The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (32 page)

Cort finds a book beneath the floorboards of Farson's nephew's room. It's a trap—the pages are poisoned. Against Vannay's warnings, Cort reads the book, which shows a reader whatever he desires to see (like psychic paper from
Doctor Who
). Thinking he's uncovered Farson's master plans, Cort poisons himself, though his death is slow and painful.

Jamie DeCurry's father, a doctor, attends him in his final days. Abel
Vannay suggests that the young gunslingers pay Cort their final respects and see what their enemy is capable of. Cort tells his young charges not to blubber at his bedside. He saves his final lesson for his niece, Aileen, telling her that women deserve to be gunslingers and expressing his pride in her by comparing her to Lady Oriza, slayer of Gray Dick (a story told in
Wolves of the Calla)
.

Roland thinks that he is bound for the gallows like Hax. After Cort dies, Aileen disguises herself as a man so she will be taken seriously as a gunslinger. She frees Roland from his cell so he can pay his respects to his teacher. When they arrive in the morgue, they discover Vannay's body, too. The once-trusted guards of Gilead have all gone over to Farson's side and, over the next few hours, execute many of the city's most prominent men.

To explain how the pink Wizard's Glass ended up back in Flagg's possession, one scene shows Marten, transformed into a raven, flying from the castle carrying the orb in its velvet sack. He and Kingson—whose reanimation is shown in
The Sorcerer
—flee Gilead. When the gunslingers follow Marten's trail, they are ambushed by slow mutants armed with blowguns. Robert Allgood dies protecting his
dinh
.

Farson's spy, Justus, leads the gunslingers to Farson's camp, which, he says, is protected by only a skeleton crew. However, the twenty gunslingers find it fully guarded and armed with the weapons of the Old People. Justus's duplicity is revealed and the gunslingers are surrounded. Steven tries to use Justus as a prisoner to negotiate their way out of the predicament, but the spy is just another tool to be used and discarded, so the gunslingers are forced to try to shoot their way out, though vastly outnumbered. Steven sounds the Horn of Eld. When Roland hears it from the castle, he knows it is the beginning of the end for Gilead.

Steven and Christopher are the only survivors of the ambush. Steven Deschain prepares to bring the castle's defenses online. The city's founder, Arthur Eld, installed them and they have never been used or maintained, so there's some doubt about whether they still work. Corrupt castle guards stab Christopher and Steven shortly after their return. Steven manages to kill his attacker, safeguarding the castle's plans. His assailant falls out a window into the moat, which explains why no one ever knew who killed Steven. The
dinh
of Gilead lives long enough to leave a message for Roland in his own blood: open the pits.

The council of gunslingers that meets to consider options is considerably younger than the one that recently gathered in the same chambers. Roland takes possession of his birthright, his father's guns and the Horn of Eld. He is now the
dinh
of Gilead.

After reviewing the castle's defenses, Roland and his friends stand on the ramparts and watch Farson's army approach the castle. The defenses include spears buried in the grass, blades embedded in the castle walls, an impressive supply of spiders, and fake guards to make it seem like they have more defenders than they actually do. Guns are handed out to any man or boy tall enough to see over the parapet. When the first of the slow mutants reaches the traps, the gunslingers get their first proof that the defenses will work. Hundreds of attackers fall into the pits and are impaled on centuries-old spikes.

Farson plows ahead, riding over this cannon fodder. Gilead's walls are quickly breached. The traitors who remained inside the castle descend to the keep where the women and children are hiding. The gunslingers arrive too late to protect their people. Everyone in the city is dead except for them, a handful of young fighters.

The final insult: Marten removes the flag of Gilead and replaces it with the eye of Farson.

E
XTRA
F
EATURES:

I
SSUE
1: _______________________________________________

P
OISONED
P
EN
, P
OISONED
B
OOK
: T
HE
F
ALL OF
C
ORTLAND
A
NDRUS

Robin Furth writes about the havoc she had to wreak on Gilead as
ka
's Grim Reaper in this miniseries. Though she had some cues from things Roland said in the Dark Tower novels, often it was up to her to flesh out the details—and, she says, Stephen King sometimes left her to figure things out for herself.

M
ATRICIDE

Robin Furth discusses how her family connections to pathologists have served her by allowing her to withstand some of the more gruesome aspects of horror and how she has made use of this knowledge as Stephen King's research assistant. Her compassion for Roland's secret pain is what has drawn her to him more than his skills with a gun. The first thirty issues of the Dark Tower adaptation, though in one sense a prequel, were necessary to show how Roland transformed from a wellborn boy into a bitter and dangerous man. Furth suggests that the pivotal event in his existence is the murder of his mother, committed by his hand while under the glammer of the pink orb. The act was a mistake, but his rage at his mother's betrayal was real, and the fact that it came soon after his own betrayal of Susan Delgado compounds its importance.

I
SSUE
2: _______________________________________________

T
HE
A
RT AND
D
ISCIPLINE OF
C
REATIVE
C
ONTINUITY

Robin Furth discusses the challenges in creating something new for fans of the Dark Tower series while at the same time remaining consistent to Stephen King's original vision. On occasion, she admits, she must play fast and loose with rigid facts, which may “fash” (annoy) some longtime fans of the series. She drew inspiration from unrelated events in the novels to solve plotting problems. The resurrection of James Farson (Kingson), for example, is analogous to the resurrection of Nort the Weedeater from
The Gunslinger
, and helped her explain why Farson didn't attack Gilead in a fury over his nephew's murder.

