Under The Stairs

by John Stockmyer

  Blinking until he could see, eyeing the blocks above his head, looking for a misplaced slab, seeing one, John jumped to catch the top of the block, scrambling up the damp wall with his feet until he had a toe in a crack. Using his hands and one foot to hoist himself up, he dug his fingers into another, higher crack, his finger tips sinking into what felt like fungus.

  Searching, John found another toe hold and kicked himself up, this time discovering an out-set block and a crack below into which he could stick the toes of both feet.

  A place where he could rest. Try to slow his breathing. Take the pressure off his aching fingers.

  As secure as he was apt to be, cautiously, John looked up to find the rope just out of reach. One step higher ...

  It was then that John realized that the chain which tied him to the girl was stretched as far as it would go. That hand at shoulder length, his wrist was cuffed to the girl at the chain's maximum elevation. "Can you reach up with your arm, Platinia," he called. "I need a little more chain."

  "I ... am ... reaching," she said in her tiny voice. Risking a peek, John saw that the girl's arm was already stretched over her head, the girl on tip toe, her solemn face turned up to his. The chain was taut; no slack in it for one more step.

  Dizzy from looking down, nauseous, John quickly looked up again. Clung to the wall. Willed himself not to ... fall.

  The wave of sickness passing, John realized his only hope was to find a higher toe hold, step into that, use his free hand to grab a higher block and edge up above the hand tied to Platinia. Knowing that, by the time he could reach the rope with his right hand, his left hand, tied to Platinia, would be stretched down helplessly at his side. At that point, John would have to let loose with his free hand and grab the end of the rope before falling backward.

  If he was lucky enough to grab the rope end, would he be able to hold on with just one hand? Though the thought caused a chill to wrack him, John knew it was the only chance he had. The only chance Platinia had.

  Taking the time to get himself in control while resting a little longer, John reviewed his options. ..... Found none.

  As fresh as he would get by waiting, fear giving him an adrenalin boost, John raised one leg, feeling for a higher crack. Found it. Dug in his toe to ease his weight to that foot.

  Raising his free hand to search for a higher crack, he fumbled higher, lower ... found one.

  Lifting himself, careful to keep his balance, sweat threatening to drip into his eyes again, John edged up a few inches. A foot. Two feet.

  Shaking with the strain, his left hand stretched fully down at his side now, pinned there by the chain leading to the girl, John looked over to see the rope within reach of his free hand.

  Before he could think himself into a panic, shouting "Now!" to the man holding the rope, John let go of the crack, in the process of falling, grabbed the rope with his right hand! Not as solidly as he would have liked, but ....

  Fortunately, John still had his toe hold which allowed him to shift his grip on the rope ever so slightly until he had it firmly in hand, the rough texture of the line digging comfortably into his bruised palm.

  Swinging there for a moment, John felt powerful again, terror strengthening him once more! He thought he could climb the rope -- if he could get both hands on it.

  Now for the test! Could he pull Platinia up? He could only try.

  Keeping his toe hold, gripping the rope with all his strength, John pulled up his left wrist, managing, with the first surge, to get it waist high. Holding his hand at his waist, he was able to lever his elbow down, getting his fist up, from that position forcing up the chain like a weight lifter pushes a one hand bell bar above his head.

  Below him, he could feel the girl rising, Platina pulling up the wall with her free hand, scrambling with her feet, catching at the wet blocks to help when she could. Until ... he got his left hand on the rope!

  Panting, gripping the rope with both hands, he could feel the girl below him struggle, the stretched chain between them scraping on the stones. Felt her climb with her feet to get a higher hand hold of her own, the pressure on his left arm easing so he could reach up again.

  A desperate struggle followed, the man at the top pulling up when he could, John climbing in spite of skinning his knuckles on the slippery stone and getting his fingers pinched between the rope and the wall where the rope was stretched tightly over outset blocks, until John felt the man grab hold of John's upper wrist, John climbing the man's body into the light.

