Theme: "Gravemakers and Gunslingers"
By Coheed and Cambria
Here listen---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKCpFvRrk30 ----Listen here



So Draw! little piggy,
Better watch out for number one!
"I feel there's bad wind blowing today..."
You better put up your shutters
'Cause Lord knows now I ain't stopping
'Till the worst gets alive!

Little Strutter! Don't you creep out that fucking door!
"It's best that you don't go walking through there..."
Now just don't bother knocking
'Cause God knows I am not stopping
'Till you breathe none!

Hey! What'd I miss? We're one and the same!
Just give it the push while I kick-start
"There's just no time for this!"
Come on! It's just the hurt I'm looking for
Don't wanna live no more?
You've got the gun-- I've got the bullets!
Don't wanna live no more?
Well baby, be my lover,
Go on and pull that trigger!

You're the sin of the city!
Now repent for the wrong you've done
"Not sorry for this, not sorry at all"
You're a snake under cover
No room for another,
Just these bad motherfuckers!

Leave a long trail of nothing!
Little bad boy with gun in hand
"It's best that you don't go walking through there..."
Now a-come boy a-popping!
'Cause God knows I am not stopping
'Till you breathe NONE!

Hey! What'd I miss? We're one and the same!
Just give it the push while I kick-start
"There's just no time for this!"
Come on! It's just the hurt I'm looking for
Don't wanna live no more?
You've got the gun-- I've got the bullets!
Don't wanna live no more?
Well baby, be my lover,
Go on and pull that trigger!

We'll keep marching to the top of this Tower!
As God isn't at home. No!
There's nothing in the way that could stop us!
It's your time to go...

Hey! What'd I miss? We're one and the same!
Just give it the push while I kick-start
"There's just no time for this!"
Come on! It's just the hurt I'm looking for
Don't wanna live no more?
You've got the gun-- I've got the bullets!
Don't wanna live no more?
Well baby, be my lover,
Go on and pull that trigger!*****

---

The Dark Tower: Wild Card Intro/Prologue
The Gunslinger abridged, The Drawing of the Three part I: The Prisoner




The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Thirty years, and never this close. Before the mountain range, the last vestige of civilazation was a simple town made of weather-beaten wood. There had been whiskey and tobacoo there, and that was very good. Roland would have enjoyed spending several nights there at Jude, but he had no such luxury. He stayed one night and moved on.

The next day traveling on foot across the hard-baked sand was easier than it had ever been. His body odor rising into his face from his long deerhide duster coat almost smelled sweet. Only hours seperated him from his adversary. For the first time in decades, his desire to kill the man in black tasted fresh and exciting. Years of jaded toiling melted away, and Roland rejoiced in every step he took. Memories of his past started to knock on the door of his conscious mind, but he rebuked them there. Nothing of his life before would aid him now, except for his training. As brutally intelligent as his adversary was, Roland could still find his tracks. Easily, the gunslinger followed them, knowing the sorceror's efforts to conceal his flight would only slow him down at this point. That night he stood for a remorseful several minutes at the throat of the train tunnel bored into the mountainside. He balked at the darkness, knowing that, at least for now, the tables had turned.

With the very last of the kerosene in his satchel, he prepared four torches from ancient, rusted rebar and leather straps and continued. For sixteen sleepless hours he followed the tunnel, cursing his own slow progress. The tunnels twisted and turned, and his prey had obviously doubled back through side tunnels as much as possible.
Once the gunslinger emerged from the tunnel, he didn't truly notice the change in weather and scenery until he'd counted his remaining amunition, and woefully discarded the few cartridges that got wet in the depths. Between that three or four rounds, and the eight rounds he expertly placed into the skulls of slow mutants that thought he'd make a nice midnight snack, the gunslinger counted just 25 rounds left. That was only two reloads for each of his guns and one bullet left over. He looked up, noticing the weeds strewn across the sand for the first time, their lively green a stark contrast to the dead, brown sand. The sun was lazily climbing towards noon, a poor time to be underneath it, but the air had a salty tang, and for once the breeze bordered on cool. The sea was close. Roland didn't know if the man in black had the means to cross it, but if he did, there was no way to follow. Slow and steady usually won the race, but, with the pain of lack of sleep in his eyelids, the gunslinger ran.

