LITMIR.BIZ

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to be away from home tomorrow, I must point out you are in a very poor position, Wizard Derk. You have not paid your wizard’s dues to the University for fifteen years. This gives me the right to exact penalties.”

      “I sent you a griffin’s egg,” Derk said.

      “It was addled,” said Querida. “As I am sure you knew.”

      “And I couldn’t send you anything else,” Derk went on seriously. “All the products of my wizardry are alive. It would be criminal to shut them up in the University dues-vault. You’d want to kill them and embalm them first. Besides, my wife has paid dues enough for the two of us.”

      “Mara’s miniature universes are quite irrelevant to Mr Chesney,” Querida stated. “Be warned, Wizard Derk. Either you present yourself at Derkholm to Mr Chesney and the rest of us tomorrow, or you have every magic user in this world looking for you to make you be Dark Lord. Do I make myself clear?”

      Blade pulled his father’s arm. “Better go, Dad.”

      “And you, young man,” said Querida. “You’re to be there too.”

      Blade succeeded in pulling his father round sideways, but Derk still looked down at Querida across his own shoulder. “No one should have this kind of power,” he said.

      “To whom do you refer, Wizard?” she asked, still in her cobra stance.

      “Chesney, of course,” Derk said rather hastily.

      Here Blade pulled harder and the two of them disappeared in a stinging cloud of blown sand.

      “Phew!” said Barnabas. “Poor old Derk!”

      “Let us go home more slowly,” said Querida. “I feel a little tired.”

      The return journey was more like a lingering walk, in which they trod now on a patch of hot sand, now on wiry dead grass, now on rocks or moss. Regin put himself beside Querida as they went. “Who is this Wizard Derk?” he asked.

      Querida sighed. “A shambles of a man. The world’s worst wizard, to my mind.”

      “Oh come now, Querida,” said Barnabas. “He’s excellent at what he does – just a little unconventional, you know. When we were students together I always thought he was twice as bright as me.”

      Querida shuddered. “Unconventional is a kind word for it. I was Senior Instructor then. Of all the things he did wrong, my worst memories are of being dragged up in the middle of the night to deal with that vast blue demon that Derk had called up and couldn’t put down. You remember?”

      Barnabas nodded and bit his lip in order not to laugh. “Nobody knew its name, so none of the usual exorcisms worked. It took the entire staff of the University to get rid of it in the end. All through the night. Derk was never much good at conventional wizardry, I admit. But you use him a lot, don’t you, Reverend?”

      Umru smiled sweetly, his fat comfortable cool self again. “I pay for Wizard Derk’s services almost every time my temple has a tour party through. No one but Wizard Derk can make a convincing human corpse out of a dead donkey.” Regin stared. Umru smiled ever more sweetly. “Or a sheep,” he said. “We are always chosen as an evil priesthood, and the Pilgrims expect us to have a vilely tortured sacrifice to display. Wizard Derk saves us the necessity of using people.”

      “Oh,” said Regin. He turned to where King Luther was trudging grimly in the rear. “And you, Your Majesty? You know this wizard too?”

      “We use him for hangings and heads on spikes occasionally,” King Luther said, “But I hire him most often for the feast when the damn Pilgrims have gone. He has performing animals. Pigs mostly.”

      “Pigs?” said Regin.

      “Yes, pigs,” said King Luther. “They fly.”

      “Oh,” Regin said again. As he said it, they arrived back on the flagstone in the council room again. Regin’s teeth chattered, Barnabas was shivering, Umru was juddering all over. Querida was unaffected. So was King Luther, whose northern kingdom was never warm.

      “What is the matter?” Umru cried out. People turned from reading the heaps of letters on the table to stare at him. He held his hands out piteously. “Look. Blue!”

      “Oh. Um,” said Barnabas. “It’s young Blade’s fault, I’m afraid. Boys of that age never know their own strength. I’ll do what I can, but it may take an hour or so.”

      

      

erkholm was in an uproar. Blade’s sister Shona was by the stables, saddling two of the horses so that Derk could take her to Bardic College as soon as he got home from the Oracle, when Elda came galloping up with her wings spread, rowing herself along for extra speed, screaming that Derk was going to be Dark Lord. Elda was squawking with excitement, according to Don, who had been galloping after Elda to try to calm things down, and Shona either did not understand her or did not believe her straight away. When she did, Shona instantly unsaddled the horses and turned them back into the paddock.

      According to Don, Shona then struck a fine pose (it was something Shona had been doing ever since she was enrolled as a trainee bard, and it annoyed Don particularly and Kit almost as much) and declared, “I’ll put off going to college for as long as Dad needs me. We have to show family solidarity over this.”

      Shona, despite the pose, was highly excited by the news. As she raced back to the house carrying her saddlebags and violin case, with Don and Elda bounding ahead, all the animals caught it, even the Friendly Cows, and the rest of the day was loud with honks, squawks, moos and the galloping of variously shaped feet.

      Otherwise, Blade thought sourly, there was not much family solidarity around. When Shona burst in, flushed and looking violently pretty, their parents were having a row. Derk was roaring, “There must be a way to get out of it! I refuse to touch Chesney’s money!” Though he was not much given to wizardly displays, Derk was feeling so strongly that he was venting magefire in all directions. One of the hall carpets was in flames.

      “Dad!” Shona cried out. “You’ll set the house on fire!”

      Neither of their parents attended, though Mara shot Shona an angry look. Mara was enclosed in the steel-blue light of a wizard’s shields and she seemed quite as excited as Shona. “Stop being a fool, Derk!” she was shouting. “If the Oracle says you’re to be Dark Lord, then there’s nothing you can do!”

      Magefire fizzed on Mara’s shields as Derk howled back, “Sod the Oracle! I’m not going to stand for it! And you should be helping me find a way out of it, not standing there backing the whole rotten system up!”

      “I’m doing no such thing!” Mara screamed. “I’m merely trying to tell you it’s inevitable. You’d know that too if you weren’t in such a tantrum!”

      Blade was trying to stamp out the flames on the rugs when the big griffin Callette lumbered calmly through the front door carrying the rainwater butt and upended it over the carpet. The hall hissed and steamed and smelt horrible.

      Shona hastily snatched her luggage out of the water. “Dad,” she said, “be reasonable. We’ll all help you. We’ll get you through it somehow. Think of it. You’ve got five griffins, two wizards and a bard, who are all going to look after you while you do it. I bet none of the other Dark Lords has ever had help like you’ve got.”

      You had to hand it to Shona, Blade thought. She was far better at getting on with Dad than he was. Within minutes, Derk was calm enough simply to go striding about the house with his face all puzzled and drooping, saying over and over, “There has to be a way out of

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