Eddie shook his head. “Nope. Relax.”

“I know something,” Jake said suddenly. The others looked around, but Jake was not speaking to them. He was looking at the route-map. Blaine had no face, of course—like Oz the Great and Terrible, he was only a disembodied voice—but the map served as a focusing point. “I know something about you, Blaine.”

“IS THAT A FACT, LITTLE TRAILHAND?”

Eddie leaned over, placed his lips against Jake’s ear, and whispered: “Be careful—we don’t think he knows about the other voice.”

Jake nodded slightly and pulled away, still looking at the route-map. “I know why you released that gas and killed all the people. I know why you took us, too, and it wasn’t just because we solved your riddle.”

Blaine uttered his abnormal, distracted laugh (that laugh, they were discovering, was much more unpleasant than either his bad imitations or melodramatic and somehow childish threats), but said nothing. Below them, the slo-trans turbines had cycled up to a steady thrum. Even with their view of the outside world cut off, the sensation of speed was very clear.

“You’re planning to commit suicide, aren’t you?” Jake held Oy in his arms, slowly stroking him. “And you want to take us with you.”

“No!” the voice of Little Blaine moaned. “If you provoke him you’ll drive him to it! Don’t you see—”

Then the small, whispery voice was either cut off or overwhelmed by Blaine’s laughter. The sound was high, shrill, and jagged—the sound of a mortally ill man laughing in a delirium. The lights began to flicker, as if the force of these mechanical gusts of mirth were drawing too much power. Their shadows jumped up and down on the curved walls of the Barony Coach like uneasy phantoms.

“SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR,” Blaine said through his wild laughter—his voice, calm as ever, seemed to be on an entirely separate track, further emphasizing his divided mind. “AFTER A WHILE, CROCODILE. DON’T FORGET TO WRITE.”

Below Roland’s band of pilgrims, the slo-trans engines throbbed in hard, steady beats. And on the route-map at the front of the carriage, the pulsing green dot had now begun to move perceptibly along the lighted line toward the last stop: Topeka, where Blaine the Mono clearly meant to end all of their lives.

9

AT LAST THE LAUGHTER stopped and the interior lights glowed steadily again.

“WOULD YOU LIKE A LITTLE MUSIC?” Blaine asked. “I HAVE OVER SEVEN THOUSAND CONCERTI IN MY LIBRARY—A SAMPLING OF OVER THREE HUNDRED LEVELS. THE CONCERTI ARE MY FAVORITES, BUT I CAN ALSO OFFER SYMPHONIES, OPERAS, AND A NEARLY ENDLESS SELECTION OF POPULAR MUSIC. YOU MIGHT ENJOY SOME WAY-GOG MUSIC. THE WAY-GOG IS AN INSTRUMENT SOMETHING LIKE THE BAGPIPE. IT IS PLAYED ON ONE OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE TOWER.”

“Way-Gog?” Jake asked.

Blaine was silent.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s played on one of the upper levels of the Tower’?” Roland asked.

Blaine laughed... and was silent.

“Have you got any Z.Z. Top?” Eddie asked sourly.