The Collective

by The Collective [lit]

  on their side of the infirmary, the bed where the bearded man had

  been was empty, it's top sheet pulled up and neatly tucked in, the

  pillow neatly nestled in a crisp white case. The complication of

  slings in which his body had rested was gone.

  Roland remembered the candles - the way their glow had

  combined and streamed up in a column, illuminating the Sisters as

  they gathered around the bearded man. Giggling. Their damned

  bells jingling.

  Now, as if summoned by his thoughts, came Sister Mary, gliding

  along rapidly with Sister Louise in her wake. Louise bore a tray,

  and looked nervous. Mary was frowning, obviously not in good

  temper.

  To be grumpy after you've fed so well? Roland thought. Fie, Sister.

  She reached the gunslinger's bed and looked down at him. 'I have

  little to thank ye for, sai,' she said with no preamble.

  'Have I asked for your thanks?' he responded in a voice that

  sounded as dusty and little-used as the pages of an old book.

  She took no notice. 'Ye've made one who was only impudent and

  restless with her place outright rebellious. Well, her mother was

  the same way, and died of it not long after returning Jenna to her

  proper Place. Raise your hand, thankless man.'

  'I can't. I can't move at all.'

  'Oh, cully! Haven't you heard it said "fool not your mother 'less

  she's out of face"? I know pretty well what ye can and can't do.

  Now raise your hand.'

  Roland raised his right hand, trying to suggest more effort than it,

  actually took. He thought that this morning he might be strong

  enough to slip free of the slings ... but what then? Any real walking

  would beyond him for hours yet, even without another dose of

  'medicine' . . and behind Sister Mary, Sister Louise was taking the

  cover from a fresh bowl of soup. As Roland looked at it, his

  stomach rumbled.

  Big Sister heard and smiled a bit. 'Even lying in bed builds an

  appetite in a strong man, if it's done long enough. Wouldn't you

  say so, Jason brother of John?'

  'My name is James. As you well know, Sister.'

  'Do I?' She laughed angrily. 'Oh, la! And if I whipped your little

  sweetheart hard enough and long enough - until the blood jumped

  her back like drops of sweat, let us say - should I not whip a

  different name out of her? Or didn't ye trust her with it, during

  your little talk?'

  'Touch her and I'll kill you.'

  She laughed again. Her face shimmered; her firm mouth turned

  into something that looked like a dying jellyfish. 'Speak not of

  killing to us cully, lest we speak of it to you.'

  'Sister, if you and Jenna don't see eye to eye, why not release her

  from her vows and let her go her course?'

  'Such as us can never be released from our vows, nor be let go. Her

  mother tried and then came back, her dying and the girl sick. Why,

  it was we nursed Jenna back to health after her mother was nothing

  but dirt in the breeze that blows out towards End-World, and how

  little she thanks us! Besides, she bears the Dark Bells, the sigil of

  our sisterhood. Of our ka-tet. Now eat - yer belly says ye're

  hungry!'

  Sister Louise offered the bowl, but her eyes kept drifting to the

  shape the medallion made under the breast of his bed-dress. Don't

  like it, do you? Roland thought, and then remembered Louise by

  candlelight, the freighter's blood on her chin, her ancient eyes

  eager as she leaned forward to lick his spend from Sister Mary's

  hand.

  He turned his head aside. 'I want nothing.'

  'But ye're hungry!' Louise protested. 'If'ee don't eat, James, how

  will'ee get'ee strength back?'

  'Send Jenna. I'll eat what she brings.'

  Sister Mary's frown was black. 'Ye'll see her no more. She's been

  released from Thoughtful House only on her solemn promise to

  double her time of meditation ... and to stay out of the infirmary.

  Now eat, James, or whoever ye are. Take what's in the soup, or

  we'll cut ye with knives and rub it in with flannel poultices. Either

  way, makes no difference to us. Does it? Louise?'

  'Nar,' Louise said. She still held out the bowl. Steam rose from it,

  and the good smell of chicken.

  'But it might make a difference to you.' Sister Mary grinned

  humourlessly, baring her unnaturally large teeth. 'Flowing blood's

  risky around here. The doctors don't like it. It stirs them up.'

  It wasn't just the bugs that were stirred up at the sight of blood, and

  Roland knew it. He also knew he had no choice in the matter of the

  soup. He took the bowl from Louise and ate slowly. He would

  have given much to wipe but the look of satisfaction he saw on

  Sister Mary's face.

  'Good,' she said after he had handed the bowl back and she had

  peered inside to make sure it was completely empty. His hand

  thumped back into the sling which had been rigged for it, already

  too heavy to hold up. He could feel the world drawing away again.

  Sister Mary leaned forward, the billowing top of her habit touching

  the skin of his left shoulder. He could smell her, an aroma both

  ripe and dry, and would have gagged if he'd had the strength.

  'Have that foul gold thing off ye when yer strength comes back a

  little - put it in the pissoir under the bed. Where it belongs. For to

  be even this close to where it lies hurts my head and makes my

  throat close.'

