There Fran encountered the dwarfs. Derk owed it to the dwarfs that Fran did not follow him upstairs and hose him into the bathroom. All the time he was bathing—and it took awhile; he was rather astonished at how filthy he was—he could hear battle raging downstairs. Fran passed the hose to Old George, who was glad enough to use it, and took up a broom herself. Derk heard the repeated crack of it hitting dwarfish heads. There was a great deal of yelling, screaming, and protesting, mingled with the hissing of the hose. But by the time Derk had dried himself and put on clean clothes that had all somehow grown too loose everywhere, most of the yelling had stopped. As he came downstairs again, he could hear Fran and Old George doing mighty works with hose and broom in the kitchen. The dwarfs were all out on the terrace, sullenly cleaning out the hut. Callette was couched there among the broken remnants of black walls, with a grin at the ends of her beak, keeping the dwarfs up to their work.
“I didn’t think I liked Fran,” she said to Derk, “until now. The dogs are still chasing the pigs, by the way.”
Derk could hear them. “They needed the exercise,” he said.
“We don’t,” Galadriel said pointedly.
“Too bad,” said Callette. “Fran says you owe the mayor and the blacksmith for a herd of cows each, and the tailor for all his chickens and six other people for goats. And Dad for several tons of vegetables, of course. Can you pay, except by working?”
“We could dock it from the tribute,” another dwarf suggested hopefully.
“I don’t think those dragons out there will let you,” said Callette. “Keep working.”
Feeling weak and too clean and sad, Derk went to sit on the ruins of a black wall that had once been a chair. He was nearly knocked off it by Elda. Don was with her, looking rather pleased with himself. Elda came bounding up, flashing in the sunlight from several hundred stray sequins that had somehow got lodged among her feathers. Derk suspected she had left them there on purpose when she last preened. “Steady on!” he said, swaying.
“Sorry, Dad. I’d have been here ages before this, only I didn’t know what to do about the dragons,” Elda explained. “And you’ve made it so I couldn’t fly in. So I sat and wondered what to do until Don came and helped me. You bow to dragons and say, ‘Good morning.’ At least, Don did.” She rose up with her front feet on the wall and looked closely at Derk. “Dad! What’s the matter with you?”
“Overwork,” said Derk. “Among other things. Elda, why—?”
“Mum says she’ll be here as soon as she can,” Elda rushed on. “I was supposed to say. Querida fell over again, you see, and Mum has to help her put the people back in the cities, because they’re in one of Mum’s miniature universes and need to be made big again first.”
“Is that what she needed it for?” Callette said. “Why?”
“To prevent needless slaughter,” Elda explained rather pompously.
“I don’t think I dare tell Talithan this!” Derk was murmuring when Mara herself walked onto the terrace. She was very much her usual self, in her ordinary clothes, with her hair in a big blond plait over one shoulder. Derk stared at her and felt weaker than ever.
Mara had overheard Elda explaining. “Elda, does this mean you’ve only just got here? I trusted you!” And while Elda was protesting about the dragons, Mara turned and took a big golden armful of Don. “My love,” she began, and then her nose wrinkled. “Don, you smell of dirty lion. Go and get a bath at once, and then preen. You look as bad as you smell.” As Don galloped off, Mara flung herself on Callette next and hugged her. “Goodness, Callette, you’re far too thin! I can see it’s high time I came back!”
The dwarfs took advantage of Callette’s being hugged to stop work and stand in a long row, bowing. Mara looked at them bemusedly and bowed back. “Would you care for something to eat, madam?” Dworkin said wistfully. “There’s a witch with a broom in the kitchen at the moment, but I hope she’ll leave if we explain that we need to cook for the lady of the house.”
Mara laughed. “Then please tell her.” And as the dwarfs scampered into the house, she mouthed at Callette, “Who?”
“Skinny Fran. She hit them with a besom for making such a mess,” Callette said.
Mara turned, laughing, to Derk. Derk slid rather shakily off his wall chair and wondered whether to smile at her. Mara threw both her arms tightly around his chest, almost stopping his breath. She leaned her head against his shoulder and said, “Oh, Derk, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even realize I was being unkind. It was all Querida’s fault. I told her she was to come here and explain. Where is she? If she’s let that healer put her into a coma again, I shall pull her beastly leg right off!”
“I’m here, I’m here!” Querida croaked. She hobbled out from behind a broken black archway, propped on her magic crutch.
Mara barely looked at her. She was stroking Derk’s face now, saying, “You look quite good in a beard now your face is so thin, love! Oh, I could kill Querida!”
“I think she means it, too,” Querida said to Callette. “I’ve never seen her so angry. It’s my miscalculation. I used to be married to Mara’s father, you know, and I’ve never felt Derk was good enough for the daughter of a man like that.”
Mara said to Derk, “But what possessed you to shut yourself away among all this mess?”
Derk was surprised to find he was grateful to Fran that the mess was not twice as bad. “Kit,” he said, and choked. “Blade. The last straw.”
“Oh, I heard, I heard!” Mara said. “But I think Blade’s all right.”
She and Derk seemed set to stand looking at one another all day.
“Tstss!” Querida hissed disgustedly to Callette. “Do they want me to explain? Or not?”
Callette’s response was “This wall’s really a chair.” She lifted Querida up and dumped her on the wall.
Querida went stiff all over with outrage until she discovered that she was quite comfortable. The black stones felt like cushions.
“Thank you, my dear,” she said. “Wizard Derk.” When Derk at last tore his attention from Mara, Querida said, “I apologize. Apologizing is not a thing I’m good at, so I’m only going to do it this once, and you’d better listen. You see, we wanted to put an end to the way Mr. Chesney is exploiting our world, and we hoped by making you Dark Lord that you’d make such a hash of it that the whole organization would fall apart. I thought that’s what the Oracles meant. But as soon as we arrived at Derkholm to meet Mr. Chesney, I realized that you were going to be rather efficient after all, and I cast about for some way to take your mind off the task. And I’m afraid I put a spell on Mara, to make her decide to leave you. I don’t suppose it did much good.”