Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,330

naked out of a whore’s bed. That was the hardest voice, the one he often heard in his troubled dreams, the one he wanted so to please and so seldom could. No, not that voice, not this time.

This time what he heard was the voice of ka—ka like a wind. He had told so much of that awful fourteenth year . . . but he hadn’t finished the tale. As with Detta Walker and the Blue Lady’s forspecial plate, there was one more thing. A hidden thing. The question wasn’t, he saw, whether or not the five of them could find their way out of the Green Palace and recover the Path of the Beam; the question was whether or not they could go on as ka-tet. If they were to do that, there could be nothing hidden; he would have to tell them of the final time he had looked into the wizard’s glass in that long-ago year. Three nights past the welcoming banquet, it had been. He would have to tell them—

No, Roland, the voice whispered. Not just tell. Not this time. You know better.

Yes. He knew better.

“Come,” he said, turning to them.

They drew slowly around him, their eyes wide and filling with the ball’s flashing pink light. Already they were half-hypnotized by it, even Oy.

“We are ka-tet,” Roland said, holding the ball toward them. “We are one from many. I lost my one true love at the beginning of my quest for the Dark Tower. Now look into this wretched thing, if you would, and see what I lost not long after. See it once and for all; see it very well.”

They looked. The ball, cupped in Roland’s upraised hands, began to pulse faster. It gathered them in and swept them away. Caught and whirled in the grip of that pink storm, they flew over the Wizard’s Rainbow to the Gilead that had been.

CHAPTER IV

THE GLASS

Jake of New York stands in an upper corridor of the Great Hall of Gilead—more castle, here in the green land, than Mayor’s House. He looks around and sees Susannah and Eddie standing by a tapestry, their eyes big, their hands tightly entwined. And Susannah is standing; she has her legs back, at least for now, and what she called “cappies” have been replaced by a pair of ruby slippers exactly like those Dorothy wore when she stepped out upon her version of the Great Road to find the Wizard of Oz, that bumhug.

She has her legs because this is a dream, Jake thinks, but knows it is no dream. He looks down and sees Oy looking up at him with his anxious, intelligent, gold-ringed eyes. He is still wearing the red booties. Jake bends and strokes Oy’s head. The feel of the bumbler’s fur under his hand is clear and real. No, this isn’t a dream.

Yet Roland is not here, he realizes; they are four instead of five. He realizes something else as well: the air of this corridor is faintly pink, and small pink halos revolve around the funny, old-fashioned lightbulbs that illuminate the corridor. Something is going to happen; some story is going to play out in front of their eyes. And now, as if the very thought had summoned them, the boy hears the click of approaching footfalls.

It’s a story I know, Jake thinks. One I’ve been told before.

As Roland comes around the corner, he realizes what story it is: the one where Marten Broadcloak stops Roland as Roland passes by on his way to the rooftop, where it will perhaps be cooler. “You, boy,” Marten will say. “Come in! Don’t stand in the hall! Your mother wants to speak to you.” But of course that isn’t the truth, was never the truth, will never be the truth, no matter how much time slips and bends. What Marten wants is for the boy to see his mother, and to understand that Gabrielle Deschain has become the mistress of his father’s wizard. Marten wants to goad the boy into an early test of manhood while his father is away and can’t put a stop to it; he wants to get the puppy out of his way before it can grow teeth long enough to bite.

Now they will see all this; the sad comedy will go its sad and preordained course in front of their eyes. I’m too young, Jake thinks, but of course he is not too young; Roland will be only three years older when he comes to