  Speaking with enormous effort, Roland said: 'If you want it, take

  it. How can I stop you, you bitch?'

  Once more her frown turned her face into something like a

  thunderhead. He thought she would have slapped him, if she had

  dared touch him so close to where the medallion lay. Her ability to

  touch seemed to end above his waist, however.

  'I think you had better consider the matter a little more fully,' she

  said. 'I can still have Jenna whipped, if I like. She bears the Dark

  Bells, but I am the Big Sister. Consider that very well.'

  She left. Sister Louise followed, casting one look - a strange

  combination Of fright and lust - back over her shoulder.

  Roland thought, I must get out of here - I must.

  Instead, he drifted back to that dark place which wasn't quite sleep.

  Or perhaps he did sleep, at least for a while; perhaps he dreamed.

  Fingers once more caressed his fingers, and lips first kissed his ear

  and then whispered into it: 'Look beneath your pillow, Roland ...

  but let no one know I was here.'

  At some point after this, Roland opened his eyes again, half-

  expecting to see Sister Jenna's pretty young face hovering above

  him, and that comma of dark hair once more poking out from

  beneath her wimple. There was no one. The swags of silk overhead

  were at their brightest, and although it was impossible to tell the

  hours in here with any real accuracy, Roland guessed it to be

  around noon. Perhaps three hours since his second bowl of the

  Sisters' soup.

  Beside him, John Norman still slept, his breath whistling out in

  faint, nasal snores.

  Roland tried to raise his hand and slide it under his
pillow. The

  hand wouldn't move. He could wiggle the tips of his fingers, but

  that was all. He waited, calming his mind as well as he could,

  gathering his patience.' Patience wasn't easy to come by. He kept

  thinking about what Norman had said - that there had been twenty

  survivors of the ambush ... at least to start with. One by one they

  went, until only me and that one down yonder was left. And now

  you.

  The girl wasn't here. His mind spoke in the soft, regretful tone of

  Alain, one of his old friends, dead these many years now. She

  wouldn't dare, not with the others watching. That was only a

  dream you had.

  But Roland thought perhaps it had been more than a dream.

  Some length of time later - the slowly shifting brightness overhead

  made him believe it had been about an hour - Roland tried his hand

  again. This time he was able to get it beneath his pillow. This was

  puffy and soft, tucked snugly into the wide sling which supported

  the gunslinger's neck. At first he found nothing, but as his fingers

  worked their slow way deeper, they touched what felt like a stiffish

  bundle of thin rods.

  He paused, gathering a little more strength (every movement was

  like swimming in glue), and then burrowed deeper. It felt like a

  dead bouquet. Wrapped around it was what felt like a ribbon.

  Roland looked around to make sure the ward was still empty and

  Norman still asleep, then drew out what was under the pillow. It

  was six brittle stems of fading green with brownish reed-heads at

  the tops. They gave off a strange, yeasty aroma that made Roland

  think of early-morning begging expeditions to the Great House

  kitchens as a child - forays he had usually made with Cuthbert. The

  reeds were tied with a wide white silk ribbon, and smelled like

  burned toast. Beneath the ribbon was a fold of cloth. Like

  everything else in this cursed place, it seemed, the cloth was of

  silk.

  Roland was breathing hard and could feel drops of sweat on his

  brow. Still alone, though - good. He took the scrap of cloth and

  unfolded it. Printed painstakingly in blurred charcoal letters, was

  this message:

  NIBBLE HEDS. Once each hour. Too

  much, CRAMPS or DETH.

  TOMORROW NITE. Can't be sooner.

  BE CAREFUL!

  No explanation, but Roland supposed none was needed. Nor did he

  have any option; if he remained here, he would die. All they had to

  do was have the medallion off him, and he felt sure Sister Mary

  was smart enough to figure a way to do that.

  He nibbled at one of the dry reed-heads. The taste was nothing like

  the toast they had begged from the kitchen as boys; it was bitter in

  his throat and hot in his stomach. Less than a minute after his

  nibble, his heart-rate had doubled. His muscles awakened, but not

  in a pleasant way, as after good sleep; they felt first trembly and

  then hard, as if they were gathered into knots. This feeling passed

  rapidly, and his heartbeat was back to normal before Norman

  stirred awake an hour or so later, but he understood why Jenna's

  note had warned him not to take more than a nibble at a time - this

  was very powerful stuff.

  He slipped the bouquet of reeds back under the pillow, being

  careful to brush away the few crumbles of vegetable matter which

  had dropped to the sheet. Then he used the ball of his thumb to

  blur the painstaking charcoaled words on the bit of silk. When he

  was finished, there was nothing on the square but meaningless

  smudges. The square he also tucked back under his pillow.

  When Norman awoke, he and the gunslinger spoke briefly of the

  young scout's home - Delain, it was, sometimes known jestingly as

  Dragon's Lair, or Liar's Heaven. All tall tales were said to orginate

  in Delain. The boy asked Roland to take his medallion and that of

  his brother home to their parents, if Roland was able, and explain

  as well as he could what had happened to James and John, sons of

  Jesse.

