The Eyes Of The Dragon Part 22

Now, there was an idea about sleepwalking in Detain-one that has also been commonly held as the truth in our world. This idea is that if a sleepwalker wakes up before returning to his or her bed, he or she will go mad.

Thomas might have heard this tale. If so, he could attest that it wasn't true at all. He'd had a bad scare, and he had screamed, but he did not come even close to going mad.

In fact, his initial fright pa.s.sed rather quickly-more quickly than some of you might think-and he looked back into the peepholes again. This may strike some of you as strange, but you have to remember that, before the terrible night when Flagg had come with his own gla.s.s of wine after Peter left, Thomas had spent some pleasant times in this dark pa.s.sageway. The pleasantness had a sour undertone of guilt, but he had also felt close to his father. Now, being back here, he felt a queer sense of nostalgia.

He saw that the room had hardly changed at all. The stuffed heads were still there- Bonsey the elk, Craker the lynx, Snapper the great white bear from the north. And, of course, Niner the dragon, which he now looked through, with Roland's bow and the arrow Foe-Hammer mounted above it.

Bonsey* Craker* Snapper* Niner.

I remember all their names, Thomas thought with some wonder. And I remember you, Dad. I wish you were alive now and that Peter was free, even if it meant no one even knew I was alive. At least I could sleep at night.

Some of the furniture had been covered with white dust-sheets, but most had not. The fireplace was cold and dark, but a fire had been laid. Thomas saw with mounting wonder that even his father's old robe was still there, hung in its accustomed plac on the hook by the bathroom door. The fireplace was cold, but it wanted only a match struck and held to the kindling to bring it alive, roaring and warm; the room wanted only his father to do the same for it.

Suddenly Thomas became aware of a strange, almost eerie desire in himself; he wanted to go into that room. He wanted to light the fire. He wanted to put on his father's robe. He wanted to drink a gla.s.s of his father's mead. He would drink it even if it had gone bad and bitter. He thought* he thought he might be able to sleep in there.

A wan, tired smile dawned on the boy's face, and he decided to do it. He wasn't even afraid of his father's ghost. He almost hoped it would come. If it did, he could tell his father something.

He could tell his father he was sorry.

Coming, PETER!" Flagg shrieked, grinning. He smelled like blood and doom; his eyes were deadly fire. The headsman's axe swished and whickered, and a last few drops of blood flew from the blade and splashed on the walls. "COMING motes! COMING FOR YOUR HEAD!"

Up and around, up and around, higher and higher. He was a devil with murder on his mind.

A hundred. A hundred and twenty-five.

Faster," Ben Staad panted to Dennis and Naomi. The temperature had begun to fall again, but all three of them were sweating. Some of the sweat came from exertion-they were working very hard. But much of their sweat had been caused by fear. They could hear Flagg shrieking. Even Frisky, with her brave heart, felt afraid. She had withdrawn a little and huddled on her haunches, whimpering.

COMING, YOU LITTLE WHELP!".

Closer now-his voice was flatter, with less echo.

"COMING TO DO WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE ALONG TIME AGO!".

The twin blades swished and whickered.

This time the knot held.

G.o.ds help me, Peter thought, and looked back once more toward the sound of Flagg's rising, shrieking voice. G.o.ds help me now.

Peter threw one leg out the window. Now he sat astride the sill as if it were Peony's saddle, one leg on the stone floor of his sitting room, the other dangling over the drop. He held the heap of his rope and the iron bar from his bed in his lap. He tossed the rope out the window, watching as it fell. It tangled and bound up halfway down, and he had to spend more time shaking the rope like a fishline before it would drop free again.

Then, uttering one final prayer, he grasped the iron bar and pulled it against the window. His rope hung down from the middle. Peter slipped the leg that was inside over the sill, twisted around at the waist, holding on to the bar for dear life. Now only his bottom was on the sill. He made a half-turn so that the cold outer edge of the sill was pressed against his belly instead of his b.u.t.t. His legs hung down. The iron bar was seated firmly across the window.

Peter let go of it with his left hand and caught hold of his narrow napkin rope. For a moment he paused, battling his fear.

Then he closed his eyes and let go of the bar with his right hand. His whole weight was on the rope now. He was committed. For better or worse, his life now depended on the napkins. Peter began to lower himself.

COMING-'.

Two hundred.

"FOR YOUR HEAD-".

Two hundred and fifty.

MY DEAR PRINCE!'.

Two hundred and seventy-five.

Ben, Dennis, and Naomi could see Peter, a dark man-shape against the curved wall of the Needle, high above their heads-higher than even the bravest acrobat would dare to go.

"Faster," Ben panted-almost moaned. "For your lives* for his life!"

They went about emptying the cart even faster* but in truth, all they could do was almost done.

Flagg raced up the stairs, his hood falling back, his lank dark hair flying off his waxy brow.

