Querida glanced at Reville. “Regin—Reville—whatsyourname?” she murmured.
“Need a diversion,” Reville whispered back.
Elda nodded and slipped away around the wall. Don saw her go and slipped off after her.
Sukey said to Mr. Chesney, “They’re people just like you are. I’m staying.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Chesney, “how you can be so unfeeling.”
“Look who’s talking!” Sukey said.
Sukey was standing by Reville, and Mr. Chesney was looking at them both. Querida looked around for some way to make Mr. Chesney look away from Reville and found Scales’s enormous head looming above her. “Unfeeling indeed,” Scales boomed. “My dragons are being killed by inches because you keep them too short of gold.”
Mr. Chesney barely glanced at Scales. “There’s no suffering involved. I had an expert assess the exact amount they needed.”
“I don’t think much of your expert then,” Mara chipped in. “Who was it?”
Professor Ledbury stood up shakily. “It was I, madam. I remember I told him it was only a guess.”
Prince Talithan seemed to realize that they were trying to make Mr. Chesney look somewhere else. He stepped forward. “There is no lawfulness, sir, in the manner you took my brother and held him hostage to force the elves to your bidding.”
Still looking at Sukey, Mr. Chesney said, “Nonsense. He came of his own free will.”
“But I didn’t!” Professor Ledbury protested. “You tempted me with promises of strange sights, and when I came to see, I found I was seized and held in a place where I lost my magic and grew old. Only when I lost all memory of who I was did you turn me loose.”
Prince Talithan strode up to the professor and stared into his haggard old face. “Eldreth?” he said. “Can you be my brother Eldreth?”
“I fear so,” Professor Ledbury said sadly.
“Then pigs do fly!” Talithan cried out, and flung his arms around the professor.
“Well done, Eldred,” Miss Ledbury said, fetching out her notebook. “We can close the file on you at least.”
Querida felt Reville tense, hoping to use this reunion as a diversion. But Elda’s diversion arrived at that moment, and it was much more effective. She said afterward that she and Don had met it coming, anyway, and simply encouraged it a little. Ringlet came first, flying a jeering half foot too high for the dogs to reach her, with the whole pack of dogs beneath and around her, jumping, barking, yelping, and being pursued themselves by the rest of the pigs, some on foot, some in the air, and all squealing mightily. Pretty, who had clearly deserted Talithan for this game, came cantering after them, neighing with laughter, and after Pretty, flapping and angry, with their necks stretched out, rushed a number of geese, home at last, but only about half the usual number. Old George sped after them, shouting uselessly. After him lumbered the Friendly Cows, mooing and bewildered, dropping cowpats into the confusion, driven on by Don and Elda. And after them—Don explained later that it was pure coincidence—came galloping a herd of the dwarfs’ ponies, anxious to be reunited with their masters, followed by Nancy Cobber and all the Derkholm horses. Last of all came Beauty, flapping, neighing, and dragging the Horselady, who was hanging on to her bridle and trying to stop her.
“See Prhetty! See Prhetty!” Beauty screamed.
Almost everyone on the terrace was forced to roll, dive, or dodge out of the way of the stampede. The demon did not move. It just let all the animals flow through it. Mr. Chesney did not move either. Blade watched him being shoved this way and that by the racing crowd of animals and trying to pretend, just as he had before, that nothing was happening. While Blade was shoving himself and Kit aside to make room for Ringlet and the dogs, he kept his eye on Mr. Chesney and saw a blur beside him and then the same blur again beside Querida. The hammering
of paws and hooves and trotters had been too much for Querida. She had drawn herself up into a crouch on the wall, with her face hidden. As the Friendly Cows thundered past, Blade saw the blur become Reville. While the ponies streamed across the terrace, Reville nudged Querida and handed her what looked like a paperweight filled with yellowish fog. Blade found himself impressed by Reville’s skill.
The Horselady gave up the struggle and let Beauty chase the rest on her own. “I was only bringing her back,” she explained to Derk. “When I call, they all come, you see.”
As the stampede went rushing away around the house and Don and Elda came loping back to the terrace, grinning, Querida sat up on her wall and waved the paperweight.
“I’ve got your demon here, Mr. Chesney!” she called.
Mine, said the demon Tripos, snaking down a luminous blue hand thing.
“No, mine,” Scales said, grabbing for it with an enormous clawed foot.
Mr. Chesney strode toward Querida, holding out his hand imperiously. “I’ll have that here, if you please.”
Querida clung to the glass globe with all the might of her withered arms and all the strength of her magic. This was going to be difficult.
Then a great stillness came over everything. This was followed by a faint stirring in the air which gave the feeling of music. Everyone looked up and saw that Anscher was there.
Blade thought the gods probably came out through the front door, but perhaps they came from somewhere else entirely. There was absolutely no doubt they were the gods. They all had such a strong stillness about them that it almost gave you the feeling they were in violent motion, and there was a faint light on them that came from somewhere where the rules were different.