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

"Have you seen Pfnaravin here?"

"I ... I ..."

"Speak up. The Mage cannot harm you now that
we have come in force."

"I ... He was here, Head soldier," whined the
graybeard in the high, thin voice of age. "Leastwise, a man was
here that folks said was him. I seen him. But ..."

"But ...?"

"But he isn't here no more. Not so's a body
can ... see ... anyway." At that, the bent-over dotard looked all
around, as if expecting ghosts.

Leet, too, felt compelled to peer into the
stone cooled shadows of the out-sized room. Who knew about the
powers of such a Mage?

Superstition.

Unworthy, even in an aging half-man!

"If he is elsewhere ...." -- a likely
prospect since Leet and his band of penetrators were still alive --
"... where has he gone?"

"None can say," the man piped, head shaking
vigorously, eyes still on his muddy shoes. "Here ... then gone, he
was."

Leet backed up a pace. Fixed stony eyes on
the others in the trembling line. "Can you say, any of you, where
the Mage has gone?"

Increased weeping from the women.

"You," Leet said, taking two, quick side
steps to face an aged drudge. "Where has the Mage, Pfnaravin,
gone?"

She only shook her head. Could no more find
her tongue than if it had been pulled out by the root.

Another sidestep. "And you?" A shake of the
head. Another. "And you?" A mumble in the negative.

"If I may suggest, revered Army Head ..."
lisped the banded priest, "it's" voice behind Leet's back as
chilling as the rasp of knives on well oiled stones, "... there are
... ways ... to loosen tongues. Many. Some of which I carry on my
person."

Torture.

The mulish creature spoke of torture.

A special "art" of priests in Malachite as in
other bands.

A maimed man himself, Leet was loathe to
injure others. In the heat of war, a necessity. In cold blood, an
abomination! Yet ....

Leet was no more free to make his own
commands than were his men. He also followed higher orders, in this
case, to secure Pfnaravin at all cost. A directive with which Leet
agreed. That hoary Mage could not be allowed to roam free to loose
his magic on the soldiers of Malachite. Earlier in this very war,
said rumor, Pfnaravin (newly returned from the other world) had
destroyed a vast, automaton force sent from the black band itself.
Withered them with forks of crystal-magic.

Leet shuddered. Ran the fingers of his good
hand through his short cut, graying hair. He preferred to think of
anything but Mages. Or of their dangerous powers. For him, it was
enough that there was magic in the light. Common magic. Torch
magic. Cooking magic. Band battles, on the other hand, should be
fought out man to man. Or in his case, half-a-man to man.

Thank the gods of earth and sky that he had
never married! That he had no children for the policies of kings
and priests to rend limb from limb. Nor were his parents living, a
mother or father who could be made to live too long -- screaming --
if Leet failed his king. No. Duty alone, made Leet serve Lithoid.
Serve him unwillingly, perhaps. But serve him nonetheless. If Leet
was not pledged to king and country, he was not a soldier. If he
was not a soldier, he was not any kind of man.

But torture ....! An anathema!

"Should the Head be too tender for this
work," whispered the hairless priest, bobbing his banded head
obsequiously, "I, myself, could relieve you of the task by
undertaking the examination of these slaveys. My only need would be
a number of robust soldiers to restrain them while I do my work."
Looking at the priest who had oozed up to stand beside him, Leet
saw a smile of ecstasy on Dockw's powdered face. "Perhaps a touch
of burning pepper on the lips or tongue or on some other, tender
spot. Or rubbed into the eyes! A most salutary effect on stubborn
tongues, I can assure you from experience." The prickless castrate,
eyes closed in anticipation, was stroking his own body with soft
fingers: sensuously. "If slow results are feasible, a soaked band
of ox hide, bound about the head. Slowly to shrink, until the eyes
bulge from their sockets."

A cleansing thought blazed through Leet's
mind! A quick thrust of Leet's sword -- even if hefted by a one
hand cripple -- would have a "salutary effect" on the life of this
loathsome "it!"

Calming himself, the Army Head sighed.
Crossed his chest with his live, left arm to finger the scar down
his right cheek.

