Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (10 page)

"What I'm looking for is pure gold."

"That would be your 24 karat chain, then.
Nothing like the weight and feel of pure gold."

Knowing John's preference, the jeweler
selected several chains of varying length, taking them off
rectangular display cards, trailing each one on a dark blue, velvet
pad.

"How much is this one?" John asked, pointing
at the shortest and simplest chain. John was buying gold for
something other than looks, after all.

"Three hundred dollars." John tried to
suppress a non-jewelry buyer's gasp.

"And the others?"

"Somewhat more."

"It's a present for a friend," John lied
smoothly. "If, for some reason, my friend doesn't like it, I could
bring it back?"

"Naturally, sir. We have a ten day, full
refund policy."

Ten days should do it. Plenty of time to
decide whether or not to tempt fate by making another, otherworldly
trip.

Even with a ten day grace period to get
himself out of financial trouble if need be, John had to make a
hasty calculation of his dwindling funds before he decided it was
safe to write the check.

The check accepted, John had another
question. "You also do jewelry repair?"

"Certainly. This is hardly K-mart."

"Would it be possible to solder something on
an iron chain?"

"Might I suggest ... a welder for such a ...
purpose?" John had truly hurt the man's sensibilities.

"No. I have in mind, something in the jewelry
field. Something that would take ... delicate work. The kind only a
jeweler could do."

"That would be no problem, then," the man
said, somewhat mollified

* * * * *

"Again? So soon?" This time, John had tracked
the physics prof. to his office, John standing just inside the
door.

"As I think I said, I didn't have time for
the experiments. Had to get the machine back to you like I
promised."

"A day late," John noting that, if you ever
wanted something forgotten, Fredericks wasn't your man.

"This time, instead of borrowing the Van de
Graaff, how about loaning me the hand-cranked generator? Unless
it's in use."

"Don't use it at all. No need to."

"Can you develop the same power with the
older model that you can with the electric one?"

"Just a matter of elbow grease."

"Then would be all right if I borrowed it for
a longer period?"

"Don't see why not."

* * * * *

Leaving two more trips for later in the week;
one to a camera store, John finally figuring out what had so
intrigued him about Jiles' camera accessories; another to the
discount store for a costume jewelry chain. Plus a return trip to
the jeweler.

After that, the weekend approaching, it was
time to have a long, rational talk with himself about the pros and
cons of taking another trip ... to never-never land!

Zwicia grunted. Always, as she stroked the
violet crystal, there was pain. Yet she moved her fingers lovingly
over the purple surface until the crystal began to turn to
gray.

Were the pictures forming? So soon?

No.

In the disk-as-mirror, she was seeing her
wrinkled self. Withered face, hands like the talons of an eagle.
Hair, thin and gray, and fluttering above her head.

She was in her room in this cold, stone keep.
Alone. Sitting on her chair beside her narrow bed, her crystal flat
on the rough table before her.

As she watched, the crystal cleared so that
she saw, not her reflection from its surface, but down into the
disk. She looked, as a watcher from a bank sees bright, quick fish
through calm, translucent water.

What? What, this time?

Though stiff with age, her fingers seemed
young again as they slid across the surface, then around the edges
of the glass, so that, looking past her fingertips, she beheld the
shifting images within the disk's center.

Pictures. Deeper. Clearer.

Yes! She saw again -- what she often saw at
first -- the melting center of the world, luminous with heat, its
light so blinding she mumbled a charm against the burning.

On black ledges stood the men of old. The
Founders.

Magic shields sheltered them from the heat,
their heads within hollow balls of radiant glass. They used ...
machines ... to heat the earth's core below until the rock, flaring
hot, was melted! Until the heart-stones of the world were liquid
fire! Until rock rivers pooled to form the liquid, golden yoke of
Eolia, mother-earth!

