She led the way to the white building. Regin followed, stepping lightly in his soft boots, although sweat trickled past his ears. King Luther and Barnabas trudged glumly after them. Umru floundered behind and had some trouble fitting through the narrow white doorway.
Inside, it was dark and beautifully cool. They stood in a row looking into a complete darkness that seemed to take up much more space than such a small building could hold.
“What do we do?” King Luther asked.
“Wait,” said Querida. “Watch.”
They waited. After a while, as happens when you stare into total darkness, they all thought they could see dots, blobs, and twirling patterns. Sun dazzle, King Luther thought. Trick of the eyeballs, Regin thought. Take no notice. Means nothing.
All at once the seeming dazzles gathered purposefully together. It was impossible to think they meant nothing. In a second or so they definitely formed the shape of something that might have been human, though swirling and too tall, composed of dim reds and sullen blues and small flashes of green. A soft, hollow voice, with a lot of echoes behind it, said, Speak your question, mortals.
“Thank you,” Querida said briskly. “Our question is this: What do we do to abolish the Pilgrim Parties and get rid of Mr. Chesney for good?”
The swirling shape dived, mounted to something twenty feet high, and then shrank to something Querida’s size, weaving this way and that. It seemed agitated. But the hollow voice, when it spoke, was the same as before: You must appoint as Dark Lord the first person you see on leaving here.
“Much obliged,” said Querida.
Quite suddenly the little temple was not dark at all. It was a very small space, hardly big enough for the five of them, with bare white walls and a floor of drifted sand in which bits of rubbish could be seen, evidently dropped by other people who had been to consult the White Oracle. There were scraps of paper, a small shoe, buckles, straps, and plum stones. Something flashed, half buried in the sand by the toes of Regin’s boots. While everyone was turning to go out, he stooped and picked it deftly up and then paused in surprise with the rest of them, because the doorway was no longer narrow. It was now wide enough for all five of them to walk out side by side. They stepped forward into the heat again, blinking at empty miles of glaring desert.
“No one here,” said Querida.
“I suppose it’ll be the first person we see when we get back then,” Barnabas said.
Regin looked at what he had picked up. It was a strip of cloth. There were black letters printed on it that read: Be careful what you ask for; you may get it. He passed it silently to King Luther, who was nearest.
“Now it warns us!” said King Luther, and passed it to Umru.
“This is something I often tell my flock,” Umru said.
“Wizards know it, too,” Barnabas said. He took the cloth and passed it to Querida. “We’ve been warned, Querida. Do you still want to consult the Black Oracle as well?”
“Of course I do. And I am always very careful what I ask for,” Querida retorted. She led the way across the short distance to the black temple. The others looked at one another, shrugged, and followed.
The black building breathed out cold from its surface. Umru sighed with relief as he came under its walls, but his teeth were actually chattering slightly by the time it was his turn to squeeze through the narrow entrance. Inside, he moaned miserably, because it was as hot in there as the desert outside. He stood puffing and panting in deep darkness while, just as before, dazzles and blobs gathered in front of their eyes.
We wait for them to gather, Regin thought wisely. But this time, instead of gathering, the twirling dazzles retreated, swirling away to the sides and glowing more and more strongly. It took all the watchers a full minute to realize that the darkness left behind was now the shape of a huge nearly human figure.
“Oh, I see!” muttered Querida.
You do? said a great, hollow voice. It was deep as a coal mine. Then ask.
“Thank you,” said Querida, and just as before, she asked, “What do we do to abolish the Pilgrim Parties and get rid of Mr. Chesney for good?”
There was a long, long silence. The darkness remained absolutely still while the silence lasted and then abruptly quivered and broke up, with shoots of light rushing through it from either side. When it spoke again, the deep voice shook a little.
You must appoint as Wizard Guide to the last tour the second person you see on leaving here.
Then, as in the white temple, the space was small and empty and they were crowded together, standing among rubbish. It was slightly less hot.
“I swear that thing was laughing!” Barnabas said as they turned to go and found, as before, that the doorway was now wide enough to take all of them.
Something glittered in the sand by Regin’s boot. This time he did not pick it up. He put his toe under it and nudged it until he could see that it was a scrap of paper with one gold edge. Sure enough, it had written on it: Be careful what you ask for; you may get it. He decided not to mention it to the others.
“Well, the desert’s still empty,” said King Luther. “Oh!”
A man was just coming out of the temple of the White Oracle. He was a tall, fattish, mildfaced man, dressed in the kind of clothes farmers wore. He was edging sideways out of the narrow entrance with one arm up to shade his eyes, but they could all see his face quite clearly.
Barnabas said, “Oh, no!” and King Luther said, “I’ll be damned!” Umru shook his head. “Be careful what you ask for,” he sighed. Querida drew in a little hiss of breath.
“What’s the matter?” asked Regin. “Who is he? Who are they, I mean?” he added as someone else squeezed out of the white doorway behind the wide man. This person was a boy of about fourteen who looked rather like the man, except that he was skinny where the man was wide. As Regin asked, the man rounded on the boy.
“There,” he said. “You’re answered. Satisfied?”
“No, I am not!” said the boy. “I’ve never heard of this person. Who is he?”
“Goodness knows,” replied the man. “But he’s no one at the University, so it’s quite clear you’re not going to the University to learn your wizardry, anyway. I was right.”
The boy’s chin bunched angrily. “There’s no need to look so pleased. You always try to stop me doing what I want!”
And the two of them stood in the sand and shouted at one another.
“Who are they?” Regin asked again.
“I don’t know the boy,” Querida said, “but I know the man all right. His name is Derk. And he did once qualify at the University as a wizard. There is no doubt Mr. Chesney would accept him as Dark Lord.”
“The boy’s his son,” Barnabas said. “His name’s Blade. Querida, I don’t want to do this. Derk is a nice man and a friend of mine. He’s actually very gifted—”
“There are two opinions about that,” Querida snapped. “Has the boy any talent?”
“Bags of it,” Barnabas said miserably. “Takes after his mother.”
“Oh—Mara, I remember,” Querida said. “I must talk to Mara. That’s settled then. We have our Dark Lord and our Wizard Guide according to both the Oracles.”
“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.”