Ellen Under The Stairs

by John Stockmyer

  Yes, he loved the new Mage-robe, he assured Uccia, Head seamstress. Was particularly thankful for the pockets he'd ordered to be put in.

  The weasel pie he'd had for supper last night? Delicious -- Deninia, the Head cook hiding behind a column in the dining hall to watch him eat every disgusting bite. (He'd managed, but just barely, to stop himself from asking how to get the fur out of his teeth.)

  No, he didn't need something warm -- like hot milk -- to help him get to sleep at night, Benza, bed chamber Head, clearly offering her services in quite a different capacity.

  A better example of addressing other people's needs to save time, was giving his permission for Ellen to leave the castle, the lady determined to tour Xanthin before going home. When did an artist have the opportunity to poke through a functioning medieval city? A question leaving John cold, but with great meaning for persuasive Ellen Hamilton.

  What had swung him around -- besides Ellen's charm -- was the messenger bird revealing that the Malachite king hadn't learned that Pfnaravin had vanished. Something Lithoid would have known if there'd been Malachite spies on the island.

  No Malachites; no threat to Ellen's safety, other than the usual: accidents, criminals, and perverts.

  What had finally gotten him to agree to her demands was Ellen promising to allow him to use any means he felt necessary to affect her safety.

  His terms? First, that she go to Xanthin city in disguise, perhaps as a noble lady on a shopping spree. She'd agreed to that.

  Second, that she be surrounded by soldiers, a condition she hadn't liked. What she wanted, she'd maintained, was to be a "mouse in the corner" so she could observe city life undisturbed by her presence. How was she going to take the pulse of the town with soldiers around, a show of force changing everyone behavior?

  The compromise was that she would be disguised as an upper class lady, her soldier-guards tricked out as her servants, trailing behind to carry the many purchases she would make while browsing through the city's shops.

  Since money was no problem for the Mage of Stil-de-grain, John was able to provide Ellen with enough funds for her to shop through the entire town, her many purchases adding to the illusion she was there, not to observe, but to take home whatever her heart desired -- impulse buying reserved for the rich in both worlds.

  A worry of a minor sort was Zwicia. While content to stay in her room, Crystal gazing, John received disturbing reports of agonized screams emanating from her room. The most likely explanation for these Zwicia-yells? That what the old lady was seeing in her larger version of a Mage-Gem was upsetting her.

  What was upsetting John, was the knowledge that Zwicia's crystal could be made to show the future, the elderly Weird coming up with fore-knowledge of events that had come to pass later. Not that her mumbled warnings had done any good. For, like the prophecies of Nostradamus, the old lady's "visions" were so vague they could only be recognized as predictions after the prophesied events had happened. What good was precognition if its foretellings were too garbled to warn you away from danger? (Truth to tell, John didn't need Zwicia's screams of anguish to remind him he lived in dangerous times.)

  The major problem John faced had no easy solution: the Malachite ships that, every day, were rowed from their tie-up stations on the mainland to block the mouth of Xanthin harbor. And to make a bad situation worse, the imbalance of power was greater than a Malachite advantage in numbers. For according to Admiral Coluth, the Malachites had crafted a new class of warship by adding a second tier of rowers, thereby increasing the new naval vessels' "horse power," the improved ships faster than anything afloat. As yet, Coluth had noticed only one or two of the advanced models beyond the harbor's mouth. But when built in sufficient numbers, this new ship class -- like Dreadnought development before WWI -- would make other navies obsolete.

  All background for yet another afternoon strategy session in the war room, John continuing to hope for an inspiration on how to break the Malachite blockade. (Even the American South in the Civil War -- an incredibly advanced culture compared to medieval Stil-de-grain -- had failed to break the Union strangle hold on Southern harbors. In desperation, had tried to build submarines (though with disastrous results), the very concept of a submarine beyond this world's comprehension.

  This afternoon, John had called a meeting of second tier people -- what passed in this world for economists and other bean counters -- the problem of the day: how much food was on the island and, of more importance, how long would it last before Xanthin City was starved into submission.

