"Cuthbert," he said. "Matches."
Cuthbert gave him some. He was grinning so hard it was a wonder they hadn't fallen out of his mouth. "We warmed up their day, didn't we, Roland? Aye!"
"We did, indeed," Roland said, grinning himself. "Go on, now. Back to that chimney-cut."
"Let me do it," Cuthbert said. "Please, Roland, you go with Alain and let me stay. I'm a firebug at heart, always have been."
"No," Roland said. "This part of it's mine. Don't argue with me. Go on. And tell Alain to mind the wizard's glass, no matter what."
Cuthbert looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded. "Don't wait too long."
"I won't."
"May your luck rise, Roland."
"May yours rise twice."
Cuthbert hurried away, boots rattling on the loose stone which carpeted the floor of the canyon. He reached Alain, who lifted a hand to Roland. Roland nodded back, then ducked as a bullet snapped close enough to his temple to flick his hatbrim.
He crouched to the left of the opening in the brush and peered around, the wind now striking full in his face. Latigo's men were closing rapidly. More rapidly than he had expected. If the wind blew out the lucifers -
Never mind the ifs. Hold on, Roland. . . hold on... wait for them. . .
He held on, hunkering with an unlit match in each hand, now peering out through a tangle of interlaced branches. The smell of mesquite was strong in his nostrils. Not far behind it was the reek of burning oil. The drone of the thinny filled his head, making him feel dizzy, a stranger to himself. He thought of how it had been inside the pink storm, flying through the air ... how he had been snatched away from his vision of Susan. Thank God for Sheemie, he thought distantly. He'll make sure she finishes the day someplace safe. But the craven whine of the thinny seemed somehow to mock him, to ask him if there had been more to see.
Now Latigo and his men were crossing the last three hundred yards to the canyon's mouth at a full-out gallop, the ones behind closing up fast. It would be hard for the ones riding point to stop suddenly without the risk of being ridden down.
It was time. Roland stuck one of the lucifers between his front teeth and raked it forward. It lit, spilling one hot and sour spark onto the wet bed of his tongue. Before the lucifer's head could bum away, Roland touched it to the powder in the trench. It lit at once, running left beneath the north end of the brush in a bright yellow thread.
He lunged across the opening - which might be wide enough for two horses running flank to flank - with the second lucifer already poised behind his teeth. He struck it as soon as he was somewhat blocked from the wind, dropped it into the powder, heard the splutter-hiss, then turned and ran.
20
Mother and father, was Roland's first shocked thought - memory so deep and unexpected it was like a slap. At Lake Saroni.
When had they gone there, to beautiful Lake Saroni in the northern part of Gilead Barony? That Roland couldn't remember. He knew only that he had been very small, and that there had been a beautiful stretch of sandy beach for him to play on, perfect for an aspiring young castle-builder such as he. That was what he had been doing on one day of their
(vacation? was it a vacation? did my parents once upon a time actually take a vacation?)
trip, and he had looked up, something - maybe only the cries of the birds circling over the lake - had made him look up, and there were his mother and father, Steven and Gabrielle Deschain, at the water's edge, standing with their backs to him and their arms around each other's waists, looking out at blue water beneath a blue summer sky. How his heart had filled with love for them! How infinite was love, twining in and out of hope and memory like a braid with three strong strands, so much the Bright Tower of every human's life and soul.
It wasn't love he felt now, however, but terror. The figures standing before him as he ran back to where the canyon ended (where the rational part of the canyon ended) weren't Steven of Gilead and Gabrielle of Arten but his mollies, Cuthbert and Alain. They didn't have their arms around each other's waists, either, but their hands were clasped, like the hands of fairy-tale children lost in a threatening fairy-tale wood. Birds circled, but they were vultures, not gulls, and the shimmering, mist-topped stuff before the two boys wasn't water.
It was the thinny, and as Roland watched, Cuthbert and Alain began to walk toward it.
"Stop!" he screamed. "For your fathers' sakes, stop!"