Disclaimer:
I own none of the characters – they all belong to Stephen King. I own merely the idea.
This story is a substitution for the last chapter in "The Dark Tower", and picks up right when Roland approaches the tower.
"I saw them and I knew them all"
By Claus Holm
As Roland began the walk through the Can'- Ka No Ray, he raised his voice in what sounded like half a cry and half a shout.
"Now comes Roland of Gilead to the Dark Tower. I have been true and I carry the guns of my father. I will enter the Tower, and you will open to me!"
The roses parted for him like waves, making his walk an easy one. He barely thought about the myriads of worlds he would have stomped under his boot heels, had they not been inclined to move.
"Now comes Roland to the Dark Tower!" He cried again, and his voice seemed to carry, to echo between the hills and roll towards the Tower with him.
And then, from the shadows in the door that would take him to the place he had wandered towards for so many years that he had lost count – a shadow emerged from the shadows. It looked like it solidified, took shape – and as Roland walked closer, he recognized it for who it was.
"You!"
The man in black smiled a confident smile, all together unlike his former tittering laugh.
"Gunslinger. We are well met on the path, I see. And shortly, we will be well met in the clearing, I fear. However – Walter is not my name."
"What do you mean?"
"I think it is time to let all masks drop, don't you, Roland? Walter was a mask, a tool that could be imbued with a fraction of the power that I possess. Walter thought himself master of all the worlds, but he was but a shadow. I am much more than that."
Roland put his hands on the handles of his guns, but the man before him scoffed.
"Don't be ridicules, gunslinger. Your weapons could not hurt me in Mid-World, Nor in Gilead. Here, in End-World, you are in my domain. You could fire all your shells into me and it would not do you any good."
Roland felt his heart pound, his mind race. He was sure that if he could just get past this creature, he could enter the Tower, as he had been meant to. As he had been destined to. But the man in black's eyes seemed to be deep pools of black that sent a cold fear into his body, and prevented him from moving.
"The creature you destroyed on the balcony, Los of the castle Roy Russe, was the same way" The man in black continued, "Also a shadow – or in his case, a flicker of fire. Your friend with the eraser took care of him, but it won't matter, Roland. What you see before you is in a sense also just a shadow – but it is the most powerful of them all. It is the one I like to call….the Ageless Stranger!"
Roland thought back to the palaver he and Walter had held on the Golgotha by the ocean. "The Stranger Darkles. He tincts. He is in all times" Walter had said, "but there is one greater than he."
"I am the last guardian of the Dark Tower, Gunslinger. I have always been with you, and yet, I have always been here waiting. Soon, when the beams break, the Tower will fall, and the Crimson King – my main part, if it does ya – will be free. I will bring all my shadows back, and we will rule at last. Rule Discordia!"
"I shall not let you, Stranger…or Walter…or whatever your name is. I am still a Gunslinger, I am still a servant of the White, and I will use my last dying breath to restore the Tower."
"Be careful what you wish for, Roland – you might get it."
Roland began moving forward again, drawing his gun with the left hand. "I have come too far to stop now, Stranger. I will have what I came for. I have made a promise to sing out all the names of my friends as I enter the Tower – and that is a promise I intend to keep."
"All your friends?" The man in black threw back his head and laughed. "Well – what a splendid idea, Roland. I am sure they have missed you, and wish to see you again. Look around you, Roland. Look at who comes to the tower with you!"
Roland saw a flicker of movement in the edge of his field of vision, and turned his gun towards it – but froze in the motion. The gun seemed to grow in weight, becoming too heavy to hold. Slowly, he let it sink to his side.
There they were. Standing in the field of roses, all with their eyes fixed on him were hundreds…no, thousands of people. He knew them all. And they were all dead.
Eddie Dean, his head still covered by a red bandage, stood closest. His face was a masque of pain, but his eyes sparkled.
Jake, his body broken by the impact of Bryan Smith's car, and a bloody, beaten Oy at his heals. The branch that had killed the bumbler still stuck out through the side.
Cuthbert, bleeding from wounds all over his body. Alain, his clothes still full of the holes from Roland and Cuthbert's bullets. Jamie DeCurry, almost torn to peaces by Grissom's men. Susan, a burned and blackened creature barely resembling the lovely girl at the window.
And behind them, he saw people from Calla Bryn Sturgis, from Tull, From Gilead, from Mejis and a hundred other places where he had spilled blood. They had come to the tower with him. Of course they had.
Roland looked at the crowd, and a tear ran down his cheek, as he took a deep breath.
"I see you, and I know you all", he said in a voice that was strangely calm.
Then, as he turned towards the man in black again, he smiled. It was not the cold smile of a Gunslinger. It was the smile, Susan had seen on his face and had fallen in love with so many years ago.