  The food problems rehashed, it was time for John to make sense out of it all.

  "So, what you're telling me is that, if we eat every messenger bird and cart pony, we can hold out for another four months."

  Blank stares all around.

  "That is, for 120 more up-lights."

  Terms like "months" and "years" had no meaning here. Nor did this world have "seasons," no change in weather possible in this "hot house" world. (At least not in a single Band; the inner Bands somewhat warmer than the outer ones.)

  "That is an estimate, only, great Mage," said Papia, Head tax collector.

  Did all tax men have to look like ghouls -- shrunken, skull-like heads; yellow, protruding teeth? Still, if you wanted an accurate count of the population, there was no one better for the job.

  "Two meager meals a day might stretch the time another 30 up-lights." This, from Udrz, Head economist. "Add to that ten days before starvation ravaged the old and the young ...."

  And must all economists be as pessimistic as Malthus?

  At the moment, John's only hope was that the Malachite sailors beyond the harbor would starve at the same rate as the people of Xanthin, an outcome that had happened to armies besieging medieval castles, the attackers ....

  A robust knock on the door interrupted John's thought process. Had to be someone of importance, to get past the double-guards in the hall.

  "Enter," John called, every head at the table swiveling toward the door.

  To see Coluth slam in, John rarely finding the Admiral so upset.

  "John-Lyon. I have news!"

  So agitated was Coluth that he'd reverted to the time they'd first become friends, John taking passage as a common sailor aboard the Roamer.

  "Come forward," John said, hoping the others didn't detect the familiarity with which Coluth had addressed him. A bulwark of a Mage's power was maintained, not only by owning a Mage-Gem and by giving crisp commands, but also by keeping a certain distance between himself and the people he "served."

  With the rolling gate of the beached sailor, Coluth flanked the table, arriving at John's end, pausing to find out if he should give his information only to John, or so all in the room might hear.

  Taking a chance, John indicated the others. "We are all in this together."

  Motioning Coluth to an empty chair three places down on John's right, Coluth perched -- a difficult thing for a big man to do, "perching" another sign of the Admiral's unrest.

  "Speak."

  "John -- great Mage," Coluth corrected himself, remembering his place, "I have come from the harbor. And something amazing has happened!"

  "Go on."

  "A ship, one of ours, has just been rowed out of the harbor."

  "What!? Someone's going to ram the enemy, all by himself?" Until now, the "shiny new" concept of suicide bombing had failed to penetrate this "backwater" world. While the Band of Azare was reputed to have berserker troops ....

  "It is not what you think," Coluth countered, waving off that idea. "The Malachite ships let our ship out of the harbor. Pulled back so it could get through."

  Though this didn't make sense to John, it must to someone -- John feeling it was important to find out why the ship had been allowed to "escape."

  Spies.

  Could it be there were Malachite spies in Xanthin, after all. That they'd seized a Stil-de-grain ship, captains of the Malachite cruisers knowing this would happen, letting the captured ship
out to become a prize of war?

  "Any talk of someone at the harbor who shouldn't have been there?"

  "No. The harbor has been under strict watch since the Malachites declared war on us."

  "No one could penetrate our security?"

  "Unlikely. I would even say impossible. Certainly not after you put everyone on alert."

  Meaning ... what? That enemy sailors had boarded the captured ship before Malachite declared war?

  "Did anyone report which direction the ship took after getting through the blockade?"

  "The wharf lookout said it steered right."

  "But to go to Malachite, the ship should have turned left."

  "So I would think."

  Right. Away from Malachite. A direction that put it on a course to the band of Realgar. To the claws.

  The destination of the ship could still be Malachite, of course, the ship first having to be rowed all the way around Xanthin island -- a considerable detour. The boat would still have to travel through sea Minor, after that, navigate Sea throat on its way to Malachite's harbor at Bice.

