The Eyes of the Dragon (35 page)

Frisky, a huge black-and-white Anduan husky with gray-green eyes, was at the head of the tether. She was jumping in the air, straining against the traces. Naomi unhooked her and danced with her in the snow. It was a curious waltz, both graceful and barbaric. Dog and mistress seemed to laugh at each other in a powerful shared affection. Some of the other dogs were lying down on their sides now, panting hard, obviously exhausted, but neither Frisky nor Naomi seemed even slightly winded.

“
Aiy
, Frisky!
Aiy,
my love! Good dog! You've led a famous chase!”

“But for what?” Ben asked glumly.

She released Frisky's paws and turned to him, angry . . . but the dejection on his face robbed her of her anger. He was looking toward the house. She followed his gaze and understood. They were here, yes, but where was
here
? An empty farmhouse, that was all. What in the world had they come so far and so fast
for
? The house would have been just as empty an hour . . . two hours . . . four hours from now. Peyna and Aden were in the north, Dennis somewhere in the depths of the castle. Or in a prison cell or a coffin awaiting burial, if he had been caught.

She went to Ben and put a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “Don't feel so bad,” she said. “We've done all we could do.”

“Have we?” he asked. “I wonder.” He paused, and sighed deeply. He had taken off his knitted cap and his golden hair gleamed mellowly in the dull afternoon light. “I'm sorry, Naomi. I don't mean to snap at you. You and your dogs have done wonders. It's just that I feel we're very far from where we could give any real aid. I feel helpless.”

She looked at him, sighed, and nodded.

“Well,” he said, “let's go in. Maybe there'll be some sign of what we're to do next. We'll at least be out of the blow when it comes.”

There were no clues inside. It was just a big, drafty, empty farmhouse that had been quit in a hurry. Ben prowled restlessly from room to room and found nothing at all. After an hour, he collapsed unhappily beside Naomi in the sitting room . . . in the very chair where Anders Peyna had sat when he listened to Dennis's incredible story.

“If only there was a way to track him,” Ben said.

He looked up to see her staring at him, her eyes bright and round and full of excitement.

“There might be!” she said. “If the snow holds off—”

“What are you talking about?”

“
Frisky!
” she cried. “Don't you see?
Frisky
can track him! She has the keenest nose of any dog I've ever known!”

“The scent would be days old,” he said, shaking his head. “Even the greatest tracking dog that ever lived could not . . .”

“Frisky may be the greatest tracking dog that ever lived,” Naomi replied, laughing. “And tracking in winter's not like tracking in summer, Ben Staad. In summer, trace dies quickly . . . it rots, my da' says, and there are a hundred other traces to cover the one the dog seeks. Not just of other people and other animals, but of grasses and warm winds, even the smells that come on running water. But in the winter, trace lasts. If we had something that belonged to this Dennis . . . something that carried his scent . . .”

“What about the rest of your team?” Ben asked.

“I should open the shed over there”—she pointed at it—“and leave my bedroll in it. If I show them where it is and then free them, they'll be able to forage for their own food—rabbits and such—and they'll also know where to come for shelter.”

“They won't follow us?”

“Not if they're told not to.”

“You can do that?” He looked at her with some awe.

“No,” Naomi said matter-of-factly. “I don't speak Dog. Nor does Frisky speak Human, but she understands it. If I tell Frisky, she'll tell the others. They'll hunt what they need, but they won't range far enough to lose the scent of my bedroll, not with the storm coming. And when it starts, they'll go to shelter. It won't matter if their bellies are hungry or full.”

“And if we had something that belonged to this boy Dennis, you really believe Frisky could track him?”

“Aye.”

Ben looked at her long and thoughtfully. Dennis had left this farm on Tuesday; it was now Sunday. He didn't believe any scent could last that long. But there
was
something in the house which would bear Dennis's scent, and perhaps even a fool's errand would be better than only sitting here. It was the pointless
sitting
more than anything else that grated on him, the hours ahead when things of grave importance might be happening elsewhere, while they sat and twiddled their thumbs here. Under other circumstances, the possibility of being snowbound with a girl as beautiful as Naomi would have delighted him, but not while a kingdom might be won and lost twenty miles to the east . . . and his best friend might be living or dying with only that confounded butler to help him.

“Well?” she asked eagerly. “What do you think?”

“I think it's crazy,” he said, “but worth a try.”

She grinned. “Do we have something with his scent strong upon it?”

“We do,” he said, getting up. “Bring your dog in, Naomi, and lead her upstairs. To the attic.”

A
lthough most humans don't know it, scents are like colors to dogs. Faint scents have faint colors, like pastels washed out by time. Clear scents have clear colors. Some dogs have weak noses, and they read scents the way humans with poor eyes see colors, believing this delicate blue may actually be a gray, or that dark brown may actually be a black. Frisky's nose, on the other hand, was like the eyesight of a man with the gaze of a hawk, and the scent in the attic where Dennis had slept was very strong and very clear (it may have helped that Dennis had been some days without a bath). Frisky sniffed the hay, then sniffed the blanket THE GIRL held for her. She scented Arlen upon it, but disregarded the scent; it was weaker, and not at all the scent she had found on the hay. Arlen's smell was lemony and tired, and Frisky knew at once that it was the smell of an old man. Dennis's smell was more exciting and vital. To Frisky's nose, it was the electric blue of a summer lightning stroke.

