The Waste Lands
I BEAR AND BONE Chapter Eight
16
"ALL RIGHT," EDDIE SAID at last. "I understand the basic paradox. Your, memory is divided - "
"Not divided. Doubled."
"All right; it's almost the same thing, isn't it?" Eddie grasped a twig and made his own little drawing in the sand:
He tapped the line on the left. "This is your memory of the time before you got to the way station - a single track."
"Yes."
He tapped the line on the right. "And after you came out on the far side of the mountains in the place of bones... the place where Walter was waiting for you. Also a single track."
"Yes."
Now Eddie first indicated the middle area and then drew a rough circle around it.
"That's what you've got to do, Roland - close this double track off. Build a stockade around it in your mind and then forget it. Because it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't change anything, it's gone, it's done - "
"But it isn't." Roland held up the bone. "If my memories of the boy Jake are false - and I know they are - how can I have this? I took it to replace the one I threw away... but the one I threw away came from the cellar of the way station, and along the track I know is true, / never went down cellar! I never spoke with the demon! I moved on alone, with fresh water and nothing else!"
"Roland, listen to me," Eddie said earnestly. "If that jawbone you're holding was the one from the way station, that would be one thing. But isn't it possible that if you hallucinated that whole thing - the way station, the kid, the Speaking Demon - then maybe you took Walter's jawbone because - "
"It was no hallucination," Roland said. He looked at them both with his faded blue bombardier's eyes and then did something neither expected... something Eddie would have sworn Roland did not know he meant to do himself.
He threw the jawbone into the fire.
17
FOR A MOMENT IT only lay there, a white relic bent in a ghostly half-grin. Then it suddenly blazed red, washing the clearing with dazzling scarlet light. Eddie and Susannah cried out and threw their hands up to shield their eyes from that burning shape.
The bone began to change. Not to melt, but to change. The teeth which leaned out of it like gravestones began to draw together in clumps.
The mild curve of the upper arc straightened, then snubbed down at the tip.
Eddie's hands fell into his lap and he stared at the bone which was no longer a bone with gape-jawed wonder. It was now the color of burn-ing steel. The teeth had become three inverted V's, the middle one larger than those on the ends. And suddenly Eddie saw what it wanted to become, just as he had seen the slingshot in the wood of the stump.
He thought it was a key.
You must remember the shape, he thought feverishly. You must, you must.
His eyes traced it desperately - three V's, the one in the center larger and deeper than the two on the end. Three notches . .. and the one closest the end had a squiggle, the shallow shape of a lower-case s .. .
Then the shape in the flames changed again. The bone which had become something like a key drew inward, concentrating itself into bright, overlapping petals and folds as dark and velvety as a moonless summer midnight . For a moment Eddie saw a rose - a triumphant rose that might have bloomed in the dawn of this world's first day, a thing of depthless, timeless beauty. His eye saw, and his heart was opened. It was as if all love and life had suddenly risen from Roland's dead artifact; it was there in the fire, burning out in triumph and some wonderful, inchoate defiance, declaring that despair was a mirage and death a dream.
The rose! he thought incoherently. First the key, then the rose! Behold! Behold the opening of the way to the Tower!
There was a thick cough from the fire. A fan of sparks twisted outwards. Susannah screamed and rolled away, beating at the orange flecks on her dress as the flames gushed upward toward the starry sky. Eddie didn't move. He sat transfixed in his vision, held in a cradle of wonder which was both gorgeous and terrible, unmindful of the sparks which danced across his skin. Then the flames sank back.
The bone was gone.
The key was gone.
The rose was gone.
Remember, he thought. Remember the rose... and remember the shape of the key.
Susannah was sobbing with shock and terror, but he ignored her for the moment and found the stick with which he and Roland had both drawn. And in the dirt he made this shape with a shaking hand:
18
"WHY DID YOU DO it?" Susannah asked at last. "Why, for God's sake - and what was it?"
Fifteen minutes had gone by. The fire had been allowed to burn low; the scattered embers had either been stamped out or had gone out on their own. Eddie sat with his arms about his wife: Susannah sat before him, with her back against his chest. Roland was off to one side, knees hugged to his chest, looking moodily into the orange-red coals. So far as Eddie could tell, neither of them had seen the bone change. They had both seen it glowing superhot, and Roland had seen it explode (or had it imploded? to Eddie that seemed closer to what he had seen), but that was all. Or so he believed; Roland, however, sometimes kept his own counsel, and when he decided to play his cards close to the vest, he played them very close indeed, Eddie knew that from bitter experience. He thought of telling them what he had seen - or thought he had seen - -and decided to play his own cards tight and close-up, at least for the time being.
