"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 pa.s.s."
There was a long moment of silence. Galen held his sword u again as if to run Peter through. Peter did not flinch. He owed the G.o.ds 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 pa.s.s," 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 pa.s.s," a second voice said unexpectedly. "By G.o.ds, 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 get 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 compa.s.s.
"Come on," Peter said. "Follow me. The West Gate!"
Flagg 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 pa.s.sed the cowering guards without looking around. They sighed with relief, thinking he must not have seen them* bu 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.
The 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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.
Thomas 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 gla.s.sy 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.
Thomas 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.
Both were gone.
Dennis, the last one in, had closed the door behind him and shot the bolt. Now a single great blow fell on that door. The stout hardwood panels, reinforced with bands of iron, boomed.
Peter looked over his shoulder, eyes widening. Dennis and Naomi cringed backward. Frisky stood before her mistress, snarling. Her gray-green eyes showed the whites all around.
"Let me pa.s.s!" Flagg roared. "Let me pa.s.s the door!"
"Peter!" Ben shouted, and drew his sword.
"Stand away!" Peter shouted back. "If you value your lives stand away! All of you, stand away!"
They scattered back just as Flagg"s fist, now glowing with blue fire, slammed down against the door again. Hinges, bolt, and iron bands all burst at the same time with the noise of an exploding cannon. Blue fire spoked through the cracks between the boards in narrow rays. Then the stout planks burst apart. Shattered chunks of wood flew in a spray. The ragged remains of the door stood for a moment longer and then fell inward with a handclap sound.
Flagg stood in the corridor, his hood fallen back. His face was waxen white. His lips were strips of liver drawn back to show his teeth. His eyes flared with furnace fire.
In his hand he grasped his heavy executioner"s axe.
He stood there a moment longer and then stepped inside. He looked left and saw Dennis. He looked right, and saw Ben and Naomi, with Frisky hunched, snarling, at her feet. His eyes marked them* catalogued them for future reference* and dismissed them. He strode through the remains of the door, now looking only at Peter.
"You fell but you did not die," he said. "You may think your G.o.d was kind. But I tell you, my own G.o.ds were saving you for me. Pray to your G.o.d now that your heart should burst apart in your chest. Fall on your knees and pray for that, because I tell you that my death will be much worse than any you can imagine.
Peter stood where he was, between Flagg and his father"s chair, where Thomas sat, as yet unseen by all the others. Peter met Flagg"s infernal gaze, unafraid. For a moment Flagg seemed to flinch under that firm gaze, and then his inhuman grin blazed forth.
"You and your friends have caused me great trouble, my prince," Flagg whispered. "Great trouble. I should have ended your miserable life long ago. But now all troubles will end."
"I know you," Peter replied. Although he was unarmed, his voice was steady and unafraid. "I think my father knew you, too, although he was weak. Now I a.s.sume my kingship, and I command you, demon!"
Peter drew himself up to his full height. The flames in the fireplace reflected from his eyes, making them blaze. In that moment, Peter was every inch Delain"s King.
"Get you gone from here. Leave Delain behind, now and forever. You are cast out. GET YOU GONE!"
Peter thundered this last in a voice which was greater than his own; he thundered in a voice that was many voices-all the Kings and Queens there had ever been in Delain, stretching back to the time when the castle had been little more than a collection of mud huts and people had drawn together in terror around their fires during the darks of winter as the wolves howled and the trolls gobbled and screamed in the Great Forests of Yestertime.
Flagg seemed to flinch again* almost to cringe. Then he came forward-slowly, very slowly. His huge axe swung in his left hand.
"You may command in the next world," he whispered. "By escaping, you"ve played into my hands. If I"d thought of hand in time I should have-I would have engineered a trumped up escape myself! Oh, Peter, your head will roll into the fire and you"ll smell your hair burning before your brain knows you"re dead. You"ll burn as your father burned* and they"ll give me a medal for it in the Plaza! For did you not murder your own father for the crown?"
"You murdered him," Peter said.
Flagg laughed. "I? I? You"ve gone insane in the Needle, my boy." Flagg sobered. His eyes glittered. "But suppose just for an instant-suppose I did? Who would believe it?"
Peter still held the chain of the locket looped over his right hand. Now he held that hand out and the locket hung below it, swinging hypnotically, raying flashes of ruddy light on the wall. At the sight of it, Flagg"s eyes widened and Peter thought: He recognizes it! By all the G.o.ds, he recognizes it!
