Roland began to walk. His boots clicked against the teeth. He didn't think about the countless miles behind him or the ghosts that trailed in his wake like smoke. He thought only of the weight of the horn in his bag—the Horn of Eld, which he had finally remembered to pick up at the hill of Jericho Hill.

In the high, thin air of the Borderlands, the sky had turned the color of a bruised plum. The sun was a pale, flickering candle, guttering in a draft that blew from the gaps between universes. Roland knelt by a stream that ran with silver liquid—not water, but the liquefied memories of a city that had never existed. He didn't drink. He knew the price of drinking "Used Time." "He’s coming, Roland," a voice rasped.

Roland didn't turn. He knew the voice of the boy, Jake, though the boy had been dead and reborn more times than Roland had fingers. Jake sat on a stump of petrified wood, tossing a gold coin that vanished every time it hit his palm.