Under The Stairs

by John Stockmyer

  "How long have I been ... out?"

  "A length of time, great one."

  "Many up-lights?"

  "Many. Golden says, a hundred." Three months? He had been here three months? John couldn't remember. He did seem to recall seeing images in the Crystal. And of people interrupting him. Trying to talk to him. Trying to make him understand something. Forcing food into his hands, making him eat. Disturbing him.

  "I've been in this room for that long?"

  "Not in this room, great one."

  "Where?"

  "In your own room."

  "And I got here ...?"

  "Forgive us, great Lord. It is a sickness. Looking into the Crystal. Zwicia said we must force you or you would not stop. That you would be lost forever. Zwicia said she can stop because she is a Weird. But others ...."

  "So, I was brought here?"

  "We did not want to." The girl's hands, normally motionless in her lap, were waving about, Platinia almost wringing them. "You are a Mage. Who but a Mage can look into a Crystal without harm? But as the up-lights passed ...," she was pleading with him, "you were needed, great one. You were needed!"

  Needed?

  It was coming back to him. He'd seen visions of this land. Of rivers, people, priests. He could remember the edges of some of what he'd seen. And he longed to see more. But ... Platinia said he was needed.

  "Why am I needed?"

  "The war ... goes badly, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin." She was quiet again, as if passing a crisis.

  "The ... war?" John looked down, down ... at the floor. So far away. Perhaps, he should remain seated awhile longer.

  "Against the Malachites."

  That war. He had ... forgotten. A hundred days.

  But it was coming back. As he remembered, there was a council of war. The Heads of the army and navy were there. It was later in the same day he'd taken the Crystal from the Weird, Zwicia protesting to the end in her muttering way.

  At the meeting, he'd ordered reforms. Common people drafted for the army. Rams. "The changes in the navy, the army. They were made?"

  "Yes ...." To have his questions answered, he needed anyone but Platinia.

  Feeling better, John eased himself off the bed. Felt ... normal. Remembering, he touched his face. He had a short beard.

  John glanced around the room. A prison. No windows. This was not the dungeon, but a prison nevertheless, a place to keep someone against his will. No wonder Platinia was nervous in his presence. Clearly, he'd been kept here until he "sobered up" from the "Crystal sickness."

  "Where's Golden?"

  "He has been trying to ... help. In your absence ..."

  "But he's in the palace?"

  "Yes."

  "I went to see him immediately."

  * * * * *

  Within an hour, shaved, his hair trimmed, dressed in the most splendid of his ceremonial robes, John was back in the war room, Platinia never leaving his side, John sending for Golden, Golden arriving.

  It was then, just as John was about to summon the army and navy Heads, that John learned from Golden that Navy Head Vancu had been killed in a sea battle; the Stil-de-grain navy destroyed. Much had happened since John had "caught" the Crystal "sickness."

  Waiting for the army Head, John's mind was spinning -- not from being "sick," but from news of this disaster. John's military reforms should have worked. Perhaps, if he'd been there ...

  The door at the end of the room opened, the Head entering, bowing.

  Marching to an empty chair, Etexin sat down rigidly, near John but on the opposite side of the table from Golden and Platinia.

  Having a rough idea of the situation, John wanted to hear about it directly from the Head; and in more detail. "Can you tell me how, in spite of superior planning, our navy was defeated?"

  "The battle was so close to the island that, on a height, I myself witnessed that sorry event, great Mage. It was that the marines of the Malachites are stronger than ours. Being so strong, they overwhelmed our navy." The Head tapped his fingers on the table, the only indication of his agitation.

  "That wasn't supposed to happen. What about the rams?" John found that he was suddenly weary. Had a headache. Began rubbing his temples ... but stopped when he realized it was an activity undignified in a Mage. In the face of defeat what was needed was confidence. "Well, go on." John had thought about apologizing for John's three month "absence" -- but decided against that strategy. Better to take the position that, by consulting the Crystal for that length of time, he was doing something valuable for the "cause." These people were used to forceful rulers. Better not to admit to any weakness.

