“Just a glammer,” said the old man. “Areyou going to kill me? Go ahead. All I ask is that you make quick work of it.I’m not well, as you must see.”

“Was any of what you told us true?”Susannah asked.

His old eyes looked at her with wateryamazement. “All of it was,” he said, and advanced onto the bridge, wheretwo other old men—his assistants, once upon a time, she had nodoubt—lay sprawled. “All of it, anyway, save for one lie… and this.” Hekicked the baskets over so that the contents spilled out.

Susannah gave an involuntary shout ofhorror. Oy was up in a flash, standing protectively in front of her with hisshort legs spread and his head lowered.

“It’s all right,” she said, but her voicewas still trembling. “I was just… startled.”

The wicker basket which had seemed tocontain all sorts of freshly cooked roasts was actually filled with decayinghuman limbs—long pork, after all, and in bad shape even considering whatit was. The flesh was mostly blue-black and a-teem with maggots.

And there were no clothes in the otherbasket. What Fimalo had spilled out of it was actually a shiny knot of dyingsnakes. Their beady eyes were dull; their forked tongues flickered listlesslyin and out; several had already ceased to move.

“You would have refreshed them wonderfully,if you’d pressed them against your skin,” Fimalo said regretfully.

“You didn’t really expect that to happen,did you?” Roland asked.

“No,” the old man admitted. He sat on thebridge with a weary sigh. One of the snakes attempted to crawl into his lap andhe pushed it away with a gesture that was both absent and impatient. “But I hadmy orders, so I did.”

Susannah was looking at the corpses of theother two with horrified fascination. Feemalo and Fumalo, now just a couple ofdead old men, were rotting with unnatural rapidity, their parchment skinsdeflating toward the bone and oozing slack rivulets of pus. As she watched, thesockets of Feemalo’s skull surfaced like twin periscopes, giving the corpse amomentary expression of shock. Some of the snakes crawled and writhed aroundthese decaying corpses. Others were crawling into the basket of maggoty limbs, seekingthe undoubtedly warmer regions at the bottom of the heap. Decay brought its owntemporary fevers, and she supposed that she herself might be tempted toluxuriate in it while she could. If she were a snake, that was.

“Are you going to kill me?” Fimalo asked.

“Nay,” Roland said, “for your duties aren’tdone. You have another coming along behind.”

Fimalo looked up, a gleam of interest inhis rheumy old eyes. “Your son?”

“Mine, and your master’s, as well. Wouldyou give him a word for me during your palaver?”

“If I’m alive to give it, sure.”

“Tell him that I’m old and crafty, whilehe’s but young. Tell him that if he lies back, he may live awhile yet with hisdreams of revenge… although what I’ve done to him requiring his vengeance, Iknow not. And tell him that if he comes forward, I’ll kill him as I intend tokill his Red Father.”

“Either you listen and don’t hear or hearand don’t believe,” Fimalo said. Now that his own ruse had been exposed(nothing so glamorous as an uffi, Susannah thought; just a retreaded adman fromupstate New York), he seemed unutterably weary. “You cannot kill a creaturethat has killed itself. Nor can you enter the Dark Tower, for there is only oneentrance, and the balcony upon which Los’ is imprisoned commands it. And he’s armedwith a sufficiency of weapons. The sneetches alone would seek you out and slayyou before you’d crossed halfway through the field of roses.”

“That’s our worry,” Roland said, andSusannah thought he’d rarely spoken a truer word: she was worrying about italready. “As for you, will you pass my message on to Mordred, when you seehim?”

Fimalo made a gesture of acquiescence.

Roland shook his head. “Don’t just flap thyhand at me, cully—let me hear from your mouth.”

“I’ll pass along your message,” said Fimalo,then added: “If I see him, and we palaver.”

“You will. ‘Day to you, sir.” Roland beganto turn away, but Susannah caught his arm and he turned back.

“Swear to me that all you told us wastrue,” she bade the ugly ancient sitting on the cobbled bridge and below thecold gaze of the crows, who were beginning to settle back to their formerplaces. What she meant to learn or prove by this she had not the slightestidea. Would she know this man’s lies, even now? Probably not. But she pressedon, just the same. “Swear it on the name of your father, and on his face, aswell.”

The old man raised his right hand to her,palm out, and Susannah saw there were open sores even there. “I swear it on thename of Andrew John Cornwell, of Tioga Springs, New York. And on his face, too.The King of this castle really did run mad, and really did burst those Wizard’sGlasses that had come into his hands. He really did force the staff to takepoison and he really did watch them die.” He flung out the hand he’d held up inpledge to the box of severed limbs. “Where do you think I got those, LadyBlackbird? Body Parts R Us?”

She didn’t understand the reference, andremained still.

“He really has gone on to the Dark Tower.He’s like the dog in some old fable or other, wanting to make sure that if hecan’t get any good from the hay, no one else will, either. I didn’t even lie toyou about what was in these boxes, not really. I simply showed you the goodsand let you draw your own conclusions.” His smile of cynical pleasure madeSusannah wonder if she ought to remind him that Roland, at least, had seenthrough this trick. She decided it wasn’t worth it.

“I told you only one outright lie,” saidthe former Austin Cornwell. “That he’d had me beheaded.”

“Are you satisfied, Susannah?” Roland askedher.

“Yes,” she said, although she wasn’t; notreally. “Let’s go.”

“Climb up in Ho Fat, then, and don’t turnthy back on him when thee does. He’s sly.”

“Tell me about it,” Susannah said, and thendid as she was asked.

“Long days and pleasant nights,” said theformer sai Cornwell from where he sat amid the squirming, dying snakes. “Maythe Man Jesus watch over you and all your clan-fam. And may you show sensebefore it’s too late for sense and stay away from the Dark Tower!”

Six

They retraced their path to theintersection where they had turned away from the Path of the Beam to go to theCrimson King’s castle, and here Roland stopped to rest for a few minutes. Alittle bit of a breeze had gotten up, and the patriotic bunting flapped. Shesaw it now looked old and faded. The pictures of Nixon, Lodge, Kennedy, andJohnson had been defaced by graffiti which was itself ancient. All theglammer—such ragged glammer as the Crimson King had been able to manage,at any rate—was gone.

Masks off, masks off, she thoughttiredly. It was a wonderful party, but now it’s finished… and the Red Deathholds sway over all.

She touched the pimple beside her mouth,then looked at the tip of her finger. She expected to see blood or pus or both.There was neither, and that was a relief.

“How much of it do you believe?” Susannahasked him.

“Pretty much all of it,” Roland replied.

“So he’s up there. In the Tower.”

“Not in it. Trapped outsideit.” He smiled. “There’s a big difference.”

“Is there really? And what will you do tohim?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think that if he did get control ofyour guns, that he could get back inside the Tower and climb to the top?”

“Yes.” The reply was immediate.

“What will you do about it?”

“Not let him get either of them.” He spokeas if this should have been self-evident, and Susannah supposed it should havebeen. What she had a way of forgetting was how goddamned literal he was.About everything.

“You were thinking of trapping Mordred,back at the castle.”