Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4)

by Stephen King

Jake’s last words before plunging into the abyss are “Go, then—there are other worlds than these.”

Before reaching the city, they come to a little town called River Crossing, where a few antique residents still remain.

Susannah Dean raised her hand to her mouth and felt the small smile there as a woman might feel some strange new article of clothing—a hat, perhaps—to make sure it is still on straight. She was afraid this was the end of her life, but the feeling which dominated her heart at that moment was not fear but pride.

“For once I agree with you, Blaine old buddy,” Eddie said. “I AM NOT YOUR BUDDY, EDDIE OF NEW YORK.” “Well, jeez. Kiss my ass and go to heaven.” “THERE IS NO HEAVEN.” Eddie had no comeback for that one.

“VERY WELL, OY OF MID-WORLD.” Oy looked up briefly at the sound of his name.

When Blaine the Mono blammed overhead, running up the night like a bullet running up the barrel of a gun, windows broke, dust sifted down, and several of the skulls disintegrated like ancient pottery vases.

Candleton reverted to the mouldering activity which had been its substitute for life over the last two and a half centuries . . .

There was a blur of pink above the concrete ridge which bore the rail; a rooster-tail of dust, stones, small dismembered animals, and whirling foliage followed along after.

“His great intelligence—coupled with his long period of loneliness and forced inactivity—may have combined to make him more human than he knows.

also, this river was not placid but raging, a torrent that came tumbling out of the mountains like something that was pissed off and wanted to brawl.

Streamers of mist floated past the blunt almost-faces of the jutting dogs like steam from the vents of hell.

“Marvelous,” Susannah said dryly. “Luss!” Oy agreed, catching Susannah’s sarcastic tone exactly.

“Blaine, what has eyes yet cannot see?” “THERE ARE FOUR ANSWERS,” Blaine replied. “NEEDLES, STORMS, POTATOES, AND A TRUE LOVER.”

he would allow his mind to dwell on it for a second or two, like a bee alighting on some sweet flower, and then he would take off again. Because that memory wasn’t what he wanted; it was just the way in to what he wanted,

His mind tried to fix on that and Eddie nudged it away. Something was happening inside him (at least he prayed it was), some desperate game of association, and he couldn’t let his mind get fucked up with deadlines and consequences and all that crap; if he did, he’d lose whatever chance he had.

You couldn’t look too long, though, at least to start with. You’d lose it if you did.

“Okay, then, on we go. What’s Irish and stays out in back of the house, even in the rain?”

TICK-TOCK, ELEVEN O’CLOCK, THE MAN’S IN THE MOON AND HE’S READY TO ROCK . . .

The battle-fire had dropped over him, burning him everywhere with its righteous heat, sizzling his sight, frying his synapses and roasting his heart in its holy glow.

“You can’t help your nature, Roland.” The gunslinger considered this carefully, and discovered something which was wonderful and awful at the same time: that idea had never occurred to him.

“Suze?” Eddie asked. “Need a boost?” “And get your nasty hands all over my well-turned fanny? Not likely, white boy!” Then she dropped him a wink

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Jake asked the bumbler. “ ’Fraid,” Oy agreed,

lovely Susan at the window with her hair unbraided and all down her back, the smell of her like jasmine and rose and honeysuckle and old sweet hay,

Susan lying back and looking solemnly up at him, then smiling and putting her hands behind her head so that her breasts rose, as if aching for his hands.

fashioning the rope’s end into a shake-loop as he went. He tossed this over the pier, snubbed it (being careful not to twitch the rope to the left),

He was listening with only half an ear and paying attention with only half a mind.

Jake unfolded the newspaper, revealing a dot-picture (Roland had seen pictures of this type; they were called “fottergrafs”)

Any comfort afforded by this statement is in large part negated by the recorded statement’s final words, which are not “Goodbye” or “Thank you for calling” but “God will help us through our time of trial.” ’ ”

When things got weird enough, someone always found a lynchrope, it seemed.

He tried a smile, but it felt stiff and unnatural on his face and he put it away again.

Sounds Hawaiian, doesn’t it? Jake thought, and grimaced with distaste.

Oy padded after him, pausing once to lift his leg and squirt a tire, as if he had been doing it all his life.

roses everywhere. Most had gone over, but some of the wild ones still throve,

And the dark, oily tears, Jake thought, looking at the tiny train waiting in front of its tiny station with his skin crawling all over his body and his balls hard and his stomach in a knot.

strip of fast food places (Arby’s, Wendy’s, McD’s, Pizza Hut, and one Eddie had never heard of called Boing Boing Burgers),

Suddenly the boards on that side burst open, and a huge red bulldozer lunged through. Even the blade was red, although the words slashed across its scoop—ALL HAIL THE CRIMSON KING—were written in a yellow as bright as panic.

“Is this ology-of-the-psyche? The cabala I have heard you and Susannah speak of?”

“I trust you,” Eddie said, and the very awkwardness with which he spoke lent his words sincerity.

Still, the building held him. It looked like an airy Arabian Nights confection of blue and gold . . . except Eddie had an idea that the blue was stolen from the sky and the gold from the newly risen sun.

Roland took another brief look. “I wot,” he said, a phrase which seemed to mean Reckon so, partner.

Susannah thought it the most beautiful building she had ever seen in her life; even more beautiful than the Chrysler Building, and that was going some.

By the time they were finished, they could see the Milky Way scattered across the walls of the castle ahead of them, fierce points of reflection that burned like fire in still water.

“I think store-bought pussy tends to be overrated by the young, sugar,”

Gilead, Barony seat of New Canaan, one small mote of land located in the western regions of Mid-World.

“I’ve known since you toddled that you were no genius, but I never believed until yestereve that you were an idiot.

And in the meantime, possession were nine-tenths of the law, were it not?

For a mile or more she had run, until every muscle in her body tingled and the air she pulled down her throat tasted like some sweet heated liquid.

Here she found the woodpile under an old, moldy-smelling hide.

“And mind ye not be a scatterbark, missy.” What, and dirty all this neat?

Really, she had no choice. And when there was no choice, hesitation was ever a fault.