Of the jawbone itself there was no sign - not even a splinter.
"I did it because a voice spoke in my mind and told me I must," Roland said. "It was the voice of my father; of all my fathers. When one hears such a voice, not to obey - and at once - is unthinkable. So I was taught. As to what it was, I can't say... not now, at least. I only know that the bone has spoken its final word. I have carried it all this way to hear it."
Or to see it, Eddie thought, and again: Remember. Remember the rose. And remember the shape of the key.
"It almost flash-fried us!" She sounded both tired and exasperated.
Roland shook his head. "I think it was more like the sort of firework the barons used to sometimes shoot into the sky at their year-end parties. Bright and startling, but not dangerous."
Eddie had an idea. "The doubling in your mind, Roland - is it gone? Did it leave when the bone exploded, or whatever it did?"
He was almost convinced that it had; in the movies he'd seen, such rough shock-therapy almost always worked. But Roland shook his head.
Susannah shifted in Eddie's arms. "You said you were beginning to understand."
Roland nodded. "I think so, yes. If I'm right, I fear for Jake. Wher-ever he is, whenever he is, I fear for him."
"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.
Roland got up, went to his roll of hides, and began to spread them out. "Enough stories and excitement for one night. It's time to sleep. In the morning we'll follow the bear's backtrail and see if we can find the portal he was set to guard. I'll tell you what I know and what I believe has happened - what I believe is happening still - along the way."
With that he wrapped himself in an old blanket and a new deerskin, rolled away from the fire, and would say no more.
Eddie and Susannah lay down together. When they were sure the gunslinger must be asleep, they made love. Roland heard them going about it as he lay wakeful and heard their quiet after-love talk. Most of it was about him. He lay quietly, open eyes looking into the darkness long after their talk had ceased and their breathing had evened out into a single easy note.
It was, he thought, fine to be young and in love. Even in the grave-yard which this world had become, it was fine.
Enjoy it while you can, he thought, because there is more death ahead. We have come to a stream of blood. That it will lead us to a river of the same stuff I have no doubt. And, further along, to an ocean. In this world the graves yawn and none of the dead rest easy.
As dawn began to come up in the east, he closed his eyes. Slept briefly. And dreamed of Jake.
"ALL RIGHT," EDDIE SAID at last. "I understand the basic paradox. Your, memory is divided - "
"Not divided. Doubled."
"All right; it's almost the same thing, isn't it?" Eddie grasped a twig and made his own little drawing in the sand:
He tapped the line on the left. "This is your memory of the time before you got to the way station - a single track."
"Yes."
He tapped the line on the right. "And after you came out on the far side of the mountains in the place of bones... the place where Walter was waiting for you. Also a single track."
"Yes."
Now Eddie first indicated the middle area and then drew a rough circle around it.
"That's what you've got to do, Roland - close this double track off. Build a stockade around it in your mind and then forget it. Because it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't change anything, it's gone, it's done - "
"But it isn't." Roland held up the bone. "If my memories of the boy Jake are false - and I know they are - how can I have this? I took it to replace the one I threw away... but the one I threw away came from the cellar of the way station, and along the track I know is true, / never went down cellar! I never spoke with the demon! I moved on alone, with fresh water and nothing else!"
"Roland, listen to me," Eddie said earnestly. "If that jawbone you're holding was the one from the way station, that would be one thing. But isn't it possible that if you hallucinated that whole thing - the way station, the kid, the Speaking Demon - then maybe you took Walter's jawbone because - "
"It was no hallucination," Roland said. He looked at them both with his faded blue bombardier's eyes and then did something neither expected... something Eddie would have sworn Roland did not know he meant to do himself.
He threw the jawbone into the fire.
17
FOR A MOMENT IT only lay there, a white relic bent in a ghostly half-grin. Then it suddenly blazed red, washing the clearing with dazzling scarlet light. Eddie and Susannah cried out and threw their hands up to shield their eyes from that burning shape.
The bone began to change. Not to melt, but to change. The teeth which leaned out of it like gravestones began to draw together in clumps.
The mild curve of the upper arc straightened, then snubbed down at the tip.
Eddie's hands fell into his lap and he stared at the bone which was no longer a bone with gape-jawed wonder. It was now the color of burn-ing steel. The teeth had become three inverted V's, the middle one larger than those on the ends. And suddenly Eddie saw what it wanted to become, just as he had seen the slingshot in the wood of the stump.
He thought it was a key.
