Dark Lord of Derkholm (6 page)

“Oh, shut up!” Derk yelled up at them. “It's a pig from the village. Your ancestors came from the marshes.”

This did nothing to soothe the pigs. They continued to surge about, yelling their protest, until Ringlet, one of the larger sows, slipped, overbalanced, and toppled off the roof. As her heavy round body came plummeting down, squealing fearsomely, she looked certain to land splat in the middle of the table. Half the wizards prudently ducked underneath. Several vanished. Chairs fell over, and cups and mugs. Even Mr. Addis put his hands nervously over his head. But Ringlet, still squealing mightily, struggled about in the air and managed to right herself in time to spread her stubby little white wings. Violently flapping and squealing hysterically, she got control inches from the table and flew screaming down the length of it, just rising in time to miss Mr. Chesney and then rising again to swoop up to the roof. The whole herd took off from the tiles joyfully to meet her, flapping, grunting, and bawling like a disturbed pink rookery.

Shona dashed past Blade and fled in through the front door. He could see her there, and Elda with her, inside the hall, clutching one another and shaking with laughter. He marveled that Callette could sit there on her haunches looking so solemnly innocent. He took his hat off to her. He wanted badly to giggle himself, until he looked at Mr. Chesney. Mr. Chesney had not moved, except to wipe the blood off himself. He was just sitting there, waiting for the interruption to stop.

“Take it away, and get a proper barrel of beer,” Derk told Callette. She heaved the vat up and tramped away with it without a word. “I'm sorry,” Derk said as wizards began cautiously reappearing from under the table or out of thin air and setting chairs upright again.

“Accepted, but don't let it occur again,” said Mr. Chesney. “Mr. Addis.”

“Right.” Mr. Addis switched on his friendly smile again. “I'm now going on to the update of our rules, which you will find in this black book.” He passed a heavy little volume to Barnabas.

Barnabas raised his hand. Then he paused, puffing a little from his recent dive under the table. “I think,” he said, “that as we have a new Dark Lord this year, I'd better appoint myself his Chief Minion, as the most experienced wizard here. Is that agreed?”

A sigh ran around the table as the wizards saw the favorite job go out of their reach, but most of them nodded. “It won't be the usual cushy post this year, anyway,” someone murmured.

Barnabas smiled ruefully and gestured. Blade and Derk each found themselves holding a thick, shiny book labeled in gold “Wizard's Bible.”

“Keep this by you and consult it at all times,” Mr. Addis said, “and please note that the rules are here to be kept. We had a few slipups last year, which have resulted in changes. This year we require all Wizard Guides to make sure that a healer stays within a day's trek of them. Healers have been instructed about this. And Wizard Guides are now officially required to ensure that all Pilgrims marked ‘expendable' on their list meet with a brave and honorable end and have that end properly witnessed by other Pilgrims. Last year we had someone return home alive. And in another case, lack of witnesses caused searching inquiries from the Missing Persons Bureau. Let's do better this year, shall we? And now I hand you over to my financial colleague, Mr. Bennet.”

Callette came back and boomed another barrel down on the terrace. Everyone looked at it nervously, but when Blade opened the tap, it was beer.

Mr. Bennet cleared his throat and opened his briefcase.

It was hard to listen to Mr. Bennet. He had that boring kind of voice you shut your mind to. Derk sat leafing through the black book, wondering how he would ever learn all these rules. Ants that built real cities perhaps? Blade was busy handing out fresh beer and being surprised at how many wizards leaned forward and attended eagerly to Mr. Bennet. The word
bonus
seemed to interest them particularly. But all Blade gathered was that the Dark Lord was allowed a bonus if he thought up any interesting new evils, and Dad did not seem to be attending. After quite a long while Mr. Bennet was saying, “With the usual proviso that Chesney Pilgrim Parties will query extravagant claims, will you please use these calculators to record your expenses?”

Barnabas gestured, and Blade found a flat little case covered with buttons in his hand. He was examining it dubiously when Callette silently reappeared from the other end of the terrace and took hold of the case in two powerful talons.

