The Dark Tower - Stephen King [348]
“Give them over, Pat.”
Patrick did, willingly enough. Roland raised them to his eyes, made a minute adjustment to the knurled focus knob, and then caught his breath as the top of the Tower sprang into view, seemingly close enough to touch. How much was visible over the horizon? How much was he looking at? Twenty feet? Perhaps as much as fifty? He didn’t know, but he could see at least three of the narrow slit-windows which ascended the Tower’s barrel in a spiral, and he could see the oriel window at the top, its many colors blazing in the spring sunshine, the black center seeming to peer back down the binoculars at him like the very Eye of Todash.
Patrick hooted and held out a hand for the binoculars. He wanted his own look, and Roland handed the glasses over without a murmur. He felt light-headed, not really there. It occurred to him that he had sometimes felt like that in the weeks before his battle with Cort, as though he were a dream or a moonbeam. He had sensed something coming, some vast change, and that was what he felt now.
Yonder it is, he thought. Yonder is my destiny, the end of my life’s road. And yet my heart still beats (a little faster than before, ’tis true), my blood still courses, and no doubt when I bend over to grasp the handles of this becurst cart my back will groan and I may pass a little gas. Nothing at all has changed.
He waited for the disappointment this thought surely presaged—the letdown. It didn’t come. What he felt instead was a queer, soaring brightness that seemed to begin in his mind and then spread to his muscles. For the first time since setting out at mid-morning, thoughts of Oy and Susannah left his mind. He felt free.
Patrick lowered the binoculars. When he turned to Roland, his face was excited. He pointed to the black thumb jutting above the horizon and hooted.
“Yes,” Roland said. “Someday, in some world, some version of you will paint it, along with Llamrei, Arthur Eld’s horse. That I know, for I’ve seen the proof. As for now, it’s where we must go.”
Patrick hooted again, then pulled a long face. He put his hands to his temples and swayed his head back and forth, like someone who has a terrible headache.
“Yes,” Roland said. “I’m afraid, too. But there’s no help for it. I have to go there. Would you stay here, Patrick? Stay and wait for me? If you would, I give you leave to do so.”
Patrick shook his head at once. And, just in case Roland didn’t take the point, the mute boy seized his arm in a hard grip. The right hand, the one with which he drew, was like iron.
Roland nodded. Even tried to smile. “Yes,” he said, “that’s fine. Stay with me as long as you like. As long as you understand that in the end I’ll have to go on alone.”
Three
Now, as they rose from each dip and topped each hill, the Dark Tower seemed to spring closer. More of the spiraling windows which ran around its great circumference became visible. Roland could see two steel posts jutting from the top. The clouds which followed the Paths of the two working Beams seemed to flow away from the tips, making a great X-shape in the sky. The voices grew louder, and Roland realized they were singing the names of the world. Of all the worlds. He didn’t know how he could know that, but he was sure of it. That lightness of being continued to fill him up. Finally, as they crested a hill with great stone men marching away to the north on their left (the remains of their faces, painted in some blood-red stuff, glared down upon them), Roland told Patrick to climb up into the cart. Patrick looked surprised. He made a series of hooting noises Roland took to mean But aren’t you tired?
“Yes, but I need an anchor, even so. Without one I’m apt to start running toward yonder Tower, even though part of me knows better. And if plain old exhaustion doesn’t burst my heart, the Red King’s apt to take my head off with one of his toys. Get in, Patrick.”
Patrick did so. He rode sitting hunched forward, with the binoculars pressed against his eyes.
Four
Three hours later, they came to the foot of a much steeper hill.