Wizard and glass - Stephen King [14]
“The hard ones are toward the back,” Jake supplied.
“. . . but none of your foolishness, mind. This is life and death. The time for foolishness is past.”
Eddie looked at him—old long, tall, and ugly, who’d done God knew how many ugly things in the name of reaching his Tower—and wondered if Roland had any idea at all of how much that hurt. Just that casual admonition not to behave like a child, grinning and cracking jokes, now that their lives were at wager.
He opened his mouth to say something—an Eddie Dean Special, something that would be both funny and stinging at the same time, the kind of remark that always used to drive his brother Henry dogshit—and then closed it again. Maybe long, tall, and ugly was right; maybe it was time to put away the one-liners and dead baby jokes. Maybe it was finally time to grow up.
3
After three more minutes of murmured consultation and some quick flipping through Riddle-De-Dum! on Eddie’s and Susannah’s parts (Jake already knew the one he wanted to try Blaine with first, he’d said), Roland went to the front of the Barony Coach and laid his hand on the fiercely glowing rectangle there. The route-map reappeared at once. Although there was no sensation of movement now that the coach was closed, the green dot was closer to Rilea than ever.
“SO, ROLAND SON OF STEVEN!” Blaine said. To Eddie he sounded more than jovial; he sounded next door to hilarious. “IS YOUR KA-TET READY TO BEGIN?”
“Yes. Susannah of New York will begin the first round.” He turned to her, lowered his voice a little (not that she reckoned that would do much good if Blaine wanted to listen), and said: “You won’t have to step forward like the rest of us, because of your legs, but you must speak fair and address him by name each time you talk to him. If—when—he answers your riddle correctly, say ‘Thankee-sai, Blaine, you have answered true.’ Then Jake will step into the aisle and have his turn. All right?”
“And if he should get it wrong, or not guess at all?”
Roland smiled grimly. “I think that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about just yet.” He raised his voice again. “Blaine?”
“YES, GUNSLINGER.”
Roland took a deep breath. “It starts now.”
“EXCELLENT!”
Roland nodded at Susannah. Eddie squeezed one of her hands; Jake patted the other. Oy gazed at her raptly with his gold-ringed eyes.
Susannah smiled at them nervously, then looked up at the route-map. “Hello, Blaine.”
“HOWDY, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK.”
Her heart was pounding, her armpits were damp, and here was something she had first discovered way back in the first grade: it was hard to begin. It was hard to stand up in front of the class and be first with your song, your joke, your report on how you spent your summer vacation . . . or your riddle, for that matter. The one she had decided upon was one from Jake Chambers’s crazed English essay, which he had recited to them almost verbatim during their long palaver after leaving the old people of River Crossing. The essay, titled “My Understanding of Truth,” had contained two riddles, one of which Eddie had already used on Blaine.
“SUSANNAH? ARE YOU THERE, L’IL COWGIRL?”
Teasing again, but this time the teasing sounded light, good-natured. Good-humored. Blaine could be charming when he got what he wanted. Like certain spoiled children she had known.
“Yes, Blaine, I am, and here is my riddle. What has four wheels and flies?”
There was a peculiar click, as if Blaine were mimicking the sound of a man popping his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was followed by a brief pause. When Blaine replied, most of the jocularity had gone out of his voice. “THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, OF COURSE. A CHILD’S RIDDLE. IF THE REST OF YOUR RIDDLES ARE NO BETTER, I WILL BE EXTREMELY SORRY I SAVED YOUR LIVES FOR EVEN A SHORT WHILE.”
The route-map flashed, not red this time but pale pink. “Don’t get him mad,” the voice of Little Blaine begged. Each time it spoke, Susannah found herself imagining a sweaty little bald man whose every movement was a kind of cringe. The voice of Big Blaine