Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (27 page)

"But time is short," the ambassador said with
a sigh, one hand soaring as if in protest. Again, he fixed John
with gray-pale eyes. "My master, the Mage-King Auro, orders the
immediate surrender of your few remaining forces."

"Your master may order as he pleases," John
said dryly, still more fascinated with the man than with the
message. The message, John had expected. The man ....?

"My master, the Mage-King Auro, further
orders me to inform you that if you refuse to surrender, he will
destroy your band and everyone therein."

John remembered the white, hypnotized army
from Azare. Men, women, children, animals, sent to root up every
tree, bush, and blade of grass along their invasion route. John
would never forget the first time he saw that "army" stretched
across the valley below his vantage point on a hill top. That long,
undulating, horizon to horizon line of men, women, and children
bent over, hacking at the ground with hoes and scythes. Along side
the people were "drugged" animals: white ponies, dogs -- pawing,
scratching at the land. Leaving nothing but plowed ground behind
them.

Recalling Auro's "scorched earth" tactics,
John could believe that Auro was capable of commanding the
destruction of everyone in Stil-de-grain.

John leaned back in his chair, affecting a
languid pose. "You may inform this Auro that the tide of battle has
just turned."

"Tide ....?"

That's right, John thought. No tides in this
moonless world. "That we have now begun to win. From his dark band,
your Mage is helpless to generate the kind of light-driven magic
that I will soon employ against him."

Unexpectedly, the Azare ambassador laughed. A
high, rippling, crazy laugh.

John waited -- there was little else he could
do -- until the man quieted. "I am sorry," the ambassador said, the
small man wiping his eyes with a cloth he extracted from a pouch in
his robe, trying, but failing, to keep from smiling. "It is just
that I have not laughed for a long time. It is a great joy to
laugh, is it not?"

"Seriously," the little man continued,
mastering his feelings at last, forcing himself to frown if only to
lay emphasis to his words, "I must tell you that your magic cannot
be compared to that of my master. You are under the illusion that,
trapped beneath the band of darkness, he is powerless. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Auro, Mage-King of Azare, has
found a theurgic source. More direct, more powerful than yours. You
and all your Mage-allies cannot stand against the new-found magic
that my master wields."

"I think we may have a few surprises that he
will find ... discomforting," John said, affecting boredom,
refusing to take the ambassador's threats seriously.

"If so, he will become angry and destroy the
world." Suddenly, the man across the table had sober eyes. "There
are secrets known only to him. There is a way -- he told me this
directly -- of exterminating the world and all its people."

"Insane talk."

"Insane?" As supercooled water freezes
instantly at a touch, the ambassador's eyes turned glittery.
"Insane?" he repeated slowly, his voice a hush. "Insane, is life
within the dark. If you are old, remembering, long ago, when the
sky was blue. To struggle to recall what 'blue' can mean. To find
that words like red and gold and violet have all faded in your mind
to faceless gray. To have your people sicken with diseases, because
there is no longer magic. To live on and on without a hope."

The ambassador leaned across the table, his
hands palm up, beseeching. "Now that I have seen a world with
colors -- smells -- tastes ... do not take it all away! Do not say
that you fight on!"

"There is another way," John replied, almost
sympathizing with the plight of Azare's people. "Join us. Make your
stand against the evil."

"You will not surrender?"

"Never." At least, John thought to himself,
until he'd tried a couple more of his own world's tricks.

"You refuse to believe my master can destroy
the world?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you reason as those of the Mage War
reasoned. As Pfnaravin reasoned. That my master has no influence
outside his blacked out band. Though once that was the truth, it is
the case no longer. My master can now stretch out his hand to all
the bands. You have seen the darkening sky? That is why Malachite
fights for my master. They saw him take away their magic as their
Mage, Pfnaravin, together with other Mages, took away the sky of
Azare. Have you not also seen the firmament of Stil-de-grain grow
dark? Do not be foolish. Auro demands surrender. Or he will
annihilate the world."

