The Dark Lord of Derkholm

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 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 swivelled savagely towards 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 slavegirl. 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 fuelling 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 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 round 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 round 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 realised they did anything but add numbers. I made her a hundred of them in case the power packs run out.”

Elda looked up briefly when Derk went to peer across her feathered shoulder. “You kill little men coming down from the sky and they kill you,” she explained. “And we did so notice the roof fall in! The viewscreens got all dusty. Damn. You distracted me and I’m dead.”

“Is Kit all right?” Blade asked. “Hey! I’m on level four now. Beat that!”

“Level six,” Callette said smugly from the steps.

“You would be!” said Blade.

“Level seven,” Finn said mildly. “It seems to stop when you’ve won there. Will the house do like this, Derk?”

The middle section of the house was there again, in a billowy, transparent way. Derk could see the stairs through the wall, also back in place. The piece of roof that had fallen in was there too, hovering slightly like a balloon anchored at four corners. At least it would keep the rain out until it all had to be transformed into ruined towers, Derk supposed.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Thanks.” He put a hand on Barnabas’s arm. “I hate to interrupt, but Querida had an accident a while ago, round by the paddock. I think she broke a couple of bones. She wouldn’t let me see to them. She’s gone home.”

“Oh dear!” said Barnabas. He and Mara came out of their button-pushing trances, looking truly concerned.

“You should have brought her up to the house at once!” Mara said.

“She wouldn’t let me do anything,” Derk explained. “She translocated.”