Found Chapter 5: Ascent, a dark tower series fanfic

Fifth Chapter

The Ascent

Roland ran for some time to reach the next door, which stood in the center of the stairwell, flush with the width of the stairs, making further passage impossible. It so resembled the doors from the beach that it may as well been one of them. Cautiously, he grasped the rough wooden frame, peered around it, and found he could see behind it easily enough. The door itself disappeared when his line of vision cleared its outermost edge, making it seem that he was holding on to nothing at all. He saw the stairwell rising upward behind the door, and when he turned his head he could also see back through where the door had been, towards the rotunda. When he moved back to where he had been standing, the door reappeared, again blocking his path. Like the many other doors in his quest, a single word he had become all too familiar with was engraved in its center:

Sacrifice

'Trouble,' he thought, 'and in my road.'

Patches of last daylight filtered through the Dark Tower's narrow-slit windows and floated on Roland's hand as he reached for the doorknob. There was no depth illusion to this door as there had been in the mural door below, but it too turned smoothly and with an audible 'click.'

There were so many faces.

The door swung inward and stopped when it hit the stair behind it. Gazing through the doorway the gunslinger balked as he saw the many bodies laying on the stairs, their countless faces staring to every point of the compass, spread as wide as the stairwell, and as far ahead as he could see. Roland first saw Hax the cook—a face he had not seen since boyhood. Hax's face, though recognizable, was worn and desiccated to the point of mummification. The flesh around his neck was drawn tight, like cracked leather, and was shaded in deep hues of azure and plum where the hangman's noose had cinched tight.

As if in disbelief, Roland again peered around the side of the door frame, up the ascending stairwell. The door once again vanished as his eyes passed where it stood on the stairs and he saw without surprise that the stairwell again appeared to be empty. Moving back, the door reappearing as he went, Hax and the countless other corpses reappeared like magic.

Beyond Hax and the door were more faces he recognized. Some had been from Mejis, some beyond that from Debaria, and the gunslinger had an idea of who and what lay beyond that. The dead filled the stairwell, slumped at times together in piles, sprawled out in thinner patches at others. Looking ahead, the gunslinger saw that it was possible to continue his climb, but that he would be greatly slowed by this obstacle. He thought of the word on the door and felt he understood.

'The debt for my quest paid in flesh.'

The only way to continue was among the dead, and his mind felt heavy at the thought of crawling among the bodies and the faces he would see as he climbed.

There was no gentle way to proceed.

Still, Roland fought the urge to fly up the stairs anyway, clawing frantically through the bodies at pace to reach the top room with the setting sun. Deep in his mind however, the gunslinger wondered if that was what he was being made to feel. Perhaps the Tower's call, which pulsated from the central pillar, could make him mad enough to race up the stairs, stumble, and fall to his death.

Sacrifice—surely the word on the door referenced more than just the dead on the Tower's stairs.

As the gunslinger readied himself, he saw Hax's left leg lying at a crooked angle. Underneath, a small bundle of black feathers, which he recognized as the broken body of his pet hawk, David. Surveying what lay ahead, the gunslinger also saw the faces of several of Farson's men, and just beyond them, the twisted, bloody face of Roy Depape. Roland looked upward and understood there may be no way to move beyond the bodies before the sun set.

A thread of panic rose in Roland's chest. If he could not come to the top room at sunset, then what would happen? The seemingly endless sea of blank faces stared down at him with no more answer than he could assume himself, and the gunslinger began to feel the enormity of those that had fallen in his quest.

There was no gentle way to proceed.

Although small parts of the stairs were still visible, Roland struggled at first to continue the ascent. He recalled he and Cuthbert as boys, standing at the base of the gallows, spreading their scraps of bread for the birds as Cort had instructed. Seeing Hax once more brought fresh vividness to the memory of his hanging, and the cook's breastbone snapped loudly and caved in with a cloud of dust as the gunslinger crawled over it.

His progress was slow at first, but became easier as he found clearer areas where he could take several steps around some of the bodies of Farson's men that lay past Hax. Some of these faces he recognized, some he was seeing as if for the first time. The outstretch of bodies thickened as Roland came upon Dave Hollis, Herk Avery, Hart Thorin, and then Roy Depape and Eldred Jonas, his face frozen in shock and a perfect red hole in the center of his forehead. Roy's collarbone cracked like a twig under Roland as he passed.

The gunslinger felt little as he moved on, other than the Tower's constant call. Ahead, Roland saw the light changing through the slit windows. The light in the Dark Tower was dimmer, not as full as in moments before, and the reflection on the stairwell had changed from bold red-orange to a more grayscale hue of gloaming.

There were more of Farson's men after the Big Coffin Hunters, and Roland become steadier and more efficient in his climb. These were men that he, Alain and Cuthbert had lured into Eyebolt Canyon before trapping them with a wall of burning brush. Some of the men he crawled past were charred and blackened, some of them appeared pale and frozen as if they had drowned. And of course they had—within the hypnotic folds of the thinny. George Latigo was one of the last of these men.

