His mind tried to fix on that and Eddie nudged it away. Something was happening inside him (at least he prayed it was), some desperate game of association, and he couldn’t let his mind get fucked up with deadlines and consequences and all that crap; if he did, he’d lose whatever chance he had. It was, in a way, like seeing something in a piece of wood, something you could carve out—a bow, a slingshot, perhaps a key to open some unimaginable door. You couldn’t look too long, though, at least to start with. You’d lose it if you did. It was almost as if you had to carve while your own back was turned.

He could feel Blaine’s engines powering up beneath him. In his mind’s eye he saw the flint flash against the steel, and in his mind’s ear he heard Roland telling Jake to move the flint in closer. And don’t hit it with the steel, Jake; scrape it.

Why am I here? If this isn’t what I want, why does my mind keep coming back to this place?

Because it’s as close as I can get and still stay out of the hurt-zone. Only a medium-sized hurt, actually, but it made me think of Henry. Being put down by Henry.

Henry said you could talk the devil into setting himself on fire.

Yes. I always loved him for that. That was great.

And now Eddie saw Roland move Jake’s hands, one holding flint and the other steel, closer to the kindling. Jake was nervous. Eddie could see it; Roland had seen it, too. And in order to ease his nerves, take his mind off the responsibility of lighting the fire, Roland had—

He asked the kid a riddle.

Eddie Dean blew breath into the keyhole of his memory. And this time the tumblers turned.

2

The green dot was closing in on Topeka, and for the first time Jake felt vibration... as if the track beneath them had decayed to a point where Blaine’s compensators could no longer completely handle the problem. With the sense of vibration there at last came a feeling of speed. The walls and ceiling of the Barony Coach were still opaqued, but Jake found he didn’t need to see the countryside blurring past to imagine it. Blaine was rolling full out now, leading his last sonic boom across the waste lands to the place where Mid-World ended, and Jake also found it easy to imagine the transteel piers at the end of the monorail. They would be painted in diagonal stripes of yellow and black. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.

“TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES,” Blaine said complacently. “WOULD YOU TRY ME AGAIN, GUNSLINGER?”

“I think not, Blaine.” Roland sounded exhausted. “I’ve done with you; you’ve beaten me. Jake?”