The Little Sisters of Eluria Page 5

  Norman and the other two had tried to fight. He had seen one of hi pards gutshot by an arrow, and then he saw no more - someone had cracked him over the head from behind, and the lights had gone out.

  Roland wondered if the ambusher had cried 'Booh!' before he had struck, but didn't ask.

  'When I woke up again, I was here,' Norman said. 'I saw that some of the others - most of them - had those cursed bugs on them.'

  'Others?' Roland looked at the empty beds. In the growing darkness, they glimmered like white islands. 'How many were brought here?'

  'At least twenty. They healed ... the bugs healed 'em ... and then, one by one, they disappeared. You'd go to sleep, and when you woke up there'd, be one more empty bed. One by one they went, until only me and that, one down yonder was left.'

  He looked at Roland solemnly.

  'And now you.'

  'Norman,' Roland's head was swimming. 'I-'

  'I reckon I know what's wrong with you,' Norman said. He seemed to speak from far away . . . perhaps from all the way around the curve of I the earth. 'It's the soup. But a man has to eat. A woman, too. If she's a natural woman, anyway. These ones ain't natural. Even Sister Jenna's not natural. Nice don't mean natural.' Further and further away. 'And she'll be like them in the end. Mark me well.'

  'Can't move.' Saying even that required a huge effort. It was like moving boulders.

  'No.' Norman suddenly laughed. It was a shocking sound, and echoed in the growing blackness which filled Roland's head. 'It ain't just sleepmedicine they put in their soup; it's can't-move-medicine, too. There's nothing much wrong with me, brother ... so why do you think I'm still here?'

  Norman was now speaking not from around the curve of the earth but perhaps from the moon. He said: 'I don't think either of us is ever going to see the sun shining on a flat piece of ground again.'

  You're wrong about that,

  Roland tried to reply, and more in that vein, as well, but nothing came out. He sailed around to the black side of the moon, losing all his words in the void he found there.

  Yet he never quite lost awareness of himself. Perhaps the dose of 'medicine' in Sister Coquina's soup had been badly calculated, or perhaps it was just that they had never had a gunslinger to work their mischief on, and did not know they had one now.

  Except, of course, for Sister Jenna - she knew.

  At some point in the night, whispering, giggling voices and lightly chiming bells brought him back from the darkness where he had been biding, not quite asleep or unconscious. Around him, so constant he now barely heard it, were the singing 'doctors'.

  Roland opened his eyes. He saw pale and chancy light dancing in the black air. The giggles and whispers were closer. Roland tried to turn his head and at first couldn't. He rested, gathered his will into a hard blue ball, and tried again. This time his headdid turn. Only a little, but a little was enough.

  It was five of the Little Sisters - Mary, Louise, Tamra, Coquina, Michela. They came up the long aisle of the black infirmary, laughing together like children out on a prank, carrying long tapers in silver holders, the bells lining the forehead-bands of their wimples chiming little silver runs of sound. They gathered about the bed of the bearded man. From within their circle, candleglow rose in a shimmery column that died before it got halfway to the silken ceiling.

  Sister Mary spoke briefly. Roland recognized her voice, but not the words - it was neither low speech nor the High, but some other language entirely. One phrase stood out - cande lach, mi him en tow - and he had no idea what it might mean.

  He realized that now he could hear only the tinkle of bells - the doctor-bugs had stilled.

  'Ras me! On! On!'

  Sister Mary cried in a harsh, powerful voice. The candles went out. The light which had shone through the wings of their wimples as they gathered around the bearded man's bed vanished, and all was darkness once more.

  Roland waited for what might happen next, his skin cold. He tried to flex his hands and feet, and could not. He had been able to move his head perhaps fifteen degrees; otherwise he was as paralysed as a fly neatly wrapped up and hung in a spider's web.

  The low jingling of bells in the black ... and then sucking sounds. As soon as he heard them, Roland knew he'd been waiting for them. Some part of him had known what the Little Sisters of Eluria were, all along.

  If Roland could have raised his hands, he would have put them to his ears to block those sounds out. As it was, he could only lie still, listening and waiting for them to stop.

  For a long time - for ever, it seemed - they did not. The women slurped and grunted like pigs snuffling half-liquefied feed out of a trough. There was even one resounding belch, followed by more whispered giggles (these, ended when Sister Mary uttered a single curt word - 'Hais!'). And once there was a low, moaning cry - from the bearded man, Roland was quite sure. If so, it was his last on this side of the clearing.

  In time, the sound of their feeding began to taper off. As it did, the bugs began to sing again - first hesitantly, then with more confidence. The whispering and giggling recommenced. The candles were re-lit. Roland was by now lying with his head turned in the other direction. He didn't want them to know what he'd seen, but that wasn't all; he had no urge to see more on any account. He had seen and heard enough.

  But the giggles and whispers now came his way. Roland closed his eyes concentrating on the medallion which lay against his chest. Idon't know if it's the gold or the God, but they don't like to get too close, John Norman had said. It was good to have such a thing to remember as the Little Sister drew nigh, gossiping and whispering in their strange other tongue, but the medallion seemed a thin protection in the dark.

