The Gunslinger Part 15

The boy did not speak, did not ask.

"There were crystal chandeliers, heavy gla.s.s with electric sparklights. It was all light, it was an island of light.

"We sneaked into one of the old balconies, the ones that were supposed to be unsafe and roped off. But we were boys, and boys will be boys, so they will. To us everything was dangerous, but what of that? Had we not been made to live forever? We thought so, even when we spoke to each other of our glorious deaths.

"We were above everyone and could look down on everything. I don't remember that any of us said anything. We only drank it up with our eyes.

"There was a great stone table where the gunslingers and their women sat at meat, watching the dancers. A few of the gunslingers also danced, but only a few. And they were the young ones. The one who sprang the trap on Hax was one of the dancers, I seem to recall. The elders only sat, and it seemed to me they were half embarra.s.sed in all that light, all that civilized light. They were revered ones, the feared ones, the guardians, but they seemed like hostlers in that crowd of cavaliers with their soft women...

"There were four circular tables loaded with food, and they turned all the time. The cooks' boys never stopped coming and going from seven until three o' the clock the next morning. The tables were like like clocks, and we could smell roast pork, beef, lobster, chickens, baked apples. The odors changed as the tables turned. There were ices and candies. There were great flaming skewers of meat. clocks, and we could smell roast pork, beef, lobster, chickens, baked apples. The odors changed as the tables turned. There were ices and candies. There were great flaming skewers of meat.

"Marten sat next to my mother and father-I knew them even from so high above-and once she and Marten danced, slowly and revolvingly, and the others cleared the floor for them and clapped when it was over. The gunslingers did not clap, but my father stood slowly and held his hands out to her. And she went to him, smiling, holding out her own.

"It was a moment of enormous gravity, even we felt it in our high hiding place. My father had by then taken control of his ka-tet, you must ken-the Tet of the Gun-and was on the verge of becoming Dinh of Gilead, if not all In-World. The rest knew it. Marten knew it better than any... except, perhaps, for Gabrielle Verriss that was."

The boy spoke at last, and with seeming reluctance. "She was your mother?"

"Aye. Gabrielle-of-the-Waters, daughter of Alan, wife of Steven, mother of Roland." The gunslinger spread his hands apart in a mocking little gesture that seemed to say Here I am, and what of it? Here I am, and what of it? Then he dropped them into his lap again. Then he dropped them into his lap again.

"My father was the last lord of light."

The gunslinger looked down at his hands. The boy said nothing more.

"I remember how they danced," the gunslinger said. "My mother and Marten, the gunslingers' counselor. I remember how they danced, revolving slowly together and apart, in the old steps of courts.h.i.+p."

He looked at the boy, smiling. "But it meant nothing, you know. Because power had been pa.s.sed in some way that none of them knew but all understood, and my mother was grown root and branch to the holder and wielder of that power. Was it not so? She went to him when the dance was over, didn't she? And clasped his hands. Did they applaud? Did the hall ring with it as those pretty boys and their soft ladies applauded and lauded him? Did it? Did it?"

Bitter water dripped distantly in the darkness. The boy said nothing.

"I remember how they danced," the gunslinger said softly. "I remember how they danced." He looked up at the unseeable stone roof and it seemed for a moment that he might scream at it, rail at it, challenge it blindly-those blind and tongueless tonnages of granite that now bore their tiny lives like microbes in its stone intestine.

"What hand could have held the knife that did my father to his death?"

"I'm tired," the boy said, and then again said no more.

The gunslinger lapsed into silence, and the boy laid over and put one hand between his cheek and the stone. The little flame in front of them guttered. The gunslinger rolled a smoke. It seemed he could see the crystal light still, in the eye of his memory; hear the shout of accolade, empty in a husked land that stood even then hopeless against a gray ocean of time. Remembering that island of light hurt him bitterly, and he wished he had never held witness to it, or to his father's cuckoldry.

He pa.s.sed smoke between his mouth and nostrils, looking down at the boy. How we make large circles in earth for ourselves, How we make large circles in earth for ourselves, he thought. he thought. Around we go, back to the start and the start is there again: resumption, which was ever the curse of daylight. Around we go, back to the start and the start is there again: resumption, which was ever the curse of daylight.

How long before we see daylight again?

He slept.

After the sound of his breathing had become long and steady and regular, the boy opened his eyes and looked at the gunslinger with an expression of sickness and love. The last light of the fire caught in one pupil for a moment and was drowned there. He went to sleep.

II.

