Deep in the darkness of the secret pa.s.sage, Thomas heard the m.u.f.fled thunder-thud of the falling tower and woke up. He heard the m.u.f.fled barking of dogs below him and realized in horror where he was.

And one other who had been sleeping lightly and dreaming troubled dreams awoke at the fall of the tower. He woke even though he was deep in the bowels of the castle.

"Disaster!" one of the parrot's two heads screamed.

"Fire, flood, and escape!" the other screamed.

Flagg had awakened. I have told you that evil is sometimes strangely blind, and so it is. Sometimes evil is lulled with no reason, and sleeps.

But now Flagg had awakened.

Flagg had come back from his trip into the north with a bit of a fever, a heavy cold, and a troubled mind.

Something wrong, something wrong. The very stones of the castle seemed to whisper it to him* but Flagg was d.a.m.ned if he knew what it was. All he knew for sure was that unknown "something wrong" had sharp teeth. It felt like a ferret running around in his brain, taking a bite here and a bite there. He knew exactly when that animal had begun to run and gnaw: while he was coming back from the fruitless expedition in search of the rebels. Because* because*

Because the rebels should have been there!

They hadn't been, and Flagg hated to be fooled. Worse, he hated feeling that he might have made a mistake. If he had made a mistake about where the rebels were to be found, then perhaps he had made mistakes about other things. What other things? He didn't know. But his dreams were bad. That small, bad tempered animal ran around in his head, worrying him, insisting that he had forgotten things, that other things were going o behind his back. It raced, it gnawed, it ruined his sleep. Flagg had medicines that would rid him of his cold, but none that would touch that growing ferret in his brain.

What could possibly be wrong?

He asked himself this question over and over again, and in truth it seemed-on the surface, at least-that nothing could be. For many centuries, the old dark chaos inside him had hated the love and light and order of Delain, and he had worked hard to destroy all that-to knock it down as that last cold gust of storm had knocked down the Church of the Great G.o.ds. Always, something had interfered with his plans-a Kyla the Good, a Sasha, someone, something. But now he saw no possible interference, no matter where he looked. Thomas was totally his creature; if Flagg told him to step off the highest parapet of the castle, the fool would want to know only at which o'clock he should do it. The farmers were groaning under the weight of the killing taxes Flagg had persuaded Thomas to impose.

Yosef had told Peter there was a breaking strain on people as well as on ropes and chains, and so there is-the farmers and the merchants of Delain had nearly reached theirs. The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty-loyalty to King, to country, to government. Flagg knew that if he made the tax-blocks big enough, all the ropes would snap, and the stupid oxen-for that was really how he saw the people of Delain-would stampede, knocking down everything in their path. The first of the oxen had already broken free and had gathered in the north. They called themselves exiles now, but Flagg knew they would call themselves rebels soon enough. Peyna had been driven away and Peter was locked in the Needle.

So what could be wrong?

Nothing! d.a.m.n it, nothing!

But the ferret ran and squirmed and gnawed and twisted. Many times over the last three or four weeks he had awakened in a cold sweat, not because of his recurring fever but because he had had some horrible dream. What was the substance of this dream? He could never remember. He only knew that he woke from it with his left hand pressed to his left eye, as if he had been wounded there-and that eye would burn, although he could find nothing wrong with it.

On this night, Flagg awoke with his dream fresh in his mind, because he was awakened before it was over. It was, of course, the fall of the Church of the Great G.o.ds which woke him.

"Huh!" Flagg cried, sitting bolt upright in his chair. His eyes were wide and staring, his white cheeks damp and shiny with sweat.

"Disaster!" one of the parrot's heads screamed.

"Fire, flood, and escape!" the other screamed.

Escape, Flagg thought. Yes-that's what's been on my mind all this time, that's what's been gnawing at me.

He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. This infuriated him, and he sprang out of his chair.

"He means to escape," he muttered, running his hands through his hair. "He means to try, anyway. But how? How? What's his plan? Who helped him? They'll pay with their heads, I promise that* and they won't come off all in a chop, no! They'll come off an inch* a half-inch* a quarter-inch* at a time. They'll be driven insane with the agony long before they die*"

"Insane!" one of the parrot heads shrieked.