"I made my peace with this a long time ago, Stranger" Roland said, "Ka is a wheel. I have said that to many people over the years, but never really thought it over. Ka is a wheel, and all these dead…"he gestured towards the fields behind him, "were there for one reason only. To bring me here today. That is Ka. Now, let me pass."
The man in black shook his head.
"If you wish to enter, Roland of Gilead, than stand against me."
Suddenly, footsteps came up on both sides of Roland. Eddie Dean stood on his right side, Jake Chambers on his left. Jake held his backpack in his hand, and put his hand into it.
"Cort taught me one thing that you never understood, Stranger. That a Ka-tet can not even broken by treason or death, because they also serve Ka. And we…" he gestured with both arms to his sides, "are Ka-tet. One from many."
Jake's hand came out of the bag, holding the Luger pistol he had taken from his father's drawer so long ago. He raised it and pointed at the Man in black.
The man in black had time for one brief moment of realizing he had lost, before the gun went off. The black robes billowed around the man, as he fell back towards the Towers black stone wall. He slid down the wall in a limb heap and finally lay still. His eyes sparkled a little bit, and he whispered: "See you at the top!"
Then he was gone. His body seemed to vanish like a shadow amongst the now many shadows of the fading daylight.
"Thank you, Jake" Roland said, turning his face towards the boy.
"That's what we're here for, Roland" Jake answered with a smile that made Roland's heart swell with pride.
Eddie put a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, Roland. But excuse me for sounding impatient, as the guy with a wife and 4 daughters said when he was waiting for his turn in the bathroom – but evening is falling fast. If we are going in, we'd better do it soon."
Roland nodded.
"Will ye come with me?"
"Do you want us too, Roland?" Jake sounded surprised.
"I think…I think you should."
Oy, who had stayed silent during the showdown, now nuzzled Roland's leg with his nose, as if pushing him towards the door to the tower.
Roland saw to his surprise that the rest of the dead had faded away. All except…
The young man walking towards him walked slightly with a limb. Roland thought that the bullets in his body maybe hurt him still.
"Alain…my friend. I never got to tell you how sorry I was."
"I knew how much. Come on, Roland. Let us finish this."
"Where is Susannah?" Roland asked, as they began moving towards the doors. He felt old now, like his last strength had been drained out of him. Eddie and Alain walked on either side of him, ready to catch him if he should stumble.
"Suze isn't exactly dead, Roland" Eddie said. She's…I don't know exactly where she is. But I know she will be waiting for me in the clearing. Alain here is filling in."
"We're all here" Roland whispered, and thought of how often he had thought of the similarities between Cuthbert and Eddie, between Susannah and Alain. And now he knew why.
They stopped in front of the large doors. There were two keyholes, one in each door.
"Do we need a key, or do we just knock and hope someone is home?" Eddie said.
"I have the key" Roland said, and raised his left hand with the gun. He inserted it into the lock, where it slid in to the handle. Then, with a little difficulty he drew the gun from his right side with his ruined right hand and inserted the second gun. There was an audible CLICK! And the doors began to swing open.
Roland breathed deeply, and looked at his friends in turn.
"We come to the Dark Tower as Ka-Tet, and it has opened to us!" he said, and stepped forward, into the Tower. Eddie, Jake, Oy and Alain followed him and the doors swung shut behind them. There was a thundering BOOM, and after that, the rose field was quiet.
Coda: Restoration
The inside of the tower was surprisingly well lit. Torches burned in small holders on the wall, illuminating the stone stairway leading upwards. Roland was already heading up the steps, not even caring about his guns that still sat in the door on the outside.
"Whoa, Roland. Don't you think we should take a moment to regroup?" Eddie asked, "I mean…we don't know what's up there!"
"I know exactly what is up there. And I intend to open the last door and see the room for myself." Roland continued his climb. The three men and the bumbler looked at each other, and followed him.
The steps went on and on, the tower seeming much taller from the inside than from the outside. In the windows that were scattered in a spiral pattern on the Towers side, they could see further and further away. Eddie saw first across Thunderclap to Algul Siento, then further still to the arc of the Callas. Far, far away, he could even see what he thought were the spires of Lud and the Monorail tracks of Blaine.
As they climbed higher and higher, the dead members of the Ka-Tet began noticing a change in their bodies. Jake felt his body straighten up again, his bones reshaping themselves to what they had been before the accident. Eddie felt his headache clear away as his skull healed, and Alain heard the faint clinking as the bullets that had been lodged in his flesh slowly fell out and to the ground. Even Oy began walking easier, occasionally barking "Oy! Ake!" Roland felt a spring in his step that he had not felt since he began his quest, and the sound of his boots on the stone stairs became faster and faster as he ascended.
Higher and higher they climbed, until the stairs suddenly ended. There was a small landing with just room for them all. On the far wall they saw a sight that all but Alain had seen before.
