Dark Lord of Derkholm (49 page)

And Lydda was there, almost as Blade thought this, dropping neatly from above on a truly magnificent wingspread, screaming to join in. “Oh, thank the gods—I was so worried!” Derk said, and Callette said, “That's good. Now it's everyone.”

Blade glanced upward to see where Lydda had come from. He was in time to see the tip of one of Scales's huge claws slicing through the rest of the magic dome. For an instant or so Scales could be seen as a mighty shadow above the milkiness. Then Derk's defenses crumpled away and folded downward, letting in a burst of extra light from under Scales, who wheeled about and landed on most of the garden monsters. He sat up, rearing higher than the dome had been.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he rumbled at Derk. “We need to talk.”

Scales was wearing the battered coronet. At least, Blade realized, it was the coronet that had
seemed
to be battered, until you noticed that a coronet had to be a strange, irregular shape in order to fit the head of a dragon. Now it looked more like a crown. And what everyone had thought of as the broken gold chain was hooked to the spikes of Scales's neck to dangle gleaming and complete on his chest.

Mara went to the edge of the terrace with her arm over Lydda, still smiling from the reunion, and turned the smile up to Scales. “Forgive me, I only realized who you were awhile ago. You're Deucalion, who was once king of the dragons, aren't you?”

“I hope I still am!” Scales rumbled. He raised his crowned head to look at the other dragons crouching along the hills over Derkholm. “How say you, dragons?”

The other dragons lifted their heads in reply and hailed their king in a musical roar, each dragon crying a different note in a massive bugling chord. A number of the dwarfs crouched down and covered their ears. The house, the ground, the terrace, and the whole valley shook. Blade thought, deafened and astonished, The Oracle said a
dragon
would teach me magic! Why?

Meanwhile the angry Pilgrims outside and the extremely irritated wizards with them had seen the dome collapse and surged toward the gates. They stopped short when Scales landed, started to surge forward again, and stopped once more when the dragons roared on the hills. Nobody could move during a sound like that. But as soon as the great cry stopped, the Pilgrims in front began edging on, through the gate, and into the space by Deucalion's great right wing. Most of them were shouting that they were going to
kill
that Dark Lord, but they stopped yet again and all backed into one another when the demon rose high on its three legs in front of the terrace.

Scales rose up to meet it. “Tripos!” he growled. “Demon king. Go!”

If you exorcise me, you'll regret it, Deucalion,
the demon replied.
You need me.

The bleach burn of its talk was enough to cause utter silence, except for a woman Pilgrim near the gate who said, “Is that the Dark Lord? But I thought—” and stopped with a gulp when one of the demon's three eyes turned to look at her. Or maybe it was the thunder of Scales's answer.

“Need YOU?” the dragon roared.

The demon, rather slyly, untwisted its tail from around its three legs. The tail went snaking out across the terrace and stabbed the air with its wormy blue tip, somewhere between Querida's wall and Prince Talithan's magic haze. The air there writhed about and split apart with a
pop
. The split became a neat arched opening.

Mr. Chesney stood in the arched space, staring around the terrace with his mouth set into a grim upside-down smile. He nodded at what he saw there, as if it was even worse than he had expected.

“Ah, I see,” said Scales. “You were holding it shut.” And he added, most unwillingly, “Thank you.”

Mr. Chesney shot Scales an irritated glance for speaking out of turn. He did not notice the demon towering nebulously behind him. His eyes traveled stonily from Querida on her wall, with Elda now crouching at her feet and Reville leaning beside her, on to Mara, Lydda, Callette, Don, across forty dwarfs or so, to Blade and Kit, and stopped at Derk.

“Wizard Derk,” he said in his flat voice, “you are facing a great deal more than bankruptcy for this.”

Derk could only manage a shrug. Mr. Chesney was having the same effect on him as he had had before. Derk so hated the man that all he seemed to be able to think of was ideas for new and fantastic animals. They came pouring through his mind: the carrier pigeons—easy—and vegetarian eagles with pouches for messages, centaurs, talking elephants, manticores, kangaroos with hands and human faces, chimeras, walking mushrooms, winged goats. Or how about creating a unicorn?