The faces on the stairs began to blend together as the gunslinger maneuvered over and around them as quickly as he could. 'So many,' he thought with some amusement, wondering how three young men not quite of shaving age could have ended such a sum. He thought of Bert, riding behind Farson's men and the Big Coffin Hunters, doing more damage with a slingshot than he and Alain had done with—

Time suddenly seemed to stand still around him. Even the Dark Tower's call seemed to fade as Roland cleared another mound of dead. Leaning against the mural wall sat a body burnt nearly beyond the point of recognition. What of its hair remained had been scorched black, its garb mostly gone. That was, all but a small patch near the nape of the neck. It had been pretty once, a Reap Day dress nearly as pure and fair as her milky complexion had been, but had been made gone by the flame and ancient purification rite. 'Charyou tree.'

Roland Deschain finally came to Susan Delgado once again.

The mural wall showed a small group of people and one animal resembling a dog sitting in the middle of a long stretch of highway. Behind them, thousands of cars and their drivers lay lifeless in the wake of the Captain Trips virus. Ahead of the group stood a magnificent castle, and behind that was an area of the image that was wavy, and seemed to warble in a way that was very familiar.

Deftly, as if not to wake her, the gunslinger knelt before her—his girl at the window, his careless love. No resemblance remained of the gorgeous young Hambry woman, but Roland knew it was Susan—he all but could hear and feel her presence. It screamed over the noise of the crackling flames and rioting crowd as it had when he had seen her inside the pink grapefruit.

'Roland I love thee!'

His heart skipped as it had when he had seen her tied to the burning pile, but also because Roland had seen the Dark Tower through the glam for the first time, and he had committed his life to the Tower even over Susan without hesitation. Still, the gunslinger reached for her, looking where her eyes once were, and gently cradled one of her blackened hands in his. "I'm here now my love," he said quietly, looking to her as if she would respond. Her hand felt flaky and weightless. He thought it remarkable that after all this time, the wounds from her death could still feel so fresh. He searched to find the words he wanted to say—needed to say—but those words, whichever they were, escaped him.

The gunslinger lowered Susan's hand to her side, and for an instant, he saw her as she was when they were lovers. There were still no words, so he simply stayed beside her, his hand on his chest, part of him feeling as that he was leaving her all over again. "Bird and bear and hare and fish," he finally whispered, rising to his feet. The lump rising in his throat did not make tears, but it was weighted with grief.

And then, as he had done countless times before, Roland of Gilead made a long bow, said farewell in his mind, and moved on.

The ascent was less arduous for a time, but remained very difficult in other ways. Ahead, after several faces that Roland did not recognize with more than a passing familiarity came more that he did.

There were plenty of spaces on this area of the stairwell for the gunslinger to climb using the actual stairs—he only needed to watch his step as he walked around those that lay around him. He was making one such step when he came to his mother. Gabrielle Deschain was placed so her head pointed with the direction of the stairs as if a compass of sorts, and she was wearing the dress that Roland would remember forever.

Her withered face wore the same stunned expression as the day he had gunned her down—deceived into believing she was Rhea, the witch of the Cöos. He still recalled the hatred he felt towards the hag and the shock he felt when he realized the sham, but it had been too late to stop his hands from their work.

Roland found little emotion for his mother, who was more paradox to him now than his memory of her as a woman. She had so affectionately raised her dear baby bunting, but she also had conspired to murder her cuckolded husband by aligning with Marten Broadcloak. 'I remember how they danced,' he had told Jake under the mountain, remembering stealing away in Great Hall and watching as Marten and his mother danced, his greedy eyes creeping over Gabrielle's fine skin as they moved.

'You died before that day,' he thought to her, 'when you died as a mother and a wife and were reborn as a slave.'

Roland climbed on.

Suddenly the thoughts of baby bunting, chassit, and his mother faded from his mind.

Just ahead, a wall of dead bodies rose before him, piled as thick as possibly seven or at times ten high. This mass continued up the staircase so far that Roland couldn't see where it ended, if it ended at all. He did not know the cadavers' faces, but saw that many of the fallen wore the mark of the Good Man, John Farson, and he recognized the battle garb the disbanded loyalist army had worn on the slopes of Jericho Hill.

It had been the day they all had fallen.

Slivers of panic scored his soul. The dead were stacked high enough to make the pile unstable. A trap, true enough, and just when time was so damn short. Roland could think of no alternative if he could not make it to the top room by sundown. He quickly grabbed a belt that was sticking out of the wall of bodies and pulled himself upward, searching for another anchor. He found it in a dangling arm, and grasped the dirty, pale hand that hung at its end. He wedged his boot into the soft space between two of the fallen and began to climb, using the corpses like footholds. He felt, then heard a bone break as his boot slipped and he lost his balance, hanging by the remnants of a gun belt.

The gunslinger steadied and looked down. It would be difficult to continue efficiently. He was not worried about falling back to the stairwell, although doing so likely would mean injury, but plunging off the side of the pile meant death. He dug his boot back into an alcove and saw a man's head snap off as he did so.

Mindful of how decomposed the bodies were, Roland made a few well-placed steps and holds, finding more purchase in items such as belts, limbs and weapons hardware. He developed a peculiar rhythm to his climb and his injured right hand pulled its own weight, although the gunslinger did not notice that it was no longer throbbing or bleeding. In another moment he pulled himself to the top of the wall of the dead, rolled onto his back, and thanked anything that would hear him that he had not plummeted into the Dark Tower's center this close to the end.

