Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (31 page)

Exiting the palace, pacing nervously before
the inner wall, the Mage (and Golden) immediately climbed on the
soon arriving, two-pony cart, the Mage waving the small wagon
forward, passed the gate guards of each of the three walls'
fortified doors.

Outside, he urged the pony driver to the
greatest speed down the palace hill, the wagon careening by the
city's shops, Golden bouncing in the cart's back, the cart wheels
screeching dangerously, the wagon rumbling, the ponies snorting,
the Mage's sweating bodyguards soon left behind. (Golden wished his
own guards were that easily outdistanced, all the Mage's staff --
himself included -- tightly guarded day and night since the
attempted assassination of the Mage.)

Creaking to a swaying halt at the spot that
the townsman had indicated to Golden, the Mage (and a bruised
Golden) descended from the cart, the Mage inspecting the dark spot
in the ditch where the lightening bolt had roasted the garbage and
the sewage all around the strike.

And there, in the center where the bolt had
struck, was the caged pig, the animal squealing in a frightened
manner, but as alive as ever.

At this, the Mage was much pleased.

After that, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin ordered all
the caged pigs to be brought back to the palace where he had the
pig's iron-wire cages cut off. (Pig-like, the greedy animals had
gorged themselves until they were too fat to exit the cage doors
wherein they'd entered). The Mage then commanded the pigs to be put
back in their sty.

At last, Golden had understood. It was not
that John-Lyon-Pfnaravin loved pigs. It was that he was watching
for the effects on them of the bolts of lightning.

Confirming this new understanding, the Mage
had then had a suit of woven "wire" made for himself -- a mesh suit
that covered yet another suit is leather, both suits covering the
Mage's whole body, even his head! -- complete with boots that
fastened to the suit, the boots having nails?? that went through
the soles into the ground. Surely, the Mage had ordered this iron
suit because a similar "cage" had protected the pig from the evil
Mage's bolt, the suit of iron making the Mage safe from his rival's
lightning-magic. Of a greater mystery was the Mage's order for
"blankets" of leather covered iron wire to be made -- for what
purpose, Golden had no idea. (Golden should never doubt the Mage,
however, difficult as he was to understand. The Mage had his
reasons for what he did).

All seeming to be in readiness,
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin would soon travel to Azare to confront that
band's evil Mage-King.

Fervently, Golden hoped to be left behind.
After all, there was nothing he could do to help in this fight
against evil. Also, with John-Lyon-Pfnaravin gone from Xanthin
Island, Golden believed that palace security would be relaxed,
making it easier for Golden to slip past his guards so he could
hunt for the green crystal of Pfnaravin. Surely, if Golden found
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin's crystal, perhaps presenting it to the Mage
upon the Mage's return, the Mage would recognize Golden as the true
King of Malachite!

* * * * *

It was time to make the final arrangements.
Something John had thought about for a long time.

Dressed, as usual, in a stylish robe of
Cinnabar silk, gold piping along its edges -- the undersized
Platinia swallowed up by the chair behind him -- John sat at the
far end of the long, wood table in the war room, the people he'd
come to think of as his council seated down both sides of the
table, Coluth at the other end. Besides Coluth, the council
included the Navy Second, the Army Head and his Second, Gagar,
Leet, Robin, and Golden.

Everyone there at last -- the military men
dressed in formal, pale yellow uniforms with shiny sashes slashed
from left shoulder to right waist, the civilians in more
conventional tunics -- it was time to begin.

Down the table, Coluth rubbed his broad nose
which he sometimes did when preoccupied. Leet, when he thought no
one was watching, had lifted his paralyzed hand, making it look as
inconspicuous as possible by laying it in his lap. Nator's stocky
body filled his carved, wood chair, his metallic eyes focused on
the table before him.

Outside, the door was secured by the combined
guards of all the parties -- perhaps forty -- led by John's
personal guard, Whar.

Though not everything had come together as
quickly as John had hoped, events had gone well enough. First, the
capture of Xanthin, which turned out to be easier than John had
thought. The pitifully small army unit that the Malachites had left
to hold down Xanthin Island had been completely demoralized by what
appeared to them to be a much larger force of Stil-de-grain
military. (The dummies fastened to every other oar on the boats --
the oars wired together so the dummy's oars also moved -- plus the
army augmented by the addition of half the ships' sailors -- had
caused the quick surrender of the Malachites.)

