The first voice which arose from the depths of the cave belonged to the great sage and eminent junkie.

“Oh, wookit the wittle sissy!” Henry moaned. To Eddie, he sounded like Ebenezer Scrooge’s dead partner in A Christmas Carol, funny and scary at the same time. “Does the wittle sissy think he’s going back to Noo-Ork? You’ll go a lot farther than that if you try it, bro. Better hunker where you are…just do your little carvings…be a good little homo…” The dead brother laughed. The live one shivered.

“Eddie?” Roland asked.

“Listen to your brother, Eddie!” his mother cried from the cave’s dark and sloping throat. On the rock floor, scatters of small bones gleamed. “He gave up his life for you, his whole life, the least you could do is listen to him!”

“Eddie, are you all right?”

Now came the voice of Csaba Drabnik, known in Eddie’s crowd as the Mad Fuckin Hungarian. Csaba was telling Eddie to give him a cigarette or he’d pull Eddie’s fuckin pants down. Eddie tore his attention away from this frightening but fascinating gabble with an effort.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”

“The voices are coming from your own head. The cave finds them and amplifies them somehow. Sends them on. It’s a little upsetting, I know, but it’s meaningless.”

“Why’d you let em kill me, bro?” Henry sobbed. “I kept thinking you’d come, but you never did!”

“Meaningless,” Eddie said. “Okay, got it. What do we do now?”

“According to both stories I’ve heard of this place—Callahan’s and Henchick’s—the door will open when I open the box.”

Eddie laughed nervously. “I don’t even want you to take the box out of the bag, how’s that for chickenshit?”

“If you’ve changed your mind…”

Eddie was shaking his head. “No. I want to go through with it.” He flashed a sudden, bright grin. “You’re not worried about me scoring, are you? Finding the man and getting high?”

From deep in the cave, Henry exulted, “It’s China White, bro! Them niggers sell the best !”

“Not at all,” Roland said. “There are plenty of things I am worried about, but you returning to your old habits isn’t one of them.”

“Good.” Eddie stepped a little farther into the cave, looking at the free-standing door. Except for the hieroglyphics on the front and the crystal knob with the rose etched on it, this one looked exactly like the ones on the beach. “If you go around—?”

“If you go around, the door’s gone,” Roland said. “There is a hell of a drop-off, though…all the way to Na’ar, for all I know. I’d mind that, if I were you.”