As the sunlight continued to wane, the gunslinger began walking across the top of the wall of bodies, arms out to his sides as if on a tightrope, swaying and on the verge of falling with the first few steps. He discovered quickly that stepping on the cadavers' backs was the best way to remain on his feet. The dead were laid out in every position imaginable, but the gunslinger was able to make faster progress by stepping and at times jumping onto the backs of those who were face down in the massive heap. Spines snapped and split as dusty cracked boots passed over cracked dusty faces.

He went on for some time, counting off passing moments as a distraction from the setting sun. When fifteen had passed, he saw that the remaining daylight had again dimmed somewhat, but not as much as he would expect. Roland thought of his watch, now with Patrick, and how it had at times run frantically and at other times hardly at all. Time, at least as it had come to exist now, appeared to be slowing once again. He begged in his mind for time to wait for him to reach the top room, but knew that time could still lurch forward at any instant, even with the Beams being saved.

Roland noticed he could no longer see the Dark Tower's mural, as the bodies were stacked above its pristine illustrations. Then Roland heard a bright snap, and watched as his foot sank slightly into the pile. He then felt the entire mound beneath him shift and list forward as something in the unsteady mass gave way, and then his entire leg sank into the dead like quicksand. He was forced first down to his knee, and then was pulled and folded into a rift that appeared as the shifting bodies fell ahead from where he had been standing.

Roland cursed as he fell halfway down into the height of the death wall and several of the corpses fell on top of him. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the pile came to rest with the gunslinger trapped inside. The slivers of panic in Roland's mind became the grasp of tightening fingers as he remembers...

The bodies around Roland reek of death, blood and gunsmoke. It is blazingly hot—in the full of summer—when he begins his escape from the battlefield valley buried among the fallen on a handcart. Dirt, sweat, blood, and tears course his face, these latter for his ka mates that have gone on to the clearing ahead of him.

As the cart rolls Roland comes to believe that lying among the dead is worse than being dead. The cart rocks often, shifting and settling the pile of bodies as it moves, and he hears the cries of agony of those in the field below Jericho Hill that have survived, but will soon be made silent. The air is oppressively humid, worsened by the hot blood that runs from those piled above him onto his face and neck. The stink of shit and piss swells as bodies are added to the cart, blending with the stench of fear that hangs in the air with the humidity.

The gunslinger barely holds to his training despite his great effort, remaining silent and dead to those that would see him. In fact, in the future Roland Deschain will have no memory of these moments and is now in the care of ka itself while his exhausted and grieving brain keeps him near unconsciousness to save his injury and sanity. Yet under that shroud his mind is racing, his heart pounding, his eyes weeping dryly. Jaime is dead, Alain is dead, Bert is dead, his father is dead, his mother is dead, Cort is dead, and Gilead has fallen as well, which makes the battle for the Dark Tower seemingly dead as well. So many were lost, how could there still be hope? The idea of continuing to the Tower now was insanity itself with his ka-mates gone.

And so, even if for just an instant, young Roland Deschain wishes to be dead as well. It would be the work of less than a second, he knows. Although trapped under the fallen, his left hand—his slow hand—has enough space to pull, rotate, and call his father's sandalwood revolver to the work it was built to do. For Roland does not fear death. Nay, he and his have been taught to use death as a means to an end, as an exit from a world close to and end of its own and into one of peace, order, and righteousness. Cuthbert had discussed this at length in his short years, just to have fallen himself mere moments ago. Here and now, Roland would welcome the chance to meet him in the clearing where the path ends.

Yet, the gunslinger is young, wounded, and completely worn through. He is full of the raw emotion and hormones of young manhood, fueled by the recent Mejis campaign and now the upon Jericho's slopes. Cort had beaten many things into his pupils, not the least of which was that impulsivity was one of the worst sins. Therefore, Roland refuses to defile the iron of the Eld, and he begins to refocus on the urgency of his situation.

That is when he suddenly sees it again and hears it beckoning him, calling for him, and it is the clearest he has heard it since he was lost in the wretched grapefruit glam. The Dark Tower is imploring him to come at any cost, to stand, to sacrifice, and fulfill the ancient prophecy. Roland feels this call fill his being to the depths of his soul and his grief abates and his wounds are soothed.

Tranquility descends, the sounds of war fade, the stench of death flitters, and he feels a disturbing peace in knowing this is not the end—that his life is not over and not really his own any longer. For as long as he has breath, he will quest for the Tower. For if he were so willing to have death this day, this moment, what would it matter if death found him along the path to the Tower? The Dark Tower's call holds his soul, making nothing else matter.

So the young gunslinger sleeps on the handcart, envisioning a Tower that is also all things in all places. Mayhap it is the protective shroud of this call—this strange khef—that brings a brief, death-like sleep and protects him from being discovered, perhaps it is his utter exhaustion, perhaps both. Regardless, the cart halts quickly and the weight of the pile lightens on his chest. The gunslinger is indeed a corpse to those throwing the bodies from the wagon—his eyes are still, his limbs are limp, his mouth agape, and his breath suspended. He is tossed unceremoniously onto a pile, his body landing atop others, several feet up from the ground. Others are stacked upon the gunslinger, who remains in the deep veil of khef with the Dark Tower.

