Diana Jones - The Dark Lord of Derkholm

Blade found himself wanting to say whole numbers of things – everything from I do understand to But this is not his life, it’s mine ! – and could only manage, rather sulkily, “Well, it turns out we’re both having to look after the tours anyway.”

Before Mara could reply, Lydda cut in with, “This Mr Chesney – does he eat the same stuff as us? He’s from a different world, isn’t he?”

Mara sprang up. “Oh – yes. I’m sure he does. That reminds me—”

“Good,” said Lydda. “I’m planning godlike snacks.”

“And I must get us organised,” said Mara. “Let me see – there’ll be eighty-odd wizards, plus two people with Mr Chesney, and us. Blade, come and help me see if we can turn the dining room into a Great Hall. And there’s your father’s clothes—”

From then on it was all a mighty bustle. Derk, for the most part, strode through it muttering “There must be a way out!” and doing all his usual things, like feeding and exercising the animals, turning the sprinkler on his coffee bushes, milking the Friendly Cows and checking his experiments, while everyone else raced about. Blade thought rather angrily that Dad seemed to have taken Shona’s offer of help far too literally. Derk did not come near the house until Blade and Mara were trying to move the garden.

It was almost dark by then. Before that, Blade and Mara had tried to stretch the house out to make room for a Great Hall in the middle. Shona decided that they needed marble stairs, too, leading into the Hall, and sat on the ordinary wooden stairs making drawings of sculptured bannisters and sketches of the sort of clothes Derk should wear. But before the house was even half long enough, there were alarming creakings and crunchings from all over it. Kit roared a warning, and Don and Elda dashed indoors to say the middle of the roof was dipping downwards, spreading the tiles like scales on a fircone. At the same time, Lydda shrieked that the kitchen was falling in and Shona shouted that the new marble stairs were swaying . Blade and Mara had to prop the house up and think again.

“Put everyone out on the terrace,” Kit suggested, “and make sure it doesn’t rain. That way, the griffins can help hand round the food.”

This was almost the only help Kit had offered, Blade thought morosely, and he knew it was only because Kit was far too big to be comfortable indoors these days. At least Don and Elda were helping in the kitchen. Or no, Blade knew he was being unfair to Kit really. After Blade and Mara had expanded the terrace into a large stone platform reaching halfway to the front gates, Kit got busy hauling all the tables and chairs in the house out there. Blade’s annoyance with Kit was because he knew the griffins were up to something. He had seen all five of them, even Lydda – and Callette, who almost never, on principle, did anything Kit wanted – gathered in a secretive cluster round Kit in the twilight. It made Blade feel hurt and left out. The griffins were, after all, his brothers and sisters. Most of the time, it worked like that. But there were times – like this, and almost always under Kit’s leadership – when the griffins shut the rest of them out. Blade hated it.

So much for family solidarity! he thought, and turned to help Mara to bend and push the shrubberies and all the flowerbeds into some kind of shape around the new, huge terrace. “If we shunt the little forest up to this corner—” Mara said to him. “No, even if we do, we’ll have to straighten the drive. I know your father hates straight lines in a garden, but there simply isn’t room .”

Here Don backed out on to the terrace carrying one end of the piano stool, with Shona attached to the other end of it, screaming, “I said give it back ! I need it to do my practice on!”

Kit slammed down the kitchen table and gave voice like six out-of-tune bugles. “LET HIM TAKE IT. WE NEED IT. YOU CAN PRACTISE AT COLLEGE.”

“No I can’t ! I’m not going to college until this is over! I promised Dad!” Shona shrilled.

“You’re still going to give it here.” Kit dropped to all fours, tail slashing, and advanced on Shona. Even on all fours, he towered over her.

“You big bully,” Shona said, not in the least impressed. “Do you want me to poke you in the eye?”

“I think I’d better break that up,” Mara said.

But at that point Derk appeared, rushing across the acre of terrace to stare down at the twilit garden in horror. “What do you think you’re doing , woman?”

“Trying to make it fit – what did you think ?” Mara said, while behind Derk, Kit and Shona hastily pretended to be having a friendly discussion.

“Leave it. I’ll do it,” said Derk. “Why is it that no one but me has the slightest artistic sense when it comes to gardening?”

Everyone went to bed exhausted.

izards began arriving from about eleven the next morning. When Querida and Barnabas reached the gates of Derkholm, they found themselves met by a silent pair of griffins. These were Don and Lydda. Kit, for some reason, had insisted on a matched pair. Don and Lydda were the same age – thirteen – and almost the same handsome golden-to-brown colours, and they were the same size, if you allowed for the fact that Lydda’s shape was – to put it politely – chunky, while Don’s was spare. Under the big gold-tinted brown feathers of his wings, his ribs always showed and always worried Mara.

The two of them preceded Querida and Barnabas up the straight drive (for, despite working until after midnight, Derk had not found room to make the drive wander as he wanted) and to the enormous terrace, where they politely bowed the two wizards up the steps. It was perhaps unfortunate that the moving around of the garden had resulted in the clump of man-eating orchids arriving at a bed just beside these steps. They made a dart at Querida as she passed, all several dozen yellow blooms at once. Querida turned and looked at them. The orchids drew back hastily.

On the terrace, the various tables had been converted into one long one, covered with a white cloth – which had been two dozen tea towels an hour before – and the assorted chairs had become identical graceful gold seats. Mara felt rather proud of the effect as she came forward wearing a rich brocade dress – Shona had stylishly sewn together two aprons and a tablecloth to make the basis of the dress – to show the newcomers to their seats.

Derk was beside Mara in clothes Shona and Mara had worked on late into the night. They were indigo velvet – Callette’s idea – with a cloak that swirled to reveal a starry night sky. It was real sky and real stars, as if seen small and distant. Querida naturally ignored this wondrous lining. “I’m glad to see you’re being sensible about this, Wizard Derk,” she said.

“Not sensible,” he said. “Resigned.” While he worked on the garden in the dark, it had come to Derk that the only way to go through with this was to promise himself that, as soon as it was over, he would start work at once on a completely new kind of animal.

Barnabas, like every other wizard to arrive, was captivated by the lining of that cloak. “Is that real sky?” he asked. “How?”

Derk annoyed Mara, as he had annoyed her when every single other wizard had asked about it, by lifting one arm to peer at the miraculous lining she had worked so hard to fix there, and saying, “Oh, it’s just one of Mara’s clever little universes, you know.” He saw Mara turn away in irritation and lead Querida to the chair reserved for her. She and Querida seemed to have a lot to say to one another. He cursed the Oracle. It was not just that he did not like Querida. This Dark Lord business was already putting differences between himself and Mara, and he had a feeling it could end by separating them entirely. He said glumly to Barnabas, “We’ve put you and Querida at the end where Mr Chesney’s going to sit.”