missed, the bug giggled.
I'm slow because I've been sick, he thought.
No, ambushed. Dragged across the ground by slow mutants, saved
by the Little Sisters of Eluria.
Roland had a sudden, vivid image of a man's shadow growing
from the shadow of an overturned freight-wagon; heard a rough,
gleeful voice cry, 'Booh!'
He jerked awake hard enough to set his body rocking in its
complication of slings, and the woman who had been standing
beside his head, giggling as she tapped his nose lightly with a
wooden spoon, stepped back so quickly that the bowl in her other
hand slipped from her fingers.
Roland's hands shot out, and they were as quick as ever - his
frustrated failure to catch the bug had been only part of his dream.
He caught the bowl before more than a few drops could spill. The
woman - Sister Coquina - looked at him with round eyes.
There was pain all up and down his back from the sudden
movement but it was nowhere near as sharp as it had been before,
and there was no sensation of movement on his skin. Perhaps the
'doctors' were only sleeping, but he had an idea they were gone.
He held out his hand for the spoon Coquina had been teasing him
with (he found he wasn't surprised at all that one of these would
tease a sick and sleeping man in such a way; it only would have
surprised him if it had been Jenna), and she handed it to him, her
eyes still big.
'How speedy ye are!' she said. `'Twas like a magic trick, and you
still rising from sleep!'
'Remember it, sai,' he said, and tried the soup. There were tiny bits
of chicken floating in it. He probably would have considered it
bland under other circumstances, but under these, it seemed
ambrosial. He began to eat greedily.
'What do 'ee mean by that?' she asked. The light was very dim
now, the wall-panels across the way a pinkish-orange that
suggested sunset. In this light, Coquina looked quite young and
pretty ... but it was a glamour, Roland was sure; a sorcerous kind
of make-up.
'I mean nothing in particular.' Roland dismissed the spoon as too
slow, preferring to tilt the bowl itself to his lips. In this way he
disposed of the soup in four large gulps. 'You have been kind to
me'
'Aye, so we have!' she said, rather indignantly.
'- and I hope your kindness has no hidden motive. If it does, Sister,
remember that I'm quick. And, as for myself, I have not always
been kind.'
She made no reply, only took the bowl when Roland handed it
back. She did this delicately, perhaps not wanting to touch his
fingers. Her eyes dropped to where the medallion lay, once more
hidden beneath the breast of his bed-dress. He said no more, not
wanting to weaken the implied threat by reminding her that the
