The Eyes of the Dragon

111

At quarter past eleven on that momentous night, the storm breathed its last gasp. A tremendous cold gust of wind swept down on the castle. It ran in excess of a hundred miles an hour. It tore the thinning clouds overhead apart like the swipe of a great hand. Cold, watery moonlight shone through.

In the Third East'ard Alley was a squat stone tower called the Church of the Great Gods; it had stood there since time out of mind. Many people worshipped there, but it was empty now.

A good thing, too. The tower was not very tall-nowhere near the height of the Needle-but it nevertheless stood high above the neighboring buildings in the Third East'ard Alley, and all day long it had been punished by the unbroken force of the storm wind. This final gust was too much for it. The top thirty feet-all stone-simply blew off, as a hat might fly off a scare-crow in a high gale. Part landed in the alley; part hit the neigh-boring buildings. There was a tremendous crash.

Most of the populace of the castle keep, wearied by the ex-citement of the storm and already sleeping deeply, took no mind of the fall of the Church of the Great Gods (although they would wonder greatly over the snow-covered wreckage in the morn-ing). Most simply muttered, turned over, and went back to sleep.

Some Guards of the Watch-those not too drunk to care-, heard it, of course, and ran to see what had happened. Other than by these few, the fall of the tower went mostly unremarked when it happened… but there were a few others who heard it, and by now you know them all.

Ben, Dennis, and Naomi, who were getting ready for their attempt to rescue the rightful King, heard it in the napkin store-room, and looked around at each other with wide eyes. “Never mind,” Ben said, after a moment. “I don’t know what it was, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s get on with it.”

Beson and the Lesser Warders, all of them drunk, didn’t hear the Church of the Great Gods fall down, but Peter did. He was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, carefully pulling his woven rope through his fingers, looking anxiously for weak points. He raised his head at the snow-muted thunder of falling stones, and went rapidly to the window. He could see nothing; whatever had fallen was on the Needle’s far side. After several considering moments, he went back to his rope. Midnight was close now, and he had come to much the same conclusion as his friend Ben. It didn’t matter. The dice had been thrown. Now he must go on.

Deep in the darkness of the secret passage, Thomas heard the muffled thunder-thud of the falling tower and woke up. He heard the muffled 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.