“All right, as long as you give it back,” Blade said automatically. “And explain how it works,” he added as Callette took it away. Callette always understood gadgets. She nodded at him over one brown-barred wing as she padded off.

Then, for a moment, Blade was sure the meeting was over. Mr. Addis and Mr. Bennet stood up. The wizards relaxed. But Mr. Chesney passed his briefcase back to the woman without looking at her and said, “One more thing.”

Everyone stiffened, including Mr. Addis and Mr. Bennet.

“Wizard Derk,” said Mr. Chesney, “since you owe me for this suit, which your monster has ruined, I propose that instead of the usual fine we appoint your lady wife as this year's Glamorous Enchantress. Without fee, of course.”

Derk spun in his chair and saw Mara standing there, glowing with a glamour and looking absolutely delighted. She doesn't
need
the glamour, he thought. She's still beautiful. So this was what she had been working on.

“You agree?” asked Mr. Chesney, and before Derk could say a word, he turned to Querida. “You will be standing down from the post this year.”

“Glad to,” Querida said dryly. But Derk kept his eye on her, and on Mara, and saw Querida was truly pleased. She and Mara were exchanging looks and all but hugging themselves.

What's going
on?
Derk wondered angrily.

He was taken by surprise to find that Mr. Chesney and the others were actually leaving. They went clattering down the terrace steps, with Mr. Chesney in front again. This time the orchids cringed away as the four strode off down the driveway. Derk started after them, but not very fast. He was not sure if he should show them politely to the gate, as he would have done for normal people. He was only halfway down the drive when they reached the gate.

And Kit was suddenly there, several tons of him, parked in the gateway, sitting like a cat and blocking the way entirely. He towered over Mr. Chesney and his three helpers. From where Derk was, he could have sworn Kit was as tall as the house. Funny, he thought. I didn't think even Kit was that big.

“Out of my way, creature,” Mr. Chesney said in his flat, colorless voice.

Kit's answer was to spread his wings, which made him look even larger. As Kit was mainly black these days and his wing feathers were jetty, the effect was very menacing indeed. Even Mr. Chesney took half a step backward. As soon as he did, Kit bent forward and peered very intently into Mr. Chesney's face.

Mr. Chesney stared at that wickedly large, sharp, buff-colored beak pointing between his eyes. “I said get out of my way, creature,” he said, his voice grating a little. “If you don't, you'll regret it.”

At this, Mr. Addis and Mr. Bennet each dropped their briefcases and reached under their coats in a way that looked meaningful. The girl threw down her board and fumbled at her waist. Derk broke into a run, with the starry cloak billowing behind and holding him back. “Kit!” he yelled. “Stop it, Kit!”

But as soon as Mr. Chesney's followers moved, Kit leaped into the air. His enormous wings clapped once, twice, causing a wind that made the four people stagger about, and then he was sailing above them, uttering squawks of sheer derision. He sailed low above Derk, almost burying Derk in the windblown cloak.
“Kit!”
Derk bawled angrily.

“Squa-squa-squiii-squa-squa!” Kit said, and sailed on, up into the dip in the roof, where the pigs erupted again in a frenzy of flapping and squealing, trying to get out of Kit's way before he landed on them.

Most of them made it, Derk thought. He felt the thump of Kit's landing even from beside the gate. “I do apologize,” he said to Mr. Chesney. “Kit's only fifteen—”

“Consider yourself fined a hundred gold, Wizard,” Mr. Chesney said coldly, and marched away to his horseless carriage.

A
FTER THAT DERK BADLY
wanted to be alone. He wanted to visit his animals, scratch backs and rub noses in peace. But he knew he must talk to Querida, much as he disliked her. “Would you like me to show you my animals?” he asked her, by way of doing both things at once.

