Dark Lord of Derkholm (8 page)

Sulkily Kit surged upright. Perhaps he meant to fly down to the terrace. Derk thought it more likely that Kit intended to take off for the hills, and he wondered if bringing him back with a catch spell would damage Kit's pride too badly. But he never got a chance to cast it, any more than Kit had a chance to fly. As Kit braced his powerful hind legs for takeoff, the roof fell in beneath him. And Kit fell with it. He simply vanished inward, along with the center part of the house. With him went tiles, a chimney, broken rafters, crumpled wall, and smashed windows, in a billow of plaster dust and old cobwebs. The crash was tremendous.

“Oh, ye
gods!
” said Mara. “He never even had time to spread his wings!”

“Be glad he didn't. He'd have broken them for sure,” Derk said. He dashed for the house, followed by the ever-helpful Bertha, followed by Finn and Barnabas.

“Derk, Derk!” Mara cried out. “The other children! They were all indoors!”

“I'll go and look,” said Shona. “Mum, you look ready to faint. Sit down.”

“Not indoors! Look through the windows,” said Mara. “We stretched the house.
Any
of it might come down! Be careful!”

“Yes, yes,” Shona said soothingly as Derk scrambled in through the front door. In some mad way, the front door was still standing. A mound of rubble had shot out through it and past it on either side. Bertha went bounding in ahead of Derk. As Derk climbed carefully through a chaos of fallen beams and bricks, he heard her start barking in short, triumphant bursts.

From further inside the chaos, Kit's voice said distinctly, “Shut up, you stupid dog.”

Poor Bertha. It was not her day. Derk heaved a sigh of relief.

“Lucky we're all wizards here,” Barnabas said behind him. “Finn, you make sure the side walls don't fall in, while Derk and I see what we can do ahead.”

As Derk crawled on through a crisscross of rafters draped with cobwebs and sheets from the second-floor linen cupboard, he felt the walls on either side groan a little and then steady under Finn's spell. They found Kit a yard or so further on, dumped in a huge black huddle and coated with plaster and horsehair, in a sort of cage of splintered roof beams and broken marble slabs. Out of it, his eyes stared enormous, black and wild.

“Have you broken anything?” said Derk.

Kit squawked. “Only the new marble stairs.”

“Wings and legs and things, he means, you stupid griffin,” Barnabas said.

“I'm … not sure,” answered Kit.

“Good. Then we'll get you out,” said Barnabas. “Where's the dog?”

“She went squirming out at the back,” said Kit. “She smelled the kitchen.”

“Oh, gods!” said Derk. “Lydda was probably in there!”

“One thing at a time,” Barnabas said. “This is going to take a separate levitating spell for each beam and most slabs, I think. Finn, can you join us?”

Finn came crawling through, white with dust and very cheerful. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I see. Can do. Derk, you'll now get to see some of the techniques we use when we put cities back together after the tours leave. You take the left side, Barnabas.”

Derk crouched against a piece of timber and watched enviously. It was like a demonstration for students. Neatly and quickly, with only a murmur here and there, the two wizards inserted their spells under each balk of wood or stone and then around Kit. After a mere minute Barnabas said, “Right. Now activate.” And the entire tangle of beams and marble slabs unfolded like a clawed hand and went to rest neatly stacked against the walls. “Can you move?” Barnabas asked Kit.

Kit said, “Umph. Yes.” And then, as he rose to a crouch and started to crawl forward: “Yeeow-ouch!” Derk watched him struggle forward across the rubble that had been the hall. At least all Kit's limbs seemed to be working.

“Look on the bright side,” Finn said. “You're halfway to a ruined Citadel already. Want us to stabilize it?”

“Yes, but how do we get up to the bedrooms?” Derk said, looking up at the ragged hole in the roof. “And Shona's piano was up on the second floor.”

“It's still up there,” said Barnabas, “or we'd have met it by now. Better reassemble the stairs, Finn, and slap some kind of roof on, don't you think? Derk, you're going to owe us for this.”

