Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series

by John Stockmyer

  "How long will that take?"

  "An hour?"

  "Take your time. I won't see him until tomorrow, anyway. Frankly, I'd like to meet him in better arrangements than these," John waved at the deer head, furniture cluttered room, "... but since that can't be helped, at least I can dress for the occasion. Until then, you have your duties to perform."

  * * * * *

  Robed in the finest clothing the locals could provide -- a vestment of white Cinnabar silk striped at the seams with Stil-de-grain gold -- John sat at the head of the long table in the tidied-up conference room, Platinia seated behind John and to the right.

  John had posted Whar, sword in evidence, just inside the door, Whar to let in the mysterious Azarite, rumors about the emissary's ingratiating manner and bizarre behavior rocketing through the halls.

  After ushering the man in, Whar was to stand just outside the chamber's door, ready for anything. A squad of Stil-de-grain soldiers lined the outer hall, all this security at the insistence of both Coluth and Nator, neither of whom liking the idea of John's solitary meeting with the enemy envoy.

  As a final precaution, John had removed the Mage-crystal from the hole he'd gouged for it behind the right, door frame in his room. Had it in a pocket in his flowing robe.

  Seated in his accustomed place at the head of the table, a nervous soldier had just stuck his head in to notify John that the ambassador had arrived, John signaled to Whar across the room.

  Opening the door, Whar bowed in a smallish man, Whar exiting, closing the door behind him.

  The Azare minister. A diminutive, almost skeletal man at first glance, draped in a dead black robe, the legate with the same alabaster complexion of the "people's" Army of Azare. The army John had destroyed.

  So uniformly pale was everything about the man, in fact, that the diplomat's facial features were ... indistinct.

  Could living for an extended period in total darkness be turning the people of Azare that dull white color?

  Bowing first, the man approached the far end of the table.

  Closer, what few features John could distinguish in the ambassador's face showed the man to be of middle age.

  Another impression John formed was that, while small, the man from Azare had, at one time, been strong -- a probability since he was from a heavy, inner band.

  John remained seated. Deliberately.

  When the slight, chalky-colored man reached the other end of the table, John motioned him to sit.

  "I am Paliss, of Azare," the man said as he settled himself in the crude, wooden chair at the far end of the table, the man looking at John down the long, trestle board. Even the ambassador's eyes were colorless, their pale irises slitted against the room's, morning light.

  "I am the Mage of Stil-de-grain," John replied with as much dignity as he could muster.

  As if to compound the ... strangeness ... of the situation, the ambassador began looking around him: at the raw, white plaster walls; at the moth-eaten deer heads -- the Azarite smiling. "So beautiful," he said at last, his voice lilting. "So many gorgeous colors. And the sky outside. It is what one calls orange, is it not?"

  And what was John to make of that?

  "I could never get enough of seeing new skies and seas," the man continued in his high, musical voice. "First, green, then gold. Now orange. And since I have been here, I have tasted the delicious flavors of your foods." He looked at John again, seeing in John's expression the need for explanation. "Of course, at tie-ups, on the way, I have eaten meat. The meat of cows. And sheep. Even the flesh of your wild animals. Squirrel. Deer." He smiled again. "Until now, all I have eaten in my whole life is fish. And, sometimes, mushrooms," he added, with obvious distaste. "That is all we have to eat, you see. Fish that swim into our waters from Sea Throat. It is our Mage who calls them to us. There are also sightless fish in our lakes and rivers."

  The man frowned, the shadows made in the wrinkle-lines on his forehead the only color on what otherwise might have been the face of a talking ghost. "It is said that some in our band eat the flesh of foreigners. But that would be the meaner sort of person. Of that, I, myself, have no knowledge."

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  The man began looking around the room again; grinning at the walls, the chairs, the ceiling; as if meeting old, old friends.

  "But time is short," the ambassador said with a sigh, one hand soaring as if in protest. Again, he fixed John with gray-pale eyes. "My master, the Mage-King Auro, orders the immediate surrender of your few remaining forces."

