Dark Lord of Derkholm Read online

  “Good idea,” Callette had said briskly, and spread her wings and coasted thoughtfully away with her bundle of orbs.

  The next set of objects lit up like anything, some of them quite garishly, but even Callette was unable to say what they were intended to be. “I call them gizmos,” she said, collecting the glittering heap into a sheet to carry them back to her shed.

  Every day after that the latest gizmos were more outlandish. “Aren’t you getting just a bit carried away?” Blade suggested, picking up a shining blue rose in one hand and an indescribable spiky thing in the other. It flashed red light when he touched it.

  “Probably,” said Callette. “I think I’m like Shona when she can’t stop playing the violin. I keep getting new ideas.”

  The 109th gizmo caused even Kit to make admiring sounds. It was a lattice of white shapes like snowflakes that chimed softly and turned milky bright when any of them touched it. “Are you sure you’re not really a wizard?” Kit asked, turning the thing respectfully around between his talons.

  Callette shot him a huffy look over one brown-barred wing. “Of course not. It’s electronics. It’s what those button-pushing machines work by. I got Barnabas to multiply me another hundred of them and took them apart for the gizmos. Give me that one back. I may keep it. It’s my very best.”

  Carrying the gizmo carefully, she took off to glide down the valley. At the mouth of it, she had to rise hastily to clear a herd of cows someone from the village was driving up into the valley.

  That was the end of peace in that valley. The cows turned out to belong to the mayor, who was having them penned up there for safety until the tours were over. Thereafter he and his wife and children were in and out of there several times a day, seeing to the cattle. Don flew out to see if there was anywhere else they could go, but came back glumly with the news that every hidden place was now full of cows, sheep, pigs, hens, or goats. The three of them were forced to go and lurk behind the stables, which was nothing like so private.

  By that time Derk’s face had sagged from worry to harrowed misery. He felt as if he had spent his entire life rushing away on urgent, unpleasant errands. Almost the first of these was the one he hated most, and he only got himself through it by concentrating on the new animal he would create. He had to go down to the village and break the news there that Mr. Chesney wanted the place in ruins. He hated having to do this so heartily that he snapped at Pretty while he was saddling Pretty’s mother, Beauty. And Pretty minced off in a sulk and turned the dogs among the geese in revenge. Derk had to sort that out before he left.

  “Can’t you control that foal of yours?” he said to Beauty. Beauty had waited patiently through all the running and shouting, merely mantling her huge glossy black wings when Derk came back, to show him she was ready and waiting.

  “Ghett’n htoo mhuch f’mhe,” she confessed. She did not speak as well as Pretty, even without a bit in her mouth.

  To Derk, Beauty meant as much as the 109th gizmo did to Callette. He would have died rather than part with Beauty to the University. So he smiled and patted her shining black neck. Not ants, he thought. Not insects at all. Something even more splendid than Beauty. And when he mounted and Beauty bunched her quarters and rose into the air rather more easily even than Kit did, he felt tight across the chest with love and pride. As they sailed down the valley, he considered the idea of a water creature. He had not done one of those yet. Suppose he could get hold of some cells from a dolphin …

  He landed in the center of the village to find nearly every house there being knocked down. “What the hell’s going on?” he said.

  The mayor left off demolishing the village shop and came to lean on his sledgehammer by Beauty’s right wing. “Glad to see you, Derk. We were going to need to speak to you about the village hall. We want to leave that standing if we can, but we don’t want any Pilgrims or soldiers messing about in it destroying things. I wondered if you could see a way of disguising it as a ruin.”

  “Willingly,” said Derk. “No problem.” The hall had only been built last spring. “But how did you know—how are you going to live with all the houses down?”

