Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (11 page)

"Zwicia."

It was the girl, Platinia. Beside Zwicia in
Zwicia's room.

"Zwicia here," the Weird grunted, the Weird
still half-asleep. Dreaming ... with the crystal's help. Chanting
to avoid the crystal-power. To keep from being snared by
crystal-traps.

"Zwicia, do not be afraid."

It was the girl.

"Zwicia see future."

"What did you see?" the girl asked,
timidly.

"No fear for you," Zwicia said, pointing a
fleshless finger at the disk, using her other hand to wipe sweat
and limp wet hair from her wrinkled face. "No fear for you."

The girl was relieved.

"The Mage who not Mage, come."

"What? I can't ... understand," the girl said
in her baby voice.

"The Mage who not Mage, come."

"The Mage?"

"The no Mage."

Suddenly, remembering, Zwicia screamed again,
the girl crying out as well, drawing back, the girl's hands
covering her frightened mouth. "The Mage," said Zwicia, trying to
explain. "A knife...!"

The Weird able to say no more, the girl
helped her to bed.

In the dark, wearing the rented tunic, which
was nothing but a simple shift with the addition of a yellow strip
he'd stitched on himself, John stood before the pie-shaped door
that led to the under-the-stairs passageway to the other world.
Beside him on the hall floor, was the old, hand-cranked static
electric generator. Late last night (after he'd dragged the
cardboard boxes out of that storage space and stacked them in his
den) he'd tried cranking the antique machine. Worked up a sweat
doing it. But found he could make the instrument put out the kind
of static he needed for the crossover.

Before shoving the generator into the black
space and revving it up, though, John wanted to make sure he had
everything with him that he would need in the other reality.

John had the iron "discount store" chain
around his neck, the steel-ringed, amber lens filter he'd purchased
from the camera store soldered to it. While the "gem" didn't look
exactly like the yellow Mage-crystal of Stil-de-grain, it should
resemble it enough to fool most people. (Although John hadn't
understood his fascination with Jiles' camera equipment that day in
the office, it was the yellow filter's resemblance to the Mage disk
that had "clicked" in his mind.)

Positive that the last thing John wanted on
this trip was to have anything to do with the dangerous, genuine
crystal, he thought he might be able to put a counterfeit disk to
use. What gave him influence in the other land, after all, was
possessing a Mage's crystal, any metal-ringed piece of yellow glass
about his neck good enough to fool the simple souls who lived
there. After all, he'd been there for months -- accorded every
privilege of a Mage -- before he'd learned how to use the real
crystal. (It had also occurred to him that it might be unwise to
flaunt the fake "medallion." Seeing the wisdom of concealing the
"gem" until he wished it to be seen, he'd tucked the yellow lens
filter inside his tunic top.)

First thinking about hiding the gold in one
of his boots, but deciding he was more likely to lose his boots
than his tunic, John opening a seam in the bottom of the rental
tunic and worked the gold chain into the tunic's hem, stitching
shut the opening.

Speaking of the tunic, he'd been delighted to
find that the costume people had sewed in a couple of pockets. Very
un-Stil-de-grain, but useful to a man unaccustomed to carrying
small necessities in belt-pouches.

He had on the rented boots -- less soft, less
comfortable that the ones he'd owned on the other side -- but
serviceable.

The necessities taken care of, he'd put a lot
of thought into what else he wanted to take along.

A small, .22 semi-automatic?

No.

He'd decided against that for personal
reasons. He'd never forgive himself if, in a moment of panic, he
shot one of those, helpless, medieval types. ... Not helpless, he
had to remind himself; just harmless compared to someone from a
more technically advanced civilization.

It also struck him as unwise to take
something with him that was clearly from another world. A
flashlight, for instance. A compass. Binoculars. A jackknife.

He had allowed himself one, modern advantage,
however -- something less modern than unavailable in the other
world.

Fire.

Nestling in his right, tunic pocket was a
brown cylinder of liquid butane, John considering the lighter to be
his "ace in the hole." Should he need extraordinary "magic" to get
out of trouble, real fire would trump the other world's magic-cool
flames. (What he'd say if someone saw the device and questioned him
about it, he didn't know, John trusting the small size of the
lighter to make it inconspicuous.)

