The Eyes of the Dragon(97)

"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.

140

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.

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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-!"

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 passed 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 chink! 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 assuredly 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 passed, 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.