The Waste Lands

There was a moment of shocked silence. No one breathed. Roland stared sternly forward, his head high, his hand on the butt of his gun.

Susa

“Tell him!” Jake breathed. “Walk it to him! Right!”

“You better pay attention,” Eddie agreed. “He really doesn’t give much of a rat’s ass, Blaine. They didn’t call him The Mad Dog of Gilead for nothing.”

After a long, long moment, Blaine asked: “DID THEY CALL YOU SO, ROLAND SON OF STEVEN?”

“It may have been so,” Roland agreed, standing calmly on thin air above the sterile foothills.

“WHAT GOOD ARE YOU TO ME IF YOU WON’T TELL ME RIDDLES?” Blaine asked. Now he sounded like a grumbling, sulky child who has been allowed to stay up too long past his usual bedtime.

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t,” Roland said,

“NO?” Blaine sounded bewildered. “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, YET VOICE-PRINT ANALYSIS INDICATES RATIONAL DISCOURSE. PLEASE EXPLAIN.”

“You said you wanted them right now,” the gunslinger replied. “That was what I was refusing. Your eagerness has made you unseemly.”

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”

“It has made you rude. Do you understand that?”

There was a long, thoughtful silence. Then: “IF WHAT I SAID STRUCK YOU AS RUDE, I APOLOGIZE.”

“It is accepted, Blaine. But there is a larger problem.”

“EXPLAIN.”

Blaine now sounded a bit unsure of himself, and Roland was not entirely surprised. It had been a long time since the computer had experienced any human responses other than ignorance, neglect, and superstitious subservience. If it had ever been exposed to simple human courage, it had been a long time ago.

“Close the carriage again and I will.” Roland sat down as if further argument-and the prospect of immediate death-was now unthinkable.

Blaine did as he was asked. The walls filled with color and the nightmare landscape below was once more blotted out. The blip on the route-map was now blinking close to the dot which marked Candleton.

“All right,” Roland said. “Rudeness is forgivable, Blaine; so I was taught in my youth, and the clay has dried in the shapes left by the artist’s hand. But I was also taught that stupidity is not.”

“HOW HAVE I BEEN STUPID, ROLAND OF GILEAD?” Blaine’s voice was soft and ominous. Susa

“We have something that you want,” Roland said, “but the only reward you offer if we give it to you is death. That’s very stupid.”

There was a long, long pause as Blaine thought this over. Then: “WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE, ROLAND OF GILEAD, BUT THE QUALITY OF YOUR RIDDLES IS NOT PROVEN. I WILL NOT REWARD YOU WITH YOUR LIVES FOR BAD RIDDLES.”

Roland nodded. “I understand, Blaine. Listen, now, and take understanding from me. I have told some of this to my friends already. When I was a boy in the Barony of Gilead, there were seven Fair-Days each year-Winter, Wide Earth, Sowing, Mid-Summer, Full Earth, Reaping, and Year’s End. Riddling was an important part of every Fair-Day, but it was the most important event of the Fair of Wide Earth and that of Full Earth, for the riddles told were supposed to augur well or ill for the success of the crops.”

“THAT IS SUPERSTITION WITH NO BASIS AT ALL IN FACT,” Blaine said. “I FIND IT ANNOYING AND UPSETTING.”

“Of course it’s superstition,” Roland agreed, “but you might be surprised at how well the riddles foresaw the crops. For instance, riddle me this, Blaine: What is the difference between a grandmother and a granary?”

“THAT IS VERY OLD AND NOT VERY INTERESTING,” Blaine said, but he sounded happy to have something to solve just the same. “ONE IS ONE’s BORN KIN; THE OTHER IS ONE’s CORN-BIN. A RIDDLE BASED ON PHONETIC COINCIDENCE. ANOTHER OF THIS TYPE, ONE TOLD ON THE LEVEL WHICH CONTAINS THE BARONY OF NEW YORK, GOES LIKE THIS: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CAT AND A COMPLEX SENTENCE?”

Jake spoke up. “Our English teacher told us that one just this year. A cat has claws at the end of its paws, and a complex sentence has a pause at the end of its clause.”

“YES,” Blaine agreed. “A VERY SILLY OLD RIDDLE.”

“For once I agree with you, Blaine old buddy,” Eddie said.

“I WOULD HEAR MORE OF FAIR-DAY RIDDLING IN GILEAD, ROLAND, SON OF STEVEN. I FIND IT QUITE INTERESTING.”

“At noon on Wide Earth and Full Earth, somewhere between sixteen and thirty riddlers would gather in The Hall of the Grandfathers, which was opened for the event. Those were the only times of year when the common fold-merchants and farmers and ranchers and such-were allowed into The Hall of the Grandfathers, and on that day they all crowded in.”

The gunslinger’s eyes were far away and dreamy; it was the expression Jake had seen on his face in that misty other life, when Roland had told him of how he and his friends, Cuthbert and Jamie, had once sneaked into the balcony of that same Hall to watch some sort of ritual dance. Jake and Roland had been climbing into the mountains when Roland had told him of that time, close on the trail of Walter.

Marten sat next to my mother and father, Roland had said. I knew them even from so high above-and once she and Marten danced, slowly and revolvingly, and the others cleared the floor for them and clapped when it was over. But the gunslingers did not clap…

Jake looked curiously at Roland, wondering again where this strange, distant man had come from… and why.

“A great barrel was placed in the center of the floor,” Roland went on, “and into this each riddler would toss a handful of bark scrolls with riddles writ upon them. Many were old, riddles they had gotten from the elders-even from books, in some cases-but many others were new-made up for the occasion. Three judges, one always a gunslinger, would pass on these when they were told aloud, and they were accepted only if the judges deemed them fair.”

“YES, RIDDLES MUST BE FAIR,” Blame agreed.

“So they riddled,” the gunslinger said. A faint smile touched his mouth as he thought of those days, days when he had been the age of the bruised boy sitting across from him with a billy-bumbler in his lap. “For hours on end they riddled. A line was formed down the center of The Hall of the Grandfathers. One’s position in this line was determined by lot, and since it was much better to be at the end of the line than at its head, everyone hoped for a high number, although the wi

“OF COURSE.”

“Each man or woman-for some of Gilead’s best riddlers were women-approached the barrel, drew a riddle, and handed it to the Master. The Master would ask, and if the riddle was still unanswered after the sands in a three-minute glass had run out, that contestant had to leave the line.”

“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,” Susa

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-fights after the contest was 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.”