Under The Stairs

by John Stockmyer

  Platinia's question was why the men had not forced her to serve them? Not even the terrifying one. It was not because the Mage did not have the power. She had seen his power in the other world! She had seen the ... thing ... that carried him so fast!

  Could it be that the Mage did not know she was an Etherial? If that was true, she would be as safe from him as would be any other slavey -- until the Mage found out who she was.

  She knew nothing about Golden. She could find no feeling for her in his mind. He did not hate her. He did not desire her. He did not think about her except when telling her what to do. There were no thoughts about her in Golden's mind for her to strengthen.

  Sometimes, in the Mage's mind, there was the thought to help her. This was because she was his property. She could add to that thought, sometimes.

  After eating, after Golden waved the fire stones cold, (putting them back in the torch, the torch back in his bag) they had gone walking in the woods, Golden in the lead.

  As she walked, Platinia looked at the woods. At the trees. Though at first she had not realized it, trees were all different. Some had broad, jagged leaves. Some narrow.

  Here and there beneath the trees were baby trees and bushes and brightly colored flowers. She had seen flowers brought into the temple as an offering. The woods were very different from the marble rooms of Fulgur's temple.

  As Platinia walked behind the men, she tried to think of what to do. If she could not find a way to kill them, could she run away? She did not know. If she ran away, she was afraid the Mage would hurt her sooner than if she stayed. Hurt her more!

  The king said he would hurt her very much because she ran away from him. Even though she had not run away but had been stolen by the Mage, Melcor. Who was now dead. It seemed a long, long time ago.

  These men had not hurt her yet. More important, she had been able to increase Pfnaravin's wish to keep owning her and, so, to keep her safe. And that was all she knew for now.

  After a long time, stopping to eat the rest of the animals (eating the meat cold this time, eating quickly) they had come out of the woods. From lots of trees all around them, suddenly, there were just a few trees. Then there were none and they were at the edge of the sea again.

  Coming up, she heard the men talking softly, Platinia stopping a little behind them, all three of them looking out at the great, sand colored water. Golden said this was the sea called Sea Minor. He had been keeping them back in the trees where they were hidden. Now, they must find a boat to take them to Malachite, said Golden. Malachite! The land where she had been a child. Before the priests of Stil-de-grain had taken her away.

  Golden said they might find a boat at the town of Canarin, that was down the shore. But they must be careful to see if soldiers were in the town. Soldiers who looked for them. That was why they would come to the town by walking along the beach, he said. By walking along the coast, they could come into the town before they were seen.

  Then they had followed the sea, keeping just back of some trees so they could run back into the forest to hide if they saw soldiers.

  Well before down-light, they had seen the town ahead. They had been very slow and careful in coming up to it. But since no soldiers were to be seen there, had finally come out of the trees and onto the village street. Platinia was glad to stop. She was very tired from walking.

  Canarin was a small place. Not like the king's city. There was only one street. Far away, at the street's end, boats were tied to a walk-way that went out into the sea. Just like there were boats at the King's city -- but not so many.

  An inn was on the town's one street. The inn was like the ones along the road when she had been a prisoner of the soldiers. But this time, they went in the front door. There were many men in the inn, eating, drinking, laughing, shouting, talking.

  Golden had told Platinia to sit at a table over by the back wall while Golden and the Mage stood at a high table in front with some of the other men. Though she could hear little because of all the noisy men around her, she could tell that the Mage and Golden were talking to the other men. Platinia could see them. She even heard a few loud answers about boats at the ... dock. (The walk-way where the boats ... rested ... was called a dock.) They talked of where the boats had come from. Where the boats were going. No, there had been no recent soldiers in the town. No, no messenger birds had come.

  After hearing the answers to these questions, Golden and the Mage had seemed pleased. They had come to sit at the table with her. And a man of the inn came and Golden ordered food and drink to be brought to the table.

  Then they had all eaten. Some meat. Some vegetables. There was beer to drink.

