Dark Lord of Derkholm (44 page)

“Quite a crowd outside the gates by now. Wizards with them look pretty impatient.”

“Go away,” said Derk.

Next time he came, Old George said, “Bigger crowd still. Been trying to get in, but the wizards can't seem to manage it.”

“Go
away,
” said Derk, and he reinforced the magics around Derkholm.

“Never seen a Dark Lord they can't get at before,” Old George said another time. “Don't seem to know what to do. Must be several hundred tourists out there now.”

“Go away!” sighed Derk.

“Them dwarfs,” Old George said, reappearing sometime after, “got their beady eyes on your cows. You can't expect me to keep them off single-handed.”

“Get Don to help you guard them then,” said Derk. He was so irritated that he took the emaciation off Old George.

Old George was not grateful. “Now I haven't got a rag to my name that fits me!”

“Borrow mine. Upstairs somewhere,” Derk said.

“If the dwarfs left you any. Into everything, they are,” said Old George.

“Go away!”
said Derk.

The dwarfs interrupted nearly as often. There seemed to be swarms of them now, from several different clans, each distinguished by the objects plaited into their braids. They told Derk what each bead and color meant. They seemed to feel that Derk needed to chat. One of them sat and told him stories of ancient dwarf feuds and battles, until Derk implored him not to. All of them seemed to feel Derk ought to eat. They kept bringing him food. Derk had no interest in any of it until the time Dworkin brought him a crispy fowl's leg.

“Goose?” Derk inquired hopefully.

“No, well, actually it's one of a flock we found penned up in the hills. Just ordinary hens, you know,” Dworkin explained. “But they seemed to be going begging, so we brought them here the morning before you came back. Lucky, that. They make good, tasty eating. Try it.”

“No, thanks,” said Derk, listlessly wondering whom in the village he owed money to now.

Don ate the chicken leg, as he had eaten all the other food the dwarfs brought to Derk. Derk himself might have starved but for Prince Talithan. Talithan took to appearing, very softly and tactfully, every day. He said nothing, for which Derk was grateful, but simply stood and surveyed Derk and the pigs in the hut. After a while he began to bring a succession of tall, grave elfin ladies along with him, too. Each lady brought something with her—a flask of glowing liquor, a shining fruit, a box of melting biscuits, a plate of enticing shellfish—which she put down beside Derk before bowing and leaving. Everything they brought smelled and tasted so heavenly that Derk often ate or drank it before he had time to think. Possibly it made him feel better.

The demon kept putting in an appearance as well. It would bulge up from between the terrace paving stones, fix all three eyes wonderingly upon Derk, and then subside away downward. It never said anything. But Derk could feel it around much of the time, puzzling over him, and he wished it would go. He had a notion that the demon was being tactful, too, in its way.

There was one other set of people whom the magics surrounding Derkholm would not prevent from appearing, but they had so far not appeared. From time to time Derk wondered what he would do when they did. Mostly he was too miserable to care.

Meanwhile here was Don again, tiptoeing up with a clack of claw and a rattle of feathers that said
I am being tactful
in a way that made Derk want to scream.

“Dad, Callette's been in her shed for
days
now, and she won't come out. She's worse than you, even. She hasn't eaten a thing since we got back.”

Callette was still growing. This was serious. Derk actually got up and shambled down the garden, past the fading, tattered remains of the human monsters, to Callette's shed. He stood outside it and called.

“Go away,” said Callette.

“You can't stay there,” said Derk.

“Yes, I can,” said Callette. “I'm not sorry Kit's dead, and I know I ought to be, so I'm staying here until I
am
sorry.”

Derk thought of Callette misbehaving when she was small and of himself saying, “Go to your room until you're sorry.” Oh, dear. “I don't think it works like that, Callette,” he said helplessly. “I know you didn't get on with Kit. You can't help that.” Silence from the shed. “I'm sorry enough for two,” Derk said. “Won't that do?”