“Fine. Thanks,” said Derk. His mind was on Kit.

Kit squeezed out through a gap beside the front door and flopped down on his stomach with his head bent almost upside down between his front claws. “My head aches,” he said, “and I hurt all over.” He was a terrible sight. Every feather and hair on him was gray with dust or cobwebs. There was a small cut on one haunch. Otherwise he seemed to have been lucky.

Derk looked anxiously around for some sign of the others. Mara had gone, too, but he could hear her voice somewhere. In the chorus of voices answering, he could pick out Elda, Blade, Lydda, Don, and Callette. “Thank goodness,” he said. “You don't seem to have killed any of the others.”

Kit groaned.

“And you could have done,” added Derk. “You know how heavy you are. Come along to your den, and let me hose you down with warm water.”

Kit was far too big to live in the house these days. Derk led the way to the large shed he had made over to Kit, and Kit crawled after him, groaning. He made further long, crooning moans while Derk played the hose over him outside it, but that seemed to be because he had started to feel his bruises. Derk made sure nothing was broken, not even the long, precious flight feathers in Kit's great wings. Kit grumbled that he had broken two talons.

“Be thankful that was all,” Derk said. “Now, do you want to talk to me out here, or indoors in private?”

“Indoors,” Kit moaned. “I want to lie down.”

Derk pushed open the shed door and beckoned Kit inside. He felt guilty doing it, as if he was prying into Kit's secrets. Kit did not usually let anyone inside his den. He always claimed it was in too much of a mess, but in fact, as Derk had often suspected, it was neater than anywhere in the house. Everything Kit owned was shut secretly away in a big cupboard. The only things outside the cupboard were the carpet Mara had made him, the huge horsehair cushions Kit used for his bed, and some of Kit's paintings pinned to the walls.

Kit was too bruised to mind Derk's seeing his den. He simply crawled to his cushions, dripping all over the floor, too sore to shake himself dry, and climbed up with a sigh. “All right,” he said. “Talk. Tell me off. Go on.”

“No, you talk,” said Derk. “What did you think you were playing at there with Mr. Chesney?”

Kit's sodden tail did a brief hectic lashing. He buried his beak between two cushions. “No idea,” he said. “I feel awful.”

“Nonsense,” said Derk. “Come clean, Kit. You got the other four to pretend they couldn't speak and then you sat there in the gateway. Why?”

Kit said something muffled and dire into the cushions.

“What?” said Derk.

Kit's head came up and swiveled savagely toward Derk. He glared. “I said,” he said, “I was going to
kill
him. But I couldn't manage it. Satisfied?” He plunged his beak back among the cushions again.

“Why?” asked Derk.

“He orders this whole
world
about!” Kit roared. It was loud, even through the horsehair. “He ordered
you
about. He called Shona a slave girl. I was going to kill him, anyway, to get rid of him, but I was glad he deserved it. And I thought if most people there thought the griffins were just dumb beasts, then you couldn't be blamed. You know—I got loose by accident and savaged him.”

“I'm damn glad you didn't, Kit,” said Derk. “It's no fun to have to think of yourself as a murderer.”

“Oh, I knew they'd kill me,” said Kit.

“No, I mean it's a vile state of mind,” Derk explained. “A bit like being mad, except that you're sane, I've always thought. So what stopped you?” He was shocked to hear himself sounding truly regretful as he asked this question.

Kit reared his head up. “It was when I looked in his face. It was awful. He thinks he owns everything in this world. He thinks he's right. He wouldn't have understood. It was a pity. I could have killed him in seconds, even with that demon in his pocket, but he would have been just like food. He wouldn't have felt guilty, and neither would I.”

“I'm glad to hear you think you ought to have felt guilty,” Derk observed. “I was beginning to wonder whether we'd brought you up properly.”

