Flagg with the Grapefruit (Wizard and Glass)

The dark man on the green throne continued to smile, unperturbed. “Roland?” he asked. “What about you?” Slowly, he raised the drawstring bag. It looked dusty and old. It hung from the wizard’s fist like a teardrop, and now the thing in its pouch began to pulse with pink light. “Cry off, and they need never see what’s inside this—they need never see the last scene of that sad long-ago play. Cry off. Turn from the Tower and go your way.”

The man on the throne shrieked and cringed back. The bag fell from his lap, and the glass ball—once held by Rhea, once held by Jonas, once held by Roland himself—slipped out of its mouth. Smoke, green this time instead of red, billowed from the slots in the arms of the throne. It rose in obscuring fumes.