The gunslinger had lost most of his time sense in the desert, which was changeless; he lost the rest of it here in the pa.s.sage under the mountains, which was lightless. Neither of them had any means of telling the clock, and the concept of hours became meaningless, abnegate. In a sense, they stood outside of time. A day might have been a week, or a week a day. They walked, they slept, they ate thin meals that did not satisfy their bellies. Their only companion was a steady thundering rush of the water, drilling its auger path through the stone. They followed it and drank from its flat, mineral-salted depth, hoping there was nothing in it that would make them sick or kill them. At times the gunslinger thought he saw fugitive drifting lights like corpse-lamps beneath its surface, but supposed they were only projections of his brain, which had not forgotten the light. Still, he cautioned the boy not to put his feet in the water.

The range-finder in his head took them on steadily.

The path beside the river (for it was was a path-smooth, sunken to a slight concavity) led always upward, toward the river's head. At regular intervals they came to curved stone pylons with sunken ringbolts; perhaps once oxen or stagehorses had been tethered there. At each was a steel flagon holding an electric torch, but these were all barren of life and light. a path-smooth, sunken to a slight concavity) led always upward, toward the river's head. At regular intervals they came to curved stone pylons with sunken ringbolts; perhaps once oxen or stagehorses had been tethered there. At each was a steel flagon holding an electric torch, but these were all barren of life and light.

During the third period of rest-before-sleep, the boy wandered away a little. The gunslinger could hear small conversations of rattled pebbles as Jake moved cautiously.

"Careful," he said. "You can't see where you are."

"I'm crawling. It's... say!"

"What is it?" The gunslinger half crouched, touching the haft of one gun.

There was a slight pause. The gunslinger strained his eyes uselessly.

"I think it's a railroad," the boy said dubiously.

The gunslinger got up and walked toward the sound of Jake's voice, leading with one foot lightly to test for pitfalls.

"Here." A hand reached out and cat's-pawed the gunslinger's face. The boy was very good in the dark, better than Roland himself. His eyes seemed to dilate until there was no color left in them: the gunslinger saw this as he struck a meager light. There was no fuel in this rock womb, and what they had brought with them was going rapidly to ash. At times the urge to strike a light was well-nigh insatiable. They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.

The boy was standing beside a curved rock wall that was lined with parallel metal staves running off into the darkness. Each carried black nodes that might once have been conductors of electricity. And beside and below, set only inches off the stone floor, were tracks of bright metal. What might have run on those tracks at one time? The gunslinger could only imagine sleek electric bullets, firing their courses through this forever night with affrighted searchlight eyes going before. He had never heard of such things, but there were many remnants of the gone world, just as there were demons. The gunslinger had once come upon a hermit who'd gained a quasi-religious power over a miserable flock of kine-keepers by possession of an ancient gasoline pump. The hermit crouched beside it, one arm wrapped possessively around it, and preached wild, guttering sermons. He occasionally placed the still-bright steel nozzle, which was attached to a rotted rubber hose, between his legs. On the pump, in perfectly legible (although rust-clotted) letters, was a legend of unknown meaning: AMOCO. Lead Free. AMOCO. Lead Free. Amoco had become the totem of a thunder-G.o.d, and they had wors.h.i.+pped Him with the slaughter of sheep and the sound of engines: Amoco had become the totem of a thunder-G.o.d, and they had wors.h.i.+pped Him with the slaughter of sheep and the sound of engines: Rumm! Rummm! Rum-rum-rummmmm! Rumm! Rummm! Rum-rum-rummmmm!

Hulks, the gunslinger thought. Only meaningless hulks poking from sands that once were seas.

And now a railroad.

"We'll follow it," he said.

The boy said nothing.

The gunslinger extinguished the light and they slept.

When Roland awoke, the boy was up before him, sitting on one of the rails and watching him sightlessly in the dark.

They followed the rails like blindmen, Roland leading, Jake following. They slipped their feet along one rail always, also like blindmen. The steady rush of the river off to the right was their companion. They did not speak, and this went on for three periods of waking. The gunslinger felt no urge to think coherently, or to plan. His sleep was dreamless.

During the fourth period of waking and walking, they literally stumbled on a handcar.

The gunslinger ran into it chest-high, and the boy, walking on the other side, struck his forehead and went down with a cry.

The gunslinger made a light immediately. "Are you all right?" The words sounded sharp, angry, and he winced at them.

"Yes." The boy was holding his head gingerly. He shook it once to make sure he had told the truth. They turned to look at what they had run into.