As his bearing drew him slightly north, the hills and dunes bore more and more plant life, and moss started to cover rocks and trees that were actually alive. Roland noted a freshly snapped branch on a bush and jogged up to the top of the hillside he was running along. With eyes bluer than winter ice, the gunslinger scanned the valley beyond, his pupils flicking back and forth like a raptor hunting field mice. Far beyond the meadow of sage brush growing below, about halfway up a steeper hill, was the tiniest black dot floating up a granite cliff face, nothing more than a speck, truly at least 4 miles off.
But it was him. The gunslinger's hand drew aside the heavy flap of his trenchcoat, and undid the snap on his right hip holster. With a slow rustle, he drew a positively massive revolver, with a blue steel barrel bordering on eight inches in length. He stepped carefully but agressively down the hillside, checking his weapon and the fat, thumb sized bullets in the chambers. Everything was ready.

At dusk the gunslinger found the beach. The sand was like tomb dust, with gnarled tree roots reaching through the sand like skeleton fingers. Visibility diminished quickly, but once the moon rose through the sky of ten billion stars rolling along the Dragon's Tail, he could see well enough. An hour after moonrise he saw the campfire at the high tide line. The time had finally come. Roland drew his left hand revolver, an identical pistol, with the same oiled sandalwood grips. His jog relaxed into a determined walk.

No traps greeted him, no spell fire, no words of command, no tricks, just an unassuming small figure hunkered down on a stone outcropping, poking lazily at the fire. All the man in blacks features were hidden beneath a heavy black coat. Even after months of traveling beneath the desert sun, the hooded cloak remained blacker than the night sky behind it.

"Roland, Roland Deschain, my son, it's finally time for us to parley," he said from under the hood.

Four gunshots sounded out, fast and defeaning, like redwood trees snapping in half. The gunslinger stepped past the haze of gunpowder smoke, pistols still raised.
Completely unmoved, and unphased, the man in black raised his head, his lined but handsome face now visible underneath the hood.
"Is that anyway to greet an old friend, oh son of Eld?"

Hesitant for a moment, Roland lowered the guns, glaring in sullen silence at the man, nay, the creature that ruined his entire life, had stolen his destiny.

"Come, sit, Roland. I know you're very well tired of that dried, sand ridden jerky in your purse. I've caught some fish, and I truly want to share some. We have much to discuss." The man in black drew back his hood. Though his hair, once long, limp, and jet black was now trimmed and showed some streaks of grey, the face of Marten Broadcloak had not changed an iota since Roland Deschain was a boy. With his weapons proven useless, Roland's brow furrowed in worry and frantic thinking. But there was nothing. As usual, all bets were off against Marten Broadcloak.

The man in black's eyebrow raised slightly. "In all seriousness, put your weapons away. I said parley, not fight to the death. Surely you can admit tha there is much you can learn here. You don't even know where it is you are going or what that place even IS."
"The Dark Tower," Roland said.
"And what IS the Dark Tower, my friend?" The grin on Marten's face produced an eerie combination of rage and fear in the gunslinger, but nonetheless, he holstered his guns.
Roland sat on the log across the small fire from Marten. Once inside the camps glow, the stars faded, the beach outside seemed black, and Roland felt equally as claustrophobic as he did in the train tunnels, if not more so. His frown deepened even more. Truth be told, he didn't have an answer for the question.

The man in black appeared to stifle a laugh.
"Some say it's the center of the universe... but those who say that can't even comprehend what the universe IS," his pale hand waved dismissal at the thought. "Some say it's a building that stretches into heaven itself, and God rules from the top..." Marten's eyes glinted almost knowingly at that. His grin seemed altogether too wide, his teeth just a little too sharp.
"What do you think, Roland Deschain?"
"I know it is my ka to reach it. To protect it."
The man in black laughed this time. "From what? From whom?"
"You."
Marten laughed again, this time loud and hard enough to double himself over.
"No, no, NO! There are far worse individuals involved in this than I, and far closer to the Tower now than both of us. Please, please I can barely stand your ignorance! What good are you to anyone? To anything?"
Roland wondered if his jaw would break if he clenched it any harder.
"Let me tell you a few things, to set you on the right track, my son. Oh, don't look like that! This is all good news, useful, truthful, good news."

The man in black waved his hand over the fire, and Roland had to surpress a nautious turn in his stomach as a vision played in the flames, suddenly encompassing his whole vision. He reached for his guns, but they weren't there, nor his hands. No, his hands were feathers, his arms were wings. He panicked as he realized that he was now a bird who had no knowledge of flight. But, within a moment, he realized he was not falling. No, entirely against his will he was flying, flapping those wings in a straight line he was unable to divert from.
He looked down, and again fear took him. Beneath him was a sea of blood. Solid red, all encompassing, bright, fresh. Yet that feeling of fear was snapped by sudden anger. Roland had killed more men than he had digits to count with, how could blood revolt him?
He struggled with the urge to fly forward, and found that he could not resist it. Yet, he could ascend, but nothing but grey swirls of clouds that blotted out the sky were up there. For a queer instant, he was intrigued by the shape of those clouds, how they followed his path and grew ever darker in front of him. But he ceased that train of thought, and descended. If there was anything to learn, it would be on the ground. He fought to move towards the ground, and that was hard. The overpowering drive to move forward got so strong that his whole head began to ache, and breathing grew difficult, as if he was back in the desert heat. But down he moved, ever forward, but also down.
The last thing he realized was that no blood was on the ground. Only flowers. Billions and billions and trillions of roses...