  When they had eaten, since it was almost down-light, they had gone upstairs to a small room with beds in it. And gone to sleep! Neither the Mage nor Golden had raped her yet. Nor had the Mage sold her to other men. Nor had he raped other women with Platinia there to strengthen his desire. More and more, Platinia believed that neither Golden nor John-Lyon-Pfnaravin knew she was an Etherial.

  The next up-light, they had eaten bread and drunk goat's milk in the room below. Golden had coins to pay for everything. Then, they went out into the street again and the Mage had asked Golden to buy a comb and a metal mirror at a small shop. These, the Mage had given to Platinia so that she could comb her hair. She had learned to do that in the King's Palace. In the temple, slaveys had bathed her and fixed her hair.

  Then they had walked to the boats which were down the town's road. More than three boats. Boats that were tied to the long wooden walkway that stuck out above the water.

  Golden talked to one of the men who he had talked to at the inn the night before. And that man (who was a sailor) took Golden and the Mage to talk to the Head of a boat. (The Mage called the Head, the captain.) The captain was giving orders to some town men who were rolling barrels up boards to the deck of the boat. And Golden said to the captain that there were three of them with little money. That he and the Mage (he did not use the word Mage) would work on the boat if the captain needed sailors. That they were, like the boat, going to Malachite.

  So the captain said that they could ride. And the three of them had climbed up on the captain's boat, the boat's deck packed with boxes. And down below the deck, there were more boxes and bales. Platinia could see them through a big, square hole. It was a merchant boat -- very fat and very wide. The men would help to row the boat, like Golden had rowed the little boat. Except that the oars were very long on the big boat and it took many men pulling on each oar to make it go.

  After awhile, more men came. Sailors. They had been sleeping in the town, too. Some men looked ... sick. Some were singing. (The ones who were singing were the ones who were still drunk.) And the sailors had come up on the boat; and other men from the town had untied the boat; and the men and sailors, using poles of wood and also the oars, had pushed the boat away from the dock and out on the sea a little ways.

  Then the sailors, the Mage and Golden helping, put the oars into slots in the boat's sides -- on both sides of the big boat -- and they all stood and rowed the boat away from the land and onto the sea. Other sailors pulled and pushed on a long handle that went over the back of the boat, guiding the boat in this way.

  And that was the start of the first day on the sea.

  On the sea, after the fog had gone away, the sky was so big! There were colored bands across the whole of the sky. In the middle of the day, she could see far. So far that at one end of the sky she saw a little streak of red. Far, far away. Then came orange, then yellow overhead. In front of them was green. And ahead and to the left was a little black. Then the haze had come so that Platinia could no longer see the far colors.

  Down-light came and the sailors, with the Mage and Golden helping, had rowed the boat to land and to another wooden dock floating out over the sea. (Two other boats were there already. Three more came in after that. That would make more than three boats at that place.)

  And the sailors had tied the boat to the dock
with long ropes, then pushed the boat out into the sea again, so that it was tied to the walkway with the long ropes. John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had asked why the long ropes. And the captain of the boat had laughed. Laughed, not like the priests, to make fear in those who heard -- but in a happy way. And he had said that John-Lyon-Pfnaravin did not know about rowing on the sea. That the long ropes kept the boat away from the land so they would be safe at night from dangerous land animals. For here, there was no village. Just a place to tie up boats passing by. No boat should be out on the deep sea at night, the captain said, for fear of deep sea creatures who were dangerous when the magic failed after it became dark. And for the same reason, they should be away from the land, for fear of the savage land creatures that were also dangerous in the night.

  They went out again on the water at up-light. And every day after that for more than three days.

  There was nothing to do on the boat. There were some pretty birds in cages in the bottom of the boat. Two cages of yellow birds. A cage of orange birds. It was when she was trying to get her fingers through the cage bars to pet the birds that she saw the cat. Watching the birds. But she could not catch the cat. The cat was black, with big white spots.

