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 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 compass.
“Come on,” Peter said. “Follow me. The West Gate!”
136
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.
137
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 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.
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, FoeHammer, 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.