Though, this time, the disk did not show the
world from outside itself, Zwicia had seen that in the past.
Watched the Founders from afar as they flew to this world in their
hawk-machines. Had seen them descend through the mouths and cramped
cave corridors to stand on ledges, from which they heated up the
core far below until the rock was flaming -- white hot --
molten.

This was a vision of Zwicia's world at its
borning. She was sure.

After the suited men had fired the igneous
middle -- they withdrew, jumping from the black ledges to float ...
up.

Zwicia could see the vast, hollow mountain
around them, its peak rising over the world's middle. See the
Founders put in place the vitreous ball at the mountain's summit
(like a jeweler sets a gem stone into the high pronged mounting of
a ring.) Use their magic to start the crystal's slow rotation.

This languid, turning ball was the orb, its
revolution encompassing a single day and night.

Starting the day, like an eye opening, the
crystal cast its light upon the sky-dome edge, the reflection of
the crystal's rays shining down as rings of colors -- at the edge,
red. Inward: orange, yellow, green, blue with violet above the
hollow mountain of the eye.

On turned the slowly wheeling crystal-sphere
until it was full day, after which, its dark, nether hemisphere
began to rotate up.

Steady as the advance of death, the eye was
closing, the blackness spreading to the dome above, the dark rays
putting out the light, of Hyet, father sky.

Until night fell everywhere upon the
land.

Though endlessly and forever fascinating, she
had seen it all before. The men. The center of molten, mother
earth. The crystal eye of day and night. The shell of encompassing
father sky with its colored bands.

What did it mean? She did not know, except
that she was certain this was her world.

Still looking into the darkening crystal's
depth, she saw a shift of image ... saw ... the cave.

That, she had also witnessed. The cave and
the long, long tunnel leading to the cave. Where? Did she remember
the tunnel mouth as being in the band of Malachite? In the
mountains on the up-light side?

The picture quavering like calm water stirred
with fingertips, she was in another place. A place of stony walls
and soldiers and the ... girl. The present place.

All were striving to bring back the Mage --
who, though mighty, was no Mage.

Zwicia concentrated, attempting to see if the
man would come again. Tried to tease a vision of the future as she
sometimes could -- a difficult and dangerous thing to do.

Others, desiring a glimpse of their own
afterwards, paid Zwicia silvers to show the path ahead. But it was
not wise. In the future, everyone was old. In the future, everyone
was dead.

No one wanted to be old and dead.

Yet now, she tried to see ahead. A little
ways. Though it made her tremble!

Mumbling a chant to protect her from the full
might of the crystal's power, the Weird concentrated .....

There!

A pale glow. Always that glow when seeing
forward, like the bright haze upon the ground at up-light; like
seeing through a shining mist of waterfalls.

Peering within the fog-bright of the disk,
what did she see? Faint. ... Faint. .......

Was it a ... machine? Was it a machine,
coming to this very place? A strangeness she had never seen
before.

Carried by someone she could not see; because
he was in shadow.

Still carrying his machine, he turned, Zwicia
recognizing the Mage -- who was no Mage.

Zwicia looked closer, mumbling the chant
louder against the evil of foreknowledge.

Yes. It was the man.

In a room, she thought, in this rocky ...
bastion.

Alone.

The man was all alone.

With his machine.

Looking ... here ... and there ... a smile
upon his face.

Suddenly, the disk turned dark.

Zwicia was afraid! Afraid of being in the
dark, the dark caused by the combined sorcery of Crystal-Mages!

Calming herself with the knowledge that this
was not the real time, she wondered where she was? ... In a band?
In the ... dark of Azare's band?

Azare, blue in the long ago, now kept dark
with crystal-magic. Dark with Evil!

Ahead ... she sensed ... people. She sensed
... white.

She did not so much see the people as know
that they were there, so many hearts, beating to one purpose.

Digging ... digging in the ground. Deeper.
Deeper. Deep. Deep. Deep. Deep. Deep. Deep. .........

With a straining of the will, Zwicia wrenched
herself free from that crystal-trap. Returned from spinning down
and down, like the people digging in the pit. Deeper. Deeper
.....