"You killed my father, and it wasn"t the first time you"d arranged things in the same way. You had forgotten, hadn"t you? I see it in your eyes. When Leven Valera stood in your way during the evil days of Alan II, his wife was found poisoned. Circ.u.mstances made Valera "s guilt seem without question* as they made my guilt seem without question."
"Where did you find that, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" Flagg whispered, and Naomi gasped.
"Yes, you forgot," Peter repeated. "I think that, sooner or later, things like you always begin to repeat themselves, because things like you know only a very few simple tricks. After a while, someone always sees through them. I think that is all that saves us, ever.
The locket hung and swung in the firelight.
"Who would care now?" Peter asked. "Who would believe? Many. If they believed nothing else, they would believe you are as old as their hearts tell them you are, monster."
"Give it to me!"
"You killed Eleanor Valera, and you killed my father."
"Yes, I brought him the wine," Flagg said, his eyes blazing, "and I laughed when his guts burned, and I laughed harder when you were taken up the stairs to the top of the Needle. But those who hear me say so in this room will all soon be dead, and no one saw me bring wine to these rooms! They only saw your"
And then, from behind Peter, a new voice spoke. It was not strong, that voice; it was so low it could scarcely be heard, and it trembled. But it struck all of them-Flagg included-dumb with wonder.
"There was one other who saw," Peter"s brother, Thomas, said from the shadowed depths of his father"s chair. "I saw you, magician.
{insert image on page 319} Peter drew aside and made a half-turn, the hand with the locket hanging from it still outstretched.
Thomas! he tried to say, but he could not speak, so struck was he by wonder and horror at the changes in his brother. He had grown fat and somehow old. He had always looked more like Roland than Peter had, and now the resemblance was so great it was eerie.
Thomas! he tried to say again, and realized why the bow and arrow were no longer in their places above the head of Niner. The bow was in Thomas"s lap, and the arrow was nocked in the gut string.
It was then that Flagg shrieked and threw himself forward, raising the great executioner"s axe over his head.
It was not a shriek of rage but of terror. Flagg"s white face was drawn; his hair stood on end. His mouth trembled loosely. Peter had been surprised by the resemblance but knew his brother; Flagg was fooled completely by the flickering fire and the deep shadows cast by the wings of the chair in which Thomas sat.
He forgot Peter. It was the figure in the chair he charged with the axe. He had killed the old man once by poison, and yet here he was again, sitting in his smelly mead-soaked robe, sitting with his bow and arrow in his hands, looking at Flagg with haggard, accusing eyes.
"Ghost!" Flagg shrieked. "Ghost or demon from h.e.l.l, I care not! I killed you once! I can kill you again! Aiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeee -!"
Thomas had always excelled at archery. Although he rarely hunted, he had gone often to the archery ranges during the years of Peter"s imprisonment, and, drunk or sober, he had his father"s eye. He had a fine yew bow, but he had never drawn one like this. It was light and limber, and yet he felt an amazing strength in its lancewood bolt. It was a huge but graceful weapon, eight feet from end to end, and he did not have room to draw fully while sitting down; yet he pulled its ninety-pound draw with no strain at all.
Foe-Hammer was perhaps the greatest arrow ever made, its bolt of sandalwood, its three feathers honed from the wing of an Anduan peregrine, its tip of flashed steel. It grew hot at the draw; he felt its heat bake his face like an open furnace.
"You told me only lies, magician," Thomas said softly. He released.
The arrow flew from the bow. As it crossed the room, it pa.s.sed directly through the center of Leven Valera"s locket, which still dangled from the stunned Peter"s outstretched fist. The gold chain parted with a tiny c.h.i.n.k! sound.
As I have told you, ever since that night in the north forests when he and the troop he had commanded had camped following their fruitless expedition in search of the exiles, Flagg had been plagued by a dream he couldn"t remember. He always awoke from it with his hand pressed to his left eye, as if he had been wounded there. The eye would burn for minutes after he awoke, although he could find nothing wrong with it.
Now the arrow of Roland, bearing the heart-shaped locket of Valera on its tip, flew across Roland"s sitting room and plunged into that eye.
Flagg screamed. The two-bladed axe dropped from his hands, and the haft of that blood-soaked weapon shattered apart once and for all when it struck the floor. He staggered backward, one eye glaring at Thomas. The other had been replaced by a golden heart with Peter"s blood drying at the tip. From around the edges of that heart, some stinking black fluid-it was most a.s.suredly not blood-dribbled out.
