Category Archives: AntroTurtles

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
Author(s): Stephen King
Release year: 1997
Publisher: Donald M. Grant

Why in Database: The fourth volume of the Dark Tower series, with many turtle fragments. We list all of them below:

The first case is a mention in the form of a comparison:

They were now flying through the mountain-range they had seen on the horizon: iron-gray peaks rushed toward them at suicidal speed, then fell away to disclose sterile valleys where gigantic beetles crawled about like landlocked turtles.

Again, as comparison:

The town of Candleton was a poisoned and irradiated ruin, but not dead; after all the centuries it still twitched with tenebrous life—trundling beetles the size of turtles, birds that looked like small, misshapen dragonlets, a few stumbling robots that passed in and out of the rotten build ings like stainless steel zombies, their joints squalling, their nuclear eyes flickering.

Turtle-beetles are mentioned:

In the town square, the Candleton Fountain split in two, spilling out not water but only dust, snakes, mutie scorpions, and a few of the blindly trundling turtle-beetles.

Turtle in the name of the location:

According to the sign, two outfits—Mills Construction and Sombra Real Estate—were going to combine on something called Turtle Bay Condominiums, said condos to be erected on this very spot. When? COMING SOON was all the sign had to say in that regard.

Turtle in the shop’s name:

There was the Bear and Turtle Mercantile & Sundrie Items, where miners were forbidden by the Vi Castis Company to shop, and a company store where no one but grubbies would shop; there was a com bined jailhouse and Town Gathering Hall with a windmill-cum-gallows out front; there were six roaring barrooms, each more sordid, desperate, and dangerous than the last.

Wzmianka o totemie żółwia, jednego ze strażników Mrocznej Wieży:

These thoughts were snatched out of her mind just as hands—strong ones —snatched the box of groceries from her arms. Cordelia cawed in surprise, shaded her eyes against the sun, and saw Eldred Jonas standing there between the Bear and Turtle totems, smiling at her. His hair, long and white (and beautiful, in her opinion), lay over his shoulders.

A reference to turtle slowness:

Sheemie could have been at the Delgado place two hours ago, if he’d wanted, but he had trudged along at a turtle’s pace, the letter inside his shirt seeming to drag at his every step. It was awful, so awful. He couldn’t even think about it, because his thinker was mostly broken, so it was.

Turtle used as saying/blessing:

”Bless the Turtle,” Reynolds muttered, and tapped his throat three times. He was terrified of rabies.
”You won’t bless anything if the Wizard’s Rainbow gets hold of you,” Latigo said grimly, and swung his attention back to Jonas.

Again, Turtle as saying/blessing:

”Wake up, sai! Wake up! In the name of the Turtle and the Bear, wake up!”

Unusually, in the next two passages, the Turtle, guardian of the Dark Tower, speaks out:

Now, suddenly, he knows that voice—it is the voice of the Turtle. He looks and sees a brilliant blue-gold glow piercing the dirty dark ness of Thunderclap. Before he can do more than register it, he breaks out of the darkness and into the light like something coming out of an egg, a creature at last being born.
”Light! Let there be light!”
the voice of the Turtle cries, and Roland has to put his hands to his eyes and peek through his fingers to keep from being blinded.

”You will kill everything and everyone you love,” says the voice of the Turtle, and now it is a cruel voice, cruel and hard. ”and still the Tower will be pent shut against you.”
The gunslinger draws in all his breath and draws together all his force; when he cries his answer to the Turtle, he does so for all the gen erations of his blood: ”NO! IT WILL NOT STAND! WHEN I COME HERE IN MY BODY, IT WILL NOT STAND! I SWEAR ON MY FA THER ‘S NAME. IT WILL NOT STAND/”

Author: XYuriTT