The ugly truth was that this odious
emasculate could well be right. People lied. Even simple slaveys
such as these. Misplaced loyalty. Fear. Promise of payment for
dissembling. Though it was not the business of a soldier, other
means were sometimes needed to secure the truth.

Torture.

Perhaps a minimal amount to blunt a charge of
negligence. A modicum of suffering to prevent a greater
tragedy.

But who to choose as victim/sacrifice for all
the rest? If possible, a dull-wit who would suffer little pain.

Looking down the line, Leet saw the perfect
choice; strode to line's end to stand before a withered hag dressed
all in lavender. "What is your name?"

"Nam?"

"Name."

"It Zwicia." The old woman's withered,
bird-claw hands were waving as if beyond control.

"I will ask you only once," Leet said, his
voice as deadly as a dagger drawn. "A hideous fate awaits you if I
even think you lie. ... Where is the Mage, Pfnaravin?"

"Mag'?" After that single word, the crone
began to mutter to herself.

"Tell me where he is or pay the price!"

"Don' kno'. He go. But he com' bak'."

"When is he coming back?"

A pause. More hand waving by the hag.
Mumbling.

Insane.

The perfect selection. Her mind already gone,
she would die quickly. Painlessly.

Thinking these thoughts, Leet resolved he
would be the one to hold the woman for the priest. Attempt to snap
the harridan's wrinkled neck ....

Leet felt shame redden his dark face.
Formerly the proud Head of cohorts, he had been overjoyed to be
summoned from obscurity; had been gratified even to receive this
doomed command. Now, he knew himself for what he was. The
executioner of crones.

Stripped to the savage truth, there were no
other tasks a crippled soldier could perform.

"And how's the Mage of Stil-de-grain today?"
growled Paul Hamilton, papa bear to a small department of
historians at Kansas City's Hill Top College. Paul could play fast
and loose with what they both knew must remain a secret because
only the two of them arrived that early in the morning. John Lyon
-- Crystal-Mage of Stil-de-grain. A far cry from John Lyon, junior
member of the "Hills" history department.

Paul hung up his overcoat on the door hook,
then turned to thump down heavily in his creaking swivel chair. For
all his bluster, the big man had the killer instinct of Gentle Ben.
"Still having trouble sleeping?" Quick, topic changes was Paul's
specialty.

Not sleeping.

Insomnia was the way this improbable
adventure had begun.

The first hint of the bizarre had come early
in the semester, right after John found he'd been conned into
buying a haunted house, not haunted by ectoplasmic apparitions, but
by noises emanating from a triangular-shaped storage space beneath
the front hall stairs. Rain sounds came from there and a faint,
ululating atonality that John recognized as chanting. The noises,
plus the sudden feeling that a "presence" was shadowing him, had
John questioning his sanity -- not a prescription for a sound
night's sleep. (Supporting a "mental difficulties" explanation of
John's noises, was the trauma John was suffering from his parent's
recent death.) What was certainly the case was that he "heard"
those strange noises -- sometimes by day, sometimes by night.

Adding to John's discomfort was the parched
atmosphere in the long abandoned house; with the predictable,
static build-up on everything and everybody. Sparks of static
snapped ominously whenever John walked across his nylon carpet.
Static sizzled in his cat's thick coat when he petted her; crackled
with cold-fire anger when Cream galloped after imaginary mice.

It was when his static-charged Persian had
vanished into that storage space under the stairs that John began
to hallucinate the possibility that the harmless looking space
might be linked to "another reality." Could this hollow under the
stairs be a kind of "tunnel" through which electrically charged
objects -- Cream had disappeared under there -- traveled to some
other place? A speculation that led John to the ultimate question:
if he were sufficiently electrified, could he crawl under the
stairs to another world?

Crazy!

Crazy, but enough of a possibility for John
to borrow a Van de Graaff generator from Hill Top's Physics
Department (allegedly to recreate some electrical experiments of
Benjamin Franklin.)

What had finally given John the courage to
make the attempted passage, was a promise to himself that, if the
experiment failed, he would check into Tri-county's mental ward!
What he'd certainly never expected was the girl, Platinia, to be
transported from the other world's Stil-de-grain to ....

