The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (31 page)

The Little Sisters of the Rose is one of many Mid-World religious sects. Its members devote themselves to charity, chastity and to the
khef
, the liquid element that represents life to all things.
Khef
is also the force that binds
ka-tets
together and is the blood that runs through everyone's veins. They act as nurses, erecting tents as portable clinics where they tend to the wounded. Since they follow in the wake of John Farson's destruction, their path is a dangerous one and many have been killed, tortured or raped.

The Little Sisters of the Rose have a retreat called Our Lady in Debaria, where disgraced women go to pay penance for their sins. (Gabrielle Deschain was one of their guests, and young Roland Deschain visited the retreat—where it was called Serenity—when investigating the shape-shifter in
The Wind Through the Keyhole
.) The retreat has a rose garden that is modeled after the fields of Can'-Ka No Rey, in the middle of which stands a temple in the shape of the Dark Tower. Legend has it that the roses are all descended from one that was plucked from the field surrounding the real Tower. The sister who spent ten years traveling to and from the Tower brought back an invisible affliction, too, that laid waste to her fellow Sisters, though they were resuscitated from death with amazing healing powers. Not everyone who entered their healing tent emerged, however. Many men disappeared. Big Sister discovered that the reborn Sisters were vampires and that they were led by another who feasted on the
khef
of the dying men in their care. The vampires were staked and the convent reconsecrated with the twelve Guardians of the Beam.

T
HE
L
ONG
R
OAD TO
T
REACHERY

A summary of the characters who have appeared in the series so far, featuring biographies of Roland Deschain, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Steven Deschain, Marten Broadcloak, John Farson, Clay Reynolds, Sheemie Ruiz, Cort Andrus and the Crimson King.

I
SSUE
4: _______________________________________________

T
HE
M
ANNI, THE
T
OUCH, THE
T
OWER AND THE
R
OSE

The touch is the Mid-World term for psychic powers. Most people who belong to the religious order known as the Manni possess this extrasensory perception as well, and it is fundamental to their central religious rite, which is traveling “todash”—moving between worlds without using portals. In the olden days, gunslingers were encouraged to take Manni wives to introduce this power into the gunslingers' repertoire of abilities. The Manni are somewhat akin to the Amish in our world, wearing cloaks and hats, growing beards, and allowing polygamous relationships. In some places they are persecuted because of their unusual abilities. The Manni believe their powers are a gift from the Prim and the Over, which is another term for Gan. Their todash travels are undertaken in the pursuit of knowledge and not for personal gain. Such travels are dangerous, for if their preparations are flawed, they could end up traveling to one of the voids between universes that are filled with todash creatures. Their travels have revealed to them that Roland's version of Mid-World is the Keystone Tower, in which time travels in only one direction and events can never be undone. Its counterpart is an Earthlike reality called Keystone Earth, where the Tower has the form of a pink rose that protects the heart of reality. While the Crimson King threatens the Dark Tower in Keystone Tower, the rose is under threat from other enemies in Keystone Earth. These agents have isolated it from those who would seek comfort from it.

I
NTERVIEW
: T
ALKING WITH
R
OBIN
F
URTH
, P
ART
2

Robin Furth discusses how long it took to get the process of creating the Dark Tower comics started, whether there were any hard-and-fast rules about crafting stories that had never been told before, how much description she included in her plots and how much of the information included in the essays in each issue comes from her concordance and how much is brand-new.

I
SSUE
5: _______________________________________________

R
EGICIDE
: P
OISON
G
ARDENS AND THE
T
RAINING OF
A
PPRENTICE
G
UNSLINGERS

Though many of Arthur Eld's personal tasters sacrificed themselves to assure the safety of their king and
dinh
, many of those who followed in his footsteps were not so lucky. Most of the poisons that ended up in the kitchens at Gilead were derived from plants grown in a garden in a walled courtyard of Le Casse Roi Russe in the heart of End-World—the Castle of the Crimson King. These poisons are complicated, disguising their natures and symptoms until it is too late. Arthur Eld had a well-protected, secret apothecary where prophylactic medicines and antidotes were conjured with the same diligence that the Red King devoted to his toxins. The essay concludes with a list of poisons that a gunslinger needed to be familiar with before he could take his final test.

I
NTERVIEW
: T
ALKING WITH
R
OBIN
F
URTH
, P
ART
3

Robin Furth discusses world building, which Dark Tower characters haunt her, which other Marvel comics she would like to work on and her feelings about being in the spotlight at fan conventions.

I
SSUE
6: _______________________________________________

M
ID
-W
ORLD
F
AIR
-D
AYS AND
M
ID
-W
ORLD
R
IDDLING

The essay explores the popular pastime of riddling, which was serious business in Gilead, considered a sacred art form. The Fair-Days scattered throughout the Mid-World calendar were the times when riddles were played for amusement and competition. A group of judges sifted through a barrel filled with riddles—some new, some ancient—to select those that were deemed fair. A good riddle described familiar things in a way that made them seem unfamiliar, often from the perspective of an animal or an element of nature. Losing early in a riddling contest was a form of public disgrace. The essay concludes with a description of the various Fair-Days in New Canaan and some typical riddles.