  At the grated window, getting a secure hold on a bar, John hoisted himself up with the last of his strength, to throw one leg up and through the bars, getting a bar crooked safely behind his knee.

  Tired as he was, the man helping, it was relatively easy to haul up Platinia, all of them safely off the wall at last.

  Sweating heavily, Platinia tired, shaken, the clever man untied the rope from the man's chain, fastening the rope to the window grate to make "slings" around the waists of all three of them so they could lean back to rest both their arms and legs, each of them tied securely to the bars.

  "All right," John gasped at last, some of his strength returning. (They couldn't wait forever, after all. At any moment someone might enter the dungeon and find them gone.) "Help me bend the middle bars to the sides. They don't look too strong." John hoped he sounded more confident that he felt.

  "Not looking strong to you, John-Lyon."

  "But if you put a foot on one of the middle bars and I plant mine on the other, then we each grab the nearest bar and pull to the side ...."

  Shifting in their rope slings, getting their feet on the bars, panting, straining, the man following John's lead, John pulled with all his remaining strength, both bars ... beginning to bend ... More. ... More ....

  "Enough," the man panted, the first hint that he was at the end of his strength, too.

  Another pause to breathe.

  "Ladies first?" John said.

  "What?" John pointed to Platinia.

  Understanding, the man nodded, with leaden fingers fumbled the knots loose on Platinia's loop of rope, both men doing their tired best to boost the girl, Platinia grabbing the bent bars, easing her head and upper body through ... to where?

  Half way out, Platinia stopped, turned her head to look back in. "A ledge is here."

  "All right!" John let his breath out in a rush. The window could just as easily have been a hole in a sheer wall, the wall lined up on the precipice.

  A ledge. They might make it yet, John seeing the small man smile, as he, himself, was smiling.

  Pushing the girl through the rest of the way, the man untied John, John squeezing his head, then his chest, between the bent bars -- a tight fit. Sucking in his breath, John wriggled past, banging his knee in the process, hardly feeling the pain.

  The small man untied himself and scrambled through.

  Outside in a blaze of golden light, the air so fresh it renewed their strength, the newly escaped convicts lined up along a thin stone trough. Though not as high as John thought they would be, they were too far up for them to let themselves down with the rope.

  Above them was nothing but colored bands across the sky; below them and to the right, the precipice that flanked the palace to the rear.

  "We're out ... but we're not free ... until we clear ... the fort," John gasped, grinning in spite of himself, his arms shaking uncontrollably.

  "The difficult part is past," said the small man, confidently. "I have knowledge of the palace. Skill. If we are careful ..."

  "A little bit more rest, now that we've come this far?" John suggested.

  The man smiled, nodded his assent.

  In the light, John saw that the other man was handsome -- in a dark, sweaty, smelly sort of way.

  "I believe that introductions are in order," John said, able to breathe again. "I'm John Lyon, as you know. And this is Platinia."

  "You may call me Golden," said the man, bowing as if to an appreciative crowd.

&nbs
p; * * * * *

  Chapter 12

  On the night of his arrest in Yarro's banquet hall, Golden was certain that his life was over. The soldiers had first stripped him of his finery, then thrown him into the dungeon. Chained him. Left him to die in that grim, dark place. No light, except for a distant glow that filtered through a window too high for him to see. No sound except for the howling of the dungeon door as it opened to admit the jailer who brought Golden an occasional meal of thin, wheat gruel.

  After the failure of Golden's attempts to pull out his chains on the first day of his capture, his life had been standing, sitting, or lying down on the rough flagstones of the vault, and trying to keep from soiling himself when eliminating through a small, floor hole. Nothing to do but wait for death.

  At first, he thought he might be tortured, the king considering him a plotter of some kind. But as the days passed (each up-light marked by a faint glow from the high, hidden window across the way) he had come to believe he had simply been forgotten.