Querida looked along the table. Most of the wizards were still there, eating and drinking and chatting cheerfully. She nodded and stood up. She barely came up to Derk's elbow. “On the understanding that I don't offer to embalm any of the creatures, I suppose,” she said. “Although I think I'd hesitate before I tried embalming a griffin.” She jerked her chin in the direction of the roof. All that could be seen there was a ruffled lump of black feathers where Kit was, after a fashion, lying low.

“I'll talk to
you
when I come back!” Derk shouted up at the lump. “If I have to get on a ladder to do it!”

Kit gave no sign that he had heard. Derk gave up on him and led Querida across the terrace and around to the back of the house. She remarked as they went, “Dealing with an adolescent griffin must be even worse than dealing with an adolescent human.”

“Hmm,” said Derk. Remembering some of the things Blade had said to him yesterday, he was not sure that was true. But there was no doubt that Kit had been very difficult lately. He sighed, because he had sudden piercing, overwhelming memories of Kit when he was first hatched, memories of a small, scrawny, golden bundle of down and fine fur; of his own pride in his very first successfully hatched griffin; of himself and Mara lovingly bundling Kit from one to the other; of two-year-old Shona and Kit rolling on the floor together, rubbing beak to nose and laughing. Kit had been so small and thin and fluffy that they had called him their Kitten. No one had expected him to grow so very big. Or so difficult.

They came around the back of the house where the pens and plantations stretched away uphill. “What a lot of space you have here!” Querida exclaimed.

“The whole end of the valley,” Derk said. The animals knew Derk was there. Most of them came rushing toward the ends of their pens to meet him. Derk fed Big Hen a corncob—she was about the size of an ostrich, and he had used the shells of her eggs as eggs for the griffins—and then suffered himself to be slobbered on and gazed at by the Friendly Cows. He began to feel soothed. Bother ants! he thought. He had done bees, after all. What he needed was an animal that no one had thought of before.

“Cows?” asked Querida, looking up at the big, sticky noses and the great, moony eyes.

“Er, sort of,” Derk admitted. “I bred them to be very stupid. Animals know, you see—you saw the pigs' opinion of that blood—and I wanted a cow that wouldn't know when we needed her for the griffins to eat. But they turned out so very friendly that it's quite difficult at times.”

“Indeed.” Querida moved on to the next pen, full of very small sheep. “What's your opinion of the great Mr. Chesney?”

“If I ever bred a piranha with a hyena, I'd call it a Chesney,” Derk said.

“That's right,” said Querida. “We're just like your Friendly Cows to him, you know.”

“I know,” said Derk.

“And he means every word he says. You did understand that, did you?”

“I understood,” Derk said somberly. If he ever bred a Chesney, he thought, it would have to have gills and be amphibious.

“Good,” said Querida. “You aren't a fool, whatever else you are. Did you know those sheep eat meat? There's one over there munching a sparrow.”

“They do,” Derk admitted. “I got them a bit wrong somewhere.”

They moved on to the next enclosure, whose occupants stood in a row with their long necks stretched, honking sarcastically. “It sounds just as if those geese are jeering,” said Querida.

“They are.” Derk sighed. “I bred them for intelligence, and I hoped they'd talk—and I think they
may
talk, but they do it in their own language.”

“Hmm. I think your geese are safe from the University,” said Querida, moving on. What she wanted was a griffin. She knew which one, too. But she was prepared to go about it quite slowly and very cunningly. “Why is this cage empty? The pigs?”

“No, the pigs are free-range. That should be cats,” Derk told her. “I think the ones still in there are invisible, but most of them got out through the walls somehow.”

Querida gave a hissing chuckle. “That's cats for you! Mine do that, too, and as far as I know, they're just ordinary cats. What were you breeding them for?”

“Color,” said Derk. “I was hoping for red or blue, but they didn't like the idea, and it didn't work. But they took to invisibility. And the old female cat who's dead now was very proud of the fact that I took some of her cells for Elda. She used to spend hours washing Elda when Elda first hatched.”

They walked past giant guinea pigs and inch-high monkeys sporting in tiny trees Derk had grown for them. “Did you use cats to make all your griffins?” Querida asked curiously as they came to the daylight owls.