“We could always pretend we hadn’t seen them and choose the next two people we see,” King Luther suggested.
“The gods forfend!” Umru gasped, mopping his face with his undercope.
Querida shot King Luther her snakiest look and marched over to the two outside the white temple. As she reached them, Derk was leaning forward to bawl into his son’s face, with a wholly reasonable air, as if he were simply discussing something quietly, “I tell you, the University’s not a place to learn anything these days. They haven’t had a new idea for thirty years. All they do is crawl to Mr. Chesney.”
Querida could easily pretend not to hear this, because Blade was at the same time screaming, “I don’t want to hear! It’s just excuses to stop me doing what I want! You let Shona go to Bardic College, so why don’t you let me learn magic?”
“ER, HEM!” said Querida, loudly enlarged by magic.
Derk and Blade both whirled around. “Tyrant!” Blade screamed in her face, and then bowed over, consumed with embarrassment.
Derk surveyed the tiny, glistening lady in the robes of high chancellor. His eyes traveled on to the tall, glum, sweaty figure of King Luther and the huge shape of Umru and the blisters of sweat popping out on his vast, red-blotched cheeks. He nodded to them and smiled at Barnabas, whose curls were wet and whose face was even redder than Umru’s. Finally he looked at the young man in the rear, who was a stranger to him and only pretending not to be hot. “Oh, hello,” he said. “What are you all doing here? Is there some reason you aren’t using a refrigeration spell?”
“No, I forgot, bother it!” said Querida. “I like the heat.”
Derk nudged Blade. Blade recovered from his embarrassment enough to make a slight gesture. Incredible, blessed coolness spread over the four men.
“Bags of talent indeed,” Regin murmured.
“Thank you, young man,” Umru said gratefully.
Blade was clearly intending to demonstrate that it was not usual for him to scream into people’s faces. He bowed. “You’re welcome, Your Reverence,” he said with great politeness. “And—excuse me—do any of you know a wizard called Deucalion?” He looked round them anxiously as they all shrugged and shook their heads. “Magic user then?” he asked, with his voice dropping hopelessly.
“Never heard of anyone of that name, Blade,” said Barnabas. “Why?”
“He’s the one the White Oracle says is going to train me as a wizard,” Blade explained. “Dad’s never heard of him either.” He sighed.
Querida swept this aside. “We, as it happens, have consulted the Oracles also,” she said. “They have named you, Wizard Derk, as this year’s Dark Lord and you, young Blade, as Wizard Guide to the last tour.”
“Now listen—” said Derk.
“No arguing with the Oracles, Derk,” Barnabas said quietly.
“But—” said Blade.
“Nor you, young man,” said Querida. “Both of you are going to be very busy for the next six months.”
At this Derk stirred himself, powerfully but a little uncertainly, and stood over Querida. “I don’t think you can do this,” he said.
“Oh, yes, I can,” she said. “Go home and make ready. Tomorrow, at midday sharp, Mr. Chesney and all the Wizard Guides and I will be arriving at your house to brief you on this year’s plans.” When Derk still stood there, she gazed up at him like a cobra ready to strike and added, “In case you are planning 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 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 around 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.”
Read on for an excerpt from Archer’s Goon
Chapter One
The trouble started the day Howard came home from school to find the Goon sitting in the kitchen. It was Fifi who called him the Goon. Fifi was a student who lived in their house and got them tea when their parents were out. When Howard pushed Awful into the kitchen and slammed the door after them both, the first person he saw w
as Fifi, sitting on the edge of a chair, fidgeting nervously with her striped scarf and her striped leg warmers.
“Thank goodness you’ve come at last!” Fifi said. “We seem to have somebody’s Goon. Look.”
Howard looked the way Fifi’s chin jerked and saw the Goon sitting in a chair by the dresser. He was filling most of the rest of the kitchen with long legs and huge boots. It was a knack the Goon had. The Goon’s head was very small, and his feet were enormous. Howard’s eyes traveled up a yard or so of tight faded jeans, jerked to a stop for a second at the knife with which the Goon was cleaning the dirty nails of his vast hands, and then traveled on over an old leather jacket to the little, round fair head in the distance. The little face looked half-daft.
