The Waste Lands (Page 104)

IT WAS JAKE’S TURN to make the fire that night. When the wood was laid to the gunslinger’s satisfaction, he handed Jake his flint and steel. “Let’s see how you do.”

Eddie and Susannah were sitting off to one side, their arms linked companionably about each other’s waist. Toward the end of the day, Eddie had found a bright yellow flower beside the road and had picked it for her. Tonight Susannah was wearing it in her hair, and every time she looked at Eddie, her lips curved in a small smile and her eyes filled with light. Roland had noted these things, and they pleased him. Their love was deepening, strengthening. That was good. It would have to be deep and strong indeed if it was to survive the months and years ahead.

Jake struck a spark, but it flashed inches away from the kindling. “Move your flint in closer,” Roland said, “and hold it steady. And don’t hit it with the steel, Jake; scrape it.”

Jake tried again, and this time the spark flashed directly into the kindling. There was a little tendril of smoke but no fire.

“I don’t think I’m very good at this.”

“You’ll get it. Meantime, think on this. What’s dressed when night falls and undressed when day breaks?”

“Huh?”

Roland moved Jake’s hands even closer to the little pile of kindling. “I guess that one’s not in your book.”

“Oh, it’s a riddle!” Jake struck another spark. This time a small flame glowed in the kindling before dying out. “You know some of those, too?” Roland nodded. “Not just some—a lot. As a boy, I must have known a thousand. They were part of my studies.”

“Really? Why would anyone study riddles?” “Vannay, my tutor, said a boy who could answer a riddle was a boy who could think around corners. We had riddling contests every Friday noon, and the boy or girl who won could leave school early.”

“Did you get to leave early often, Roland?” Susannah asked. He shook his head, smiling a little himself. “I enjoyed riddling, but I was never very good at it. Vannay said it was because I thought too deeply. My father said it was because I had too little imagination. I think they were both right . . . but I think my father had a little more of the truth. I could always haul a gun faster than any of my mates, and shoot straighter, but I’ve never been much good at thinking around corners.” Susannah, who had watched closely as Roland dealt with the old people of River Crossing, thought the gunslinger was underrating himself, but she said nothing. “Sometimes, on winter nights, there would be riddling competitions in the great hall. When it was just the younkers, Alain always won. When the grownups played as well, it was always Cort. He’d forgotten more riddles than the rest of us ever knew, and after the Fair-Day Riddling, Cort always carried home the goose. Riddles have great power, and every-one knows one or two.” “Even me,” Eddie said. “For instance, why did the dead baby cross the road?” “That’s dumb, Eddie,” Susannah said, but she was smiling. “Because it was stapled to the chicken!” Eddie yelled, and grinned when Jake burst into laughter, knocking his little pile of kindling apart. “Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk, I got a million of em, folks!”

Roland, however, didn’t laugh. He looked, in fact, a trifle offended. “Pardon me for saying so, Eddie, but that is rather silly.” “Jesus, Roland, I’m sorry,” Eddie said. He was still smiling, but he sounded slightly peeved. “I keep forgetting you got your sense of humor shot off in the Children’s Crusade, or whatever it was.” “It’s just that I take riddling seriously. I was taught that the ability to solve them indicates a sane and rational mind.” “Well, they’re never going to replace the works of Shakespeare or the Quadratic Equation,” Eddie said. “I mean, let’s not get carried away.” Jake was looking at Roland thoughtfully. “My book said riddling is the oldest game people still play. In our world, I mean. And riddles used to be really serious business, not just jokes. People used to get killed over them.” Roland was looking out into the growing darkness. “Yes. I’ve seen it happen.” He was remembering a Fair-Day Riddling which had ended not with the giving of the prize goose but with a cross-eyed man in a cap of bells dying in the dirt with a dagger in his chest. Cort’s dagger. The man had been a wandering singer and acrobat who had attempted to cheat Cort by stealing the judge’s pocket-book, in which the answers were kept on small scraps of bark. “Well, excyooose me” Eddie said.

Susannah was looking at Jake. “I forgot all about the book of riddles you carried over. May I look at it now?”

“Sure. It’s in my pack. The answers are gone, though. Maybe that’s why Mr. Tower gave it to me for fr—“

His shoulder was suddenly seized, and with painful force. “What was his name?” Roland asked.

“Mr. Tower,” Jake said. “Calvin Tower. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No.” Roland slowly relaxed his grip on Jake’s shoulder. “But now that I hear it, I suppose I’m not surprised.”

Eddie had opened Jake’s pack and found Riddle-De-Dum! He tossed it to Susannah. “You know,” he said, “I always thought that dead-baby joke was pretty good. Tasteless, maybe, but pretty good.”

“I don’t care about taste,” Roland said. “It’s senseless and unsolvable, and that’s what makes it silly. A good riddle is neither.” “Jesus! You guys did take this stuff seriously, didn’t you?” “Yes.”