This story is the sole property of Tariq Hussein, alias "musrreborn." I do not own any of the Dark Tower characters, and I give full credit to Stephen King for the loan of his characters and plotline.
MAJOR SPOILERS! You were warned...
This story, The Last Guardian, alters the plot of DT 7 – The Dark Tower – in one fundamental way: the entire scene in which Mordred overcomes Walter o' Dim, Roland's ancient nemesis, and ultimately devours him, does not occur in any way, shape, or form. The rest of the story progresses as normal, including the ultimate demise of Mordred at Roland's hands, and I take up the story just after Roland begins to stride towards the Tower, alone, calling the names of all those who have fallen in the way of the Dark Tower, and in the path of the ka-tet of Nineteen. With that said, on with the show!
"I am Roland of Gilead, and I come as myself; you will open to me." And having spoken the last name, his own, Roland to the Dark Tower came. He had been the last gunslinger once, and then had been joined by others of his tet, and now he was again the last remnant of a world that had moved on. The circle had come full. "I've come so far," murmured the gunslinger. To whom was he speaking? To ka, perhaps, or Gan, or the Tower itself. He had the idea that they were all one and the same.
"Yes," a voice said from behind him, and Roland knew that voice. Oh, how that voice had haunted him. Roland whirled instantly, feeling despair come over him. It wasn't over. Even here, at the foot of the Tower itself, it wasn't over. Standing there, clad in black as always, was a man-shaped being who was supposed to have died a thousand years ago. Roland had taken his jawbone, and used it to light his way to the Tower. But here he was, and apparently not lacking a jaw. The man in black stood like a smaller version of the Tower, his black robes contrasting with the fields of roses. And he spoke, his voice bringing back the creeping horrors in Roland. How many times had he heard that voice, taunting him? How many times had he replayed his sacrifice of Jake – no, now was not the time for telling himself lies any longer – his murder of Jake, and heard the voice of the creature before him, exposing that secret, cold part of him for what it was. "We meet again, gunslinger," tittered the man in black. "Long days, pleasant nights."
Roland's gun blazed. The report disappeared, swallowed by the commala song of the Tower, but Roland could barely perceive a small sound as the bullet fell harmlessly to the ground. Perhaps it had crushed a rose petal as it landed. Perhaps it had crushed a thousand worlds. "All in good time, gunslinger, all in good time," the man in black said, smiling with pointed teeth. "Now, we palaver, I think. We palaver here, at the foot of all worlds. We palaver, not for the first time and not for the last time. The last gunslinger and the last guardian join once more."
"Speak, then, Walter, if it does ya," Roland said, "but grant me one moment."
"But of course, Roland! Take as much time as you need! You've got lots of it, after all," the man in black said, and threw back his head and laughed. Roland ignored him, and turned to the Tower, holding all that remained of the gunna he had carried through his long quest, through pain and blood and death, through joy and sorrow, through untold worlds until he reached the center of them all. In the remaining fingers of his right hand, he had looped the chain of Aunt Tabitha's cross, carried all the way to the edge of End-World from River Crossing, and in his left, he carried his father's gun. He bent to the Tower, feeling oddly solemn, and laid the gun before it, and the cross atop the gun. "I have kept my promise," he murmured.
"Ah, the cross," Walter said from behind him. "Tabitha Unwin has long since walked the path, of course, and awaits you in the clearing."
"What does that mean? Tell me, I beg ya," the gunslinger responded, straightening from his crouch and turning to face his enemy once more. "Do you say I've come to the Tower to die, then? Is that what awaits in the top room?"
"I wouldn't know," Walter said curtly, and the humor left his eternally laughing face for a moment. "I've never seen that room. That room is for those who dream of power, and for those who dream of glory. I dream of neither."
"What do you dream of, then, Walter, if it does ya?" The gunslinger faced the man in black, feeling an odd sense of finality. This was it. This was what he had come for, he felt.
"Of you," the man in black answered. "I've dreamt of you since my calling, Roland. I've dreamt of the man whose ka it is to stand before the Tower, as no man has ever done before, and perhaps to enter it."
"You say perhaps, Walter. Are you here to stop me? How did you come to be here, for that matter? When last I saw you, you were a heap of bones among bones." Roland spoke quietly, almost warmly, as if speaking of grave matters with a friend long absent.
"You say true, gunslinger, I say thankya," the man in black said, the language of the Calla folken sounding odd in his off-kilter voice. "How did Walter o' Dim – Randy Flagg if that does ya better – come to the Dark Tower after dying in the long-ago? It's simple, gunslinger: I never died in the first place. Surely you don't think I could give up that easily? No, no, I left the bones of another wrapped in my robes for you, gunslinger, and the jawbone of another."
The gunslinger dismissed this as an answer that he already knew, remembering the feeling he had had at the golgotha – that Walter was long gone, and the body that of another. "Whose bones, Walter?" Walter spread his hands in a gesture that said if you know, I don't. The gunslinger pressed on, "Are you here to stop me, Walter?"
"I should be," the man in black responded. "That's my purpose, after all, isn't it? Ever since I was a stripling – Walter Padick, if it does ya, although that name is long forgotten – I was called by the Tower."
"What does that mean?" Roland asked. "What called you?"
