Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series

by John Stockmyer

  Clever way to disguise a hiding place. Who would believe, in a primitive building like this, that the fifth stone up in the dead center of the far wall was a "capstone," the wall "hollowed out" behind it, that block certainly looking as solid as the rest of the wall. And was, as long as you weren't pulling it straight out into the room. Who, after all, would accidentally tug on what appeared to be a building block?

  John's first look in the cavity had shown him his Mage-gem, pulsing with a faint, golden glow against the blackness of the pit.

  He'd also run into a small book in the "safe," John lifting it out to crack open the black, embossed leather binding, and ruffle through what looked like white leather pages. Scraped calf skin? Goat skin? A glance at the book's spidery script (in what could have been gold leaf) had told him he wouldn't be able to read writing that small. (Assuming he could read it, that reading in this world worked like speaking, daylight magic serving as a universal translator for print as well as for oral communication.)

  Unable to do anything with the book right then, John had put it back, pushing it out of the way.

  It was when going for the crystal that John found himself trembling. After all, he'd brought the fake disk so he wouldn't be exposed to the danger of wearing the real one, a sensible enough plan at the time. Now though, with Malachite soldiers running about the castle .....

  The question was: why not have the real gem handy in case he got in trouble? The answer: because wearing a Mage-gem could drive you crazy. Literally! ..................

  Was there a compromise to be found in the word: wearing? For instance, what if he didn't wear the real crystal, but had it with him just in case? That way, he could gain all the respect he needed by showing the lens-crystal about his neck. Failing to impress, he'd have immediate access to the Mage-gem.

  With the Malachites on the loose, not a bad idea. Furthermore, if he felt himself unduly influenced by the close proximity of the gem, he could put it somewhere out of the way.

  Delay increasing the chance of being discovered with every minute that passed, John looked into the hole again. Saw that faintly pulsing glimmer of golden light, the crystal, on its chain, calling to him.

  Trembling with both desire to have the crystal and fear of it, John had forced himself to stick one hand into the hole.

  Watching as best he could, he stretched his hand up and over the mystic book, extending his fingers to pat around the luminescent gem, delicately, until he felt the squirm of metal. Certain it was the necklace, with exaggerated care, he lifted the chain an inch without touching the disk. Looping a finger through the metal links, he gently raised the chain, the crystal sliding away from his fingers to the bottom of the necklace.

  After that, with infinite care, John gentled the crystal out of the hole, the disk now looking like nothing but a two-inch in diameter circle of clear, gently curving, amber colored glass.

  Holding out the top of his left tunic pocket, John dribbled in the gem and its chain.

  Good. He had it but hadn't touched it, the disk an "insurance policy" which, like all insurance policies, he hoped he'd never have to use!

  It was after retrieving the gem that he'd shoved the static electric generator in the hiding place -- a tight fit -- while scraping in the generator, turned up the paper which, unfolded, he recognized as a blueprint of the castle!

  Refolding the parchment, keeping it, he'd swung the stone "cap" back into position and pushed it into the wall to cover the hiding place.

  To Platinia's question about whether or not he'd found his Mage-crystal, he'd showed the girl the fake disk, finding he'd been right about the effect that even an amber colored piece of glass would have on the simple people here. Respect! (Respect, translated terror!)

  In spite of the unpleasant surprise of finding Malachite soldiers on the premises -- what it came down to was that things were working out better than he had any right to hope.

  "Are you sure that Zwicia will come with us?" Platinia had already indicated as much, John asking that question again to try to stimulate a quiet chat as they walked along.

  What he got was an affirmative nod, serving him right for asking a question Platinia could answer by nodding. "How much further?"

  "Soon."

  A great little conversationalist, Platinia. Too bad there wasn't much of a living to be made as a child-sized mime.

  So they continued padding along in silence (silence not a bad idea with soldiers in the castle.)

