Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (7 page)

"Drunk" with crystal-power had been his
excuse for mistreating shy Platinia. Every inebriate's alibi for
reprehensible behavior!

John searched his mind again for any sign
he'd revisited the night-terrors he'd been having recently.

In one, sweat-soaked dream, for instance,
he'd barely escaped the gravity traps. Harmless looking spots
between the up-light border of Malachite and Stil-de-grain where
the gravity thickened dangerously -- here -- there. Places where
gravity became so heavy it would crush any object or animal
unfortunate enough to blunder across the "trap." Object or animal
or man.

Other times during the recent thunderstorms
of what was now early winter, he'd dreamed of Zwicia, the Weird.
And of her larger crystal, the Weird's foot-in-diameter disk
alleged to show the past and present -- even the future.

Whatever the truth about the pictures the
crystal showed, John, himself, had nearly become "lost" in it. Or,
as people of the other world would say, he'd caught the
"crystal-sickness"; had been "out of it" while his military reforms
for the Stil-de-grain Army and Navy were being botched; the fleet
of Malachite boarding and capturing the incompetently led
Stil-de-grain Navy.

Bits and pieces of the crystal-visions he'd
seen still haunted him. Had he glimpsed the other world under
construction, a hawk-like ship "parked" in orbit about a thin, flat
planet, space-suited aliens building a dome above the wheel-shaped
world?

Interestingly, the natives of that backward
culture also described their world as round, but flat -- with a
sky-dome overhead that contained neither sun, moon, nor stars.
Nothing above you but clouds at night and rainbow bands of color
during the day, each color centered over its respective "band,"
each, concentric band-country with a different gravitational
pull.

His mind flitting back to Platinia, was it
his imagination, or had the small girl enhanced his crystal's
power? Like she seemed to improve whatever he did when she was in
the room? Or was it a fantasy that he was more successful as a
leader when she was beside him? That his food tasted better when
she was near? That the day went better with Platinia by his
side?

With some embarrassment, John realized his
mental ramblings about Platinia-power could be those of a man in
love, the merest contact between lovers seeming to perfume the
air!

He had to admit to himself that, in her
doll-like way, Platinia had a kind of somber beauty. Like most
Malachites, she had dark hair and eyes -- Malachite, the band she'd
come from originally, before the priests of Stil-de-grain had
stolen her as a child. Kidnapped her to put her through a kind of
grizzly ritual because she was the princess of the night (or some
such foolishness.)

Then, there was Golden. Another Malachite --
an entertainer whose real interest was in finding the lost crystal
of Malachite (the gem of Pfnaravin that the safely-dead King,
Yarro, was said to have stolen.) Golden's interest in the crystal
was (he'd once admitted in a rare moment of candor,) to use it to
lever himself onto the throne of Malachite.

Golden, the acrobat. Golden, who could climb
dungeon walls like a hyperactive monkey. Golden (when liquored up)
a balladeer. Golden the sycophant. Golden the obsequious. Golden --
John's gopher.

My God! John had never thought of it before,
but Golden was a character right out of Shakespeare, an
"otherworldly" Hamlet who, like the sullen Dane, considered himself
to have been aced off the throne by a wicked uncle.

Now that John thought about it, there was a
remarkable similarity between Hamlet's behavior and Golden's. A
certain brilliance. A certain moodiness. A certain shiftiness.

Golden-Hamlet.

Both of them, men of many talents and the
poorly hidden aspiration to be king. Both, possibly, a little mad.
Both, dangerous enough to need ... watching.

* * * * *

John was awake again. Safe under the embrace
of blankets, John rolled on his side, half missing the iron chain
that supported his Mage-crystal.

It was then that John remembered the
lightning rod he'd had installed in the hope that neutralizing a
storm's static would banish his frightening dreams.

Creak!

What was that!? A sound, certainly, the storm
not likely to have made it. In fact, the wind and rain outside had
just died down, the cloudburst no longer pounding on the roof. (The
proverbial lull before the real storm?)

