Ellen Under The Stairs (18 page)

Love.

* * * * *

John was trying to remain calm. But it
was difficult. My God! He'd brought Ellen to this world only to
have one of its most powerful and hateful figures spirit her away.
And at least so far, there was nothing he could do about it. The
only thing keeping him sane was the knowledge that Ellen, herself,
had wanted to come here. Why? Because, though she hadn't said it in
so many words, she was convinced she was dying, Ellen using her
failing strength to keep Paul from discovering how much she was
slipping.

Viewed that way, she saw the magic of
Bandworld as her best, perhaps her only chance to save her life.
So, she'd come to John to ask him to bring her here.

None of that absolving him for his
role in her kidnapping. What was he thinking, to let her wander
about the city when Stil-de-grain was at war? Yes, he'd insisted
she be in disguise. Had ordered soldiers to guard her. It's just
that he couldn't escape the fact that the best way to protect her
was to have kept her behind the Palace's walls.

In spite of regret that threatened to
paralyze him, it was vital that he keep a cool head, John the only
real hope Ellen had.

Taking deep breaths to settle himself,
making himself straighten his silk Mage-robe, he willed his
rational mind to conquer despair.

At least he was where he should be, in
the top floor laboratory he'd made for himself on his last trip to
this benighted world, floor to ceiling shelves holding pots of as
many chemicals as he could find in this place -- his heavy lab
table dominating the center of the room.

Here was where he'd made gunpowder --
adding the chemicals needed to turn his sky-experiment to colorful
blasts of light and smoke.

In a corner were hunks of iron left
over from the metal smiths' work in building a primitive
cannon.

All in the past, nothing here to help
him break the Malachite blockade as a first step toward rescuing
Ellen.

And his dilemma was worse than that.
Even if he found a way to run the blockade, it wasn't in him to
desert the young king's people -- who, somehow, had become John's
people. At the very least, he had to devise a cosmetic weapon they
could use against the blockading cruisers, John needing to give
hope to the people of the capital until he could figure a way to
win the war.

Thinking of the weapons of the
previous war, it wasn't forging the cannon that had given him
trouble, but "inventing" a way to shoot it, doing that by
remembering something even history majors in college knew, that
black powder was a combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate, and
powdered charcoal. Consulting Tschu, the local alchemist, the man
had brought these "rare" ingredients to John's lab.

And the cannon, even the exploding
cannon balls, had worked ... after a fashion.

So it was no surprise that John's
first thought was for Xanthin's Head blacksmith to make another
cannon, Tschu to produce exploding cannon balls powerful enough to
scare the be-jabbers out of the Malachite sailors on those ships
just beyond the harbor's mouth. (A couple of lucky hits might even
terrorize them into giving up the blockade.)

But that scheme had quickly gone off
track with Tschu's revelation that the island's supply of potassium
nitrate was exhausted. With only a small quantity to start with,
John's earlier cannon, plus his fireworks display had used up
Tschu's supply, the chemical to be found on the mainland --
certainly in Malachite -- but not on Xanthin island.

The exploding bomb option no longer
possible, John would have to think of some other way to fight the
Malachites. But what?

* * * * *

Golden had sometimes doubted the power
of the Mage. But no longer, John-Lyon possessing other-worldly
magic in addition to that of his golden Mage-Disk!

Once more, the Mage was in what he
called his laboratory, the old crippled-arm soldier, Leet, guarding
the door, John-Lyon fearful that sentries he didn't know might be
Malachite spies.

Allowed to accompany the Mage to his
place of marvelous inventions, Golden had been told to wait in a
small room across the hall, Golden speculating that the Mage was
attempting to find a way to rescue the woman, Ellen, John-Lyon
bringing that woman with him from the other world.

Golden hoped, like in the last war,
the Mage would devise weapons to defeat evil. First Pfnaravin.
After that, the usurper, Lithoid of Malachite.

It was in the war against the evil
Auro -- curse his name! -- that the Mage had fashioned wire armor
to deflect Auro's Mage-bolts.

John-Lyon had then caused to be built
a craft called a catamaran, a ship rowed by the movement of the
evil wind blowing from Azare, the ship equipped with what the Mage
called sails, that worked wind-magic.

With the help of Xanthin's alchemist,
Tschu (who supplied secret powders), pops and bangs had soon come
from behind the door of the invention-room. Also strange smells.
Also hammerings of metal workers.

The result was what the Mage called a
cannon, an iron tube that, with a loud bang, threw out metal balls
that, with another bang at a distance, blew apart anything in the
way, just as a bolt of Mage-Magic would explode whatever it
hit.

Now that another war was starting, the
first thing the Mage called for was that same Alchemist. Except
that, instead of knowing joy, the Mage had been disappointed,
saying to Golden that Tachu no longer had potassium nitrate??, one
of the powders essential to the Mage's plans.

After the failure of the Alchemist,
John-Lyon summoned Golden into that room-of-smells, the Mage
beginning again to ask many questions. Odd questions, as was his
custom.

"I need to know something about fire
stones, Golden," the Mage said.

"Something, Lord?"

"Let me be more specific. Where do
they come from?"

"I have never thought about
that."

"But you could find out?"

"Someone must know. They are
everywhere, Sir."

"See if you can learn
where."

Following that command, Golden had
bowed himself out and gone on a fire stone search. Not that fire
stones were difficult to find, fire stones in every torch, to be
thought alight before down-light. For it was the magic in the light
that was essential in the lighting of torches.