  Down and down, creeping through castle corridors by the gloomy light that filtered through narrow, lofty windows. Or, where there were no windows, prowling by the shadow-light of irregularly placed fire stone ceiling torches, torches that were kept burning at all times in those airless halls, John imagined. A good use for magical torches. No heat. No burning out. No refills necessary. Just torches that, once thought alight, would burn forever -- unless someone thought them out.

  Torches.

  Did he remember that, on his last trip, the torches of Stil-de-grain looked ... brighter? Less ... flickery?

  Without warning, Platinia stopped, John almost running over her!

  Looking up at him, her brown eyes resembling holes in the general dark, the girl motioning John to silence.

  Yes. He could hear it now. Ahead of them. A sound. Talking.

  Careful not to snag the map on Platinia's black robe -- her garment, like her eyes and hair, invisible in the shadowed penumbra of far-spaced torches -- John edged past the girl to take the lead, both of them slipping down the hallway, themselves hardly more than ghosts in that windowless passageway.

  "Don't you think we have to tell the Head?" said a male voice, the nearness of the speaker startling John to a sudden stop, the voice coming from a branch of hall just ahead.

  John held his breath.

  Listened intently.

  "You going to tell him?" Another voice. Both, men's voices. Soldiers?

  "No reason for it. He don't have to hear." A third voice.

  Creeping forward at dead slow, John -- Platinia trailing -- came to an intersection in the hall.

  With utmost caution, John leaned out to look around the corner. Jerked his head back, that quick glance showing him several soldiers; less than ten paces down the branching corridor; at what looked like a guard post.

  Another peek.

  Two soldiers were seated to the right, behind a rough, thick, wood table, a third standing before the table. Not standing. Pacing. When John had first looked, the man -- fortunately -- was walking the other way.

  Farther on was an end wall with a heavily braced door, wide strips of black iron riveted to it in triangular patterns. The back gate of the stronghold?

  John felt a gentle tug on the back of his tunic. Platinia, wanting him to back away from the soldiers.

  Putting his hand behind him, John waved her off.

  "What about Gouter, will he tell?" First soldier.

  "Gouter's so drunk he couldn't remember his mother's name."

  "After he sobers up, I mean."

  "No. All we got to do is tell him not to and he won't."

  "I don't like it." That was the first voice John had heard, the voice of the soldier who was striding up and down, nervously, his military boots clicking with agitated regularity on the flagstones of the connecting hall, making a scraping sound as he turned at either end of his "run."

  "You worry too much." The second voice.

  "Anyways, it don't make no difference." The third soldier.

  "You get commanded to do a job, you should do it." First soldier.

  Hearing the nearby, about-face of the pacing soldier's boots, John took a longer look, only to discover that the best way to recognize which of the three men was speaking was by tone of voice. All three were short. All muscular. All dark -- with black hair. Each in a short, light green, military tunic with dark green piping.

  "And we would have if somebody hadn't hauled the body off," said soldier number two.

  "That's what worri
es me," replied the first soldier, still pacing back and forth, if anything, more agitated. "Who could have done it?"

  "But don't ya see, Knab, it don't matter. Whoever done it, he won't tell." The third soldier's voice was pitched somewhat lower than the other two.

  "Yeah, he'd get in worse trouble than we would if he did."

  "Unless it was some crazy person."

  "You worry too much. The way I look at it, we don't get in trouble if we don't tell. But if we say we didn't bury him like we were told to, we do get into trouble."

  "But it wasn't our fault."

  "That don't make no difference to officers. Why you don't do your job, they don't care. That's why we got to give it time, wait here, take the same time it'd hav' taken ta bury him."

  "I suppose." A doubtful pause. "Still, it gives me the creeps not finding the body where we were told it would be."

  "Like I say, you worry too much."

  "But it was a Mage. It was the Mage, Pfnaravin."

  "So?"

  "So ... what if he came to life again. Just walked off."

  "Then me and you is better off than if we'd buried him."

  "Huh?"

  "Sure. What you think a Mage would do to you if you was to have buried 'im, then he come alive underground. What you think a Mage would do to the men who buried him alive?"

