Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (38 page)

It was only then -- after a length of time --
that all went wrong!

Though the women were located, an extensive
search of the ship could not turn up the man, Golden. And he was
known to be on board!

Since Forsk had been given strict
instructions also to arrest John-Lyon's aide, failing to find
Golden was a matter for much worry!

Few knew as well as Forsk what failure to
obey an order meant in the new Stil-de-grain!

As Zwicia stroked the glowing disk with her
bird claw hands, the purple surface of the large crystal cleared,
images appearing deep within.

She looked closer, mumbling to herself as the
crystal spell embraced her.

With a small, rational corner of her mind,
she realized where she was.

Hero Castle.

Knew what had happened.

The new Mage had arrested
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin, the new Mage who also called himself
Pfnaravin.

Now, she was to look into the future for the
new Mage.

Except that ... he was not ... new. The new
Pfnaravin was the old ... Robin.

Zwicia was confused. Which ... did not bother
her. Confusion went with crystal-sickness, a condition caused by
staring into the purple Weird-disk lying flat before her on the
rough table in her drafty, torch-lit room.

Then, as the specters in the disk thickened
into the illusions of reality, she forgot about Pfnaravin. Forgot
about the room. Herself. The world. Forgot everything but the
flicker of those fascinating images forming before her old, tired
eyes. Phantasms moving deep within the watery disk.

She saw ....

Golden.

And ... sailors from the ship. Though they
were not on the ship.

They were walking in a dark hall ... of
stone.

Tracing the crystal's edge with her twisted
fingertips, her claw-like nails splaying beyond the crystal's thin,
iron frame, she saw that the men had torches.

The men, Golden leading, were ... creeping
... slowly and in secret ......

There.

At the hall's end ... men ....

Knives!

Zwicia screamed!

Knives! She had seen knives! Thrown by
Golden!

Men lay ... dead. In small pools of
blood.

A large, wooden door. Golden was opening
it.

Inside was ... darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness ... and ....

Leaned forward, the Weird stroked faster, the
static building on the dry surface of the disk of luminescent
glass.

She could see ... men. In front of black,
stone-block walls in the vastness of a room. Standing ... no.
Chained! Chained to the walls.

In the faint glow of Golden's torch, she
could see .... the old soldier ... Leet.

Beside him, also chained, Coluth. Nator.

The apparitions faded.

Faded.

Until she no longer remembered what she had
seen. Only that it had been a vision of the past. How far into the
past, she could not say.

Sweating, Zwicia tried to break the crystal's
power.

But already, another shadow-wraith was
looming within the crystal's depth. This time the glow-frame showed
the future.

Platinia.

Platinia with John-Lyon.

In a room. A round room. A dark room, slashed
with light. A high room.

John-Lyon was ... attacking ... the wall
.....

Could that be?

Mumbling, the old, purple robed woman stroked
faster, the bulging veins on the backs of her dead-dry hands
writhing like newly dug worms.

The tableau steadied.

Cleared.

From a wall, John-Lyon was lifting out a ...
something.

A something, made of shiny metal. Like a
large insect.

He was bending down to put ... the something
... on the floor.

Behind him was Platinia. Walking ... gliding,
toward John-Lyon.

He did not see her.

In her hand, another something.

A small, thin something.

A knife!

In her hand, a knife! Raised!

Zwicia's screams broke the power of
crystal-sickness, Zwicia awakening to find herself in the fearful
present.

Sweating!

Shaking!

Again, she had seen the vision.

The one of knives.

The one of knives and death!

* * * * *

In the last glow of amber up-light, with a
soft rattle, the rope spun up. Far above, there was a metallic
click, a scrape, then silence as the grapnel dug into stone behind
the battlement of Hero Castle. Below in the half light of a muffled
torch, Orig stretched the rope taut. Threw his weight into it to
make sure it would hold.

Though this attempted rescue had gone less
smoothly than that of Coluth and of Leet, Golden's tiny band had
encountered little difficulty. Unless you counted a subtle ...
thickening ... of the air near the castle's outer wall. Possibly
caused by a miasma from the depths of the dry moat.