It was a flat square plate of metal that sat mutely on the tracks. There was a seesaw handle in the center of the square. It descended into a connection of cogs. The gunslinger had no immediate sense of the thing's purpose, but the boy grasped it at once.

"It's a handcar."

"What?"

"Handcar," the boy said impatiently, "like in the old cartoons. Look."

He pulled himself up and went to the handle. He managed to push it down, but it took all his weight hung over the handle to turn the trick. The handcar moved a foot, with silent timelessness, on the rails.

"Good!" said a faint mechanical voice. It made them both jump. "Good, push ag..." The mechanical voice died out.

"It works a little hard," the boy said, as if apologizing for the thing.

The gunslinger pulled himself up beside Jake and shoved the handle down. The handcar moved forward obediently, then stopped. "Good, push again!" the mechanical voice encouraged.

He had felt a driveshaft turn beneath his feet. The operation pleased him, and so did the mechanical voice (although he intended to listen to that that no longer than necessary). Other than the pump at the way station, this was the first machine he'd seen in years that still worked well. But the thing disquieted him, too. It would take them to their destination that much the quicker. He had no doubt whatever that the man in black had meant for them to find this, too. no longer than necessary). Other than the pump at the way station, this was the first machine he'd seen in years that still worked well. But the thing disquieted him, too. It would take them to their destination that much the quicker. He had no doubt whatever that the man in black had meant for them to find this, too.

"Neat, huh?" the boy said, and his voice was full of loathing. The silence was deep. Roland could hear his organs at work inside his body, and the drip of water, and nothing else.

"You stand on one side, I stand on the other," Jake said. "You'll have to push by yourself until it gets rolling good. Then I can help. First you push, then I push. We'll go right along. Get it?"

"I get it," the gunslinger said. His hands were in helpless, despairing fists.

"But you'll have to push by yourself until it gets rolling good," the boy repeated, looking at him.

The gunslinger had a sudden vivid picture of the Great Hall a year or so after the Sowing Night Cotillion. By then it had been nothing but shattered shards in the wake of revolt, civil strife, and invasion. This image was followed by one of Allie, the scarred woman from Tull, pushed and pulled by bullets that were killing her for no reason at all... unless reflex was a reason. Next came Cuthbert Allgood's face, laughing as he went downhill to his death, still blowing that G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned horn... and then he saw Susan's face, twisted, made ugly with weeping. All my old friends, All my old friends, the gunslinger thought, and smiled hideously. the gunslinger thought, and smiled hideously.

"I'll push," the gunslinger said.

He began to push, and when the voice began to speak ("Good, push again! Good, push again!") he sent his hand fumbling along the post upon which the seesaw handle had been balanced. At last he found what he was surely looking for: a b.u.t.ton. He pushed it.

"Goodbye, pal!" the mechanical voice said cheerily, and was then blessedly silent for some hours.

III.

They rolled on through the dark, faster now, no longer having to feel their way. The mechanical voice spoke up once, suggesting they eat Crisp-A-La, and again to say that nothing satisfied at the end of a hard day like Larchies. Following this second piece of advice, it spoke no more.

Once the awkwardness of a buried age had been run off the handcar, it went smoothly. The boy tried to do his share, and the gunslinger allowed him small s.h.i.+fts, but mostly he pumped by himself, in large and chest-stretching risings and fallings. The underground river was their companion, sometimes closer on their right, sometimes further away. Once it took on huge and thunderous hollowness, as if pa.s.sing through some great cathedral narthex. Once the sound of it disappeared almost altogether.

The speed and the made wind against their faces seemed to take the place of sight and to drop them once again into a frame of time. The gunslinger estimated they were making anywhere from ten to fifteen miles an hour, always on a shallow, almost imperceptible uphill grade that wore him out deceptively. When they stopped he slept like the stone itself. Their food was almost gone again. Neither of them worried about it.

For the gunslinger, the tenseness of a coming climax was as imperceivable but as real (and accretive) as the fatigue of propelling the handcar. They were close to the end of the beginning... or at least he he was. He felt like a performer placed on center stage minutes before the rise of the curtain; settled in position with his first line held securely in his mind, he heard the unseen audience rattling programs and settling in their seats. He lived with a tight, tidy ball of unholy antic.i.p.ation in his belly and welcomed the exercise that let him sleep. And when he was. He felt like a performer placed on center stage minutes before the rise of the curtain; settled in position with his first line held securely in his mind, he heard the unseen audience rattling programs and settling in their seats. He lived with a tight, tidy ball of unholy antic.i.p.ation in his belly and welcomed the exercise that let him sleep. And when he did did sleep, it was like the dead. sleep, it was like the dead.

