in wimples just as white, their skin as grey and runnelled as
droughted earth by comparison. Hanging like phylacteries from the
bands of silk imprisoning their hair (if they indeed had hair) were
lines of tiny bells which chimed as they moved or spoke. Upon the
snowy breasts of their habits was embroidered a blood-red rose ...
the sigil of the Dark Tower. Seeing this, Roland thought: I am not
dreaming. These harridans are real.
'He wakes!' one of them cried in a gruesomely coquettish voice.
'Oooo!'
'Ooooh!'
'Ah!'
They fluttered like birds. The one in the centre stepped forward,
and as she did, their faces seemed to shimmer like the silk walls of
the ward. They weren't old after all, he saw - middle-aged, perhaps,
but not old.
Yes. They are old. They changed.
The one who now took charge was taller than the others, and with
a broad, slightly bulging brow. She bent towards Roland, and the
bells which fringed her forehead tinkled. The sound made him feel
sick, somehow, and weaker than he had felt a moment before. Her
hazel eyes were intent. Greedy, mayhap. She touched his cheek for
a moment, and a numbness seemed to spread there. Then she
glanced down, and a look which could have been disquiet cramped
her face. She took her hand back.
'Ye wake, pretty man. So ye do. 'Tis well.'
'Who are you? Where am l?'
'We are the Little Sisters of Eluria,' she said. 'I am Sister Mary.
Here is Sister Louise, and Sister Michela, and Sister Coquina -'
'And Sister Tamra,' said the last. 'A lovely lass of one-and-twenty.'
She giggled. Her face shimmered, and for a moment she was again
as old as the world. Hooked of nose, grey of skin. Roland thought
once more of Rhea.
They moved closer, encircling the complication of harness in
which he lay suspended, and when Roland shrank away, the pain
roared up his back and injured leg again. He groaned. The straps
holding him creaked.
'Ooooo!'
'It hurts!'
'Hurts him!'
'Hurts so fierce!'
They pressed even closer, as if his pain fascinated them. And now
he could smell them, a dry and earthy smell. The one named Sister
Michela reached out
'Go away! Leave him! Have I not told ye before?'
They jumped back from this voice, startled. Sister Mary looked
particularly annoyed. But she stepped back, with one final glare
(Roland would have sworn it) at the medallion lying on his chest.
He had tucked it back under the bed-dress at his last waking, but it
was out again now.