  "Your master may order as he pleases," John said dryly, still more fascinated with the man than with the message. The message, John had expected. The man ....?

  "My master, the Mage-King Auro, further orders me to inform you that if you refuse to surrender, he will destroy your band and everyone therein."

  John remembered the white, hypnotized army from Azare. Men, women, children, animals, sent to root up every tree, bush, and blade of grass along their invasion route. John would never forget the first time he saw that "army" stretched across the valley below his vantage point on a hill top. That long, undulating, horizon to horizon line of men, women, and children bent over, hacking at the ground with hoes and scythes. Along side the people were "drugged" animals: white ponies, dogs -- pawing, scratching at the land. Leaving nothing but plowed ground behind them.

  Recalling Auro's "scorched earth" tactics, John could believe that Auro was capable of commanding the destruction of everyone in Stil-de-grain.

  John leaned back in his chair, affecting a languid pose. "You may inform this Auro that the tide of battle has just turned."

  "Tide ....?"

  That's right, John thought. No tides in this moonless world. "That we have now begun to win. From his dark band, your Mage is helpless to generate the kind of light-driven magic that I will soon employ against him."

  Unexpectedly, the Azare ambassador laughed. A high, rippling, crazy laugh.

  John waited -- there was little else he could do -- until the man quieted. "I am sorry," the ambassador said, the small man wiping his eyes with a cloth he extracted from a pouch in his robe, trying, but failing, to keep from smiling. "It is just that I have not laughed for a long time. It is a great joy to laugh, is it not?"

  "Seriously," the little man continued, mastering his feelings at last, forcing himself to frown if only to lay emphasis to his words, "I must tell you that your magic cannot be compared to that of my master. You are under the illusion that, trapped beneath the band of darkness, he is powerless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Auro, Mage-King of Azare, has found a theurgic source. More direct, more powerful than yours. You and all your Mage-allies cannot stand against the new-found magic that my master wields."

  "I think we may have a few surprises that he will find ... discomforting," John said, affecting boredom, refusing to take the ambassador's threats seriously.

  "If so, he will become angry and destroy the world." Suddenly, the man across the table had sober eyes. "There are secrets known only to him. There is a way -- he told me this directly -- of exterminating the world and all its people."

  "Insane talk."

  "Insane?" As supercooled water freezes instantly at a touch, the ambassador's eyes turned glittery. "Insane?" he repeated slowly, his voice a hush. "Insane, is life within the dark. If you are old, remembering, long ago, when the sky was blue. To struggle to recall what 'blue' can mean. To find that words like red and gold and violet have all faded in your mind to faceless gray. To have your people sicken with diseases, because there is no longer magic. To live on and on without a hope."

  The ambassador leaned across the table, his hands palm up, beseeching. "Now that I have seen a world with colors -- smells -- tastes ... do not take it all away! Do not say that you fight on!"

  "There is another way," John replied, almost sympathizing with the plight of Azare's people. "Join us. Make your stand against the evil."

  "You will not surrender?"

/>   "Never." At least, John thought to himself, until he'd tried a couple more of his own world's tricks.

  "You refuse to believe my master can destroy the world?"

  "Yes."

  "Perhaps you reason as those of the Mage War reasoned. As Pfnaravin reasoned. That my master has no influence outside his blacked out band. Though once that was the truth, it is the case no longer. My master can now stretch out his hand to all the bands. You have seen the darkening sky? That is why Malachite fights for my master. They saw him take away their magic as their Mage, Pfnaravin, together with other Mages, took away the sky of Azare. Have you not also seen the firmament of Stil-de-grain grow dark? Do not be foolish. Auro demands surrender. Or he will annihilate the world."

  "Even if he could do it, what advantage would there be to him to destroy this world?"

  "Advantage? The word means little to a man of Azare."

  "You have your answer. Return to your own band with my refusal."