“Go away,” said Callette.

Taste of my own medicine, Derk thought, and went back to his hut on the terrace.

Querida came the next day. To a wizard of her powers, Derk's defenses were—not exactly child's play; they nearly defeated her—possible to overcome with a severe struggle. She arrived on the terrace, leaning heavily on the stick she now used instead of crutches and not quite so calm and strong as she would have wished.

Good gracious gods! she thought.

The smell of pig and person from the hut was appalling. Behind it the house was almost as bad. Since Derk had stopped caring about the Citadel magics, parts of it had frayed or fallen off. The house was now a patchwork of dark archways and black half towers mixed in with ordinary windows and walls. Barnabas's transparent repaired part shone out above the sinister black carvings around the Citadel door. But the door was open, showing an indescribable mess inside, horse droppings and chewed bones, among which dwarfs came and went—more and more dwarfs, as they realized that someone new had arrived. Querida did not blame the big golden griffin sitting protectively beside the hut for looking so unhappy.

“Really, Wizard Derk, this place is like a pigsty!” she said.

Derk settled more comfortably among the pigs. “It
is
a pigsty,” he said.

An old man wearing clothes far too tight for him arrived on the end of the terrace in a crowd of panting dogs. “You want her thrown out?” he asked.

Really! Querida thought.

“No, no,” said Derk. “She'll probably go when she's said what she wants to say.”

“Really!”
said Querida. The old man and the dogs settled down on the terrace steps, preparing, like the dwarfs crowding the sinister doorway, to listen to everything she said. Querida sighed in exasperation. “I suppose there's no chance of anyone bringing me a chair?” Apparently there wasn't. Nobody moved. “Very well,” Querida said, leaning on her stick. “Wizard Derk, are you aware that there are now thirty-nine Pilgrim Parties waiting outside your gate?”

“They'll go away in the end,” Derk said.

Querida thumped her stick on the flagstones in exasperation. “But there is no way they
can
go away except through your Citadel!” When Derk did not reply to this, she added, “And the only reason there aren't more parties out there is that all the horses have disappeared. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said Derk.

“And all the dragons have vanished,” said Querida.

“They're angry,” said Derk, “about the gold.” This was important. Scales had explained why. Derk came up on one elbow and explained to Querida. “Dragons sit on gold because they get vital vitamins from it. They haven't been allowed enough gold for years.”

“Oh,” said Querida. “I wasn't aware of that.” Seeing that Derk might now be attending, she went on quickly. “And there's been the most dreadful chaos up on the battlefield. I had to send for High Priest Umru to sort it out. The Empire and King Luther declared war on one another, and the mercenaries were killing everything that moved. I don't think there's a single offworld soldier surviving by now. What are you going to do for an army?”

Derk did not want to hear about battles. He came off his elbow and lay back among the pigs. “Ask Barnabas,” he said bitterly.

Querida pursed her lips. She was not getting through to this man. “In fact,” she said, “there is hardly a single tour event
anywhere
that hasn't broken down in some way. They depend on the Dark Lord to keep them organized.”

“I know,” said Derk.

Querida hissed with annoyance. It was true she had meant the tours to break down. She had done a great deal of work to make sure they did. But not like this, with more than half the Pilgrim Parties stranded here. “Wizard Derk …” she began.

Something heavy shuffled behind her on the terrace. “Leave him alone,” said Callette.

Querida whirled around. Her mouth dropped open. Callette's eyes were dull and reddish. Her lion coat was sticky and staring. Under the disordered feathers of Callette's wings, Querida could see every one of Callette's ribs. The feathers stuck this way and that from her scrawny neck, and her whole body drooped, despairingly.

Callette said to Derk, “I've found out I am sorry about Kit after all.”

Querida went on gaping. It began to dawn on her that she was intruding on real grief here.

“So am I, Callette,” said Derk. “So am I.”