"Roland, look at me!" Marten snapped his fingers several times, tsking loudly. "My goodness, I thought you'd have a tolerance for such tricks by now. My apoligies, I only meant to give you the suggestion that the Dark Tower is real, oh yes, very real, and very, very corporeal as well. But, alas, I've seen it no more than you. But I did place you where it is. What did you see?"
Roland didn't answer. Partly because he felt sick and partly because Marten never, EVER asked direct questions.
"Oh come on, I can see it on your face. Yes, you saw very much, but what?"
"If you don't know what I saw, then there is no reason for me to share that with you," the gunslinger said flatly.
The man in black sighed, genuinely dissapointed. "Not so foolish as I had hoped then. But that is of no matter. It's time for me to straighten your path, gunslinger. The wheel of your fate is not for me to turn. As far as I see now, it can only help me to bring you to your destiny. But as I see, you will never reach the Dark Tower alone. You will die long, long before that."
Roland glared straight as an arrow at Marten, silent.

"Well, I have a way of making things more clear. And, as I'm sure you prefer, more to the point, shall we say?" the man in black reached into his cloak and withdrew a beaten up, black-edged, sticky, and much-weathered deck of cards. The stack was a bit longer and more wide than dead man's cards or tiles. Roland's eyes flicked once to the deck then returned to direct contact with Marten's.

"Okay..." the sorceror broke the deck in two and shuffled it with a suprisingly loud snap for how old the cards looked. "Okay, first, a hint at your destiny..." The man in black flipped one card face up on the stone in front of him. Roland leaned slightly, peering at the card. It was a tall, brick, castle spire, crowned by a lightning bolt. Men and women were flinging themselves from its windows, which spurted fire. Still, Roland's eyes widened when he recognized the text on the bottom, which were in high-speech, a dialect he hadn't seen in writing in decades.
"The Tower," the man in black's voice said with a smirk of irony. "This card is upright. Which is as good of news as such a card can bring. 'Upheaval, disturbance, great and ruinous change, but, at the end, enlightenment, and understanding, once due price has been paid.'" Marten looked up to Roland, but smirked yet again to find the gunslinger's eyes fixed on the text on the bottom. "Yes, 'The Tower.' Sometimes ka is very blunt, right?"
Roland looked back up to the man in black, steeling his face again.
"But I won't reach it alone, you say." a statement, not a question.

"Yes! You're always quite quick to catch on. I may ever insult your narrow mindedness, but your focus is razor keen. Yes, I think it's time for you to find your party, your band, those whose backs you must walk up to get where you're going, yes?" The man in black flipped another card. In it was a man standing alone, facing away, looking out over a vast expanse. He seemed small in the picture, and frail, but he was grasping at two posts staked in the hilltop, and one braced his back.
"The Three of Wands. It seems, oh friend, that you won't go it alone after all! And you'll certainly survive to meet your party, that, at the least, I can assure you. This card is also upright, and denotes good timing, and successful ventures. But, as I'm sure you learn so much more from pictures than you do words and eloquent farting about." The man in black clapped his hands and leaned in some, still smiling gaily.
"Yes, three supports. Three friends. But which friends? Which supports? What unlucky three shall accompany you?" the man in black's smiley mirth was confusing. If success was all that was forseen so far, how could Marten be so joyful?
"Are you asking me?" Roland said. He raised his hands, palms facing towards himself. A gesture of non-appreciation for the sorceror's theatrics, a gesture of "How-should-I-know?"
Marten smacked his lips and straightened his face out with some dramatic flair.
"No. No, of course not. Let's see what the cards say..."

The Gunslinger sat, interested enough to let his guard down some; the steely look of his narrowed eyes lightened some. Still, that was, assuming he truly had any defense against the man in black to begin with.
"The first of the three..." Marten shuffled the deck with another dry crack, and flipped the first card up. With a flourish of his hand and sleeve, the picture was revealed.
"The Prisoner!" Marten declared, and laughed. He leaned in closer to Roland, tapping on the flat stone between them. "A man, slave to the basest creature, living only to fulfill need, driven with a single purpose..."
The gunslinger squinted at the picture, certain what he was seeing was all indecipherable symbols and metaphor.
"No, a monkey with a whip is not your man, but the beast of burden he rides, that very much is. This card is inverted. The Prisoner is an absolute thrall, so terribly burdened by his master, and so helpless without him."

