Dark Lord of Derkholm (3 page)

Querida could easily pretend not to hear this, because Blade was at the same time screaming, “I don't want to hear! It's just excuses to stop me doing what I want! You let Shona go to Bardic College, so why don't you let me learn magic?”

“
ER, HEM
!” said Querida, loudly enlarged by magic.

Derk and Blade both whirled around. “Tyrant!” Blade screamed in her face, and then bowed over, consumed with embarrassment.

Derk surveyed the tiny, glistening lady in the robes of high chancellor. His eyes traveled on to the tall, glum, sweaty figure of King Luther and the huge shape of Umru and the blisters of sweat popping out on his vast, red-blotched cheeks. He nodded to them and smiled at Barnabas, whose curls were wet and whose face was even redder than Umru's. Finally he looked at the young man in the rear, who was a stranger to him and only pretending not to be hot. “Oh, hello,” he said. “What are you all doing here? Is there some reason you aren't using a refrigeration spell?”

“No, I forgot, bother it!” said Querida. “I like the heat.”

Derk nudged Blade. Blade recovered from his embarrassment enough to make a slight gesture. Incredible, blessed coolness spread over the four men.

“Bags of talent indeed,” Regin murmured.

“Thank you, young man,” Umru said gratefully.

Blade was clearly intending to demonstrate that it was not usual for him to scream into people's faces. He bowed. “You're welcome, Your Reverence,” he said with great politeness. “And—excuse me—do any of you know a wizard called Deucalion?” He looked round them anxiously as they all shrugged and shook their heads. “Magic user then?” he asked, with his voice dropping hopelessly.

“Never heard of anyone of that name, Blade,” said Barnabas. “Why?”

“He's the one the White Oracle says is going to train me as a wizard,” Blade explained. “Dad's never heard of him either.” He sighed.

Querida swept this aside. “We, as it happens, have consulted the Oracles also,” she said. “They have named you, Wizard Derk, as this year's Dark Lord and you, young Blade, as Wizard Guide to the last tour.”

“Now listen—” said Derk.

“No arguing with the Oracles, Derk,” Barnabas said quietly.

“But—” said Blade.

“Nor you, young man,” said Querida. “Both of you are going to be very busy for the next six months.”

At this Derk stirred himself, powerfully but a little uncertainly, and stood over Querida. “I don't think you can do this,” he said.

“Oh, yes, I can,” she said. “Go home and make ready. Tomorrow, at midday sharp, Mr. Chesney and all the Wizard Guides and I will be arriving at your house to brief you on this year's plans.” When Derk still stood there, she gazed up at him like a cobra ready to strike and added, “In case you are planning to be away from home tomorrow, I must point out you are in a very poor position, Wizard Derk. You have not paid your wizard's dues to the University for fifteen years. This gives me the right to exact penalties.”

“I sent you a griffin's egg,” Derk said.

“It was addled,” said Querida. “As I am sure you knew.”

“And I couldn't send you anything else,” Derk went on seriously. “All the products of my wizardry are alive. It would be criminal to shut them up in the University dues vault. You'd want to kill them and embalm them first. Besides, my wife has paid dues enough for two of us.”

“Mara's miniature universes are quite irrelevant to Mr. Chesney,” Querida stated. “Be warned, Wizard Derk. Either you present yourself at Derkholm to Mr. Chesney and the rest of us tomorrow, or you have every magic user in this world looking for you to make you be Dark Lord. Do I make myself clear?”

Blade pulled his father's arm. “Better go, Dad.”

“And you, young man,” said Querida. “You're to be there, too.”

Blade succeeded in pulling his father around sideways, but Derk still looked down at Querida across his own shoulder. “No one should have this kind of power,” he said.

“To whom do you refer, Wizard?” she asked, still in her cobra stance.

“Chesney, of course,” Derk said rather hastily.

Here Blade pulled harder, and the two of them disappeared in a stinging cloud of blown sand.

“Phew!” said Barnabas. “Poor old Derk!”

“Let us go home more slowly,” said Querida. “I feel a little tired.”

The return journey was more like a lingering walk, in which they trod now on a patch of hot sand, now on wiry dead grass, now on rocks or moss. Regin put himself beside Querida as they went. “Who is this Wizard Derk?” he asked.

Querida sighed. “A shambles of a man. The world's worst wizard, to my mind.”

“Oh, come now, Querida,” said Barnabas. “He's excellent at what he does—just a little unconventional, you know. When we were students together, I always thought he was twice as bright as me.”

Querida shuddered. “Unconventional is a kind word for it. I was senior instructor then. Of all the things he did wrong, my worst memories are of being dragged up in the middle of the night to deal with that vast blue demon that Derk had called up and couldn't put down. You remember?”

Barnabas nodded and bit his lip in order not to laugh. “Nobody knew its name, so none of the usual exorcisms worked. It took the entire staff of the University to get rid of it in the end. All through the night. Derk was never much good at conventional wizardry, I admit. But you use him a lot, don't you, Reverend?”

Umru smiled sweetly, his fat, comfortable, cool self again. “I pay for Wizard Derk's services almost every time my temple has a tour party through. No one but Wizard Derk can make a convincing human corpse out of a dead donkey.” Regin stared. Umru smiled ever more sweetly. “Or a sheep,” he said. “We are always chosen as an evil priesthood, and the Pilgrims expect us to have a vilely tortured sacrifice to display. Wizard Derk saves us the necessity of using people.”

“Oh,” said Regin. He turned to where King Luther was trudging grimly in the rear. “And you, Your Majesty? You know this wizard, too?”

“We use him for hangings and heads on spikes occasionally,” King Luther said. “But I hire him most often for the feast when the damn Pilgrims have gone. He has performing animals. Pigs mostly.”

