Song of Susannah - Stephen King [100]
In front of this building was a sign on a rusting steel plate. It read:
NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LTD.
Fedic Headquarters
Arc 16 Experimental Station
Maximum Security
VERBAL ENTRY CODE REQUIRED
EYEPRINT REQUIRED
“It’s another Dogan, isn’t it?” Susannah asked.
“Well, yes and no,” Mia said. “It’s the Dogan of all Dogans, actually.”
“Where the Wolves brought the children.”
“Aye, and will bring them again,” Mia said. “For the King’s work will go forward after this disturbance raised by your friend the gunslinger is past. I have no doubt of it.”
Susannah looked at her with real curiosity. “How can you speak so cruel and yet be so serene?” she asked. “They bring children here and scoop out their heads like…like gourds. Children, who’ve harmed nobody! What they send back are great galumphing idiots who grow to their full size in agony and often die in much the same way. Would you be so sanguine, Mia, if your child was borne away across one of those saddles, shrieking for you and holding out his arms?”
Mia flushed, but was able to meet Susannah’s gaze. “Each must follow the road upon which ka has set her feet, Susannah of New York. Mine is to bear my chap, and raise him, and thus end your dinn’s quest. And his life.”
“It’s wonderful how everyone seems to think they know just what ka means for them,” Susannah said. “Don’t you think that’s wonderful?”
“I think you’re trying to make jest of me because you fear,” Mia said levelly. “If such makes you feel better, than aye, have on.” She spread her arms and made a little sarcastic bow over her great belly.
They had stopped on the boardwalk in front of a shop advertisingMILLINERY & LADIES’ WEAR and across from the Fedic Dogan. Susannah thought: Burn up the day, don’t forget that’s the other part of your job here. Kill time. Keep the oddity of a body we now seem to share in that women’s restroom just as long as you possibly can.
“I’m not making fun,” Susannah said. “I’m only asking you to put yourself in the place of all those other mothers.”
Mia shook her head angrily, her inky hair flying around her ears and brushing at her shoulders. “I did not make their fate, lady, nor did they make mine. I’ll save my tears, thank you. Would you hear my tale or not?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then let us sit, for my legs are sorely tired.”
* * *
Ten
In the Gin-Puppie Saloon, a few rickety storefronts back in the direction from which they’d come, they found chairs which would still bear their weight, but neither woman had any taste for the saloon itself, which smelled of dusty death. They dragged the chairs out to the boardwalk, where Mia sat with an audible sigh of relief.
“Soon,” she said. “Soon you shall be delivered, Susannah of New York, and so shall I.”
“Maybe, but I don’t understand any of this. Least of all why you’re rushing to this guy Sayre when you must know he serves the Crimson King.”
“Hush!” Mia said. She sat with her legs apart and her huge belly rising before her, looking out across the empty street. “’Twas a man of the King who gave me a chance to fulfill the only destiny ka ever left me. Not Sayre but one much greater than he. Someone to whom Sayre answers. A man named Walter.”
Susannah started at the name of Roland’s ancient nemesis. Mia looked at her, gave her a grim smile.
“You know the name, I see. Well, maybe that’ll save some talk. Gods know there’s been far too much talk for my taste, already; it’s not what I was made for. I was made to bear my chap and raise him, no more than that. And no less.”
Susannah offered no reply. Killing was supposedly her trade, killing time her current chore, but in truth she had begun to find Mia’s single-mindedness