  The only reason John could think of for such a maneuver was to throw off a Stil-de-grain pursuit. Complete nonsense with Stil-de-grain ships trapped in the harbor.

  A mystery. One John didn't like, John never a fan of the saying: "What you don't know won't hurt you."

  John was surprised to find he'd gotten up and was pacing, the others following him with their eyes.

  Since only a single ship had been stolen -- to be sure under unusual circumstances -- why was he so upset? Was it because the "unexplainable" reminded him of Zwicia's screams, her shrieks often a prelude to calamity?

  One ship lost. Far from a catastrophe when you came right down to it. What was scary was that this strange happening might be only the first in a row of disastrous "dominoes" on their way to going down.

  Nothing he could do about it at the moment. He'd have Coluth talk to the sailors at the dock to see what they knew. See if something turned up.

  John sat down. Took a deep breath to calm himself.

  "I know this news is disturbing, but we still have work to do. For instance, has the food, soon to be harvested on the island, been counted?"

  "Estimated."

  "Can we sent a messenger bird to the king of Realgar? What's his name, again?"

  "Tauro, great Mage." This from the Head of foreign policy, Khil.

  "Can we send a messenger bird to King Tauro; ask him to ship food to us from the back side of the island?"

  "No ship ...."

  "I know. Its too shallow there for a naval landing. That's why we have only harbor defense to worry about. But, if shallow draft boats -- rafts, even -- could be built to float in food, we'd be glad to pay extra for it. Surely neutrals are allowed to sell food to combatants." At least that was the case in John's world, neutral nations with the right to sell non-military items to both sides. Honored more in law than in practice.

  "We'd need an orange Messenger bird, I suppose," John muttered, Realgar the "orange band," its messenger birds no doubt orange, as well. "I'll have a talk with Gagar ...."

  Again, a knock on the door! More frantic that Coluth's.

  "Enter," John said. Shouted, actually, his nerves about shot. Strange goings on -- to say nothing of the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped on the island -- would do that to you.

  The door opened, Golden striding in.

  "Golden. Approach," John said, the young man doing that even before John's command, stopping at John's chair, standing there at full attention.

  "I bring bad news," Golden said, his face white.

  "It's the right day for it," John growled, thinking that a touch of cynicism was in order.

  "Some ... soldiers ... have been killed."

  Less of a surprise than hearing that a ship had been taken.

  "Explain."

  "A runner. From the city. Too exhausted and fearful to address the Mage personally." Golden bowed. "I bring his message."

  "Go on."

  "Soldiers ... underneath."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Soldiers, but wearing civilian clothing."

  "Could they be Malachites in disguise?"

  This might be the explanation for how a ship had been stolen. A fight at the harbor, a few Malachites killed but the rest able to overwhelm the harbor's defenders.

  "The man said, all Stil-de-grain."

  A look at Golden told John that the youth was holding something back.

  "Out with it!"

  "It is the way ... they were killed."

  "How?"

  "Withered by Mage-Magic, great Lord."

  "How is that possible?"

  "How?"

  "That's what I said, how?"

  "Then, you, yourself did not ... cause their death?"

  "That's crazy, Golden. Why would I do that?"

  "I thought that, since this is the first time in so long that you have had the use of your ...." Remembering that others were in the room, Golden stopped.

  "Take my word for it. This is the first I've heard of it."

  Mage-Magic? Surely Golden was mistaken.

  To check, John slipped a hand down the side of his robe to make sure the Mage-Disk was tucked within his pocket.

  Finding that it was!

  Anyway, no one could use the Crystal's magic but him.

  Like a dark shade drawn across his mind, came the fearful remembrance that there were other Mage-Disks in the world. One of them belonging to ... Pfnaravin!

  "Coluth! Golden! I want to know everything anyone can tell me about that ship and those soldiers. Even people only slightly related to the events to be interviewed. Talk to sailors at the dock, civilians. All who might have seen anything!"

  He turned to the others, still seated in stunned silence. "As for the rest of you, spread the word that all people belonging to the palace are to be recalled. The gates locked. No stranger to enter!