“I've no one to fight anymore,” Callette explained. Her bloodshot eye swiveled to Don. Don backed away.

As he backed, a hole appeared in the universe. It occurred with a smart popping noise, more or less where Don had been sitting, writhed a bit, and then settled to a neat arched shape. Querida was probably the only one who noticed the sudden blue light that bulged alertly from between two stones in the terrace and then faded quietly away to a thread. Everyone else was watching the hole in the universe, where Mr. Addis straightened his tie and stepped down in front of Derk's hut.

“Good morning,” Mr. Addis said cheerfully. “There seem to have been one or two hiccups in our choreography. I'm here to sort things out.”

“Just go away,” Derk said wearily.

Mr. Addis stared down at him and straightened his tie again. “For a start,” he said, “Mr. Derk, you were required to manifest as a dark shadow, not as—er—an extra pig.” He looked up at the house, and he frowned. “This simply will not do as a Citadel. The illusion is not convincing. And”—his eye fell on the dwarfs—“there seems to have been some mix-up over the tribute as well. Mr. Derk, Mr. Chesney is already seriously displeased, and this will displease him further. We're talking extensive fines here, Mr. Derk. Why have only one-third of our Pilgrim Parties returned home?”

“Because I've stopped them,” said Derk.

“
Stopped
them!” exclaimed Mr. Addis. “You can't do that!”

“Yes, I can,” said Derk. “I have.”

“But you're under contract!” Mr. Addis cried out. “Mr. Derk, I am here to tell you that Mr. Chesney will enforce that contract with the utmost severity if you fail to comply with our terms. We're talking more than
extensive
fines now. We're talking
crippling.
” Derk did not answer. Mr. Addis said, slowly and loudly, as if he thought Derk had become stupid, “Mr. Derk, where are our remaining Pilgrim Parties?”

“Sitting in the valley outside here, I suppose,” Derk said. “Until they show some sense and go and find something better to do.”

“Those are sixteen hundred people,” Mr. Addis told him, slowly and sternly. “Mr. Chesney will not countenance the loss of sixteen hundred people.”

“Oh, go away.” Derk turned his head and stared at Ringlet.

“Shall I throw him out?” Old George offered.

“You'll do no such thing, my good man.” Mr. Addis held up a hand as if it were a dam to stop Old George and looked sternly down at Derk. “Mr. Derk, we are talking the loss of sixteen hundred people here.”

Derk came up onto his elbow again. Then to his knees. Finally, he stood up. Mr. Addis backed from the filthy, unshaven mess that Derk was. “Loss?” said Derk. “People? I've lost my wife and my son. I saw the griffin who was a son to me shot down by
your
soldiers. My human daughter and my griffin daughter are missing. And you talk to me of sixteen hundred tourists who aren't even dead!”

Mr. Addis put up his hand again, damming Derk this time. “Come, come, Mr. Derk. I'm sure we can settle this in a friendly way.”

“You don't understand,” Derk said heavily and expressionlessly. “Kit. Is. Dead. Now go away.”

“I think Mr. Chesney's interests are best served—” Mr. Addis began.

But this was where Callette lost her temper. “You heard him,” she said. “He said go away. So go.” And she tramped toward him with her neck out like an angry goose.

Mr. Addis eyed her critically. “I don't think your talking monster is in very good condition, Mr. Derk.”

Callette spread her disheveled wings. “No. I'm not. I happen to be very hungry. I think I shall eat you. You're nice and fat.” She crawled forward another step.

“Call her off!” Mr. Addis said. His voice had gone shrill and uneasy.

Derk simply folded his arms. Callette lunged. Mr. Addis realized just in time that she meant what she said and ran for his hole in the universe with Callette's angry beak a mere inch from his backside the whole way. “Mr. Chesney will hear of this! Mr. Chesney will hear of this!” Mr. Addis babbled as he ran, and leaped, and landed on hands and knees inside his hole.