The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (12 page)

While the storm rages, killing trees, destroying buildings and freezing birds in flight, the
ka-tet
grows restless. To pass the time, they huddle in front of the fire and ask Roland to tell them a story of his youth. He says that he will tell them two stories, one nested inside the other. One is true and the other is a story his mother read to him when he was small.

The story of “The Skin-Man” is split into two parts, interrupted when Roland recounts “The Wind Through the Keyhole.” One of the interesting aspects of the skin-man story is that it is told in first person from Roland's point of view. When he told his
ka-tet
about his adventures in Mejis, that story was told in third person, in part because Roland learned much of it from the pink Wizard's Glass.

Shortly after Roland returns from Mejis, his father sends him on another mission, this time with Jamie DeCurry. The High Sheriff of Debaria, a town west of Gilead, reported that a creature has killed and maimed dozens of people in his district. The attacker is said to resemble a wolf, a lion, a tiger or a bear, and its tracks change from enormous to man-sized when followed. Roland's teacher, Vannay, has assembled all of the available information, along with the legends of the skin-man.

Sending Roland to Debaria will prove to the people that the gunslingers of Gilead still care about what is happening in their realm. However, it's more than a token gesture—Steven Deschain expects Roland and Jamie to solve the mystery and put an end to this scourge. It's also a way of getting Roland out of his funk. He's depressed after killing his mother and punishing himself by acting as Cort's nursemaid.

Debaria has resonance for Roland—it's where his mother, Gabrielle, went on retreat while he was in Mejis. After being dumped off the little train that carried them from Gilead when it derails, and observing during their journey how many people outside of Gilead appear to be for the revolutionary John Farson, their first stop is at the Serenity retreat, where the skin-walker attacked two women, one of whom survived but was disfigured. There they meet the prioress, Everlynne, who recognizes Roland by his resemblance to his mother. She invites Roland to return to the retreat when his work is done, for she has something to give him.

Two boys representing Gilead don't impress the locals, though their weapons do. Sheriff Peavy is cooperative, though. He has Steven Deschain to thank for his position. The gunslinger gave him credit for capturing the Crow Gang twenty years ago, when Peavy was a deputy. The then-sheriff and the rest of the posse were killed when they ignored Deschain's advice. Peavy removed a bullet from Deschain's arm—Roland's father sent the bullet as a gift via Roland.

Jamie sees a pattern in the attacks and the course of the tracks that leads him to believe that the skin-walker is one of the miners in nearby Little Debaria. Their problem becomes reducing the field of two hundred potential suspects to something manageable and breaching the creature's defenses—if he even knows what he is.

They bunk out at the jailhouse and are awakened by a call the next morning reporting another attack. Almost everyone at the Jefferson Ranch—eighteen people, including the owner, his family, the staff and hands—has been slaughtered. The only survivors are three hands who were out gathering strays and the son of the cook, who was camping.

The boy, Young Bill Streeter, saw the creature and provides two helpful clues when Roland hypnotizes him. After transforming back into a man, the killer rode away on a horse. He had a tattoo on his ankle. Few miners are likely to know how to ride, and the tattoo—which turns out to be a sign the man spent time in Beelie Stockade—will further reduce the suspect pool. Roland sends Jamie with a team to Little Debaria to round up possible suspects and spread word that they have a witness who can identify the man. Only a cold person like Roland could conceive of and execute a plan that uses a young boy as bait.

While Jamie is away, Roland hires a blacksmith to make a silver bullet, on Vannay's advice. He spends the rest of the time at the jailhouse with Young Bill, bringing him food and candy, helping him to be brave. Finally, as the hours grow long, he tells the boy the story of “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” one that Gabrielle Deschain used to read to him when he was younger.
Soon after he finishes, Jamie returns with wagons containing twenty-one miners, one of whom may be the skin-man. Roland screens out those who don't have the Beelie Stockade tattoo and parades the remaining ten in front of Young Bill, who is safely behind bars. If Bill can't identify the skin-man, Roland plans to lock them all up until one changes.

The oldest miner in the group, Steg Luka, tells Roland they discovered a crack with a pulsing light at the bottom of a mine. A voice from the crack invites men to enter it. Luka thinks it's a voice from the Old People. The foreman ordered the crack plugged, but someone has been at the rocks. He believes that person went to the other side and was changed.