T
HE
S
ORCERER

Original release date:
April 15, 2009

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Script:
Robin Furth

•
Art:
Richard Isanove

•
Lettering:
Chris Eliopoulos

The Sorcerer
, released between Treachery and Fall of Gilead, is devoted to Marten Broadcloak. The creative team for this book was pared back, with Robin Furth providing the script for the first time. To allow Jae Lee the time needed to give the final installment, the epic Battle of Jericho Hill, the attention everyone thought it deserved, Richard Isanove took over the artwork for both
The Sorcerer
and the fourth arc, Fall of Gilead.

Furth starts by defining what magic means in Mid-World, calling it a willful alteration of the spin of
ka
's wheel. She then introduces us to Marten and his various aliases. He claims to be the bastard child of Maerlyn, the “evil” sorcerer who created the Wizard's Rainbow. His mother was Selena, goddess of the black moon (an idea supplied by Stephen King). He was abandoned at the home of a mill owner in Delain (kingdom of Roland in
The Eyes of the Dragon
). This rationalizes the source of his magic, given his seemingly human upbringing.

Marten calls the Crimson King his cousin, which would make Roland his cousin, too. This would be the case only if Maerlyn were part of the line of Eld, too, and not just Arthur Eld's court magician.

At the age of thirteen, he left home to find his real parents. He encounters a Medusa-like jinni whom he regards as his sister—a creation of Maerlyn, the personification of the pink orb. “She” becomes his consort and ally. The House of Deschain stands between him and his ultimate goal: the Dark Tower.

The story jumps ahead to his plot to manipulate Gabrielle into murdering Steven. His connection to the grapefruit allows him to observe what the orb tells Steven about Roland's adventures in Hambry. Marten sees much of Steven's life in the orb, including the birth of Roland.

Walter's real motivation behind the murder of gunslinger Charles Champignon is the fact that his son would be a gunslinger with the Manni power of the sight. Steven tries to persuade Arra to remain in the castle, but she vowed to her mother that she would give birth in her Manni village. Marten's men ambush the family at Gallows Hill. They coerce Charles into writing a letter of introduction for Kingson, the minstrel, who is really Farson's nephew James. Charles thinks he can save his wife's life—and that of his unborn son—if he complies.

As told in
Wizard and Glass
, Clay Reynolds and Coral Thorin became lovers after leaving Hambry, but John Farson is displeased with the last
remaining Big Coffin Hunter for failing to bring him the pink orb. Marten knows where the orb is and explains his plans to use it. He gives Farson's nephew the poisoned blade that Gabrielle is to use as a weapon. As a backup, he has a magic book that will fascinate any reader before killing them with its poisoned pages.

After Cort kills Kingson, Marten reanimates James Farson's body because he promised to bring Farson's nephew back alive.

The pink grapefruit still has Roland in its thrall. They are almost lovers, in the same way that Marten has taken the orb as his consort. The grapefruit is jealous of Marten's love for Gabrielle and uses her influence over Roland to trick him into killing his mother. Marten is outraged and exiles the manifestation of his sister back into the sphere like a genie in a bottle.

E
XTRA
F
EATURES:

B
EHIND THE
S
CENES OF
T
HE
S
ORCERER

Robin Furth discusses how, for the first time, she both plotted and scripted an issue of the Dark Tower graphic novel adaptations. She wanted to use the issue to explore Marten Broadcloak, the shape-shifting magician who is Roland's most visible enemy in the Dark Tower series and a source of chaos in many of King's other books. Through her conversations with King, she learned things about Marten's past that King had never written down before. Her collaborator, Richard Isanove, came up with the visual representation of the jinni that was the human aspect of the pink orb, which further inspired Furth. She decided to script the issue in Walter o'Dim's voice, as well as using the poetry of William Blake, Milton's
Paradise Lost,
The Song of Solomon from the Bible and the writings of twentieth-century Satanist Aleister Crowley.

F
ALL OF
G
ILEAD

Original release dates:
May 2009 through October 2009 (6 issues)

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Consultation:
Robin Furth

•
Script:
Peter David

•
Art:
Richard Isanove

•
Color Assists:
Dean White (Issue 1)

•
Lettering:
Chris Eliopoulos

Fall of Gilead uses a few details from the Dark Tower series as guideposts, but for the most part the story told here is completely original. Cort's death, as well as that of Steven Deschain, is drawn from details Roland told his
ka-tet
on the road to the Dark Tower, but the fates of the other characters were never revealed.

In
The Wind Through the Keyhole
, Roland tells his friends that Gabrielle's death was attributed to suicide and that there was a period of mourning in Gilead following her death. It was during this time that Roland was sent to Debaria to handle the skin-man, putting the chronology of Fall of Gilead at odds with King's novels. Cort's death, Roland says, took place two years before the civil war began, which is also out of sync with this time line.

Fall of Gilead is mostly a story of death. Over the course of six issues, Robert Allgood, Cort, Dr. DeCurry, Abel Vannay, Chris Johns and Steven Deschain are all murdered—as well as just about every resident of Gilead. The only survivors are Roland's first
ka-tet
, including Aileen Ritter.

Steven Deschain discovers Roland with his mother's body. Though Roland could have professed his innocence, he immediately explains what happens. Ever the diplomat and considerate of the court of public opinion, Steven has his son arrested and jailed so that his innocence can be demonstrated. The fact that Gabrielle was in possession of a knife with the
sigul
of John Farson will prove that Roland's actions were justified.