  Faintly, at a great distance, Roland heard the cross-dog barking.

  As the Sisters circled him, the gunslinger realized he could smell them. It was a low, unpleasant odour, like spoiled meat. And what elsewould they smell of, such as these?

  'Such a pretty man it is.' Sister Mary. She spoke in a low, meditative tone.

  'But such an ugly sigil it wears.' Sister Tamra.

  'We'll have it off him!' Sister Louise.

  'And then we shall have kisses!' Sister Coquina.

  'Kisses for all!' exclaimed Sister Michela, with such fervent enthusiasm that they all laughed.

  Roland discovered that notall of him was paralysed, after all. Part of him had, in fact, arisen from its sleep at the sound of their voices and now stood tall. A hand reached beneath the bed-dress he wore, touched that stiffened member, encircled it, caressed it. He lay in silent horror, feigning sleep, as wet warmth almost immediately spilled from him. The hand remained where it was for a moment, the thumb rubbing up and down the wilting shaft. Then it let him go and rose a little higher. Found the wetness pooled on his lower belly. Giggles, soft as wind. Chiming bells. Roland opened his eyes the tiniest crack and looked up at the ancient faces laughing down at him in the light of their candles - glittering eyes, yellow cheeks, hanging teeth that jutted over lower lips. Sister Michela and sister Louise appeared to have grown goatees, but of course that wasn't the darkness of hair but of the bearded man's blood.

  Mary is hand was cupped. She passed it from Sister to Sister; each licked from her palm in the candlelight.

  Roland closed his eyes all the way and waited for them to be gone. Eventually they were.

  I'll never sleep again,

  he thought, and was five minutes later lost to himself and the world.

  V. Sister Mary. A Message. A Visit from Ralph.

  Norman's Fate. Sister Mary Again.

  When Roland awoke, it was full daylight, the silk roof overhead a bright white and billowing in a mild breeze. The doctor-bugs were singing contentedly. Beside him on his left, Norman was heavily asleep with his head turned so far to one side that his stubbly cheek rested on his shoulder.

  Roland and John Norman were the only ones here. Further down on their side of the infirmary, the bed where the bearded man had been was empty, it's top sheet pul
led up and neatly tucked in, the pillow neatly nestled in a crisp white case. The complication of slings in which his body had rested was gone.

  Roland remembered the candles - the way their glow had combined and streamed up in a column, illuminating the Sisters as they gathered around the bearded man. Giggling. Their damned bells jingling.

  Now, as if summoned by his thoughts, came Sister Mary, gliding along rapidly with Sister Louise in her wake. Louise bore a tray, and looked nervous. Mary was frowning, obviously not in good temper.

  Tobe grumpy after you've fed so well? Roland thought.Fie, Sister.

  She reached the gunslinger's bed and looked down at him. 'I have little to thank ye for, sai,' she said with no preamble.

  'Have I asked for your thanks?' he responded in a voice that sounded as dusty and little-used as the pages of an old book.

  She took no notice. 'Ye've made one who was only impudent and restless with her place outright rebellious. Well, her mother was the same way, and died of it not long after returning Jenna to her proper Place. Raise your hand, thankless man.'

  'I can't. I can't move at all.'

  'Oh, cully! Haven't you heard it said "fool not your mother 'less she's out of face"? I know pretty well what ye can and can't do. Now raise your hand.'

  Roland raised his right hand, trying to suggest more effort than it, actually took. He thought that this morning he might be strong enough to slip free of the slings ... but what then? Any real walking would beyond him for hours yet, even without another dose of 'medicine' . . and behind Sister Mary, Sister Louise was taking the cover from a fresh bowl of soup. As Roland looked at it, his stomach rumbled.

  Big Sister heard and smiled a bit. 'Even lying in bed builds an appetite in a strong man, if it's done long enough. Wouldn't you say so, Jason brother of John?'

  'My name is James. As you well know, Sister.'

  'Do I?' She laughed angrily. 'Oh, la! And if I whipped your little sweetheart hard enough and long enough - until the blood jumped her back like drops of sweat, let us say - should I not whip a different name out of her? Or didn't ye trust her with it, during your little talk?'

  'Touch her and I'll kill you.'

  She laughed again. Her face shimmered; her firm mouth turned into something that looked like a dying jellyfish. 'Speak not of killing to us cully, lest we speak of it to you.'

  'Sister, if you and Jenna don't see eye to eye, why not release her from her vows and let her go her course?'

  'Such as us can never be released from our vows, nor be let go. Her mother tried and then came back, her dying and the girl sick. Why, it was we nursed Jenna back to health after her mother was nothing but dirt in the breeze that blows out towards End-World, and how little she thanks us! Besides, she bears the Dark Bells, the sigil of our sisterhood. Of ourka-tet. Now eat - yer belly says ye're hungry!'

  Sister Louise offered the bowl, but her eyes kept drifting to the shape the medallion made under the breast of his bed-dress.Don't like it, do you? Roland thought, and then remembered Louise by candlelight, the freighter's blood on her chin, her ancient eyes eager as she leaned forward to lick his spend from Sister Mary's hand.

  He turned his head aside. 'I want nothing.'