"Agony!" the other shrieked back.

"Will you shut up and let me think!" Flagg howled. He seized a jar filled with murky brown fluid from a nearby table and threw it at the parrot's cage. It struck and shattered; there was a flash of bright, heatless light. The parrot's two heads squawked i terror; it fell off its perch and lay stunned at the bottom of its cage until morning.

Flagg began to pace rapidly back and forth. His teeth were bared. His hands worked together restlessly, the fingers of one warring with the fingers of the other. His boots struck up green- ish sparks from the niter-caked stones of his laboratory floor; these sparks smelled like summer lightning.

How? When? Who helped?

He could not remember. Already the dream was fading. But*

"I have to know!" he whispered. "I have to know!"

Because it would be soon; he sensed that much. It would be very, very soon.

He found his keyring and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a box made of finely carved ironwood, opened it, and drew out a leather bag. He opened the bag's drawstring top and carefully took out a chunk of rock that seemed to glow with its own inner light. This rock was as milky as an old man's blind eye. It looked like a piece of soapstone, but was in fact a crystal- Flagg's magic crystal.

He circled his room, turning down the lamps and capping the candles. Soon his apartment was in absolute darkness. Dark or not, Flagg returned to his desk with quick confidence, pa.s.sing easily around objects that you or I would have barked our shins on or fallen over. The dark was nothing to the King's magician; he liked the dark, and he could see in it like a cat.

He sat down and touched the stone. He slipped his palms down its sides, feeling its ragged edges and angles.

"Show me," he murmured. "This is my command."

At first, nothing. Then, little by little, the crystal began to glow from within. There was only a tiny light at first, diffuse and pallid. Flagg touched the crystal again, this time with the tips of his fingers. It had grown warm.

"Show me Peter. This is my command. Show me the whelp that dares put himself in my way, and show me what he plans to do."

The light grew brighter* brighter* brighter. Eyes glittering, cruel thin lips parted to show his teeth, Flagg bent over his crystal. Now Peter, Ben, Dennis, and Naomi would have recognized their dream-and they would have recognized the glow which lit the magician's face, the glow which was not a candle.

The crystal's milky cast suddenly disappeared, drawing into the brightening glow. Now Flagg could see into its heart. His eyes widened* then narrowed in bewilderment.

It was Sasha, very pregnant, sitting at a little boy's bed. The little boy was holding a slate. On it were written two words: G.o.d and DOG.

Impatiently, Flagg pa.s.sed his hands over the crystal, which now gave off waves of heat.

"Show me what I need to know! This is my command!"

The crystal cleared again.

It was Peter, playing with his dead mother's dollhouse, pretending the house and the family inside were being attacked by Indians* or dragons* or some foolish thing. The old King stood in the corner, watching his son, wanting to join in*

"Bah!" Flagg cried, waving his hands over the crystal again. "Why do you show me these old, meaningless stories? I need to know how he plans to escape* and when! Now show me! This is my command!"

The crystal had grown hotter and hotter. If he did not allow it to go dark soon, it would split apart forever, Flagg knew, and magic crystals were not easy to come by-it had taken thirty years of searching to find this one. But he would see it broken into a billion pieces before he gave up.

"This is my command!" he repeated again, and for the third time, the milkiness of the crystal drew inward. Flagg bent over it until its heat made his eyes water and gush tears. He slitted them* and then, in spite of the heat, they flew open wide in shock and fury.

It was Peter. Peter was slowly descending the side of the Needle. Surely this was some treacherous magic, because, although h was making hand-over-hand motions, there was no rope to be see Or* was there?

Flagg waved a hand in front of his face, dissipating the heat for a moment. A rope? Not exactly. But there was something* something as gossamer as a strand of spiderweb* and yet it bore his weight.

"Peter," Flagg breathed, and at the sound of his voice, the tiny figure looked around.

Flagg blew on the crystal and its bright, wavering light went out. He saw its afterglow in front of his eyes as he sat in the dark.

