The Eyes of the Dragon(61)

72

He had been keeping the rope under his mattress, but Peter realized this would not do much longer. The Needle was three hundred and forty feet high at the peak of its conical roof; his window was just about three hundred feet above the cobblestones. He was six feet tall and believed he would dare to drop as much as twenty feet from the end of his rope. But even at best, he would eventually have to hide two hundred and seventy feet of rope.

He discovered a loose stone on the east side of the bedroom floor, and cautiously pried it up. He was surprised and pleased to find a little space beneath. He couldn't see into it properly so he reached in and felt around in the darkness, his whole body stiff and tense as he waited for something down there in the dark to crawl over his hand... or bite it.

Nothing did, and he was just about to withdraw it, when one of his fingers brushed something-cold metal. Peter brought it out. It was, he saw, a heart-shaped locket on a fine chain. Both locket and chain looked to be made of gold. Nor did he think, by its weight, that the locket was false gold. After some poking and feeling, he found a delicate catch. He pushed it and the locket sprang open. Inside were two pictures, one on each side-they were as fine as any of the tiny paintings in Sasha's dollhouse; even finer, perhaps. Peter stared at their faces with a boy's frank wonder. The man was very handsome, the woman very beau-tiful. There was a faint smile on the man's lips and a devil-may-care look in his eyes. The woman's eyes were grave and dark. Part of Peter's wonder came from the fact that this locket must be very old, judging by what he could make out of their dress, but only part of it. Most came from the fact that these two faces looked eerily familiar. He had seen them before.

He closed the locket and looked on the back. He thought there were initials entwined there, but they were too flounced and curlicued for him to read.

On impulse, he delved into the hold again. This time he touched paper. The single sheet of foolscap he brought out was ancient and crumbling, but the writing was clear and the signature un-mistakable. The name was Leven Valera, the infamous Black Duke of the Southern Barony. Valera, who might someday have been King, had instead spent the last twenty-five years of his life in the room at the top of the Needle for the murder of his wife. No wonder the pictures in the locket looked familiar! The man was Valera; the woman was Valera's murdered wife, Eleanor, about whose beauty ballads were still sung.

The ink Valera had used was a strange rusty black, and the first line of his note chilled Peter's heart. The note entire chilled his heart, and not only because the similarity between Valera's position and his own seemed too great for coincidence.

To the Finder of the Note-

I write with my own Blood, drawn from a vayne I have opened in my left Forearm, my pen the Shaft of a Spune which I have sharpened long and long upon the stones of my Bedchamber. Nearly a quarter of a Centurie I have spent here in the sloe; I came here a Young Man and now am I Old. The Coughing Spells and Fayver have come on me again, and this time I think I shall not survive.

I did not kill my Wyfe. Nay, though all the Evidence say otherwise, I did not kill my Wyfe. I did love her and love her still, although her dear Face has grown misty in my treacherous Mind.

I believe 'twas the King's Magician who killed Eleanor, and arranged Matters to see me put asyde, for I stood in his Way. It seems his Plans have worked and he has prospered; yet I believe there are Gods who punish Wickedness in the end. His Day shall come, and I have come to feel more and more strongly as my own Death approaches that he shall be brought down by One who comes to this Place of Dispair, One who finds and reads this Letter written in my Blood.

If 'tis so, I cry out to you; Avenge, Avenge, Avenge! Ignore me and my lost Years if you must, but never, never, never ignore my dear Eleanor, murdered as she slept in her Bed! It was not I who poisoned her Wine; I write the name of the Murderer here in Blood: Flagg! 'Twas Flagg! Flagg! Flagg!

Take the Locket, and show it to him the instant before you relieve this the World of Its greatest Scoundrel-show him so that he may know in that Instant that I have been a part of his Downfall, even from beyond my unjust Murderer's Grayve.

Leven Valera

Perhaps now you can understand the true source of Peter's chill; perhaps not. Perhaps you will understand it better if I remind you that, although he looked to be a man in a hale and hearty middle age, Flagg was really very old.

Peter had read about the supposed crime of Leven Valera, yes. But the books in which he had read of it were histories. Ancient histories. This crumbling, yellowed parchment first spoke of the King's magician, and then spoke of Flagg by name. Spoke his name? Cried it, shrieked it-in blood.

But Valera's supposed crime had happened in the reign of Alan II-and Alan II had ruled Delain four hundred and fifty years ago.

"God, oh great God," Peter whispered. He staggered back to his bed and sat down on it heavily, just before his knees would have unhinged and spilled him to the floor. "He's done it all before! He's done it all before, and in exactly the same way, but he did it over four centuries ago!"

Peter's face was deadly white; his hair was standing on end. For the first time he realized that Flagg, the King's magician, was in reality Flagg the monster, loose in Delain again now, serving a new King-serving his own young, confused, easily led brother.

73

Peter at first entertained giddy thoughts of promising Beson another bribe to take the locket and the crumbling sheet of foolscap to Anders Peyna. In his initial flush of excitement, it seemed to him that this note must point the finger of guilt at Flagg and set him, Peter, free. A little reflection convinced him that while that might happen in a storybook, it would not happen in real life. Peyna would laugh and call it a forgery. And if he took it seriously? That might mean the end of both the Judge General and the imprisoned prince. Peter's ears were sharp, and he listened closely to the gossip of the meadhouses and the wineshops as it was passed back and forth between Beson and the Lesser Warders. He had heard of the Farmers' Tax Increase, had heard the bitter joke which suggested that Thomas the LightBringer should be renamed Thomas the Tax-Bringer. He had even heard that some few daring wags had renamed his brother Foggy Tom the Constantly Bombed. The headsman's axe had swung with the regularity of a clock's pendulum since Thomas had ascended Delain's throne, only this clock called out treason-sedition, treason-sedition, treason-sedition with a regularity that would have been monotonous, had it not been so frightening.