Something other than the noises he'd heard
that had first led him to discover that the storage space under the
stairs was the gateway to another world, the sometime-sounds of
chanting -- that John found later were the magical mumblings of the
Mage, Melcor, as Melcor worked to bring the lost Wizard, Pfnaravin,
back through the static-operated passageway that just happened to
be under John's stairs!

There had been a glitch in Melcor's plans,
though. Somehow, the Sorcerer's magic had backfired, first, to send
Melcor's "slavey," Platinia, to John's world, then to bring down
the tower room's ceiling blocks on the hapless Mage. (Though people
in the other reality seemed to think that Wizards were
indestructible, having your chest crushed by roofing stones made
even Mages mortal!)

Poor, dearly departed Melcor had blundered in
another way, too. Known to be seeking Pfnaravin in the "other
world," John's appearance had the band-folks convinced that John
was the newly returned Malachite Mage.

Of course, when the Bandworld's "medieval
oriented" people found out John didn't want to be called Pfnaravin,
they did what they were told -- mumbled John Lyon -- the locals so
terrified of Mages they would call John anything his heart
desired.

Later, King Yarro's mysterious death had made
possible John's promotion to Mage of Stil-de-grain, the "great"
Mage expected to run Stil-de-grain with a hapless child-king on the
throne and a foreign war brewing .......

Creak! Bang!

John was out from under the covers and on his
feet in an instant. No dreaming that noise!

Though John couldn't imagine what it might
be, the sound had been real, a noise that originated below him on
the first floor.

A possible robber in the house, the "manly"
thing was to go downstairs and get himself killed, John helped by
being able to sneak downstairs with thunder as his "cover."

His bare feet receiving their marching
orders, John grabbed his robe from the chair back beside the head
of his bed and put it on hurriedly.

Sneaking into the hall, John was grateful to
have his way illuminated by pulsing thunderbolts, the staccato
rippling of the storm's electric ganglia penetrating the house's
dirty windows.

At hall's end, John started down the stairs,
his bare toes feeling for the steps, stair-noise lost in drumrolls
from the sky.

One ... cautious ... step ... at ... a ...
time.

Another step, static building on his body
now, and John squatted down to look out where the stairs "broke
free" of the walls, to see a head emerge from under the stairs!
Like Platinia had come out when Melcor, the Wizard, had blundered
......!

No!

What John was seeing was the back of a head
disappearing into that opening, the head lifting to show a man's
face, his gray hair teased up by the same static John was feeling
on his own body.

Later, all that John could remember was a
blinding flash! A deafening roar! And ... falling .....

After Golden had been sent limping off
through the fog to quiet the ponies in the inn's bramble enclosed
corral, the rest of the "irregulars" had fallen upon the tiny, one
floor building, Malachite soldiers inside, Hooc said.

"Irregulars"? Bandits, was Golden's name for
them, even though Golden was grateful they took him in. No man
alone -- to say nothing of a wounded man -- could live long in that
swamp.

It had been weeks since the Stil-de-grain
Army's disastrous rout through the Great Realgar Marsh, the marsh a
nightmare of thorn-thickets, scrub, and sucking soil, a canopy of
broad leafed, mere-trees darkening the bog's quavering ground.
Swamp creatures slithered through knurled tree roots in the wet
below. Stinging insects clogged the heavy, putrid air.

Bad though things were, Golden wondered how
many soldiers of Stil-de-grain had been as fortunate as he.

"Tighten up," Hooc hissed, turning from his
position in the front, Golden falling behind so that those ahead
had faded into darkish lumps in the odorous mist. Limping faster,
Golden dragged on the tether, a rope trailing from the lead pony's
halter to each of the other ponies in turn.

Behind Hooc was Sassu, a small, quick man.
Then came Iscu, Xevi, and the grossly deformed Renn. Bandits of the
marsh; pretending to be Stil-de-grain partisans.

The thieves carried bulky packs, carryalls
jumbled with booty from the inn. At the men's sides hung weapons.
Swords. Clubs. Xevi, with a short, thick bow.

Leading was Hooc, a hulking man of middle
age. Black haired. Sullen. Bearded. With a scar slashed brow above
eyes of iron.