She barked to show that she knew this smell and had put it safely away in her library of scents.

“All right, good girl,” THE TALL BOY said. “Can you follow it?”

“She'll follow it,” THE GIRL said confidently. “Let's go.”

“It'll be dark in an hour.”

“That's so,” THE GIRL said, and then grinned. When THE GIRL grinned that way, Frisky thought her heart might just burst with love of her. “But it isn't her eyes that we want, is it?”

THE TALL-BOY smiled. “I guess not,” he said. “You know, I must be crazy, but
I
think we're going to pick up these cards and play them.”

“Course we are,” she said. “Come on, Ben. Let's use what little daylight's left—it'll be dark soon enough.”

Frisky, her nose full of that bright-blue scent, barked eagerly.

P
eter's supper came promptly at six o'clock that Sunday night. The storm clouds hung heavy over Delain and the temperature had begun to drop, but the winds hadn't yet begun to blow and not a snowflake had fallen. On the far side of the Plaza, shivering in stolen cook-boy's whites, Dennis stood anxiously, drawn back into the deepest shadow he could find, staring at the single square of pale-yellow light at the top of the Needle—Peter's candle.

Peter, of course, knew nothing of Dennis's vigil—he was filled with the wonder of the idea that, live or die, this would be the last meal he would ever eat in this damned prison cell. It was just more tough, salty meat, half-rotted potatoes, and watery ale, but he would eat it all. For the last three weeks he had eaten little and had spent all the waking time he did not spend working at the tiny loom exercising, readying his body. Today, however, he had eaten everything brought to him. He would need all his strength tonight.

What will happen to me?
he wondered again, sitting down at the little table and grasping the napkin that lay over his meal.
Where exactly will I go? Who will take me in? Anyone? All men, it's said, must trust in the gods . . . but Peter, you are trusting so much it's ridiculous.

But that was where his restless thoughts broke off, because as he shook the napkin out, he felt a small stab, like the prick of a nettle.

Frowning, he looked down and saw that a tiny bead of blood had seeped up on the ball of his right forefinger. Peter's first thought was of Flagg. In the fairy tales, it was always a needle that bore the poison. Perhaps he had been poisoned now, by Flagg. That was his first thought, and not such a silly one, at that. After all, Flagg had used poison before.

Peter picked the napkin up, saw a tiny folded object with black, smudgy marks on it . . . and flipped the napkin back down at once. His face remained calm and peaceful, giving away none of the wild excitement that had burst up inside him at the sight of the note pinned inside the napkin.

He glanced casually toward the door, suddenly afraid he would see one of the Lesser Warders—or Beson himself—staring suspiciously in at him. But there was no one. The prince had been a great object of curiosity when he first came to the Needle, stared at as avidly as a rare fish is stared at in a collector's tank—some of them had even smuggled their ladyloves up to look at the murdering monster (and they would have been imprisoned for it themselves, if they had been caught). But Peter was a model prisoner, and he had palled quickly. No one was looking at him now.

Peter forced himself to eat his entire meal, although he no longer wanted it. He wanted to take not the slightest chance of rousing suspicions—now more than ever. He had no idea who the note might be from, or what it might say, or why it had aroused such a fever in him. But for a note to come now, only hours before he planned to make his try to escape, seemed an omen. But of what?

When his meal was finally eaten, he glanced toward the door again, made sure the spyhole was closed, and walked to his bedroom with his napkin still held casually in one hand, almost as if he had forgotten that he held it at all. In the bedroom, he unpinned the note (his hands were trembling so badly he pricked himself again) and unfolded it. It was written closely on both sides in letters which were rusty and a bit childish, but readable enough. His glance went first to the signature . . . and his eyes widened. The note was signed
Dennis—your Friend and Servant For-Ever.

“Dennis?” Peter muttered, so flabbergasted he was unaware that he had whispered aloud.
“Dennis?”

He turned back then, and the letter's opening was enough to shock his heartbeat into a fast drumroll. The salutation was
My King.

M
y King,

I
t was a long time before Peter could put his whirling thoughts in order. His mind kept circling back to one question: What had Dennis seen to change his mind so radically and completely? What, in the names of all the gods, could it have been?

Little by little he came to realize that it didn't matter—Dennis had seen
something,
and that was enough.

Peyna. Dennis had gone to Peyna, and Peyna had sensed . . . well, the old fox had sensed
something. He thinks you may have some sort of Plan, but what he Noes Not.
Old fox indeed. He had not forgotten Peter's request for the dollhouse, and the napkins. He hadn't known exactly what those things meant, but he had sensed something in the wind. Aye, well and truly.

Then what was Peter to do?

Part of him—a very large part—wanted to go ahead just as he had planned. He had worked his courage up to this desperate adventure; now it was hard to let it go for nothing but more waiting. And there were the dreams, urging him on, as well.

You would Noe the name of this Black Killer if I dared to Rite it, but I do Not
. Peter knew just the same, of course, and it was that more than anything else that convinced him Dennis really had stumbled onto something. Peter felt that Flagg might soon awake to this new development—and he wanted to be gone before that happened.