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Dec. 19th, 2004 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastgunslingerRoland perused the contents of the desk drawers and was gratified to find high-quality parchment, a bottle of fine ink, and a pen with a vicious-looking nib. Right up his alley. He spent an hour or so figuring out how to grip the pen with his right hand so his handwriting wouldn't suffer -- his left was improving, sure, but it wasn't as good as the right had been. Gripping the barrel of his pen between his fourth and fifth fingers, and curling his thumb around the top, Roland wrote out, on lesser paper, what he intended to copy. Roland nodded. That'll do.
Then, slowly, carefully, in a flowing script, he wrote out, in the High Speech of Gilead, the first four stanzas of the epic poem Vannay had had them memorize so long ago -- the four stanzas that summarized the deeds of Arthur Eld.
When he sat back and looked at his handiwork, he nodded again. Satisfactory. And he got up and went down the stairs and through the Bypass Door out to the lake.
Breathing the fresh, sweet air, he rolled his head around, feeling vertebrae crackle. And then he walked into the forest. He didn't have to go very far before finding what he was looking for.
Roland snapped the branch off the ash tree and went back upstairs. Not ironwood, but good enough. It'll do.
He took his knife out of his gunna and slowly, methodically began to strip the bark and smaller branches off of his branch.
If anyone had asked, he couldn't have said why he was doing it. Sometimes ka spoke to you, and it behooved you to do what it suggested in its sibilant whispers.
Then, slowly, carefully, in a flowing script, he wrote out, in the High Speech of Gilead, the first four stanzas of the epic poem Vannay had had them memorize so long ago -- the four stanzas that summarized the deeds of Arthur Eld.
When he sat back and looked at his handiwork, he nodded again. Satisfactory. And he got up and went down the stairs and through the Bypass Door out to the lake.
Breathing the fresh, sweet air, he rolled his head around, feeling vertebrae crackle. And then he walked into the forest. He didn't have to go very far before finding what he was looking for.
Roland snapped the branch off the ash tree and went back upstairs. Not ironwood, but good enough. It'll do.
He took his knife out of his gunna and slowly, methodically began to strip the bark and smaller branches off of his branch.
If anyone had asked, he couldn't have said why he was doing it. Sometimes ka spoke to you, and it behooved you to do what it suggested in its sibilant whispers.
