Wolves of the Calla (56 page)

But there was. There was a rat . . . squirming, impaled on something . . .

“Where is the castle she goes to?” Jake asked. “Do you know?”

Roland was unable to conceal his surprise. His astonishment, really. And he supposed there was an element of guilt there, as well. Suddenly he understood . . . well, not everything, but much.

“There is no castle and never was,” he told Jake. “It’s a place she goes to in her mind, probably made up of the stories she’s read and the ones I’ve told by the campfire, as well. She goes there so she won’t have to see what she’s really eating. What her baby needs.”

“I saw her eating a roasted pig,” Jake said. “Only before she came, a rat was eating it. She stabbed it with a meat-fork.”

“Where did you see this?”

“In the castle.” He paused. “In her dream. I was in her dream.”

“Did she see you there?” The gunslinger’s blue eyes were sharp, almost blazing. His horse clearly felt some change, for it stopped. So did Jake’s. Here they were on East Road, less than a mile from where Red Molly Doolin had once killed a Wolf out of Thunderclap. Here they were, facing each other.

“No,” Jake said. “She didn’t see me.”

Roland was thinking of the night he had followed her into the swamp. He had known she was someplace else in her mind, had sensed that much, but not quite where. Whatever visions he’d taken from her mind had been murky. Now he knew. He knew something else as well: Jake was troubled by his dinh’s decision to let Susannah go on this way. And perhaps he was right to be troubled. But—

“It’s not Susannah you saw, Jake.”

“I know. It’s the one who still has her legs. She
calls herself Mia. She’s pregnant and she’s scared to death.”

Roland said, “If you would speak to me dan-dinh, tell me everything you saw in your dream and everything that troubled you about it upon waking. Then I’ll give you the wisdom of my heart, such wisdom as I have.”

“You won’t . . . Roland, you won’t scold me?”

This time Roland was unable to conceal his astonishment. “No, Jake. Far from it. Perhaps I should ask you not to scold
me
.”

The boy smiled wanly. The horses began to amble again, this time a little faster, as if they knew there had almost been trouble and wanted to leave the place of it behind.

Jake wasn’t entirely sure how much of what was on his mind was going to come out until he actually began to talk. He had awakened undecided all over again concerning what to tell Roland about Andy and Slightman the Elder. In the end he took his cue from what Roland had just said—
Tell me everything you saw in your dream and everything that troubled you about it upon waking
—and left out the meeting by the river entirely. In truth, that part seemed far less important to him this morning.

He told Roland about the way Mia had run down the stairs, and about her fear when she’d seen there was no food left in the dining room or banqueting hall or whatever it was. Then the kitchen. Finding the roast with the rat battened on it. Killing the competition. Gorging on the
prize. Then him, waking with the shivers and trying not to scream.

He hesitated and glanced at Roland. Roland made his impatient twirling gesture—go on, hurry up, finish.

Well,
he thought,
he promised not to scold and he keeps his word.

That was true, but Jake was still unable to tell Roland he’d actually considered spilling the beans to Susannah himself. He did articulate his principal fear, however: that with three of them knowing and one of them not, their ka-tet was broken just when it needed to be the most solid. He even told Roland the old joke, guy with a blowout saying
It’s only flat on the bottom
. He didn’t expect Roland to laugh, and his expectations were met admirably in this regard. But he sensed Roland was to some degree ashamed, and Jake found this frightening. He had an idea shame was pretty much reserved for people who didn’t know what they were doing.

“And until last night it was even worse than three in and one out,” Jake said. “Because you were trying to keep
me
out, as well. Weren’t you?”

“No,” Roland said.

“No?”

“I simply let things be as they were. I told Eddie because I was afraid that, once they were sharing a room together, he’d discover her wanderings and try to wake her up. I was afraid of what might happen to both of them if he did.”

“Why not just tell her?”

Roland sighed. “Listen to me, Jake. Cort saw to our physical training when we were boys. Vannay saw to our mental training. Both of them tried to
teach us what they knew of ethics. But in Gilead, our fathers were responsible for teaching us about ka. And because each child’s father was different, each of us emerged from our childhood with a slightly different idea of what ka is and what it does. Do you understand?”

