Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower 6)

"Then he'll have to go it alone," Roland said, and Eddie breathed a sigh of relief. "Sai King. "

"Yes, Roland. "

"Remember - when you hear the song of the Turtle, you must put aside all other things and tell this story. "

"I will. At least I'll try. "

"Good. "

Then the writer said: "The ball must be taken off the board and broken. "

Roland frowned. "Which ball? Black Thirteen?"

"If it wakes, it will become the most dangerous thing in the universe. And it's waking now. In some other place. Some other where and when. "

"Thank you for your prophecy, sai King. "

"Dad-a-shim, dad-a-shower. Take the ball to the double Tower. "

To this Roland shook his head in silent bewilderment.

Eddie put a fist to his forehead and bent slightly. "Hile, wordslinger. "

King smiled faintly, as if this were ridiculous, but said nothing.

"Long days and pleasant nights," Roland told him. "You don't need to think about the chickens anymore. "

An expression of almost heartbreaking hope spread across Stephen King's bearded face. "Do you really say so?"

"I really do. And may we meet again on the path before we all meet in the clearing. " The gunslinger turned on his bootheel and left the writer's house.

Eddie took a final look at the tall, rather stooped man standing with his narrow ass propped against the counter. He thought:The next time I see you, Stevie - if I do - your beard will be mostly white and there'll be lines around your face. . . and I'll still be young. How's your blood-pressure, sai? Good to go for the next twenty-two years? Hope so. What about your ticker? Does cancer run in your family, and if it does, how deep?

There was time for none of these questions, of course. Or any others. Very soon the writer would be waking up and going on with his life. Eddie followed his dinh out into the latening afternoon and closed the door behind him. He was beginning to think that, when ka had sent them here instead of to New York City, it had known what it was doing, after all.

Twelve

Eddie stopped on the driver's side of John Cullum's car and looked across the roof at the gunslinger. "Did you see that thing around him? That black haze?"

"The todana, yes. Thank your father that it's still faint. "

"What's a todana? Sounds like todash. "

Roland nodded. "It's a variation of the word. It means deathbag. He's been marked. "

"Jesus," Eddie said.

"It's faint, I tell you. "

"But there. "

Roland opened his door. "We can do nothing about it. Ka marks the time of each man and woman. Let's move, Eddie. "

But now that they were actually ready to get rolling again, Eddie was queerly reluctant to go. He had a sense of things unfinished with sai King. And he hated the thought of that black aura.

"What about Turtleback Lane, and the walk-ins? I meant to ask him - "

"We can find it. "

"Are you sure? Because I think we need to go there. "

"I think so, too. Come on. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. "

Thirteen

The taillights of the old Ford had hardly cleared the end of the driveway before Stephen King opened his eyes. The first thing he did was look at the clock. Almost four. He should have been rolling after Joe ten minutes ago, but the nap he'd taken had done him good. He felt wonderful. Refreshed. Cleaned out in some weird way. He thought,If every nap could do that, taking them would be a national law.

Maybe so, but Betty Jones was going to be seriously worried if she didn't see the Cherokee turning into her yard by four-thirty. King reached for the phone to call her, but his eyes fell to the pad on the desk below it, instead. The sheets were headed CALLING ALL BLOWHARDS. A little something from one of his sisters-in-law.

Face going blank again, King reached for the pad and the pen beside it. He bent and wrote:

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, not to worry, you've got the key.

He paused, looking fixedly at this, then wrote:

Dad-a-chud, dad-a-ched, see it, Jake! The key is red!

He paused again, then wrote:

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, give this boy a plastic key.

He looked at what he had written with deep affection. Almost love. God almighty, but he felt fine! These lines meant nothing at all, and yet writing them afforded a satisfaction so deep it was almost ecstasy.

King tore off the sheet.

Balled it up.

Ate it.

It stuck for a moment in his throat and then - ulp! - down it went. Good deal! He snatched the

(ad-a-chee)

key to the Jeep off the wooden key-board (which was itself shaped like a key) and hurried outside. He'd get Joe, they'd come back here and pack, they'd grab supper at Mickey Kee's in South Paris. Correction, Mickey-Dee's. He felt he could eat a couple of Quarter Pounders all by himself. Fries, too. Damn, but he felt good!

When he reached Kansas Road and turned toward town, he flipped on the radio and got the McCoys, singing "Hang On, Sloopy" - always excellent. His mind drifted, as it so often did while listening to the radio, and he found himself thinking of the characters from that old story,The Dark Tower. Not that there were many left; as he recalled, he'd killed most of them off, even the kid. Didn't know what else to do with him, probably. That was usually why you got rid of characters, because you didn't know what else to do with them. What had his name been, Jack? No, that was the haunted Dad inThe Shining. TheDark Tower kid had beenJake. Excellent choice of name for a story with a Western motif, something right out of Wayne D. Overholser or Ray Hogan. Was it possible Jake could come back into that story, maybe as a ghost? Of course he could. The nice thing about tales of the supernatural, King reflected, was that nobody had toreally die. They could always come back, like that guy Barnabas onDark Shadows. Barnabas Collins had been a vampire.

"Maybe thekid comes back as a vampire," King said, and laughed. "Watch out, Roland, dinner is served and dinner be you!" But that didn't feel right. What, then? Nothing came, but that was all right. In time, something might. Probably when he least expected it; while feeding the cat or changing the baby or just walking dully along, as Auden said in that poem about suffering.

No suffering today. Today he feltgreat.

Yar, just call me Tony the Tiger.

On the radio, the McCoys gave way to Troy Shondell, singing "This Time. "

ThatDark Tower thing had been sort of interesting, actually. King thought,Maybe when we get back from up north I ought to dig it out. Take a look at it.

Not a bad idea.

STAVE: Commala-come-call

We hail the One who made us all,

Who made the men and made the maids,

Who made the great and small.

RESPONSE: Commala-come-call!

He made the great and small!

And yet how great the hand of fate

That rules us one and all.