Free The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

had gone somewhere and gotten a drug. Not the drug he himself took, nor one that would help cure the gunslinger’s sick body, but one that people paid a lot of money for because it was against the law. He would give this drug to his brother, who would in turn give it to a man named Balazar. The deal would be complete when Balazar traded them the kind of drug they took for this one—if, that was, the prisoner was able to correctly perform a ritual unknown to the gunslinger (and a world as strange as this must of necessity have many strange rituals); it was called Clearing the Customs.
    But the woman sees him.
    Could she keep him from Clearing the Customs? Roland thought the answer was probably yes. And then? Gaol. And if the prisoner were gaoled, there would be no place to get the sort of medicine his infected, dying body needed.
    He must Clear the Customs, Roland thought. He must. And he must go with his brother to this man Balazar. It’s not in the plan, the brother won’t like it, but he must.
    Because a man who dealt in drugs would either know a man or be a man who also cured the sick. A man who could listen to what was wrong and then . . . maybe . . .
    He must Clear the Customs, the gunslinger thought.
    The answer was so large and simple, so close to him, that he very nearly did not see it at all. It was the drug the prisoner meant to smuggle in that would make Clearing the Customs so difficult, of course; there might be some sort of Oracle who might be consulted in the cases of people who seemed suspicious. Otherwise, Roland gleaned, the Clearing ceremony would be simplicity itself, as crossing a friendly border was in his own world. One made the sign of fealty to that kingdom’s monarch—a simple token gesture—and was allowed to pass.
    He was able to take things from the prisoner’s world to his own. The tooter-fish popkin proved that. He would take the bags of drugs as he had taken the popkin. The prisoner would Clear the Customs. And then Roland would bring the bags of drugs back.
    Can you?
    Ah, here was a question disturbing enough to distract him from the view of the water below . . . they had gone over what looked like a huge ocean and were now turning back toward the coastline. As they did, the water grew steadily closer. The air-carriage was coming down (Eddie’s glance was brief, cursory; the gunslinger’s as rapt as the child seeing his first snowfall). He could take things from this world, that he knew. But bring them back again? That was a thing of which he as yet had no knowing. He would have to find out.
    The gunslinger reached into the prisoner’s pocket and closed the prisoner’s fingers over a coin.
    Roland went back through the door.
4
    The birds flew away when he sat up. They hadn’t dared come as close this time. He ached, he was woozy, feverish . . . yet it was amazing how much even a little bit of nourishment had revived him.
    He looked at the coin he had brought back with him this time. It looked like silver, but the reddish tint at the edge suggested it was really made of some baser metal. On one side was a profile of a man whose face suggested nobility, courage, stubbornness. His hair, both curled at the base of the skull and pigged at the nape of the neck, suggested a bit of vanity as well. He turned the coin over and saw something so startling it caused him to cry out in a rusty, croaking voice.
    On the back was an eagle, the device which had decorated his own banner, in those dim days when there had still been kingdoms and banners to symbolize them.
    Time’s short. Go back. Hurry.
    But he tarried a moment longer, thinking. It was harder to think inside this head—the prisoner’s was far from clear, but it was, temporarily at least, a cleaner vessel than his own.
    To try the coin both ways was only half the experiment, wasn’t it?
    He took one of the shells from his cartridge belt and folded it over the coin in his hand.
    Roland stepped back through the door.
5
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