The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (54 page)

Pessimists say that Gan created the world and then moved on. Yet sufficient magic remained after creation to run the Beams and support the Dark Tower forever. The Prim receded like an ocean drawing back. When it did, it left demons stranded on a metaphorical beach. Many of these creatures perished, but some survived, including Speaking Demons and ghosts. Others retreated into the todash spaces between universes. All such creatures are
governed by six demon elementals, the malign counterparts of the Beams. Each demon elemental has a male aspect and a female aspect, so there are twelve demon aspects to counter the twelve Guardians of the Beam.

Almost nothing is known about the civilization that existed in the days before Arthur Eld. From its artifacts and cities (like Lud), it was obviously technologically advanced. According to Walter o'Dim, these Old People (or Great Old Ones) put people on the moon. The navigation system that the mutants of Fagonard Swamp give Tim Ross relies on a satellite, so Walter may have been telling the truth. In addition to building sophisticated robots and other gadgets to simplify their lives, they also built terrible weapons and engines of war.

They worried that magic would fade away, so they developed ways to either replace magic with technology or weave the two together. They established North Central Positronics, which built experimental stations (Dogans) to develop and test their inventions. One of their worst mistakes was in failing to trust the magic that supported the Dark Tower. They built technological portals at each end of the Beams and replaced the magic with magnetism. So long as they were around to maintain this equipment, all was well.

However, there was a cataclysm, known as the Great War or the Great Poisoning. The exact nature of what happened is unknown. Was it a real war or did one of their experiments go awry, releasing toxins and radiation? If it was a war, who was their adversary and what weapons did they have to overwhelm the Imperium of the Great Old Ones? It might even have been a civil war. No one knows.

Whatever happened, the Great Old Ones vanished from Mid-World and much of what they left behind was lethal. Great swatches of Mid-World were turned into barren wastelands, and the aftereffects of this poisoning lasted for dozens—maybe hundreds—of generations. Their Dogans and storage caverns were radioactive or poisonous. Mutations among animals ran rampant, to the point where “threaded stock” (unmutated animals) were the exception rather than the rule. People who dwelled too close to the leavings of the Old Ones became slow mutants or suffered from radiation poisoning.

Were the Great Old Ones destroyed, or did they go to other worlds? Again, this isn't known. They did have doors to other times and places, including those built into the portals at the ends of each Beam and the ones they built for travel and entertainment. Based on the doors in the rotunda at the Fedic Dogan, they seemed to have had a fascination for events on Earth—especially those that involved violence. Presidential assassinations, terrorist
attacks and Roman Colosseum spectacles were particular favorites. Survivors of the cataclysm might have migrated to Earth. It's also possible that they came from Earth in the first place, perhaps from our time, bringing their technology with them.

After the Great War and the fall of the Old People, Mid-World went through a Dark Age. Mid-World resembled England in the days when every tribal leader considered himself a king and every other tribe was his enemy. Were these people descendants of the Old People? One sect is thought to be so: the Manni, a religious order whose members travel to other worlds to gain knowledge and wisdom.

Centuries after the Great War, Arthur Eld rose to power and unified all the warring factions, ending the brutal practices among the people, including the tradition of human sacrifice known as charyou tree associated with the Reap.

He had a magician named Maerlyn as his adviser. Opinions vary on whether Maerlyn was evil or good. Some say both. Walter o'Dim claims Maerlyn was his father. However, the Maerlyn Tim Ross meets is benign and has little use for Walter. Maybe he mellowed over the centuries. As a magical creature, he may be a remnant of the Prim, but he seems human in many ways and might be part of the line of Eld. The most significant remaining relic of his magic is the Wizard's Rainbow, a set of thirteen glass orbs. Regardless of whether they were intended for good when Maerlyn created them, they are now tainted by evil. At best they are amoral.

Mid-World slowly began to heal. Threaded stock increased. Under Arthur Eld, the rival factions became Baronies that were unified into the Affiliation. He created a law-abiding society, ridding the land of the many harriers and villains who once ran unchecked. Arthur also assembled a team of knights who killed the mutant monsters that rampaged throughout the land, including the great snake Saita, and acted as peace officers.

Arthur's symbol of unity was the sword Excalibur, which some said he extracted from a pyramid and others claimed came from the room at the top of the Dark Tower. The metal from this sword was supposedly converted into the barrels of the guns that were passed down to the leaders of his people. His snow-white horse, Llamrei, became the
sigul
of all In-World.

In the Barony of New Canaan, Arthur built his headquarters, the city of Gilead. It was a golden age in Mid-World, and Arthur reigned for many decades. He took three wives (not necessarily all at the same time), including Queen Rowena, and also consorted with many jillies who bore him children.
For this reason, the line of Eld is substantial. Most of the gunslingers in Roland's day can trace their lineage directly back to Arthur Eld, though many of them—like Roland—go via one of Eld's jillies. In some versions of the legend, Arthur Eld even consorted with creatures of the Prim, which might explain how the Crimson King came into being. There are indications that Arthur Eld may have been murdered.

After his death, his descendants continued to rule All-World from Gilead. For at least thirty generations, the Affiliation held together. Like the Knights of the Round Table, the gunslingers were both a symbol of authority and its manifestation. Sheriffs or communities confronted by situations they couldn't handle could request aid and succor from the gunslingers. If they were found to be on the side of the White, the gunslingers would help without compensation. Of course, the Baronies were taxed, so this assistance came at a price after all.

