Title: Dark Lord of Derkholm
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Publisher: Greenwillow Books, New York
ISBN: 0-688-16004-2
A world of magic under the tyrannical rule of a man with
enormous powers: Mr. Chesney, a humorless business man. Doesn't
sound quite like your typical fantasy novel, does it? And it's
not. Mr. Chensey, who comes from a world with no magic, has
somehow gained control over a small but incredibly powerful
demon. He uses this demon to force the people of the (unnamed)
world of magic to stage the typical "band of heros overthrows
tyrannical Evil Overlord" stories, and
then sends people from his world on "tours" through these staged
stories, where the tourists get to play the parts of the main
characters; he charges money for these "Pilgrim Parties", and
lives in his non-magical world, getting rich. There's so many
Pilgrim Parties that there are shortages of food (the Armies of
Good and Armies of Evil trample the crops), kingdoms are going
into debt (because the cost of rebuilding after the battles isn't
as much as they get paid by Mr. Chensey), and the economy is in a
sorry state (because of all the people are getting drafted into
the Armies).
This has been going on for decades, and the people of the world
want the Pilgrim Parties stopped. Querida, High Chancellor of the
Wizards' University, takes a small group of important people to
consult the Oracles. They are told that, to put a stop
to Mr. Chesney, they must appoint the first person they meet to be
this year's Dark Lord, and the second person they meet to be one
of the Wizard Guides. The first people they meet are the wizard
Derk and his son Blade.
Derk is a kind, peaceful bioengineer Wizard who's spent his life
breeding flying horses, flying pigs, smart geese, and
griffins with human intelligence; in fact, five of his
seven children are griffins, with only two of them being human.
Since he's the Dark Lord, he has to change his house into a dark
fortress and be prepared to have both it and the nearby village
repeatedly destroyed by wave after wave of Pilgrim Parties. (Poor
Derk!) His family helps by creating and placing clues for the
tourists, planning tour migration paths, and so on, but they have
to take over the whole rigmarole after Derk is put out of
commission by an angry dragon. And then things start getting
even worse...