The escape from the dungeon had gone well
because of Golden's knowledge of the palace.

Earlier, in disguise, he had slipped into the
stronghold. (Even in times of crisis, the suppliers of food and
drink must have access to the fort.)

Once within, he'd become a priest, newly sent
from Malachite to warn the odorous chief priest about John-Lyon's
powers of escape. In this way, had Golden been responsible for
John-Lyon's incarceration in the iron cage .....

Standing beside Golden was the silent seaman,
Philelph. Dressed in a leather mariner's tunic and laden with gear,
Philelph prepared to climb the rope to gain the upper works of the
castle. Orig, similarly burdened, would follow. Then Golden, a coil
of thick rope attached to his belt. (It was Golden's skill plus the
belt rope attached to a small, land anchor that had gotten them
across the moat.) Once atop the outer wall, a loop of rope twirled
over a spiked stone finial would make it an easy high-walk to the
top of the second wall. From there, a rope to a tower pennant
standard ........

Nator was somewhere back of them, shadowing
an advancing army they'd detoured around that afternoon. His
army.

Leet was on his way to Malachite, to warn his
people of the insanity gripping Stil-de-grain.

By this time, Coluth must have scaled the
raised drawbridge on the right, climbing to the elevated edge of
the bridge to jam the mechanism so that the drawbridge could not be
lowered. Better that the advancing army be kept at bay while John's
party was securing the castle from within.

Secure Hero Castle?

A dream more than a possibility.

For holding the castle against them was the
new Mage with all his crystal-power and his fanatic guards.

Perhaps Golden had been wrong to leave
John-Lyon's Mage-gem behind. Hidden in Xanthin Palace. John-Lyon
knew how to work the crystal's magic; could have used his
Mage-crystal to fight off their many enemies. It was just that ...
with the destruction of Golden's dream of using the green disk to
become King of Malachite ... possessing the Stil-de-grain crystal
had become his last hope to gain the throne!

* * * * *

As she had crouched once before behind these
same curtains at the far end of the great room of Hero Castle,
Platinia was hiding now, kitchen knife in hand. Waiting for the
wild priests to finish their religious dance. Even from this far
away and from behind the tapestry, their loud cries hurt her
ears!

Down-light had come, several torches in their
torch rings lighting the banquet hall.

Leading the jumping, wailing priests was
their color-banded chief, who had also been in this place when
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had returned from the horrible, other
world.

Thinking of John-Lyon, Platinia felt cold,
then hot. She was sad, but also glad she was too far away to see
him at room center.

How did John-Lyon lose his crystal? Which
Mage was the true Pfnaravin? She did not know. All that was
important was that John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had learned her secret. That
she was an Etherial. Since men who learned of her power to
strengthen their emotions had all hurt her to make her serve them,
she would never be safe until such men were dead.

For a time, she had believed that, since he
had lost his golden crystal, John-Lyon no longer had power over
her.

But in this, she had been wrong.

Though he lacked Mage-magic, she could not
keep her thoughts away from him. Even after he was caged, she felt
... a weakness spread throughout her body when she thought of him.
As if she were someone else when he was in her thoughts. As if he
had bound her to him by some strange power, making her feel that
she could not live without him.

Never had she felt this way about a man.
Never!

Though the new Pfnaravin did not know she was
an Etherial, he had made her his property. Was this because he
sensed her power? If so, she must kill him, too. As she had killed
the Mage, Melcor. As she had killed every man who learned of her
Etherial power. Every man but John-Lyon.

Not that she had not tried her best to kill
John-Lyon, the first time, when he had come before. After that
failure, she had tried to get the Malachites to kill him when he
came the second time. The next time, by stabbing him with his wide
knife.

