“Ont!” Oy said, giving the gunslinger a forbidding glance. “Olan-ont-iss!” The bumbler fixed his teeth on the book, took it from Jake’s hand, and stretched his disproportionately long neck toward Roland, offering him Riddle-De-Dum! Brain-Twisters and Puzzles for Everyone!

Roland glanced at it for a moment, his face distant and preoccupied, then shook his head. “Not yet.” He looked forward at the route-map. Blaine had no face, so the map had to serve them as a fixing-point. The flashing green dot was closer to Rilea now. Susannah wondered briefly what the countryside through which they were passing looked like, and decided she didn’t really want to know. Not after what they’d seen as they left the city of Lud.

“Blaine!” Roland called.

“YES.”

“Can you leave the room? We need to confer.”

You nuts if you think he’s gonna do that, Susannah thought, but Blaine’s reply was quick and eager.

“YES, GUNSLINGER. I WILL TURN OFF ALL MY SENSORS IN THE BARONY COACH. WHEN YOUR CONFERENCE IS DONE AND YOU ARE READY TO BEGIN THE RIDDLING, I WILL RETURN.”

“Yeah, you and General MacArthur,” Eddie muttered.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY, EDDIE OF NEW YORK?”

“Nothing. Talking to myself, that’s all.”

“TO SUMMON ME, SIMPLY TOUCH THE ROUTE-MAP,” said Blaine. “AS LONG AS THE MAP IS RED, MY SENSORS ARE OFF. SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR. AFTER AWHILE, CROCODILE. DON’T FORGET TO WRITE.” A pause. Then: “OLIVE OIL BUT NOT CASTORIA.”

The route-map rectangle at the front of the cabin suddenly turned a red so bright Susannah couldn’t look at it without squinting.

“Olive oil but not castoria?” Jake asked. “What the heck does that mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Roland said. “We don’t have much time. The mono travels just as fast toward its point of ending whether Blaine’s with us or not.”

“You don’t really believe he’s gone, do you?” Eddie asked. “A slippery pup like him? Come on, get real. He’s peeking, I guarantee you.”

“I doubt it very much,” Roland said, and Susannah decided she agreed with him. For now, at least. “You could hear how excited he was at the idea of riddling again after all these years. And—”

“And he’s confident,” Susannah said. “Doesn’t expect to have much trouble with the likes of us.”

“Will he?” Jake asked the gunslinger. “Will he have trouble with us?”

“I don’t know,” Roland said. “I don’t have a Watch Me hidden up my sleeve, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s a straight game... but at least it’s a game I’ve played before. We’ve all played it before, at least to some extent. And there’s that.” He nodded toward the book which Jake had taken back from Oy. “There are forces at work here, big ones, and not all of them are working to keep us away from the Tower.”