Roland looked down at the monkey, which appeared somewhat like a booboo clown, one of the bizarre beasts from his mother's fairy tale picture books. Stark purple-blue hair with a white crest crowned the monkey's red-masked face. Yellow teeth were bared in a look of pure rage as it cracked the whip down upon it's slave: a pale man, thin, hunched over. The man's look was not of anger, but pure madness. Though the man's mouth seemed distorted, hung in an eternal death scream, his eyes glittered, seemingly with delight. Truly disturbing.
"You'll meet this one first, and I do not envy you that, Gunslinger." Marten flicked the top of the deck, and another loud snap sounded. "Who's next..."
For a moment, the gunslinger again looked outside of the sparse camp. He could hear the tide creeping nearer, still several yards out. He felt another surge of tension go through him as he noted the air smelled wrong, not so much like wet salt, but like dank, molding bread. And still, besides the brightest stars above-- outside the fire, the world was black.

The man in black set the card down, another flourish.
"The Lost Child! How...intriguing..."
Roland idly fingered the black, jagged stubble on his chin, observing. The picture was upside down, facing away from him and towards the wizard.
"A girl who walks, but faces too many paths to choose, yet continues nonetheless."
The girl faced away, only black hair and a flimsy white dress revealed to Roland. Before her snaked myriad walking trails that snaked and weaved to the top of the card. The gunslinger arched an eyebrow slightly, and flicked his eyes up at Marten.
"Don't look at me, my son, for this is the draw I can tell you the least about. Yes, the Lost Child is inverted, meaning she has retraced her steps, and found a path to walk down. I'd assume that path is to you, Gunslinger. Other than that, this card purports instability, and danger. But lack of direction? Not in this case. Yes, things are getting--Hmm?"
Roland's brow had furrowed, lowering his wide brimmed Vaquero hat over his eyebrows. Cold, ice-blue eyes set on Marten's deep, violet eyes. The gunslinger twirled the fingers of his right hand over in a circular motion, like a wheel. He meant "Get on with it."

"Impatient, as always." a quicker, exasperated snap of the deck again, and the sorcerer flipped the final card.
"Ahhhh! My, my, The Alchemist! I would never have guessed!" Marten sneered, perhaps it was supposed to be a grin, but it was a sneer.
Roland had this card facing him, upright. Upon it was a modest looking but somehow beautiful woman hunkered over a table of papers and bottles, smoke rising from the mess before her. Her dress was strange to him, some sort of thin, white duster cloak, not unlike his own, but had some sort of insignia pinned on a front pocket. The woman's seemed distorted somehow as if by water stain on the card, and her look was not so much of concentration, but of pain.
"She searches for the answer to the greatest question. She finds many answers, and gives them in charity, but her own solution is unattainable."
"An alchemist? A false wizard, like in the old stories..." Roland relaxed a little. This concept was not so entirely foreign to him.
"No, this is not like the men of the old science, those who sought to discredit Maerlyn the great and remove him from Arthur Eld's court. Though her goal is fruitless, her knowledge is not. I think your third drawing will impress you, entirely without turning lead into gold, ha-ha!"

The gunslinger sat back, and looked down at his guns, which were still in his hands, though not pointed at the man in black anymore. He swallowed hard. For all the rich, amber glow of the campfire, his polished, blue-steel guns, reputed to be smelted from Arthur Eld's own sword, looked dull as broken granite. The darkness didn't just look thick, and solid. It was beginning to feel that way. He scoweled at Marted and raised his pistols, regardless.

"For one, Roland, it's too late for that. For two, son, there's a card left to show you. So I've shown your goal, your group, but, truly, we must see your purpose. This is perhaps the most important thing your Ka can show you, Gunslinger."
Through a haze, as if a bucket of water had been tossed on the fire to his left, the fuzzy, smudgy cloak of the man in black pressed one card down. As the whole of his vision grew blurry, and grey, the card landed before him in stark, piercing focus. A grinning, maniacal skeleton, clothed in black and red armor, holding a large halberd pike, seated upon an armored, red horse.
"Farson..."
"No, Gunslinger. Death. There will be much, much death before the end. Yesssssss!" Marten's voice suddenly sounded distant, miles down a tunnel, like when he mocked at Roland beneath the mountain in the train tunnels.

"Death! But not for you, Gunslinger. Not for you....hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...