- that is the central focus of the book. While the three manage to
destroy the conspirators, Susan is killed during the fight by the
townspeople of Hambry. The story gives Jake, Eddie and
Suzannah new insight into Roland's background and why he may
sacrifice them to attain his ultimate goal of saving his world. The
book ends with the foursome moving onward once more towards
the Tower.
THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA
BY STEPHEN KING
[Author's Note: The Dark Tower books begin with Roland of
Gilead, the last gunslinger in an exhausted world that has 'moved
on', pursuing a magician in a black robe. Roland has been chasing
Walter for a very long time. In the first book of the cycle, he finally
catches up. This story, however, takes place while Roland is still
casting about for Walter's trail. A knowledge of the books is
therefore not necessary for you to understand - and hopefully enjoy
-the story which follows. S.K.]
I. Full Earth. The Empty Town. The Bells. The Dead Boy.
The Overturned Wagon. The Green Folk.
On a day in Full Earth so hot that it seemed to suck the breath from
his chest before his body could use it, Roland of Gilead came to
the gates of a village in the Desatoya Mountains. He was travelling
alone by then, and would soon be travelling afoot, as well. This
whole last week he had been hoping for a horse-doctor, but
guessed such a fellow would do him no good now, even if this
town had one. His mount, a two-year-old roan, was pretty well
done for.
The town gates, still decorated with flowers from some festival or
other, stood open and welcoming, but the silence beyond them was
all wrong. The gunslinger heard no clip-clop of horses, no rumble
of wagon-wheels, no merchants' huckstering cries from the
marketplace. The only sounds were the low hum of crickets (some
sort of bug, at any rate; they were a bit more tuneful than crickets,
at that), a queer wooden knocking sound, and the faint, dreamy
tinkle of small bells.
Also, the flowers twined through the wrought-iron staves of the
ornamental gate were long dead.
Between his knees, Topsy gave two great, hollow sneezes -
K'chow! K'chow! - and staggered sideways. Roland dismounted,
partly out of respect for the horse, partly out of respect for himself
- he didn't want to break a leg under Topsy if Topsy chose this
moment to give up and canter into the clearing at the end of his
path.
The gunslinger stood in his dusty boots and faded jeans under the
beating sun, stroking the roan's matted neck, pausing every now
and then to yank his fingers through the tangles of Topsy's mane,
and stopping once to shoo off the tiny flies clustering at the corners
of Topsy's eyes. Let them lay their eggs and hatch their maggots
there after Topsy was dead, but not before.
Roland thus honoured his horse as best he could, listening to those
distant, dreamy bells and the strange wooden tocking sound as he
did. After a while he ceased his absent grooming and looked
thoughtfully at the open gate.
The cross above its centre was a bit unusual, but otherwise the gate
was a typical example of its type, a western commonplace which
was not useful but traditional - all the little towns he had come to
in the last tenmonth seemed to have one such where you came in
(grand) and one more such where you went out (not so grand).
None had been built to exclude visitors, certainly not this one. It
stood between two walls of pink adobe that ran into the scree for a
distance of about twenty feet on either side of the road and then
simply stopped. Close the gate, lock it with many locks, and all
that meant was a short walk around one bit of adobe wall or the
other.
Beyond the gate, Roland could see what looked in most respects
like a perfectly ordinary High Street - an inn, two saloons (one of
which was called The Bustling Pig; the sign over the other was too
faded to read), a mercantile, a smithy, a Gathering Hall. There was
also a small but rather lovely wooden building with a modest bell-
tower on top, a sturdy fieldstone foundation on bottom, and a gold-
painted cross on its double doors. The cross, like the one over the
gate, marked this as a worshipping place for those who held to the
Jesus-man. This wasn't a common religion in Mid-World, but far
from unknown; that same thing could have been said about most
forms of worship in those days, including the worship of Baal,
Asmodeus, and a hundred others. Faith, like everything else in the
world these days, had moved on. As far as Roland was concerned,
God o' the Cross was just another religion which taught that love
and murder were inextricably bound together - that in the end, God
always drank blood.
Meanwhile, there was the singing hum of insects which sounded
almost like crickets. The dreamlike tinkle of the bells. And that
queer wooden thumping, like a fist on a door. Or on a coffin top.
Something here's a long way from right, the gunslinger thought.
Ware, Roland; this place has a reddish odour.
He led Topsy through the gate with its adornments of dead flowers
and down the High Street. On the porch of the mercantile, where
the old men should have congregated to discuss crops, politics, and
the follies of the younger generation, there stood only a line of
empty rockers. Lying beneath one, as if dropped from a careless
(and long-departed) hand, was a charred corncob pipe. The
hitching-rack in front of The Bustling Pig stood empty; the
windows of the saloon itself were dark. One of the batwing doors
had been yanked off and stood propped against the side of the
building; the other hung ajar, its faded green slats splattered with
maroon stuff that might have been paint but probably wasn't.
The shopfront of the livery stable stood intact, like the face of a
ruined woman who has access to good cosmetics, but the double
barn behind it was a charred skeleton. That fire must have
happened on a rainy day, the gunslinger thought, or the whole
damned town would have gone up in flames; a jolly spin and raree
for anyone around to see it.
To his right now, halfway up to where the street opened into the
town square, was the church. There were grassy borders on both
sides, one separating the church from the town's Gathering Hall,
the other from the little house set aside for the preacher and his
family (if this was one of the Jesus-sects which allowed its
shamans to have wives and families, that was; some of them,
clearly administered by lunatics, demanded at least the appearance
of celibacy). There were flowers in these grassy strips, and while
they looked parched, most were still alive. So whatever had
happened here to empty the place out had not happened long ago.
A week, perhaps. Two at the outside, given the heat.
Topsy sneezed again - K'chow! - and lowered his head wearily.
The gunslinger saw the source of the tinkling. Above the cross on
the church doors, a cord had been strung in a long, shallow arc.
Hung from it were perhaps two dozen tiny silver bells. There was
hardly any breeze today, but enough so these small bells were
never quite still ... and if a real wind should rise, Roland thought,
the sound made by the tintinnabulation of the bells would probably
be a good deal less pleasant; more like the strident parley of
gossips' tongues.
'Hello!' Roland called, looking across the street at what a large
falsefronted sign proclaimed to be the Good Beds Hotel. 'Hello, the
town!'
No answer but the bells, the tunesome insects, and that odd