Location:Seven Peaks — the boy's room; the Medicine Hall
Date/Time:TC1858.03.10 – TC1858.03.11
The north gate bell was going, and not the way it rang for a rider.
Hesper Ashby heard the first stroke in the chair by the door and thought it was two. She waited for the second, and it came, and then a third came on top of it, and a fourth, and after that she stopped waiting and only listened. It went on. Whoever was on the rope wasn't counting. They were pulling as fast as the bell would swing back.
The boy sat up in bed.
He didn't cry out. He sat up as he did when he woke in the night for no reason, all at once, with the blanket sliding off his shoulders and the stone in his fist. The lamp on its hook by the door gave him the edge of its light and no more. His face was turned toward the sound, toward the wall behind the bed, which was the north wall. The window was on the east.
"That's not a rider," he said.
"No."
"A rider's two."
Hesper nodded.
