The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (16 page)

The transformation took place in the Fedic Dogan—the same place where the twins from the Callas were ruined. However, she was sterile, so the only way she could bear a child was to steal Susannah's, which is being slowly transmitted to her throughout the pregnancy. Mia knows that Mordred will grow quickly and believes she may get to raise him for only five or seven years, but that will be enough to fulfill her imperative.

Their palaver is interrupted when Richard Sayre, the man whose name Eddie saw representing Sombra Corporation on the memorandum of understanding with Calvin Tower and who presided over the meeting where Father Callahan died, calls Mia to supply her destination: the Dixie Pig, a name the
ka-tet
saw while todash in the vacant lot.

On the way to the restaurant, Susannah exposes Mia to some details from her life to show her what she's given up. She will be a mother without ever getting to experience all the things that make motherhood wonderful. While Mia is distracted, she tosses the scrimshaw turtle aside so that someone else might find and use it. Her mental Dogan can no longer hold the pregnancy back. She goes into full labor.

The scene inside the Dixie Pig is something out of Hieronymus Bosch. Waiting for them are vampires, low men and taheen. The restaurant has been catering to flesh-eaters for centuries, and the meat cooking in the kitchen is baby meat, not pig. Richard Sayre presides over the scene. Susannah's Detta
personality tries to assert itself, but Mia is in charge now—of the body, at least. Sayre has no respect for her at all and humiliates her in front of his minions.

Mia and Susannah have one more hasty meeting on the ramparts of Castle Discordia. Mia finally accepts that she's been misled. She wants Susannah to help her escape with her son. Failing that, she wants Susannah to kill them both.

Sayre and his henchmen drag Mia beneath the Dixie Pig to a doorway that crosses over to the Fedic Dogan, the place where Mia was made mortal. Susannah and Mia separate physically but are connected by headsets to finalize the transfer of the fetus to Mia. This part of the story ends with Mordred about to be born.

Sayre told Mia that Eddie and Roland had been killed in an ambush. Mia had supplied him with information about their intended destination, so he had Jack Andolini and a small army of thugs waiting.

It was a good thing that Jake and Father Callahan didn't arrive in 1977 as planned. A gunslinger apprentice and a priest would have been no match for Andolini's men. Roland was built for this kind of situation, though, so he drags Eddie out of the line of fire into the general store, where they meet an unlikely ally—an old-timer named John Cullum who can handle himself in a dangerous situation. Roland and Eddie kill almost all of Andolini's men (many of them for the second time, though this is a decade earlier than the shoot-out at Balazar's headquarters) and escape in Cullum's boat.

Cullum is a cottage caretaker, so he knows the locals and outsiders. He knows where Calvin Tower and Aaron Deepneau are staying and agrees to take them there. After some tense negotiations during which Eddie feels like killing the stubborn bookseller, the deal is struck. They tell Cullum to leave town for his own safety and seek out Tower.

Eddie asks about Stephen King and learns that the author moved to the area recently, at about the same time as walk-ins—mutants and other strange creatures—started appearing. While Roland is removing a bullet from Eddie's leg, Eddie starts to get a sense of the true nature of their existence. He realizes the similarity between their adventure in Calla Bryn Sturgis and
The Magnificent Seven
. This, combined with Father Callahan turning out to be a character in a Stephen King novel, makes him eager to meet the author, who may be his and Roland's creator.

The closer they get to King's house, the stronger their sense that they are approaching something profoundly important. Eddie theorizes that King and the rose are twins—that each of them represents one of the two surviving Beams supporting the Tower.

In 1977, Stephen King hasn't thought up Eddie yet, but he recognizes Roland for what he is. He's dumbstruck. Eddie and Roland are less awed by King. For one thing, if he's their god and creator, he's been responsible for the deaths of a lot of people they knew and loved. For another, he's marked by a black aura. Under hypnosis, King reveals that the Crimson King has been trying to kill him or stop him from writing the Dark Tower story for decades. Among those who stepped in to help him at an early age were Cuthbert and Eddie.

The Dark Tower stories are moldering in a box in the basement. Fear of the Crimson King, who seems to see him every time he works on Roland's story, coupled with a growing dislike for Roland as a character, has kept him from writing more or from publishing what he's already written. At first he says he caused Roland to drop Jake, but then he recants and says it was Roland's decision.

For Roland, King is Gan, the creative force, channeling
ka
through himself but not creating it. The story blows into him (like the wind through the keyhole, perhaps). He doesn't always like what he is inspired to write, but he has no choice. It is crucial for Roland that King resume the story, but they have to keep him safe from the Crimson King and the low men. He plants a posthypnotic suggestion that will allow the author to pick up the story from time to time but put it aside for long periods, too. Under hypnosis, King knows much more of the story. He tells Roland that Susannah's baby is dangerous to her, and that Black Thirteen must be destroyed. He also allows himself to send a message to Jake in 1999—this is
ka
in action at its most basic level.

Jake and Father Callahan arrive in New York half an hour after Susannah left for the Dixie Pig in a taxi. Their sudden appearance on a busy street causes a momentary stir and a confrontation between Jake and a taxi driver who narrowly avoids running over Oy.

They meet Reverend Earl Harrigan—Henchick of the Manni's twin—who tells them that Susannah left a message with him, instructing Jake and Callahan to go to the hotel. Black Thirteen is still in the safe, and if the low men get it there's no telling what will happen. Before they go to the hotel, they check out the rose in the lobby of the Black Tower and see its subliminal effect on people.

Stephen King's message to Jake is in the form of a room key. Black Thirteen, probably sensing what Callahan has in store for it, tries to exert its power against them, but they are able to resist, which restores Callahan's faith in God. He thinks he's finally getting his chance to redeem himself for the loss of faith that tarnished him in 'Salem's Lot. They leave Black Thirteen in a coin-op locker in the basement of the World Trade Center with enough money to last three years and then follow Susannah's trail to the Dixie Pig.
Both of them think they may die at the restaurant. Callahan gives Jake the last rites. Their unexpected weapon comes in the form of the scrimshaw turtle that Oy finds in the gutter where Susannah threw it.

The coda section of the book presents Stephen King's journal from the time of Eddie and Roland's visit until the date of his accident a couple of weeks after Susannah arrives in 1999. In these entries, he discusses returning to the Dark Tower series, getting the first installments published, and how the story comes back to him time and time again over the years.

He also discusses fan reaction to the series—their demands for the next installment, how they howl at the way some of the books end as cliffhangers, and pleas from dying people to know how it's going to end.

Writing Roland's story feels good, but it also feels dangerous. He worries that he may die of a heart attack while writing and leave behind an unfinished series. His wife worries about his daily walks on the country road near their new house on Turtleback Lane. The journal ends with a clipping about King's accident on June 19, 1999. In this version of reality, he dies.