when they complained or tried whining about their lot.
Are you a gunslinger, Roland? If you are, you better get ready.
Roland opened his eyes again and turned his head to the left again.
As he did, he felt something shift against his chest.
Moving very slowly, he raised his right hand out of the sling that
held it. The pain in his back stirred and muttered. He stopped
moving until he decided the pain was going to get no worse (if he
was careful, at least), then lifted the hand the rest of the way to his
chest. It encountered finely-woven cloth. Cotton. He lowered his
chin to his breastbone and saw he was wearing a bed-dress like the
one draped on the body of the bearded man.
Roland reached beneath the neck of the gown and felt a fine chain.
A little further down, his fingers encountered a rectangular metal
shape. He thought he knew what it was, but had to be sure. He
pulled it out, still moving with great care, trying not to engage any
of the muscles in his back. A gold medallion. He dared the pain,
lifting it until he could read what was engraved upon it:
James
Loved of family, Loved of GOD
He tucked it into the top of the bed-dress again and looked back at
the sleeping boy in the next bed - in it, not suspended over it. The
sheet was only pulled up to the boy's ribcage, and the medallion
lay on the pristine white breast of his bed-dress. The same
medallion Roland now wore. Except ...
Roland thought he understood, and understanding was a relief.
He looked back at the bearded man, and saw an exceedingly
strange thing: the thick black line of scar across the bearded man's
cheek and nose was gone. Where it had been was the pinkish-red
mark of a healing wound ... a cut, or perhaps a slash.
I imagined it.
No, gunslinger, Cort's voice returned. Such as you was not made to
imagine. As you well know.
The little bit of movement had tired him out again ... or perhaps it
was the thinking which had really tired him out. The singing bugs
and chiming bells combined and made something too much like a
lullaby to resist. This time when Roland closed his eyes, he slept.
III. Five Sisters. Jenna. The Doctors of Eluria.
The Medallion. A Promise of Silence.
When Roland awoke again, he was at first sure that he was still
sleeping. Dreaming. Having a nightmare.
Once, at the time he had met and fallen in love with Susan
Delgado, he had known a witch named Rhea - the first real witch
of Mid-World he had ever met. It was she who had caused Susan's
death, although Roland had played his own part. Now, opening his
eyes and seeing Rhea not just once but five times over, he thought:
This is what comes of remembering those old times. By conjuring
Susan, I've conjured Rhea of the Coos, as well. Rhea and her
sisters.
The five were dressed in billowing habits as white as the walls and
the panels of the ceiling. Their antique crones' faces were framed