Flagg shrieked again, dropped to his knees- and suddenly he was gone.
Peter"s eyes widened. Ben Staad cried out. For a moment Flagg"s clothes held his shape; for a moment the arrow hung in empty air with the pierced heart dangling from it. Then the clothes crumpled and Foe-Hammer clattered to the cobbles. Its steel tip was smoking. So it had smoked, long ago, when Roland pulled it from the dragon"s throat. The heart glowed a dull red for a moment, and forever after its shape was branded into the stones where it fell when the magician disappeared.
Peter turned to his brother.
Thomas"s unearthly calm broke apart. No longer did he look like Roland; he looked like a scared and horribly tired little boy.
"Peter, I"m sorry," he said, and he began to cry. "I am sorrier than you will ever know. You"ll kill me now, I guess, and I deserve to be killed-yes, I know I do-but before you do, I"ll tell you something: I"ve paid. Yes, I have. Paid and paid and paid. Now kill me, if such is your pleasure."
Thomas raised his throat and closed his eyes. Peter walked toward him. The others held their breaths, their eyes wide and round.
Gently, then, Peter pulled his brother from his father"s chair and embraced him.
Peter held his brother until the storm of his weeping had pa.s.sed, and told him that he loved him and would always love him; then both wept, there below the dragon"s head with their father"s bow at their feet; and at some point, the others stole from the room and left the two brothers alone.
Did they all live happily ever after?
They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing that they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their G.o.d had meant them to stand. All I"m trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I love them all, and am not ashamed of my love.
Thomas and Peter went to Delain"s new judge-General together, and Peter was taken back into custody. His second stint as a prisoner of the Kingdom was much shorter than the first- only two hours. It took Thomas fifteen minutes to tell his tale, and the judge-General, who had been appointed with Flagg"s approval and who was a timid little creature, took another hour and three-quarters to verify that the terrible magician was really gone.
Then all charges were overturned.
That evening all of them-Peter, Thomas, Ben, Naomi, Dennis, and even Frisky-met in Peter"s old rooms. Peter poured wine all around, even giving Frisky some in a little dish. Only Thomas declined the vintage.
Peter wanted Thomas to stay with him, but Thomas insisted-rightly, I think-that if he stayed, the citizens would tear him apart for what he had allowed to happen.
"You were only a child," Peter said, "controlled by a powerful creature who terrified you."
With a sad grin, Thomas replied: "That is partly true, but people would not remember that, Pete. They"d remember Tommy Tax-Bringer, and come for me. They"d tear through stone to get to me, I think. Flagg"s gone, but I"m here. My head is a silly thing, but I"ve decided I"d like to keep it on my shoulders a while longer." He paused, seemed to debate, and then went on. "And I"m best away. My hate and jealousy were like a fever. It"s no gone, but after a few years of being in your shadow as you ruled, I might relapse. I"ve come to know myself a little bit, you see. Yes-a little bit. No; I must leave, Peter, and tonight. The sooner the better."
"But* where will you go?"
"On a quest," Thomas said simply. "To the south, I think. You may see me again, but you may not. I"ll go south on a quest* I have many things on my conscience, and much to atone for."
"What quest?" Ben asked.
"To find Flagg," Thomas replied. "He"s out there, some-where. In this world or in some other, he"s out there. I know it; I feel his poison in the wind. He got away from us at the last second. You all know it, and I do, too. I would find him and kill him. I would avenge our father and make up for my own great sin. And I would go into the south first, for I sense him there."
Peter said, "But who"ll go with you? I can"t-there"s too much to do here. But I won"t just allow you to go alone!" He looked very concerned, and if you had seen a map of those days, you would have understood his expression, for the south was nothing but a great white s.p.a.ce on the maps.
Surprising all of them, Dennis said: "I would go, my Lord King.
Both brothers looked toward him, surprised. Ben and Naomi also turned, and Frisky looked up from her wine, which she was lapping with cheerful enthusiasm (she liked the smell, which was a cool, velvety purple; not as good as the taste, but almost).
Dennis blushed mightily, but he didn"t sit down.
"You were always a good master, Thomas, and- beggin " your pardon, King Peter-something inside me says you"re my master still. And since I was the one to find that mouse and send you to the Needle, my King-"
"Bosh!" Peter said. "That"s all forgotten."
"Not by me, it ain"t," Dennis said stubbornly. "You could say I was young, too, and didn"t know no better, but maybe I"ve my own mistakes to atone for."
He looked at Thomas, shyly.