The stench of accelerant is thick as it's poured on the mound. The fire comes quickly to the base on the far side of the pile, its orange arms quickly enveloping those who lay there. The reek of burning flesh fills the flat of the field, and those that have not yet passed let fly their final screams as they flail and fall from the pile onto the thick parched grass. This movement causes the pile to shift and lean, and Roland's body tumbles off of the heap and rolls onto the sward with a thump.

He awakens now, his mind jumping to awareness, and he opens his left eye to a mere slit, but not enough to be seen by the enemy. Against the glare of the sun and flames Roland sees the cart handlers are to his front, the fallen pile of bodies to his left, and there is a gentle downward slope to his right leading into the higher meadow grass of Jericho's base. Those pushing the cart move on in search of more bodies for more piles.

There are more mounds of dead all around him, many that have also collapsed. People are on fire everywhere, many already gone, some still very much alive. Roland's pants and lower shirt are also on fire, but he thwarts the pain for a mere second longer—just long enough for the cart handlers to turn around to see the collapsed heap, determine that all are dead or soon will be, and then turn the wagon toward where they will stack next.

As they do, some of the burning pain breaks through, sinking its terrible hot teeth into his legs and ass. Without a sound, the gunslinger simply rolls to the right, using the slope to turn over and over, across the flat of the field and into the taller and thicker grass at the bottom. The flames on his leg and back huff out as he rolls, and the high grass hides him.

Then without warning, the sky, which had been clouded and fat with moisture all day, suddenly breaks open in a violent storm. Rain falls in torrents, washing blood from the field into small running streams as the lightning flashes above. A crack of thunder belllows an instant later, and those in the field look to the sky and begin to scramble to regroup. As they do, Roland crawls into the tall reeds for cover and lies completely still among the stalks as the rain and hail pelt his back, stinging the burns there.

As the storm rages on, the gunslinger can feel electricity build in the air around him. The hair on his head and body stiffen and rise, and he feels a pulsating thrum begin in his body. In this energy Roland hears the Dark Tower's call grow louder. It is not only calling to him, it feels like somehow the Dark Tower is here at Jericho, calling, commanding him forward.

A moment later the very sky breaks open at Jericho's crest. A single massive spark strikes the ground, and white fire scorches across the apex before quickly drowning in the rain. A sonorous boom blares across the horizon as the fire is doused. The blast expands out above the top of Jericho Hill, then drops as it reverberates across the fields below. It passes over Roland in sonic waves, like ripples across a pond, and he actually feels it pressing on his body as it passes, flattening him to the ground. He suddenly smiles, not just hearing but listening to the lingering echo. It is mighty and triumphant, beautiful and familiar.

It is the blast of the horn of Eld.

Hope rises quickly—perhaps somehow someone is signaling muster, a regroup for a final stand—maybe someone has survived after all and is calling for aid. But his smile fades. Roland's body feels and knows that he is the only survivor of the battle. He watched them fall one by one before being wounded himself, and Cuthbert had taken the horn at the final charge and had sounded it the whole way down the slope to his doom.

As his hope fades, Roland feels his mind trying to remember. There is something at the edge of his memory that is trying to break through. 'The horn,' he thinks without fully understanding. Yes, but this is not fully what his mind is reaching for, and he realizes this is because the massive blast is more than the sound of the horn.

It was something about the sound itself—something important about its pitch and strength. It was a sound he had heard before, perhaps many times before. 'In my dreams,' he recalls, 'in my dreams I hear that great blast as I…'

Roland barely got his feet under him as the edge of the massive pile fell to the stairwell. He had been rocking back and forth, trying to shift the stack, and it had broken free, scattering his memory of Jericho Hill. The pile fell forward and Roland tumbled with the dead, careful to mind the edge of the stairwell. Several bodies hit the stairs with a crack and plummeted into the opaque below. The gunslinger grabbed one of the bodies near him, held it in front of him to break the short fall, and hit the stairs amid the snaps and cracks.

He stood, looked back the stairwell and felt his ears pop. He had come far, and was higher, closer. Across Dark Tower's center, Roland could see that the opposite interior wall was now much closer than when he had entered. The thrumming central cylinder was much closer as well, its pale blue light now shading the edge of the stairwell. Unlike the narrowing of the Tower walls, the pillar seemed to remain the same diameter from base to top.

Roland supposed this was a source of power, perhaps for the Tower itself, but also possibly for the metallic underlining of Can'-Ka No-Rey. He felt and heard the Tower's hum and call most strongly emitting from the central pillar, and was not surprised to realize that it felt exactly as it had at Jericho Hill all those long years ago. Somehow, some way, he really had been connected to the Dark Tower that day, and all the other days when he heard its call. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Ahead, several bodies from the battle were scattered across the stairs, but the path was once again much clearer, making the climb less difficult.

Past the remaining Jericho soldiers Roland saw three bodies slumped on top of each other. They had been prominently displayed, clearly meant for him to see. It wasn't the clothing that he first recognized, but the well-oiled tie-down holster knotted low on the leg in front of him, crisscross style. The holster had finally dried and cracked with the passing years, and it was missing the big sandalwood revolver, and Roland wondered what had happened to it after it was lost on the slopes of Jericho Hill.

