The Sleeper and the Spindle

The smallest dwarf tipped his head on one side. “So, there’s a sleeping woman in a castle, and perhaps a witch or fairy there with her. Why is there also a plague?”

“Over the last year,” said the fat-faced man. “It started in the north, beyond the capital. I heard about it first from travellers coming from Stede, which is near the Forest of Acaire.”

“People fell asleep in the towns,” said the pot-girl.

“Lots of people fall asleep,” said the tallest dwarf. Dwarfs sleep rarely: twice a year at most, for several weeks at a time, but he had slept enough in his long lifetime that he did not regard sleep as anything special or unusual.

“They fall asleep whatever they are doing, and they do not wake up,” said the sot. “Look at us. We fled the towns to come here. We have brothers and sisters, wives and children, sleeping now in their houses or cowsheds, at their workbenches. All of us.”

“It is moving faster and faster,” said the thin, red-haired woman who had not spoken previously. “Now it covers a mile, perhaps two miles, each day.”

“It will be here tomorrow,” said the sot, and he drained his flagon, gestured to the innkeeper to fill it once more. “There is nowhere for us to go to escape it. Tomorrow, everything here will be asleep. Some of us have resolved to escape into drunkenness before the sleep takes us.”

“What is there to be afraid of in sleep?” asked the smallest dwarf. “It’s just sleep. We all do it.”

“Go and look,” said the sot. He threw back his head, and drank as much as he could from his flagon. Then he looked back at them, with eyes unfocused, as if he were surprised to still see them there. “Well, go on. Go and look for yourselves.” He swallowed the remaining drink, then he lay his head upon the table.

They went and looked.