  Then (was it just yesterday??), the man and woman had been shoved into the keep as part of a group. Important felons. Yarro himself had come to see them. And most amazing, Golden had seen the tall, light haired man break free of the wall, then pull the girl loose as well. At first struck dumb by that spectacle, Golden's tongue soon found its cleverness, Golden persuading the man of the strange name -- John-Lyon -- to set poor Golden free.

  The rest had ... not been hard. Particularly since, days before his arrest, Golden had made preparations for his own escape from the palace.

  Off the water-track and back inside the building by way of an unlocked window, Golden had led the others down darkened hallways to a door Golden had chanced upon earlier; an opening that gave access to stairs that spiraled down and down to the palace dung heap. (It was at the bottom of the steps that Golden had planned to hide after stealing the green Crystal, the place with such a vile odor Golden had little fear of anyone searching for him there.)

  Still burdened by their chains, holding their noses, the three of them had spent the night in that cramped place.

  This day, Golden had donned the long, old man's robe he had previously concealed in the stairwell, the robe's sweeping sleeves hiding his wrist chains. Had then shuffled out, head down, back bent, to limp along cramped, servant corridors until he arrived here, outside his room on the other side of the banquet hall.

  No guards!

  Why should there be guards, after all, when the "evil" entertainer was in the dungeon?

  Looking up and down the hall, seeing no one, Golden opened the door and slipped inside.

  Closing the door behind him, turning, Golden was disheartened to see that every part of his room had been searched: the drawers of the dilapidated dresser pulled out and upended, the room's frayed rug rolled up, the mattress on his bed slashed. Against a far corner, Golden found his empty pack, its contents strewn about the splintered floor. What had the king's men been searching for? Something to incriminate Golden. Something to please King Yarro. (Fortunately, the ransackers did not find Golden's coins, Golden having hidden his coin pouch down the elimination hole in the necessity room.)

  Miraculously, everything Golden had so carefully selected for his pack was jumbled somewhere. Iron-strong silk cord with its grapple. (He wondered what the searchers had made of that. Not much, apparently, since they had not bothered to confiscate it.) Iron rods for pounding into stone cracks -- had the ravagers thought these items to be part of Golden's craft as acrobat? Lock picks. Skinning knife. Drill. Hammer. A length of thicker rope with its looped ends. Climbing clothes, wig, mustache, darkening cream to complete his intended disguise. Even the dried food remained. Only his throwing knives were gone.

  First, the chains! From his packet of lock picks, Golden selected a probe of the right size to fit the key holes in the iron cuffs clamped to his wrists, quickly ridding himself of the cumbersome and incriminating restraints. Though he felt the need to hurry, Golden allowed himself time to rub the soreness from his chafed wrists, his hands feeling light after shedding the heavy weights.

  Removing his excrement-stained tunic, Golden ducked into the tiny elimination room to sponge the filth of the dungeon from his body.

  Returning to his sleeping room, first putting on his leather climbing clothes, Golden gathered his scattered items, packed his bag, slung the pack in front of his stomach, and put on the big robe again. (With the robe wrapped about the bag, he hoped he would appear to be a pot bellied elder.) The pack secured, Golden pulled out his makeup bottles; applied brown cosmetic to his face to give him a dark, withered skin. From another jar, he dabbed on old man's spots, after that adding a scraggly mustache that he attached with glue from yet another vial. Completing the picture of age, Golden pulled on a grey, unkempt wig.

  Going again to the wash room, Golden bent to look at himself in the murky surface of the bucket water, pleased to see there the cloudy image of a typical old slavey.

  Disguised, Golden was ready to escape! Ready ... except for a judgment he had not yet made.

  Would he be better off to flee ... alone?

  Not wanting to leave the room until he had decided, Golden sat on the knife-ripped mattress.

  Climbing to the dungeon window, Golden had planned a solitary escape, waiting for the others because he could not squeeze through the window's narrow bars without the big man's help

  Though the man and girl meant nothing to him, he now had the nagging thought that, since he and the man had eluded death by pooling their talents, they were meant to share a common fate. A superstitious thought. One unworthy of an experience-hardened man like Golden.

