“And blacken them with fire?” the mayor asked anxiously. “It would look better. And we’ve told off two skinny folk – Fran Taylor and Old George – to pick about in the ruins whenever a tour arrives, to make like starving survivors, you know, but I’d be glad if you could make them look a little less healthy – emaciated, sort of. One look at Old George at the moment and you’d know he’s never had a day’s illness in his life. Can you sicken him up a bit?”
“No problem,” said Derk. The man thought of everything!
“And another thing,” said the mayor. “We’ll be driving all the livestock up the hills to the sides of the valley and penning them up for safety – don’t want any animals getting killed – but if you could do something that makes them hard to see, I’d be much obliged.”
Derk felt he could hardly refuse. He spent the rest of that day adding wizardry to the blows of the sledgehammers and laying the resulting brick dust around as soot. By sunset, the place looked terrible. “What do you think of all this?” Derk asked Old George while he was emaciating him.
Old George shrugged. “Way to earn a living. Stupid way, if you ask me. But I’m not in charge, am I?”
Neither am I, Derk thought as he went to mount Beauty. The frightening thing was that there was nothing he could do about it, any more than Old George could.
Beauty, rattling her wings and snorting to get rid of the dust, gave it as her opinion that this was not much of a day. “Bhoring. No fhlying.”
“You wait,” Derk told her.
Next day he flew north to see King Luther. The day after he went south to an angry and inconclusive meeting with the Marsh Dwellers, who wanted more pay for pretending to sacrifice Pilgrims to their god. He flew home with “Is blasphemy, see, is disrespect for god!” echoing in his ears, wistfully wondering if his water creature might be something savage that fed exclusively on Marsh people. But the next day, flying east to look at the ten cities scheduled to be sacked, he took that back in favour of something half dolphin, half dragon that lived in a river. The trouble was that there were no big rivers near Derkholm. The day after that, flying south-east to talk to the Emir, he decided something half dragon would be too big.
The Emir was flatly refusing to be the Puppet King the lists said he should be. “I’ll be anything else you choose,” he told Derk, “but I will not have my mind enslaved to this tiara. I have seen Sheik Detroy. He is still walking like a zombie after last year. He drools. His valet has to feed him. It’s disgusting! These magic objects are not safe.”
Derk had seen Sheik Detroy too. He felt the Emir had a point. “Then could you perhaps get one of your most devoted servants to wear the tiara for you?”
“And have him usurp my throne?” the Emir said. “I hope you joke.”
They argued for several hours. At length Derk said desperately, “Well, can’t you wear a copy of the tiara and act being enslaved to it?”
“What a good idea!” said the Emir. “I rather fancy myself as an actor. Very well.”
Derk flew home tired out and, as often happened when he was tired, he got his best idea for animal yet. Not an animal. Something half human, half dolphin. A mermaid daughter, that was it. As Beauty wearily flapped onwards, Derk turned over in his mind all the possible ways of splicing dolphin to human. It was going to be fascinating. The question was, would Mara agree to be the mother of this new being? If he presented the idea to her as a challenge, it might be a way of bridging the chilly distance that seemed to have opened up between them.
Pretty came dashing up as they landed by the stables and Beauty almost snapped at him. She was as tired as Derk was. “At this rate,” Derk told Shona, who came to help him unsaddle Beauty, “we shall be worn to shadows.”
“Black shadows with red eyes?” Shona said. “Lucky you. Just what Mr Chesney ordered.”
Derk felt a rush of gratitude to Shona. When the time came, he would make the human half of the mermaid daughter from Shona’s cells. It would ensure excellence.
“And do you know,” Shona said, “those lazy boys haven’t done a thing today unless I nagged them. Elda’s just as bad. I haven’t had time to practise. Every time I tried, a new pigeon arrived. The messages are all over your desk. Dad, you ought to breed pigeons that can speak. It would be much easier.”
“That’s quite an idea, Derk said, “but it’s not something I can think of just now. I shall have to go and see Querida tomorrow. There were two important things she said she’d do for me and I haven’t had a word from her since she left here.”
“Perhaps she hurt herself, translocating away in such a hurry,” Shona suggested.
“Barnabas says she got back all right,” said Derk. “Her healer told him she’s as well as can be expected. But I can’t afford to wait much longer, so I shall have to go and disturb her.”
In fact, it was days later that Derk set off to see Querida. The messages Shona had put on his desk kept him and Beauty busy for most of a week. When he finally set off, he was determined that Querida should not set eyes on Beauty. He had seen the way she had looked at Pretty, even in shock and pain, and he was not having her claim Beauty for the University. He left Beauty grazing in a field about five miles away from University City, which was as far as he could translocate himself. He wished he had Blade’s gift for it as he heaved himself onwards.
He got there, just, with a rush and a stagger on landing, at the end of the street of little grey houses where Querida lived, and walked slowly along to the right one. It looked – and felt – completely lifeless. Perhaps Querida had recovered enough by now, he thought, to get herself to the University buildings. Still, he thought he would try the door now he was here. He knocked.
To his surprise, the door moved under his fist and came open. Derk pushed it further ajar. “Is anyone here?”
There was no answer, but there was a faint feeling of life inside.
“Better make sure,” Derk muttered. He walked slowly and cautiously into the house, afraid that someone like Querida would have quite a few nasty traps for intruders, and very conscious of the way the old floor creaked under his boots.
He found himself in a small, busy living room, full of feathers in jars, knicknacks, patterned cushions, patterned shawls, patterned rugs and a lot of twisted snake-shaped candlesticks. It smelt sour and furry and old-ladyish. There was a couch at the far end, all patterns and frills. Querida lay on it, covered with a patterned rug, looking less small than usual because of the smallness of the room. Disposed at comfortable intervals around her were three large tabby cats, who gazed up at Derk with three hostile looks from three pairs of wide yellow eyes. That explains the open door, he thought. The cats have to get in and out. Querida was fast asleep. Her face was white and her mouth open slightly. Her skinny splinted little left arm was laid across her chest, and he could just see it move as she breathed. He could see the outline of splints round her left leg, beside the biggest of the cats.
It seemed a shame to wake her. Derk coughed. “Er – Querida.”
Querida did not move. Derk said her name louder, and then loud enough to cause the cats to twitch their ears crossly, and finally almost in a shout. The cats glared, but it had absolutely no effect on Querida. Derk was alarmed. “I think I’ll get her healer,” he said, feeling a little foolish, not knowing if he was speaking to the cats, to himself or to Querida.
He left the house, with the door carefully not quite shut, and set off towards the University buildings, looking for someone who might know where Querida’s healer lived. Nobody seemed to be about, until he came to the square in front of the University. Here was a considerable crowd, all oddly quiet, patiently waiting around a cart pulled up in the middle, which was loaded with boxes, bundles and rolls of cloth. A tall calm lady, very straight-shouldered and seraphic-looking, was handing the things in the cart out to the waiting people and giving instructions as she did so.
“You’re