The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King [103]
Go back, a cowardly voice inside him begged, but Dennis knew he couldn't. His father had laid a charge on him, and if the gods meant him to die trying to fulfill it, then he would die.
Faint and yet clear, like a voice heard in a dream, came the call of the Crier, drifting out to him from the castle's central tower: "Twelve o'clock and all's well "
Nothing's well, Dennis thought miserably. Not one single thing. He drew his thin coat more tightly around him and began the long job of waiting down the moon.
Eventually it left the sky, and Dennis knew he had to move. Time had grown short. He stood, said a brief prayer to his gods, and began to walk across the open space as rapidly as he could, expecting a hail of Who goes there? from the castle walls at every moment. The hail did not come. The clouds had thickened across the night sky. All below the castle wall was one dark shadow. In less than ten minutes, Dennis had reached the edge of the moat. He sat on its low bank, the snow crunching under his bottom, and took the snowshoes off. He slid down onto the moat itself, which was frozen and covered with more snow.
Dennis's thundering heart slowed down. He was in the shadow of the bulking castle wall now, and would not be seen unless a sentry happened to look straight down, and most probably not even then.
Dennis was careful not to go all the way across the moat, not yet-because the ice close to the castle wall would be rotten and thin. He knew why this was so; the reason for the thin ice and the unpleasant smell here and the mossy wetness on the huge stones of the outer wall was his hope of entering the castle secretly. He moved carefully to the left, ears listening for the noise of running water.
At last he heard it, and looked up. There, at eye height, was a round black hole in the solid castle wall. Fluid ran from it in listless streams. It was a sewer outflow pipe.
"Now for it," Dennis muttered. He drew back five paces, ran, and leaped. As he did, he felt the ice, rotted by the constant outflow of warm waste from the pipe, give under his feet. Then he was clinging to the mossy lip of the pipe. It was slick, and he had to clutch hard to keep from falling. He pulled himself up, digging for purchase with his feet, and finally yanked himself inside. He paused for a moment, trying to get his breath back, then began to crawl along the pipe, which slanted steadily up-ward. He and several of his playmates had found these pipes when they were children, and had been quickly warned off by their parents, partly because they might become lost, mostly because of the sewer rats. Still, Dennis thought he knew where he would come out.
An hour later, in a deserted corridor of the castle's east wing, a sewer grating moved-was still-then moved again. It was shoved partway aside, and a few moments later a very dirty (and very smelly) butler named Dennis pulled himself out of a hole in the floor and lay panting on the cold cobbles. He, could have used a longer rest, but someone might come along, even at this unearthly hour. So he replaced the grating and looked around.
He did not recognize the hallway at once, but this in no way upset him. He started down it toward the T-intersection at the far end. At least, he reflected, there had been no rats in the warren of sewer pipes below the castle. That had been a great relief. He had been prepared for them, not just because of the gruesome tales his da ' had told him, but because there had been rats on a few occasions when he and his mates had ventured with fearful screeches of laughter down into the pipes as children-the rats had been part