The Dark Lord of Derkholm

“Oh, it’s the rules,” one of the younger ones, a wizard called Finn, told him. “Mr Chesney won’t hear of a wizard guiding a Pilgrim Party without a beard. Coffee, please. How do you come by your coffee? I can only get it from the tours. I asked to be paid in coffee last year, I love it so much.”

“My father grows it,” Blade said.

“Really?” Finn said eagerly. “Will he sell me any?”

“I should think so,” said Blade. “Look – does that mean I’ll have to wear a beard? I’m supposed to be a Wizard Guide.”

Finn gave him a startled look. “We-ell,” he said. “You’d look a bit odd – see what Mr Chesney says.”

I can’t wait! thought Blade. You’d think Mr Chesney rules the universe.

Once every wizard was in a seat and supplied with a drink, Shona stepped out through the windows at the end of the terrace, carrying her violin and wearing her green bardic robes. They made her look lovely. Shona’s hair was darker than Mara’s, dark, glossy and wavy. Otherwise she had inherited her mother’s good looks. Several wizards made admiring noises as she set the violin under her chin. Shona’s colour became lovelier than ever. She struck an attitude and, very conscious of admiring stares, began to play divinely.

“Can’t you stop her showing off?” Derk murmured to Mara as he went round with a bottle of wine.

“She’ll grow out of it,” Mara whispered back.

“She’s seventeen!” Derk hissed angrily. “It’s about time she did.”

“She’s beautiful. She plays wonderfully. She’s entitled!” Mara whispered forcefully.

“Bah!” said Derk. Another disagreement already. What kind of animal would he create when this was over? He hadn’t done much with insects up to now.

As he considered insects, he felt the magics of Derkholm reacting with someone else’s. It felt like Barnabas. He gave Barnabas a puzzled look.

“It’s all right,” Barnabas said. “I made Mr Chesney a horseless carriage – thing with a sort of motor in front – years ago. He always uses it to get around in. That’ll be him coming now.”

Here we go then, Derk thought. He stared, along with everyone else, anxiously at the gates. You could see nothing but sky beyond the gates from the terrace, but he felt the other magics travel up the valley towards Derkholm, and then stop. Shortly Lydda and Don came pacing up the driveway, tails sedately swinging, and behind them strode a gaggle of purposeful-looking people, four of them, in tight dark clothes. Four! Derk looked anxiously at Mara and Mara hastily stood up, leaving an extra chair free. She picked up a bottle of wine and joined Blade by the trolley.

“Go and get the snacks now,” she whispered.

“In a second.” Blade was frankly fascinated by the people striding up the drive. All had their hair cut painfully short, even the one at the back, who was a woman in a tight striped skirt. The smallest man strode in front, not carrying anything. The other two men were large and they both carried little cases. The woman carried both a case and a board with papers clipped to it. On they came, looking neither right nor left, busy expressions on their faces. Blade, suddenly and unexpectedly, found he was hurt and quite angry that they did not bother even to glance at the garden that his father had worked so hard on last night. Derk had got it looking marvellous. They were not bothering to notice Don and Lydda, either, and they were looking quite as marvellous. Their coats shone with brushing and their feathers gleamed gold against the reds and greens and blues lining the drive.

Perhaps I have got some family solidarity after all! Blade thought, and he hoped the orchids would take a bite out of one of these people. He could tell Shona was feeling much the same. She was playing a marching tune, harshly, in time to the four pairs of striding feet.

They swept on up the steps. To Blade’s disappointment, something seemed to intimidate the orchids. They only made a half-hearted snap at the woman, and she did not notice. She just followed the others. The man in front behaved as if he had eighty wizards waiting for him round a huge table every day. He marched straight to the empty seat at the head of the table and sat in it, as if it was obvious where he would sit. The two other men took chairs on either side of him. The woman took Mara’s empty chair and moved it back so that she could sit almost behind the first man. He put out a hand and she put the little case into it without his needing to look. He slapped the case down on the table and clicked the locks back with a fierce snap.

“Good afternoon,” he said, in a flat, chilly voice.

“Good afternoon, Mr Chesney,” said nearly every wizard there.

Shona changed from a march to a sentimental ballad, full of treacly swooping.

Mr Chesney had greyish mouse-coloured lank hair and a bald patch half hidden by the lank hair combed severely across it. His face was small and white and seemed ordinary, until you noticed that his mouth was upside-down compared with most people’s. It sat in a grim downward curve under his pointed nose and above his small rocklike chin, like the opening to a man-trap. Once you had noticed that, you noticed that his eyes were like cold grey marbles.

Widow spiders, Derk thought desperately, if I gave them transparent green wings.

Lydda loped past Blade before he could observe any more, glaring at him. He and Elda both jumped guiltily and hurried away to the kitchen. They came back carrying large plates fragrantly piled with Lydda’s godlike snacks, in time to hear Mr Chesney’s flat voice saying, “Someone silence that slavegirl with the fiddle, please.”

There was a loud twang as one of Shona’s strings snapped. Her face went white and then flooded bright red.

Ants, thought Derk, with all sorts of interesting new habits. “You mean my daughter, Mr Chesney?” he asked pleasantly.

