The Wind Through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower, #4.5)

by Stephen King

Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.

Roland considered. “Mayhap I’ll tell you two, since it’s long until dawn and we can sleep tomorrow away, if we like. These tales nest inside each other. Yet the wind blows through both, which is a good thing. There’s nothing like stories on a windy night when folks have found a warm place in a cold world.” He took a broken piece of wood paneling, poked the glowing embers with it, then fed it to the flames. “One I know is a true story, for I lived it along with my old ka-mate, Jamie DeCurry. The other, ‘The Wind Through the Keyhole,’ is one my mother read to me when I was still sma’. Old stories can be useful, you know, and I should have thought of this one as soon as I saw Oy scenting the air as he did, but that was long ago.” He sighed. “Gone days.”

Horror’s a worm that needs to be coughed out before it breeds. Now tell them.”

“A person’s never too old for stories, Bill. Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.”

‘Look not long at what’s offered, for every precious thing has wings and may fly away.’”

“Starkblast,” he said. “That was it.” “Starkblast,” Daria said, startling him more wide awake than ever. “A fast-moving storm of great power. Its features include steep and sudden drops in temperature accompanied by strong winds. It has been known to cause major destruction and loss of life in civilized portions of the world. In primitive areas, entire tribes have been wiped out. This definition of starkblast has been a service of North Central Positronics.”

This led his musings back to the Fagonard tribe. They weren’t a bit safe . . . as they knew, for hadn’t they already imitated the bumblers for him? He had promised himself he would recognize what they were trying to show him if it was put before him, and he had. The storm was coming—the starkblast. They knew it, probably from the bumblers, and they expected it to kill them.

Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do—the wind that blows through the keyhole—is the breath of all the living universe.

“And who is Daria?” “A prisoner, like you. Locked in a little machine the people of the Fagonard gave me. I think she’s dead.” “Sorry for your loss, son.” “She was my friend,” Tim said simply. Maerlyn nodded. “It’s a sad world, Tim Ross. As for me, since this is the Beam of the Lion, ’twas his little joke to put me in the shape of a great cat. Although not in the shape of Aslan, for that’s magic not even he can do . . . although he’d like to, aye. Or slay Aslan and all the other Guardians, so the Beams collapse.” “The Covenant Man,” Tim whispered. Maerlyn threw back his head and laughed. His conical cap stayed on, which Tim thought magical in itself. “Nay, nay, not he. Little magic and long life’s all he’s capable of. No, Tim, there’s one far greater than he of the broad cloak. When the Great One points his finger from where he bides, the Broad Cloak scurries. But sending you was none of the Red King’s bidding, and the one you call the Covenant Man will pay for his foolery, I’m sure. He’s too valuable to kill, but to hurt? To punish? Aye, I think so.”

“How did the Red King catch thee?” “He can’t catch anyone, Tim—he’s himself caught, pent at the top of the Dark Tower. But he has his powers, and he has his emissaries. The one you met is far from the greatest of them. A man came to my cave. I was fooled into believing he was a wandering peddler, for his magic was strong. Magic lent to him by the King, as you must ken.” Tim risked another question. “Magic stronger than yours?” “Nay, but . . .” Maerlyn sighed and looked up at the morning sky. Tim was astounded to realize that the magician was embarrassed. “I was drunk.” “Oh,” Tim said in a small voice. He could think of nothing else to say.

Tim thought of Helmsman and Headman and all the others, and burst into bitter tears. If not for them, he would be lying frozen on one of those tussocks five hundred feet below. The people of the swamp had fed him, and they had gifted him with Daria, his good fairy. It was not fair, it was not fair, it was not fair. So cried his child’s heart, and then his child’s heart died a little. For that is also the way of the world.

Kells stood beside Big Ross’s chair, looking unbelievingly over Tim’s head at the gray fieldstone chimney. Blood pattered down on the right sleeve of his flannel woodsman’s shirt, which was still speckled with hay from his fugitive nights in Deaf Rincon’s barn. Above his right ear, his head had grown an ax-handle. Nell Ross stood behind him, the front of her nightgown spattered with blood. Slowly, slowly, Big Kells shuffled around to face her. He touched the buried blade of the ax, and held his hand out to her, the palm full of blood. “I cut the rope so, chary man!” Nell screamed into his face, and as if the words rather than the ax had done it, Bern Kells collapsed dead on the floor.

In a space of three seconds, Ollie Ang turned into a man-high snake. A pooky. Luka, still holding onto an arm that was shrinking toward that fat green body, gave out a yell that was muffled when the snake—still with a flopping tonsure of human hair around its elongating head—jammed itself into the old man’s mouth. There was a wet popping sound as Luka’s lower jaw was torn from the joints and tendons holding it to the upper. I saw his wattled neck swell and grow smooth as that thing—still changing, still standing on the dwindling remnants of human legs—bored into his throat like a drill. There were yells and screams of horror from the head of the aisle as the other salties stampeded. I paid them no notice. I saw Jamie wrap his arms around the snake’s growing, swelling body in a fruitless attempt to pull it out of the dying Steg Luka’s throat, and I saw the enormous reptilian head when it tore its way through the nape of Luka’s neck, its red tongue flicking, its scaly head painted with beads of blood and bits of flesh.

In the High Speech, Gabrielle Deschain’s final message to her son looks like this: The two most beautiful words in any language are : I forgive.