"I want a piece of obsidian," he said. "I want it right now."
"I have a piece in my desk," Peter said dully, and brought it out. It was not as big as the one Flagg had used and then disposed of, but it was thick. He handed it to one of the Home Guards, who handed it to Flagg. The magician held it toward the light, frowning a little... but inside his heart, a little man was jump-ing excitedly up and down, turning cartwheels, and doing som-ersaults. The obsidian was much like his own, but one side was broken and jagged. Ah, the gods were smiling on him! Indeed, indeed, indeed they were!
"I dropped it a year or two ago," Peter said, seeing Flagg's interest. He was unaware-as was Peyna, at least for the mo-ment-that he had added another layer of bricks to the wall that was a-building around him. "The half you're holding landed on my rug, which cushioned its fall. The other half landed on the stones, and shattered into half a hundred pieces. Obsidian is hard, but very brittle."
"Indeed, my Lord?" Flagg said gravely. "I've never seen such stone, although I've of course heard of it."
He put the obsidian on Peter's desk, upended the packet over it, and poured the three grains of sand onto it. In a moment, little tendrils of smoke began to rise from the obsidian. All pres-ent could see that each grain was slowly sinking into the pock-mark it was creating in the world's hardest known stone. The guards murmured uneasily at the sight.
"Be silent!" Peyna roared, whirling on them. The guards drew back, faces long and white with terror. This seemed more and more like witchcraft to them.
"I believe I know what these grains are, and how to test my idea," Flagg said, rapping the words out. "But if I'm right, the test must be performed as quickly as possible."
"Why?" Peyna demanded.
"I believe these are grains of Dragon Sand," Flagg said. "I had a very small quantity once, but it disappeared, alas, before I could study it closely. It may well have been stolen."
Flagg did not miss the way Peyna's eyes flicked toward Peter at this.
"I have been uneasy about it off and on ever since," he went on, "because it is reputed to be one of the deadliest substances on earth. I did not have a chance to test its properties and so doubted, but I see much of what I was told proved here, already."
Flagg pointed at the obsidian. The dimples in which the three specks of green sand rested were each now nearly an inch deep -smoke rose from each like smoke from a tiny campfire. Flagg guessed that each grain had eaten through half the thickness of the stone.
"Those three specks of sand are working their way rapidly through a piece of the hardest rock we know," he said. "Dragon Sand is reputed to be so corrosive that it will eat through any solid-any solid at all. And it produces fearsome heat. You! Guard!"
Flagg pointed at one of the Home Guards. He stepped forward, not looking happy to have been chosen.
"Touch the side of the rock," Flagg said, and as the guard reached a tentative hand forward to touch the paperweight, he added sharply: "Just the side! Don't get your hand near those holes!"
The guard touched the paperweight and drew his hand back with a gasp. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, but not before Peyna had seen the blisters rising there.
"Obsidian conducts heat very slowly, I've heard," Flagg said, "but that piece is as hot as the top of a stove... all from three gains of sand that would fit on the moon of your pinkie finger-nail, with room left over! Touch the prince's desk, Lord JudgeGeneral!"
Peyna did. He was distressed and amazed by the heat under his hand. Soon the heavy wood must begin to blister and char.
"So we must act quickly," Flagg said. "Soon the desk itself will catch fire. If we breathe the fumes-always assuming the stories I've been told are true-all of us will die within days. But, to be sure, another test-"
At this, the Home Guards looked more uneasy than ever.
"All right," Peyna said. "What is this test? Be quick, man!" He detested Flagg more than ever now, and if he had ever felt it would not do to underestimate him, he felt that doubly now. Five minutes before, Peyna had been ready to dismiss the man as the Court Nobody. Now it seemed that their lives-and Peyna's case against Peter-depended on him.
"I propose to fill a bucket with water," Flagg said, speaking more rapidly than ever. His dark eyes gleamed.
The Home Guards and Peyna stared at those small black holes in the obsidian, at those tiny ribbons of steam, with the evil fascination of birds hypnotized by a nest of weaving pythons. How deep into the obsidian now? How close to the wood? Impossible to tell. Even Peter was looking, although the tired mixture of sorrow and confusion had not left his face.
"Water from the prince's pump!" Flagg shouted at one of the guards. "We want it in a bucket, or a deep pot or pan. Now! Now!"
The guard looked at Peyna.
"Do it," Peyna said, trying not to sound frightened-but he was frightened, and Flagg knew it.