The gunslinger gently moved Alain and Jamie from on top of Cuthbert. All of their faces were near-mummified as the others' had been. Jamie's was pallid grey, eyes squinted closed, his mouth pulled into a tight grimace. Roland found it harder to look at Alain, whose face was filled with the surprise of being killed by his own friends during the battle. Cuthbert's face was frozen in laughter. The rest of him was covered in stains and spatters of blood even now, as he had taken the worst of the gunfire among them. Roland had lost track of how many times he had been shot, yet he had stood true at the end, laughing like a madman, ready to charge, ready to stand. A gunslinger to the last, he would have followed Roland into the very gates of hell had that been asked.

"Then blow that fucking horn," Roland said quietly, remembering Bert blowing the final great blast, one bloody hand grasping the bell of the horn of Eld, the other his revolver. And they charged, and they fought—and they were ended. "No quarter," the gunslinger half whispered, half laughed.

He rose, looked again at the fading sunlight, to his friends, and lastly up the grand stairwell. He once again felt distant panic. How many more had fallen on his path to the Dark Tower? If someone, or something—perhaps even the Tower itself—had placed everyone that had died in Roland's quest on the stairs…there would be thousands more to come. That would require incalculable time and effort beyond what remained of the day. There could be hours—perhaps days—of climbing left—he could climb what remained of the Dark Tower, perhaps only to arrive to the top room when the sun was gone. Perhaps he would be trapped in the darkness, an idea that filled him with unfamiliar fear. Or he would gain the top room only to find it was empty, or worse, he would die in the dim before he could get to the top at all. Then the journey would be for nothing, and everyone would have died for nothing, and he would be dead, and—

He slapped his face, and hard, bringing the world back into focus. He cast the panic into the depths of his mind and held it there firmly in place. There was only one thing to be done, regardless of what time remained, and standing where he was wouldn't change that. He supposed the power chamber in the center of the Tower would provide light if light were needed. He decided he would not look out the Tower's windows until he came to the top, and tore off running as fast as he could.

The gunslinger ran like never before, the heels of his boots echoing short, sharp clicks as he went. He vowed to not stop running until he reached the top—he would somehow will his spent body past its end and would run right to the top room's door and straight through it if he could.

Scores of dead blurred by him as he passed. Next came a curling line of bodies laid out as they had been in the streets of Tull after the gunslinger had killed them all. Roland saw the surprised face of the horseman's daughter—'Soobie,' he remembered—and Allie the bartender, her face erased by his revolver during the fight. The line ended with the massive splayed body of Sylvia Pittston. He lept across her undeterred.

He flew past Enrico Balazar and his hired guns, past Henry Dean, his severed head nearby, and then Jack Andolini, Tricks Postino, and George Biondi. Roland's boots were dark pistons as he raced through the more open space on the stairs. Below, Jack Mort's flattened body flashed by. After some time, Roland saw far ahead that the stairs ended and met a blackened wall or doorway in the distance. He ran harder, and soon realized that he was not seeing an end of the climb by any means.

Instead it was another wall—stacked inexplicably high with more dead. Roland saw the blue and grey patches among the mass even as he ran. Pubes, Greys, and all the other citizens of Lud formed this massive stack, which was at least thrice the gunslinger's height. But by the time he came to the pile, he may as well have not seen it in his road. He moved fluidly, clawing at and grasping belts, hair and limbs as fast as he could. He never stopped moving, and he began to ascend the great throng with his arms and legs flailing for purchase, teeth clenched, breath blasting in hot bursts. Had he been moving any slower, he would have likely fell off of the pile altogether.

Moving this way made the gunslinger oddly nimble and lighter, his feet and arms flying in and out of the pile, counterbalancing the majority of his bodyweight. Random heads and limbs cracked and broke free, falling first to the stairs and then bouncing into the center chasm. Roland snarled and scrabbled, pulling himself higher, eyes scanning for the top. On and on he climbed, clawing and pulling, losing perhaps one in every three holds as he went, but always finding another crevice, weapon, belt or appendage in its place. The muscles in his legs and arms began to throb and burn.

Moments later the gunslinger pulled himself to the top of the mound and collapsed there, crying out as he rolled over onto his back, his arms and legs limp like useless jelly. But he would not be deterred. He rolled right and was preparing to continue when he felt it. Similar to Jericho Hill's body pile, Roland felt the enormous bevy first begin to sink, then list backward beneath his feet.

His body moved before his brain registered the threat. Lud's population had been massive, and shifted after the gunslinger's frantic climb had caused the front side to become unstable. Over his shoulder Roland saw several bodies tumble from the end into the Tower's dark center. As more bodies fell, the gunslinger felt those beneath him start to sink with them. Knowing nothing else to do, Roland broke into another sprint, this one on all fours in order to aid his balance.

The bodies behind him began to peel off in layers, crashing to the stairwell and into the center of the Tower. The gunslinger moved as fast as he could while bent over, feeling the sinking pile at his feet get lower and lower as he raced on. He strained his neck to keep looking forward. There was no time to think about what would happen if he lost his footing. He used his eyes' lightning speed to do what they had been made to do—to aim and see the most solid footholds among the bodies as he ran.

