"Yes," he said. He lifted her high and turned her back the way they had come. Beyond the nasty crowding suburb of dead houses she could see some of the Badlands they'd come through, all those crowding spines of rock broken by the occasional butte or mesa.
"Think of this," he said. "Back yonder as you look is Fedic.
Beyond Fedic, Thunderclap. Beyond Thunderclap, the Callas and the forest that marks the borderland between Mid-World and End-World. Lud is further back that way, and River Crossing further still; the Western Sea and the great Mohaine Desert, too.
Somewhere back there, lost in the leagues and lost in time as well is what remains of In-World. The Baronies. Gilead. Places where even now there are people who remember love and light."
"Yes," she said, not understanding.
"That was the way the Crimson King turned to cast his petulance," Roland said. "He meant to go the other way, ye must ken, to the Dark Tower, and even in his madness he knew better than to kill the land he must pass through, he and whatever band of followers he took with him." He drew her toward him and kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made her feel like crying. "We three will visit his castle, and trap Mordred there if our fortune is good and his is ill. Then we'll go on, and back into living lands. There'll be wood for fires and game to provide fresh food and hides to wrap around us. Can you go on a little longer, dear? Can theeV
"Yes," she said. "Thank you, Roland."
She hugged him, and as she did, she looked toward the red castle. In the growing light she could see that the stone of which it had been made, although darkened by the years, had once been the color of spilled blood. This called forth a memory of her palaver with Mia on the Castle Discordia allure, a memory of steadily pulsing crimson light in the distance. Almost from where they now were, in fact.
Come to me now, if you 'd come at all, Susannah, Mia had told her. For the King can fascinate, even at a distance.
It was that pulsing red glow of which she had been speaking, but-
"It's gone!" she said to Roland. "The red light from the castle-
Forge of the King, she called it! It's gone! We haven't seen it once in all this time!"
"No," he said, and this time his smile was warmer. "I believe it must have stopped at the same time we ended the Breakers"
work. The Forge of the King has gone out, Susannah. Forever, if the gods are good. That much we have done, although it has cost us much."
That afternoon they came to Le Casse Roi Russe, which turned out not to be entirely deserted, after all.
Chapter III:THE CASTLE OF THE CRIMSON KING
ONE
They were a mile from the castle and the roar of the unseen river had become very loud when bunting and posters began to appear. The bunting consisted of red, white, and blue swags-the kind Susannah associated with Memorial Day parades and small-town Main Streets on the Fourth of July. On the facades of these narrow, secretive houses and the fronts of shops long closed and emptied from basement to attic, such decoration looked like rouge on the cheeks of a decaying corpse.
The faces on the posters were all too familiar to her.
Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge flashed V's-for-victory and car-salesmen grins (NIXON/LODGE, BECAUSE THE WORK's NOT DONE, these read). John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson stood with their arms around each other and their free hands raised.
Below their feet was the bold proclamation WE STAND ON THE EDGE OF A NEW FRONTIER.
"Any idea who won?" Roland asked over his shoulder.
Susannah was currently riding in Ho Fat's Luxury Taxi, taking in the sights (and wishing for a sweater: even a light cardigan would do her just fine, by God).
"Oh, yes," she said. There was no doubt in her mind that these posters had been mounted for her benefit. "Kennedy did."
"He became your dinh?"
"Dinh of the entire United States. And Johnson got the job when Kennedy was gunned down."
"Shot? Do you say so?" Roland was interested.
"Aye. Shot from hiding by a coward named Oswald."
"And your United States was the most powerful country in the world."
"Well, Russia was giving us a run for our money when you grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into Mid-World, but yes, basically."
"And the folk of your country choose their dinh for themselves.
It's not done on account of fathership."
"That's right," she said, a little warily. She half-expected Roland to blast the democratic system. Or laugh at it.
Instead he surprised her by saying, "To quote Blaine the Mono, that sounds pretty swell."
"Do me a favor and don't quote him, Roland. Not now, not ever. Okay?"