The Waste Lands (73 page)

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Authors: Stephen King

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“AND WAS THE SAME RIDDLE ASKED OF THE NEXT MAN IN LINE?”
“Yes.”
“SO THAT MAN HAD EXTRA TIME TO THINK.”
“Yes.”
“I SEE. IT SOUNDS PRETTY SWELL.”
Roland frowned. “Swell?”
“He means it sounds like fun,” Susannah said quietly.
Roland shrugged. “It was fun for the onlookers, I suppose, but the contestants took it very seriously, and there were quite often arguments and fist-hghts after the contest way over and the prize had been awarded.”
“WHAT PRIZE WAS THAT?”
“The largest goose in Barony. And year after year my teacher, Cort, carried that goose home.”
“HE MUST HAVE BEEN A GREAT RIDDLER,” Blaine said respectfully. “I WISH HE WERE HERE.”
That makes two of us
, Roland thought.
“Now I come to my proposal,” Roland said.
“I WILL LISTEN WITH GREAT INTEREST, ROLAND OF GILEAD.”
“Let these next hours be our Fair-Day. You will not riddle us, for you wish to hear new riddles, not tell some of those millions you must already know—”
“CORRECT.”
“We couldn’t solve most of them, anyway,” Roland went on. “I’m sure you know riddles that would have stumped even Cort, had they been pulled out of the barrel.” He was not sure of it at all, but the time to use the fist had passed and the time for the open hand had come.
“OF COURSE,” Blaine agreed.
“I propose that, instead of a goose, our lives shall be the prize,” Roland said. “We will riddle you as we run, Blaine. If, when we come to Topeka, you have solved every one of our riddles, you may carry out your original plan and kill us. That is your goose. But if we stump
you
—if there is a riddle in either Jake’s book or one of our heads which you don’t know and can’t answer—you must take us to Topeka and then free us to pursue our quest. That is
our
goose.”
Silence.
“Do you understand?”
“YES.” ,
“Do you agree?”
More silence from Blaine the Mono. Eddie sat stiffly with his arm around Susannah, looking up at the ceiling of the Barony Coach. Susannah’s left hand slipped across her belly, thinking of the secret which might be growing there. Jake stroked Oy’s fur lightly, avoiding the bloody tangles where the bumbler had been stabbed. They waited while Blaine—the real Blaine, now far behind them, living his quasi-life beneath a city where all the inhabitants lay dead by his hand—considered Roland’s proposal.
“YES,” Blaine said at last. “I AGREE, IF I SOLVE ALL THE RIDDLES YOU ASK ME, I WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME TO THE PLACE WHERE THE PATH ENDS IN THE CLEARING. IF ONE OF YOU TELLS A RIDDLE I CANNOT SOLVE, I WILL SPARE YOUR LIVES AND TAKE YOU TO TOPEKA, WHERE YOU WILL LEAVE THE MONO AND CONTINUE YOUR QUEST FOR THE DARK TOWER. HAVE I UNDERSTOOD THE TERMS AND LIMITS OF YOUR PROPOSAL CORRECTLY, ROLAND, SON OF STEVEN?”
“Yes.”
“VERY WELL, ROLAND OF GILEAD.
“VERY WELL, EDDIE OF NEW YORK.
“VERY WELL, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK.
“VERY WELL, JAKE OF NEW YORK.
“VERY WELL, OY OF MID-WORLD.”
Oy looked up briefly at the sound of his name.
“YOU” ARE
KA-TET
; ONE MADE FROM MANY. SO AM I. WHOSE
KA-TET
IS THE STRONGER IS SOMETHING WE MUST NOW PROVE.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the steady hard throb of the slo-trans turbines, bearing them on across the waste lands, bearing them on toward Topeka, the place where Mid-World ended and End-World began.
“SO,” cried the voice of Blaine. “CAST YOUR NETS, WANDERERS! TRY ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS, AND LET THE CONTEST BEGIN.”
AFTERWORD
THE FOURTH VOLUME IN the tale of the Dark Tower should appear—always assuming the continuation of Constant Writer’s life and Constant Reader’s interest—in the not-too-distant future. It’s hard to be more exact than that; finding the doors to Roland’s world has never been easy for me, and it seems to take more and more whittling to make each successive key fit each successive lock. Nevertheless, if readers request a fourth volume, it will be provided, for I still
am
able to find Roland’s world when I set my wits to it, and it still holds me in thrall . . . more, in many ways, than any of the other worlds I have wandered in my imagination. And, like those mysterious slo-trans engines, this story seems to be picking up its own accelerating pace and rhythm.
I am well aware that some readers of
The Waste Lands
will be displeased that it has ended as it has, with so much unresolved. I am not terribly pleased to be leaving Roland and his companions in the not-so-tender care of Blaine the Mono myself, and although you are not obligated to believe me, I must nevertheless insist that I was as surprised by the conclusion to this third volume as some of my readers may be. Yet books which write themselves (as this one did, for the most part) must also be allowed to end themselves, and I can only assure you, Reader, that Roland and his band have come-to one of the crucial border-crossings in their story, and we must leave them here for a while at the customs station, answering questions and filling out forms. All of which is simply a metaphorical way of saying that it was over again for a while and my heart was wise enough to stop me from trying to push ahead anyway.
The course of the next volume is still murky, although I can assure you that the business of Blaine the Mono will be resolved, that we will all find out a good deal more about Roland’s life as a young man, and that we will be reacquainted with both the Tick-Tock Man and that puzzling figure Walter, called the Wizard or the Ageless Stranger. It is with this terrible and enigmatic figure that Robert Browning begins his epic poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” writing of him:
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
It is this malicious liar, this dark and powerful magician, who holds the true key to End-World and the Dark Tower . . . for those courageous enough to grasp it.
And for those who are left.
Bangor, Maine
March 5th
, 1991
(
The following constitutes an extension of the copyright page
:)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Velcro Fly” written by Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill copyright © Hamstein Music Co., 1985. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“Paint It Black written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards copyright © ABKCO Music, Inc., 1966. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Excerpts from “The Waste Land” in
Collected Poems 1909-1962
by T. S. Eliot, copyright Harcourt, Inc., 1936. Copyright © T. S. Eliot, 1963, 1964, reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from “Hand in Glove” by Robert Aickman used by permission of the author’s agent, the Kirby McCauley Literary Agency.
ALSO BY STEPHEN KING
NOVELS
 