I understand that you’re avoiding a very simple question,
Jake thought, but nodded.

“My father told me a good deal on the subject, and most of it has left my mind, but one thing remains very clear. He said that when you are unsure, you must let ka alone to work itself out.”

“So it’s ka.” Jake sounded disappointed. “Roland, that isn’t very helpful.”

Roland heard worry in the boy’s voice, but it was the disappointment that stung him. He turned in the saddle, opened his mouth, realized that some hollow justification was about to come spilling out, and closed it again. Instead of justifying, he told the truth.

“I don’t know what to do. Would you like to tell me?”

The boy’s face flushed an alarming shade of red, and Roland realized Jake thought he was being sarcastic, for the gods’ sake. That he was angry. Such lack of understanding was frightening.
He’s right,
the gunslinger thought.
We
are
broken. Gods help us.

“Be not so,” Roland said. “Hear me, I beg—listen well. In Calla Bryn Sturgis, the Wolves are coming. In New York, Balazar and his ‘gentlemen’ are coming. Both are bound to arrive soon. Will Susannah’s baby wait until these matters have been resolved, one way or the other? I don’t know.”

“She doesn’t even look pregnant,” Jake said
faintly. Some of the red had gone out of his cheeks, but he still kept his head down.

“No,” Roland said, “she doesn’t. Her breasts are a trifle fuller—perhaps her hips, as well—but those are the only signs. And so I have some reason to hope. I must hope, and so must you. For, on top of the Wolves and the business of the rose in your world, there’s the question of Black Thirteen and how to deal with it. I think I know—I hope I know—but I must speak to Henchick again. And we must hear the rest of Pere Callahan’s story. Have you thought of saying something to Susannah on your own?”

“I . . . ” Jake bit his lip and fell silent.

“I see you have. Put the thought out of your mind. If anything other than death could break our fellowship for good, to tell without my sanction would do it, Jake. I am your dinh.”

“I know it!” Jake nearly shouted. “Don’t you think I know it?”

“And do you think I like it?” Roland asked, almost as heatedly. “Do you not see how much easier all this was before . . . ” He trailed off, appalled by what he had nearly said.

“Before we came,” Jake said. His voice was flat. “Well guess what? We didn’t
ask
to come, none of us.”
And I didn’t ask you to drop me into the dark, either. To kill me.

“Jake . . . ” The gunslinger sighed, raised his hands, dropped them back to his thighs. Up ahead was the turning which would take them to the Jaffords smallhold, where Eddie and Susannah would be waiting for them. “All I can do is say again what I’ve said already: when one isn’t sure about ka, it’s
best to let ka work itself out. If one meddles, one almost always does the wrong thing.”

“That sounds like what folks in the Kingdom of New York call a copout, Roland. An answer that isn’t an answer, just a way to get people to go along with what you want.”

Roland considered. His lips firmed. “You asked me to command your heart.”

Jake nodded warily.

“Then here are the two things I say to you dandinh. First, I say that the three of us—you, me, Eddie—will speak an-tet to Susannah before the Wolves come, and tell her everything we know. That she’s pregnant, that her baby is almost surely a demon’s child, and that she’s created a woman named Mia to mother that child. Second, I say that we discuss this no more until the time to tell her has come.”

Jake considered these things. As he did, his face gradually brightened with relief. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes.” Roland tried not to show how much this question hurt and angered him. He understood, after all, why the boy would ask. “I promise and swear to my promise. Does it do ya?”

“Yes! It does me fine!”

Roland nodded. “I’m not doing this because I’m convinced it’s the right thing but because
you
are, Jake. I—”

“Wait a second, whoa, wait,” Jake said. His smile was fading. “Don’t try to put all this on me. I never—”

“Spare me such nonsense.” Roland used a dry and distant tone Jake had seldom heard. “You ask part of a man’s decision. I allow it—
must
allow it—because
ka has decreed you take a man’s part in great matters. You opened this door when you questioned my judgment. Do you deny that?”