  Platinia spent the days walking about the boat or sitting among the boxes on the deck. In the boxes and barrels were things that the boat was taking to other Bands. There, they would trade these things for other things that the sailors did not have, but that they wanted. And every day, with a bucket on a rope, she would raise up water from the sea, using the water to bathe and to wash her hair. As did the others. But the others did not do that every day.

  The Mage and Golden had time off from their work. So did the sailors. The men talked with the sailors and especially with the captain of the boat. Platinia had heard Golden ask how far the ship (the boat was also called a ship) had been on this trip, learning that the ship had been almost to Cinnabar. And John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had asked many strange questions like he always did, first covering his mouth with his hand as he did when thinking. But over his hand, his eyes were the color of Malachite sky: a glowing green. He looked hard at everything. At every one. His deadly eyes made her afraid.

  The Mage asked about foreign words that Platinia did not understand. He asked about something called the "sun" and about the "moon" and "stars." And no one had heard about these things and were as puzzled as Platinia about what the Mage meant. (Except that the sailors knew him as John-Lyon, only.)

  The Mage asked about the sky and why it had bands of color like it did. And some said this and some said that. But no one knew for sure. At least, that was what Platinia thought.

  When the great Mage and Golden were alone with her, to eat, at the back of the boat -- the men only rowing every now and then to help to change the ship from one big current to another -- Golden had tried to answer the Mage's questions. (After Golden had found out that John-Lyon was a Mage and more than a Mage -- Pfnaravin -- Golden was very eager to please the Mage.) When asked why the sky had bands of color, Golden had said that this was a religious thing. Then, the Mage had asked Golden to explain more about the sky. And Golden said that it was a large bowl of iron, upended over the earth, like the rowboat they had hidden under had been overturned. That some said that the colors were painted on by the Founders. And the Mage had smiled at that answer. The Mage had then asked if the world was round or flat. And Golden had said that it was both round and flat (round, around the edges but flat like a wheel) with the iron dome of sky over it. Then the Mage had asked what held up the earth. Why it didn't fall. And Golden had said that he did not know, that he was not a Mage.

  Finally, Platinia was bored with all this talk.

  By this time, though, she had caught and tamed the cat. The cat was on the ship to eat mice, a sailor had told her. (There had been mice in the temple of Fulgur, but she had seen a cat there only one time.)

  She could catch the cat and hold it any time she liked. It would sometimes made the sleepy sound of rain. And she petted it and it would come to her. And she would feed it bits of meat saved from her meals. It was so soft! There had been cats at Hero Castle but Melcor would not let her hold them.

  After a time, it had been the longest Platinia could remember that she had not been raped or tortured. Was this because they were on the boat? If so, -- since she could not think of how to kill the Mage -- Platinia wished she could stay on the boat forever!

  * * * * *

  Chapter 14

  After the usual, early morning fog, it was another bright, warm, windless day as they drifted out from under the golden band over Stil-de-grain toward the greenish sky of Malachite. The air was fresh as it always was after the night's gentle rain. V-shaped birds soared above, glinting white as they folded their wings to dive at the sea. Gulls?

  Leaving the tie-up dock, John had seen, wading along the sandy shore, a number of pink and black, duck sized birds with long necks and stick legs. Just inland, pelicans sought food at the mouths of run off rills, the night's rain oozing rivulets from the forest's tangled trees.

  Now late in the day on the open sea, John could make out a merchant ship in the distance, a ship similar to their own: a wide, round, deep draft boat laden with boxes, barrels, packing crates, and bags. Probably angling for a tie-up dock as they would be doing soon. Yesterday, John had seen a squadron of naval vessels -- long, shallow draft cutters -- the flotilla far away, thank whatever gods this "other reality" boasted.

  It surely couldn't be too much longer until they said goodbye to Stil-de-grain.