With the young king installed again in his
capital -- and kept out of the way by Coluth who doted on the child
-- one of John's first directives was to have the harbor
"mined."

Made safe from direct attack by sealing up
the harbor, John had time to think himself out of the trap he'd
deliberately sprung on himself. For as expected, the Malachite Navy
had arrived shortly after John's forces had retaken Xanthin, the
Malachites with more than enough ships to block any attempt by the
decimated Stil-de-grain Navy to leave the island.

With food in increasingly short supply, what
John had been planning for the past few weeks had better work!

"As some of you know," John began, fighting
down the urge to start an impatient and certainly undignified
drumming of his fingers on the table, "I've been making
preparations to journey to the dark band." There was fidgeting
around the table, as there always was when someone mentioned that
place of evil. "I'm prepared offensively and defensively. Depending
on what's thrown against me, I'll have to improvise strategy on the
spot, of course. My ace in the hole is a weapon like this world has
never seen. Furthermore, unless he's got something else up his
sleeve, Auro can't hit me any more than he can hit houses protected
by lightning rods." John scanned the table to see little smiles on
the faces of Golden and Leet, Golden helping him with the
anti-lightning suit, Leet with the cannon.

"All that remains is the announcement of
those who will go with me. And the time of departure." John looked
at Coluth across the table, the big man as impassive as ever. A man
of great, good sense. "You, Coluth, and your crew, will man the
boat." If things went as John planned, the boat ought to streak
past the Malachite cruisers beyond the harbor entrance like they
were capsized in the swimming pool of a roach motel! If the
increased wind on the open sea didn't snap off the masts. Nothing
like a "cat" for speed. "I'll take Whar and several guards. It
never hurts to have marines."

John looked at Coluth to see if the Admiral
had any objections to taking that many troops. Saw none.

A negative of sailing in a catamaran was that
it didn't have the cargo space of more conventional ships, what
space there was taken up by food and by the cannon. Fortunately,
this world had fresh-water seas. No need to carry casks of drinking
water. John would need ponies to pull the cannon, and a supply of
Stil-de-grain messenger birds to tell the folks back home about his
brilliant successes (real or manufactured,) one of Gagar's people
to train the birds ........

"For magical punch, I think I'll also take
Zwicia and, of course, Platinia. Rounding out the crew, will be
Golden."

Golden, expressionless as usual, raised his
hand, John nodding in his direction. "Would I not serve best by
staying here?" the formal young man asked soberly.

A suggestion John had expected. No doubt
caused by John's decision to take Zwicia, Golden keeping what
distance he could from the Weird.

"Sorry, but I need you."

Not really.

Not for any military purpose. It was just
that something in the back of John's mind told him to watch Golden;
how else to do that but to take him along to Azare?

"Everyone else stays to defend the
island."

"I'm putting Mr. Robin in charge of the
palace." A harmless job to get the old man out of the way.

Rethinking Robin's conduct, to be fair about
it, he'd been no trouble. Rather like Zwicia, the old man kept to
himself, only surfacing when John included him in meetings.

Thinking about trouble, the real trouble John
had was with the palace staff -- all of them terribly glad to see
him. With Aber, the Prolocutor; Bachur, Plenipotentiary; LeVayer --
butler; Orig -- barber; Heimg -- Vice Legate; Deninia -- cook
...............

John wrenched his mind to the present. "Leet,
under Nator's overall command, will head his Malachite unit." In
spite of the Malachite officer's age and infirmity, Leet sat a
little straighter. All military. "It's your job, gentlemen," John
said, eyeing each of those named, "to keep this island in
Stil-de-grain hands until I return." The respective men bowed their
assent.

John looked around the table to see if anyone
disagreed with his plans.

