Wizard and Glass

He walked toward the stairs, squeezing Pettie's bare leg as he went by, also as Reynolds had done. At the foot of the stairs he looked back.

'I don't want to kill them. Things are delicate enough without that. I'll smell quite a little wrong on them and not lift a finger, no, not a single finger of my hand. But . . .I'd like to make them clear on their place in the great scheme o' things.'

'Give them a sore paw.'

Jonas brightened. 'Yessir, partner, maybe a sore paw's just what I'd like to give them. Make them think twice about tangling with the Big Coffin Hunters later on, when it matters. Make them swing wide around us when they see us in their road. Yessir, that's something to think about. It really is.'

He started up the stairs, chuckling a little, his limp quite pronounced— it got worse late at night. It was a limp Roland's old teacher, Cort, might have recognized, for Cort had seen the blow which caused it. Cort's own father had dealt it with an ironwood club, breaking Eldred Jonas's leg in the yard behind the Great Hall of Gilead before taking the boy's weapon and sending him west, gunless, into exile.

Eventually, the man the boy had become had found a gun, of course; the exiles always did, if they looked hard enough. That such guns could never be quite the same as the big ones with the sandalwood grips might haunt them for the rest of their lives, but those who needed guns could still find them, even in this world.

Reynolds watched until he was gone, then took his seat at Coral Thorin's desk, shuffled the cards, and continued the game which Jonas had left half-finished.

Outside, the sun was coming up.

CHAPTER V WELCOME TO TOWN

1

Two nights after arriving in the Barony of Mejis, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain rode their mounts beneath an adobe arch with the words come in peace inscribed above it. Beyond was a cobblestone courtyard lit with torches. The resin which coated these had been doctored somehow so that the torches glowed different colors: green, orangey-red, a kind of sputtery pink that made Roland think of fireworks. He could hear the sound of guitars, the murmur of voices, the laughter of women. The air was redolent of those smells which would always remind him of Mejis: sea-salt, oil, and pine.

'I don't know if I can do this,' Alain muttered. He was a big boy with a mop of unruly blond hair spilling out from under his stockman's hat. He had cleaned up well—they all had—but Alain, no social butterfly under the best of circumstances, looked scared to death. Cuthbert was doing better, but Roland guessed his old friend's patina of insouciance didn't go very deep. If there was to be leading done here, he would have to do it.

'You'll be fine,' he told Alain. 'Just—'

'Oh, he looks fine,' Cuthbert said with a nervous laugh as they crossed the courtyard. Beyond it was Mayor's House, a sprawling, many-winged adobe hacienda that seemed to spill light and laughter from every window. 'White as a sheet, ugly as a—'

'Shut up,' Roland said curtly, and the teasing smile tumbled off Cuthbert's face at once. Roland noted this, then turned to Alain again. 'Just don't drink anything with alcohol in it. You know what to say on that account. Remember the rest of our story, too. Smile. Be pleasant. Use what social graces you have. Remember how the Sheriff fell all over himself to make us feel welcome.'

Alain nodded at that, looking a little more confident.

'In the matter of social graces,' Cuthbert said, 'they won't have many themselves, so we should all be a step ahead.'

Roland nodded, then saw that the bird's skull was back on the horn of Cuthbert's saddle. 'And get rid of that!'

Looking guilty, Cuthbert stuffed 'the lookout' hurriedly into his saddlebag. Two men wearing white jackets, white pants, and sandals were coming forward, bowing and smiling.

'Keep your heads,' Roland said, lowering his voice. 'Both of you. Remember why you're here. And remember the faces of your fathers.' He clapped Alain, who still looked doubtful, on the shoulder. Then he turned to the hostlers. 'Goodeven, gents,' he said. 'May your days be long upon the earth.'

They both grinned, their teeth flashing in the extravagant torchlight. The older one bowed. 'And your own as well, young masters. Welcome to Mayor's House.'

2

The High Sheriff had welcomed them the day before every bit as happily as the hostlers.

So far everyone had greeted them happily, even the carters they had passed on their way into town, and that alone made Roland feel suspicious and on his guard. He told himself he was likely being foolish—of course the locals were friendly and helpful, that was why they had been sent here, because Mejis was both out-of-the-way and loyal to the Affiliation—and it probably was foolish, but he thought it best to be on close watch, just the same. To be a trifle nervous. The three of them were little more than children, after all, and if they fell into trouble here, it was apt to be as a result of taking things at face value.

The combined Sheriff's office and jail o' Barony was on Hill Street, overlooking the bay. Roland didn't know for sure, but guessed that few if any hungover drunks and wife-beaters anywhere else in Mid-World woke up to such picturesque views: a line of many-colored boathouses to the south, the docks directly below, with boys and old men line-fishing while the women mended nets and sails; beyond them, Hambry's small fleet moving back and forth on the sparkling blue water of the bay, setting their nets in the morning, pulling them in the afternoon.

Most buildings on the High Street were adobe, but up here, overlooking Hambry's business section, they were as squat and bricky as any narrow lane in Gilead’s Old Quarter. Well kept, too, with wrought-iron gates in front of most and tree-shaded paths. The roofs were orange tile, the shutters closed against the summer sun. It was hard to believe, riding down this street with their horses' hoofs clocking on the swept cobbles, that the northwestern side of the Affiliation—the ancient land of Eld, Arthur's kingdom—could be on fire and in danger of falling.

The jailhouse was just a larger version of the post office and land office; a smaller version of the Town Gathering Hall. Except, of course, for the bars on the windows facing down toward the small harbor.

Sheriff Herk Avery was a big-bellied man in a lawman's khaki pants and shirt. He must have been watching them approach through the spy hole in the center of the jail's iron-banded front door, because the door was thrown open before Roland could even reach for the turn-bell in the center. Sheriff Avery appeared on the stoop, his belly preceding him as a bailiff may precede My Lord Judge into court. His arms were thrown wide in the most amiable of greetings.

He bowed deeply to them (Cuthbert said later he was afraid the man might overbalance and go rolling down the steps; perhaps go rolling all the way down to the harbor) and wished them repeated goodmorns, tapping away at the base of his throat like a madman the whole while. His smile was so wide it looked as if it might cut his head clean in two. Three deputies with a distinctly farmerish look about them, dressed in khaki like the Sheriff, crowded into the door behind Avery and gawked. That was what it was, all right, a gawk; there was just no other word for that sort of openly curious and totally unselfconscious stare.

Avery shook each boy by the hand, continuing to bow as he did so, and nothing Roland said could get him to stop until he was done. When he finally was, he showed them inside. The office was delightfully cool in spite of the beating midsummer sun. That was the advantage of brick, of course. It was big as well, and cleaner than any High Sheriff's office Roland had ever been in before . . . and he had been in at least half a dozen over the last three years, accompanying his father on several short trips and one longer patrol-swing.