Free The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King

friends, of the riddling he had almost won at one Wide Earth Fair. In the end another had taken the goose, but he'd had his chance, aye. He thought of his mother and father; he thought of Abel Vannay, who had limped his way through a life of gentle goodness, and Eldred Jonas, who had limped his way through a life of evil ... until Roland had blown him loose of his saddle, one fine desert day.
    He thought, as always, of Susan.
    If you love me, then love me, she'd said ... and so he had.
    So he had.
    In this way the time passed. At rough hourly intervals, he took one of the reeds from beneath his pillow and nibbled it. Now his muscles didn't tremble so badly as the stuff passed into his system, nor his heart pound so fiercely. The medicine in the reeds no longer had to battle the Sisters' medicine so fiercely, Roland thought; the reeds were winning.
    The diffused brightness of the sun moved across the white silk ceiling of the ward, and at last the dimness which always seemed to hover at bed-level began to rise. The long room's western wall bloomed with the rose-melting-to-orange shades of sunset.
    It was Sister Tamra who brought him his dinner that night - soup and another popkin. She also laid a desert lily beside his hand. She smiled she did it. Her cheeks were bright with colour. All of them were bright with colour today, like leeches which had gorged until they were almost to bursting.
    'From your admirer, Jimmy,' she said. 'She's so sweet on ye! The I means "Do not forget my promise". What has she promised ye, Jimmy brother of Johnny?'
    'That she'd see me again, and we'd talk.'
    Tamra laughed so hard that the bells lining her forehead jingled. She clasped her hands together in a perfect ecstasy of glee. 'Sweet as honey
    Oh, yes!' She bent her smiling gaze on Roland. 'It's sad such a promise can never be kept. Ye'll never see her again, pretty man.' She took the bowl. 'Big Sister has decided.' She stood up, still smiling. 'Why not take that ugly gold sigil off?'
    'I think not.'
    'Yer brother took his off - look!' She pointed, and Roland spied the gold medallion lying far down the aisle, where it had landed when Ralph threw it.
    Sister Tamra looked at him, still smiling.
    'He decided it was part of what was making him sick, and cast it away Ye'd do the same, were ye wise.'
    Roland repeated: 'I think not.'
    'So,' she said dismissively, and left him alone with the empty beds glimmering in the thickening shadows.
    Roland hung on, in spite of growing sleepiness, until the hot colours bleeding across the infirmary's western wall had cooled to ashes. Then he nibbled one of the reeds and felt strength - real strength, not a jittery, heart-thudding substitute -bloom in his body. He looked towards where the castaway medallion gleamed in the last light and made a silent promise to John Norman: he would take it with the other one to Norman's kin, if ka chanced that he should encounter them in his travels.
    Feeling completely easy in his mind for the first time that day, the gunslinger dozed. When he awoke it was full dark. The doctor-bugs were singing with extraordinary shrillness. He had taken one of the reeds out from under the pillow and had begun to nibble on it when a cold voice said, 'So - Big Sister was right. Ye've been keeping secrets.'
    Roland's heart seemed to stop dead in his chest. He looked around and saw Sister Coquina getting to her feet. She had crept in while he was dozing and hidden under the bed on his right side to watch him. 'Where did ye get that?' she asked. 'Was it 'He got it from me.'
    Coquina whirled about. Jenna was walking down the aisle towards them. Her habit was gone. She still wore her wimple with its foreheadfringe of bells, but its hem rested on the shoulders of a simple checkered shirt. Below this she wore jeans and scuffed desert boots. She had something in her hands. It was too dark for Roland to be sure, but he thought...
    'YOU,' Sister Coquina whispered with infinite hate. 'When I tell Big Sister