He took her gendy by the shoulders and turned her away from the castle-which might not be naturally black after all, she had decided, but only tarnished by the years. Daylight would tell. For the present their way was lit by a cloud-scummed quarter-moon.
Several other roads led away from the place where they had stopped, most as crooked as broken fingers. The one Roland wanted her to look upon was straight, however, and Susannah realized it was the only completely straight street she had seen since the deserted village began to grow silently up around their way. It was smoothly paved rather than cobbled and pointed southeast, along the Path of die Beam. Above it flowed the moon-gilded clouds like boats in a procession.
"Does thee glimpse a darkish blur at the horizon, dear?" he murmured.
"Yes. A dark blur and a whitish band in front of it. What is it? Do you know?"
"I have an idea, but I'm not sure," Roland said. "Let's have us a rest here. Dawn's not far off, and then we'll both see. And besides, I don't want to approach yonder castle at night."
"If the Crimson King's gone, and if the Path of the Beam lies that way-" She pointed. "Why do we need to go to his damn old casde at all?"
"To make sure he is gone, for one thing," Roland said.
And we may be able to trap the one behind us. I doubt it-he's wily-but there's a chance. He's also young, and the young are sometimes careless."
"You'd kill him?"
Roland's smile was wintry in the moonlight. Merciless.
"Without a moment's hesitation," said he.
EIGHT
In the morning Susannah woke from an uncomfortable doze amid the scattered supplies in the back of the rickshaw and saw Roland standing in the intersection and looking along the Path of the Beam. She got down, moving with great care because she was stiff and didn't want to fall. She imagined her bones cold and brittle inside her flesh, ready to shatter like glass.
"What do you see?" he asked her. "Now that it's light, what do you see over that way?"
The whitish band was snow, which did not surprise her given the fact that those were true uplands. What did surprise her-and gladdened her heart more than she would have believed possible-were the trees beyond the band of snow.
Green fir-trees. Living things.
"Oh, Roland, they look lovely!" she said. "Even with their feet in the snow, they look lovely! Don't they?"
"Yes," he said. He lifted her high and turned her back the way they had come. Beyond the nasty crowding suburb of dead houses she could see some of the Badlands they'd come through, all those crowding spines of rock broken by the occasional butte or mesa.
"Think of this," he said. "Back yonder as you look is Fedic.
Beyond Fedic, Thunderclap. Beyond Thunderclap, the Callas and the forest that marks the borderland between Mid-World and End-World. Lud is further back that way, and River Crossing further still; the Western Sea and the great Mohaine Desert, too.
Somewhere back there, lost in the leagues and lost in time as well is what remains of In-World. The Baronies. Gilead. Places where even now there are people who remember love and light."
"Yes," she said, not understanding.
"That was the way the Crimson King turned to cast his petulance," Roland said. "He meant to go the other way, ye must ken, to the Dark Tower, and even in his madness he knew better than to kill the land he must pass through, he and whatever band of followers he took with him." He drew her toward him and kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made her feel like crying. "We three will visit his castle, and trap Mordred there if our fortune is good and his is ill. Then we'll go on, and back into living lands. There'll be wood for fires and game to provide fresh food and hides to wrap around us. Can you go on a little longer, dear? Can theeV
"Yes," she said. "Thank you, Roland."
She hugged him, and as she did, she looked toward the red castle. In the growing light she could see that the stone of which it had been made, although darkened by the years, had once been the color of spilled blood. This called forth a memory of her palaver with Mia on the Castle Discordia allure, a memory of steadily pulsing crimson light in the distance. Almost from where they now were, in fact.