  "Do you not know that I need not return? That my master has already heard your reply? That through my ears he hears; through my eyes he sees?"

  "Then let him hear my demand," John said, loosing his voice to echo harshly in the barren room. "If he withdraws his Malachite allies, I will leave him in peace. Otherwise, he is as doomed as they." Running a bluff had always worked well in this world, John had found. He could at least hope that this one would succeed, as well.

  As if controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer, the Azare ambassador jerked to his feet. His limbs flailing about him, the man stumbled back, knocking down his chair, in the same motion collapsing to the floor like a rag doll thrown by a petulant child.

  "Whar!" John cried, jumping up, the far end door shoved open immediately, the stocky bodyguard rushing in, sword on high, the rest of the squad of soldiers tumbling in behind him. "The ambassador seems to have fainted. Tend to him. I want him back on his ship and his ship out of the harbor by noon today."

  Sheathing his sword, Whar bent over the silent form of the Azarite, the other soldiers forming into a double line flanking the door, John walking around the table, arriving in time to see Whar place his fingertips to either side of the ambassador's throat.

  After a long moment said, "This man is dead," Whar standing, ready for further orders.

  "Dead!?" Whar nodded. The ambassador had become mildly agitated. But ... dead?

  True, the emissary looked as white as death -- but was no whiter than before.

  "Check him again."

  Kneeling once more, Whar felt for the arteries in the man's neck. Closed his eyes to give total concentration to pulse beats, however slight.

  Next, Whar pressed each of the man's wrists in turn. "Listened" with his fingertips.

  Then peeled back the ambassador's eyelid, the bodyguard peering at the eye, carefully.

  Standing, Whar shook his head.

  Abruptly, John heard a distant shout. Then another, closer yell. And finally -- all in the room listening with him -- a running sound below, then up the wooden stairs.

  At the approach of the footsteps, Whar pulled his sword, the soldiers squaring off to face what could be a potential threat, swords swished from scabbards and held at the ready.

  Could have been a threat, but wasn't.

  Instead, bowing himself into the room was a youth, winded, gasping for breath. A young sailor by the look of his leather tunic.

  "Speak," John commanded.

  Dragging in a ragged breath, the young man tried. "I ... come from ... the harbor. Coluth sent ... He says the others ... sailors ... from the black ship of Azare ... are all ... dead!"

  "Sit in that chair," John said, motioning to Whar to pull out a chair along the table for the runner, the messenger collapsing into it, sweating, breathing heavily but somewhat more steadily. "Now, tell me."

  "I was on the mole, myself. Working. Close to the inn. Near the strange Azare boat. ... Their sailors were all on board. ... Kept there by a squad of soldiers at Army Head, Nator's, order. Suddenly, the sailors all fell down. Fell down dead."

  "All of them?"

  "Not one left alive. I was the nearest man the Navy Head could send. To tell you this strange thing. But ... I am no ... runner."

  "You did right to come as quickly as you did."

  Now what? "Whar!" John looked up to locate his guard. "Have someone take this man where he can get a glass of wine."

  Whar nodded; motioned the man to stand, then signaled to one of the soldiers who, sheathing his sword, led the young marine out the door.

  The crisis over, John pointed to the corpse, the four nearest soldiers putting away their swords, picking up the body by its extremities, carrying it out the door.

  John dismissing the rest of the sentries, the last soldier to leave turning to close the door behind him.

  Whar remained.

  "I'm going to want autopsies," John ordered, not knowing what else to do.

  "What?" The guard asked, staring.

  "I want to know why they died."

  "Surely, it was because of your magic that they ...."

  Of course. Since the ambassador and the Azare sailors were the enemy -- "playing" on John's court, so to speak -- it was natural for people to think John had lost his temper and killed them with his magic.

  Which, now that John considered it, was probably a good thing for his own people to believe. It was no less a diplomatic light than Machiavelli, after all, who'd postulated that a ruler's power sprang more from his people's fear of him than from their love.

  Leaving the question of what had caused these mysterious deaths ...........

