"You'll pay with your heads!" Flagg shrieked. He was insane with rage. "You'll pay with your heads, all of you! Guards of the Watch, to the Needle! To the Needle! The regicide has escaped! To the Needle! Kill the murdering prince! Kill his gang! Kill them all!"
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.
135
Still 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!"
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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 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.
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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 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 th
ought, 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.
138
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 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.
139
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 pass!" Flagg roared. "Let me pass 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 God was kind. But I tell you, my own gods were saving you for me. Pray to your God 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 assume 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 it--and 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 hypnotical, 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 Gods, 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. Circumstances made Valera's guilt seem without question . . . as they made my guilt seem without question."
"Where did you find that, you little bastard?" 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 you!"
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."
140
Peter drew aside and made a half-turn, the hand with the locket hanging from it still out-stretched.
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.
141
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 hell, I care not! I killed you once! I can kill you again! Aiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeee--!"