Peter went back into his sitting room. He glanced at the door and saw that the spyhole was closed. Dimly he could hear the warders at cards below. He crossed to the window and waved twice, hoping that Dennis was really out there somewhere, and could see him. He would just have to hope so.
Peter went back to the bedroom, pulled up the loose stone, and after some reaching and fumbling, retrieved the locket and the parchment. He turned the parchment over to the blank side... but what was he to do for ink?
After a moment the answer came to him. The same thing Valera had done, of course.
Peter worked at his thin straw mattress, and after some tugging opened a seam. The stuffing was of straw, and before long, he had found a number of good long stalks that would serve as pens. Then he opened the locket. It was in the shape of a heart, and the point at the bottom was sharp. Peter closed his eyes for a moment and said a brief prayer. Then he opened them and drew the point of the locket across his wrist. Blood welled up at once-much more than had came from the pinprick earlier. He dipped the first straw in his blood and began to write.
Chapter 15
102
Standing in the cold darkness across the Plaza, Dennis saw Peter's shape come to the small window at the top of the Needle. He saw Peter raise his arms over his head and cross them twice. There would be a message, then. It doubled-no, trebled-his risk, but he was glad.
He settled in to wait, feeling numbness slowly creep over his feet and kill the feeling in them. The wait seemed very long. The Crier called ten... then eleven... finally twelve o' the clock. The clouds had hidden the moon, but the air seemed strangely light-another sign of a coming storm.
He was beginning to think that Peter must have forgotten him, or changed his mind, when that shape came to the window again. Dennis straightened up, wincing at a pain in his neck, which had been cocked upward for the last four hours. He thought he saw something arc out... and then Peter's shape left the high window. A moment later, the light up there was extin-guished.
Dennis looked left and right, saw no one, took all of his cour-age in his hands, and ran out into the Plaza. He knew perfectly well that there might be someone-a more alert Guard o' the Watch than last night's tuneless singer, for instance-whom he hadn't seen, but there was nothing to be done about that. He was also gruesomely aware of all the men and women who had been beheaded not far from here. What if their ghosts were still around, lurking-?
But thinking about such things did no good, and so he tried to put them from his mind. Of more immediate concern was just finding the thing that Peter had thrown. The area at the foot of the Needle below Peter's window was a featureless white snowfield.
Feeling horribly exposed, Dennis began to cast about like an inept hunting dog. He wasn't sure what he had seen glimmering in the air-it had been there only for a second-but it had looked solid. That made sense; Peter would not have thrown a piece of paper, which might have fluttered anywhere. But what, and where was it?
As the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes, Dennis began to feel more and more frantic. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl about, peering into footprints which had melted to the size of dragon prints earlier that day and which were now refreezing, hard and blue and shiny. Sweat coursed down his face. And he began to be deviled by a recurring idea -that a hand would fall on his shoulder, and when he turned he would see the grinning face of the King's magician inside his dark cowl.
A little late for hide and seek, isn't it, Dennis? Flagg would say, and although his grin would widen, his eyes would burn a bale-ful, hellish red. What have you lost? Can I help you find it?
Don't think his name! For the gods' sake, don't think his name!
But it was hard to stop. Where was it? Oh, where was it?
Back and forth Dennis crawled, his hands now as numb as his feet. Back and forth, back and forth. Where was it? Bad enough if he was unable to find it. Worse still if the snow held off until morning light and someone else did. Gods knew what it might say.
Dimly, he heard the Crier call one o' the clock. He was now covering ground he had already covered before, becoming more and more panicky.
Stop, Dennis. Stop, boy.
His Da's voice, too clear in his head to be mistaken. Dennis had been on his hands and knees, his nose almost on the ground. Now he straightened up a little.
You're not SEEING anything anymore, boy. Stop and close your eyes for a moment. And when you open 'em, look around. Really look around.
Dennis closed his eyes tight and then opened them wide. This time, he looked around almost casually, scanning the whole snowy, tracked area around the foot of the Needle.
Nothing. Nothing at-
Wait! There! Over there!
Something glimmered.