Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (14 page)

No.

All her plans were ruined. She had lost her
chance to kill him. Now, no matter what he ordered her to do, she
must obey. She would look for another chance to make him dead ...
but it would be a long, long time. Again, she was the slavey of
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin. As John-Lyon-Pfnaravin was, again, the
Crystal-Mage of Stil-de-grain.

She had a sudden, horrible thought! Had the
man, Golden, found the green crystal of Pfnaravin that King Yarro
had hidden in Xanthin Palace? If so, would Golden give it to the
Mage?

She shuddered again, sweat running down her
face unnoticed. She did not want to think about a double Mage!
There was too much terror in that thought!

Trying to hide her mind, even from herself,
she waited in the hall. There was nothing else that she could
do.

So, she waited, cold in the damp hall. Cold,
though she wore her long, black robe.

Presently, she heard a sound. It was the
thunk-thunk sound of Mage-boots on the stone floor. He was coming
out.

In a wild hope, Platinia thought that, maybe,
someone else had known of the secret hiding place! That someone
else had stolen the Mage-crystal! That there was still a chance of
killing this John-Lyon-Pfnaravin before he got his power back!

Turning, she saw that he had something in his
hand. A ... paper ....."Did you find ...?"

For an answer, the Mage pulled the yellow
disk from his tunic front. It was on the chain about his neck.

Quickly, Platinia turned her eyes away.
Though the golden crystal had a different look, there was no doubt
it was around his neck.

Thinking about crystal-power, Platinia
trembled so that she could hardly stand. Looking up again, she was
relieved that the Mage had put the crystal back beneath his tunic.
She could think again.

"Are you feeling all right," the Mage asked,
suddenly.

Before she could scream, his hand was on her
face! Touching her cheek! Touching her forehead! "You're sweating.
Do you have a fever?" .....

Desperately, Platinia probed the Mage's mind
........

No.

In his mind, the Mage had no wish to harm her
now. She could feel that. Feel that as she touched his mind with
hers. Instead, he felt ... pity. Why, she did not know.

She also did not know how to answer the
Mage's question. When he asked questions, she almost never knew the
answers. He had asked about a ... fever. She did not know what that
was.

"I ... I ..."

"Don't worry, Platinia. I don't think you've
got a temperature. You're not sick, just frightened." Sick??
Temperature?? "We'll get out of this yet. You're afraid of the
soldiers? Is that is?"

"Yes." That was true. Platinia was also
afraid of them. They were men.

"Melcor had a couple of other things in his
hiding place. A book. And this." He showed her the piece of
paper.

Though the paper frightened her, he made her
look. The page had lines on it. That was all that she could
see.

"It's a map. If I don't miss my guess, more
than a map. An architect's blueprint of Hero Castle." Architect???
Blueprint??? "I don't know a lot about the castle but I do
recognize some of the rooms and the dining hall."

He was looking at the ... map ... now. His
mind was on the map, not on hurting her. And that was good. "Though
I've got to study this a bit more, I think that it shows an
underground tunnel out of here. ... A secret passage underground,"
he added when he thought she failed to understand.

Of course there was a Mage-hole in the
castle. Everyone knew that. Mages had secret ways of travel. Though
she knew little of the world, even she knew that!

True, Melcor had never taken her inside the
castle through his secret hole. But he had one. Maybe more than
one. Everyone knew that about a Mage's castle.

"Platinia." The Mage's eyes were upon her,
making her shrink into herself. "You must tell no one about the
tower hiding place." Though her tongue failed to speak, she nodded.
"I've put a spell on the door so that it's death, even for you, to
open it again." She barely had the strength to nod.

The Mage smiled his loving/evil smile,
knowing she must obey. "You said that Zwicia is still here?" She
had told him that when he had asked before. While he was
eating.

She nodded.

"If this is what I think it is," he said, his
lips smiling under his knifepoint eyes, his finger pointing at the
... blueprint?? "we can get in and out of the castle anytime we
like. Nothing like an ace in the hole to use in an emergency."