Roland dared not look behind him even for an instant, knowing that one faulty step would be his doom. There would be no rocking this pile to become free if he fell from where he was and became trapped, as he would likely be crushed to death by the bodies on top of him or upon impact somewhere far below. Behind him, the bodies continued to collapse and fall, creating a cloud of dust and booming thunder like a stampede. His chest burned as he continued his odd sprint. Several times his feet kicked his flailing arms, and once his knee almost connected with his jaw. He had no idea how long he ran, he only looked ahead for any sign of the pile's end.

Roland did not consciously register that the light inside the Dark Tower had faded to near dark. As he focused on his footing and balance, outracing the pile's collapse and watching for the end of the wall, the light in the Tower's slit windows faded and fell into dusk. The pale blue light from the Tower's center cylinder was all that reflected off of the gunslinger's sweaty face. Roland knew that regardless of what his mind commanded that his body only had minutes left moving at the all-out pace before one of his legs or arms faltered. 'I wonder when I'll first fall,' he thought, remembering thinking this in the desert when he had been all but dead from dehydration. Splotches of white began to swell into his field of vision.

Yet, to his surprise the end came quickly, and the gunslinger almost missed the ledge that suddenly appeared out the white murk in his vision. He fell to avoid running straight off the tall ledge and the pile vibrated underneath him as he rolled to a stop near one of the last bodies on the wall. It was a Pube clearly enough, and one that had been goodly fat by the look of him. Roland pulled the Pube's belt from his pants as he watched the crumbling rim of the falling bodies approach like a giant sinkhole.

He was high enough that if he jumped to the stairs he would be seriously hurt, but if he stayed, he would be toppled to his death. He rolled on his stomach facing the collapsing pile. He pulled the belt around one of the Pube's massive thighs and held the free end in his left hand. After pulling to check its hold, Roland flung himself over the edge and as close to the Tower's mural wall as he could. The pile shifted immediately, and the gunslinger prayed the belt would hold. At first he was pulled forward and upward as the Pube listed and sank toward the crumbling sinkhole, but then the Pube's bodyweight counterbalanced his own, and for a moment they hung that way while bodies beneath fell out under them, dropping to the chasm below.

A second later Roland felt the Pube's body again sink back towards the falling bodies and he knew he had to jump or he would be pulled into the Tower's center with the rest of the pile. Yet, he was still too high to jump without risking injury. Instead he kicked forward at the wall of bodies and swung outward on the belt, and the momentum kept the Pube from falling further. As he swung back the body began to sink again, so Roland kicked outward again, and harder this time, but this time as he swung out the Pube was pulled towards and with him, and the two landed on the stairs in a heap. Roland landed on his right shoulder, which flared with bright pain, but did not seem to be broken or dislocated. Beside him, one of Tick Tock's servants glared at him through empty eye sockets.

He quickly realized it was very close to dark as his eyes cleared. He gulped air, trying to regain his breath, feeling his anger rise. There were so many damn traps, so much trying to keep him from reaching the top room. Ahead, he saw the dim glow of the blue light from the center pillar had replaced the light from sunset. The only end in sight was to the day itself and soon darkness would fall on the Dark Tower. Roland looked back to the Pube and for an instant, he saw Gasher's sore-ridden face grinning back at him. He kicked the corpse over the edge in disgust.

'Move on, maggot,' Cort bade him as he panted for breath, 'do what needs doing.' And what choice did he have but to do what he needed to do? If he came to the top room at full dark, what of it? What would come would come. So despite his exhaustion Roland willed himself to a light but steady run. As he went the Dark Tower's call again filled him, somewhat easing his weariness and giving him strength.

There were still many bodies ahead, and as he ran faces of the Tick Toc Man, Benny Slightman, Margaret Eisenhart and the unfortunate locals and tourists that had been in the East Stoneham General Store on the day of the ambush passed in a blur. Gods, how many were there? Thousands? Tens of thousands? He passed more, including Chevin of Chayven, the entourage of low men and women, countless Taheen, and the vampires that had waylaid Jake and the Pere in the Dixie Pig.

Later, after it was all over, just at the end, Roland would remember that he had not seen Don Callahan's face among the fallen. The gunslinger had not seen the Pere laying under a large Taheen and several low folken, whose bloody, never-spilling red holes in the center of their foreheads had finally run dry. The Old Fella was at the bottom of this group, grey hair tasseled and matted with sweat and dried blood. The top of his head was mostly gone, but his face showed nothing but peace. He had become a gunslinger, and so death was his means to an end that gave his life meaning and importance.

Roland pursued his own meaning as he ran, although his breath again started to fade. Mia's body was next, savagely ripped to shreds and emancipated from Mordred's wrath. Roland paid no attention. He was getting close. Mia had died near the end of his quest, and those on the stairs when he had opened the Tower's version of the Prisoner door had died in the beginning. The end had to be close—didn't it?