The question still nagging him was whether or
not he was making this return trip for the right reasons?

To extend his life by going where time was an
irrelevancy?

To gain the undeserved respect he got as
Pfnaravin, Crystal-Mage?

Hardly admirable reasons.

Was he making the trip to satisfy his
curiosity about the outcome of the actions he'd set in motion when
in the other reality?

Or did he intend, like the last time, to help
the forces of good -- assuming they still needed his help --
against the followers of the evil Mage-King of Azare?

Might it even be that, in his loneliness, he
wanted to see some of his old "friends": Platinia, Golden, Coluth,
Zwicia -- none of them really his friends, though he'd come to care
for them.

Or could it be something as simple as
restlessness? Boredom? The feeling of rootlessness he'd had since
his parents' death?

Whatever the reason -- he was going.

Deciding on the trip yesterday, he'd worked
out the details, first and most important, what to do with Cream.
If this journey went like the last one -- months spent there, only
a day going by here, all he had to do was leave his cat plenty of
dry cat food, a bowl of water, and fresh clay in her litter pan,
Cream, like any cat, needing her human at feeding time. Her bodily
requirements satisfied, she might not even notice he was gone.

In the end, though, guarding against an
emergency, John had taken Cream to an animal boarding outfit,
paying in advance for a week of care (which would constitute maybe
two years of Stil-de-grain time. If John hadn't returned in a week,
the animal care people were to call Paul Hamilton, asking Paul to
find a good home for Cream. John hated to do that to Paul, (though
the possibility of Paul getting drawn into this was remote), John
not consulting Paul because his colleague had his own problems at
the moment. (It was also the case that Paul was dead set against
John having anything to do with the other world -- John's
determination to return to Stil-de-grain sure to come out if Paul
discovered John was boarding Cream.)

In the end, without talking to anyone, John
had taken a highly indignant Cream to the "animal farm."

Only one detail left. How to make certain the
old, hand-operated, static electric generator went with him to
Stil-de-grain, John solving that difficulty by passing a length of
rope under his belt, then through a slot in the machine's base --
tying the rope ends. Since his clothing had gone through with him
the last time, the generator would, too.

Above all, was John's desire not to get
stranded there, a risk he'd minimize by staying only a short while
-- then getting back out. A sensible scheme if anything about a
journey to another world could be called sensible!

It was dark outside. Cold and dark.

Was this another motive for going to
Stil-de-grain, a band that, though foggy at dawn and dusk and rainy
every night, was pleasantly warm during the day? Did it all come
down to John needing a vacation under a golden sky?

Just one more example of the less than
adequate reasons John had for returning to what he'd thought -- the
first time he'd gone there -- to be a dangerous place for a modern
man. A place that had turned out to be less threatening than he'd
believed. Completely safe, given his hand-cranked generator.
Nothing like being able to return to the good old USA at a moment's
notice!

He'd stalled long enough.

Squatting down, John picked up the machine --
this hand-cranked model weighing less than the electrically driven
Van de Graaff -- another plus.

Setting the generator on the floor in front
of the wedge-shaped hole, John used his foot to scoot the machine
into the space before getting down on his hands and knees to crawl
into the cramped, black area, John continuing to push the generator
ahead of him until they were both inside.

Sitting back, his head under the tallest
place of the steeply sloping "roof," John pulled the dynamo to
him.

First snubbing up on the rope, he felt for
the mechanism's handle; began grinding the electrostatic machine's
crank, the contraption's flat, vertical, plastic disks hissing as
they slid past each other, offering considerable resistance at
first, then slipping more easily as they picked up speed, the disks
emitting a sizzling sound as the apparatus' gears rotated at ever
increasing speed.

Yes!

John could feel the static on his body start
to build! Slower than with the electric model, but fast enough.

Ignoring the strain the cramped position put
on his cranking arm, disregarding the sweat popping out on his
forehead, setting his teeth, John turned the handle faster still,
John feeling his hair began to rise.

Faster. Faster! ........ Now!

