The Eyes of the Dragon (42 page)

But he preferred to let matters take their course, and a moment after he had challenged the voices, matters did take their course.

The rope's breaking strain was reached. It parted with a twang like a lute string that has been wound too far on its peg.

“Goodbye, birdie,” Flagg cried happily, leaning far out to watch Peter's fall. He was laughing. “Goodb—”

Then his voice ceased and his eyes widened as they had when he looked into the crystal and saw the tiny figure descending the side of the Needle. He opened his mouth and screamed with rage. That awful cry woke up more people in Delain than the fall of the Tower.

P
eter heard that twanging sound, felt the rope part.

Cold wind rushed up past his face. He tried to steel himself for the crash, knowing it would come in less than a second. The pain if he didn't die instantly would be the worst.

And that was when Peter struck the thick, deep drift of royal napkins which Frisky had hauled out of the castle and across the Plaza in a stolen cart—the royal napkins which Ben, Dennis, and Naomi had worked so feverishly to pile up. The size of that pile—it looked like a whitewashed haystack—was never really known, because Ben, Dennis, and Naomi all had different estimates on the subject. Perhaps Peter's own idea was the best, since he was the one who fell squarely into the middle of it—he believed that messy, lovely, lifesaving pile of napkins must have been at least twenty feet high, and for all I know, he may have been right.

H
e fell squarely into the middle, as I have said, making a crater. Then he fell over on his back and lay still. Far above, Ben heard Flagg howl with rage and he thought:
You don't need to do that,
everything's going to be just fine for you, magician. He has died anyway, in spite of all we could do.

Then Peter sat up. He looked dazed but very much alive. In spite of Flagg, in spite of the fact that there might be Guards of the Watch racing toward them at that moment, Ben Staad whooped. It was a sound of pure triumph. He grabbed Naomi and kissed her.

“Hoorah!”
Dennis cried, grinning dizzily.
“Hoorah
for the King!”

Then Flagg screeched again far above them—the sound of a devil-bird cheated of its prey. The whooping, the kissing, and the hoorahing all stopped right then.

And in the castle that surrounded the Plaza of the Needle on all four sides, windows began to be lit . . . and from two sides came the sound of running feet and the clash of metal as swords were drawn.

“Kill the prince!”
Flagg shrieked hellishly from the top of the Needle.
“Kill his gang! KILL THEM ALL!”

Peter tried to get up, floundered, and fell over again. Part of his mind was crying out urgently that he must get on his feet, that they must be away or they would be killed . . . but another part insisted that he was already dead, or severely wounded, and all of this was only a dream of his perishing mind. He seemed to have landed in a bed of the very napkins which had occupied so much of his mind over the last five years . . . and how could that be anything but a dream?

Ben's strong hand gripped his upper arm, and he knew it was all real, all happening.

“Peter, are you all right? Are you really all right?”

“Not hurt a bit,” Peter said. “We have to get away from here.”

“My King!”
Dennis cried, falling on his knees before the dazed Peter and grinning the same dizzy, foolish grin.
“My oath of fealty forever! I swear my—”

“Swear later!” Peter cried, laughing in spite of himself. As Ben had pulled him to his feet, so Peter now pulled Dennis to his. “Let's get out of here!”

“Which gate?” Ben asked. He knew—as Peter did himself—that Flagg would already be on his way back down. “They come from all sides, by the sound.”

In truth, Ben thought any direction would do for the battle which would surely come, and result in their eventual slaughter. But, dazed or not, Peter knew perfectly well where he wanted to go.

“The West Gate,” he said, “and quickly!
Run!
”

The four of them ran, Frisky at their heels.

S
till fifty yards from the West Gate, Peter's band met a party of seven sleepy, confused guards. Most of them had sheltered from the storm in one of the warm Lower Kitchens of the castle, drinking mead and exclaiming to one another that they would have something to tell their grandchildren about. They did not know the half of what they would have to tell their grandchildren about, as it happened. Their “leader” was a manboy of just twenty, and only a goshawk . . . what we would call a corporal, I suppose. Still, he hadn't had anything to drink and was reasonably alert. And he was determined to do his duty.

“Halt in the name of the King!” he called out as Peter's group closed with his slightly larger one. He tried to thunder this command, but a storyteller should tell as much of the truth as he can, and I must tell you that the goshawk's voice was more squeak than thunder.

Peter was unarmed, of course, but Ben and Naomi both carried shortswords, and Dennis had his rusty dagger. All three of them at once pushed in front of Peter. Ben's and Naomi's hands went to their hilts. Dennis had already pulled his dagger.

“Stop!”
Peter cried; his voice was thunder. “You must not draw!”

Surprised—shocked, even—Ben threw a glance at Peter.

Peter stepped to the fore. He stood with his eyes flashing moonlight and his beard riffling in the light, chill-edged wind. He was dressed in the rough clothes of a prisoner, but his face was commanding and regal.

“Halt in the name of the King, you say,” Peter said. He stepped calmly toward the terrified goshawk until the two of them were almost chest to chest—less than six inches separated them. The guard fell back a step in spite of his own drawn sword and the fact that Peter's hands were empty. “And yet I tell you, goshawk:
I am the King.”

The guard licked his lips. He looked around at his men.

“But . . .” he began. “You . . .”

“What is your name?” Peter asked quietly.

The goshawk gaped. He could have run Peter through in a second, but he only gaped helplessly, like a fish drawn from water.

“Your name, goshawk?”

“My Lord . . . I mean . . . prisoner . . . you . . . I . . .” The young soldier fumbled once more and then said helplessly, “My name is Galen.”

“And do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” one of the others growled. “We know you,
murderer
.”