  "But if he's still alive and shows up. What will the Head do to us for not burying him?"

  "We say we done it. That the Mage dug hisself out again."

  "Yeah. That would work, I guess."

  "Anyway, the war's won." Second soldier. "Got that bunch to beat in the Claws, down Realgar way. All that's left of them."

  "And when the war's over?"

  "Don' know. We come here because of the dyin' of the magic over Malachite. Same as what's happenin' here. What I can't figure is that it don't seem to do no good to win. The magic's dyin' anyway." Grunts of agreement from the other two.

  A pause.

  "As for me, I'm tired of waiting here." This was the first soldier John had heard speak: Knab. "You two can stay here if you want, but I got a better place to wait."

  "Don't let no one see ya."

  "I won't."

  John felt panic seize him! The soldier was about to leave!

  Boot steps on stone ... coming John's way ... louder ....!

  With no chance to back down the hall, John flattened himself against the corridor wall, at the same time reaching back to press Platinia to the wall, as well. If the soldier swung down their hall, there was no chance that he ......

  But he didn't! A flash of shadowy green and Knab had tramped past them to disappear down the other hall, his clacking footsteps receding ... to silence.

  John stood away from the wall again; used both hands to wipe sweat from his eyes. It took three deliberate, but quiet, breaths to slow the beating of his heart.

  As for the other two soldiers around the corner?

  Silence. ............

  Scraping ......

  Creaks from the guards' chairs. .......

  Nothing else.

  Again, John felt Platinia tug on the back of his tunic.

  Fascinating as the conversation was -- these men obviously the burial detail sent to inter the poor old man who'd died in the cage -- John had to admit that Platinia was right. Though there might be a corridor somewhere beyond the soldiers that John couldn't see, this tee-corridor was a dead end. The two of them had to retrace their steps and try another route.

  Quietly, John and Platinia turned to tiptoe back down the hall, Platinia in the lead again.

  Until ... they came to a bisecting corridor, the child-woman ducking left this time instead of right.

  With nothing to do but listen for sounds, make sure he didn't drop the diagram of Hero Castle, and follow Platinia, John mulled over what the soldiers had said.

  Clearly, they'd been sent to bury the old man, discovering that the corpse was missing.

  The man's body gone?

  Why?

  The only reason John could come up with was that someone had stolen the cadaver to strip it of the modern, "otherworldly" clothing the old man was wearing. John tried to think of an analogous situation in his own world. If he'd run across the body of an alien from another planet, wouldn't he be tempted to take something off the body? To keep as a souvenir?

  Maybe.

  Without enough data to solve the "case of the missing corpse," John gave up trying. Was content to plod along behind the sylphlike girl, not that the rest of the trip was entirely uneventful!

  Before getting to Zwicia's second level apartment -- where John had established her before he'd gone home -- they had two more scares. Both, from almost running into small groups of soldiers, Platinia getting John out of the way each time -- first, down a parallel corridor, the second time, finding them a hiding place behind a dark abutment built into a massive, load-bearing wall.

  Finally, both of them breathing hard -- more from strain than from exertion -- they were at Zwicia's door -- in the middle of another dark, damp, depressing, limestone hallway. Were there any other kind?

  Platinia knocked. Gently. Like Platinia did all things. ...

  Knocked again. ...

  No answer.

  Lifting the latch, Platinia nudged the door, the heavy barrier -- once started -- creaking open all the way.

  Looking over Platinia's shoulder, having to concentrate in the flicker of a single, ceiling level torch on the other side of the narrow room, John saw Zwicia, seated to the right before a small table. Her crystal lay in front of her, the disk's chain hidden in shadow.

  Crystal-gazing.

  The old woman was stroking the watery looking disk with one "talon," waving the other "claw" in the air, the Weird making her usual, moaning sounds.

  Though Platinia entered, John lagged behind.

  Why?