"I don't know," the man in black said introspectively. "The voice of Gan, perhaps? Never mind, it's all water under the bridge now. What matters is that I was called. I've walked a thousand worlds, Roland – ten thousand! – trying to protect the center of them all. Trying to defend the Tower from whoever would dare climb it and look upon the top room. I've murdered. I've schemed. I've cozened. I've slaughtered and deceived, raped and butchered. But I have also loved, and cared, and fathered, and taught. In this I am like you, Roland – I am not evil at heart, not soulless by nature, but I have done whatever I needed to accomplish my goal."
"And what is that goal?" the gunslinger whispered. "Tell me, I beg."
"The Tower," Walter answered. "The same as you. To look beyond infinity itself and see what lies there."
"Here you are, then, Walter. Why haven't you entered the Tower?"
"This is the first time I've ever been here in body, gunslinger. Many times I have visited in spirit, at the calling of my so-called master," Walter flicked a sarcastic hand at the malevolent red eyes floating around on the balcony of the Tower, "but now is the first I have been here in body."
"So enter, then! Why don't you, if you want the same as I?"
"I would, gunslinger," the man in black tittered again, "but you kill me first. You always have."
"I always have? Have you seen this in a dream, then, sorcerer? In the eye of your glammer?" Roland asked.
"Indeed not. But I know, all the same. This is meant for you, gunslinger, be it blessing or curse. The last guardian has failed. At every point, I attempted to destroy you like I have destroyed every other unfortunate fool who quested for my prize, and at every point you have defeated me. Now I stand here, knowing my ka, awaiting your resumption."
"My resumption? What do you mean, Walter?"
All the color and emotion seemed to drain out of Walter's face. He opened his mouth, but the voice that emerged was not his own. "I'm sorry, Roland of Gilead, but that information is classified under Directive Nineteen. You have ten seconds to give the password. Ten..."
A wave of horror enveloped Roland. At the last, even at the foot of the Tower, North Central Positronics had followed him. Now the man in black would cast aside his robes, and beneath them would be a skinny robot body like that of Andy attached to Walter's head, and what would be stamped on that robot's chest? AGELESS STRANGER, perhaps, MANY OTHER FUNCTIONS? Roland stooped and grabbed his gun back up from the foot of the Tower, spilling Aunt Tabitha's cross back down to the ground, and leveled it at Walter's lifeless face. His finger was actually bearing down on the trigger when Walter's expression changed to one of intense glee. "Just kidding, gunslinger!" Walter cried, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter. Roland's insides began to cool off again.
"I should kill you for that," Roland said. "You've already said that it's your ka to fall before me here."
"And so it is, gunslinger, so it is. In fact, we have palavered here for longer than you think. Dusk comes, gunslinger." Walter gestured to the horizon and the rapidly darkening sky. "It's time, Roland. Enter the Tower."
"You haven't answered any of my questions, Walter," the gunslinger said bluntly. It wasn't as if he had expected anything else.
"You say true, Roland," Walter laughed. "But there will be other times, won't there? Oh yes – we'll stand here together many, many more times, and perhaps you will learn more each time."
"What are you talking about, damn you?" Roland asked angrily. "Answer me, in the name of the White! How could there be more times?"
"So you'd have it then, gunslinger? Very well. Do you remember our Tarot reading, gunslinger? Do you remember Death?" Roland nodded, a vague sense of disquiet beginning to overwhelm him. "But not for you, gunslinger. Never for you."
"You speak in riddles, Walter, as always! Speak plainly, by all the gods that are or ever were!" And Roland, without even realizing it, raised his revolver one more time at Walter's neck. "Speak!"
Walter's words, robbed of all humor, fell into the commala song as if they have been woven into it from its inception. "The Land of Nineteen isn't for you, Roland. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on."
Roland stared dully at his ancient enemy. The man in black. The last guardian. "You've spoken, man or demon that you are, and I say thankya." The gunslinger turned slowly to face the Tower again, and began to walk towards its great door.
From behind him, the man in black called, "And each time, you forget the last time. For you, each time is the first time!" Roland kept walking until he was just before the great doors.
"In the name of the White, in the name of Gan, and all the gods that ever were, in the name of Gilead, and in the name of Roland Deschain, Gilead's last son, I command you: open!" Roland's words echoed flatly into the commala song of a billion roses, a billion universes, all around him. "Open! Open!"
"Sound your horn, Roland of Gilead. Sound the Horn of Eld, and be admitted to the Tower." This last was from the man in black, somewhere behind him. Roland's hand dropped to his hip. There was no horn. It had fallen from Cuthbert's dying fingers, and even now perhaps it still lay buried in the dust of Jericho Hill, surrounded by the death of In-World. A million wheels from its destined location – the hand of Roland, last of the Eld, at the Dark Tower.
"It's gone, Walter," Roland replied, "say sorry."
"Then you cannot enter," Walter said, real regret now tingeing his voice. "Even now, I am the Tower's last guardian. I must stop you. It is my ka—"
Roland turned, the big revolver still in his hand, but it did not feel like he was moving. His eye and his hand aimed, and his gun shot. The man in black fell, not for the first time, but perhaps for the last. "The same..." came the voice of Walter o' Dim, who had gone by many names but had been first known as Walter Padick, and then he was silent. All was silent. Dusk was coming. Even the commala song was fading, the roses beginning to close up in anticipation of another night. The wheel of ka had turned.
The gunslinger slowly turned back again, taking in the opening of the Tower's vast doors. He stepped forward, laying his revolver, its last killing done, atop Tabitha's cross. And he entered the Dark Tower, not for the first time, and not for the last time.