Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower 4)

"Why do people go to bed, Blaine?"

"BECAUSE . . . BECAUSE . . . GODS DAMN YOU, BECAUSE . . . "

A low squalling started up from beneath them, and suddenly the Barony Coach swayed violently from right to left. Susannah screamed. Jake was thrown into her lap. The gunslinger grabbed them both.

"BECAUSE THE BED WON'T COME TO THEM, GODS DAMN YOU! NINE MINUTES AND FIFTY SECONDS!"

"Give up, Blaine," Eddie said. "Stop before I have to blow your mind completely. If you don't quit, it's going to happen. We both know it. "

"NO!"

"I got a million of these puppies. Been hearing them my whole life.

They stick to my mind the way flies stick to flypaper. Hey, with some people it's recipes. So what do you say? Want to give?"

"NO! NINE MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS!"

"Okay, Blaine. You asked for it. Here comes the cruncher. Why did the dead baby cross the road?"

The mono took another of those gigantic lurches; Eddie didn't understand how it could still stay on its track after that, but somehow it did. The screaming from beneath them grew louder; the walls, floor, and ceiling of the car began to cycle madly between opacity and transparency. At one moment they were enclosed, at the next they were rushing over a gray daylight landscape that stretched flat and featureless to a horizon which ran across the world in a straight line.

The voice which came from the speakers was now that of a panicky child: "I KNOW IT, JUST A MOMENT, I KNOW IT, RETRIEVAL IN PROGRESS, ALL LOGIC CIRCUITS IN USE - "

"Answer," Roland said.

"I NEED MORE TIME! YOU MUST GIVE IT TO ME!" Now there was a kind of cracked triumph in that splintered voice. "NO TEMPORAL LIMITS FOR ANSWERING WERE SET, ROLAND OF GILEAD, HATEFUL GUNSLINGER OUT OF A PAST THAT SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD!"

"No," Roland agreed, "no time limits were set, you are quite right. But you may not kill us with a riddle still unanswered, Blaine, and Topeka draws nigh. Answer!"

The Barony Coach cycled into invisibility again, and Eddie saw what appeared to be a tall and rusty grain elevator go flashing past; it was in his view barely long enough for him to identify it. Now he fully appreciated the maniacal speed at which they were travelling; perhaps three hundred miles faster than a commercial jet at cruising speed.

"Let him alone!" moaned the voice of Little Blaine. "You're killing him, I say! Killing him!"

"Isn't that 'bout what he wanted?" Susannah asked in the voice of Detta Walker. "To die? That's what he said. We don't mind, either. You not so bad, Little Blaine, but even a world as fucked up as this one has to be better with your big brother gone. It's just him takin us with him we been objectin to all this time. "

"Last chance," Roland said. "Answer or give up the goose, Blaine. "

"I . . . I . . . YOU . . . SIXTEEN LOG THIRTY-THREE . . . ALL COSINE SUBSCRIPTS . . . ANTI . . . ANTI . . . IN ALL THESE YEARS . . . BEAM . . . FLOOD . . . PYTHAGOREAN . . . CARTESIAN LOGIC . . . CAN I . . . DARE I . . . A PEACH . . . EAT A PEACH . . . ALLMAN BROTHERS . . . PATRICIA . . . CROCODILE AND WHIPLASH SMILE . . . CLOCK OF DIALS . . . TICK-TOCK, ELEVEN O'CLOCK, THE MAN'S IN THE MOON AND HE'S READY TO ROCK . . . INCESSAMENT . . . INCESSAMENT, MON CHER . . . OH MY HEAD . . . BLAINE . . . BLAINE DARES . . . BLAINE WILL ANSWER . . . I . . . "

Blaine, now screaming in the voice of an infant, lapsed into some other language and began to sing. Eddie thought it was French. He knew none of the words, but when the drums kicked in, he knew the song perfectly well: "Velcro Fly" by Z. Z. Top.

The glass over the route-map blew out. A moment later, the route-map itself exploded from its socket, revealing twinkling lights and a maze of circuit-boards behind it. The lights pulsed in time to the drums. Suddenly blue fire flashed out, sizzling the surface around the hole in the wall where the map had been, scorching it black. From deeper within that wall, toward Blaine's blunt, bullet-shaped snout, came a thick grinding noise.

"It crossed the road because it was stapled to the chicken, you dopey fuck!" Eddie yelled. He got to his feet and started to walk toward the smoking hole where the route-map had been. Susannah grabbed at the back of his shirt, but Eddie barely felt it. Barely knew where he was, in fact. The battle-fire had dropped over him, burning him everywhere with its righteous heat, sizzling his sight, frying his synapses and roasting his heart in its holy glow. He had Blaine in his sights, and although the thing behind the voice was already mortally wounded, he was unable to stop squeezing the trigger: I shoot with my mind.

"What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead woodchucks?" Eddie raved. "You can't unload a truck-load of bowling balls with a pitchfork!"