Fully charged, no longer needing to turn the
handle, John released the crank, the generator whining down, John
elbowing his way further into the hole.

Impossibly, farther ... until ... like the
last time, he had the sensation of falling
......................

* * * * *

John awoke with the same, stunned sensation
he'd had on the first trip, to find himself in the tower room in
what he now knew was Hero Castle -- the room built over the spot
where the Hero (whoever he had been) was supposed to have left in
the distant past to enter John's world.

Rising shakily, John found himself standing
on the wet floor of that circular room, the space constructed of
large, curving, age-darkened stones, the golden light of
Stil-de-grain shining through a squared off hole in the two story,
stone-slab roof. About the hole, John had certain knowledge. In
order to produce the piezo effect of static electricity, Melcor,
had caused an earthquake, the temblor shaking the roof, large slabs
hurtling down to crush the unfortunate Stil-de-grain Mage.
.....

John was still thinking
fuzzily. Was conscious of feeling ... airy ... a response he'd also
experienced the first time he'd come through. ..... He felt ...
strong. Because he was. Conditioned to earth's gravity, John was
more powerful in Stil-de-grain than its weak gravity
natives.

Above all, John experienced ...
disorientation.

Sensing nothing in his hands, John glanced
down fearfully ... to find he was still holding what was now an
ultra light generator. He hadn't lost his ticket home!

Around him was the familiar, circular tower,
wedge-shaped recesses built into the ten-foot thick walls,
depressions that allowed defending archers access to cross-shaped
arrow slits.

The only furnishing in the turret was a
limestone slab table, stone benches paralleling it.

The floor was, if anything, slimier than when
he'd been here last, its stones appliqued with patches of
gray-green moss, the tower smelling even more musty than he
remembered.

No sign in the ageless, upper room of how
many days ... weeks .... months ........ years .... had passed here
compared to the time John had spent in his own world.

As John glanced around the room, the
super-light static electric device still in his arms, he realized
he'd been smiling -- both from the knowledge of the complete
success of his trip and from the tower's familiar look.

Back to reality.

For now, he had to locate a hiding place for
the generator, an out-of-the-way spot where no one was likely to
come across it, somewhere to put it until he had time to stash it
in a more secure hiding place. ......................

Under the stone table -- a too obvious choice
but the only one. (That this room was seldom used, was the
machine's best defense.)

Walking to the left, careful not to slip on
the scummy floor, John bent over to set the generator down; stooped
to untie the rope; used his foot to slide both rope and machine
under the table as far as he could.

Straightening up, stepping back, looking,
John was satisfied for now, the generator practically
invisible.

John had a recognizably uncomfortable feeling
-- cold knees. Followed by the irrational desire to pull the
knee-length tunic down over his legs. For someone from a
pants-preferring world, drafty tunics took some getting used
to.

Now that he thought about it, his bare
shoulders were cold, as well.

His mind functioning well enough, he was
ready to leave this tower room through the curving hall -- the
room's only exit -- after that lope down the castle's twisting
stone stairs to the lower floor.

Perhaps, to find Platinia?

One more glance about the room and John was
off, his boots slipping on the mossy floor before scuffling over
dryer hall-stones, John tap dancing down the first of many, slab
stairs, his heavy boots as light as ballet slippers in this band's,
weak gravity.

"Tripping" down short flights of irregular
steps, every hand-built corridor and stairway of the castle less
than "true," John wasn't surprised that the castle's byways
continued to confuse him. On the positive side, John reasoned that,
if he chose the twists and turns that took him down, he'd reach the
first floor where he knew his way around. On first, he could locate
the great room with its raised "harvest" table, high round,
windows, and vaulted ceiling, a room replete with tapestries
bleached by age into a uniform ivory, the wall coverings originally
embroidered with colorful, imaginary animals and ill-clad,
primitively-armed knights. If the Hero had gone to John's world and
returned to teach his people this kind of "castle-culture" (as the
natives believed) he had to have visited John's world in the early
Middle Ages. Leaving open the question of how the Hero, landing in
the center of North America among primitive, plains Indian's, got
to Medieval Europe. Then back again? Just another enigma of
world-to-world travel.