The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (15 page)

Even if there are more Wolves back in Thunderclap, the people of the Calla know the secret to destroying them, but Roland believes they'll never see them again. Despite the deaths, the Calla-folken believe they got off easy and begin a celebration. During the confusion, Mia takes charge of Susannah and leads her up to the Doorway Cave. She passes through, taking Black Thirteen with her, closing the door.

Thwarted in their efforts to pursue Susannah, Roland picks
'Salem's Lot
from the shelf and shows it to the others. Father Callahan is understandably mystified to learn that he's a character in a novel written by Stephen King, a name Jake recognizes from the deli board at Tower's bookstore.

Wolves of the Calla
ends with twin dilemmas. The
ka-tet
needs to rescue Susannah, and they need to protect the rose, but their gateway to Keystone Earth is now firmly closed against them. And, of course, there's the ever-present issue of the Breakers and the failing Tower.

For once, though, readers didn't have to wait for years to see what happened next. The sixth book in the Dark Tower series was already written and scheduled to be published in just seven months.

S
ong of Susannah
, one of the series' shortest installments, was published in June 2004. The novel, which is dedicated to Tabitha King, focuses on the twenty-four hours after Susannah and Mia leave Calla Bryn Sturgis following the battle with the Wolves, though the action takes place in two different decades.

Once again, the
ka-tet
is split up. The fact that Mia took Black Thirteen with her stymies Roland's plan of using the Unfound Door. The urgency of his need to solve the problem of the Breakers is underscored the morning after Mia leaves, when Calla Bryn Sturgis is rocked by seismic activity that Roland attributes to a Beamquake. One of the few remaining Beams supporting the Dark Tower yields to the Breakers' efforts. It's not the Beam the
ka-tet
has been following—the effects would have been much more dramatic if it were—but that's of little comfort to anyone.

Roland believes that two Beams remain, though he can't be sure. If one more goes, that may be enough to topple the Tower. However, he also believes they need Susannah to save the Dark Tower, so rescuing her is a priority, as is closing the deal with Calvin Tower for the vacant lot. They might even need Susannah's child, demon-spawn though it may be. They have to get to East Stoneham, Maine, in 1977 to find Tower, and they need to go to wherever—and whenever—Susannah is. Because of the linear nature of time in Keystone Earth, they have to get things done right the first time. There are no do overs and no doubling back.

The big question is: how can they achieve any of these goals?

Roland knows the Manni have traveled to other worlds without benefit of magic doors and glasses from the Wizard's Rainbow. He consults with Henchick, the Manni elder, to see what can be done. Although a large number of
Manni were too shaken by the Beamquake to come, Henchick assembles a large contingent of his followers in the Doorway Cave. Sensing Jake is strong with the touch, Henchick appoints him chief sender. Roland has his plan all mapped out: Jake and Callahan will go after Tower while he and Eddie follow Susannah. Oy is to stay behind with Cantab of the Manni.
Ka
has a different plan. It sends Roland and Eddie to 1977 and Callahan, Jake and Oy to June 1, 1999.

The Unfound Door delivered Mia to the corner of Second Avenue and 46th Street. Where Tom and Gerry's Artistic Deli once stood, where once there was a vacant lot containing a rose, now there is a black skyscraper, 2 Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The people who work there call it the Black Tower. Mia is in the early stages of labor and barefoot. Her first order of business is to get shoes, which she does by accosting a hapless accountant named Trudy Damascus, who is returning to work after lunch. The Black Tower is still a magical place. The barely perceptible singing draws people to it, but it's not as strong as it once was.

Susannah and Mia are forced to cooperate if they're to survive. New York is completely alien to Mia, but 1999 is almost as foreign to Susannah, who comes from 1964. Susannah constructs a mental Dogan based on Jake's description of the North Central Positronics monitoring station outside Calla Bryn Sturgis, using it to control her pregnancy as much as possible. Certain operations result in unbearable pain. She adds a microphone that she uses to try to communicate with Eddie, but gets no response.

During one of Father Callahan's trips through the Unfound Door, Eddie noticed something in the bowling bag containing Black Thirteen, but he'd had no time to investigate. Susannah sees it and discovers a scrimshaw turtle: Maturin, the Guardian of the Beam of the Turtle. She finds another turtle in a pocket park near the Black Tower—a life-sized statue identical to the ivory carving.

Using the turtle's magical powers of persuasion, she talks a Swedish diplomat into reserving her a room at a nearby hotel, where she goes to wait for a phone call. She stores Black Thirteen and Susannah's remaining Orizas in the room safe. With time to kill, Susannah convinces Mia to take her somewhere so they can talk face-to-face. They go to the Castle on the Abyss, once known as Castle Discordia, deep in End-World. The dead town of Fedic, outside the main walls of the castle keep, was where the Wolves brought the kidnapped twins from the Callas. The Discordia side of the castle is a wasteland like the one outside Lud, with an abyss filled with monsters.

Mia has decided to call her baby Mordred, a name she plucks from Susannah's mind. It is appropriate, because she believes her child will fulfill a
legend and slay Roland, his father, just as Mordred did in the tales of King Arthur that Susannah studied. This is all news to Susannah—she has no idea how Roland could be the baby's father. Mia traces the baby's conception back to the Speaking Ring of the Oracle, where Roland traded sex for information. Instead of an Oracle, though, he was consorting with a demon elemental, one of six that represent the Beams. These demons have both sexual aspects. This one inverted itself to become male and transmitted Roland's semen to Susannah in the Speaking Circle where Jake returned to Mid-World.

Mia gives Susannah a lesson in Mid-World history, going back to the time of creation. Roland, she says, cannot prevent the Tower from falling. The best he can hope to do is to delay the inevitable. The Crimson King seeks to hasten its decline, believing he will be the lord of the resulting chaos.

In a subsequent tête-à-tête, Mia tells Susannah how she was a disincorporated spirit, wandering Fedic and coveting a rare healthy human child born to a young couple in the then-vibrant town. Centuries after the Red Death killed most and drove the rest away, Walter o'Dim saw her and perceived her need, making her an offer she was created to accept. She gave up her immortality as a demon so she could bear a child.