Finding no one, John leaned back in his
chair, more relaxed than he'd been in weeks of anxious preparation.
"The rest of the day will be spent in loading the ship. You'll
oversee that, Coluth?" Coluth nodded. "I'll give you a list of what
I want included. Also, I'd like you to supervise dredging the mines
from the harbor. We don't want the Malachites to know the harbor's
clear, though, so you'll do that after they've rowed off to
tie-up." Again, the nod. "I'm putting you in charge," John said,
indicating Nator, "of plugging the harbor after we've left." Nator
saluted, the modified salute of Roman gladiators, right fist angled
across the chest.

John shifted his eyes to the others who he'd
selected for the trip. "Tomorrow -- and I know how hard this is --
I want everyone on board before up-light. I want to sail out of the
harbor at dawn. Get some maneuvering room on the open sea before
the Malachites return from their tie-up docks to reestablish the
blockade," a directive that brought the tightest of smiles from
those involved, no one wanting to be outside in the dark, even in
what people would admit was the general safety of the capital. It
was the usual fear of those -- so far nonexistent -- nocturnal
beasties that "attacked" by land or sea.

"I think that's it, gentleman," John
finished, a wave dismissing all but Platinia.

What remained -- as John's men shuffled out
-- was a final decision only John could make: whether or not to
take along the Mage-crystal of Stil-de-grain.

On the plus side, the gem had great power --
could unleash the same kind of magic lightning the dark Mage
bounced off the sky dome at Xanthin. Rub the gem, concentrate and
... wham!

The negative to taking the crystal was its
potential for driving its wearer insane.

John glanced across the room to his left, the
slant of the light coming through the empty room's only window
telling him he had some eighteen hours to make this crucial,
Mage-crystal decision.

Also plenty of time to consider -- again --
the even more frightening possibility broached by the doomed
Malachite ambassador.

Just how likely was it that, in defeat, a
crazed Auro could/would push the "button?"

After much thought, John had figured out how
Auro could accomplish world destruction, an idea John had gotten
from the way Auro was using the sky dome to angle bolts at
Xanthin.

Surely, this world of variable gravity bands
was an artificial construction, a kind of terrarium world -- as
historian Paul, back home, had called it upon hearing John's
description of the place. A flat world with a dome for a sky. A
dome that kept in the air they all breathed.

John's question of the moment was about the
sky dome's strength. About how long it would hold up to unusual
stress ... like having lightning bounced off it. Was it just John's
imagination or, during the middle of the day when the air was
clear, had he been able to distinguish dark spots on the
yellow-colored dome over Stil-de-grain, spots that increased in
number as the strikes continued? Spots that dark-Mage lightning
strikes had "chipped" into the dome?

If single strikes damaged the unnatural dome,
John had to wonder what would happen if, in a paroxysm of defeat,
the evil Mage-King loosed all his remaining power at the protective
sky-shell! Punch a hole in this sky and ......

John shook his head. With death by
depressurization at least a possibility, John's only course of
action was to get his crude, black-powder cannon close enough to
Auro to blow the dark Mage to bits before the evil sorcerer knew
what hit him!

"Something's wrong," John mumbled, stopping
in the middle of the dimly-lighted trail, wondering at the same
time how much of what he said could be understood. About as much as
he could grasp of what the women were saying, probably. Perhaps
five words in ten.

Behind him, the ponies came to an immediate
stop, the small animals glad to rest after wearisome miles of
dragging the heavy cannon cart through the soft dirt of the inland
road.

While John was troubled by this new
phenomena, he didn't feel threatened by it.

Curious. Here he was, walking into the teeth
of danger he knew nothing about, yet all he felt was ... numb.

Could his current unnatural calm be the
partial result of things going as well as could be expected?

Luck.

It'd been with him all the way.

To begin with, the necessary provisions had
"fit" into the catamaran's cramped cargo hold: first, the cannon,
tied down securely, its fuse roped to it in a watertight bag. In
addition, Coluth had been able to pack in enough food for man and
beast, extra clothing, coils of light rope, disassembled pony cart
(ponies "stabled" on deck before the masts,) John's protective suit
and the wire "shrouds" in another watertight sack, fire stone
torches, capped keg of gunpowder with ladle, cannonballs. Other
necessities included fishing equipment, pony harness, large cage of
golden messenger birds, casks for dipping water from the sea, cups,
dishes, extra clothing, carpentry tools, bandages, splints --
everything necessary to fix anything or anyone at sea.