So he was the last, and perhaps he had survived because the dark romance in his nature was overset by his practicality and simplicity. He understood that only three things mattered: mortality, ka, and the Tower.

Those were enough things to think about.

Eddie finished his tale around four o’clock on the third day of their northward journey up the featureless beach. The beach itself never seemed to change. If a sign of progress was wanted, it could only be obtained by looking left, to the east. There the jagged peaks of the mountains had begun to soften and slump a bit. It was possible that if they went north far enough, the mountains would become rolling hills.

With his story told, Eddie lapsed into silence and they walked without speaking for a half an hour or longer. Eddie kept stealing little glances at him. Roland knew Eddie wasn’t aware that he was picking these glances up; he was still too much in himself. Roland also knew what Eddie was waiting for: a response. Some kind of response. Any kind. Twice Eddie opened his mouth only to close it again. Finally he asked what the gunslinger had known he would ask.

“So? What do you think?”

“I think you’re here.”

Eddie stopped, fisted hands planted on his hips. “That’s all? That’s it?”

“That’s all I know,” the gunslinger replied. His missing fingers and toe throbbed and itched. He wished for some of the astin from Eddie’s world.

“You don’t have any opinion on what the hell it all means?”

The gunslinger might have held up his subtracted right hand and said, Think about what this means, you silly idiot, but it no more crossed his mind to say this than it had to ask why it was Eddie, out of all the people in all the universes that might exist. “It’s ka,” he said, facing Eddie patiently.

“What’s ka?” Eddie’s voice was truculent. “I never heard of it. Except if you say it twice you come out with the baby word for shit.”

“I don’t know about that,” the gunslinger said. “Here it means duty, or destiny, or, in the vulgate, a place you must go.”

Eddie managed to look dismayed, disgusted, and amused all at the same time. “Then say it twice, Roland, because words like that sound like shit to this kid.”

The gunslinger shrugged. “I don’t discuss philosophy. I don’t study history. All I know is what’s past is past, and what’s ahead is ahead. The second is ka, and takes care of itself.”

“Yeah?” Eddie looked northward. “Well all I see ahead is about nine billion miles of this same fucking beach. If that’s what’s ahead, ka and kaka are the same thing. We might have enough good shells to pop five or six more of those lobster dudes, but then we’re going to be down to chucking rocks at them. So where are we going?”

Roland did wonder briefly if this was a question Eddie had ever thought to ask his brother, but to ask such a question would only be an invitation to a lot of meaningless argument. So he only cocked a thumb northward and said, “There. To begin with.”