On the second pass, Billy sees something in one of the tattoos that registers in his mind. The culprit also carries a watch, which Luka thinks must have come from inside the crack. The miner quickly changes shape, becoming a poisonous snake like the one in Roland's story. He kills two more people before Roland slays him with the silver bullet, mirroring his ancestor, Arthur Eld, who once killed a monstrous snake called Saita. In death, the skin-man reverts to human form, passing through a number of creatures along the way.

One of the responsibilities of being a gunslinger is to take part in the celebrations that follow a victory. Roland and Jamie fulfill their duty and, as a bonus, Jamie loses his virginity that night after they dispose of the skin-man's body. Roland visits with Prioress Everlynne to see if she will take in the orphaned Bill Streeter. She agrees and then gives Roland a message his mother left for him. He learns that Gabrielle Deschain knew that she would die by her son's hand if she returned to Gilead and went back anyway, believing it was the role
ka
had cast for her. She'd still been in Marten's thrall. The wizard had tried to see her at Serenity, but Everlynne had sent him packing. He may have been able to communicate with her anyway. Gabrielle's message reveals her tenuous grasp on sanity, but it offers Roland something he may have needed: her forgiveness.

The centerpiece of the novel is the story of another gunslinger, a young boy named Tim Ross who lived in Tree Village on the edge of the Endless Forest. People in that region of Mid-World earned a living by chopping down the ironwood trees at the edge of the forest and selling them to Gilead.

Tim's father, Jack Ross, and his partner, Bern Kells, were lifelong friends who worked a patch of the forest. As the story begins, Tim finds himself in a plight similar to that of Susan Delgado in
Wizard and Glass
. Jack Ross is killed—by a dragon, according to Kells—which means Tim and his mother, Nell, are in danger of losing their home to the greedy Barony Covenanter
when he comes to collect the annual taxes in a few months. Susan Delgado's solution to her problem was to become Mayor Hart Thorin's jilly. Nell Ross's solution is to accept Bern Kells's marriage proposal. She doesn't love him, but she thinks she can put up with him, especially if it means she and Tim won't end up homeless. After they marry, Kells sells his house and moves in with Nell and Tim.

Kells is an alcoholic who becomes violent when he drinks. He's been on the wagon for some time, convinced to get sober by his wife, who died in childbirth. Tim takes it as a bad sign that Kells can't find a new woodcutting partner and that many of the other woodsmen didn't attend the wedding. Things go from bad to worse after the wedding. He returns to his old ways, abuses Nell and forces Tim to give up his schooling and go to work at the sawmill.

The Barony Covenanter is more than a taxman—he's a wizard who doesn't seem to age. He enjoys squeezing money out of people, but he also likes using the truth to hurt them. He identifies Tim as a likely victim, but also sees the potential to use him in a grander scheme. He gives Tim a magic key that will open Kells's trunk, in which the boy finds his father's lucky coin, which should have been destroyed by the dragon.

When Tim accepts the Covenant Man's invitation to visit his camp, he discovers the truth about his father's death. There was no dragon. Bern Kells murdered him and secreted the body in a cold stream. One reason his drinking has resumed is that he's worried the woodcutters who work that patch will return to it and discover the body, revealing his crime. The Covenant Man shows Tim a vision in a basin of water: Bern Kells flying into a rage when he finds his trunk unlocked. He beats Nell so badly she goes blind. The Covenant Man gives Tim a gift: Jack Ross's ax, which Kells threw across the stream after the murder. This is how he works: he winds Tim into a frenzy, identifies his enemy, arms him and sends him homeward.

However, Kells runs away, so Tim can't kill his evil stepfather. His teacher, Widow Smack, knows who the Covenant Man is—an enchanter from the court of Gilead. Marten Broadcloak, in other words, though she doesn't know his name. Tim raises a posse against Bern Kells and sees to the return of his father's body for burial. Then the Covenant Man sends another vision. If Tim goes into the Endless Forest and finds Maerlyn, he will be rewarded with a cure for his mother's blindness. Widow Smack can't talk Tim out of acting on this vision, so she provides him with food, a light and a gun that had once belonged to her brother. The Covenant Man won't anticipate that Tim will go on his mission armed.