"Even if he could do it, what advantage would
there be to him to destroy this world?"

"Advantage? The word means little to a man of
Azare."

"You have your answer. Return to your own
band with my refusal."

"Do you not know that I need not return? That
my master has already heard your reply? That through my ears he
hears; through my eyes he sees?"

"Then let him hear my demand," John said,
loosing his voice to echo harshly in the barren room. "If he
withdraws his Malachite allies, I will leave him in peace.
Otherwise, he is as doomed as they." Running a bluff had always
worked well in this world, John had found. He could at least hope
that this one would succeed, as well.

As if controlled by an inexperienced
puppeteer, the Azare ambassador jerked to his feet. His limbs
flailing about him, the man stumbled back, knocking down his chair,
in the same motion collapsing to the floor like a rag doll thrown
by a petulant child.

"Whar!" John cried, jumping up, the far end
door shoved open immediately, the stocky bodyguard rushing in,
sword on high, the rest of the squad of soldiers tumbling in behind
him. "The ambassador seems to have fainted. Tend to him. I want him
back on his ship and his ship out of the harbor by noon today."

Sheathing his sword, Whar bent over the
silent form of the Azarite, the other soldiers forming into a
double line flanking the door, John walking around the table,
arriving in time to see Whar place his fingertips to either side of
the ambassador's throat.

After a long moment said, "This man is dead,"
Whar standing, ready for further orders.

"Dead!?" Whar nodded. The ambassador had
become mildly agitated. But ... dead?

True, the emissary looked as white as death
-- but was no whiter than before.

"Check him again."

Kneeling once more, Whar felt for the
arteries in the man's neck. Closed his eyes to give total
concentration to pulse beats, however slight.

Next, Whar pressed each of the man's wrists
in turn. "Listened" with his fingertips.

Then peeled back the ambassador's eyelid, the
bodyguard peering at the eye, carefully.

Standing, Whar shook his head.

Abruptly, John heard a distant shout. Then
another, closer yell. And finally -- all in the room listening with
him -- a running sound below, then up the wooden stairs.

At the approach of the footsteps, Whar pulled
his sword, the soldiers squaring off to face what could be a
potential threat, swords swished from scabbards and held at the
ready.

Could have been a threat, but wasn't.

Instead, bowing himself into the room was a
youth, winded, gasping for breath. A young sailor by the look of
his leather tunic.

"Speak," John commanded.

Dragging in a ragged breath, the young man
tried. "I ... come from ... the harbor. Coluth sent ... He says the
others ... sailors ... from the black ship of Azare ... are all ...
dead!"

"Sit in that chair," John said, motioning to
Whar to pull out a chair along the table for the runner, the
messenger collapsing into it, sweating, breathing heavily but
somewhat more steadily. "Now, tell me."

"I was on the mole, myself. Working. Close to
the inn. Near the strange Azare boat. ... Their sailors were all on
board. ... Kept there by a squad of soldiers at Army Head, Nator's,
order. Suddenly, the sailors all fell down. Fell down dead."

"All of them?"

"Not one left alive. I was the nearest man
the Navy Head could send. To tell you this strange thing. But ... I
am no ... runner."

"You did right to come as quickly as you
did."

Now what? "Whar!" John looked up to locate
his guard. "Have someone take this man where he can get a glass of
wine."

Whar nodded; motioned the man to stand, then
signaled to one of the soldiers who, sheathing his sword, led the
young marine out the door.

The crisis over, John pointed to the corpse,
the four nearest soldiers putting away their swords, picking up the
body by its extremities, carrying it out the door.

John dismissing the rest of the sentries, the
last soldier to leave turning to close the door behind him.

Whar remained.

"I'm going to want autopsies," John ordered,
not knowing what else to do.

"What?" The guard asked, staring.

"I want to know why they died."

"Surely, it was because of your magic that
they ...."

Of course. Since the ambassador and the Azare
sailors were the enemy -- "playing" on John's court, so to speak --
it was natural for people to think John had lost his temper and
killed them with his magic.