  "In the excitement of the naval battle, great one, I fear that the captains did not use the rams as you had indicated. Instead, they reverted to ... more traditional methods." The faddish little man tapped his small lips with one finger.

  "Boarding?"

  "That is correct."

  "I thought we'd agreed that boarding would give the enemy the advantage. The rams were designed to keep us from having to board." John could feel his voice rising. Checked it.

  "That is true. But when the navy rowed out to face the Malachites, in the excitement ... no matter what the Navy Head had said to them .... It is difficult to change ingrained methods, sir." The Army Head dropped his goatee to his neck, his feeble chin disappearing. While looking distressed, there was a trace of smugness in the Head's voice that it had not been his branch of the service found wanting.

  The rams would have worked, John knew, if they'd been tried.

  The question was, if John had been "awake" during the battle, could he have found some way to prevent this disaster? Perhaps, by threatening the captains with magic, John could have controlled them. "After the naval crews had been killed, our cruisers were captured? Sunk?"

  "Towed off to be beached, sir."

  "Towed off?"

  "The Malachites did not have crewmen enough to row them."

  "What will happen to them eventually." John could still be morbid on occasion.

  "After the war, the Malachites will use their lumber."

  Scrap the navy -- literally. "The Malachite navy is now ...?"

  "Blockading the island, mighty Mage." No surprise there.

  "Our Navy Head was killed?"

  "Regrettably."

  What John was thinking was small loss!

  "His ship was boarded?"

  "That is true." So, even the Head hadn't used his ram. Stupid. But, then, John should have taken into account the possibility of fumbled execution, the people here as narrow minded as many in his own world.

  This was no time for self recrimination, however, to say nothing of self pity. "What happened next?"

  "You will be pleased to learn that ships were scuttled in the harbor mouth, as you had decreed." Finally. One thing had gone right.

  "Did you order that?"

  "It was done by a merchant captain. Named Coluth. He sank his ship and then others did the same until the harbor neck was blocked." Coluth! Sunk the Roamer. How Coluth had loved that boat! And yet he'd sunk her.

  "Has anyone else been appointed Navy Head to replace Vancu?"

  "No sir. It hardly seemed necessary, since the navy ..." The sentence needed no conclusion.

  "I will appoint Coluth as the new Head."

  As John had expected, that declaration drew a strange look from the army Head. In Etexin's mind, transferring civilians to the military was a certain recipe for disaster. "Are we building more war ships?"

  "Yes sir. To the extent of our capacity."

  "With rams on them?"

  "I ... since the rams did not work ..." The Head shrugged. John let that pass.

  "And the army?"

  "I have done what you ordered." Blunt fingers wiggling again, the Head settled a hand on his face, his fingers nervously twisting the man's mouth into a lower-case O before fluttering back to the table. "Before the harbor was sealed, the army collected young men from the band. All that we could. And we have b
een trying to train them. But ...."

  John could imagine what was happening. Inexperienced men who didn't want to become soldiers; taught by officers who didn't believe they could be.

  "I will review the troops this afternoon. All is not lost. My magic will save Stil-de-grain."

  "Ah ... there is one more difficulty, great Mage. Though I am sure that you can overcome it."

  "Yes?"

  "It is about the magic, sir."

  "Yes?"

  "It is the light, sir. Through I cannot detect it myself, some say that the light ... dims."

  And with the failure of the light, came a failure of the magic. Not John's kind of magic, fortunately.

  It was time -- past time -- for John-Lyon, Mage of Stil-de-grain, to be functioning again! So ended the meeting.

  The Head sent away, John dispatched Golden to summon Coluth and to set up the afternoon schedule.

  Golden leaving, there was a timid knock on the door.

  Ordered to enter, a slavey ushered in a "birdie" little man who was introduced as Gagar, Head of messenger birds, a parrot-like bird perched on one, gloved hand. Ah! Now that John was "awake," messages were being brought directly to him as he had ordered. At least, some reforms seemed to be working.