“Is she?” said Mr Chesney. “Then you should control her. I object to noise in a business meeting. And while I’m on the subject of control, I must say I am not at all pleased with that village at the end of your valley. You’ve allowed it to be far too prosperous. Some of the houses even look to have electric light. You must order it pulled down.”

“But—” Derk swallowed and thought the ants might have outsize stings. He did not say that he had no right to pull down the village, or add that everyone there was a friend of his. He could see there was no point. “Wouldn’t an illusion do just as well?”

“Settle it how you want,” said Mr Chesney. “Just remember that when the Pilgrim Parties arrive there, they will expect to see hovels, abject poverty and heaps of squalor, and that I expect them to get it. I also expect you to do something about this house of yours. A Dark Lord’s Citadel must always be a black castle with a labyrinthine interior lit by baleful fires – you will find our specifications in the guide Mr Addis will give you – and it would be helpful if you could introduce emaciated prisoners and some grim servitors to solemnise the frivolous effect of these monsters of yours.”

Perhaps the antstings could spread diseases, Derk thought. “You mean the griffins?”

“If that’s what the creatures are,” said Mr Chesney. “You are also required to supply a pack of hounds, black with red eyes, a few iron-fanged horses, leathery-winged avians etcetera – again, the guidebook will give you the details. Our Pilgrims will be paying for the very greatest evil, Wizard, and they must not be disappointed. By the same token, you must plough up these gardens and replace them with a gloomy forecourt and pits of balefire. And you’ll need the place to be guarded by a suitable demon.”

“I’ll supply the demon,” Querida put in quickly.

Derk remembered the blue demon as well as Querida did. He turned to give her a grateful look and caught sight of Mara, standing behind Querida, looking delighted. Now what? he thought. She knows I can’t summon demons. What makes her so happy about it? He thought hard of six different diseases an ant might spread and asked Mr Chesney, “Is there anything else?”

“Yes. You yourself,” Mr Chesney said. “Your appearance is far too pleasantly human. You will have to take steps to appear as a black shadow nine feet high, although, as our Pilgrims will only expect to meet you at the end of their tour, you need not appear very often. When they do meet you, however, they require to be suitably terrified. Your present appearance is quite inadequate.”

Diseases! Derk thought. But he could not resist saying, “Isn’t there a case for the Dark Lord appearing to have a divine and sickly beauty?”

“Not,” said Mr Chesney, “to any Pilgrim Party. Besides, this would interfere with our choice for this year’s novelty. This year, I have decided that one of your gods must manifest at least once to every party.”

An anxious rustle ran round the entire table.

Mr Chesney’s head came up and his mouth clamped like a man-trap round someone’s leg. “Is there some problem with that?”

Querida was the only person brave enough to answer. “There certainly is, Mr Chesney. Gods don’t appear just like that. And I don’t think any god has appeared to anyone for at least forty years.”

“I see no problem there,” Mr Chesney told her. He turned to Derk. “You must have a word with High Priest Umru. Tell him I insist on his deity appearing.” He picked a sheaf of crisp blue papers out of his little case and flicked the pages over. “Failure to supply this year’s novelty is covered by article twenty-nine of our original contract. Yes, here it is. I quote. ‘In the event of such failure all monies otherwise accruing as payment for services rendered over the tour or tours will be withheld by Chesney Pilgrim Parties for that year and the individuals responsible will be fined in addition a sum not exceeding one hundred gold coins.’ This means that no one will get paid unless a god appears. Yes, I think there’s no problem here,” Mr Chesney said. He put the papers away and sat back. “I shall now let Mr Addis take over the meeting.”

In the silence that followed, the large man on Mr Chesney’s right put his briefcase on the table and smiled jovially round at everyone. Mr Chesney meanwhile refused wine from Mara and beer from Elda, but accepted a cup of coffee from Blade, which he pushed to one side without tasting. He took a snack from the plate Lydda offered him, sniffed at it and, with a look of slight distaste, laid it beside the coffee. The woman behind him refused everything. At least, Blade thought, the wizards were eating and drinking heartily enough. The beer barrel was empty when he tested it.

“Tell Callette to bring another one,” he whispered to Elda in the dreadful silence.

Ants needn’t sting people to spread the diseases, Derk thought. They could do it just by crawling between people’s toes.

The large Mr Addis was fetching wads of different coloured pamphlets out of his case. Such was the silence that Blade could clearly hear the shiftings and creakings from the place where the stretched roof dipped down. He looked up anxiously. He saw a row of round snouts and interested little eyes peering over the bent gutter. So that was what the noise was! Blade nearly laughed. The pigs had discovered that the dip in the roof was beautifully warm and gave them an excellent view of the terrace. It looked as if the whole herd was up there. Some of the sounds were definitely those of a porker blissfully scratching its back against a loose tile. Blade longed to point the pigs out to Mara at least, but everyone was looking so shocked and solemn that he did not dare.