“I do feel guilty. I
did,
” Kit protested. “And I hated the idea. But I've been feeling rather bloodthirsty lately, and saving the world seemed a good way to use it. I don't seem to be much use otherwise. And now,” he added miserably, “I feel terrible about the house, too.”

“Don't. Most of it has to come down, anyway—on Mr. Chesney's orders,” Derk said. “So you were crouching in the bushes by the terrace fueling your bloodlust, were you?”

“Shut up!” Kit tried to squirm with shame and left off with a squawk when his bruises bit. “All right. It was a stupid idea. I hate myself, if that makes you feel any better!”

“Don't be an ass, Kit.” Derk was thinking things through, fumbling for an explanation. Something had been biting Kit for months. Long before there was any question of Derk's becoming the Dark Lord, Kit had been in a foul, tetchy, snarling mood—bloodthirsty, as he called it himself—and Derk had put it down simply to the fact that Kit was now fifteen. But suppose it was more than that. Suppose Kit had a reason to be unhappy. “Kit,” he said thoughtfully, “I didn't see you at all until you arrived between the gateposts, and when you were there, you looked about twice your real size—”

“Did I?” said Kit. “It must have been because you were worried about Mr. Chesney.”

“Really?” said Derk. “And I suppose I was just worried again when I distinctly heard you tell me Mr. Chesney had a demon in his pocket?”

Kit's head shot around again, and for a moment his eyes were lambent black with alarm. Derk could see Kit force them back to their normal golden yellow and try to answer casually. “I expect somebody mentioned it to me. Everyone knows he keeps it there.”

“No. Everybody doesn't,” Derk told him. “I think even Querida would be surprised to know.” Damn! He hadn't told Barnabas about that accident yet! “Kit, come clean. You're another one like Blade, aren't you? How long have you known you could do magic?”

“Only about a year,” Kit admitted. “About the same time as Blade. Blade thinks we both inherited it from you, but we both seem to do different things.”

“Because, of course, you've compared notes,” said Derk. “Kit, let's get this straight at once. Even more than Blade, there's no question of you going to the University—”

Kit's head flopped forward. “I
know
. I know they'd keep me as an exhibit. That's why I didn't want to mention it.”

“But you must have some teaching,” Derk pointed out, “in case you do something wrong by accident. Mara and I should have been teaching you at the same time as Blade. You
ought
to have told us, Kit. Let me tell you the same as I told Blade. I
will
find you a proper tutor, both of you, but you have to be patient, because it takes time to find the right magic user, and you'll have to be patient for the next year at least, now that I have to be Dark Lord. Can you bear to wait? You can learn quite a bit helping me with that if you want.”

“I wasn't going to tell you at all,” Kit said.

“So you bit everyone's head off instead,” Derk said.

Kit's beak was still stuck among his cushions, but a big griffin grin was spreading around the ends of it. “At least I haven't been screaming you're a jealous tyrant,” he said. “Like Blade.”

Well, I am, a little, Derk thought. Jealous, anyway. You've both got your magical careers before you, and you, Kit, have all the brains I could cram into one large griffin head. “True,” he said, sighing. “Now lie down and rest. I'll give you something for the bruises if they're still bad this evening.”

He shut the door quietly and went back to the house. Shona met him at the edge of the terrace, indignant and not posing at all. “The younger ones are all safe,” she said. “They were in the dining room. They didn't even
notice
the roof coming down!”

“What?” said Derk. “How?”

Shona pointed along the terrace with her thumb. “Look at them!”

Blade sat at the long, littered table. So did Mara, Finn, and Barnabas. Lydda and Don were stretched on the flagstones among the empty chairs. Callette was couchant along the steps to the garden, with her tail occasionally whipping the cowering orchids. Elda was crouching along the table itself. Each of them was bent over one of the little flat machines with buttons, pushing those buttons with finger or talon as if nothing else in the world mattered.

“Callette found out how to do this,” Don said.

“She's a genius,” Barnabas remarked. “I never realized they did anything but add numbers. I made her a hundred of them in case the power packs run out.”