Almost there now-almost there.

The wind was light now, but very cold. It blew against Peter's bare cheeks and bare hands, numbing them. Slowly, slowly, he descended, moving with careful deliberation. He knew that if he let his descent get out of hand, he would fall. In front of him, the great mortared stone blocks rolled steadily upward very soon he came to feel that he was remaining still and it was the Needle itself which was moving. His breath came in tight gasps. Cold dry snow rattled on his face. The rope was thin if his hands grew much number, he wouldn't be able to feel it at all.

How far had he come?

He didn't dare look down and see.

Above him, individual strands of thread, cunningly woven together as a woman might braid a rug, had begun to pop threads. Peter did not know this, which was probably just as well. The breaking strain had nearly been reached.

Master, King Peter!" Dennis whispered. The three of them had finished emptying the cart; now they could only watch. Peter had descended perhaps half of the distance.

"He's so high," Naomi moaned. "If he falls-"

"If he falls, he'll be killed," Ben said with a flat and toneless finality that silenced them all.

Flagg reached the top of the stairs and ran down the corridor, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. Sweat stood out all over his face. His grin was huge, horrible.

He put his great axe down and pulled the first of the three bolts on the door to Peter's quarters. He pulled the second* and paused. It would not be smart to simply go rus.h.i.+ng in, oh no, not smart at all. The caged bird might be trying to fly the coop right this moment, but he might also be standing to one side of the door, ready to brain Flagg with something the moment he rushed in.

When he opened the spyhole in the middle of the door and saw the bar from Peter's bed placed across the window, he understood everything and roared with rage.

"Not so easy as that, my young bird!" howled Flagg. "Let's see how you fly with your rope cut, shall we?"

Flagg yanked the third bolt and charged into Peter's room with his axe held high over his head. After one quick look out the window, his grin resurfaced. He decided not to cut the rope, after all.

{insert image on page 305} Down and down Peter went. His arm muscles trembled with exhaustion. His mouth was dry; he couldn't remember ever wanting a drink as badly as he did right now. It seemed that he had been on this rope for a very, very long time, and a queer certainty had stolen into his heart-he would never get the drink of water he wanted. He was meant to die after all, and that wasn't even the worst of it. He was going to die thirsty. Right now that seemed the worst of it.

He still did not dare look down, but he felt a queer compulsion-every bit as strong as his brother's compulsion to go into their father's sitting room-to look up. He obeyed it-and some two hundred feet above, he saw Flagg's white, murderous face grinning down at him.

"h.e.l.lo, my little bird," Flagg called down cheerfully. "I've an axe, but I really don't think I'll need to use it after all. I've put it aside, see?" And the magician held out his bare hands.

All the strength was trying to run out of Peter's arms and hands just the sight of Flagg's hateful face had done that. He concentrated on holding on. He couldn't feel the thin rope at all anymore-he knew he still had it because he could see it coming out of his fists, but that was all. His breath rasped in and out of his throat in hot gasps.

Now he looked down* and saw the white, upturned circles of three faces. Those circles were very, very small-he was not twenty feet above the frozen cobbles, or even forty feet; he was still a hundred feet up, as high as the fourth floor of one of our buildings.

He tried to move and found he could not-if he moved, he would fall. So he hung there against the side of the building. Cold, gritty snow blew in his face, and from the prison above, Flagg began to laugh.

Why doesn't he move?" Naomi cried, digging one mittened hand into Ben's shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on Peter's twisting form. The way it hung there, slowly turning, made it look dreadfully like the body of a man who had been hanged. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't-"

Above them, Flagg's chilly laughter abruptly stopped.

"Who goes there?" he called. His voice was like thunder, like doom. "Answer me, if you want to keep your heads! Who goes there?"

Frisky whined and shrank against Naomi's side.

"Oh G.o.ds, now you've done it," Dennis said. "What do we do, Ben?"

"Wait," Ben said grimly. "And if the magician comes down, fight. We wait for what happens next. We-"

But that was all the waiting any of them had to do, for in the next few seconds, much-not all, but a great deal-was resolved.

Flagg had seen the thinness of Peter's rope, its whiteness-and in a trice he understood everything, from beginning to end-the napkins and the dollhouse as well. Peter's means of escape had been under his nose the whole time, and he had very nearly missed it. But* he saw something else as well. Little pops of fiber where the strands were giving way, some fifteen feet down the taut length of rope.

Flagg could have turned the iron bar he was resting his hand on and sent Peter plummeting that way, with the anchor trailing after to perhaps bash his head in when he struck bottom. He could have swung the battle-axe and parted the fragile rope.

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 tw.a.n.g 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.

Peter heard that tw.a.n.ging 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.

He 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.

"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 h.e.l.lishly 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 peris.h.i.+ng 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.

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.3Peter 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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."