Roland turned back to Stephen King. "How many times do you think the Lord of Discordia has tried to kill you, Stephen? Kill you and halt your pen? Shut up your troublesome mouth? Since that first time in your aunt and uncle's barn?"
King seemed to try counting, then shook his head. "Delah," he said. Many.
Eddie and Roland exchanged a glance.
"And does someone always step in?" Roland asked.
"Nay, sai, never think it. I'm not helpless. Sometimes I step aside. "
Roland laughed at that - the dry sound of a stick broken over a knee. "Do you know what you are?"
King shook his head. His lower lip had pooched out like that of a sulky child.
"Do you know what you are?"
"The father first. The husband second. The writer third. Then the brother. After brotherhood I am silent. Okay?"
"No. Not oh-kay. Do you know what you are?"
A long pause. "No. I told you all I can. Stop asking me. "
"I'll stop when you speak true. Do you know - "
"Yes, all right, I know what you're getting at. Satisfied?"
"Not yet. Tell me what - "
"I'm Gan, orpossessed by Gan, I don't know which, maybe there's no difference. " King began to cry. His tears were silent and horrible. "But it's not Dis, I turned aside from Dis, Irepudiate Dis, and that should be enough but it's not, ka is never satisfied, greedy old ka, that's whatshe said, isn't it? What Susan Delgado said before you killed her, or I killed her, or Gan killed her. 'Greedy old ka, how I hate it. ' Regardless of who killed her,I made her say that, I, for I hate it, so I do. I buck against ka's goad, and will until the day I go into the clearing at the end of the path. "
Roland sat at the table, white at the sound of Susan's name.
"And still ka comes to me, comesfrom me, I translate it, ammade to translate it, ka flows out of my navel like a ribbon. I am not ka, I am not the ribbon, it's just what comes through me and I hate it I hate it! The chickens were full ofspiders, d
o you understand that, full ofspiders! "
"Stop your snivelment," Roland said (with a remarkable lack of sympathy, to Eddie's way of thinking), and King stilled.
The gunslinger sat thinking, then raised his head.
"Why did you stop writing the story when I came to the Western Sea?"
"Are you dumb? BecauseI don't want to be Gan! I turned aside from Dis, I should be able to turn aside from Gan, as well. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love to write stories, but I don't want to writeyour story. I'm always afraid. He looks for me. The Eye of the King. "
"But not since you stopped," Roland said.
"No, since then he looks for me not, he sees me not. "
"Nevertheless, you must go on. "
King's face twisted, as if in pain, then smoothed out into the previous look of sleep.
Roland raised his mutilated right hand. "When you do, you'll start with how I lost my fingers. Do you remember?"
"Lobstrosities," King said. "Bit them off. "
"And how do you know that?"
King smiled a little and made a gentlewissshhh ing sound. "The wind blows," said he.
"Gan bore the world and moved on," Roland replied. "Is that what you mean to say?"
"Aye, and the world would have fallen into the abyss if not for the great turtle. Instead of falling, it landed on his back. "
"So we're told, and we all say thank ya. Start with the lobstrosities biting off my fingers. "
"Dad-a-jum, dad-a-jingers, goddam lobsters bit off your fingers," King said, and actually laughed.
"Yes. "
"Would have saved me a lot of trouble if you'd died, Roland son of Steven. "
"I know. Eddie and my other friends, as well. " A ghost of a smile touched the corners of the gunslinger's mouth. "Then, after the lobstrosities - "
"Eddie comes, Eddie comes," King interrupted, and made a dreamy little flapping gesture with his right hand, as if to say he knew all that and Roland shouldn't waste his time. "The Prisoner the Pusher the Lady of Shadows. The butcher the baker the candle-mistaker. " He smiled. "That's how my son Joe says it. When?"
Roland blinked, caught by surprise.
"When, when,when? " King raised his hand and Eddie watched with surprise as the toaster, the waffle maker, and the drainer full of clean dishes rose and floated in the sunshine.
"Are you asking me when you should start again?"
"Yes, yes,yes! " A knife rose out of the floating dish drainer and flew the length of the room. There it stuck, quivering, in the wall. Then everything settled back into place again.
Roland said, "Listen for the song of the Turtle, the cry of the Bear. "
"Song of Turtle, cry of Bear. Maturin, from the Patrick O'Brian novels. Shardik from the Richard Adams novel. "
"Yes. If you say so. "
"Guardians of the Beam. "
"Yes. "
"Ofmy Beam. "
Roland looked at him fixedly. "Do you say so?"
"Yes. "
"Then let it be so. When you hear the song of the Turtle or the cry of the Bear, then you must start again. "
"When I open my eye to your world, he sees me. " A pause. "It. "
"I know. We'll try to protect you at those times, just as we intend to protect the rose. "
King smiled. "I love the rose. "
"Have you seen it?" Eddie asked.