Eventually, the council of gunslingers grew so absorbed by the problem of the decline of Mid-World, caused by the failing Dark Tower, that they ignored the concerns of the Outer Baronies. Taxation without representation might have been the complaint of these outlying districts. A former harrier and robber named John Farson seized the opportunity to rise to power as the voice of dissent. He gained the support of a disenfranchised population while amassing a war chest containing the forbidden weapons of the Great Old Ones. Gilead unwittingly provided him with soldiers by sending those who failed the test to become a gunslinger west, where many joined Farson, whose campaign turned into a reign of terror. He raided cities in distant Baronies, slaughtering any who refused to support him.

Since Farson's rebellion increased the level of chaos in Mid-World, he became a minion of the Crimson King, whose red eye his supporters wore. The wizard Marten Broadcloak, another agent of chaos, entered Farson's service. He gained the trust of the gunslingers, becoming their chief adviser while infiltrating Gilead with traitors and spies at every level. He even turned the wife of the
dinh
of Gilead into a traitor.

The gunslingers were so busy worrying about the Dark Tower that they didn't notice civilization crumbling around them. Farson, by now insane and aided by one of the glasses from the Wizard's Rainbow, lured them into traps, attacked and pillaged Gilead, leaving it in ruins, and destroyed every gunslinger save one.

Mid-World returned to the lawless times that existed before the reign of Arthur Eld. The residents of great cities like Lud fended off harriers with the
remaining weapons of the Old People, but eventually they ran out of ammunition or the weapons stopped working. Most people lived in isolation and fear. The only known region of Mid-World where civilization still existed was along the River Whye, where an agrarian society remained and communities—or Callas—engaged in trade up and down the river. But even that oasis of civilization was threatened by the darkness of neighboring Thunderclap and the greater Discordia.

The Dark Tower's decline continued unchecked.

Two known books contain stories from the days of Arthur Eld. Roland's mother used to read to him from
Magic Tales of the Eld
, though these were mostly fairy tales. Father Callahan owned a book called
Tales of Arthur,
which gave him insight into the gunslinger code of conduct. Other legends of Maerlyn and Arthur Eld can be found in the material accompanying the Marvel graphic novels written by Mid-World scholar Robin Furth.

T
here's no getting around it—time is strange in Mid-World. By the time we meet Roland at the beginning of
The Gunslinger
, he has lived for something like a thousand years. But how old is he? The two aren't exactly the same. Stephen King offers his view of Roland's strange lifespan in the interview found elsewhere in this book.

Roland's childhood was fairly normal, as far as time goes. When he was eleven, he and Cuthbert overheard Hax plotting treason. Three years after that, he challenged Cort and became a gunslinger. The next day, he, Cuthbert and Alain set out for Mejis, and within four or five months they were back in Gilead. During Roland's early years, no one mentions time skipping. When he kills his mother, Roland is roughly fifteen. Cuthbert was twenty-four when he was killed at the battle of Jericho Hill, so Roland would have been about the same age. In the interim, the civil war destroyed Gilead.

We know little about what Roland did after escaping Jericho Hill until he arrives in Pricetown. He must have had some great adventures, based on his scars, which include evidence of whippings, knife wounds, burns and at least three bullet holes. At some point he passed through Eluria. He mentions other places he visited—King's Town, for example—but there's nothing to indicate that he cast about for hundreds of years. However, by the time Roland reaches Tull, it has already been centuries since he last heard the High Speech.

Five weeks pass between Roland's arrival in Tull and the day he reaches the Way Station. After he and Jake set out, it takes ten days to encounter the Speaking Ring and another eleven or twelve to reach the tunnel beneath the mountain. They spend nearly two weeks following the tracks, much of it in darkness, until the day Roland lets Jake fall from the trestle. Total elapsed time from Tull to the golgotha: roughly eighty days.

There are a few times during Roland's journey when time slips. The most
obvious is the night after he and Walter palaver. When Roland wakes up, it seems like a very long time has passed, but that's mostly because Walter played a prank and left a skeleton behind to make it seem like he had died and rotted away to nothing but bone. The night
was
long—Roland's hair is grayer when he wakes up—but certainly not centuries long. Maybe a decade.

Roland loses his fingers to the lobstrosities the next day and meets Eddie Dean two days after that. Three weeks later—and many miles farther up the beach—Susannah Dean is formed from her constituent personalities.

The trio moves inland and sets up camp. Roland spends a little more than two months training his new friends to be gunslingers. They find the Shardik portal and set out along the Path of the Beam. Eleven days later, Jake passes through the doorway from the Mansion in Dutch Hill, and four days after that, Oy completes the group. They visit River Crossing the next day, and a week later they reach Lud. The following day they board Blaine the Mono for an eight-thousand-mile trip across Mid-World that takes less than eight hours.

For the next two days, they walk along I-70 while Roland gathers the courage to tell the story of his days in Mejis. The night that he recounts what happened the summer and fall that he was fourteen might have been just one really long night, or years or generations could have passed in the world outside their camp. There's no way to tell. When they enter the Emerald Palace and go todash inside the pink Bend o' the Rainbow, time slips yet again.

Time seems out of gear for the next seven weeks. They cross the western branch of the River Whye and ride out the starkblast in Gook. Finally, at the end of summer, they reach Calla Bryn Sturgis and spend a month preparing for the day the Wolves come.

Things start to get a little confusing with all the jumping back and forth to Keystone Earth in todash trips or via the Unfound Door, but most of these journeys take place over a matter of a few days. A mere two days after the battle with the Wolves, the
ka-tet
reunites, and a couple of days after that, they wage another battle, this time in Algul Siento. Roland and Jake head back to Maine, and Roland spends a few days in Keystone Earth before returning to Fedic.