The last time on the trip to Azare. Hearing
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin talk to Coluth -- she had learned the
importance of the ... fuse ... to the Mage's plan to destroy the
evil Auro. In the ship's hold at night, it had taken her small
fingers a long, hard time -- the tips bleeding -- to loosen the
knot around the fuse sack. She had done it, though. Had then
slipped the fuse out of the sack, put in another rope, and tied the
sack-knot back again.

And she had done more. After the boat had
landed in the black band, she had strengthened the feelings of
confidence she had found in John-Lyon's mind, making him less
fearful of the evil Mage. This was why she wished to continue with
John-Lyon, through the dark, dead woods, until the end. To give
John-Lyon the courage that would cause his death!

But all these plans had failed! Even without
the fuse, John-Lyon had destroyed the evil Mage.

Recent proof of John-Lyon's force was that
the new Pfnaravin had also failed to kill him. Even when the new
Pfnaravin had struck the caged John-Lyon with a green burst of
Mage-magic! Truly, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin -- with or without his magic
crystal -- was hard to kill!

Her only hope was that she knew a secret.
That John-Lyon could be killed. This, she knew because she had
almost killed him with the other knife. Everyone had said that if
that knife had gone between his ribs, he would have ... died!

She had learned since then. Learned which way
to hold the blade so that it would penetrate his heart.

Now she had a final chance to make him
dead!

Shorn of his crystal, he would suspect
nothing of her plan. After the priests had finished this night's
dance, by the light of the one torch left burning far away, she
would slip from behind the curtain. Slide quietly through the
night-dark dining hall to the cage of John-Lyon, the cage placed
near the fire stone pit in the room's center. There, she would
awaken John-Lyon. Say she had come to rescue him from the trap.
(Since John-Lyon spoke no Stil-de-grain after down-light, she must
use motions to tell him that.) He would come close to the bars.
Then, perhaps when he was looking in a direction she had pointed
out, she would stab him with all her strength. After that, if she
could, she would reach through the bars and cut off his head.
Surely, even a Mage would die with a cut off head. Melcor had died
after slabs of rock had fallen from the ceiling and broken in his
chest. And Melcor still had his head.

Thinking of the stabbing of John-Lyon,
shivers gripped Platinia's slender body. Coming near to
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin made her ... weak. He had that kind of power
over her.

Seeing him in her mind, seeing his
fascinating green eyes and the quick smile of his soft mouth,
Platinia began to weep.

No one had ever made her feel this strange,
weak way.

He must be dead!

* * * * *

Though Pfnaravin had no faith in this
serpentining about the cage, this mumbling, chanting, shrieking --
there was no reason why Dockw and his shaven headed priests should
not attempt it. Pfnaravin's hope was in tomorrow -- after the army
had arrived. Then, if Dockw was a better torturer than religionist
-- Pfnaravin would have his answer.

Taking his eyes off the prisoner huddled in
the cramped cage -- the pen in which he, himself, had been confined
-- Pfnaravin leaned back in his ornate chair, the chair placed by
the wall across from the dining room's fire stone pit. To the
right, lost in shadow, was the long, raised dining table.

Since the advance party's arrival yesterday,
no food had been served in this, gray room. Instead, Pfnaravin had
used the chamber as a prison, his guards out of sight but blocking
every entrance.

The fire stone pit was cold. The air smelled
only of the damp of rotted stone.

Pfnaravin wrenched his mind back to the
present.

Of more importance than this disgusting
pageant of neutered priests, were vibrations he had begun to feel
in the magic wards about the castle. There could no longer be a
doubt that there was ... motion ... without ... as yet, of no
importance.

Pfnaravin fingered the crystal at the neck of
his flowing, green silk robe, his thoughts returning to the vexing
puzzle of how this other worlder -- this pretend Mage -- had
withstood the killing blast of Mage-magic Pfnaravin had sent
against him. On the first night after John-Lyon's condemnation,
seeking information on the location of the gold crystal, Pfnaravin
had spoken to the caged John-Lyon -- first in Stil-de-grain, then
in Malachite. Receiving no answer, Pfnaravin had hurled a killing
blast at the false Mage!