Legends: Stories By The Masters of Modern Fantasy by Robert Silverberg Page B
Authors: Robert Silverberg
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fringe of bells lying on the powdery ground. He thought for a moment that they were ringing, mistaking the sound he heard at first.
Not bells but bugs. The doctor-bugs. They sang in the sage, sounding a bit like crickets, but far sweeter.
“Jenna?”
No answer … unless the bugs answered. For their singing suddenly stopped.
“Jenna?”
Nothing. Only the wind and the smell of the sage.
Without thinking about what he was doing (like playacting, reasoned thought was not his strong suit), he bent, picked up the wimple, and shook it. The Dark Bells rang.
For a moment there was nothing. Then a thousand small dark creatures came scurrying out of the sage, gathering on the broken earth. Roland thought of the battalion marching down the side of the freighter’s bed and took a step back. Then he held his position. As, he saw, the bugs were holding theirs.
He believed he understood. Some of this understanding came from his memory of how Sister Mary’s flesh had felt under his hands … how it had felt various, not one thing but many. Part of it was what she had said: I have supped with them. Such as them might never die … but they might change.
The insects trembled, a dark cloud of them blotting out the white, powdery earth.
Roland shook the bells again.
A shiver ran through them in a subtle wave, and then they began to form a shape. They hesitated as if unsure of how to go on, regrouped, began again. What they eventually made on the whiteness of the sand there between the blowing fluffs of lilac-colored sage was one of the Great Letters: the letter C.
Except it wasn’t really a letter, the gunslinger saw; it was a curl.
They began to sing, and to Roland it sounded as if they were singing his name.
The bells fell from his unnerved hand, and when they struck the ground and chimed there, the mass of bugs broke apart, running in every direction. He thought of calling them back—ringing the bells again might do that—but to what purpose? To what end?
Ask me not, Roland. ’Tis done, the bridge burned.
Yet she had come to him one last time, imposing her will over a thousand various parts that should have lost the ability to think when the whole lost its cohesion … and yet she had thought, somehow—enough to make that shape. How much effort might that have taken?
They fanned wider and wider, some disappearing into the sage, some trundling up the sides of a rock overhang, pouring into the cracks where they would, mayhap, wait out the heat of the day.
They were gone. She was gone.
Roland sat down on the ground and put his hands over his face. He thought he might weep, but in time the urge passed; when he raised his head again, his eyes were as dry as the desert he would eventually come to, still following the trail of Walter, the man in black.
If there’s to be damnation , she had said, let it be of my choosing, not theirs.
He knew a little about damnation himself … and he had an idea that the lessons, far from being done, were just beginning.
She had brought him the purse with his tobacco in it. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it hunkered over his knees. He smoked it down to a glowing roach, looking at her empty clothes the while, remembering the steady gaze of her dark eyes. Remembering the scorchmarks on her fingers from the chain of the medallion. Yet she had picked it up, because she had known he would want it; had dared that pain, and Roland now wore both around his neck.
When the sun was fully up, the gunslinger moved on west. He would find another horse eventually, or a mule, but for now he was content to walk. All that day he was haunted by a ringing, singing sound in his ears, a sound like bells. Several times he stopped and looked around, sure he would see a dark following shape flowing over the ground, chasing after as the shadows of our best and worst memories chase after, but no shape was ever there. He was alone in the low hill country west of Eluria.
Quite alone.
Discworld
TERRY
Not bells but bugs. The doctor-bugs. They sang in the sage, sounding a bit like crickets, but far sweeter.
“Jenna?”
No answer … unless the bugs answered. For their singing suddenly stopped.
“Jenna?”
Nothing. Only the wind and the smell of the sage.
Without thinking about what he was doing (like playacting, reasoned thought was not his strong suit), he bent, picked up the wimple, and shook it. The Dark Bells rang.
For a moment there was nothing. Then a thousand small dark creatures came scurrying out of the sage, gathering on the broken earth. Roland thought of the battalion marching down the side of the freighter’s bed and took a step back. Then he held his position. As, he saw, the bugs were holding theirs.
He believed he understood. Some of this understanding came from his memory of how Sister Mary’s flesh had felt under his hands … how it had felt various, not one thing but many. Part of it was what she had said: I have supped with them. Such as them might never die … but they might change.
The insects trembled, a dark cloud of them blotting out the white, powdery earth.
Roland shook the bells again.
A shiver ran through them in a subtle wave, and then they began to form a shape. They hesitated as if unsure of how to go on, regrouped, began again. What they eventually made on the whiteness of the sand there between the blowing fluffs of lilac-colored sage was one of the Great Letters: the letter C.
Except it wasn’t really a letter, the gunslinger saw; it was a curl.
They began to sing, and to Roland it sounded as if they were singing his name.
The bells fell from his unnerved hand, and when they struck the ground and chimed there, the mass of bugs broke apart, running in every direction. He thought of calling them back—ringing the bells again might do that—but to what purpose? To what end?
Ask me not, Roland. ’Tis done, the bridge burned.
Yet she had come to him one last time, imposing her will over a thousand various parts that should have lost the ability to think when the whole lost its cohesion … and yet she had thought, somehow—enough to make that shape. How much effort might that have taken?
They fanned wider and wider, some disappearing into the sage, some trundling up the sides of a rock overhang, pouring into the cracks where they would, mayhap, wait out the heat of the day.
They were gone. She was gone.
Roland sat down on the ground and put his hands over his face. He thought he might weep, but in time the urge passed; when he raised his head again, his eyes were as dry as the desert he would eventually come to, still following the trail of Walter, the man in black.
If there’s to be damnation , she had said, let it be of my choosing, not theirs.
He knew a little about damnation himself … and he had an idea that the lessons, far from being done, were just beginning.
She had brought him the purse with his tobacco in it. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it hunkered over his knees. He smoked it down to a glowing roach, looking at her empty clothes the while, remembering the steady gaze of her dark eyes. Remembering the scorchmarks on her fingers from the chain of the medallion. Yet she had picked it up, because she had known he would want it; had dared that pain, and Roland now wore both around his neck.
When the sun was fully up, the gunslinger moved on west. He would find another horse eventually, or a mule, but for now he was content to walk. All that day he was haunted by a ringing, singing sound in his ears, a sound like bells. Several times he stopped and looked around, sure he would see a dark following shape flowing over the ground, chasing after as the shadows of our best and worst memories chase after, but no shape was ever there. He was alone in the low hill country west of Eluria.
Quite alone.
Discworld
TERRY
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