He had sensed something coming, some vast change, and that was what he felt now.
Yonder it is, he thought. Yonder is my destiny, the end of my life's road. And yet my heart still beats (a little faster than before, 'tis true), my blood still courses, and no doubt when I bend over to grasp the handies of this becurst cart my back will groan and I may pass a little gas.
Nothing at all has changed.
He waited for the disappointment this thought surely presaged-the letdown. It didn't come. What he felt instead was a queer, soaring brightness that seemed to begin in his mind and then spread to his muscles. For the first time since setting out at mid-morning, thoughts of Oy and Susannah left his mind.
He felt free.
Patrick lowered the binoculars. When he turned to Roland, his face was excited. He pointed to the black thumb jutting above the horizon and hooted.
"Yes," Roland said. "Someday, in some world, some version of you will paint it, along with Llamrei, Arthur Eld's horse. That I know, for I've seen the proof. As for now, it's where we must go."
Patrick hooted again, then pulled a long face. He put his hands to his temples and swayed his head back and forth, like someone who has a terrible headache.
"Yes," Roland said. "I'm afraid, too. But there's no help for it. I have to go there. Would you stay here, Patrick? Stay and wait for me? If you would, I give you leave to do so."
Patrick shook his head at once. And, just in case Roland didn't take the point, the mute boy seized his arm in a hard grip. The right hand, the one with which he drew, was like iron.
Roland nodded. Even tried to smile. 'Yes," he said, "that's fine. Stay with me as long as you like. As long as you understand that in the end I'll have to go on alone."
THREE
Now, as they rose from each dip and topped each hill, the Dark Tower seemed to spring closer. More of the spiraling windows which ran around its great circumference became visible.
Roland could see two steel posts jutting from the top. The clouds which followed the Paths of the two working Beams seemed to flow away from the tips, making a great X-shape in the sky. The voices grew louder, and Roland realized they were singing the names of the world. Of all the worlds. He didn't know how he could know that, but he was sure of it. That lightness of being continued to fill him up. Finally, as they crested a hill with great stone men marching away to the north on their left (the remains of their faces, painted in some blood-red stuff, glared down upon them), Roland told Patrick to climb up into the cart. Patrick looked surprised. He made a series of hooting noises Roland took to mean But aren'tyou tired1?
"Yes, but I need an anchor, even so. Without one I'm apt to start running toward yonder Tower, even though part of me knows better. And if plain old exhaustion doesn't burst my heart, the Red King's apt to take my head off with one of his toys. Get in, Patrick."
Patrick did so. He rode sitting hunched forward, with the binoculars pressed against his eyes.
FOUR
Three hours later, they came to the foot of a much steeper hill.
It was, Roland's heart told him, the last hill. Can'-Ka No Rey was beyond. At the top, on the right, was a cairn of boulders that had once been a small pyramid. What remained stood about thirty feet high. Roses grew around its base in a rough crimson ring. Roland set this in his sights and took the hill slowly, pulling the cart by its handles. As he climbed, the top of the Dark Tower once more appeared. Each step brought a greater length of it into view. Now he could see the balconies with their waisthigh railings. There was no need of the binoculars; the air was preternaturally clear. He put the distance remaining at no more than five miles. Perhaps only three. Level after level rose before his not-quite-disbelieving eye.
Just shy of this hill's top, with the crumbling rock pyramid twenty paces ahead of them on the right, Roland stopped, bent, and set the handles of the cart on the road for the last time. Every nerve in his body spoke of danger.
"Patrick? Hop down."
Patrick did so, looking anxiously into Roland's face and hooting.
The gunslinger shook his head. "I can't say why just yet.
Only it's not safe." The voices sang in a great chorus, but the air around them was still. Not a bird soared overhead or sang in the distance. The wandering herds of bannock had all been left behind. A breeze soughed around them, and the grasses rippled.
The roses nodded their wild heads.
The two of them walked on together, and as they did, Roland felt a timid touch against the side of his two-fingered right hand.