Ace in the hole???

When Mages spoke, who knew what they might
mean?

Platinia knew more about the castle than she
would admit, John decided, as, bound for Zwicia's room, he followed
the girl down the irregular stone steps that led away from the
tower. Knew the byways of the castle quite well (most of which
she'd taken him down, for some reason, when she'd led him to the
tower room.) He wondered if, using her knowledge of the keep, he
might be better off to hide in some out-of-the-way spot in the
castle than to try to escape from it. ......

Decided against that.

He'd already asked Platinia how the war was
going and she didn't know any more about the fate of Stil-de-grain
than he did. To learn what had been going on -- ostensibly his
purpose for coming back to Stil-de-grain -- he had to get out of
the citadel. Find some way to mingle with the band's more
knowledgeable natives.

If the paper he'd found in Melcor's hiding
place was a blueprint of the castle, he should be able to locate
Melcor's "escape" route, a discovery that would not only get John
outside where he could question people about the war, but also give
him his own private entree to the turret room and ... home.

What luck! Platinia knowing where Melcor hid
the book, the hidey-hole proving to be big enough for the static
electric generator. (No sense advertising that he had the device
with him. Which was why he'd sent Platinia from the room while he
retrieved the machine from under the stone table and hid it in the
wall space.)

Clever way to disguise a hiding place. Who
would believe, in a primitive building like this, that the fifth
stone up in the dead center of the far wall was a "capstone," the
wall "hollowed out" behind it, that block certainly looking as
solid as the rest of the wall. And was, as long as you weren't
pulling it straight out into the room. Who, after all, would
accidentally tug on what appeared to be a building block?

John's first look in the cavity had shown him
his Mage-gem, pulsing with a faint, golden glow against the
blackness of the pit.

He'd also run into a small book in the
"safe," John lifting it out to crack open the black, embossed
leather binding, and ruffle through what looked like white leather
pages. Scraped calf skin? Goat skin? A glance at the book's spidery
script (in what could have been gold leaf) had told him he wouldn't
be able to read writing that small. (Assuming he could read it,
that reading in this world worked like speaking, daylight magic
serving as a universal translator for print as well as for oral
communication.)

Unable to do anything with the book right
then, John had put it back, pushing it out of the way.

It was when going for the crystal that John
found himself trembling. After all, he'd brought the fake disk so
he wouldn't be exposed to the danger of wearing the real one, a
sensible enough plan at the time. Now though, with Malachite
soldiers running about the castle .....

The question was: why not have the real gem
handy in case he got in trouble? The answer: because wearing a
Mage-gem could drive you crazy. Literally! ..................

Was there a compromise to be found in the
word: wearing? For instance, what if he didn't wear the real
crystal, but had it with him just in case? That way, he could gain
all the respect he needed by showing the lens-crystal about his
neck. Failing to impress, he'd have immediate access to the
Mage-gem.

With the Malachites on the loose, not a bad
idea. Furthermore, if he felt himself unduly influenced by the
close proximity of the gem, he could put it somewhere out of the
way.

Delay increasing the chance of being
discovered with every minute that passed, John looked into the hole
again. Saw that faintly pulsing glimmer of golden light, the
crystal, on its chain, calling to him.

Trembling with both desire to have the
crystal and fear of it, John had forced himself to stick one hand
into the hole.

Watching as best he could, he stretched his
hand up and over the mystic book, extending his fingers to pat
around the luminescent gem, delicately, until he felt the squirm of
metal. Certain it was the necklace, with exaggerated care, he
lifted the chain an inch without touching the disk. Looping a
finger through the metal links, he gently raised the chain, the
crystal sliding away from his fingers to the bottom of the
necklace.

After that, with infinite care, John gentled
the crystal out of the hole, the disk now looking like nothing but
a two-inch in diameter circle of clear, gently curving, amber
colored glass.