Though Golden had been left outside in the
burnt-orange fog and wet of another oozy, Great Marsh morning,
Golden was sure Hooc and the others had slaughtered everyone inside
the tiny, bog-side inn. The screaming had told him that.

Even had Golden's leg been well, there was
nothing he could have done to stop the butchery. The pack members
were too many. He was alone and closely watched.

Nor was he permitted anything but a short,
blunt belt knife for a weapon. At least, to the bandit's
knowledge.

Golden was the new man. To be trusted only
when he had murdered like the rest.

When the gang had came upon him in that oozy
fenland, they had suspected Golden to be a Malachite -- though he
lied that he was not. What had preserved his life at the beginning
was that he had nothing fit to steal and that his military tunic
bore the yellow stripe of Stil-de-grain.

Bothered by his dark looks, the squad had
waited until down-light to see what language Golden spoke; when he
spoke Stil-de-grain, had let him live. (Lowlifes like this would
never suspect that Golden could speak more than a single
tongue.)

Even though the robber band was seeking a
recruit, Hooc had not liked letting Golden live.

It had been bad luck that, from a great
distance, a flight arrow from a pursuing Malachite had wounded
Golden in the calf. Unaware that the sting in his leg had done him
damage, Golden continued to flee, clawing, with the rest, through
the coppice clogged marsh. In sweaty dreams, he still heard the
screams of men who had stumbled into bottomless sinks!

It was only after Golden had gotten past the
most dangerous mud flats in the quagmire -- the Malachites
sacrificing too many of their own men to the sulfurous bog to
continue the chase -- that Golden realized the extent of his
injury, falling to the quavering ground, Golden unable to stand
again.

The stragglers of the routed Stil-de-grain
Army racing past, Golden found himself helpless and alone.

Colored birds scolded from above. Around him,
sounded the buzz and scrape of insects and the occasional watery
splash of swamp-life in the distance. He also heard the fearful
bellow of something seeking larger prey.

As down-light approached, Golden had dragged
himself to a hollow log, crawling inside to hide from the terrors
of the dark.

He had water. (All anyone had to do to obtain
a drink was make a stick-hole in the stinking turf, wait until the
depression filled with water, use a hollow reed to suck up the
fetid liquid.)

Not knowing what plants might be edible in
this peaty bog, Golden had two choices: to starve or to risk
poison. (He did catch and eat several, many legged insects. But
threw them up again.)

Days passed, Golden about to chance eating
some bright, red-skinned berries on a low, swamp bush -- when the
evil pack chanced by.

That was how Golden had joined the robber
band.

This murderous troop knew nothing of Golden's
entertainer skills, of course, of his mastery of rope walking. Or
his faculty to climb walls. Nor had they seen his art with throwing
knifes, or dexterousness with lock picks or with the other tools of
thieves. (This was not the first time Golden had been made to run
with robbers -- though the only time since Golden was a child.)

The six of them, shabby blankets draped
around their shoulders against the bog's misty damp, were following
a trail that wound through clutching undergrowth, a path known only
to the leader. A dangerous route that took them back into the
marsh, each man careful to place his foot in the oozing boot track
of the man before him.

Already, they had lost three ponies --
one-by-one -- the shaggy beasts straying out of line. One moment
the animal would be on firm ground; the next, sinking into the
swamp, plunging, thrashing itself in deeper, neighing pitifully,
the doomed pony's eyes rolling as the bog sucked it down to a muddy
death.

With a caught pony, there was nothing to be
done but cut it loose before its tie-line pulled down its
brothers.

Each time the swamp claimed another pony,
Hooc and the others yelled in anger. None would take Golden's
suggestion, though, that each man tie his pack to a pony and lead
the beast himself, in this way seeing the ponies safely through the
fogbound fen. Leading ponies was work for slaveys, said Hooc.
(Though, apparently, carrying a pack of stolen goods, was not.)

Hooc hardly glanced at the shivering turf as
he splashed them through a sharply twisting course, circling,
veering off at tangents, doubling back.

How Hooc knew the way, he never said --
though Golden had a guess. Since Hooc was a man of Realgar and
since, in the past, Tauro, King of Realgar, had marked out trails
through the marsh, that must be how Hooc knew.