I
SSUE
3: _______________________________________________

A
ILEEN
R
ITTER AND THE
F
EMALE
G
UNSLINGER

Furth talks about how women are depicted in comics, the role of women in the comic book industry and how women writers choose to depict female characters. While the Dark Tower mythos is a male-dominated fantasy world, Furth argues that it reflects our own. Starting with Treachery, Furth made a conscious effort to explore the motivations and desires of the women of Gilead, too. Gabrielle Deschain's decision to betray her husband and her people had to be a reflection of the situation in Gilead at the time, not just some arbitrary action on her part. Oppression and a static gender/caste system cause the oppressed to join the enemy. Gilead, she argues, with its strict hierarchical
system, was destined to fall. She decided to expand the role of Aileen Ritter to illustrate the plight of women who wanted to be stronger members of Mid-World society and, in doing so, reflect on what it has meant to be female in our world. Only after the collapse of Gilead can she realize her dream of being a gunslinger. Ultimately, Roland Deschain becomes a man who values women for their contributions to society and even goes above and beyond by training Susannah Dean as a gunslinger.

I
SSUE
4: _______________________________________________

T
HE
M
ANY
L
EGENDARY
R
OLANDS

King borrowed the name “Roland” from the Robert Browning poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.” This isn't the only fictional or historical Roland, though. There was the French knight of Charlemagne who was the protagonist of
Chanson de Roland
from the eleventh or twelfth century, who probably lived a couple of hundred years earlier. There was also a Scottish Roland mentioned in Shakespeare's
King Lear
, a boy who must go on a quest to save his family. Furth writes about how these different versions of Roland were always in her mind while plotting the graphic novels.

I
SSUE
5: _______________________________________________

I
N
D
EFENSE OF
G
ILEAD

Arthur Eld, who studied Mid-World's history, discovered a terrible truth: his world was prone to cyclical periods of bloodshed. Although he had established peace in Mid-World, there would come a day when Gilead would be besieged. He gathered his advisers to devise ways to defend the city, even if the siege didn't come for many generations. After a fierce debate, it was decided that some of the Old People's weapons should be stockpiled. Though they were still radioactive, there might come a time in future centuries when they would once again be usable. Possessing these weapons would not be enough, though. The city would have to be made strong enough to withstand armies that had their own stockpiles of horrifying weapons. Arthur and his advisers pored over the books he had amassed in his great library to discover what useful information they contained that would help them beef up the city's defenses. Their ultimate plan—an underground network of defensive systems—took a decade to devise and another to implement. Its control room was located in a tower above the inner keep, but the system was kept secret from most of Gilead's residents.
Most who heard stories about it believed it was a myth—except for the city leaders, who had access to the original blueprints.

I
SSUE
6: _______________________________________________

P
LANNING THE
F
ALL OF
G
ILEAD

Furth describes her difficulty in plotting the fall of Gilead because Roland provided so few details about this incident. Nothing is revealed in the novels about Farson's tactics or how the young gunslingers took over the defense of the city once their fathers were murdered. During the original meeting with Marvel, where Stephen King recounted a number of untold stories he thought the series might cover, he provided some details of the fall of Gilead, though he didn't describe the final battle specifically. He was clear about how well armed Farson's army was and how outgunned and outmanned Roland and his
ka-tet
were—but they weren't defenseless. She came up with the idea for Gilead's secret defense system, a relic of the days of Arthur Eld. Using a napkin in an airport café, Furth and her husband brainstormed the system, applying their combined knowledge of folklore, mythology, ancient and medieval history, and movies featuring sieges.

B
ATTLE OF
J
ERICHO
H
ILL

Original release dates:
December 2009 through April 2010 (5 issues)

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Consultation:
Robin Furth

•
Script:
Peter David

•
Art:
Jae Lee & Richard Isanove

•
Lettering:
Chris Eliopoulos

Details of the battle of Jericho Hill appear throughout the Dark Tower books. Readers know how Alain, Jamie and Cuthbert died, that there was a traitor in the group, how General DeMullet's troops were ambushed at Rimrocks, and how Roland survived by hiding among the bodies of his dead friends. Exactly when this battle took place isn't mentioned. This series uses all of these details to re-create the famous battle that ended Roland's first
ka-tet
.

Nine years have passed since John Farson's forces overwhelmed Gilead. Slow mutants have moved into the ruins of the city. When the city fell, so did the Eagle-Lion Beams, causing a Beamquake that is felt throughout Mid-World.
Sheemie has a vision in which five young boys, representing the other Beams, mourn their fallen comrade. The Beamquake starts fires in Gilead that reach the armory and blow apart what's left of the city. Roland and his band of surviving gunslingers witness the city's destruction, pledging their vengeance upon Farson and Marten.

The vision gives Roland direction. His mission—their mission—will be to find the Dark Tower and use it to set things right in Mid-World. The others still think of the Tower as a legend. However, though the gunslingers know they are on the path of one of the Beams, they don't know which way to follow it to get to the Tower, assuming the legends are true. Roland knows about the Breakers amassed by the Crimson King, presumably from his vision in the pink orb.