The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7)

by Stephen King

“Aye, Will Dearborn that was, right at me, so he did, and said ‘Why must you hurt me, when I love you so? When I can do nothing else nor want to, for love made me and fed me and—’” “‘And kept me in better days,’” Eddie murmured. A tear fell from one of his eyes and made a dark spot on the floor of the cave. “‘—and kept me in better days? Why will you cut me, and disfigure my face, and fill me with woe? I have only loved you for your beauty as you once loved me for mine in the days before the world moved on. Now you scar me with nails and put burning drops of quicksilver in my nose; you have set the animals on me, so you have, and they have eaten of my softest parts. Around me the can-toi gather and there’s no peace from their laughter. Yet still I love you and would serve you and even bring the magic again, if you would allow me, for that is how my heart was cast when I rose from the Prim. And once I was strong as well as beautiful, but now my strength is almost gone.’” “You cried,” Susannah said, and Jake thought: Of course he did. He was crying himself. So was Ted; so was Dinky Earnshaw. Only Roland was dry-eyed, and the gunslinger was pale, so pale. “He wept,” said Sheemie (tears were rolling down his cheeks as he told his dream), “and I did, too, for I could see that he had been fair as daylight. He said, ‘If the torture were to stop now, I might still recover—if never my looks, then at least my strength—’” “‘My kes,’” Jake said, and although he’d never heard the word ...