slipped one of the reeds out from beneath his pillow and nibbled
cautiously. She had left half a dozen, and the first two were now
almost entirely consumed.
The gunslinger put the stem back under the pillow, then began to
shiver like a wet dog in a downpour. I took too much, he thought.
I'll be lucky not to convulse -
His heart, racing like a runaway engine. And then, to make matters
worse, he saw candlelight at the far end of the aisle. A moment
later he heard the rustle of their gowns and the whisk of their
slippers.
Gods, why now? They'll see me shaking, they'll know
Calling on every bit of his willpower and control, Roland dosed his
eyes and concentrated on stilling his jerking limbs. If only he had
been in bed instead of in these cursed slings, which seemed to
tremble as if with their own ague at every movement!
The Little Sisters drew closer. The light of their candles bloomed
red within his closed eyelids. Tonight they were not giggling, nor
whispering amongst themselves. It was not until they were almost
on top of him that Roland became aware of the stranger in their
midst - a creature that breathed through its nose in great, slobbery
gasps of mixed air and snot.
The gunslinger lay with his eyes closed, the gross twitches and
jumps of his arms and legs under control, but with his muscles still
knotted arid crampy, thrumming beneath the skin. Anyone who
looked at him closely would see at once that something was wrong
with him. His heart was larruping away like a horse under the
whip, surely they must see
But it wasn't him they were looking at - not yet, at least.
'Have it off him,' Mary said. She spoke in a bastardized version of
the low speech Roland could barely understand. 'Then t'other 'un.
Go on, Ralph.'
'U'se has whik-sky?' the slobberer asked, his dialect even heavier
than Mary's. Use has 'backky?'
'Yes, yes, plenty whisky and plenty smoke, but not until you have
these wretched things off!' Impatient. Perhaps afraid, as well.
Roland cautiously rolled his head to the left and cracked his
eyelids open.
Five of the six Little Sisters of Eluria were clustered around the far
side of the sleeping John Norman's bed, their candles raised to cast
their light upon him. It also cast light upon their own faces, faces
which would have given the strongest man nightmares. Now, in the
ditch of the night, their glamours were set aside, and they were but
ancient corpses in voluminous habits.
Sister Mary had one of Roland's guns in her hand. Looking at her
holding it, Roland felt a bright flash of hate for her, and promised
himself she would pay for her temerity.
The thing standing at the foot of the bed, strange as it was, looked
almost normal in comparison to the Sisters. It was one of the green
folk.
Roland recognized Ralph at once. He would be a long time
forgetting that bowler hat.
Now Ralph walked slowly around to the side of Norman's bed
closest to Roland, momentarily blocking the gunslinger's view of
the Sisters. The mutie went all the way to Norman's head,
however, clearing the hags to Roland's slitted view once more.
Norman's medallion lay exposed - the boy had perhaps waken
enough to take it out of his bed-dress, hoping it would protect him
better so. Ralph picked it up in his melted-tallow hand. The Sister
watched eagerly in the glow of their candles as the green man
stretched to the end of its chain. . . and then put it down again.
Their faces droop in disappointment.
'Don't care for such as that,' Ralph said in his clotted voice. 'Want
whik-sky! Want 'backky!'
'You shall have it,' Sister Mary said. 'Enough for you and all you
verminous clan. But first, you must have that horrid thing off him!
both of them! Do you understand? And you shan't tease us.'
'Or what?' Ralph asked. He laughed. It was a choked and gargly
sound the laughter of a man dying from some evil sickness of the
throat an lungs, but Roland still liked it better than the giggles of
the Sisters 'Or what, Sisser Mary, you'll drink my bluid? My
bluid'd drop'ee dead where'ee stand, and glowing in the dark!'
Mary raised the gunslinger's revolver and pointed it at Ralph. 'Take
that wretched thing, or you die where you stand.'
'And die after I've done what you want, likely.'
Sister Mary said nothing to that. The others peered at him with
their black eyes.
Ralph lowered his head, appearing to think. Roland suspected hi
friend Bowler Hat could think, too. Sister Mary and her cohorts
might, not believe that, but Ralph had to be trig to have survived as
long as he had. But of course when he came here, he hadn't
considered Roland's guns.
'Smasher was wrong to give them shooters to you,' he said at last.
'Give em and not tell me. Did u'se give him whik-sky? Give him
'backky?'
'That's none o' yours,' Sister Mary replied. 'You have that
goldpiece off the boy's neck right now, or I'll put one of yonder
man's bullets in what's left of yer brain.'
'All right,' Ralph said. 'Just as you wish, sai.'
Once more he reached down and took the gold medallion in his
melted fist. That he did slow; what happened after, happened fast.
He snatched it away, breaking the chain and flinging the gold
heedlessly into the dark. With his other hand he reached down,
sank his long and ragged nails into John Norman's neck, and tore it
open.
Blood flew from the hapless boy's throat in a jetting, heart-driven
gush more black than red in the candlelight, and he made a single
bubbly cry. The women screamed - but not in horror. They
screamed as women do in a frenzy of excitement. The green man
was forgotten; Roland was forgotten; all was forgotten save the
life's blood pouring out of John Norman's throat.
They dropped their candles. Mary dropped Roland's revolver in the
same hapless, careless fashion. The last the gunslinger saw as
Ralph darted away into the shadows (whisky and tobacco another
time, wily Ralph must have thought; tonight he had best
concentrate on saving his own life) was the sisters bending forward
to catch as much of the flow as they could before it dried up.
Roland lay in the dark, muscles shivering, heart pounding,
listening to the harpies as they fed on the boy lying in the bed next
to his own. It seemed to go on for ever, but at last they had done
with him. The Sisters re-lit their candles and left, murmuring.
When the drug in the soup once more got the better of the drug in
the reeds, Roland was grateful ... yet for the first time since coming
here, his sleep was haunted.
In his dream he stood looking down at the bloated body in the
town trough, thinking of a line in the book marked REGISTRY OF
MISDEEDS & REDRESS. Green folk sent hence, it had read, and
perhaps the green folk had been sent hence, but then a worse tribe
had come. The Little Sisters of Eluria, they called themselves. And
a year hence, they might be the Little Sisters of Tejuas, or of
Kambero, or some other far-western village. They came with their
bells and their bugs ... from where? Who knew? Did it matter?
A shadow fell beside his on the scummy water of the trough.
Roland tried to turn and face it. He couldn't; he was frozen in
place. Then a green hand grasped his shoulder and whirled him
about. It was Ralph. His bowler hat was cocked back on his head;
John Norman's medallion, now red with blood, hung around his
neck.
'Booh!' cried Ralph, his lips stretching in a toothless grin. He raised
a big revolver with worn sandalwood grips. He thumbed the