“I did not murder my father,” Peter said quietly. “It was the King's magician who did that. He is hot behind us now, and I advise you—very strongly, I advise you—to 'ware of him. Soon he will trouble Delain no more; I promise this on my father's name. But for now you must let me pass.”

There was a long moment of silence. Galen held his sword up again as if to run Peter through. Peter did not flinch. He owed the gods a death; it was a debt he had owed ever since he had come a shrieking, naked baby from his mother's belly. It was a debt every man and woman in creation owed. If he was to pay that debt now, let it be so . . . but he was the rightful King, not a rebel, not a usurper, and he would not run, or stand aside, or let his friends hurt this lad.

The sword wavered. Then Galen let it fall until the tip of the blade touched the frozen cobbles.

“Let 'em pass,” he muttered. “Mayhap he murdered, mayhap he didn't—all I know is that it's royal muck and I'll not step into it, lest I drown in a quicksand of Kings and princes.”

“You had a wise mother, goshawk,” Ben Staad said grimly.

“Yes, let 'im pass,” a second voice said unexpectedly. “By gods, I'll not strike my blade at such—from the look of 'im, it would burn off my hand when it went in.”

“You will be remembered,” Peter said. He looked around at his friends. “Follow me now,” he said, “and be quick. I know what I must have, and I know where to oet it.”

At that moment Flagg burst from the base of the Needle, and such a howl of rage and fury rose in the night that the young guards quailed before it. They backed up, turned, and ran, scattering to the four pegs of the compass.

“Come on,” Peter said. “Follow me. The West Gate!”

F
lagg ran as he had never run before. He sensed the oncoming ruin of all his plans now, at what was practically the last moment. It must not happen! And he knew as well as Peter where all of this must end.

He passed the cowering guards without looking around. They sighed with relief, thinking he must not have seen them . . . but Flagg did. He saw them all, and marked each; after Peter died, their heads would decorate the tower walls for a year and a day, he thought. As for the brat in charge of their patrol—he would die a thousand deaths in the dungeon first.

He ran under the arch of the West Gate, and down the Main Western Gallery into the castle itself. Sleepy folk, who had come out in their nightclothes to see what all this row was about, cowered before his whitely burning face and fell aside, forking their first and last fingers at him to ward off evil . . . for now Flagg looked like what Flagg really was: a demon. He vaulted over the banister of the first staircase he came to, landed on his feet (the iron on his heels flashed green fire like the eyes of lynxes), and ran on.

On toward Roland's apartments.

T
he locket,” Peter panted to Dennis as they ran. “Do you still have the locket I threw down?”

Dennis clutched at his throat, and found the golden heart—Peter's own blood dried on the tip—and nodded.

“Give it to me.”

Dennis passed it to him as they ran. Peter did not put the chain over his neck, but looped it in his fist so that the heart bounced and spun as he ran, flashing red-gold in the light of the wall sconces.

“Soon, my friends,” Peter panted.

They turned a corner. Ahead Peter saw the door to his father's apartments. It was here that he had last seen Roland. He had been a King, responsible for the lives and welfare of thousands; he had also been an old man grateful for a warming glass of wine and a few minutes of talk with his son. It was here that it would end.

Once upon a time, his father had slain a dragon with an arrow called Foe-Hammer.

Now,
Peter thought, as blood pounded in his temples and his heart raced hotly in his chest,
I must try to slay another dragon—a much greater one—with that same arrow.

T
homas lit the fire, donned his dead father's robe, and drew Roland's chair close to the hearth. He felt that he would soon fall soundly asleep, and that was very good. But as he sat there, owlishly nodding, looking around at the trophies mounted on the walls with their glassy eyes sparkling eerily in the flames, it occurred to him that he wanted two more things—things that were almost sacred, things he would certainly never have dared touch when his father was alive. But Roland was dead, so Thomas had taken another chair to stand on, and from the wall he had taken down his father's bow and his father's great arrow, Foe-Hammer, from their places on the wall above Niner's head. For a moment he stared directly into one of the dragon's green-amber eyes. He had seen much through these eyes, but now, looking into them, he saw nothing but his own pallid face, like the face of a prisoner looking out of a cell.

Although everything in the room had been numbingly cold (the fire would warm things up, at least around the fireplace, but it would take a while), he thought that the arrow was strangely warm. He vaguely remembered an old tale he had heard as a small child—according to this tale, a weapon used to slay a dragon never lost the dragon's heat.
It seems that tale was true,
Thomas thought sleepily. But there was nothing scary about the arrow's heat; in fact, it seemed comforting. Thomas sat down with the bow clutched loosely in one hand and Foe-Hammer with its strange, sleeping warmth clutched in the other, never realizing that his brother was now coming in search of this very weapon, and that Flagg—the author of his birth and the Chief Warder of his life—was hot on Peter's heels.

T
homas hadn't stopped to consider what he would do if the door to his father's rooms had been locked, and Peter never did, either—in the old days it never had been, and as things turned out, the door wasn't locked now.

Peter had to do no more than lift the latch. He burst in, the others hot on his heels. Frisky was barking wildly, all of her fur standing on end. Frisky understood the true nature of things better, I'll warrant. Something was coming, something with a black scent like the poison fumes that sometimes killed the coal miners of the Eastern Barony when their tunnels went too deep. Frisky would fight the owner of that scent if she had to; fight and even die. But if she could have spoken, Frisky would have told them that the black scent approaching them from behind did not belong to a man; it was a monster chasing them, some horrible It.

“Peter, what—” Ben began, but Peter ignored him. He knew what he must have. He rushed across the room on his exhausted, trembling legs, looked up at the head of Niner, and reached for the bow and the arrow that had always hung above that head. Then his hand faltered.