  “Everyone in the world knows what to expect when the tours come through,” the mayor replied. “Not your fault, Derk. We knew the job was bound to come your way in time. We had pits dug for living in years ago, roofed over, water piped in, cables laid. Furniture and food got moved down there yesterday. Place is going to look properly abandoned by tomorrow, but we’re leaving Tom Holt’s pigsty and Jenny Wellaby’s washhouse standing. I heard they expect to find a hovel or two. But I can tell you,” he said, running a hand through the brick dust in his hair, “I didn’t expect these pulled-down houses to look so new. That worries me a lot.”

  “I can easily age them a bit for you,” Derk offered.

  “And blacken them with fire?” the mayor asked anxiously. “It would look better. And we’ve told off two skinny folk—Fran Taylor and Old George—to pick about in the ruins whenever a tour arrives, to make like starving survivors, you know, but I’d be glad if you could make them look a little less healthy—emaciated, sort of. One look at Old George at the moment, and you’d know he’s never had a day’s illness in his life. Can you sicken him up a bit?”

  “No problem,” said Derk. The man thought of everything!

  “And another thing,” said the mayor. “We’ll be driving all the livestock up the hills to the sides of the valley and penning them up for safety—don’t want any animals getting killed—but if you could do something that makes them hard to see, I’d be much obliged.”

  Derk felt he could hardly refuse. He spent the rest of that day adding wizardry to the blows of the sledgehammers and laying the resulting brick dust around as soot. By sunset the place looked terrible. “What do you think of all this?” Derk asked Old George while he was emaciating him.

  Old George shrugged. “Way to earn a living. Stupid way, if you ask me. But I’m not in charge, am I?”

  Neither am I, Derk thought as he went to mount Beauty. The frightening thing was that there was nothing he could do about it, any more than Old George could.

  Beauty, rattling her wings and snorting to get rid of the dust, gave it as her opinion that this was not much of a day. “Bhoring. No fhlying.”

  “You wait,” Derk told her.

  Next day he flew north to see King Luther. The day after he went south to an angry and inconclusive meeting with the marsh dwellers, who wanted more pay for pretending to sacrifice Pilgrims to their god. He flew home with “Is blasphemy, see, is disrespect for god!” echoing in his ears, wistfully wondering if his water creature might be something savage that fed exclusively on marsh people. But the next day, flying east to look at the ten cities scheduled to be sacked, he took that back in favor of something half dolphin, half dragon that lived in a river. The trouble was that there were no big rivers near Derkholm. The day after that, flying southeast to talk to the Emir, he decided something half dragon would be too big.

  The Emir was flatly refusing to be the puppet king the lists said he should be. “I’ll be anything else you choose,” he told Derk, “but I will not have my mind enslaved to this tiara. I have seen Sheik Detroy. He is still walking like a zombie after last year. He drools. His valet has to feed him. It’s disgusting! These magic objects are not safe.”

  Derk had seen Sheik Detroy, too. He felt the Emir had a point. “Then could you perhaps get one of your most devoted servants to wear the tiara for you?”

  “And have him usurp my throne?” the Emir said. “I hope you joke.”

  They argued for several hours. At length Derk said desperately, “Well, can’t you wear a copy of the tiara and act being enslaved to it?”

  “What a good idea!” said the Emir. “I rather fancy myself as an actor. Very well.”

  Derk flew home tired out, and as often happened when he was tired, he got his best idea for an animal yet. Not an animal. Something half human, half dolphin. A mermaid daughter, that wa
s it. As Beauty wearily flapped onward, Derk turned over in his mind all the possible ways of splicing dolphin to human. It was going to be fascinating. The question was, would Mara agree to be the mother of this new being? If he presented the idea to her as a challenge, it might be a way of bridging the chilly distance that seemed to have opened up between them.

  Pretty came dashing up as they landed by the stables, and Beauty almost snapped at him. She was as tired as Derk was. “At this rate,” Derk told Shona, who came to help him unsaddle Beauty, “we shall be worn to shadows.”

  “Black shadows with red eyes?” Shona said. “Lucky you. Just what Mr. Chesney ordered.”

  Derk felt a rush of gratitude to Shona. When the time came, he would make the human half of the mermaid daughter from Shona’s cells. It would ensure excellence.

