Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (23 page)

But first things first.

"The depth of water in the Claws. Is it the
same as the approaches to Xanthin Island?" To John's knowledge,
harbors and tie-up docks were the only places near land where the
water was deep enough to float capital ships.

"It is shallow except for the center of each
claw." A fact John could rely on. Who would know better, after all,
than Coluth? At the same time, it was too much to hope that
claw-depth was a secret.

"I suppose that fact is common knowledge
among the traders of every band?" Coluth nodded. "Which means that
the Malachite Navy is also familiar with navigation in the Claws."
Another nod. "Then the situation calls for the laying of mines."
What John had in mind was something less clumsy than the ships John
had caused to be sunk in the mouth of Xanthin Harbor when he was
here before.

"Mines? What are mines?" Forgetting he was in
the presence of his Mage, the new Army Head had dared to ask an
unsolicited query. Remembering himself, ducked down in his chair,
eyes averted.

The man -- for all his impertinence -- had
asked a sensible, if "sticky," question. How was John to explain
mines in a world that knew nothing of explosives? For that matter,
did John remember enough high school chemistry to make explosives
-- to say nothing of manufacturing mines to lay in the Claws?

No possibility of that. At least not the
semi-buoyant mines that had first come to mind -- the terror of the
North Sea in John's world. In a "wooden ship" world, however, a
non-technical device could be just as effective.

Submarine nets?

John wasn't up to explaining submarines.

"What I mean is, a method to damage attacking
ships."

John had a sudden vision of the coastal
defenses of the German General Rommel, Rommel planting sharpened
train rails under the water off Omaha Beach to impale D-Day landing
ships. While John couldn't pull off that trick either, he felt
certain some workable defensive strategy would come to him. "I have
in mind underwater devices -- ways to close the inlets against
Malachite vessels. And while we're at it, let's make these
portable, shall we?"

Yes! Though no one at the table -- including
John -- had a clue about what John meant, every man was looking to
him for national salvation.

Excellent!

Under John's leadership, the resurgence of
Stil-de-grain -- if not at hand -- was now a possibility!

The return to power had its expected
downside, of course. Once the news had spread that John was
Pfnaravin, Mage of Stil-de-grain, people began lining up to beg for
favors. Merchants came to demand armed escorts for their trading
ventures; Realgar fisher-folk complained about the lack of wharf
space with all the Stil-de-grain ships tied up in the Claws; and
craftsmen requested raises over and above their already inflated
war-wages. There were also the good-hearted annoyances: Herria, the
inn's heroically proportioned cook, wanting to try out her special
recipes on the Mage; Isbelia, the chambermaid who, if allowed,
would have spent her life fluffing the Mage's pillow; Graccia, the
inn's soubrette, whose sole desire was to "fluff" the Mage.

In addition, scullery maids and drudges
lurked in second floor hallways to catch a glimpse of the mighty
Pfnaravin.

Then, there was John's relationship with the
king. At least once a week, it was politic for John to go to the
king's room on the third floor, the room where Coluth had put the
king's sad, little, locally constructed throne. On those occasions
-- Coluth proudly making sure that Yarro was dressed in his small,
starched king suit -- John would have an "audience" with the child
so that John could receive the king's "orders." Conversation with
the little boy always went as follows:

"How are you today, your majesty?"

"Fine."

"And how are your studies going?"

"Fine."

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No."

So much for consulting the king. At least the
child, under Coluth's tutelage, refrained from interfering with
John's administration.

In spite of these routine interruptions --
some of which John could avoid by closeting himself in the "war
room" -- John was making grudging progress toward the defense of
what was left of Stil-de-grain forces.

At first, John's worry was that the
Malachites would come before he could beef up the military
situation, a fear that was rapidly diminishing.

True, the Malachites could spoil John's plans
by ferrying their army past the marsh to attack overland from the
"east." It was just that John didn't think they would. Destroying
the Stil-de-grain Army as an effective fighting force, the next,
logical target would be the navy.