Holding out the top of his left tunic pocket,
John dribbled in the gem and its chain.

Good. He had it but hadn't touched it, the
disk an "insurance policy" which, like all insurance policies, he
hoped he'd never have to use!

It was after retrieving the gem that he'd
shoved the static electric generator in the hiding place -- a tight
fit -- while scraping in the generator, turned up the paper which,
unfolded, he recognized as a blueprint of the castle!

Refolding the parchment, keeping it, he'd
swung the stone "cap" back into position and pushed it into the
wall to cover the hiding place.

To Platinia's question about whether or not
he'd found his Mage-crystal, he'd showed the girl the fake disk,
finding he'd been right about the effect that even an amber colored
piece of glass would have on the simple people here. Respect!
(Respect, translated terror!)

In spite of the unpleasant surprise of
finding Malachite soldiers on the premises -- what it came down to
was that things were working out better than he had any right to
hope.

"Are you sure that Zwicia will come with us?"
Platinia had already indicated as much, John asking that question
again to try to stimulate a quiet chat as they walked along.

What he got was an affirmative nod, serving
him right for asking a question Platinia could answer by nodding.
"How much further?"

"Soon."

A great little conversationalist, Platinia.
Too bad there wasn't much of a living to be made as a child-sized
mime.

So they continued padding along in silence
(silence not a bad idea with soldiers in the castle.)

Down and down, creeping through castle
corridors by the gloomy light that filtered through narrow, lofty
windows. Or, where there were no windows, prowling by the
shadow-light of irregularly placed fire stone ceiling torches,
torches that were kept burning at all times in those airless halls,
John imagined. A good use for magical torches. No heat. No burning
out. No refills necessary. Just torches that, once thought alight,
would burn forever -- unless someone thought them out.

Torches.

Did he remember that, on his last trip, the
torches of Stil-de-grain looked ... brighter? Less ...
flickery?

Without warning, Platinia stopped, John
almost running over her!

Looking up at him, her brown eyes resembling
holes in the general dark, the girl motioning John to silence.

Yes. He could hear it now. Ahead of them. A
sound. Talking.

Careful not to snag the map on Platinia's
black robe -- her garment, like her eyes and hair, invisible in the
shadowed penumbra of far-spaced torches -- John edged past the girl
to take the lead, both of them slipping down the hallway,
themselves hardly more than ghosts in that windowless
passageway.

"Don't you think we have to tell the Head?"
said a male voice, the nearness of the speaker startling John to a
sudden stop, the voice coming from a branch of hall just ahead.

John held his breath.

Listened intently.

"You going to tell him?" Another voice. Both,
men's voices. Soldiers?

"No reason for it. He don't have to hear." A
third voice.

Creeping forward at dead slow, John --
Platinia trailing -- came to an intersection in the hall.

With utmost caution, John leaned out to look
around the corner. Jerked his head back, that quick glance showing
him several soldiers; less than ten paces down the branching
corridor; at what looked like a guard post.

Another peek.

Two soldiers were seated to the right, behind
a rough, thick, wood table, a third standing before the table. Not
standing. Pacing. When John had first looked, the man --
fortunately -- was walking the other way.

Farther on was an end wall with a heavily
braced door, wide strips of black iron riveted to it in triangular
patterns. The back gate of the stronghold?

John felt a gentle tug on the back of his
tunic. Platinia, wanting him to back away from the soldiers.

Putting his hand behind him, John waved her
off.

"What about Gouter, will he tell?" First
soldier.

"Gouter's so drunk he couldn't remember his
mother's name."

"After he sobers up, I mean."

"No. All we got to do is tell him not to and
he won't."

"I don't like it." That was the first voice
John had heard, the voice of the soldier who was striding up and
down, nervously, his military boots clicking with agitated
regularity on the flagstones of the connecting hall, making a
scraping sound as he turned at either end of his "run."