The boy spoke less and less, but at their stopping place one sleep-period not long before they were attacked by the Slow Mutants, he asked the gunslinger almost shyly about his coming of age.

"For I would hear more of that," he said.

The gunslinger had been leaning with his back against the handle, a cigarette from his dwindling supply of tobacco clamped in his lips. He'd been on the verge of his usual unthinking sleep when the boy asked his question.

"Why would thee sill to know that?" he asked, amused.

The boy's voice was curiously stubborn, as if hiding embarra.s.sment. "I just would." And after a pause, he added: "I always wondered about growing up. I bet it's mostly lies."

"What you'd hear of wasn't my growing-up," the gunslinger said. "I suppose I did the first of that not long after after what thee'd hear of-" what thee'd hear of-"

"When you fought your teacher," Jake said remotely. "That's what I want to hear."

Roland nodded. Yes, of course, the day he had tried the line; that was a story any boy might want to hear, all right. "My real growing-up didn't start until after my Da' sent me away. I finished doing it at one place and another along the way." He paused. "I saw a not-man hung once."

"A not-man? I don't understand."

"You could feel him but couldn't see him."

Jake nodded, seeming to understand. "He was invisible."

Roland raised his eyebrows. He had never heard the word before. "Do you say so?"

"Yes."

"Then let it be so. In any case, there were folk who didn't want me to do it-felt they'd be cursed if I did it, but the fellow had gotten a taste for rape. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes," Jake said. "And I bet an invisible guy would be good at it, too. How did you catch him?"

"That's a tale for another day." Knowing there would be no other days. Both of them knowing there would be no others. "Two years after that, I left a girl in a place called King's Town, although I didn't want to-"

"Sure you did," the boy said, and the contempt in his voice was no less for the softness of his tone. "Got to catch up with that Tower, am I right? Got to keep a-ridin', just like the cowboys on my Dad's Network."

Roland felt his face flush with heat in the dark, but when he spoke his voice was even. "That was the last part, I guess. Of my growing-up, I mean. I never knew any of the parts when they happened. Only later did I know that."

He realized with some unease that he was avoiding what the boy wanted to hear.

"I suppose the coming of age was was part of it, at that," he said, almost grudgingly. "It was formal. Almost stylized; like a dance." He laughed unpleasantly. part of it, at that," he said, almost grudgingly. "It was formal. Almost stylized; like a dance." He laughed unpleasantly.

The boy said nothing.

"It was necessary to prove one's self in battle," the gunslinger began.

IV.

Summer, and hot.

Full Earth had come to the land like a vampire lover that year, killing the land and the crops of the tenant farmers, turning the fields of the castle-city of Gilead white and sterile. In the west, some miles distant and near the borders that were the end of the civilized world, fighting had already begun. All reports were bad, and all of them paled to insignificance before the heat that rested over this place of the center. Cattle lolled empty-eyed in the pens of the stockyards. Pigs grunted l.u.s.tlessly, unmindful of sows and s.e.x and knives whetted for the coming fall. People whined about taxes and conscription, as they always did; but there was an apathy beneath the empty pa.s.sion-play of politics. The center had frayed like a rag rug that had been washed and walked on and shaken and hung and dried. The thread that held the last jewel at the breast of the world was unraveling. Things were not holding together. The earth drew in its breath in the summer of the coming eclipse.

The boy idled along the upper corridor of this stone place which was home, sensing these things, not understanding. He was also dangerous and empty, waiting to be filled.

It was three years since the hanging of the cook who had always been able to find snacks for hungry boys; Roland had lengthened and filled out both at shoulder and hip. Now, dressed only in faded denim pants, fourteen years old, he had come to look like the man he would become: lean and lank and quick on his feet. He was still unbedded, but two of the younger slatterns of a West-Town merchant had cast eyes on him. He had felt a response and felt it more strongly now. Even in the coolness of the pa.s.sage, he felt sweat on his body.

Ahead were his mother's apartments and he approached them incuriously, meaning only to pa.s.s them and go upward to the roof, where a thin breeze and the pleasure of his hand awaited.

He had pa.s.sed the door when a voice called him: "You. Boy."

It was Marten, the counselor. He was dressed with a suspicious, upsetting casualness-black whipcord trousers almost as tight as leotards, and a white s.h.i.+rt open halfway down his hairless chest. His hair was tousled.

The boy looked at him silently.