You must remember the shape, he thought feverishly. You must, you must.
His eyes traced it desperately - three V's, the one in the center larger and deeper than the two on the end. Three notches . .. and the one closest the end had a squiggle, the shallow shape of a lower-case s .. .
Then the shape in the flames changed again. The bone which had become something like a key drew inward, concentrating itself into bright, overlapping petals and folds as dark and velvety as a moonless summer midnight . For a moment Eddie saw a rose - a triumphant rose that might have bloomed in the dawn of this world's first day, a thing of depthless, timeless beauty. His eye saw, and his heart was opened. It was as if all love and life had suddenly risen from Roland's dead artifact; it was there in the fire, burning out in triumph and some wonderful, inchoate defiance, declaring that despair was a mirage and death a dream.
The rose! he thought incoherently. First the key, then the rose! Behold! Behold the opening of the way to the Tower!
There was a thick cough from the fire. A fan of sparks twisted outwards. Susannah screamed and rolled away, beating at the orange flecks on her dress as the flames gushed upward toward the starry sky. Eddie didn't move. He sat transfixed in his vision, held in a cradle of wonder which was both gorgeous and terrible, unmindful of the sparks which danced across his skin. Then the flames sank back.
The bone was gone.
The key was gone.
The rose was gone.
Remember, he thought. Remember the rose... and remember the shape of the key.
Susannah was sobbing with shock and terror, but he ignored her for the moment and found the stick with which he and Roland had both drawn. And in the dirt he made this shape with a shaking hand:
18
"WHY DID YOU DO it?" Susannah asked at last. "Why, for God's sake - and what was it?"
Fifteen minutes had gone by. The fire had been allowed to burn low; the scattered embers had either been stamped out or had gone out on their own. Eddie sat with his arms about his wife: Susannah sat before him, with her back against his chest. Roland was off to one side, knees hugged to his chest, looking moodily into the orange-red coals. So far as Eddie could tell, neither of them had seen the bone change. They had both seen it glowing superhot, and Roland had seen it explode (or had it imploded? to Eddie that seemed closer to what he had seen), but that was all. Or so he believed; Roland, however, sometimes kept his own counsel, and when he decided to play his cards close to the vest, he played them very close indeed, Eddie knew that from bitter experience. He thought of telling them what he had seen - or thought he had seen - -and decided to play his own cards tight and close-up, at least for the time being.
Of the jawbone itself there was no sign - not even a splinter.
"I did it because a voice spoke in my mind and told me I must," Roland said. "It was the voice of my father; of all my fathers. When one hears such a voice, not to obey - and at once - is unthinkable. So I was taught. As to what it was, I can't say... not now, at least. I only know that the bone has spoken its final word. I have carried it all this way to hear it."
Or to see it, Eddie thought, and again: Remember. Remember the rose. And remember the shape of the key.
"It almost flash-fried us!" She sounded both tired and exasperated.
Roland shook his head. "I think it was more like the sort of firework the barons used to sometimes shoot into the sky at their year-end parties. Bright and startling, but not dangerous."
Eddie had an idea. "The doubling in your mind, Roland - is it gone? Did it leave when the bone exploded, or whatever it did?"
He was almost convinced that it had; in the movies he'd seen, such rough shock-therapy almost always worked. But Roland shook his head.
Susannah shifted in Eddie's arms. "You said you were beginning to understand."
Roland nodded. "I think so, yes. If I'm right, I fear for Jake. Wher-ever he is, whenever he is, I fear for him."
"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.
Roland got up, went to his roll of hides, and began to spread them out. "Enough stories and excitement for one night. It's time to sleep. In the morning we'll follow the bear's backtrail and see if we can find the portal he was set to guard. I'll tell you what I know and what I believe has happened - what I believe is happening still - along the way."
With that he wrapped himself in an old blanket and a new deerskin, rolled away from the fire, and would say no more.
Eddie and Susannah lay down together. When they were sure the gunslinger must be asleep, they made love. Roland heard them going about it as he lay wakeful and heard their quiet after-love talk. Most of it was about him. He lay quietly, open eyes looking into the darkness long after their talk had ceased and their breathing had evened out into a single easy note.
It was, he thought, fine to be young and in love. Even in the grave-yard which this world had become, it was fine.
Enjoy it while you can, he thought, because there is more death ahead. We have come to a stream of blood. That it will lead us to a river of the same stuff I have no doubt. And, further along, to an ocean. In this world the graves yawn and none of the dead rest easy.
As dawn began to come up in the east, he closed his eyes. Slept briefly. And dreamed of Jake.