  "Are we almost there?" John asked as Coluth joined him at the rail.

  "Just about." Captain of the Roamer, Coluth was a compact, raw boned man of sea worn skin and indeterminate age. Leaning on the rail by John, the Captain cast a "weather eye" at the sky, then shaded his eyes with both roughened hands to look at the forested shore a mile to larboard and at least that far ahead. "You see way up there?" He pointed with a thick jointed forefinger. "There. Just to the side 'a that big old tree?" John tried to follow Coluth's point, a sighting made more difficult by the continuous circling of the boat as it curved around one of the great, interlocking whirlpools that gently swirled on the sea's surface.

  "The one with the dead limb?" As far as John could see, a whitened oak was the only tree that differed in any way from the tangled thicket of lush, live oaks, elms, hickories, chestnuts, pine, and birch of the old, deciduous forest that stretched before them down the coast. "That's the one. Now you look to the right 'a that big tree and you see those smaller trees?"

  "I see them." Now that it had been pointed out to him, the forest's trees did seem to get abruptly shorter just beyond the oak, as if they'd been cropped with a giant scythe.

  "That's the border 'a Malachite." It was John's turn to gage the sky for distance.

  "Just about where the yellow sky band turns to green?"

  "Just about."

  "Would you say that the colors of the sky bands correspond to the country bands under them?"

  "Why, sure. That's the difference, you see. That and Band sickness."

  And there it was again! Ever since he'd been on board, John had been hearing snatches of sailor talk about "Band sickness," always accompanied by a little laugh or wink or poke to indicate just how ignorant the farmers (their word for landlubbers) were to be afraid of it.

  Was this the time to ask about that malady? John had "floated" so many questions (and gotten so few satisfactory answers) that he hated to push his luck. Still, as a "farmer" himself, his queries about the sea seemed to produce more mirth from the captain and his crew than suspicion at John's lack of knowledge.

  "What can you tell me about Band sickness and why your men don't seem to be afraid of it?" Asked that way, John hoped he would be credited with some prior knowledge of this mysterious affliction.

  "Well now," the captain said, leaning over the deck to spit into the gently rolling sea before settling back comfortably, putting his rough elbows on the varnished wooden rail that arche
d around the ship's wide bellied sides. "I don't mind admittin' that when I first came to sea I was as afraid 'a catchin' the Band sickness as anybody. I'd heard all those old tales about it, you see."

  "What are the symptoms?"

  The captain looked over at John, both of them side by side, elbows on the rail, looking out at the peaceful, looping sea like loafers draped over any wrought iron courtyard fence in any small town ... in another world. John's free time was spent like this, watching the calm sea.

  As usual in slack times, sailors fished along the rail, catching several kinds of hand-sized gold and silver fish with which the sea teemed.

  Recently, they'd all been busy re-packaging the cargo, breaking it into smaller units, funneling cooking oil from the large deck-tied barrels into smaller, more salable casks -- all the while waiting for the next electric moment of shouted orders to man the oars and pull as if their life depended on it, to starboard or to larboard.

  "Well," the captain said, having thought it through, "the sickness is that you feel heavier and you get more tired doin' even little things. That's of course if you're travelin' to the inner Band's. That's where we're goin' and what's goin' to happen to you when you cross over into Malachite just after it clears off tomorrow morning. Of course, if you were to be travelin' in the other direction, crossin' a Band would make you feel like you were floatin', like you could lift the boat out 'a the water all by yourself."

  "That's ... it? You don't get a ... fever ... or anything?"

  "What's a fever?" Again, that blank stare at what John thought was a simple question. John would always be a stranger in this strange land.

  "Your face gets hot. Like you've been working the oars." John certainly knew about the heat of rowing!

  "No. Nothin' like that," Coluth was saying, one big hand waggling. "You just feel ... heavy. Get ... tired. That's all. You got to take it easy. But you get used to it ... in time."

  "You have to pace yourself."

  "That's just it."