The Eyes of the Dragon

30

When Flagg left Roland (the old man was feeling sprightlier than ever by then, a sure sign the Dragon Sand was at work in him), he went back to his dark basement rooms. He got out the tweezers and the packet containing the remaining few grains of sand and put them on his huge old desk. Then he turned his hourglass over and resumed reading.

Outside, the wind screamed and gobbled-old wives cringed in their beds and slept poorly and told their husbands that Rhian-non, the Dark Witch of the Coos, was riding her hateful broom this night, and wicked work was afoot. The husbands grunted, turned over, told their wives to go back to sleep and leave them alone. They were dull fellows for the most part; when an eye is wanted to see straws flying in the wind, give me an old wife any day.

Once a spider skittered halfway across Flagg’s book, touched a spell so terrible not even the magician dared use it, and turned instantly to stone.

Flagg grinned.

When the hourglass was empty, he turned it over again. And again. And again. He turned it over eight times in all, and when the eighth hour’s worth of sand was nearly gone, he set about finishing his work. He kept a large number of animals in a dim room down the hall from his study, and he went there first. The little creatures skittered and cringed when Flagg came near. He did not blame them.

In the far corner was a wicker cage containing half a dozen brown mice-such mice were everywhere in the castle, and that was important. Down here there were also huge rats, but it was not a rat Flagg wanted tonight. The Royal Rat upstairs had been poisoned; a simple mouse would be enough to make sure the crime came home to the Royal Ratling. If all went well, Peter would soon be as tightly locked up as these mice.

Flagg reached into the cage and removed one. It trembled wildly in his cupped hand. He could feel the rapid thrumming of its heart, and he new that if he simply held it, it would soon die of fright.

Flagg pointed the little finger of his left hand at the mouse. The fingernail glowed faintly blue for a moment.

“Sleep,” the magician commanded, and the mouse fell on its side and went to sleep on his open palm.

Flagg took it back into his study and laid it on his desk, where the obsidian paperweight had rested earlier. Now he went into his larder and drew a little mead from an oaken barrel into a saucer. He sweetened it with honey. He put it on his desk, then went out into the corridor and breathed deeply at the window again.

Holding his breath, he came back in and used the tweezers to pour all but the last three or four grains of Dragon Sand into the honey-sweetened mead. Then he opened another drawer of his desk and removed a fresh packet, which was empty. Then, reaching all the way to the back of this drawer, he brought out a very special box.

The fresh packet was bewitched, but its magic was not very strong. It would hold the Dragon Sand safely only for a short while. Then it would begin to work on the paper. It would not set it alight, not inside the box; there would not be air enough for that. But it would smoke and smolder, and that would be enough. That would be fine.

Flagg’s chest was thudding for air, but he still spared a moment to look at this box and congratulate himself. He had stolen it ten years ago. If you had asked him at the time why he took it, he would have known no more than he knew why he had shown Thomas the secret passage that ended behind the dragon’s head-that instinct for mischief had told him to take it and that he would find a use for it, so he had. After all those years in his desk, that useful time had come.

PETER was engraved across the top of the box.

Sasha had given it to her boy; he had left it for a moment on a table in a hallway when he had to run down the hallway after something or other; Flagg came along, saw it, and popped it into his pocket. Peter had been grief-stricken, of course, and when a prince is upset-even a prince who is only six years old-people take notice. There had been a search, but the box had never been found.

Using the tweezers, Flagg carefully poured the last few grains of Dragon Sand from the original packet, which had been wholly enchanted, into the packet which had been only incompletely enchanted. Then he went back to the window in the corridor to draw fresh breath. He did not breathe again until the fresh packet had been laid in the antique wooden box, the tweezers laid in there beside it, the top of the box slowly closed, and the original packet disposed of in the sewer.

Flagg was hurrying now, but he felt secure enough. Mouse, sleeping; box, closed; incriminating evidence safely latched inside. It was very well.

Pointing the little finger of his left hand at the mouse lying stretched out on his desk like a fur rug for pixies, Flagg commanded: “Wake.”

The mouse’s feet twitched. Its eyes opened. Its head came up.

Smiling, Flagg wiggled his little finger in a circle and said: “Run.”

The mouse ran in circles.

Flagg wiggled his finger up and down.

“Jump.””

The mouse began to jump on its hind legs like a dog in a carnival, its eyes rolling wildly.

“Now drink,” Flagg said, and pointed his little finger at the dish holding the honey-sweetened mead.

Outside, the wind gusted to a roar. On the far side of the city, a bitch gave birth to a litter of two-headed pups.

The mouse drank.

“Now,” said Flagg, when the mouse had drunk enough of the poison to serve his purpose, “sleep again.” And the mouse did.

Flagg hurried to Peter’s rooms. The box was in one of his many pockets-magicians have many, many pockets-and the sleeping mouse was in another. He passed several servants and a laughing gaggle of drunken courtiers, but none saw him. He was still dim.

Peter’s rooms were locked, but that was no problem for one of Flagg’s talents. Three passes with his hands and the door was open. The young prince’s rooms were empty, of course; the boy was still with his lady friend. Flagg didn’t know as much about Peter as he did about Thomas, but he knew enough-he knew, for instance, where Peter kept the few treasures he thought worth hiding away.

Flagg went directly to the bookcase and pulled out three or four boring textbooks. He pushed at a wooden edging and heard a spring click back. He then slid a panel aside, revealing a recess in the back of the case. It was not even locked. In the recess was a silk hair-ribbon his lady had given him, a packet of letters she had written him, a few letters from him to her which burned so brightly he did not dare to send them, and a little locket with his mother’s picture inside it.

Flagg opened the engraved box and very carefully shredded one corner of the packet’s flap. Now it looked as if a mouse had been chewing at it. Flagg closed the lid again and put the box in the recessed space. “You cried so when you lost this box, dear Peter,” he murmured. “I think you may cry even more when it’s found.” He giggled.

He put the sleeping mouse beside the box, closed the compartment, and put the books neatly back in place.

Then he left, and slept well. Great mischief was afoot, and he felt confident that he had moved as he liked to move-behind the scenes, seen by no one.