"Indeed I have, in New York. Up the street from the U. N. Plaza Hotel. It used to be in the deli. Tom and Jerry's. In the back. Now it's in the vacant lot where the deli was. "
"You'll tell our story until you're tired," Roland said. "When you can't tell any more, when the Turtle's song and the Bear's cry grow faint in your ears, then will you rest. And when you can begin again, youwill begin again. You - "
"Roland?"
"Sai King?"
"I'll do as you say. I'll listen for the song of the Turtle and each time I hear it, I'll go on with the tale. If I live. But you must listen, too. Forher song. "
"Whose?"
"Susannah's. The baby will kill her if you aren't quick. And your ears must be sharp. "
Eddie looked at Roland, frightened. Roland nodded. It was time to go.
"Listen to me, sai King. We're well-met in Bridgton, but now we must leave you. "
"Good," King said, and he spoke with such unfeigned relief that Eddie almost laughed.
"You will stay here, right where you are, for ten minutes. Do you understand?"
"Yes. "
"Then you'll wake up. You'll feel very well. You won't remember that we were here, except in the very deepest depths of your mind. "
"In the mudholes. "
"The mudholes, do ya. On top, you'll think you had a nap. A wonderful, refreshing nap. You'll get your son and go to where you're supposed to go. You'll feel fine. You'll go on with your life. You'll write many stories, but every one will be to some greater or lesser degree about this story. Do you understand?"
"Yar," King said, and he sounded so much like Roland when Roland was gruff and tired that Eddie's back pricked up in gooseflesh again. "Because what's seen can't be unseen. What's known can't be unknown. " He paused. "Save perhaps in death. "
"Aye, perhaps. Every time you hear the song of the Turtle - if that's what it sounds like to you - you'll start on our story again. The only real story you have to tell. And we'll try to protect you. "
"I'm afraid. "
"I know, but we'll try - "
"It's notthat. I'm afraid of not being able to finish. " His voice lowered. "I'm afraid the Tower will fall and I'll be held to blame. "
"That is up to ka, not you," Roland said. "Or me. I've satisfied myself on that point. And now - " He nodded to Eddie, and stood up.
"Wait," King said.
Roland looked at him, eyebrows raised.
"I am allowed mail privileges, but only once. "
Sounds like a guy in a POW camp,Eddie mused. And aloud: "Who allows you mail privileges, Steve-O?"
King's brow wrinkled. "Gan?" he asked. "Is it Gan?" Then, like the sun breaking through on a foggy morning, his brow smoothed out and he smiled. "I think it'sme! " he said. "I can send a letter to myself. . . perhaps even a small package. . . but only once. " His smile broadened into an engaging grin. "All of this. . . sort of like a fairy-tale, isn't it?"
"Yes indeed," Eddie said, thinking of the glass palace they'd come to straddling the Interstate in Kansas.
"What would you do?" Roland asked. "To whom would you send mail?"
"To Jake," King said promptly.
"And what would you tell him?"
King's voice became Eddie Dean's voice. It wasn't an approximation; it wasexact. The sound turned Eddie cold.
"Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee," King lilted, "not to worry, you've got the key!"
They waited for more, but it seemed there was no more. Eddie looked at Roland, and this time it was the younger man's turn to twirl his fingers in the let's-go gesture. Roland nodded and they started for the door.
"That was fucking-A creepy," Eddie said.
Roland didn't reply.
Eddie stopped him with a touch on the arm. "One other thing occurs to me, Roland. While he's hypnotized, maybe you ought to tell him to quit drinking and smoking. Especially the ciggies. He's a fiend for them. Did you see this place? Fuckin ashtrays everywhere. "
Roland looked amused. "Eddie, if one waits until the lungs are fully formed, tobacco prolongs life, not shortens it. It's the reason why in Gilead everyone smoked but the very poorest, and even they had their shuckies, like as not. Tobacco keeps away ill-sick vapors, for one thing. Many dangerous insects, for another. Everyone knows this. "
"The Surgeon General of the United States would be delighted to hear what everyone in Gilead knows," Eddie said dryly. "What about the booze, then? Suppose he rolls his Jeep over some drunk night, or gets on the Interstate going the wrong way and head-ons someone?"
Roland considered it, then shook his head. "I've meddled with his mind - and ka itself - as much as I intend to. As much as Idare to. We'll have to keep checking back over the years in any. . . why do you shake your head at me? The tale spins fromhim! "
"Maybe so, but we won't be able to check on him for twenty-two years unless we decide to abandon Susannah. . . and I'll never do that. Once we jump ahead to 1999, there's no coming back. Not in this world. "
For a moment Roland made no reply, just looked at the man leaning his behind against his kitchen counter, asleep on his feet with his eyes open and his hair tumbled on his brow. Seven or eight minutes from now King would awaken with no memory of Roland and Eddie. . . always assuming they were gone, that was. Eddie didn't seriously believe the gunslinger would leave Suze hung out on the line. . . but he'd let Jake drop, hadn't he? Let Jake drop into the abyss, once upon a time.