As if in response to this thought, a glimmer of light shone out far ahead. Roland squinted to see it as he ran, but he knew what he had seen—the stairway ended and leveled off to a landing. It seemed impossible to determine long he had been running. Scurrying across the top of Lud's population suddenly seemed very long ago. Roland saw the glimmer shine ahead again and felt new hope. The top—it had to be the top of the Dark Tower. The bodies of Connor Flaherty, Lamla, and those lost in the battle for Algo Siento blurred by.

The gunslinger felt a cramp flare in his right calf and nearly missed the next step, but he would not stop. He switched immediately back to his left foot, avoiding some of the pain and hurried in a quick limp past Richard Sayre, Pimli Prentis and Finli O'Tego. The cramp increased, into something Eddie would have called a Char-ree horse, and this slowed him. But he would not stop. He hobbled to where Sheemie Ruiz lay on the stairs. His hair was wild and untamed and his eyes still had some of their limped past, but he would not—and then the gunslinger stopped completely.

Ahead, he saw not just a glimmer, but light—sunlight in fact. Bright sunlight reflected onto the landing at the top of the stairs through the Tower's narrow windows. After he climbed past Lud's population on the stairwell, it had been almost completely dark. Of course, it was impossible to determine how long he had been running since, or how long ago that had been.

But had an entire day passed?

Roland was thinking it was unlikely that time had lurched forward again, especially since the Beams were now safe, but this thought was short-lived, and his heart sank. There was no fanfare or reverie on the stairwell as he approached them. In fact, nothing whatsoever revered or honored the area where Eddie Cantor Dean and John "Jake" Chambers lie among the dead on their level of the Dark Tower. If ka, the Tower itself, or some other force had otherwise marked sacred the members of the Ka-Tet of Nineteen and their accomplishments, there was no mark of that power here.

Roland limped the few remaining paces to his kin. Beside him, in the ivory mural wall, a brilliant depiction of a blowing whiteout of snow engendered two human profiles and one much like that of a lean, awkward dog marching along a patch of road. Behind one of these was a cart loaded with provisions and the outline of a woman. Roland looked away—he was too close to the end to lose focus and he desperately wanted to continue—but he knew there was still one thing to make done here.

Eddie's body came first, and his face was not washed and cared for as Susannah had done after his death, but dirty with caked blood as it had been when he was shot in Blue Haven. Eddie's and Jake's remains weren't as withered and dehydrated as the others, and Roland supposed this was because they had crossed to the clearing very recently. The gunslinger felt an unfamiliar but strong wave of emotion tremble through his body, and realized that he was going to again weep before the tears began. He did not fight it back but wept with honor and in memory of his fallen.

Roland shuffled several steps further and stood between Eddie and Jake. Unlike Eddie, the gunslinger's ka-son could not be washed, but he had been made as presentable as possible before his burial. Here in the Dark Tower, Jake appeared as he had when the van had crushed his life out of him, and his leg remained bent at the same unnatural angle as it had been in Keystone Maine. More tears filled, brimmed, and fell around the stubble on his cheeks. Roland bent and rested against the mural wall, sitting between Jake and Eddie, and stretching out his legs. The muscles in his calves felt like stone. The new light from outside streamed in the windows and also shined on the Tower's central pillar. It was very close to the stairwell now. Roland didn't notice.

Instead, he placed a hand on Eddie's and then Jake's shoulders. Roland considered a moment, opened his mouth, but could find no words to say. Ka-tet they had been—one from many—and they had functioned as one until the dark of ka shume filched their khef. And so there were no thoughts or words—only the velvety hum and call of the Dark Tower that filled the spaces of his mind where their khef had once been.

Just before he stood again, Roland thought he heard the acerbic voice of the man in black as clearly as he had when sitting across him in the golgotha of stones. Walter had spoken of sacrifice, the Tower, and death—a monologue that he had heard in his dreams hundreds of times. The fortune told by the tarot cards had transpired even though it had been a glam, mere legerdemain. The only remaining cards from that stacked deck had been Roland's hanged man, the Dark Tower itself, death—'but not for you, gunslinger'—and life.

"But not for me," Roland whispered as Walter's voice faded from his mind.

Past Jake were but four remaining bodies on the marble stairs. Directly beyond these was the landing at the top of the stairwell. The stairs leveled to a plateau that met the off-white pallor of the Dark Tower's interior, and quite simply, stopped. There the Tower's central power cylinder finally met the width of the stairs at the landing, making any further ascent impossible. Above the landing, a ceiling that matched the hue of the mural wall met the Tower's walls, completely encasing the landing other than where the stairway ended. Sunlight streamed through a window above the landing and shone onto the inner wall in a rectangular blood orange frame.

Roland got to his feet and faced Eddie and Jake. Although his calf felt somewhat rested, he was exhausted. Despite the narrowing of the Dark Tower's interior, the stairs were as wide as they had been when Roland had started his climb what felt like days ago. There were only several left. He bent and gently pulled Jake's body into his arms. With great care, Roland stepped around the remaining bodies on the stairwell and to the small landing. He came to the small frame of sunlight and placed Jake sitting against the wall. He took a moment to arrange his body in a proper position, and re-positioned his mangled leg so that both were lying straight out before him. The shards of bone in Jake's leg ground like gravel as he turned his foot upright.

