Susannah nodded. “We saw one of those,” she said quietly. “They called it the superflu.”

“The Crimson King’s Breakers are only hurrying along a process that’s already in train. The machines are going mad. You’ve seen this for yourself. The men believed there would always be more men like them to make more machines. None of them foresaw what’s happened. This … this universal exhaustion.”

“The world has moved on.”

“Aye, lady. It has. And left no one to replace the machines which hold up the last magic in creation, for the Prim has receded long since. The magic is gone and the machines are failing. Soon enough the Dark Tower will fall. Perhaps there’ll be time for one splendid moment of universal rational thought before the darkness rules forever. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Won’t the Crimson King be destroyed, too, when the Tower falls? Him and all his crew? The guys with the bleeding holes in their foreheads?”

“He has been promised his own kingdom, where he’ll rule forever, tasting his own special pleasures.” Distaste had crept into Mia’s voice. Fear, too, perhaps.

“Promised? Promised by whom? Who is more powerful than he?”

“Lady, I know not. Perhaps this is only what he has promised himself.” Mia shrugged. Her eyes wouldn’t quite meet Susannah’s.

“Can nothing prevent the fall of the Tower?”

“Not even your gunslinger friend hopes to prevent it,” Mia said, “only to slow it down by freeing the Breakers and—perhaps—slaying the Crimson King. Save it! Save it, O delight! Did he ever tell you that was his quest?”

Susannah considered this and shook her head. If Roland had ever said that, in so many words, she couldn’t remember. And she was sure she would have.

“No,” Mia went on, “for he won’t lie to his ka-tet unless he has to, ’tis his pride. What he wants of the Tower is only to see it.” Then she added, rather grudgingly: “Oh, perhaps to enter it, and climb to the room at the top, his ambition may strike so far. He may dream of standing on its allure as we hunker on this one, and chant the names of his fallen comrades, and of his line all the way back to Arthur Eld. But save it? No, good lady! Only a return of the magic could possibly save it, and—as you yourself well know—your dinh deals only in lead.”

Never since crossing the worlds had Susannah heard Roland’s trade of hand cast in such a paltry light. It made her feel sad and angry, but she hid her feelings as best she could.

“Tell me how your chap can be Roland’s son, for I would hear.”

“Aye, ’tis a good trick, but one the old people of River Crossing could have explained to you, I’ve no doubt.”

Susannah started at that. “How do you know so much of me?”

“Because you are possessed,” Mia said, “and I am your possessor, sure. I can look through any of your memories that I like. I can read what your eyes see. Now be quiet and listen if you would learn, for I sense our time has grown short.”