Howard was in a bad mood anyway. That was Awful’s fault. Awful had made him meet her coming out of school because, as she said, he was her big brother and supposed to look after her. When Howard got there, there was Awful racing out of the gates, chased by twenty angry little girls. Awful was shouting, “My big brother’s here to hit you! Hit them, Howard!” Howard did not know what Awful had done to the other little girls, but knowing Awful, he suspected it was something bad. He objected to being used as Awful’s secret weapon, but he did not feel he could let her down. He swung his bag menacingly, hoping that would frighten the little girls off. But there were so many of them and they were so angry that it had ended by being quite a fight. And the little girls called names. It was being called names that had put Howard in a bad mood. And now he came home to find it full of Goon.
He banged his bag down on the kitchen table. The Goon did not look up. “Who is he supposed to be?” Howard asked Fifi.
Fifi jittered nervously. “He just walked in and sat there,” she said. “He says he’s from Archer, whoever that is.”
Howard was big for his age. On the other hand, so was the Goon big for whatever age he was. And the Goon had that knife. Howard thumped his bag on the table again. “Well, he can just go away,” he said. It did not come out as fierce as he had hoped.
Here Awful put her word in. “You go away, Goon,” she said. “Howard’s bag’s covered with the blood of little girls.”
This seemed to interest the Goon. He stopped cleaning his nails and gave the bag a wondering look. He spoke, in a strong, daft voice. “Don’t see any blood.”
“And we don’t know anyone called Archer!” Howard snapped.
The Goon grinned, a daft, placid grin. “Your dad does,” he said, and went back to cleaning his nails.
“He smells,” said Awful. “Make him go. I want my tea.”
The Goon did smell rather, a faint smell of gasoline and rotten eggs, which came in whiffs whenever he moved. Howard and Fifi exchanged helpless looks.
“I want my tea!” Awful yelled, in the way that had earned her her name. Her real name was Anthea, but she had been Awful from the moment she was born and first opened her mouth.
The piercingness of Awful’s yell seemed to get to the Goon. A slight quiver ran through the length of him, though it stopped before it got to his face. “Shut up,” he said.
“Shan’t,” said Awful. The Goon’s little face and daft round eyes turned to look at Awful. He seemed amazed. Awful looked back. She drew a deep, careful breath, opened her mouth, and screamed. Dad always said that scream had cleared clinics and emptied buses since Awful was a month old. Now she was eight it was truly horrible.
The Goon cocked his small head and listened to it, almost appreciatively, for a second. Then he grinned. “Aw, shut up,” he said, and threw his knife at Awful.
At least that was what seemed to happen. Something certainly zipped past Awful’s screaming face. Awful ducked and stopped screaming at once. Something certainly flew on past Awful and landed thuk in Howard’s bag on the table. After it had, the Goon went placidly back to cleaning his nails with what was obviously the selfsame knife.
Howard, Fifi, and Awful stared from the knife in the Goon’s hands to the raw new rip in Howard’s bag. Awful longed to scream again but did not quite dare. “How—how did he do that?” said Fifi. “He never moved!”
The Goon spoke again. “Know I mean business now,” he said. He sounded rather smug.
“What business?” said Howard.
“Stay here till I get satisfaction,” said the Goon. “Told her before you came in.” And he went on sitting, with his legs spread over most of the kitchen. It was plain he meant what he said.
Since there seemed no way of budging the Goon, Fifi and Howard began trying to get tea around the edges of him. This turned out to be impossible. The Goon took up too much space. They kept having to climb over his legs. The Goon made no attempt to stop them. On the other hand, he made no attempt to get his legs out of their way either.
“Serve you right if I spill hot tea over you!” Howard said angrily.
The Goon grinned. “Better not.”
“Or,” said Howard, “if I trip, you could get a peanut butter sandwich in the face.”
The Goon thought about this. Fifi interrupted hurriedly. “Would you like some tea, Goon? Tea in a cup, I mean, and a sandwich to hold in your hand?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said the Goon. And he added, after thinking deeply again, “Not stupid, you know. Knew what you meant.”