  'You'll do all that yourself,' Roland said.

  'No.' Norman tried to raise his hand, perhaps to scratch his nose,

  and was unable to do even that. The hand rose perhaps six inches,

  then fell back to the counterpane with a small thump. 'I think not.

  It's a pity for us to have run up against each other this way, you

  know - I like you.'

  'And I you, John Norman. Would that we were better met.'

  'Aye. When not in the company of such fascinating ladies.'

  He dropped off to sleep again soon after. Roland never spoke with

  him again ... although he certainly heard from him. Yes. Roland

  was lying above his bed, shamming sleep, as John Norman

  screamed his last.

  Sister Michela came with his evening soup just as Roland was

  getting past the shivery muscles and galloping heartbeat that

  resulted from his second nibble of brown reed. Michela looked at

  his flushed face with some concern, but had to accept his

  assurances that he did not feel feverish; she couldn't bring herself

  to touch him and judge the heat of his skin for herself - the

  medallion held her away.

  With the soup was a popkin. The bread was leathery and the meat

  inside it tough, but Roland demolished it greedily, just the same.

  Michela watched with a complacent smile, hands folded in front of

  her, nodding from time to time. When he had finished the soup,

  she took the bowl back from him carefully, making sure their

  fingers did not touch.

  'Ye're healing,' she said. 'Soon you'll be on yer way, and we'll have

  just yer memory to keep, Jim.'

  'Is that true?' he asked quietly.

  She only looked at him, touched her tongue against her upper lip,

  giggled, and departed. Roland closed his eyes and lay back against

  hi pillow, feeling lethargy steal over him again. Her speculative

  eyes ... he peeping tongue. He had seen women look at roast

  chickens and joints of mutton that same way, calculating when

  they might be done.

  His body badly wanted to sleep, but Roland held on to wakefulness

  for what he judged was an hour, then worked one of the reeds out

  from under the pillow. With a fresh infusion of their 'can't-move-

  medicine' in his system, this took an enormous effort, and he

  wasn't sure he could have done it at all, had he not separated this

  one reed from the ribbon holding the others. Tomorrow night,

  Jenna's note had said. If that meant escape, the idea seemed

  preposterous. The way he felt now, he might be lying in this bed

  until the end of the age.

  He nibbled. Energy washed into his system, clenching his muscles

  and racing his heart, but the burst of vitality was gone almost as

  soon as it came, buried beneath the Sisters' stronger drug. He could

  only hope ... and sleep.

  When he woke it was full dark, and he found he could move his

  arms and legs in their network of slings almost naturally. He

  slipped one of the reeds out from beneath his pillow and nibbled

  cautiously. She had left half a dozen, and the first two were now

  almost entirely con
sumed.

  The gunslinger put the stem back under the pillow, then began to

  shiver like a wet dog in a downpour. I took too much, he thought.

  I'll be lucky not to convulse -

  His heart, racing like a runaway engine. And then, to make matters

  worse, he saw candlelight at the far end of the aisle. A moment

  later he heard the rustle of their gowns and the whisk of their

  slippers.

  Gods, why now? They'll see me shaking, they'll know

  Calling on every bit of his willpower and control, Roland dosed his

  eyes and concentrated on stilling his jerking limbs. If only he had

  been in bed instead of in these cursed slings, which seemed to

  tremble as if with their own ague at every movement!

  The Little Sisters drew closer. The light of their candles bloomed

  red within his closed eyelids. Tonight they were not giggling, nor

  whispering amongst themselves. It was not until they were almost

  on top of him that Roland became aware of the stranger in their

  midst - a creature that breathed through its nose in great, slobbery

  gasps of mixed air and snot.

  The gunslinger lay with his eyes closed, the gross twitches and

  jumps of his arms and legs under control, but with his muscles still

  knotted arid crampy, thrumming beneath the skin. Anyone who

  looked at him closely would see at once that something was wrong

  with him. His heart was larruping away like a horse under the

  whip, surely they must see

  But it wasn't him they were looking at - not yet, at least.

  'Have it off him,' Mary said. She spoke in a bastardized version of

  the low speech Roland could barely understand. 'Then t'other 'un.

  Go on, Ralph.'

  'U'se has whik-sky?' the slobberer asked, his dialect even heavier

  than Mary's. Use has 'backky?'

  'Yes, yes, plenty whisky and plenty smoke, but not until you have

  these wretched things off!' Impatient. Perhaps afraid, as well.

  Roland cautiously rolled his head to the left and cracked his

  eyelids open.

  Five of the six Little Sisters of Eluria were clustered around the far

  side of the sleeping John Norman's bed, their candles raised to cast

  their light upon him. It also cast light upon their own faces, faces

  which would have given the strongest man nightmares. Now, in the

  ditch of the night, their glamours were set aside, and they were but

  ancient corpses in voluminous habits.

  Sister Mary had one of Roland's guns in her hand. Looking at her