  The only question that mattered in a callous world was what these others could do to help him.

  Plainly, the girl should be left behind. An impossibility with the man as the girl's protector. Golden would have to travel with the girl as long as Golden journeyed with the man.

  As for this John-Lyon, what of the stranger's stupendous strength, Golden never seeing a man so strong? And what an odd name. John-Lyon. To say nothing of the man's green eyes and foreign ways.

  Agitated, Golden got up to pace the edges of the torn up room.

  As an entertainer, Golden had journeyed ... far. Except, of course, to mystic Cinnabar.

  The stranger was no man of Cinnabar. Not a flyer. That much was certain. Nor was he from Stil-de-grain, nor from Realgar. And surely, he could not be, as Golden was himself, a Malachite. ........

  That left ... the dark band. Azare! Making it possible that the stranger was a spy of the evil Auro. If so, was he imbued with that wicked Mage's mystic powers? Could this be the reason for the man's potency? If so, could Golden find a way to use the man's prowess to gain the Crystal at some later time?

  Thinking these thoughts, moving even before he realized he had decided, Golden was at the door again. Listening

  Cracking open the door, looking out to see no one, Golden slipped into the hall and began shuffling off -- the very picture of an aged slavey.

  Slowly, carefully, Golden retraced his steps without incident until he was before the door that hid the others.

  "Golden," he whispered, not wanting the strong man to think the hiding place had been compromised.

  Hearing a whisper to enter, Golden ducked inside, ignoring the others' amazement at his disguise.

  Shutting his mind against the enclosure's fetid smell, Golden said, "Come to me. I will free you from the chains."

  Lock pick out, working by the light of the stair landing's single torch, Golden unlocked their cuffs, letting the chains clink softly to the floor, the man and woman doing as Golden had done, rubbing their wrists after the weight of the chains had been removed.

  Breathing more easily as he became inured to the foul air, Golden slipped out of his robe and unstrapped his pack, putting it on the floor. "Food," he said as he dug out dried meat and fruit.

  "Excellent," John-Lyon said, the first word the brawny man had spoken since Golden had returned.
The girl, looking pale, said nothing.

  Huddled in a circle about the pack, the three of them ate, Golden and the girl having to force down the food because of the enclosure's smell, John-Lyon having difficulty also.

  The eating over, Golden rearranged his pack, strapping it on his stomach again, putting on the robe.

  "Can you get us out of here?" the man asked quietly.

  "Yes. I know the way. It is not far." The man nodded. The girl said nothing.

  Taking the torch from its wall socket, Golden went to the door. Listened. Looked. And with the others trailing, set off down the hall, veering to enter the narrow branch corridor which led to the postern exit.

  Twenty yards. Thirty yards.

  Raising his hand, Golden stopped to edge his eye around a sharp turn in the hall.

  To find no guards at the small, iron braced door at hall end. (Golden had also found that to be true the last time he was here. The drop off on the palace's flank was so formidable that guards were not needed.)

  Unbarring the door latches, they went outside, blinking like owls in what remained of the day's light, taking in deep breaths of fresh, fresh air!

  A moment to allow his eyes to focus and Golden thought out the torch, putting it inside his robe, stuffing it in the top of his pack.

  After that, Golden led the others the short distance to the edge of the cliff.

  Beyond the bluff, the sea sparkled in the light, the far shore as yet not hazed with evening mist. Below, was the thin beach.

  Unstrapping the pack while the others watched, Golden pulled out the right number of iron spikes, sticking them inside his belt. Got out the mallet. Secured it in like manner. Dragged out the thick, loop-ended rope from the pack, he coiled the rope beside him.

  Should he discard the robe? It had served him well. And might again. Deciding to keep the robe, Golden picked up the bag and shifted it to his back, strapping it across his shoulders by lacing the fastenings around his chest. In this way, the straps would help both to secure the pack and to keep the robe out of his way.