Carrie
’Salem’s Lot
The Shining
The Stand
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
Cujo
 
THE DARK TOWER I:
The Gunslinger
Christine
Pet Sematary
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Talisman
(with Peter Straub)
It
The Eyes of the Dragon
Misery
The Tommyknockers
 
THE DARK TOWER II:
The Drawing
of the Three
 
THE DARK TOWER III:
The Waste Lands
The Dark Half
Needful Things
Gerald’s Game
Dolores Claiborne
Insomnia
Rose Madder
Desperation
The Green Mile
 
THE DARK TOWER IV:
Wizard and Glass
Bag of Bones
The Girl Who Loved
Tom Gordon
Dreamcatcher
Black House
(with Peter Straub)
From a Buick 8
 
 
AS RICHARD BACHMAN
Rage
The Long Walk
Roadwork
The Running Man
Thinner
The Regulators
 
COLLECTIONS
Night Shift
Different Seasons
Skeleton Crew
Four Past Midnight
Nightmares and
Dreamscapes
Hearts in Atlantis
Everything’s Eventual
 
NONFICTION
Danse Macabre
On Writing
 
SCREENPLAYS
Creepshow
Cat’s Eye
Silver Bullet
Maximum Overdrive
Pet Sematary
Golden Years
Sleepwalkers
The Stand
The Shining
Rose Red
Storm of the Century

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