  The slavey bowing herself out of the room, John motioned the "bird man" forward, at the same time signaling Platinia-against-the-wall to get a good grip on her cat.

  "No one else has heard this bird?"

  "No, great Mage." Seen up close, no canine fancier looked more like his dog than this man resembled his bird!

  "And you will tell no one else what it says. On pain of death."

  "Never, sir." The way the man took offense at the gag order did more to convince John than the man's promise. In a land where every man was a "professional," secrecy apparently went with the messenger-bird business.

  "Make it talk," John said.

  "The girl?"

  "She can hear."

  Taking a step nearer, the bird looking like a golden macaw, the handler encouraged the bird to hop from the Gagar's thick glove to the back of a chair near John.

  "It is necessary to listen carefully," the trainer warned, cocking his head on one shoulder, his thin nose almost a beak, "for a messenger bird forgets each word as it speaks it."

  John nodded.

  That understood, Gagar made a complex hand pass at the bird, the bird beginning to speak in the nonsense rhythm of all "talking" birds.

  "The . Mage . of . Realgar . Helianthin . demands . an . audience . with . the . Mage . of . Stil-de-grain . Melcor . to . meet . with . Cryo . Mage . of . Cinnabar . at . Hellebore . in . thirty . up . lights . the . light . fails . there . is . treason . of . Mages."

  Quoth the Raven.

  Still, even without inflection or punctuation, the message made a number of things clear. In the first place, Helanthin, Mage of Realgar, wanted a meeting at some place called Hellebore.

  Before continuing his analysis, John rose to consult Golden's map, the map on a tripod in one corner of the war room.

  In the meantime, the trainer got the bird to hop back onto his hand, the man waiting.

  Hellebore turned out to be a place on the far border of Realgar, just within the band of Cinnabar. Strange territory, Cinnabar. Little explored, if what everyone said about it proved to be correct.

  Back to the table and to the message.

  Like Etexin had indicated was happening over Stil-de-grain, Helianthin also thought there was a loss of light. Now that John thought about it, the outside light (after a three month "absence") might be a shade duller than he remembered. Possibly shifting to the brown side of the spectrum? Rather like the bright green sky-band over Malachite appeared to be edging toward olive when John was in Malachite?

  A meeting of Mages? A good idea except it was impossible at the moment. Cut off by the Malachite navy, how could John attend? "Can you send a message to the Mage of Realgar?"

  "Of course."

  "How long before a messenger bird could be taught the message and the message delivered?"

  "That would depend, great one, on the length of the dispatch," the little man piped. "For short reports like the one this bird brought, two days."

  "What about just attaching a note to the bird's leg?"

  "Oh, no, great one. A messenger bird would peck off such a foreign object." The man actually mimed pecking, an action that, on him, looked completely natural.

  So ... that explained why you had to teach the birds the message. Also to be considered, was the probable lack of literacy here. Writing a dispatch did no good if those receiving the report were illiterate. Not that it mattered since John didn't know what message he wanted to send, anyway. "A question, if you please. How do you know the enemy didn't send this bird?" John pointed to the golden parrot perched on the man's gloved hand. "To throw us off?"

  "I would know, great one! The bird ... picks up the ... sound ... the cadence of the agent. I know all agents. I would recognize a fraud instantly!" Was that possible? John thought of something he'd read. About how an expert could identify a telegrapher by the "style" of "clicks" the telegraph operator was sending. For now, that would have to do.

  The man and his bird dismissed, the rest of Stil-de-grain's military situation came to John in bits and pieces.

  First, from Coluth who arrived shortly after the "bird man's" exit, the captain refreshingly unimpressed that John was the new Mage of Stil-de-grain. So much so that, after the standard greeting between old friends, Coluth told John what had happened. That hearing it was John's order to seal the harbor in case of disaster, Coluth had his men position the Roamer just inside the harbor's mouth. Had then plowed the Roamer into the last, retreating warship, more than one submerged boat necessary for a blockade.