He did the same for Eddie, ceremoniously walking back to where they had been left on the stairs like commoners who were no more than additional bodies in the death debt paid for Roland to gain the Dark Tower. When the gunslinger was satisfied with how Eddie and Jake sat in the sunlight on the landing, he tore off a swatch of his shirt and did his best to clean their faces and hands. When he was finished, he placed their hands on their laps, one on top of the other. He stood, looking at them fondly. They were here in the Dark Tower together after all.

He wasn't sure if that comforted or terrified him.

The gunslinger walked back down the few stairs to where his ka-mates had been. His heart rate spiked when he saw Walter O'Dim, the Walkin' Dude himself. Roland felt little relief at seeing his nemesis dead and broken upon this level of the Dark Tower, as he knew it could also be a glam—another stacked deck. The only certainty in Roland's experience with Randall Flagg was there was no certainty, and things were often not as they appeared. Still, there was hardly anything left of the man in black other than scarce scraps of flesh on his face. Mordred had done a fine job of not wasting any of this particular meal. When tracking Walter in the desert, Roland had been sure the only way either of them would come to an end would be by the other's hand. He had been certain of this in the emerald castle in Kansas as well, that they would have some final standoff to decide the fate of the Dark Tower, but in the end, ka had decided, as ka always did.

"Thee's not Eld," Roland sneered, yet he had not come back down the stairs for Walter.

Next, a pale, gaunt body lay with open bulging eyes and a shocked expression on its face. Roland gave pause for just a moment only to see the creature Dandelo for what he really had been—a vampire that would have ended everything if not for Susannah. Despite how he had felt at the time, Roland then realized he was thankful Susannah had left the path to the Dark Tower—it meant she wasn't another corpse on the stairwell. It had been Eddie that fell instead of the others at Blue Haven, and that had been so that Jake could die saving the writer. This allowed Susannah to save Roland in the small hut on Odd's Lane, and all of this existed so that Roland could stand where he was at this moment. Ka had decided, as ka always did. Yet he had not come back down the stairs for Dandelo.

Instead, with the delicacy and reverence that he had shown Eddie and Jake, Roland bent and picked up Oy, who was lying in Dandelo's shadow, his narrow face limp and lifeless. Roland saw the large hole that now ran through the bumbler's body from being skewered on the tree. 'Olan…' The gunslinger heard Oy's voice speak his last word in his mind and remembered watching as the life bled out of him.

"Oy," Roland whispered, and he walked back to the landing where Eddie and Jake now sat, their faces aglow in what the gunslinger presumed to be early full daylight by now. Roland wiped at Oy's wound with the swatch of shirt he had used to clean Eddie and Jake, and did his best to push Oy's thick fur over the puncture. He bent and placed Oy on Jake's lap, under his hands, paused, and looked over his shoulder.

There was of course a final body on the stairs.

The gunslinger walked to the pale corpse that was half wrapped in black spider's legs and half hume—as if trapped when changing between forms. Roland found that he felt no more remorse for his half-son, shared blood of the Eld and of the Ram Abbalah—of the White and Red—than he had for any of the others he had ended. Despite his level of the Tower, Mordred rested in death as he had existed in life—forgotten and cast aside by ka and those around him. Mordred's body was far separated from any others, lying alone, and Roland was reminded of when Mordred had trailed he and Oy—always in shadow and by himself.

The birthmark on Mordred's heel glowed with a deep red-orange light. It was the mark of the Eld, and it pulsed with the Tower's call. Roland thought about stomping the mark until the glow snuffed out, but he began to walk away. This was not from pity or because Mordred was his blood. It was because it was done—he was at the top of the Dark Tower's stairs, not lying dead upon them, and there was still a little more work to be done.

Roland turned to the landing. Other than the rectangle of light where Eddie, Jake and Oy now sat, the back wall of the landing was dark and shadowed. It would be there, he was sure—he felt it near him now through the Dark Tower's khef—along with a very large powerful presence near where he stood. He walked to the landing. Perhaps the top room was just on the other side of where he stood. Finally, he only had to come to the door, bid it open, and at last walk inside to the glory of the rainbow—to his destiny.

He paused in front of his fallen, made his awkward bow, legs dipping low and hands outstretched completely. "I am here now," he said, his own voice sounding foreign and awkward in the small space. "I wish and pray that you may be well met in the clearing at the end of the path, and I tell each of you thank-ya. Hear me, I beg." He began to walk again, paused, turned back and reconsidered.

"May I meet you there."

As the gunslinger turned from the colossal stairwell, his ka-mates, and those who were sacrificed in his quest, a great weight left him, and the freedom he felt was much like when he had run between the roses of Can'-Ka No Rey and finally to the Dark Tower's base. At last, it was close, it was here—he was here.

The Tower's call enveloped him as he walked, the central pillar's power pulsed beside him as he went, and the sunlight shone on his face as if to offer welcome. Roland again felt worlds and whens circling around him, spinning on the Dark Tower's apex, which he hoped was just above where he stood. He shaded his eyes from the sun and focused ahead. It would be just past the edge of sunlight—the door to the top room. At last he would know, regardless of what awaited him beyond that door, finally he would know. He stepped past the light and into shadow on the landing. As the light left his eyes, he scanned the surrounding walls, floor to ceiling, then fell to his knees.

There was no door.