Above all, she must be on her guard against
the crystal's traps, mind-loops that could spin the watcher around
and down a dizzying vortex to an enchanted place were, even a
Weird, could not escape.

This time, she quickly dragged herself from
the sucking snare before it was too late.

Quaking, as from a height, she saw herself
cowering in the dark of a future time.

Of a sudden, rays of light pierced the black
of a blinded night! One. Two rays shot toward her, but high above
the tops of trees that, now that she could see them, were all
about.

Forked shafts of jagged white arched down,
crackling as they hit the ground. Nearer. NEARER!! Crashing!
Crashing as the flares of light fell near!

Fell to strike ... the trees ... gray trees,
black, withered trees, trees with no leaves or life. A ghost forest
surrounded her, the jagged spears striking its old, dead trees, the
trees splitting, the shattered trunks striking the ground with deep
report; dead limbs cracking off as the half-trunks buried
themselves into soft, black earth.

Zwicia was afraid!

Muttering her most sacred chant, she bent to
the disk, seeing ... others ... with her on the path.

Did she see the Mage who was no Mage? And the
... girl?

Lxlop!

She saw the deadly creatures all around her!
.......

Without warning, they were gone. She was
safe.

Beyond the dark, did she see ... light? A
sliver beam of vertical light above the dead trees? Light ... from
the pit .....?

She was unsure.

There was a noise. Beside her in the room. In
the present. A noise that was the sound of her name spoken.

"Zwicia."

Too far away. Too far away to drown out the
crystal-images that she saw.

"Zwicia."

Again, the noise.

There was another visualization, now. Growing
in the disk.

The glow was gone. The future glow ....

She was seeing, once again, the distant
past.

Somehow, she knew this. That it was ... long
ago.

Underground. She was underground again,
floating in a cored-out mountain. Below ground where the Founders
had heated up the inner earth until it glowed with light and
power.

Plummeting from holes above ... she saw ...
water.

Water, earth-heat at the center quickly
boiling it to steam, the steam rising. Rising. Rising. Rising.
Rising .....

Rising ....

Zwicia was weary. Weary with breaking out of
crystal-traps.

And still the pictures came, a steam cloud
boiling up to find its way into the light through high peak
slit-holes. Hissing! Bubbling! Steaming!, the blistering, white
cloud condensed to scorching water drops to collect along a narrow
mountain ridge, the drops splashing down to become a stone-ribbed
rill.

Frothing down the mountainside to join other,
boiling streamlets.

Farther down, the rivulet bubbling over high
peak falls, the water cooled. Enough that, presently, the creek
could sustain life. Had within it, fish. Fish. Swimming.

Flowing more quietly through the foothills,
sleepy insects buzzed above the stream, the stream's bank busy with
grass and yellow flowers.

Here and there were willows, their sad,
supple, light green branches waving to the ground.

Joined by other brooks, the cooling stream
formed, finally, into a tributary. Narrow first, and swift.

Which, presently, fed by other runnels, grew
into a river broad and deep, its course lined with high plains'
trees. Oaks. Elms. The mighty cottonwood.

Meandering through the plain, the wide water
approached the delta ridge (on the sea, called the Leech) where all
waters end, the sluggish flood draining into a far-flung sinkhole
in the ground; there, to slide down dark and silent cavern floors.
Draining lower, ever lower until cascading into the fiery center of
the world, there to be hissed to steam again, ascending to condense
into hot rain.

Forever and forever.

"Zwicia."

Again, the sound. The sound of Zwicia's
name.

Louder, now that Zwicia was so tired.

The crystal-image shifted.

There was the Mage who was no Mage.

There was a ... dagger.

No!

Zwicia must give warning!

No! No! No! No! No!

The knife was ... struck .........

"Zwicia."

Exhausted, the Weird lost concentration, her
aching fingers old and stiff and clawed, the disk turned opaque
again, the pictures ... gone.