  'But ye're hungry!' Louise protested. 'If'ee don't eat, James, how will'ee get'ee strength back?'

  'Send Jenna. I'll eat what she brings.'

  Sister Mary's frown was black. 'Ye'll see her no more. She's been released from Thoughtful House only on her solemn promise to double her time of meditation ... and to stay out of the infirmary. Now eat, James, or whoever ye are. Take what's in the soup, or we'll cut ye with knives and rub it in with flannel poultices. Either way, makes no difference to us. Does it? Louise?'

  'Nar,' Louise said. She still held out the bowl. Steam rose from it, and the good smell of chicken.

  'But it might make a difference to you.' Sister Mary grinned humourlessly, baring her unnaturally large teeth. 'Flowing blood's risky around here. The doctors don't like it. It stirs them up.'

  It wasn't just the bugs that were stirred up at the sight of blood, and Roland knew it. He also knew he had no choice in the matter of the soup. He took the bowl from Louise and ate slowly. He would have given much to wipe but the look of satisfaction he saw on Sister Mary's face.

  'Good,' she said after he had handed the bowl back and she had peered inside to make sure it was completely empty. His hand thumped back into the sling which had been rigged for it, already too heavy to hold up. He could feel the world drawing away again.

  Sister Mary leaned forward, the billowing top of her habit touching the skin of his left shoulder. He could smell her, an aroma both ripe and dry, and would have gagged if he'd had the strength.

  'Have that foul gold thing off ye when yer strength comes back a little - put it in the pissoir under the bed. Where it belongs. For to be even this close to where it lies hurts my head and makes my throat close.'

  Speaking with enormous effort, Roland said: 'If you want it, take it. How can I stop you, you bitch?'

  Once more her frown turned her face into something like a thunderhead. He thought she would have slapped him, if she had dared touch him so close to where the medallion lay. Her ability to touch seemed to end above his waist, however.

  'I think you had better consider the matter a little more fully,' she said. 'I can still have Jenna whipped, if I like. She bears the Dark Bells, but I am the Big Sister. Consider that very well.'

  She left. Sister Louise followed, casting one look - a strange combination Of fright and lust - back over her shoulder.

  Roland thought, Imust get out of here - I must.

  Instead, he drifted back to that dark place which wasn't quite sleep. Or perhaps he did sleep, at least for a while; perhaps he dreamed. Fingers once more caressed his fingers, and lips first kissed his ear and then whispered into it: 'Look beneath your pillow, Roland ... but let no one know I was here.'

  At some point after this, Roland opened his eyes again, half-expecting to see Sister Jenna's pretty young face hovering above him, and that comma of dark hair once more poking out from beneath her wimple. There was no one. The swags of silk overhead were at their brightest, and although it was impossible to tell the hours in here with any real accuracy, Roland guessed it to be around noon. Perhaps three hours since his second bowl of the Sisters' soup.

  Beside him, John Norman still slept, his breath whistling out in faint, nasal snores.

  Roland tried to raise his hand and slide it under his pillow. The hand wouldn't move. He could wiggle the tips of his fingers, but that was all. He waited, calming his mind as well as he could, gathering his patience.' Patience wasn't easy to come by. He kept thinking about what Norman had said - that there had been twenty survivors of the ambush ... at least to start with.One by one they went, until only me and that one down yonder was left. And now you.

  The girl wasn't here.

  His mind spoke in the soft, regretful tone of Alain, one of his old friends, dead these many years now.She wouldn't dare, not with the others watching. That was only a dream you had.

  But Roland thought perhaps it had been more than a dream.

  Some length of time later - the slowly shifting brightness overhead made him believe it had been about an hour - Roland tried his hand again. This time he was able to get it beneath his pillow. This was puffy and soft, tucked snugly into the wide sling which supported the gunslinger's neck. At first he found nothing, but as his fingers worked their slow way deeper, they touched what felt like a stiffish bundle of thin rods.

  He paused, gathering a little more strength (every movement was like swimming in glue), and then burrowed deeper. It felt like a dead bouquet. Wrapped around it was what felt like a ribbon.

  Roland looked around to make sure the ward was still empty and Norman still asleep, then drew out what was under the pillow. It was six brittle stems of fading green with brownish reed-heads at the tops. They gave off a strange, yeasty aroma that made Roland think of early-morning b
egging expeditions to the Great House kitchens as a child - forays he had usually made with Cuthbert. The reeds were tied with a wide white silk ribbon, and smelled like burned toast. Beneath the ribbon was a fold of cloth. Like everything else in this cursed place, it seemed, the cloth was of silk.

  Roland was breathing hard and could feel drops of sweat on his brow. Still alone, though - good. He took the scrap of cloth and unfolded it. Printed painstakingly in blurred charcoal letters, was this message:

  NIBBLE HEDS. Once each hour. Too

  much, CRAMPS or DETH.

  TOMORROW NITE. Can't be sooner.

  BE CAREFUL!

  No explanation, but Roland supposed none was needed. Nor did he have any option; if he remained here, he would die. All they had to do was have the medallion off him, and he felt sure Sister Mary was smart enough to figure a way to do that.