“Well, folks,” Mr Addis said cheerfully, “this year we have one hundred and twenty-six Pilgrim Parties booked. They’ll be starting a fortnight from now and going off daily in threes, from three different locations, for the next two months. In view of the unusual numbers, we’re confining the tours just to this continent, but that still gives us plenty of scope. It means that some of you Wizard Guides are going to have to do double tours, but you should get round that easily by aiming to get your first party of Pilgrims through in a snappy six weeks or so. We’ll be starting from the three inns in Gna’ash, Bil’umra and Slaz’in—”

“Where?” said Derk.

“—so apportion yourselves accordingly,” said Mr Addis. “Pardon?”

“I’ve never heard of these places,” said Derk.

“They’re all marked down on our map,” said Mr Addis. “Here.” He picked up the top one of his papers, a cream one, and handed it to Derk. Barnabas made a tired, practised gesture on the other side of the table, and there was a map in front of everyone. There was even one for Blade, on top of the plate of snacks he was holding. He put the plate on the table and unfolded the map. To his slight alarm, it meant nothing to him.

“Oh, I see,” said Derk. “You mean Greynash, Billingham and Sleane.”

“We like to rename our places, Mr Dark Lord, to give the right exotic touch,” Mr Addis explained kindly. “Now, as you’ll see, in order to get the Pilgrim Parties through all their scheduled adventures, we have to route them in a number of ways, colour-coded on your map. Note that some of you will have your temple episode early, some in the middle and some late, and that the same applies to the exotic eastern adventure. We then split the tours into two for the enslavement episode. Half of you will go north to be captured by pirates and half south to Costamara to be taken as gladiators. Because of this division, we have selected ten cities for sacking this year. Mr Dark Lord, please negotiate with your Dark Elves on this point and make sure they allow the Pilgrims to escape before the cities are burnt. And after this, all Pilgrim Parties come together again for the regular weekly battle in Umru’s lands. Wizard Guides must take care here that each party is unaware of the presence of other parties. We like our customers to believe that their own tour is unique. You’ll find all the tour-plans laid out in the pink schedule.”

He picked up a pink pamphlet. Barnabas made another gesture, and everyone had one of those too. Blade unfolded page after page of lists and swallowed unhappily. “And here are your colour-coded copies,” said Mr Addis. This time, Blade received a green paper that looked slightly simpler. The other wizards got blue or yellow or green lists.

In a fuzz of bewilderment, Blade heard Mr Addis continue, “Please take note that this year’s tour is choreographed around the one weakness of the Dark Lord. Each party will pick up clues to the Dark Lord’s weak point as it goes round, ending in the retrieval of an object that contains this weakness – this is to be guarded by a dragon in the north – and then going on, after the battle, to kill the Dark Lord. Mr Dark Lord, I’m sure I can count on you to lay one hundred and twenty-six clues at each spot marked with an asterisk on the map. And you will, of course need the same number of objects for the dragon to guard.”

Derk thought vehemently of ants crawling between people’s toes to spread disease. Otherwise, he thought he might cry. “What kind of objects have you in mind?” he asked.

“Any object, at your discretion,” smiled Mr Addis, “though we tend to prefer something with a romantic bias, such as a goblet or an orb. But basically it should be capable of containing the weakness of your choice.”

“Athlete’s foot?” asked Derk, with his mind on ants.

“We prefer it to be a magical weakness, or even a moral one,” Mr Addis corrected him, with a kindly smile.

Derk stared at him, unable to concentrate. It was not just that he was thinking of ants while being deluged with instructions and coloured papers. Mara was up to something. He could feel her working magic and it worried him acutely. “Moral weakness?” he said. “You mean sloth or something? Callette likes making objects. I suppose I could ask—”

And here was Callette herself, with her back talons grating the terrace as she heaved along another beer barrel. She set it down with an enormous thump, in the wrong place, between Mr Chesney and the woman with the clipboard. Whump. The top was open. Bright red stuff splashed in all directions, smelling rather nasty.

Chairs scraped as everyone but Mr Chesney got out of the way. The woman sprang up with a scream. “Oh, Mr Chesney! It’s blood!”

Blood was running down one side of Mr Chesney’s face and dripping on his suit. He turned and stared reprovingly at the barrel while he got out his handkerchief.

Derk wondered how Callette had come to be so stupid. Callette’s mind was always a mystery to him, but still—! “Callette,” he said. “That’s not beer.”

Callette’s huge head pecked forward. She stared down into the rippling red liquid in the utmost surprise. Every innocent line of her said How is it not beer?

“It just isn’t,” Derk told her. “It’s one of the vats from my workroom and I know it was sealed by a stasis spell. I can’t think why it’s open. I’m terribly sorry,” he said to the woman. She was still standing up, whimpering and dabbing at red spots on her tight pin-striped skirt with a paper hanky. “I’ll get it off for you – for both of you. It’s only pigs’ blood.”

The pigs on the roof heard him. At the words pigs’ blood, there was an instant outcry, squeals, grunts and yells of protest. Pink bodies surged about up there and trotters clattered on tiles.

“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 marvelled 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 round the table as the wizards saw the favourite 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 labelled in gold, Wizards’ 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 slip-ups 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 honourable 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 enquiries 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 leant 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 colourless 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 backwards. As soon as he did, Kit bent forward and peered very intently into Mr Chesney’s face.