Song of Susannah by Stephen King Read Free Book Online Page A

really understand what was happening? Roland hoped for the former, and with all his heart.
    “Oy, you have to stay with Cantab for a little while. You’ll be okay. He’s a pal.”
    “Tab!” the bumbler repeated. Tears fell from his muzzle and darkened the powdery surface where he stood in dime-sized drops. Roland found the creature’s tears uniquely awful, somehow even worse than a child’s might have been. “Ake! Ake! ”
    “No, I gotta split,” Jake said, and wiped at his cheeks with the heels of his hands. He left dirty streaks like warpaint all the way up to his temples.
    “No! Ake!”
    “I gotta. You stay with Cantab. I’ll come back for you, Oy—unless I’m dead, I’ll come back.” He hugged Oy again, then stood up. “Go to Cantab. That’s him.” Jake pointed. “Go on, now, you mind me.”
    “Ake! Tab!” The misery in that voice was impossible to deny. For a moment Oy stayed where he was. Then, still weeping—or imitating Jake’s tears, Roland still hoped for that—the bumbler turned, trotted to Cantab, and sat between the young man’s dusty shor’boots.
    Eddie attempted to put an arm around Jake. Jake shook it off and stepped away from him. Eddie looked baffled. Roland kept his Watch Me face, but inside he was grimly delighted. Not thirteen yet, no, but there was no shortage of steel there.
    And it was time.
    “Henchick?”
    “Aye. Would’ee speak a word of prayer first, Roland? To whatever God thee holds?”
    “I hold to no God,” Roland said. “I hold to the Tower, and won’t pray to that.”
    Several of Henchick’s ’migos looked shocked at this, but the old man himself only nodded, as if he had expected no more. He looked at Callahan. “Pere?”
    Callahan said, “God, Thy hand, Thy will.” He sketched a cross in the air and nodded at Henchick. “If we’re goin, let’s go.”
    Henchick stepped forward, touched the Unfound Door’s crystal knob, then looked at Roland. Hiseyes were bright. “Hear me this last time, Roland of Gilead.”
    “I hear you very well.”
    “I am Henchick of the Manni Kra Redpath-a-Sturgis. We are far-seers and far travelers. We are sailors on ka’s wind. Would thee travel on that wind? Thee and thine?”
    “Aye, to where it blows.”
    Henchick slipped the chain of the Branni bob over the back of his hand and Roland at once felt some power let loose in this chamber. It was small as yet, but it was growing. Blooming, like a rose.
    “How many calls would you make?”
    Roland held up the remaining fingers of his right hand. “Two. Which is to say twim in the Eld.”
    “Two or twim, both the same,” Henchick said. “Commala-come-two.” he raised his voice. “Come, Manni! Come-commala, join your force to my force! Come and keep your promise! Come and pay our debt to these gunslingers! Help me send them on their way! Now! ”
SEVEN
    Before any of them could even begin to register the fact that ka had changed their plans, ka had worked its will on them. But at first it seemed that nothing at all would happen.
    The Manni Henchick had chosen as senders—six elders, plus Cantab—formed their semicircle behind the door and around to its sides. Eddie took Cantab’s hand and laced his fingers through the Manni’s. One of the shell-shaped magnets kept theirpalms apart. Eddie could feel it vibrating like something alive. He supposed it was. Callahan took his other hand and gripped it firmly.
    On the other side of the door, Roland took Henchick’s hand, weaving the Branni bob’s chain between his fingers. Now the circle was complete save for the one spot directly in front of the door. Jake took a deep breath, looked around, saw Oy sitting against the wall of the cave about ten feet behind Cantab, and nodded.
    Oy, stay, I’ll be back, Jake sent, and then he stepped into his place. He took Callahan’s right hand, hesitated, and then took Roland’s left.
    The humming returned at once. The Branni bob began to move, not in arcs this time but in a