Luckily Mr. Chesney did not seem to expect an answer. His eyes traveled coldly on, across the Pilgrims, over more dwarfs, on to Talithan, and then, with a jerk, back to the Pilgrims. “You two,” he said. “Come here.”

Miss Ledbury stood up. So did Dad and Mother Poole. The Pooles sat diffidently down again when Mr. Chesney snapped, “I didn't mean you.”

Miss Ledbury stayed standing up. “But I mean to talk to you,” she announced. “I am a plainclothes detective attached to the Police Bureau, Missing Persons and Unsolved Murder departments. I was sent to investigate the reason why so many people who go on your Pilgrim Parties never come back.”

“Do you think I haven't taken legal advice?” Mr. Chesney asked her, flatly unconcerned. “Anything that happens on this world is outside the jurisdiction of your bureau. But you can arrest Wizard Derk if you like. He was the one who closed the portal here, not me. Speak to my lawyers. You'll find I've done nothing illegal.”

“Ah. Then I'd better put a word in here,” Mother Poole said cozily. “I work for Inland Revenue. And my inquiries suggest that the money for your insurance fraud
and
the fees for bumping people off here
are
paid in our own world. The tax owing on both must be in millions by now, not to speak of the fact that most of it is illegal income. Don't talk to me about arresting this nice young bard's father, my dear. I can't wait to get you home. And Dad here's licking his lips.”

Dad Poole cleared his throat. “I'm from the Monopolies Commission,” he said. “I
was
looking into the way you're the only one who runs tours to this world, but I've since been hearing about a certain mining operation you have here.”

Mr. Chesney waved a cold hand. “I said speak to my lawyers. You'll find I'm clean. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to talk to my daughter and my stepson. Sukey, Geoffrey, I said come here.”

Shona dashed forward and seized Geoffrey's arm. “He's not going back with you!” she said.

“No, indeed he isn't,” Mr Chesney agreed. “I want to speak to the wizard who had charge of his party. I marked Geoffrey down as expendable myself.”

“You did? You unfeeling—” Shona began.

Geoffrey said, “I can speak for myself, love.” He turned to Mr. Chesney. “So it was all lies about my getting experience of the tours, was it? And the ski lift and the car crash were intentional, were they? I did wonder. I can think, you know.”

“I didn't want you taking a share of Sukey's inheritance,” Mr. Chesney said, shrugging a little, as if this was the most natural thing. “It's a considerable sum these days. That's all. And I'm not at all pleased with you for bringing Sukey here with you.”

“She was dying to come,” Geoffrey said, “so I arranged it for her.”

“You'd do anything to spite me, wouldn't you?” Mr. Chesney said.

“No,” said Geoffrey. “You just think I do.”

Mr. Chesney turned aside from him disgustedly. “Sukey.”

Blade had been watching Sukey as she edged around past Mara and Lydda to stand next to Reville. Now he understood why the escaped soldiers had carried her off and then treated her as if she was so valuable. They knew who she was. They must have been hoping for a reward from Mr. Chesney. Blade also knew why he had disliked Sukey so much. She was quite like Mr. Chesney to look at, although even Blade had to admit that she was a great deal prettier. He still thought she was quite like Mr. Chesney in her personality.

She seemed very like her father as she grabbed Reville's arm and said, “I'm not coming, Daddy,” in the same sort of flat voice Mr. Chesney used. “I'm staying here. I'm getting married to Reville.”

Mr. Chesney was so angry at this that he almost looked human. “What?”

Sukey nodded. “Yup. Reville's ever so rich. He's got a lovely house for me. And he's a thief. You should be ever so pleased.”

“Well, I'm not. It's plain ridiculous,” Mr. Chesney stated. “It's not going to happen, and that's my final word, Sukey.”

