Am I burned, then, nothing but a cinder with legs, hanging in a sling?

The fingers touched the centre of his brow, rubbing away the frown forming there. And it was as if the voice which went with the hand had read his thoughts, picking them up with the tips of her clever, soothing fingers.

“Ye'll be fine if God wills, sai,” the voice which went with the hand said. “But time belongs to God, not to you.”

No, he would have said, if he had been able. Time belongs to the Tower.

Then he slipped down again, descending as smoothly as he had risen, going away from the hand and the dreamlike sounds of the singing insects and chiming bells. There was an interval that might have been sleep, or perhaps unconsciousness, but he never went all the way back down.

At one point he thought he heard the girl's voice, although he couldn't be sure, because this time it was raised in fury, or fear, or both. “No!” she cried. “Ye can't have it off him and ye know it! Go your course and stop talking of it, do!”

When he rose back to consciousness the second time, he was no stronger in body, but a little more himself in mind. What he saw when he opened his eyes wasn't the inside of a cloud, but at first that same phrase-white beauty-recurred to him. It was in some ways the most beautiful place Roland had ever been in his life… partially because he still had a life, of course, but mostly because it was so fey and peaceful.

It was a huge room, high and long. When Roland at last turned his head-cautiously, so cautiously-to take its measure as well as he could, he thought it must run at least two hundred yards from end to end. It was built narrow, but its height gave the place a feeling of tremendous airiness.

There were no walls or ceilings such as those he was familiar with, although it was a little like being in a vast tent.