Fire stones were also used for
cooking, drudges thinking a pile of them into heat in preparation
for cooks to warm food for morning, mid-day, and evening
meals.

If you thought one way, fire stones
yielded heat. Thinking a different way, fire stones flamed up to
produce light. Everyone in every band knew this.

Fire stones were so common that Golden
had never thought about their origin. As few would think of where
trees had come from: probably, like vegetables, from seeds? Or
where the sea water went when it poured down that dangerous stretch
of holes called the Leech -- near Beak Island. Water also spewed
out from the tops of mountains, first as hot water, to settle from
peaks, cooling as it descended, to become rills, then creeks,
streams, and finally rivers that ran, most of them, into the sea.
Why all this should be was of no great concern. That was just the
way things had always been.

Golden had been ordered to discover
the origin of fire stones, however, Golden's duty to find the
answer.

So, asking this palace dignitary and
that courtier, Golden discovered the answer John-Lyon was seeking.
That there were places in every Band where fire stones were mined,
little mining underway for the simple reason that fire stones never
wore out, so that few additional stones were needed.

The Mage's next question -- there
would always be a next question -- was about the size of the
stones. "Could you find out for me if fire stones can be broken
into smaller stones, and still work?"

"Work?"

"Made to provide flames for light. Or
thinking another way, to produce heat?"

"That is certainly true, Lord. Large
stones can be made smaller, all pieces making heat or light when
called upon to do so."

Golden could answer that question
himself because, as a child, he had dropped a torch, its top stones
falling out on hard rocks. The result: the porous stones had broken
into smaller pieces. After that, each piece could be thought into
light or heat. The only difference, was that there was less light
and heat to be had from smaller stones, than from larger ones.
Grouped back together, however, the collective bits of stone
provided the same light/heat as when they had been united in a
single stone. Larger stone: more light/heat. Smaller stone: less
light/heat.

All this, Golden had told to the
Mage.

"Good," said John Lyon, smiling. "What
I really want to know is, can fire stones be heated enough to boil
water?"

"It is my belief they can; but I will
make certain," was Golden's reply, the Mage happy with that answer,
also.

So it was down the stairs from the top
floor to the underground kitchen, Golden consulting the cooking
Head, the old woman annoyed to be interrupted, but paying Golden
more attention when he said he came directly from the Mage; that
this was the Mage's question.

"How do you think that fish are
boiled? Other meats? Vegetables?" She flapped her apron to shoo him
away.

Back upstairs, Golden had thought the
Mage would be pleased, but was again mistaken. For knowing that
fire stones could be heated enough to boil water only served to
produce the next question.

"And I need to know something else,"
said John-Lyon, in such a way that he was almost apologizing for
failing to have Golden ask that question while still in the cook
room. "Could a fire stone be heated enough to boil water if the
stone is submerged in the water, rather than used to heat a pot of
water when under the pot? Even if this pot of water was tightly
sealed? And can the stone be thought into heat from outside such a
pot. Through the pot itself?"

Once more, the trip to the scullery.
Again the same answer, Golden lucky this time to escape a pot
thrown at his head! Of course a heated stone in the water would
cause the water to boil, though it was the custom to heat water
from below because of cleanliness. Better to keep foreign materials
of all kinds from possible contamination of the food. As for fire
stones heated through water, through any substance, drudges had
been known to heat fire stones through walls, drudges often too
lazy to walk from where they were helping to prepare food, into the
cook room.

Golden was growing tired, in part from
forcing his way through crowds of palace fools, but mostly from
running up and down stairs, and around corners, and down corridors
in search of the Mage's answers, Golden breathing hard as he
returned to the Mage in the invention room.

Again, John-Lyon was pleased, but
....

And Golden was down the stairs and --
panting -- up again.

"Yes," Golden wheezed after Leet let
him into the Mage's special room. "Even if a fire stone was
submerged in water, even if the water and fire stone were locked up
tightly in a container, someone could "think" the fire stone inside
hot enough to boil the water around it."

"Excellent work, Golden," the Mage
said, Golden feeling that something good -- though he did not know
what -- had come out of these many trips.

What the Mage had learned, Golden
didn't know. But realized from experience that the Mage's questions
were not as foolish as they often seemed -- not that the Mage was
so secretive he would never let others inside his thoughts. It was
that, even when the Mage tried to explain why he needed to know
things, understanding did not always follow. For John-Lyon used
strange words in his explanations.

About the fire stone questions, the
Mage said he was seeking to understand what he called "boiling
points." He then talked of "steam pressure," saying that the
curling vapor coming off the surface of boiling water was called
"steam." That the steam made what the Mage called "pressure." That
this pressure was a pushing force that could be "harnessed" for
many purposes. From what Golden was able to understand, the
"pressure" could be used to transport objects, though why the Mage
wished to move objects that way, was the mystery. Were there not
men to carry burdens on their backs? Were not pony carts for the
carrying of greater weights from one place to another? And boats to
transport cargo from one band to another? All quite
confusing.

Fortunately, the answers Golden had
discovered pleased the Mage, Golden glad of that, Mages known to go
into rages when displeased, putting all within reach in jeopardy.
Of all things desirable, pleasing a man of power was
best.

Apparently learning what he wished to
know about fire stones, the Mage then asked new questions. Could
containers -- pots of clay, metal boxes -- be made "air
tight"??

Risking the Mage's wrath, Golden had
made so bold as to ask what this "air tight" meant.