  Poison?

  Had Auro ordered the Azarites to commit simultaneous suicide as a terror inspiring act? (In John's world, it would have been biting into cyanide capsules placed in hollowed-out teeth. Very Nazi. Very C. I. A.)

  On the other hand, John remembered Azare's citizen army of white civilians. How they'd moved with a single mind. How, even in distant Stil-de-grain, they'd been bewitched by the evil Mage. Given that kind of long-range control, was it possible that Auro had the omnipotence to order his people to die? Even over a great distance? A speculation John decided to keep to himself.

  Belatedly, John shuddered at the thought of all that power.

  Hoped neither Whar nor Platinia noticed his weakness.

  To prevent an unfortunate disclosure of cowardice, John waved Whar and Platinia from the room.

  Alone, returning to his Mage chair, John tried to reconstruct the conversation with the Azare agent. Particularly, the threats. Particularly that most disturbing threat, that in a fit of insanity, the dark Mage had the power -- and the will -- to kill the world!

  Overtired, the blood red streak of scar tissue on his chest pulling uncomfortably, it was fortunate John had sent the guard and the girl away. Trembling, the way John was.

  -20-

  Platinia had never understood the Mage. He had said there would be a war and there was no war. He trained many men for war ... but there was no war. Was this because he had bewitched the island men with magic? She had seen him order men to stuff seaman's tunics with cloth, putting cloth heads on top the cloth bodies until, sitting in boats, the Mage had made the cloth men come to life so that they rowed the boats with living men!

  Platinia shuddered at the thought of such unnatural power. Shuddered as she made herself small in the great, carved, gold leaf chair.

  She was with the Mage in the wood and marble war room, the Mage again in the boy-king's palace on Xanthin Island.

  Truly, she feared the Mage more than she feared the jagged lights of power that, day and night, fell upon the city. (Lightning bolts was the Mage's name for this fearsome force.) Streaks of crashing Sorcery that the evil Mage sent to blast down houses.

  When first the terror came, even though Platinia was in the far away palace, she could hear the people of the city screaming. They were ... terrified ... was the word that the Mage had used. A word that meant afraid.

  Afraid? Pla
tinia was the one afraid. Afraid of the Mage's power! Afraid he would find out what she had done. Afraid each time he smiled and looked at her with his green and savage eyes! And yet ... if she could run away as she had once thought to do, she did not know if she would do that. Did this mean that John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had used a spell to bind her to him?

  At least the Mage had not hurt her since he had returned from the dreadful, other world. As the leader of the robbers had hurt her when he raped her in the woods.

  In spite of her great fears, no one had hurt her as the Priests of Fulgur had hurt her!

  Huddling in the giant chair, shrinking down inside her small, black tunic, Platinia remembered the priest's torture drops. And the priest's burning needles. And the wet drowning cloth they stuffed into her nose and mouth until she could not breathe! Almost retching, she thought of the ants they had made to crawl into her mouth and down her throat!

  Yarro had hurt her to make her build his pleasures: eating, drinking, women. She could do that. Sometimes. Look into a man's mind and build his thoughts and feelings. She could also do that to the Mage. Sometimes. She could ... sense ... his fear of Zwicia's crystal. Build his will to stay away from that dangerous talisman.

  Now, they were waiting. In the early morning. Waiting for the others. The Mage's men.

  Platinia wished she could have caught a cat. But that morning, the Mage had hurried her.

  How long had they been back on the young king's island? Long, long. Long enough for the evil one to find out they were there ... and send the ... lightning. Long enough for the Mage to work the magic of the metal sticks so that people's houses would be safe. All the houses that were left.

  Now, when the lightning struck -- and it fell down on them even in the night! -- the lightning hit only the streets of Xanthin. People in the streets were killed, but not as many as before when the ... bolts ... tore down houses.

  Why did the Mage not protect all the people with his magic? She did not know. Would she ever understand the most dreadful of all Mages, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin?