The Dark Tower The White and the Red.pdf

The

White

and the Red

“Do you know the game Castles, Susan?”

“Aye. My father showed me when I was small.”

“Then you know how the red pieces stand at one end of

the board and the white at the other.”

Overhead, a full moon came out from behind a scrim of cloud, painting

the clearing and the stream in the tawdry hues of pawnshop jewelry. There

was a face in the moon, but not one upon which lovers would wish to look.

It seemed the scant face of a skull, like those in the Candleton Travellers’

Hotel; a face which looked upon those few beings still alive and struggling

below with the amusement of a lunatic. In Gilead, before the world had

moved on, the full moon of Year’s End had been called the Demon Moon, and

it was considered ill luck to look directly at it.

Now, however, such did not matter. Now there were demons everywhere.

Preface:

The Two Faces of Magic

The White

The High Speech

Powers of the White

The Red

The Speech of the Unformed

The Art

Powers of the Red

The Invisible World

Proving Honesty (new skill)

Todash

The Vagrant Dead

Migrating

Migrate (new skill)

-The Two Faces of Magic-

“Was it like... you know... the mouse?” Dean asked. He glanced briely at

the empty cell when Delacroix had lived with Mr. Jingles, then down at the

restraint room, which had been the mouse’s seeming point of origin. His voice

dropped, the way people’s voices do when they enter a big church where even

the silence seems to whisper. “Was it a...” He gulped. “Shoot, you know what

I mean—was it a miracle?”

The three of us looked at each other briely, conirming what we already

knew. “Brought her back from her damn grave is what he did,” Harry said.

“Yeah, it was a miracle, all right.”

“Ermot, Ermot!” she cried. “See what’s become of ye!”

There was his head, the mouth frozen open, the double fangs still dripping

poison—clear drops that shone like prisms in the day’s strengthening light.

The glazing eyes glared. She picked Ermot up, kissed the scaly mouth, licked

the last of the venom from the exposed needles, crooning and weeping all the

while. Next she picked up the long and tattered body with her other hand,

moaning at the holes which had been torn into Ermot’s satiny hide; the holes

and the ripped red lesh beneath. Twice she put the head against the body and

spoke incantations, but nothing happened. Of course not. Ermot had gone

beyond the aid of her spells.

Powers of the White are granted instantly with no skill roll, and generally ask

little in return (aside from the drain of Magic points). The magic of the Red

is quite different. A Sorcery check is needed to invoke the magic (along with

materials, words of power, or anything else required). A failed check (usually)

produced no result. A successful check yields the spell, at least in accordance

with the caster’s ability.

When making Sorcery checks, a roll of 90+ is an overkill. When an overkill

is rolled, the effects of a spell go beyond the caster’s intentions. Locks break,

the far-seen sense the caster, etc.

The indicated Sanity Loss may apply to the caster, the recipient, witnesses, or

any combination of the above, at the controller’s discretion.

-The White-

That the boy was asking such questions at fourteen and ifteen was bad. That he

was getting comparatively honest answers from such timid, watchful men as the

Kingdom’s historians and Roland’s advisors was much worse. It meant that, in the

minds of these people, Peter was already almost King—and that they were glad. They

welcomed him and rejoiced in him, because he would be an intellectual, like them.

And they also welcomed him because, unlike them, he was a brave boy who might

well grow into a lionhearted King whose tale would be the stuff of legends. In him,

they saw again the coming of the White, that ancient, resilient, yet humble force that

has redeemed humankind again and again and again.

He had to be put out of the way. Had to be.

“Hear me well, Rhea, daughter of none, and understand me well. I have come here

under the name of Will Dearborn, but Dearborn is not my name and it is the Afili-

ation I serve. More, ‘tis all which lies behind the Afiliation—’tis the power of the

White. You have crossed the way of our ka, and I warn you only this once: do not

cross it again. Do you understand?”

Jake didn’t think that was all. He didn’t think so because that sensation of knowing

was creeping over him and through him again, the one which had taken possession

of him three weeks ago, as he approached the corner of Fifth and Forty-sixth. But on

May 9th, it had been a feeling of impending doom. Today it was a feeling of radiance,

a sense of goodness and anticipation. It was as if...

as if . . .

White. This was the word that came to him, and it clanged in his mind with clear

and unquestionable lightness.

“It’s the White!” he exclaimed aloud. “The coming of the White!”

He walked on down Fifty-fourth Street, and as he reached the corner of Second and

Fifty-fourth, he once more passed under the umbrella of ka-tet.

The old woman turned to the others. She spoke in a cracked and ringing voice—yet

it was the words she spoke and not the tone in which they were spoken that sent chills

racing down Jake’s back: “Behold ye, the return of the White! After evil ways and

evil days, the White comes again! Be of good heart and hold up your heads, for ye

have lived to see the wheel of ka begin to turn once more!”

The High Speech

“Speak the High Speech,” he said softly. His voice was lat, with a slight, drunken

rasp. “Speak your act of contrition in the speech of civilization for which better men

than you will ever be have died, maggot.”

“We mean you no harm,” the gunslinger called. He used the High Speech, and at

the sound of it the man’s eyes lit up with incredulity. The woman turned back, swing-

ing her blind face in their direction.

“A gunslinger!” the man cried. His voice cracked and wavered with excitement.

“‘Fore God! I knew it were! I knew!”

The High Speech is the ancient language spoken in certain enlightened circles. It

is also known as the Old Tongue, or the Tongue. The low speech is the parlance of

everyday interaction, but the High Speech is the language of ritual and magic.

Am - The physical, mortal world.

An-tet - Implies an intimate emotional link. It can also imply sexual intimacy. To sit together

an-tet is to sit in council.

Aven kal - A tidal wave that runs along the path of the Beam. Literally translated, it means

“lifted on the wind” or “carried on the wave.” The use of kal rather than the more

usual form kas implies a natural force of disastrous proportions.

Aven-car - A hunting term which refers to carrying the kill and preparing to make it into some-

thing else.

Can Calah - Angels.

Can-ah, can-tah, annah, Oriza - “All breath comes from the woman.” A prayer to Lady Oriza.

Canda - The distance that assures a pair of outnumbered gunslingers will not be killed by a

single shot.

Can-tah - Little gods.

Can-toi - Low animals (wolves, spiders, snakes, etc.)

Char - Death.

Chary-ka - One whose ka is aligned with death.

Charyou Tree - The ritual bonire made on the festival of Reap. In the days of Arthur Eld,

people were burned on this ire.

Chassit - Nineteen.

Chisset - Eighteen.

Childe - Holy, chosen by ka. An ancient, formal term for a knight on a quest.

Chussit - Seventeen.

Commala - The rice plant. Also an alternate name for the courting rite of New Earth (the Sow-

ing Night Cotillion).

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