The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King [123]
Because the rebels should have been there!
They hadn't been, and Flagg hated to be fooled. Worse, he hated feeling that he might have made a mistake. If he had made a mistake about where the rebels were to be found, then perhaps he had made mistakes about other things. What other things? He didn't know. But his dreams were bad. That small, bad tempered animal ran around in his head, worrying him, insisting that he had forgotten things, that other things were going o behind his back. It raced, it gnawed, it ruined his sleep. Flagg had medicines that would rid him of his cold, but none that would touch that growing ferret in his brain.
What could possibly be wrong?
He asked himself this question over and over again, and in truth it seemed-on the surface, at least-that nothing could be. For many centuries, the old dark chaos inside him had hated the love and light and order of Delain, and he had worked hard to destroy all that-to knock it down as that last cold gust of storm had knocked down the Church of the Great Gods. Always, something had interfered with his plans-a Kyla the Good, a Sasha, someone, something. But now he saw no possible interference, no matter where he looked. Thomas was totally his creature; if Flagg told him to step off the highest parapet of the castle, the fool would want to know only at which o'clock he should do it. The farmers were groaning under the weight of the killing taxes Flagg had persuaded Thomas to impose.
Yosef had told Peter there was a breaking strain on people as well as on ropes and chains, and so there is-the farmers and the merchants of Delain had nearly reached theirs. The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty-loyalty to King, to country, to government. Flagg knew that if he made the tax-blocks big enough, all the ropes would snap, and the stupid oxen-for that was really how he saw the people of Delain-would stampede, knocking down everything in their path. The first of the oxen had already broken free and had gathered in the north. They called themselves exiles now, but Flagg knew they would call themselves rebels soon enough. Peyna had been driven away and Peter was locked in the Needle.
So what could be wrong?
Nothing! Damn it, nothing!
But the ferret ran and squirmed and gnawed and twisted. Many times over the last three or four weeks he had awakened in a cold sweat, not because of his recurring fever but because he had had some horrible dream. What was the substance of this dream? He could never remember. He only knew that he woke from it with his left hand pressed to his left eye, as if he had been wounded there-and that eye would burn, although he could find nothing wrong with it.
On this night, Flagg awoke with his dream fresh in his mind, because he was awakened before it was over. It was, of course, the fall of the Church of the Great Gods which woke him.
"Huh!" Flagg cried, sitting bolt upright in his chair. His eyes were wide and staring, his white cheeks damp and shiny with sweat.
"Disaster!" one of the parrot's heads screamed.
"Fire, flood, and escape!" the other screamed.
Escape, Flagg thought. Yes-that's what's been on my mind all this time, that's what's been gnawing at me.
He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. This infuriated him, and he sprang out of his chair.
"He means to escape," he muttered, running his hands through his hair. "He means to try, anyway. But how? How? What's his plan? Who helped him? They'll pay with their heads, I promise that and they won't come off all in a chop, no! They'll come off an inch a half-inch a quarter-inch at a time. They'll be driven insane with the agony long before they die "
"Insane!" one of the parrot heads shrieked.
"Agony!" the other shrieked back.
"Will you shut up and let me think!" Flagg howled. He seized a jar filled with murky brown fluid from a nearby table and threw it at the parrot's cage. It struck and shattered; there was a flash of bright, heatless