“Pigs?” said Regin.

“Yes, pigs,” said King Luther. “They fly.”

“Oh,” Regin said again. As he said it, they arrived back on the flagstone in the council room again. Regin's teeth chattered; Barnabas was shivering; Umru was juddering all over. Querida was unaffected. So was King Luther, whose northern kingdom was never warm.

“What is the matter?” Umru cried out. People turned from reading the heaps of letters on the table to stare at him. He held his hands out piteously. “Look. Blue!”

“Oh. Um,” said Barnabas. “It's young Blade's fault, I'm afraid. Boys of that age never know their own strength. I'll do what I can, but it may take an hour or so.”

D
ERKHOLM WAS IN AN UPROAR
. Blade's sister Shona was by the stables, saddling two of the horses so that Derk could take her to Bardic College as soon as he got home from the Oracle, when Elda came galloping up with her wings spread, rowing herself along for extra speed, screaming that Derk was going to be Dark Lord. Elda was squawking with excitement, according to Don, who had been galloping after Elda to try to calm things down, and Shona either did not understand her or did not believe her straightaway. When she did, Shona instantly unsaddled the horses and turned them back into the paddock.

According to Don, Shona then struck a fine pose (it was something Shona had been doing ever since she was enrolled as a trainee bard, and it annoyed Don particularly and Kit almost as much) and declared, “I'll put off going to college for as long as Dad needs me. We have to show family solidarity over this.”

Shona, despite the pose, was highly excited by the news. As she raced back to the house carrying her saddlebags and violin case, with Don and Elda bounding ahead, all the animals caught it, even the Friendly Cows, and the rest of the day was loud with honks, squawks, moos, and the galloping of variously shaped feet.

Otherwise, Blade thought sourly, there was not much family solidarity around. When Shona burst in, flushed and looking violently pretty, their parents were having a row. Derk was roaring, “There
must
be a way to get out of it! I
refuse
to touch Chesney's money!” Though he was not much given to wizardly displays, Derk was feeling so strongly that he was venting magefire in all directions. One of the hall carpets was in flames.

“Dad!” Shona cried out. “You'll set the house on fire!”

Neither of their parents attended, though Mara shot Shona an angry look. Mara was enclosed in the steel blue light of a wizard's shields, and she seemed quite as excited as Shona. “Stop being a fool, Derk!” she was shouting. “If the Oracle says you're to be Dark Lord, then there's nothing you can do!”

Magefire fizzed on Mara's shields as Derk howled back, “Sod the Oracle! I'm not going to stand for it! And you should be helping me find a way out of it, not standing there backing the whole rotten system up!”

“I'm doing no such
thing!
” Mara screamed. “I'm merely trying to tell you it's inevitable. You'd know that, too, if you weren't in such a tantrum!”

Blade was trying to stamp the flames out of the rugs when big griffin Callette lumbered calmly through the front door carrying the rainwater butt, and upended it over the carpet. The hall hissed and steamed and smelled horrible.

Shona hastily snatched her luggage out of the water. “Dad,” she said, “be reasonable. We'll all help you. We'll get you through it somehow. Think of it. You've got five griffins, two wizards, and a bard, who are all going to look after you while you do it. I bet none of the other Dark Lords has ever had help like you've got.”

You had to hand it to Shona, Blade thought. She was far better at getting on with Dad than he was. Within minutes Derk was calm enough simply to go striding about the house with his face all puzzled and drooping, saying over and over, “There
has
to be a way out of it!” while Shona followed him, coaxing. Elda did her bit by following Derk, too, looking sweet and golden and cuddly.

Blade managed to talk to his mother at last.

He found her sitting at the kitchen table, pale but relieved-seeming, while Lydda made supper. Lydda was the only one of the griffins who really liked cooked food. And she not only liked it, she was passionate about it. She was always inventing new dishes. Blade found it very hard to understand. In Lydda's place, he would have felt like Cinderella, but it was clear Lydda felt nothing of the kind. She said, turning her yellow beak and one large bright eye toward Blade, “Do you
have
to come and get under my feet in here?”

Mara looked up at Blade's face. “Yes,” she said. “He does.”

Lydda's tail lashed, but she said nothing. The golden feathers of her wings and crest were loud with No comment.

“What did the Oracle say?” Mara asked Blade.

“Your teacher will be Deucalion,”
Blade quoted glumly. He saw his mother's fine, fair eyebrows draw together. “Don't tell me. You haven't heard of him either.”

“No-o,” Mara said. “The name rings a bell somewhere, but I certainly don't remember any wizard of that name. It must be some other magic user. Be patient. He—or she—
will
turn up, Blade. The White Oracle is always right.”

Blade sighed.

“And what else?” asked his mother.

“Why doesn't Dad
understand?
” Blade burst out. “He let Shona go to Bardic College.
Why
is he so set against me going to the University? I've told him and
told
him that I need to get there and get some training
now
in the junior section if I'm going to be properly grounded, and all he says is that he'll teach me himself. And he
can't,
Mum!
You
can't. The things I can do are all quite different from yours or Dad's. So
why?
”

“Well, there are two reasons,” Mara said. “The first is that the University didn't understand Derk, or treat him at all well, when he was there. I was there with him, so I know what a miserable time he had. Your father was full of new ideas—like creating the griffins—and he wanted nothing so much as to be helped to find out how to make those ideas work. But instead of helping him, they tried to force him to do things
their
way. It didn't matter to them at all that he was brilliant in
his
way. They went on at him about how wizardry these days had to be directed toward things that made the tours better, and they told him contemptuously that pure research was no use. I found him in tears more than once, Blade.”

“Yes, but that was
him,
” Blade objected. “I'm different. I've got lots of ideas, but I don't want to try them out yet. I want to know the
normal
things first.”