  “And do you know,” Shona said, “those lazy boys haven’t done a thing today unless I nagged them. Elda’s just as bad. I haven’t had time to practice. Every time I tried, a new pigeon arrived. The messages are all over your desk. Dad, you ought to breed pigeons that can speak. It would be much easier.”

  “That’s quite an idea,” Derk said, “but it’s not something I can think of just now. I shall have to go and see Querida tomorrow. There were two important things she said she’d do for me, and I haven’t had a word from her since she left here.”

  “Perhaps she hurt herself, translocating away in such a hurry,” Shona suggested.

  “Barnabas says she got back all right,” said Derk. “Her healer told him she’s as well as can be expected. But I can’t afford to wait much longer, so I shall have to go and disturb her.”

  In fact, it was days later that Derk set off to see Querida. The messages Shona had put on his desk kept him and Beauty busy for most of a week. When he finally set off, he was determined that Querida should not set eyes on Beauty. He had seen the way she had looked at Pretty, even in shock and pain, and he was not having her claim Beauty for the University. He left Beauty grazing in a field about five miles away from University City, which was as far as he could translocate himself. He wished he had Blade’s gift for it as he heaved himself onward.

  He got there, just, with a rush and a stagger on landing, at the end of the street of little gray houses where Querida lived, and walked slowly along to the right one. It looked—and felt—completely lifeless. Perhaps Querida had recovered enough by now, he thought, to get herself to the University buildings. Still, he thought he would try the door now he was here. He knocked.

  To his surprise, the door moved under his fist and came open. Derk pushed it further ajar. “Is anyone here?”

  There was no answer, but there was a faint feeling of life inside.

  “Better make sure,” Derk muttered. He walked slowly and cautiously into the house, afraid that someone like Querida would have quite a few nasty traps for intruders, and very conscious of the way the old floor creaked under his boots.

  He found himself in a small, busy living room, full of feathers in jars, knickknacks, patterned cushions, patterned shawls, patterned rugs, and a lot of twisted snake-shaped candlesticks. It smelled sour and furry and old-ladyish. There was a couch at the far end, all patterns and frills. Querida lay on it, covered with a patterned rug, looking less small than usual because of the smallness of the room. Disposed at comfortable intervals around her were three large tabby cats, who gazed up at Derk with three hostile looks from three pairs of wide yellow eyes. That explains the open door, he thought. The cats have to get in and out. Querida was fast asleep. Her face was white, and her mouth open slightly. Her skinny splinted little left arm was laid across her chest, and he could just see it move as she breathed. He could see the outline of splints round her left leg, beside the biggest of the cats.

  It seemed a shame to wake her. Derk coughed. “Er, Querida.”

  Querida did not move. Derk said her name louder, and then loud enough to cause the cats to twitch their ears crossly, and finally almost in a shout. The cats glared, but it had absolutely no effect on Querida. Derk was alarmed. “I think I’ll get her healer,” he said, feeling a little foolish, not knowing if he was speaking to the cats, to himself, or to Querida.

  He left the house, with the door carefully not quite shut, and set off toward the University buildings, looking for someone who might know where Querida’s healer lived. Nobody seemed to be about until he came to the square in front of the University. Here was a considerable crowd, all oddly quiet, patiently waiting around a cart pulled up in the middle, which was loaded with boxes, bundles, and rolls of cloth. A tall, calm lady, very straight-shouldered and seraphic-looking, was handing the things in the cart out to the waiting people and giving instructions as she did so.

  “You’re on the eastern posting,” Derk heard her say as he pushed up closer, “so you’ll need febrifuges and herbs for stomach upsets. Here.” She briskly doled out handfuls of little cloth bags and turned to the next group waiting. “Now you people are backing up the tour parties, so make sure you have a baggage mule as well as a horse to ride. I’m going to have to give you remedies for everything under the sun. You wouldn’t believe the things those Pilgrims do to themselves—everything from festering wounds to alcohol poisoning. Here. I call this my body bag.” She turned to pull a sack the size of a bolster out from the cart, and her eye fell on Derk. She seemed to know at once that he was not there to collect medicines. “Yes?” she said coldly. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for someone who knows Querida’s healer,” Derk explained.

