Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (29 page)

The Mage stepping aside, he motioned with his
hand, the pony driver slapping the reins, the uneasy ponies
swinging the cart around, prancing it from the road onto the
splintered dock, the cart's wooden wheels rattling over the quay's
planks as the driver pulled the reins this way and that to guide
the ponies around coils of rope and stacks of barrels as the cart
went down the dock between twin rows of empty boats tied to either
side. Big boats. Little boats.

Big boats were called ships.

Walking quickly, the Mage followed the pony
cart, Coluth marching after him. Having almost to run, Platinia
came too.

By this time, the fog had thickened so that,
even from the dock, you could not see much water past the ships to
either side. Certainly, you could no longer see the harbor arms.
Grayness, like the fog, was settling in.

The air smelled damp.

Damp and lonely, like the sea.

Out they went over the dock, moving around
tall, rope and timber cranes, only the crane-tops showing above in
the down-light mist.

With Platinia's feet making hollow sounds on
the splintered dock boards, they went all the way to the little
boat at pier end.

The boat was old and rotten. Even tied in
quiet water, it leaned to one side.

The Mage motioned to the pony driver to drive
over the wide board that went from the dock to the deck of the
boat, the pony man urging the ponies to pull the cart up and over
onto the boat's rocking deck.

The Mage did not go on the boat. "Unfasten
the ponies," the Mage commanded, the driver climbing down,
unhooking the team, the man leading the two ponies by their long,
leather reins, clopping them back over the plank to the dock
again.

The ponies were tossing their shaggy heads
and rolling their brown and white eyes. Their big, soft noses
snorted in the fog.

"How long to down-light?" the Mage asked the
Navy Head, the Mage looking up at the faded yellow sky.

"Soon."

"And you're sure the people of the city are
watching?"

"They will want to witness for themselves,
the power of their Mage." Coluth nodded at his own wisdom.

"The kind of curiosity that killed the cat, I
suppose." Though Platinia did not know the Mage's meaning, she did
not like this talk of killing cats!

Without warning, there was another white,
many-forked streak, first rising up from far, far away at sea,
climbing to the very sky top, then slanting down, growing bigger as
it came!

As Platinia fell to the dock, shutting her
eyes and covering her ears, there was a crashing noise somewhere
not too far away.

"He's bouncing them off the sky dome, all
right," the Mage muttered to himself.

The Mage never spoke to Platinia. Sometimes
he did, when no one else was near. But never when others were with
the Mage. It was as if he could not see her when others were about.
Sometimes, this made her ... sad.

The Mage looked at the sky again, his white
face all that could be seen in the thickening shadows. Even his
green-glowing Mage eyes could be seen no longer.

The rolling night-fog hid their legs.

"It's like waiting for the sun to set so you
can see the fireworks on the fourth."

"I do not understand ..." said the Navy Head.
Like much of what the Mage said, Platinia also did not
understand.

"Never mind."

Again, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin looked up.
"Another minute should about do it."

He turned to Coluth. "I want you off the
dock. Now."

Platinia was not surprised that the Mage said
that. The Mage did not want people around him in the dark. The Mage
never spoke to anyone after dark.

"But sir, you will be alone, here. What if
some animal of the night should ..."

"Just do as I say. What I've got planned
could be a little dangerous. It could blow. That's why I wanted an
old boat to put it on. A boat I could shove out into the water
after I lit the fuse. I don't quite know what's going to happen,
myself. So I want you and Platinia and the ponies off the dock. You
can wait for me with the guards. On the other side of the mole."
The Navy Head hesitated, frowning. "Now!"

With that sharp command, before Platinia knew
it, Coluth had caught her hand and turned her around.

Then they were flying down the dock, Coluth
pulling her along, Platinia's short legs stumbling to catch up. In
front of them, the pony man was running, too, the pony leads in his
hand, the ponies hard feet clicking and clacking on the dock
boards.