  Feeling lucky to have escaped prosecution for sinking his nation's man-of-war, Coluth was shocked to have John appoint him Navy Head, saying he knew nothing of sea warfare. A fact that, besides rewarding Coluth for following orders, was a plus in John's book!

  So Coluth was added to John's retinue.

  Then, there was the army. Surrounded by a squad of palace bodyguards, John marched out, first to observe the professional troops at their barracks near the capital's edge, the military dress of the day featuring short tunics, bare-armed for action, conical, iron helmets and sturdy boots, the army the usual medieval mix of military units: a phalanx with seven foot spears; soldiers armed with throwing axes; a company of short-bow archers.

  The army also had "artillery" (which John had first seen outside Hero castle,) a dozen mangonels mounted on wooden wheeled platforms, these stressed-cable "rock throwers" a poor imitation of the old Roman model. Literally, not much force.

  John got to see the army line up. And to watch a mock skirmish "fought" to the pounding of tabors and blaring of trombas and oliphants.

  What was sad was having to witness the new "citizen soldiers" in "training": no one wearing anything that could pass for a uniform; too few shields for them; one man in ten with what might pass for a sword. They looked like what they were -- a bunch of farmers with the proverbial two left feet. Useless. Worse than useless if they got in the way of the regular army.

  Though John hated to admit it, it looked like his idea of a "citizen soldiery" was a bust.

  The following morning, John called a much-needed staff meeting. Golden, Platinia, Etexin and Coluth.

  When all were seated at John's end of the long table, John broke the despairing silence. "As I see it, we can still rally." Nothing but depressed looks -- making another thing clear. This was not the time to tell them of John's real concern: that the island was ill-equipped to withstand the Malachite naval blockade. "There is to be a meeting of Mages."

  At that, a flood of hope. "I have received a communication from the Mage of Realgar. And I want a message sent back to him. Will you see that this is done?"

  "Yes, sir," snapped Etexin, though seated, coming to attention.

  "The message is to say t
hat Melcor is no longer the Mage here. That Melcor is dead. That I am the Mage, now. Tell him that, new to my responsibilities, I cannot meet him in Hellebore when scheduled. I will let him know when I can." The Head saluted. (Not much of a communique, but one that would give John the time he needed to figure out what he could do.) "I want the same dispatch sent to the Mage of Cinnabar."

  "Not possible at this time, sir. Not by messenger bird, certainly. And with ships unable to leave the harbor ..."

  "No way to contact Cinnabar? Unbelievable! Wasn't that Band our ally in the Great Mage war?" The Head squirmed uncomfortably before answering.

  "It is that no one wishes to contact that Band, sir. That, and the fact that the red messenger birds of Cinnabar are rare.

  "Let me get this straight. It is my understanding that messenger birds fly back to their home bands." The army Head nodded. Messenger birds did act like homing pigeons, then, something John had been assuming.

  "That, and to their original trainer. To the man hatching them," the Head added.

  John thought about that. And something clicked. The messenger bird of the morning, the one that had "talked" to John, had been hatched in Stil-de-grain before being taken to Realgar to be released with a message for the government of Stil-de-grain. The bird had been a bright golden color. Could it be that ...? "To get a message from somewhere, you take one of our birds -- a yellow one -- to that place. When it is released, it flies back here." Etexin nodded. "Let me guess. Messenger birds that are hatched in Stil-de-grain are all yellow. Those hatched in Malachite are Green. Those produced in Realgar are orange. Am I right?" Another nod from Etexin. "And we don't have any red birds from Cinnabar so ..."

  "That is correct, great Mage." John shouldn't have been surprised. Everything in this world seemed to be color-coded. Why not the birds?

  Something else came into focus. Why the Malachite sailors who boarded the Roamer in the Bay of Bice had confiscated the ship's cargo of messenger birds. other people's birds little more than spies.

  "How about slipping a shallow-draft boat off the back side of Xanthin, using that to reach Hellebore?"

  "Most difficult." It was Coluth. "You have seen the sea." The weathered captain tapped his flat nose guardedly. "Small boats have great difficulty navigating the whirling rings." It was John's turn to nod.