Against the probability of a naval attack,
John had taken two precautions. First, he'd ordered the Claws to be
"mined." Not with explosives, but with fixed barricades designed to
gut enemy ships. Modifying his "mine" idea to fit this world's
medieval technology, John had his sailors drop boulders -- here and
there -- in the center of the inlets, plugging the bays at selected
spots. (It hadn't taken an explosion to send the Titanic to the
bottom, after all.) Prior to placement, John had local craftsmen
attach iron rings to the top of each boulder, making it possible
for surface ships to hook onto the underwater barricades in order
to drag them to a new location or to dredge them up entirely when
Stil-de-grain shipping needed entrance or exit from the bays.

Another naval weapon John was thinking about
was Greek Fire, a chemical compound invented by the Byzantine
Empire, the Byzantines shooting what, in effect, was flaming liquid
on Moslem ships. Unfortunately, knowledge of how to produce this
unquenchable fluid had been lost to time -- though it was a good
bet that naphtha figured in the flaming mixture. Still, the
principle of shooting fire at wood ships seemed like a good idea --
until John remembered this world didn't have the sort of fire that
John's world did. Here, they used Wizardly fire -- wishing making
flames spring up magically from fire rock. Cold fire. (For heat,
all you had to do was think hot at a fire stone.)

Perhaps heated fire rocks could be catapulted
at enemy ships, some experimentation needed along that line.

Remembering that he carried a cigarette
lighter, John had set in motion a plan to make gunpowder, which, if
he recalled his high school chemistry, was comprised of sulfur,
potassium nitrate, and charcoal.

Making charcoal would be the easy part. If
fire stones could be heated to sufficient temperature to smelt this
culture's iron, fire rocks could be used to "bake" the flammable
gases out of wood -- charcoal the result.

Golden had put John on the trail of an
alchemist who was supposed to know about "exotic" chemicals like
the kind John needed -- sulfur and potassium nitrate, John hoped.
Unfortunately, the "chemist" was in Xanthin -- setting up a
catch-22 situation. It would take something unexpected (like
gunpowder) to recapture Xanthin, the chemicals for gunpowder in the
very city they needed to take.

Tonight's post-supper business concluded,
John was walking down the narrow, second story hall toward his
bedroom, two guards preceding and two trailing.

Along the walls, the inn's staff had already
lighted the hall torches, down-light soon to be upon them.

John was thinking about the supper meeting
he'd had with Coluth. It had gone well, John thought, Coluth
reporting that four of the six claws were now closed to enemy
shipping, boulders submerged at strategic places to rip out the
hulls of unsuspecting ships.

All things taken into account, the "mine"
project had been a success, the soldiers billeted in the Claws
lending a hand to quarry stone from a solid rock mountain less than
half-a-day away, dragging the irregular blocks to the Claws on
pony-sleds, local iron workers attaching hammered rings to the
boulders. After that, sailors, using wharf cranes mounted on
tugboats, loaded the ringed boulders, then swung them overboard at
the appropriate place to plug the Claws against enemy shipping. By
the end of tomorrow, Coluth had reported -- by the next day at the
latest -- the remaining two claws would be "buttoned up" in the
same manner.

Except for this reality's superstition
against night work -- everyone fearing to be outside at the mercy
of the "terrors" of the dark -- all the bays would have been sealed
by now. As compensation -- since the enemy felt the same
night-fears -- no one had to worry about attacks after
down-light.

An idea John was planning to broach at the
staff meeting tomorrow was shore battery defense. It was just a
question of getting the military to locate catapults on the heights
near the mouths of the respective claws. Like cannon-defense of
harbors in the historic past of John's world, catapults could be
prefired, the "gunners" taking note of the exact spot their stone
"ammunition" landed. After that, all the catapult operator had to
do was fire when an enemy ship had entered the danger zone, the
stone "ammo" certain to hit its target.

