The Dark Tower

“Trampas told me that the Crimson King has tried to kill this man, but ka has ever protected his life. ‘They say his song has cast the circle,’ Trampas told me, ‘although no one seems to know exactly what that means.’ Now, however, ka—not the Red King but plain old ka—has decreed that this man, this guardian or whatever he is, should die. He’s stopped, you see. Whatever song it was he was supposed to sing, he’s stopped, and that has finally made him vulnerable. But not to the Crimson King. Trampas kept telling me that. No, it’s ka he’s vulnerable to. ‘He no longer sings,’ Trampas said. ‘His song, the one that matters, has ended. He has forgotten the rose.’”

FOURTEEN

In the outer silence, Mordred heard this and then withdrew to ponder it.

FIFTEEN

“Trampas told me all this only so I’d understand I was no longer completely indispensable. Of course they want to keep me; presumably there would be honor in bringing down Shardik’s Beam before this man’s death could cause Gan’s Beam to break.”

A pause.

“Do they see the lethal insanity of a race to the brink of oblivion, and then over the edge? Apparently not. If they did, surely they wouldn’t be racing to begin with. Or is it a simple failure of imagination? One doesn’t like to think such a rudimentary failing could bring about the end, yet . . .”

SIXTEEN

Roland, exasperated, twirled his fingers almost as if the old man to whose voice they were listening could see them. He wanted to hear, very well and every word, what the can-toi guard knew about Stephen King, and instead Brautigan had gotten off onto some rambling, discursive sidetrack. It was understandable—the man was clearly exhausted—but there was something here more important than everything else. Eddie knew it, too. Roland could read it on the young man’s strained face. Together they watched the remaining brown tape—now no more than an eighth of an inch deep—melt away.

SEVENTEEN

“. . . yet we’re only poor benighted humies, and I suppose we can’t know about these things, not with any degree of certainty . . .”

He fetches a long, tired sigh. The tape turns, melting off the final reel and running silently and uselessly between the heads. Then, at last:

“I asked this magic man’s name and Trampas said, ‘I know it not, Ted, but I do know there’s no magic in him anymore, for he’s ceased whatever it was that ka meant him to do. If we leave him be, the Ka of Nineteen, which is that of his world, and the Ka of Ninety-nine, which is that of our world, will combine to—”

But there is no more. That is where the tape runs out.

EIGHTEEN

The take-up reel turned and the shiny brown tape-end flapped, making that low fwip-fwip-fwip sound until Eddie leaned forward and pressed STOP. He muttered “Fuck!” under his breath.

“Just when it was getting interesting,” Jake said. “And those numbers again. Nineteen . . . and ninety-nine.” He paused, then said them together. “Nineteen-ninety-nine.” Then a third time. “1999. The Keystone Year in the Keystone World. Where Mia went to have her baby. Where Black Thirteen is now.”