This was so clearly untrue that Fifi and Awful, scared though they were, spent the next ten minutes hanging on to each other trying not to laugh. Howard crossly pushed a mug of tea and a sandwich at the Goon. The Goon put his knife away and took them without a word. Slurp, he went at the tea, and he ate the sandwich without once closing his mouth. Howard had to look away.
“But why have you come?” he burst out angrily. “Are you sure you’ve come to the right house?”
The Goon nodded. He gulped down the last of the sandwich and then got his knife out again to scrape bits of bread from between his teeth. “Your dad called Quentin Sykes?” he said around the sharp edge of it. “Writes books and things?”
Howard nodded. His heart sank. Dad must have written something rude about this Archer person. It had happened before. “What’s Dad done?”
The Goon jerked his little head at Fifi. “Told her. Sykes got behind with his payment. Archer wants his two thousand. Here to collect it.”
The smiles were wiped off Fifi’s and Awful’s faces. “Two thousand!” Fifi exclaimed. “You never told me that!”
“Who is Archer?” said Howard.
The Goon shrugged his huge shoulders. “Archer farms this part of town. Your dad pays, Archer doesn’t make trouble.” He grinned, almost sweetly, and sucked the last bit of bread off the point of his knife. “Got trouble now. Got me.”
“Phone the police,” said Awful.
The Goon’s smile broadened. He took his knife by its point and wagged it at Awful. “Better not,” he said. “Really bett’n’t had.” They exchanged looks again. It seemed to all of them, even Awful, that the Goon’s advice was good. The Goon nodded when he saw them look and held his mug out for more tea. “Quite peaceful really,” he remarked placidly. “Like this house. Civilized.”
“Oh, do you?” Howard said as Fifi filled the Goon’s mug. “Just as well you like it because Dad won’t be in for ages yet. It’s his day for teaching at the Polytechnic.”
“Easily wait,” the Goon said.
“Does Mum know about Archer?” Awful asked.
“No idea,” said the Goon.
This had been worrying Howard, too. He was sure Mum did not know and would be very upset when she found out. She worried all the time about how short of money they were. He realized that he simply had to get the Goon out of the house before Mum came home. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you and I go along to the Poly? We can find Dad there and ask him.”
The Goon’s little head nodded. The grin he raised from drinking tea was big and sly. “You go,” he said. “Me and the little girl stay here. Teach her some manners.”
“I’m not staying with him!” Awful said.
“Eat your tea,” said Fifi. “We’d better all go, Howard.”
“That suit you?” Howard asked the Goon.
The Goon considered, idly scraping the point of his knife around his mug of tea. The noise made them all shiver. Chips and gouges of china fell out of the mug onto his faded jeans. That knife, Howard thought, must be made of something most unusual, something which could cut china and come back to you when it was thrown. “All go then,” the Goon said at last. “All keep where I can see you.” He put the scraped, carved mug on the floor and waited for Awful to finish eating. When she had, he stood up.
They found themselves backing away from him. He was even larger than they had thought. His little head grazed the ceiling. His long arms dangled. Fifi and Awful looked tiny beside him. Howard, who was used to finding himself as big as most people these days, suddenly felt small and skinny and feeble beside the Goon. He saw it was no good trying to run away when they got outside. They would have to trick the Goon somehow. He was obviously very stupid.
Fifi bravely rewrapped her scarf around her neck and crammed a striped hat on her head. She took hold of Awful’s hand. “Don’t worry,” she said in a small, squeaky voice. “I’m here.”
The Goon grinned down at her and calmly took hold of Awful’s other hand. Awful dragged to get it free. When that made no impression at all, she said, “I’ll bite you!”
“Bite you back,” remarked the Goon. “Give you tetanus.”
“I think he means it,” Fifi said in a faint squeak. “Don’t annoy him, Awful.”
“Can’t annoy me,” said the Goon. “No one has yet.” He must have gone on thinking about this while Howard was leading the way down the side passage into Upper Park Street. It was getting dark by then. The Goon’s head seemed to get lost upward in the dusk. When Howard looked up, he could hardly see anything beyond the Goon’s wide leather shoulders. “Funny,” the Goon’s voice came down. “Never been really angry. Wonder what would happen if I was.”
“I shudder to think!” Fifi said, more faintly than ever. “Howard, would you like to hold my other hand?”