirmative with no hesitation. He then put his fingers to his mouth and chewed at them.
“Yes,” Walter said. His grin shone out. “Hungry, of course you are. But I’m sure we can do better than rats and halfgrown billy-bumblers when it comes to dinner. Don’t you?”
Mordred nodded again. He was sure they could, too.
“Will I play the good da’ and carry you?” Walter asked.
“That way you don’t have to change to your spider-self. Ugh!
Not a shape ’tis easy to love, or even like, I must say.”
Mordred was holding up his arms.
“Won’t shit on me, will you?” Walter asked casually, halting halfway across the floor. His hand slid into his pocket, and Mordred realized with a touch of alarm that the sly bastard had been hiding something from him, just the same: he knew the so-called “thinking-cap” wasn’t working. Now he meant to use the gun after all.
THREE
In fact, Mordred gave Walter o’ Dim far too much credit, but isn’t that a trait of the young, perhaps even a survival skill? To a wide-eyed lad, the tacky tricks of the world’s most ham-fisted prestidigitator look like miracles. Walter did not actually realize what was happening until very late in the game, but he was a wily old survivor, tell ya true, and when understanding came, it came entire.
There’s a phrase, the elephant in the living room, which purports to describe what it’s like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, “How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the elephant in the living mam?” And it’s so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth: “I’m sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture.” There comes an for some folks-the lucky ones-when they suddenly recognize the difference. And that moment came for Walter. It came too late, but not by much.
Y’tvon’t shit on me, will you-that was the question he asked, but between the word shit and the phrase on me, he suddenly realized there was an intruder in his house… and it had been there all along. Not a baby, either; this was a gangling, slopeheaded adolescent with pockmarked skin and dully curious eyes. It was perhaps the best, truest visualization Walter could have made for Mordred Deschain as he at that moment existed: a teenage housebreaker, probably high on some aerosol cleaning product.
And he had been there all the time! God, how could he not have known? The housebreaker hadn’t even been hiding! He had been right out in the open, standing there against the wall, gape-mouthed and taking it all in.
His plans for bringing Mordred with him-of using him to end Roland’s life (if the guards at the devar-toi couldn’t do it first, that was), then killing the litde bastard and taking his valuable left foot-collapsed in an instant. In the next one a new plan arose, and it was simplicity itself. Mustn’t let him see that I know. One shot, that’s all I can risk, and only because I must risk it.
Then I run. If he’s dead, fine. If not, perhaps he’ll starve before-
Then Walter realized his hand had stopped. Four fingers had closed around the butt of the gun in the jacket pocket, but they were now frozen. One was very near the trigger, but he couldn’t move that, either. It might as well have been buried in cement. And now Walter clearly saw the shining wire for the first time. It emerged from the toothless pink-gummed mouth of the baby sitting in the chair, crossed the room, glittering beneath the lights, and then encircled him at chest-level, binding his arms to his sides. He understood the wire wasn’t really there… but at the same time, it was.
He couldn’t move.
FOUR
Mordred didn’t see the shining wire, perhaps because he’d never read Watership Down. He’d had the chance to explore Susannah’s mind, however, and what he saw now was remarkably like Susannah’s Dogan. Only instead of switches saying things sj like CHAP and EMOTIONAL TEMP, he saw ones that controlled f Walter’s ambulation (this one he quickly turned to OFF), cogitation, and motivation. It was certainly a more complex setup than the one in the young bumbler’s head-there he’d found nothing but a few simple nodes, like granny knots-but still not difficult to operate.
The only problem was that he was a baby.
A damned baby stuck in a chair.
If he really meant to change this delicatessen on legs into cold-cuts, he’d have to move quickly.
FIVE
Walter o’ Dim was not too old to be gullible, he understood that now-he’d underestimated the little monster, relying too much on what it looked like and not enough on his own knowledge of what it was-but he was at least beyond the young man’s trap of total panic.
If he means to do anything besides sit in that chair and look at me, he’ll have to change. When he does, his control may slip. That’ll be my chance. It’s not much, but it’s the only one I have left.
At that moment he saw a brilliant red light run down the baby’s skin from crown to toes. In the wake of it, the chubbypink bah-bo’s body began to darken and swell, the spider’s legs bursting out through his sides. At the same instant, the shining wire coming out of the baby’s mouth disappeared and Walter felt the suffocating band which had been holding him in place disappear.