King said he wanted to write a fairy tale, though one that didn't necessarily contain a real fairy. “The Wind Through the Keyhole” does feature a fairy, a naked, flying green woman only four inches tall who will doubtless conjure mental images of Tinker Bell. The
sighe
, named Armaneeta, is beautiful, delightful, seductive—and malign. Like a siren, she leads Tim through the Endless Forest into the Fagonard Swamp, where she strands him on a tussock surrounded by all manner of dangerous creatures, including a dragon.

Tim is determined to die fighting. In that moment, he is transformed into a gunslinger. Like Roland, his mouth becomes a rictus grin as he shoots for the first time, killing a creature that emerges from the swamp. The gunshot draws the attention of the closest thing to human residents Fagonard has. At first Tim thinks of them as mudmen but later he realizes they are closer to plants. Living in the swamp for so long has made them take on its appearance. They are slow mutants, but benevolent ones, and probably doomed to extinction.

They respect Tim as a gunslinger and hile him. Tim uses their reaction to his advantage, asking for their service as bondsmen. They can understand him, and, though they can't speak, they communicate in sign language. They try to warn him of a pending starkblast, but he doesn't understand. He gets the sense, though, that something is going to happen that will kill them.

Using a makeshift boat, they transport him from the tussock to the end of the swamp, depositing him on solid ground. They give Tim food and water and a device (produced by North Central Positronics) that will lead him north, to where he hopes to find Maerlyn in a magic house where time stands still.

For the next few days, Tim heads north through the forest, following the Beam of the Lion. The direction finder, Daria, Tim discovers, can talk, providing helpful information, though some of its data is protected by Directive Nineteen.

The appearance of six billy-bumblers (throcken) and their behavior is another clue to the mudmen's unsolved pantomime. There's a starkblast coming that will likely destroy the swamp. Tim needs to find cover. His course is leading him toward North Forest Kinnock Dogan, which Daria advises is offline due to the presence of magic. She keeps offering to show him a detour around it, but magic is what Tim is after, so he proceeds.

Like Roland's
ka-tet
, Tim must cross a hazardous bridge near his destination. This one is narrow and crumbly, but the biggest danger comes from tentacled plants that live in the chasm below. Once across and past the skeleton of a man, he climbs a stone staircase and sees the Dogan in the distance. A metal tower with a blinking red light stands beside it.

Beyond the Dogan is the Great Canyon, which seems at least one hundred wheels wide. At the edge of the chasm is an enormous tyger in a cage. Tim also sees the tin bucket the Covenant Man gave him in Tree Village. The tyger has a metal key and a card key hanging from its collar. Daria identifies the tyger as the source of the magic she detected, but in doing so she violates Directive Nineteen and self-destructs.

Tim can hear the starkblast in the distance, but the Dogan is locked. Under the pail he finds a message from the Covenant Man signed with the initials “RF” and “MB”—Randall Flagg and Marten Broadcloak. Tim has two choices: he can shoot the tyger, or he can negotiate with it. Is the tyger a trap for him, or is he a trap for the tyger? He thinks the Covenant Man expects him to use the gun, so he opens the cage instead. If he and the tyger remain outdoors, they'll both die. If the tyger will allow him to take the keys from his neck, they can find shelter from the storm.

The card key doesn't work because the Dogan is offline, but the other key opens a box beside the door. It contains a feather, a bottle and a napkin. The tyger shows Tim that the napkin will unfold, becoming magically bigger each time until it's the size of a blanket that is resistant to the cold. Tim and the tyger climb underneath. Tim shares the last of his food with the tyger and they ride out the storm. “The Wind Through the Keyhole” takes its title from a passage that compares time to a keyhole and the breath of the living universe to the wind we feel on our cheeks when we peer through it.

Afterward, the tyger shows an interest in the bottle Tim found in the box. He opens his mouth and Tim administers a few drops with an eyedropper. The tyger transforms—like a skin-man—into Maerlyn, the magician of Eld. The remaining drops, Maerlyn tells him, are meant for his mother as a reward for freeing the magician from captivity. Tim questions Maerlyn about many of the legends surrounding him, but the magician thinks no one is interested in the banal truth—that he's retired to a cave with only the bare necessities. He doesn't confirm that he lives backward in time, either, but it's clear from his instructions that he knows about the future. He orders Tim to give his father's ax to his mother, but he won't say why.