  “I am Querida’s healer,” the lady said majestically. “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, she seems to be asleep—” Derk began.

  “Of course she is,” said the majestic lady. “Querida reacts very badly to pain, so I have, at her own request, put her into a healing coma until the pain has gone.”

  “Oh,” said Derk. “But I need to speak to her urgently. Is there any chance?”

  “No chance at all,” said the lady. “Come back in—” She passed the bolsterlike bag to the nearest waiting person, nearly choking Derk with the intense whiff of herbs from it, and counted on her fingers. “Come back in a week.”

  “A week!” Derk cried out.

  “Or ten days,” said the lady.

  “But it’s only four days now until the tours start!” Derk protested desperately.

  “Precisely,” said the lady. “This is why I am in the middle of outfitting my healers. Now do you mind going away? It is most important that every healer is in place, with the correct remedies, before the first offworlders come through.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Derk found himself saying humbly. She was so majestic that it never even occurred to him to suggest that the Dark Lord might be important, too. He backed sadly away to a clear space and tried to translocate to the place where he had left Beauty.

  To his disgust, he fell short by nearly two miles. It took him most of the rest of that day to find the field where Beauty was grazing. And he had been relying on Querida’s help. While he searched, he had to keep his mind on the mermaid-daughter in order not to feel sick with worry. She was going to have to have her own pool. It would be quite difficult bringing up a child that had to be kept wet at all times. Mara and he would have to spend a lot of time in the pool with her. They would have to buy a cart in order to take her to the sea....

  In spite of this, they arrived home with Beauty bright-eyed and well rested and Derk gray with worry.

  “What’s the matter, Dad?” asked Shona.

  Derk groaned. “Querida’s going to be asleep for the next ten days. I think she insisted on it. I’d forgotten what she was like. But the trouble is she promised to help me over the god manifesting and raise me a demon. I don’t know what to do!”

  “Ask Barnabas?” Lydda suggested, shuffling in with a plate of buttery biscuits.

  “He’s busy making camps for the Dark Lord’s army,” Derk said, absently taking four biscuits and not tasting one of them. “That’s qui
te as urgent. They have to be ready before the Pilgrims come through. They send the soldiers in early.”

  “You’d better not try raising demons by yourself,” Shona said anxiously.

  “Or gods,” said Lydda. “And Elda wants to know when you can look at the new story she’s written.”

  “Tomorrow night,” Derk said. “I think I’ll go and see Umru tomorrow. Perhaps he can persuade his god Anscher to manifest. I told Umru I’d visit him, anyway. But what I’m going to do about a demon, I can’t think!”

  “Why not ask Mum?” Shona suggested. “She said she’d be in for supper.”

  Derk could not see Mara helping him in her present frame of mind, but he said, “Good idea,” in order not to hurt Shona’s feelings. Perhaps if he were very careful speaking to Mara and particularly careful not to mention the mermaid idea yet …

  But Mara arrived late for supper with two little creases full of her own worries above her pretty nose. She had gone very thin, and her hair had come down to hang in a fat fair plait over one shoulder. “Sorry. I can’t stay long,” she said. “Now Querida’s had herself put to sleep, I have hundreds of things to do for her tomorrow at the latest. I’ll have to get back and start moving people from the village tonight.”

  “From the village? Whatever for?” said Derk.

  “Didn’t Shona tell you?” Mara asked, and Shona looked down at her plate, not wanting to say that Derk had been too worried for her to want to tell him anything. “Well, you know I never liked the idea of them sitting right in the path of the Final Confrontation,” Mara said. “You might be careful, Derk, but Pilgrims never are, and the village people could be hurt even in those pits. So I solved the problem by hiring them all as servants to the Enchantress.”