Jake had gone from pale to flushed to pale once more. He looked badly frightened, and shook his head without speaking a single word.
Ah, gods,
Roland thought,
I hate every part of this. It stinks like a dying man’s shit.

In a quieter tone he said, “No, you didn’t ask to be brought here. Nor did I wish to rob you of your childhood. Yet here we are, and ka stands to one side and laughs. We must do as it wills or pay the price.”

Jake lowered his head and spoke two words in a trembling whisper: “I know.”

“You believe Susannah should be told. I, on the other hand, don’t know
what
to do—in this matter I’ve lost my compass. When one knows and one does not, the one who does not must bow his head and the one who does must take responsibility. Do you understand me, Jake?”

“Yes,” Jake whispered, and touched his curled hand to his brow.

“Good. We’ll leave that part and say thankya. You’re strong in the touch.”

“I wish I wasn’t!” Jake burst out.

“Nevertheless. Can you touch her?”

“Yes. I don’t pry—not into her or any of you—but sometimes I do touch her. I get little snatches of songs she’s thinking of, or thoughts of her apartment in New York. She misses it. Once she thought, ‘I wish I’d gotten a chance to read that new Allen Drury novel that came from the book club.’ I think Allen Drury must be a famous writer from her when.”

“Surface things, in other words.”

“Yes.”

“But you could go deeper.”

“I could probably watch her undress, too,” Jake said glumly, “but it wouldn’t be right.”

“Under these circumstances, it
is
right, Jake. Think of her as a well where you must go every day and draw a single dipperful to make sure the water’s still sweet. I want to know if she changes. In particular I want to know if she’s planning alleyo.”

Jake looked at him, round-eyed. “To run away? Run away where?”

Roland shook his head. “I don’t know. Where does a cat go to drop her litter? In a closet? Under the barn?”

“What if we tell her and the other one gets the upper hand? What if
Mia
goes alleyo, Roland, and drags Susannah along with her?”

Roland didn’t reply. This, of course, was exactly what he was afraid of, and Jake was smart enough to know it.

Jake was looking at him with a certain understandable resentment . . . but also with acceptance. “Once a day. No more than that.”

“More if you sense a change.”

“All right,” Jake said. “I hate it, but I asked you dan-dinh. Guess you got me.”

“It’s not an arm-wrestle, Jake. Nor a game.”

“I know.” Jake shook his head. “It feels like you turned it around on me somehow, but okay.”

I did turn it around on you,
Roland thought. He supposed it was good none of them knew how lost he was just now, how absent the intuition that had carried him through so many difficult situations.
I did
. . .
but only because I had to.

“We keep quiet now, but we tell her before the Wolves come,” Jake said. “Before we have to fight. That’s the deal?”

Roland nodded.

“If we have to fight Balazar first—in the other world—we still have to tell her before we do. Okay?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “All right.”

“I hate this,” Jake said morosely.

Roland said, “So do I.”

Eddie was sittin and whittlin on the Jaffordses’ porch, listening to some confused story of Granpere’s and nodding in what he hoped were the right places, when Roland and Jake rode up. Eddie put away his knife and sauntered down the steps to meet them, calling back over his shoulder for Suze.

He felt extraordinarily good this morning. His fears of the night before had blown away, as our most extravagant night-fears often do; like the Pere’s Type One and Type Two vampires, those fears seemed especially allergic to daylight. For one thing, all the Jaffords children had been present and accounted for at breakfast. For another, there was indeed a shoat missing from the barn. Tian had asked Eddie and Susannah if they’d heard anything in the night, and nodded with gloomy satisfaction when both of them shook their heads.

“Aye. The mutie strains’ve mostly run out in our part of the world, but not in the north. There are packs of wild dogs that come down every fall. Two weeks ago they was likely in Calla Amity; next week we’ll be shed of em and they’ll be Calla Lockwood’s
problem. Silent, they are. It’s not quiet I mean, but mute. Nothin in here.” Tian patted a hand against his throat. “Sides, it ain’t like they didn’t do me at least
some
good. I found a hell of a big barn-rat out there. Dead as a rock. One of em tore its head almost clean off.”

“Nasty,” Hedda had said, pushing her bowl away with a theatrical grimace.