Which, now that John considered it, was
probably a good thing for his own people to believe. It was no less
a diplomatic light than Machiavelli, after all, who'd postulated
that a ruler's power sprang more from his people's fear of him than
from their love.

Leaving the question of what had caused these
mysterious deaths ...........

Poison?

Had Auro ordered the Azarites to commit
simultaneous suicide as a terror inspiring act? (In John's world,
it would have been biting into cyanide capsules placed in
hollowed-out teeth. Very Nazi. Very C. I. A.)

On the other hand, John remembered Azare's
citizen army of white civilians. How they'd moved with a single
mind. How, even in distant Stil-de-grain, they'd been bewitched by
the evil Mage. Given that kind of long-range control, was it
possible that Auro had the omnipotence to order his people to die?
Even over a great distance? A speculation John decided to keep to
himself.

Belatedly, John shuddered at the thought of
all that power.

Hoped neither Whar nor Platinia noticed his
weakness.

To prevent an unfortunate disclosure of
cowardice, John waved Whar and Platinia from the room.

Alone, returning to his Mage chair, John
tried to reconstruct the conversation with the Azare agent.
Particularly, the threats. Particularly that most disturbing
threat, that in a fit of insanity, the dark Mage had the power --
and the will -- to kill the world!

Overtired, the blood red streak of scar
tissue on his chest pulling uncomfortably, it was fortunate John
had sent the guard and the girl away. Trembling, the way John
was.

Platinia had never understood the Mage. He
had said there would be a war and there was no war. He trained many
men for war ... but there was no war. Was this because he had
bewitched the island men with magic? She had seen him order men to
stuff seaman's tunics with cloth, putting cloth heads on top the
cloth bodies until, sitting in boats, the Mage had made the cloth
men come to life so that they rowed the boats with living men!

Platinia shuddered at the thought of such
unnatural power. Shuddered as she made herself small in the great,
carved, gold leaf chair.

She was with the Mage in the wood and marble
war room, the Mage again in the boy-king's palace on Xanthin
Island.

Truly, she feared the Mage more than she
feared the jagged lights of power that, day and night, fell upon
the city. (Lightning bolts was the Mage's name for this fearsome
force.) Streaks of crashing Sorcery that the evil Mage sent to
blast down houses.

When first the terror came, even though
Platinia was in the far away palace, she could hear the people of
the city screaming. They were ... terrified ... was the word that
the Mage had used. A word that meant afraid.

Afraid? Platinia was the one afraid. Afraid
of the Mage's power! Afraid he would find out what she had done.
Afraid each time he smiled and looked at her with his green and
savage eyes! And yet ... if she could run away as she had once
thought to do, she did not know if she would do that. Did this mean
that John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had used a spell to bind her to him?

At least the Mage had not hurt her since he
had returned from the dreadful, other world. As the leader of the
robbers had hurt her when he raped her in the woods.

In spite of her great fears, no one had hurt
her as the Priests of Fulgur had hurt her!

Huddling in the giant chair, shrinking down
inside her small, black tunic, Platinia remembered the priest's
torture drops. And the priest's burning needles. And the wet
drowning cloth they stuffed into her nose and mouth until she could
not breathe! Almost retching, she thought of the ants they had made
to crawl into her mouth and down her throat!

Yarro had hurt her to make her build his
pleasures: eating, drinking, women. She could do that. Sometimes.
Look into a man's mind and build his thoughts and feelings. She
could also do that to the Mage. Sometimes. She could ... sense ...
his fear of Zwicia's crystal. Build his will to stay away from that
dangerous talisman.

Now, they were waiting. In the early morning.
Waiting for the others. The Mage's men.

Platinia wished she could have caught a cat.
But that morning, the Mage had hurried her.

How long had they been back on the young
king's island? Long, long. Long enough for the evil one to find out
they were there ... and send the ... lightning. Long enough for the
Mage to work the magic of the metal sticks so that people's houses
would be safe. All the houses that were left.