A door.
It resembled the one in the doorway cave and on the beach, except instead of "the prisoner", "the Lady of Shadows" or "unfound" – the word on the door was:
"The King"
Roland looked at his friends, his Ka-Tet.
"This is as far as I can ask you to go with me. What lies beyond this door is the end of my quest, and probably the end of a lot of other things. I believe, it is for me alone."
"Are you saying" Jake asked, "that you won't let us go the last step of the way with you, after following you for so long?"
"I don't know about you, Roland" Eddie said, "but I wore red little ruby shoes for your sake. I rode in a psycho-train and died of a city street by the hands of one of the Crimson King's henchmen. I don't intend to just let you go alone."
"Me neither!" Jake said.
"For Gilead. For the white. And for Cuthbert" Alain said.
"Gilead! White! Oy!"
Roland smiled.
"Then, so be it."
Roland Deschain of Gilead, now no longer a Gunslinger, opened the last door of the Dark Tower and stepped through. And as his Ka-Tet followed him, it closed behind them.
The top of the tower was an open turret, and as they stepped out they could feel a cool breeze on their faces. The last rays of sunlight lit the turret, and the creature in the red cape that stood in its center, in the middle of what looked like a magic circle on the floor. It vaguely resembled a man, but it was hard to look directly at it. It seemed to glow without giving out light, and after a second or two it made their eyes hurt. Jake put op his hand to shield his eyes, and found it made no difference.
The Crimson King stood silently, waiting for them.
Roland took a step forward, and the Crimson King raised his arm. A bolt of energy flew from his fingers, hitting Roland square in the chest and throwing him back. Eddie quickly sidestepped so Roland did not hit him, and grabbed for his own gun. His aim was as good as it had ever been, but the creature merely shrugged off the bullet. The gun was from Algul Siento, and Eddie did not know if the King was invulnerable, or simply could only be hurt by weapons from the Core Earth – and he did not have time to find out.
"You have reached the top!" the voice of the Crimson King boomed, "But you will never stop the Tower from falling!"
As both Alain and Jake now fired their guns in unison with Eddie's, Roland dug deep in his pocket, pulling out the small cross that Aunt Talitha had given him in River Crossing. Ka worked in strange ways, his teacher Vanney had told him many years ago, when he was just a boy. He had never been good at thinking around corners – but in the end, the final clue to solving the riddle had not eluded him.
"Crimson King!" Roland said, getting to his feet. He could feel a sharp pain in his chest, and was aware he was hurt, probably badly. No time for that now, though.
"I come in the name of Talitha Unwin, and I have brought you this from her. May it win me the fair day goose!"
With that, Roland raised the cross in his hand as a small dagger, and leaped forward into the circle.
The explosion was deafening, and without sound at the same time. It lit up the top of the Dark Tower like a spotlight, outshining even the noon day sun. Eddie, Jake and Alain felt a giant rush of air push them to the floor, as if a vacuum suddenly was filled up with air. Then, the glow faded, and the wind ceased. Eddie, the first to get to his feet, saw Roland lying on the Towers top, struggling to sit up. Of the Crimson King, there was no trace.
Above the tower, the sky seemed to shift and shimmer. Eddie looked up, and saw something that he would later think would have made him shit his pants, had it not been so peaceful.
The enormous face of a turtle looked down upon them, it's eyes shining like gold.
"The tower stands yet" a voice rang from above. The voice of the turtle Jake thought, boy were we wrong when we thought we heard it before!
"But", The voice continued, "for the beams to reform, and the Tower to stand for times to come, there must be someone at the top."
"Is that…what the Crimson King was doing?" Eddie asked, astounded.
"The Crimson King provided the power to make the tower stand, and at the same time he could not muster the power to free himself. But you, Roland of Gilead, have proven worthy. Would you take the place of the King? Would you stand and be true, and make the Tower stand with you?"
Roland sighed. His face was smooth and almost like the child he once had been.
"I will."
As Eddie and Jake, Alain and Oy reached the bottom of the stairs, the doors swung open for them. Roland's guns, the Gunslinger's weapons, still sat in the lock. Jake and Eddie looked at each other for a moment, and then turned one each. They came free in their hands, and Eddie put his back on his hip. It felt good to have it there again.
The Gunslingers walked into the field of roses, not looking back. As they reached the edge of the field, Jake began to sing, low and quiet. Eddie recognized it as "someone saved my life tonight., and began singing along. Alain and Oy did their best to sing along, and singing they went over the hill and vanished.
And at the top of the Dark Tower, in the very last rays of sunlight, Roland stood and watched them go. The last he saw was Eddie's white bandage that fluttered in the wind like a banner.
Then the darkness fell, and the tower lay under the starry sky, waiting for the morning.