For the time being, Mordred was full ofenergy—the meal had been fresh and wonderful—but that wouldn’t lastlong. If he stayed in his spider-shape, he’d use up this new reservoir ofstrength even faster. If he went back to being a baby, however, he wouldn’teven be able to get down from the chair in which he was sitting, or once moreput on the diaper—which had, of course, slid off his body when hechanged. But he had to change back, for in his spider-shape he couldn’tthink clearly at all. As for deductive reasoning? The idea was a bitter joke.

The white node on the spider’s back closedits human eyes, and the black body beneath flushed a congested red. The legsretracted toward the body and disappeared. The node which was the baby’s headgrew and gained detail as the body beneath paled and took on human shape; thechild’s blue eyes—bombardier eyes, gunslinger eyes—flashed. He wasstill full of strength from the bumbler’s blood and meat, he could feel it asthe transformation rushed toward its conclusion, but a distressing amount of it(something like the foam on top of a glass of beer) had already dissipated. Andnot just from switching back and forth, either. The fact was that he wasgrowing at a headlong pace. That sort of growth required relentlessnourishment, and there was damned little nourishment to be had in the Arc 16Experimental Station. Or in Fedic beyond, for that matter. There were cannedgoods and meals in foil packets and powdered power drinks, yar, plenty ofthose, but none of what was here would feed him as he needed to be fed. Heneeded fresh meat and even more than meat he needed blood. And the bloodof animals would sustain the avalanche of his growth for only so long. Verysoon he was going to need human blood, or the pace of his growth would firstslow, then stop. The pain of starvation would come, but that pain, twistingrelentlessly in his vitals like an auger, would be nothing to the mental andspiritual pain of watching them on the various video screens: stillalive, reunited in their fellowship, with the comfort of a cause.

The pain of seeing him. Roland ofGilead.

How, he wondered, did he know the things heknew? From his mother? Some of them, yes, for he’d felt a million of Mia’sthoughts and memories (a good many of them swiped from Susannah) rush into him ashe fed on her. But to know it was that way with the Grandfathers, as well, howdid he know that? That, for instance, a German vampire who swilled the life’sblood of a Frenchman might speak French for a week or ten days, speak it like anative, and then the ability, like his victim’s memories, would begin to fade…

How could he know a thing like that?

Did it matter?

Now he watched them sleep. The boy Jake hadawakened, but only briefly. Earlier Mordred had watched them eat, four foolsand a bumbler—full of blood, full of energy—dining in a circletogether. Always they would sit in a circle, they would make that circle evenwhen they stopped to rest five minutes on the trail, doing it without evenbeing aware of it, their circle that kept the rest of the world out. Mordredhad no circle. Although he was new, he already understood that outsidewas his ka, just as it was the ka of winter’s wind to swing through only halfthe compass: from north to east and then back again to bleak north once more.He accepted this, yet he still looked at them with the outsider’s resentment,knowing he would hurt them and that the satisfaction would be bitter. He was oftwo worlds, the foretold joining of Prim and Am, of gadoshand godosh, of Gan and Gilead. He was in a way like JesusChrist, but in a way he was purer than the sheepgod-man, for thesheepgod-man had but one true father, who was in the highly hypotheticalheaven, and a stepfather who was on Earth. Poor old Joseph, who wore horns puton him by God Himself.

Mordred Deschain, on the other hand, hadtwo real fathers. One of whom now slept on the screen before him.

You’re old, Father, he thought. Itgave him vicious pleasure to think so; it also made him feel small and mean, nomore than… well, no more than a spider, looking down from its web. Mordred wastwins, and would remain twins until Roland of the Eld was dead and the lastka-tet broken. And the longing voice that told him to go to Roland, andcall him father? To call Eddie and Jake his brothers, Susannah his sister? Thatwas the gullible voice of his mother. They’d kill him before he could get asingle word out of his mouth (assuming he had reached a stage where he could domore than gurgle baby-talk). They’d cut off his balls and feed them to thebrat’s bumbler. They’d bury his castrated corpse, and shit on the ground wherehe lay, and then move on.

You’re finally old, Father, and now youwalk with a limp, and at end of day I see you rub your hip with a hand that’spicked up the tiniest bit of a shake.

Look, if you would. Here sits a baby withblood streaking his fair skin. Here sits a baby weeping his silent, eerietears. Here sits a baby that knows both too much and too little, and althoughwe must keep our fingers away from his mouth (he snaps, this one; snaps like ababy crocodile), we are allowed to pity him a little. If ka is atrain—and it is, a vast, hurtling mono, maybe sane, maybe not—thenthis nasty little lycanthrope is its most vulnerable hostage, not tied to thetracks like little Nell but strapped to the thing’s very headlight.

He may tell himself he has two fathers, andthere may be some truth to it, but there is no father here and no mother,either. He ate his mother alive, say true, ate her big-big, she was his firstmeal, and what choice did he have about that? He is the last miracle ever to bespawned by the still-standing Dark Tower, the scarred wedding of the rationaland the irrational, the natural and the supernatural, and yet he is alone, andhe is a-hungry. Destiny might have intended him to rule a chain of universes(or destroy them all), but so far he has succeeded in establishing dominionover nothing but one old domestic robot who has now gone to the clearing at theend of the path.

He looks at the sleeping gunslinger withlove and hate, loathing and longing. But suppose he went to them and was notkilled? What if they were to welcome him in? Ridiculous idea, yes, but allow itfor the sake of argument. Even then he would be expected to set Roland abovehim, accept Roland as dinh, and that he will never do, never do, no, never do.

Chapter III:

The Shining Wire

One

“You were watching them,” said a soft,laughing voice. Then it lilted a bit of cradle nonsense Roland would haveremembered well from his own early childhood: “ ‘Penny, posy, Jack’s a-nosy! Doya say so? Yes I do-so! He’s my sneaky, peeky, darling bah-bo!’ Did you likewhat you saw before you fell asleep? Did you watch them move on with the restof the failing world?”

Perhaps ten hours had passed since Nigelthe domestic robot had performed his last duty. Mordred, who in fact had fallendeeply asleep, turned his head toward the voice of the stranger with noresidual fuzzy-headedness or surprise. He saw a man in bluejeans and a hoodedparka standing on the gray tiles of the Control Center. His gunna—nothingmore than a beat-up duffelbag—lay at his feet. His cheeks were flushed,his face handsome, his eyes burning hot. In his hand was an automatic pistol,and as he looked into the dark eye of its muzzle, Mordred Deschain for the secondtime realized that even gods could die once their divinity had been dilutedwith human blood. But he wasn’t afraid. Not of this one. He did lookback into the monitors that showed Nigel’s apartment, and confirmed that thenewcomer was right: it was empty.