They ran so fast that, in only a little
while, dodging fog draped boxes and bales and loading carts and
cranes -- they were off the dock and onto the clouded, round-stone
road. There, Platinia did not see the Navy Head stop. Ran into him
because of that.

Safe with the guards at last, down-light full
upon them, the guards with torches, the fog rising, they turned and
waited.

Waited ....

Waited ....

There was a roar of light and sound! In the
sky! At the end of the dock! Colors! Colored lights in the sky!
Shooting up from the dock like great flaming birds flying up from
trees! Never had Platinia seen such a thing! Never had she feared
so much!

Giant sparks and roaring sounds were climbing
high, making down-light into day.

And with the colored fog ... smells! Great
smells like the small ones coming from the magic Room.

Running through the colored smoke, running
off the dock to join them, came the Mage!

And Platinia was still afraid. Long after the
lights had stopped shooting up; after the lights that burned into
her head had stopped blazing like tiny lamps behind her eyes. Even
after the colored, evil smelling fog had thinned and a silent
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had led them back through the deserted city,
all its windows shuttered and chained against the terror!

All the way back inside the three, fortified
rings of palace walls -- to safety -- Platinia had stayed
afraid.

Power!

Even being with the Mage, she had understood
nothing of his power!

Though she had known that the Mage had
Sorcery, that he was dangerous, that he could hurt her,
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin used his crystal's power so little it was easy
to forget how mighty he really was! Now, she realized the awful
force commanded by this, the greatest of the Mages!

Long, long after Platinia was in the small
bed that the Mage had put in the room beside his room, she was
shaking. Surely, with all that magic, the Mage knew what she had
done.

At first, she did not think so.

But with his great Wizardry, he had to know.
Yet ... why had he not tortured her?

Only because he was planning some greater
pain?

Platinia was afraid to think of a greater
pain than the priests knew how to do!

With all her heart, Platinia wished she had
known more about killing. But how could she know? She had been
locked in the temple of Fulgur all her life. How could she know how
hard it would be to drive the Mage-knife deep? So that it struck
into the Mage's heart.

More horrifying still was the thought that,
if she could not kill him then, after she had seen that someone
steal the Mage's protective crystal, how was she to make him dead
now that this night magic showed he had his crystal back?

By deflecting Melcor's magic to the loose
ceiling stones of the tower room, she had killed that hurtful Mage.
But John-Lyon-Pfnaravin was a greater Sorcerer. Everyone said
that.

And it was true.

His magic protected him from the Malachite
cage, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin too wily to get caught in traps. Knowing
all, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had sent the man, Robin, to be caged, the
Mage coming himself to the tower room when all had gone.

Now, the Mage had shown his
sorcery-of-the-blazing sky!

Was this the time he would hurt her for
betraying him? For trying to kill him as he lay unprotected by his
magic crystal?

She did not know.

Just that he would hurt her soon.

And she knew another thing. Though she did
not really want to, she must find another way to kill the Mage.

How?

Where?

She did not know. She knew only that she must
kill the Mage or suffer the terrible revenge that lurked behind
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin's smiling eyes!

Standing at the end of the mole where the
magic boat was berthed, Coluth looked out through tendrils of
condensing fog, toward the harbor mouth. (Like the Mage frequently
paused to look up at the midday sky.)

Near down-light, the Malachite ships beyond
the harbor were being rowed off the blockade line, the Malachites
headed into the mist, bound for their nighttime tie-up docks on the
mainland.

Shortly after up-light, the enemy cruisers
would be back.

At such times, Coluth regretted losing the
military advantage he had when quartered in the Claws -- where a
land escape was always possible. Assuming the Mage had the power to
force his men to retreat into Cinnabar, the band of flyers.

Conquering the chill along his spine, Coluth
forced his mind back to ... the problem.

Stil-de-grain's remaining forces were now
bottled up on Xanthin Island.

