The Little Sisters of Eluria Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 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.
    A sixth sister appeared, pushing rudely in between Mary and Tamra. This one perhaps was only one-and-twenty, with flushed cheeks, smooth skin, and dark eyes. Her white habit billowed like a dream. The red rose over her breast stood out like a curse.
    'Go! Leave him!'
    'Oooo, my dear!' cried Sister Louise in a voice both laughing and angry. 'Here's Jenna, the baby, and has she fallen in love with him?'
    'She has!' laughed Tamra. 'Baby's heart is his for the purchase,'
    'Oh, so it is!' agreed Sister Coquina.
    Mary turned to the newcomer, lips pursed into a tight line. 'Ye have no business here, saucy girl.'
    'I do if I