  He had to admit to himself it was because he was afraid of the Weird's crystal. Afraid of that overlarge, purplish disk because it had "trapped" him the last time he'd stared into it, John coming "out of it" to learn he'd lost a couple of months; had traded that time for tantalizing fragments of ... what? The past, present, and future? That's what the Weird-disk was purported to show, at least.

  It was only when John's friends had forcibly "removed" the crystal from him, at the same time locking John in a small room to "sober him up," that he'd "come to himself" enough to realize that months had passed him by.

  Bad as it had been to have caught the "crystal-sickness," what was worse was that John had become afflicted at a critical time. The period when, denied John's leadership, Stil-de-grain had almost lost the Malachite War. Did lose a substantial part of the Stil-de-grain Navy.

  Not only from a military perspective, but also from a personal one, ogling the Weird-disk had dealt John a devastating blow. Had cost John ... independence of action. To put it more bluntly than John liked to think of it, a single session of crystal-gazing had made him a gem-junkie.

  What had kept him from succumbing to the disk's allurement -- what had given him the strength to resist another crystal-fix -- was Platinia's presence. Just having Platinia in the room with him, he'd believed, reduced his obsession with Zwicia's disk. The girl beside him made ... everything ... better. Made food taste better. Made discussions with others go more easily.

  Silly.

  But that was the way it had seemed at the time.

  So much so that, at the last, John had arranged to have Platinia with him every minute of the day and night.

  Feeling that way at the end of his former "stay" in Stil-de-grain, it was no wonder John didn't want to get too close to Zwicia's crystal now. Was ... reluctant ... even to enter the Weird's room.

  Then ... John had a thought. If there was any truth to his former belief that Platinia's presence reduced his need to look into that intriguing disk -- and there probably wasn't -- it was stupid to be afraid of entering Zwicia's room right now. Platinia was inside!

  Feeling dumb
-- dumb about being superstitious -- about being cowardly -- about having developed a mental dependence on Platinia -- John forced himself to enter Zwicia's cubbyhole of a room.

  Felt, as he did so, no increased attraction to the disk.

  Not much ... anyway.

  Safely inside, John swung about to close the door.

  Turning back, saw that nothing in the gray rock cubical had changed since his first glance from the hall, Zwicia still seated at a small table to John's immediate right. (Now closer to the Weird, John could see that her disk was still on its chain around her neck, the flat, thin crystal laid out on the table before her.)

  Bent over, the old woman's humped shoulders hunched even more, her partially denuded head flopped down, Zwicia was staring into the foot-wide disk of shimmering glass, the crystal radiating an aura of pulsing, purple light. John's imagination? A reflection from the flickering torch on the far wall?

  On Zwicia's other side was little Platinia, the girl's childlike hand on the Weird's ample shoulder.

  "Zwicia," Platinia said in her young girl voice.

  No response from the old woman but crystal-mumbling.

  "Zwicia," Platinia said more urgently, at the same time shaking the Weird's purple clad shoulder hard enough to wiggle the Weird's loose-flesh arm, Zwicia's head lolling back, her eyelids fluttering.

  Slowly opened her scummy, clear-colored eyes, she saw John for the first time. Recognized him. ... Screamed!

  John almost dropped the blueprint! "Quiet," he urged quickly, putting his finger to his lips, the elderly woman able to shut off her high pitched, old-crone shriek as quickly as she'd begun it.

  Fortunately, after entering the room, John had the foresight to close the room's thick door.

  "It's just me. I've come back."

  "Com' bak'," the old hag said, shaking her head from side to side, her thin gray hair resembling an African fly whisk in the hands of a whirling dervish. "Knew, com' bak'."

  Still looking at John with her windowpane eyes, the old lady clawed her crystal off the table to fumble it inside the front of her shapeless, violet robe.

  For his part, John looked across at Platinia for an interpretation of Zwicia's babble. Got only a puzzled frown.

  "Zwicia. The soldiers in the castle are dangerous," John continued, trying again to communicate with the aged Sorceress. Generally, a losing proposition.