Perhaps it was as the Mage said. That this
new, double-ship tied to the pier's end would allow the Mage to
escape this island snare.

When they'd first regained
the island -- well before the expected arrival of the Malachite
Navy -- the Mage had ordered the mining of the harbor so that the
Malachites would be prevented from landing their soldiers to storm
the capital. (As Coluth had sunk his beloved
Roamer
in an earlier engagement with
the enemy.) The island safe from direct attack, the war had come
down to the lingering stalemate of a siege, each navy denying
harbor access to the other.

Shading his colorless eyes with one, brown,
calloused hand, seeing the ghost of the last Malachite cruiser row
out of sight behind the rise of land guarding the harbor entrance,
Coluth sat on a coil of rope, enfolding his upthrust knees with his
powerful, seaman's arms.

In the dying of the golden light of
Stil-de-grain, Coluth contemplated, once more, the strange new,
twin-hulled ship the Mage had commanded to be built. A boat which,
even without a crew, was uniquely stable as it floated in thick,
sea fog at the pier's end.

Coluth could remember the first hint of such
a ship in the words of John-Lyon-Pfnaravin. It was after a meeting
in the war room many weeks ago. Dismissing the others, the Mage had
beckoned to Coluth and to Golden and to the girl to sit at the
Mage-end of the table.

All seated, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin said,
"Coluth, it's time you learned to sail."

Sail??

What Coluth had learned since was that it was
the evil wind that made what the Mage called "sailing," possible.
(The Mage, a man of power, did not fear the wind -- as others did
-- even knowing that it blew by virtue of the dark band's magic.)
"It's all in making the sail movable," John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had
continued, motioning for a sheet of paper that Golden had quickly
provided -- paper, pen, and ink pot from a nearby wall table. "Set
the sail and rudder properly and you can make the wind blow you in
any direction." Dipping his pen in the ink pot, sketching quickly,
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had made an arrow to indicate the direction of
the wind, after that, drawing the crude outline of a boat to
illustrate his meaning.

Seated to either side, Coluth and Golden had
both leaned forward in an attempt to decipher the Mage's
drawing.

Was the Mage actually talking about a ship
powered by ... wind? Instead of by oar power and by the force of
the whirls at sea?

"Magic," Coluth had replied, not knowing
another word to describe a ship moved by the will of the wind.

"Sort of," the Mage said, smiling, the window
light in that high, palace room flashing from his green eyes as all
light did. "And not only with the wind."

The Mage scribbled again, making multiple
drawing of the boat being steered back and forth. "A sailing ship
can tack into the wind. For the same reason that the wings of a
plane, slicing through the air, keep the plane up. It has to do
with the curvature of the wing. Same thing with the sail."

After saying that, the Mage frowned. "Forget
what I said about planes. We're not ready for that ... yet." At
some fleeting thought of amusement, the Mage laughed merrily.

John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had then put down the pen
to lean forward to place his elbows on the table, resting his chin
in the turned-up palms of both hands. "What I mean to say is that,
with a bellied out, movable sail, you can travel at angles into the
wind. With the wind coming steadily from the black band, we will
have to tack out of the harbor. Once on the open sea, however, the
sailing prowess of the boat I have in mind should allow us to
outdistance the Malachite fleet."

Tack??

But Coluth had learned. First, what a
catamaran was: two, long, thin ships kept side by side by a cross
hatching of wood timbers and flat planking nailed deck to deck.

After the shipwrights had built the hulls of
this ship in dry dock, after fastening them together, the Mage had
commanded that twin, denuded tree trunks be attached to the middle
of the hull bottoms, the "trees" then "growing" up through the
center decks, the trunk-tops rising high above -- like cargo
cranes. After that, the Mage ordered a triangular piece of heavy
cloth to be fastened about each tree trunk in such a way that one
point of the triangle could be raised to the top of each
"tree."

"Masts" were what the Mage called the
trunks.

"Sail" was the name of the pieces of thick
fabric.