The gunslinger - Stephen King [57]
And half-slept.
Three. This is the number of your fate.
Three?
Yes, three is mystic. Three stands at the heart of your quest. Another number comes later. Now the number is three.
Which three?
“We see in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy darkened.”
Tell me what you can.
The first is young, dark-haired. He stands on the brink of robbery and murder. A demon has infested him. The name of the demon is HEROIN.
Which demon is that? I know it not, even from my tutor’s lessons.
“We see in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy darkened.” There are other worlds, gunslinger, and other demons. These waters are deep. Watch for the doorways. Watch for the roses and the unfound doorways.
The second?
She comes on wheels. I see no more.
The third?
Death . . . but not for you.
The man in black? Where is he?
Near. You will speak with him soon.
Of what will we speak?
The Tower.
The boy? Jake?
. . .
Tell me of the boy!
The boy is your gate to the man in black. The man in black is your gate to the three. The three are your way to the Dark Tower.
How? How can that be? Why must it be?
“We see in part, and thus is the mirror—”
God damn you.
No God damned me.
Don’t patronize me, Thing.
. . .
What shall I call you, then? Star-slut? Whore of the Winds?
Some live on love that comes to the ancient places . . . even in these sad and evil times. Some, gunslinger, live on blood. Even, I understand, on the blood of young boys.
May he not be spared?
Yes.
How?
Cease, gunslinger. Strike your camp and turn back northwest. In the northwest there is still a need for men who live by the bullet.
I am sworn by my father’s guns and by the treachery of Marten.
Marten is no more. The man in black has eaten his soul. This you know.
I am sworn.
Then you are damned.
Have your way with me, bitch.
VI
Eagerness.
The shadow swung over him, enfolded him. There was sudden ecstasy broken only by a galaxy of pain, as faint and bright as ancient stars gone red with collapse. Faces came to him unbidden at the climax of their coupling: Sylvia Pittston; Alice, the woman from Tull; Susan; a dozen others.
And finally, after an eternity, he pushed her away from him, once again in his right mind, bone-weary and disgusted.
No! It isn’t enough! It—
“Let me be,” the gunslinger said. He sat up and almost fell off the altar before regaining his feet. She touched him tentatively
(honeysuckle, jasmine, sweet attar)
and he pushed her violently, falling to his knees.
He made his drunken way to the perimeter of the circle. He staggered through, feeling a huge weight fall from his shoulders. He drew a shuddering, weeping breath. Had he learned enough to justify this feeling of defilement? He didn’t know. In time he supposed he would. As he started away, he could feel her standing at the bars of her prison, watching him go from her. He wondered how long it might be before someone else crossed the desert and found her, hungry and alone. For a moment he felt dwarfed by the possibilities of time.
VII
“You’re sick!”
Jake stood up fast when the gunslinger shambled back through the last trees and came into camp. He’d been huddled by the ruins of the tiny fire, the jawbone across his knees, gnawing disconsolately on the bones of the rabbit. Now he ran toward the gunslinger with a look of distress that made Roland feel the full, ugly weight of a coming betrayal.
“No,” he said. “Not sick. Just tired. Whipped.” He gestured absently at the jawbone. “You can let go of that, Jake.”
The boy threw it down quickly and violently, rubbing his hands across his shirt after doing it. His upper lip rose and fell in a