With a start, John realized his department
chairman had asked him a question. About John's health.

"I'm doing OK, Paul. Not sleeping too well.
More from the strain of having so many preps than for any other
reason. Next semester's got to go better."

"Teaching Western Civ's a bitch," growled the
Hawaiian-shirted, big man. "So much to cover. Having the dates back
up on you for half the course while you're in the B.C. period."

"If I can get through it once ...."

"You're right. The first semester's the
dragon. Slay that, and the rest's a breeze." The chair groaned
again as the chairman rotated it toward John. "Which reminds me.
You remember my telling you that, last spring, the administration
got the notion that we should all plunge into "community service"
-- start giving talks to men's clubs -- that kind of thing?"

"I know." It was all John could do to keep
from moaning.

"Forget it."

..... "What?"

"I said, forget it."

"It's off?"

"Unfortunately, no. It's off for you,
though."

"But just yesterday, I saw the dean when I
was in the mail room, and he asked me what I was planning for
community service."

"Sure. But that's the dean talking. This is
your department chairman speaking." Paul scowled ominously, his
high forehead wrinkling with pretended menace.

"I hear, and I obey." John salaamed.

It was impossible to overstate the positive
influence Paul Hamilton had on John. Officed with the big,
sloppily-dressed bruin meant John could get instant advice from the
only member of the department who could be said to "have it all
together." Dr. Paul -- historian hero. The one man John would
eventually like to be. If for no other reason than Paul was married
to the elegantly beautiful artist, Ellen -- the two of them having
the statistically perfect, 2.4 children. (Correction. Since another
month had passed in Ellen's pregnancy, closer to 2.6 children.)

"The rest of us, of course," Paul rumbled
after a period of introspection, "are stuck with it. You too, next
semester -- if this latest fad isn't replaced by yet another
administrative aberration."

"I'm favored because ...?"

"Because I can still remember how much I had
to sweat to be a productive teacher when I was just starting."

"But the dean ...."

"Be assured. You are covered, my boy, by the
mantel of my protection."

The most telling evidence of the force of Dr.
Paul's persona, was that he was respected, not only by students and
colleagues, but by librarians, administrators, and by the most
important people in the successful operation of any enterprise,
custodians. "Actually, I've given little talks here and there and
it's not too bad," the chairman continued, Paul more hopeful than
convinced. "Projecting yourself into the community does make
favorable propaganda for the college."

Paul rubbed his forehead with the fingers of
both, giant hands. Then grinned. "On a grander scale, have you
thought about approaching the "National Enquirer" with your
off-world experiences? I can see the headlines now: History Prof.
Becomes Pfnaravin, Crystal-Mage of Stil-de-grain!

Pfnaravin!

The dreaded name! Recalling the childhood
chant: "I'm rubber, you're glue. What you say bounces off me and
sticks to you."

After passing (to his almost complete
surprise) into the "other reality," John had been mistaken for the
other world's lost Wizard, Pfnaravin. Nor could John do anything to
dissuade the simple folk of that most medieval place he was not
Pfnaravin, Mage of Malachite. (How he also became Mage of
Stil-de-grain was a tale he didn't even want to think about.)

Was Paul right to assume it was this same
Pfnaravin -- pronounced by Kansas City locals: Van Robin -- who had
built John's house in the long ago after "coming through" the other
way? Built the house to protect the "gateway" between "here" and
"there"? Could this be the Van Robin who'd showed up in the obits
as dying recently at a local nursing home?

"Hi there, good people," said a high, baby
soft voice.

John spun around. Who ...!?

"Claud," said Paul smoothly, pivoting his
chair to face the new arrival, "meet John Lyon. Since the
difference between the two of you is literally night and day, I
don't believe you've met."

John knew the name. Claud Jiles. Night school
specialist -- while John taught only in the daytime.

Getting up, John shook hands with the bouncy,
younger than middle-aged man, Jiles grinning at him with vacuous
enthusiasm while shaking John's hand with an almost European
pump.