Peter. Escaping. When? It had been night in the crystal, and Flagg had seen errant, gritty sheaves of snow blowing past the tiny figure working its way down the rounded wall. Was it to be later tonight? Tomorrow night? Sometime next week? O Flagg pushed back from his desk and stood up with a lurch. His eyes filled with fire as he looked around his dark and stinking bas.e.m.e.nt rooms. -or had it happened already?

"Enough," he breathed. "By all the G.o.ds that ever were and ever will be, this is enough."

He strode across the darkened room and seized a huge weapon that hung on the wall. It was clumsy, but he held it with ease and familiarity. Familiar with it? Yes, of course he was! He had swung it many times when he had lived here and done business as Bill Hinch, the most feared executioner Delain had ever known. This terrible blade had bitten through hundreds of necks. Above the blades, which were of twice-forged Anduan steel, was Flagg's own modification-a spiked iron ball. Each spike had been tipped with poison.

"ENOUGH!" Flagg screamed again in a fury of rage and frustration and fear. The two-headed parrot, even in the depths of its unconsciousness, moaned at that sound.

{insert images on pages 292&293} Flagg pulled his cloak from the hook by the door, swept it over his shoulders, and fastened the clasp-a hammered-silver scarab beetle-at his throat.

It was enough. This time his plans would not be thwarted, certainly not by one hateful boy. Roland was dead, Peyna unbenched, the n.o.bles driven into exile. There was no one to raise an outcry over one dead prince* especially one who had murdered his own father.

If you have not escaped, my fine prince, you never will-and something tells me you're still in the coop. But part of you WILL leave tonight, I promise you that-that part I intend to carry out by the hair.

As he strode down the corridor toward the Dungeon Gate, Flagg began to laugh* a sound which would have given a stone statue bad dreams.

Flagg's intuition was right. Peter had finished going over his rope of twisted linen fibers, but he was still in his tower room, awaiting the Crier's announcement of midnight, when Flagg burst out of the Dungeon Gate and began to cross the Plaza of the Needle. The Church of the Great G.o.ds had fallen at quarter past eleven; it was quarter of twelve when the crystal showed Flagg what he wanted to know (and perhaps you'll agree with my idea that it tried to show him the truth in two other ways at first), and when Flagg started across the Plaza, it was still lacking ten minutes of midnight.

The Dungeon Gate was on the northeast side of the Needle. On the southwest side was a little castle entrance known as the Peddlers' Gate. A straight diagonal line could have been drawn between the Dungeon Gate and the Peddlers' Gate. At the exact midpoint of that line was the Needle itself, of course.

At almost the same time that Flagg came out of the Dungeon Gate, Ben, Naomi, Dennis, and Frisky came out of the Peddlers' Gate. They approached each other without knowing it. The Needle was between them, but the wind had dropped, and Ben's party should have heard the clang-rasp of Flagg's bootheels against the cobbles; Flagg should have heard the faint squeak of an ungreased wheel. But all of them, including Frisky (who was back to her old job of pulling again), were lost in their own thoughts.

Ben and his party reached the Needle first.

"Now-" Ben began, and at that moment, from the other side, less than forty paces around the outside perimeter from where they now stood, Flagg began to hammer on the triple-bolted Warders' Door.

"Open!" Flagg screamed. "Open in the name of the King!"

"What-" Dennis began, and then Naomi clamped a hand like steel over his mouth and looked at Ben with frightened eyes.

The voice came spiraling up to Peter on the cold post-storm air. It was faint, that voice, but perfectly clear.

"Open in the name of the King!"

Open in the name of h.e.l.l, you mean, Peter thought.

The good brave boy had become a good brave man, but when he heard that hoa.r.s.e voice and remembered that narrow white face and those reddish eyes, always shadowed by the hood of his robe, Peter's bones turned to ice and his stomach to fire. His mouth went as dry as a wood chip. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His hair stood on end. If someone has ever told you that being good and being brave means you will never be afraid, what that someone told you is not so. At that moment, Peter had never been so afraid in his whole life.

It's Flagg, and he's come for me.

Peter got up and, for a moment, he thought he was going to simply fall over as his legs buckled under him. Doom was down there, hammering at the Warders' Door to be let in.

"Open up! On your feet, you licey drunken b.u.g.g.e.rs! Beson, you son of a sot!"