  Shocked, they just sat there.

  "Now!"

  Direct orders producing action in this world, there was a frantic scrape of chairs and a scrambling for the exit -- Coluth and Golden also rushing out to do John's bidding -- the room soon as empty as an echo.

  For the rest of the afternoon, John sat alone in the war room, receiving the latest information. A shop keeper was brought in to tell of hearing unusual noises in an alley. A peasant, newly arrived in Xanthin to buy seed, said that an unseen force had blocked his progress toward the harbor. A butcher, saying that what he'd assumed to be animal parts behind his shop turned out to be human remains. Two sailors, recalling that they had thought something was "not right" about the crew of a ship. That the sailors seemed ... wooden ... failing to respond to a joke thrown their way. A cargo crane worker reported seeing a woman smuggled onto a ship -- far from unusual as randy as sailors were -- only remarkable because the woman looked ... strange. Lost.

  Hour after hour of this until John was confident he'd gained every bit of truth there was to be gotten, John piecing the information together as it came in.

  What he now considered "gospel" was the report of an old man standing in the prow of the stolen ship as it cleared the end of the mole, a woman, stiffly upright beside the man.

  There could also be no doubt that Malachite ships had let the missing ship escape. And several sailors had said that, after clearing the harbor, the escaping ship had appeared to set out for Realgar.

  John had also learned that the dead soldiers had, indeed, been blasted with Crystal Magic, blown to bits, their shattered flesh charred -- Stil-de-grain soldiers in civilian garb.

  And the most disturbing news of all -- that Ellen and the soldiers guarding her, were nowhere to be found!

  Terrifying, what these bits and pieces came down to! At the same time, simplicity itself.

  Pfnaravin had been in Xanthin. Somehow discovering who Ellen was, had killed her guards with the lethal force of his Crystal. The object of his attack? Kidnapping Ellen.

&nb
sp; At the harbor, he'd commandeered a ship. Probably before harbor security had been tightened, Malachite sympathizers rowing it. Either that, or Pfnaravin's magic had turned Still-de-grain sailors into robots, forced to obey his commands.

  The old man in the escaping boat was Pfnaravin. The woman, Ellen, Pfnaravin's Mage-restraints keeping her at his side.

  Fighting through his fear for Ellen, his grief, John's only comfort was in knowing that Ellen was still alive. Pfnaravin had killed her guards, but spared Ellen because she was valuable to him.

  Had Pfnaravin divined that she was from John's world, the old Mage planning to use her as a hostage?

  The missing piece in the puzzle was why Pfnaravin had turned his ship away from his home Band of Malachite, heading, instead, for the outward band of Realgar, that puzzle piece falling into place when John remembered that King Lithoid had ordered Pfnaravin to return home, an action that would give Lithoid at least partial control of the Malachite Mage.

  Rather than subject himself to Lithoid's rule, Pfnaravin was escaping, not only from Stil-de-grain, but also from his own Band's king, Pfnaravin with a goal of his own for world domination.

  Whatever was happening, John knew it was his duty to rescue Ellen. First -- though he didn't want to admit it even to himself -- because he'd fallen in love with her. Also because he could never live with himself if he returned without her.

  A decision that presented a different set of problems.

  In order to desert his duties here to chase after Ellen, he must think up some story about why he was going after one woman, when all of Stil-de-grain was under threat. (My God! This was to be a replay of the Iliad. Of Greeks chasing after Helen of Troy.)

  Could he fool the people here into believing that Ellen was, somehow, vital to the defense of Stil-de-grain? It would take some doing, though his prestige as Mage gave him leverage.

  Another "small" problem was how he was to get out of the harbor himself, the best chance coming after the Malachites had pulled off for their mainland tie-up docks at down-light. Probably impossible, given the sailor's fear of the dark. And even if he could muster the clout to leave the harbor after down-light, from what Coluth told him about the Malachites new class of ships, they'd catch him the following day.