Reville gave one of his smoothest bows. He looked around at the large numbers of people all watching and listening and said ruefully, “I intend it to happen, sir. And—this is a fact we don't like generally known, but it may help to change your mind—I am actually the richest person in this world. Hereditary Head of Thieves Guild, at your service, Mr. Chesney.”

“It's still ridiculous,” Mr. Chesney snapped. He turned to Sukey, almost pleadingly. “You don't understand,” he said. “He's not real life. None of these people are. They're all just the way they are because I turned their world into a theme park. If they didn't happen to be under contract to me, they'd be nothing—just rough types in a world that happens to have some magic to it.”

“Dear me,” Querida put in from her perch on the wall. “And now we all come fluttering down like a pack of cards, I suppose.” She cocked an eye up at the demon, still towering behind Mr. Chesney.

I can't eat this one,
the demon told her.
The demon in his pocket prevents me. It is my mate, and he keeps it half starved. Set it free. Then I will eat him very slowly.

Querida glanced at Reville. “Regin—Reville—whatsyourname?” she murmured.

“Need a diversion,” Reville whispered back.

Elda nodded and slipped away around the wall. Don saw her go and slipped off after her.

Sukey said to Mr. Chesney, “They're people just like you are. I'm staying.”

“I don't understand,” said Mr. Chesney, “how you can be so unfeeling.”

“Look who's talking!” Sukey said.

Sukey was standing by Reville, and Mr. Chesney was looking at them both. Querida looked around for some way to make Mr. Chesney look away from Reville and found Scales's enormous head looming above her. “Unfeeling indeed,” Scales boomed. “My dragons are being killed by inches because you keep them too short of gold.”

Mr. Chesney barely glanced at Scales. “There's no suffering involved. I had an expert assess the exact amount they needed.”

“I don't think much of your expert then,” Mara chipped in. “Who was it?”

Professor Ledbury stood up shakily. “It was I, madam. I remember I told him it was only a guess.”

Prince Talithan seemed to realize that they were trying to make Mr. Chesney look somewhere else. He stepped forward. “There is no lawfulness, sir, in the manner you took my brother and held him hostage to force the elves to your bidding.”

Still looking at Sukey, Mr. Chesney said, “Nonsense. He came of his own free will.”

“But I didn't!” Professor Ledbury protested. “You tempted me with promises of strange sights, and when I came to see, I found I was seized and held in a place where I lost my magic and grew old. Only when I lost all memory of who I was did you turn me loose.”

Prince Talithan strode up to the professor and stared into his haggard old face. “Eldreth?” he said. “Can you be my brother Eldreth?”

“I fear so,” Professor Ledbury said sadly.

“Then pigs do fly!” Talithan cried out, and flung his arms around the professor.

“Well done, Eldred,” Miss Ledbury said, fetching out her notebook. “We can close the file on you at least.”

Querida felt Reville tense, hoping to use this reunion as a diversion. But Elda's diversion arrived at that moment, and it was much more effective. She said afterward that she and Don had met it coming, anyway, and simply encouraged it a little. Ringlet came first, flying a jeering half foot too high for the dogs to reach her, with the whole pack of dogs beneath and around her, jumping, barking, yelping, and being pursued themselves by the rest of the pigs, some on foot, some in the air, and all squealing mightily. Pretty, who had clearly deserted Talithan for this game, came cantering after them, neighing with laughter, and after Pretty, flapping and angry, with their necks stretched out, rushed a number of geese, home at last, but only about half the usual number. Old George sped after them, shouting uselessly. After him lumbered the Friendly Cows, mooing and bewildered, dropping cowpats into the confusion, driven on by Don and Elda. And after them—Don explained later that it was pure coincidence—came galloping a herd of the dwarfs' ponies, anxious to be reunited with their masters, followed by Nancy Cobber and all the Derkholm horses. Last of all came Beauty, flapping, neighing, and dragging the Horselady, who was hanging on to her bridle and trying to stop her.

“See Prhetty! See Prhetty!” Beauty screamed.