Don't hurry, Peter told himself. If you hurry you'll make a mistake and do his work for him. No one's come to let him in yet. Beson's drunk-he was oddly at supper and probably paralyzed by the time he got to bed. Flagg hasn't a key or he wouldn't be wasting time knocking.

So* one step at a time. Just as you planned it. He's got to get in, and then climb those stairs-all three hundred of them. You may beat him yet.

He went into his bedroom and pulled out the rough iron cotter pins that held the crude bedframe together. The bed collapsed. Peter grabbed one of the iron side-bars and carried it back into the sitting room. He had measured this bar carefully and knew it was wider than his window, and while its outer surface was rusted, he thought it was strong yet through the middle. It had better be, he thought. It would be a bitter joke indeed if my rope held but my anchor broke.

He looked out briefly. He could see no one now, but he had observed three figures crossing the Plaza toward the Needle shortly before Flagg's wild pounding had begun. Dennis had recruited friends, then. Had one of them been Ben? Peter hoped so, but did not dare to really believe it. Who was the third? And why the wagon? They were questions he had no time for now.

"Oh, you dogs! Open this door! Open it in the King's name! Open it in the name of FLAGG! Open the door! Open-"

In the stillness of almost midnight, Peter heard the rattle-thud of the wrist-thick iron bolts far below being drawn back. He supposed the door opened, but he didn't hear that. Silence*

* and then a gurgling, choked scream.

The unfortunate Lesser Warder who finally answered Flagg's summons lived less than four seconds after drawing the third bolt on the Warders' Door. He caught a nightmare glimpse of a white face, glaring red eyes, and a black cloak that blew backward in the dying breeze like the wings of a raven. He screamed. Then the air was filled with a dry whooshing sound. The Lesser Warder, who was still half drunk, looked up just as Flagg's battle-axe split his head in two.

"Next time someone knocks in the name of the King, bestir yourselves and you won't have a mess to clean up in the morning!" Flagg bellowed. Then, laughing wildly, he kicked aside the body and stroke up the corridor toward the stairs. Things were still all right. He had awakened to the danger in time. He knew it.

He felt it.

He opened a door on the right and stepped into the main corridor leading away from the courtroom where Anders Peyna had once dispensed justice. At the end of that corridor, the stairs began. He looked up, grinning his dreadful, sharklike grin.

"Here I come, Peter!" he cried happily, his voice echoing and rebounding, spiraling up and up and up to where Peter stood preparing to tie his thin rope to the bar he had taken from the bed. "Here I come, dear Peter, to do what I should have done a long, long time ago!"

Flagg's grin broadened and now he looked terrible indeed he looked like a demon which might have climbed lately from some reeking pit in the earth. He raised the executioner's axe; drops of the slain warder's blood fell onto his face and ran down his cheeks like tears.

"Here I come, dear Peter, to chop off your head!" Flagg screamed and began to run up the stairs.

One. Three. Six. Ten.

Peter's shaking hands went wrong somehow. A knot he had made easily a thousand times before now fell apart and he had to start over again.

Don't let him scare you.

That was idiotic. He was scared, all right; scared green. Thomas would have been astounded to know that Peter had always been frightened of Flagg; Peter had just hid it better.

If he's going to kill you, make Him do it! Don't do it for him!

The thought came from inside his own head* but it sounded like his mother's voice. Peter's hands steadied a bit, and he began to knot the end of his rope to his anchor again.

I'll carry your head on my saddle horn for a thousand years!" Flagg screamed. Up and up, around and around. "Oh, what a pretty trophy you'll make!"

Twenty. Thirty. Forty.

His bootheels struck green fire from the stones. His eyes glared. His grin was poison.

"HERE I COME, PETER!".

Seventy-two hundred and thirty steps to go.

If you have ever awakened in a strange place in the middle of the night, you'll know that just to be alone in the dark can be frightening enough; now try to imagine waking in a secret pa.s.sage, looking through concealed eyeholes into the room where you saw your own father murdered!

Thomas shrieked. No one heard him (unless the dogs below did, and I doubt that-they were old, deaf, and making too much noise themselves).