As for inn defense, a light guard -- at
John's "unreasonable" insistence -- was kept on the inn's external
doors after dark. No one, including the enemy, would venture out at
night.

Reaching John's bedroom, the leader of the
guards opened the door, entering to make certain no one was hiding
under the bed. Like the young woman, Graccia, John thought wryly.
(John's concern on entering his room was to avoid looking at the
spot behind the doorjamb where he'd hollowed out a hiding place for
the real crystal.)

Satisfied that the room was safe for the Mage
to enter, the guard mounted his torch in a wall ring. Saluting
John, the four soldiers formed up in the hall and marched off.

Down-light coming fast -- the ending of the
light preventing John from communicating with other people -- John
shut the door.

Alone, at last.

On his last excursion to this world, mostly
as a precaution against the "pull" of Zwicia's crystal, John had
Platinia sleep in the same room with him.

Now, largely cured of "crystal-sickness,"
having Platinia in the adjoining bedroom was enough to make him
feel comfortable about being so near the Weird's gem.

The girl leaving the war room before him, she
would already be in her connecting room at hall end.

While John's room was the best in the place,
his bare-walled, white-plastered, small-windowed bedroom was crude
compared to the lavish suite of rooms he'd occupied in Xanthin
Palace, this room featured the bare minimum: bed, dresser,
footlocker, and a straight chair.

The maid setting out a change of clothing on
top the crude dresser, John transferred everything he'd need for
the new day to the pockets of the fresh tunic. (One of the first
things he'd order once he'd gotten settled, was to have pockets
sewn in all his tunics and robes.)

Ready for a fast start come up-light, John
undressed, putting his knife and belt on top his change of clothing
on the dresser, the wide-bladed thieves-knife now in a handsome
leather scabbard some adoring common person in the inn had made for
him. (He'd taken to wearing the knife, more as a badge of authority
than to use in a fight.)

Slipping off his shoes, opening the door to
transfer the torch to a wrought-iron wall holder just outside his
door, he closed the door again and crossed the three steps it took
to slip into the straw mattress bed, John pulling up the light
blanket (some kind of cover necessary in this colder band) and
stretching out.

Though tired, John's head continued to buzz
with ideas.

After long consideration, he'd had to give up
his idea of fire ships -- fire ships a tactic that
Sixteenth-Century Englishmen used against the Spanish Armada. In
that conflict, the English had put barrels of gunpowder, pitch,
tar, and other flammables on derelict ships, towed the wrecks up
wind of the Spanish galleons, set the junker ships on fire, and let
the wind blow the exploding hulks among the Spanish fleet.

Except that there was no gunpowder in this
backward place.

Yet.

Also, no wind.

His mind slowing at last, it was sometime
during his consideration of another, anti-ship weapon called "hot
shot," that John fell asleep. Was in such a stupor he didn't awaken
when the outer door to his chamber opened to admit a shadowy
figure, a specter who hurriedly turned to close the door, after
that gliding to the bed with infinite care. Someone who gently,
slowly, slipped down John's blanket.

Since John was sleeping on his back, it was
easy for the interloper to lift the yellow crystal from John's
chest.

A soft creak toward the far end of the room
caused the wraith to stiffen! .... No. ... No other sound. Except
for the eternal noise of nighttime rain upon the roof.

Satisfied, the shadow bent to John again.

Making certain the crystal's trailing chain
did not brush against John's face, the ghost-figure stretched the
chain up and over John's head, setting the gem above John on the
pillow.

Then came the wait.

A long wait.

The phantom silent.

Until John gave evidence of moving in his
sleep.

At that, bending over John again, picking up
the crystal, the shadow waited until the split second John raised
his head to roll over, the specter slipping the chain from beneath
John's neck.

Grasping the crystal and chain in both hands
now, the robber turned and with quiet, gliding steps, crossed the
room.

Cracking open the hall door, listening, the
thief was swiftly through the door and gone.

The sneak-thief departed, there was another
pause.