Ellen Under The Stairs (20 page)

"I fear, that I do not understand
...."

"By using magic and thinking hot, will
the stones get hotter if some people do that, rather than
others?"

"I believe so, Sir."

"Why?"

"It is a matter of
practice."

"What you're saying is that the more
you heat up fire stones, the better you get at it. In this case,
the hotter the stones become?"

"That is the way of the world, Sir.
Everything done frequently is eventually done better."

"Then, if you're right about this, the
person best able to coax heat from the stones, would be someone
like a cook, who has to prepare food every day."

Coax?? It was very like the Mage to
use words making little or no sense. This time, though, he had used
the word "coax" in such a way that Coluth could divine the word's
meaning.

"That would be true, Lord."

"Then, by all means, let's get the
Head cook up here!"

So saying, the Mage sent a runner to
the cook room, the Head cook, a fat old woman named Deninia, herded
up the many stairs to the top floor of the Palace and into what the
Mage called his "laboratory." Gasping for breath, shuffling her
feet, muttering discontentedly, she none-the-less was careful to
keep from saying something disrespectful to that man of
power.

"Deninia ... I believe you know who I
am?"

"Yes, Sir." Grudgingly
admitted.

"See that little boat?" He was
pointing to the small toy-boat floating on the water in the
water-vat.

"Yes." Said, as if anyone having to
ask that question was an idiot.

"Under here," he said, again pointing,
this time to the boat's boiler, "is a small piece of fire stone.
I'd like you to think the stone to become as hot as you can make
it."

John-Lyon often spoke as if he was
politely asking someone to do something. When, in reality, he was
ordering them to do it. Just another oddity of the young
Mage.

"Why?" asked the Head.

"Just do it."

On the other hand, there were limits
to the Mage's patience, in particular, when he was at a halt in a
project he was pursuing with all his attention.

Her orders received, shuffling to the
table, staring at the boat, the cook-Head thought "hot" at the
little stone, the stone heating as it should, soon to glow a shiny
red. And with short, puffing sounds, the little boat moved forward
on the surface of the water! If Coluth had not seen it for himself,
he would not have thought that new magic could be added to the
old!

Delighted, the Mage turned to the cook
Head. "Thank you, Deninia. You can think the stone cool, now," the
cook Head doing that, the toy-boat stopping immediately.

Still smiling, John-Lyon pulled a
golden coin from what he called a "pocket" in his robe, giving it
to the cook Head, the old woman grinning toothlessly. "Let me
understand this. Once you have heated fire stones, they will stay
hot that way until someone 'unheats' them?"

"Even so, Lord." Said without sarcasm,
though everyone in every Band knew the truth of the Mage's
question. Coluth believed it was the money in her hand that had
helped her to lose her sour nature ... for the moment.

After his first-joy, as it often
happens, Coluth had heard the Mage mutter his disappointment about
the small craft's slow speed, boat-work none-the-less moved from
the invention room to a secret place in the harbor, construction
beginning there on a real boat, but still so undersized it could
not hold many.

On the boat, the Mage also put the
mystery weapon, consisting mostly of a copper pipe sticking out the
stern. How this Mage-weapon was to work, was the puzzlement, some
things the Mage did to be taken on faith that he knew what he was
doing.

* * * * *

For all but Golden, it was a busy
time, workmen ordered into the invention room, everyone excluded
except Admiral Coluth and the workman.

There was no hiding the pounding going
on inside, however, though unlike the last time, the smells
produced were not disgusting.

Early in whatever project was underway
in the Mage-lab -- John-Lyon called it a "lab" -- well after
down-light, Golden (now installed permanently in the room across
the hall from the Mage's workroom,) was awakened by noises. Opening
his door a little, he saw men bring what had to be fire stones into
the Mage's work room, the moving men doing this
secretly.

No surprise there. This, in spite of
the fact that no one, except for Golden, had noticed that torches
along palace corridors had begun to disappear, those that remained
in their iron angled holders caused to flame brighter to maintain
the halls' light.

To be sure, Golden knowing that
John-Lyon was interested in fire stones gave Golden an advantage in
this discovery, the Mage no doubt having the missing fire stones
brought to him to use for his own purposes.

More hammering and more hammering,
until pony carts were brought to the back Palace gate, cloth
covered objects carried from the Mage's invention room to the
carts, the carts driven off, headed for a remote side of the island
where few people lived. (This was what had happened when the Mage
was experimenting with his cannon in the last war.)

As for this end of Xanthin island, the
Malachite blockade continued, even the most important people in the
Palace -- by the Mage's direct order -- eating meager meals as the
capital's food supply dwindled.

It was later that Golden saw workmen
bring to the lab a large tub filled with water, for what purpose,
Golden could not guess, the frantic building activity in the
invention room soon stopping, construction moved to the harbor
where carpenters built giant screens of wood and canvas to shield
the back part of the port from view.

The screen finished, metal workers and
wood workers toiled back there during the day, also (because of the
Mage's threats to wither them if they fled,) after
down-light.

Rumor said that a boat was under
construction in that hidden part of the harbor, Golden willing to
believe it since the port was the place for that kind of
work

* * * * *

John Lyon was pleased. Though nothing
had gone as smoothly as he wished -- nothing ever did -- his
projects were moving toward completion.

After the toy steam boat had proved
itself by putt-putting around a large tub of water, John commanded
a section of the harbor to be screened off from prying eyes, his
wood and metal workers back of the screen to build a full scale
boat with a putt-putt steam engine in it.

Construction completed, he'd had the
Head cook -- grumbling all the way -- taken to the harbor by pony
cart, the woman firing up the stones under the ship's considerably
bigger boiler.

And John had been right again, this
time to his displeasure. For in its night time trials in the harbor
-- Coluth in charge, John not wanting it known he spoke no
Stil-de-grain after dark -- the putt-putt boat had turned out to be
as slow as he'd figured it would be. So slow that to have any
chance at all of outrunning pursuit cruisers -- even with the
Malachites needing to go around the rim of the swirls in the sea --
John had to have the boat made of the lightest materials consistent
with the stress the boat would encounter from wave action in Sea
Minor. The primitive steam engine just wouldn't crank out much
speed, this, in spite of the flat bottom of John's boat, the ship
designed that way to skim over the surface rather than plow through
the sea like a heavily loaded merchantman. The boat must also carry
a minimum of weight. The steam engine, of course, but not soldiers
or even food.)

Fortunately, the ship didn't need to
carry water, all this world's seas fresh enough to drink. (People
had laughed at John's earlier question about salt water oceans, the
way people do when knowing a joke has been told, but failing to
"get it.")

Food wasn't a problem because you
could fish for what you needed, gold and silver fish in abundance.
John did decide to take along some sea-biscuits and a little dried
meat for variety. But that was all.

As for weapons, he'd have to do
without them, even a small addition in weight slowing the boat
noticeably.

Not entirely true. For he did install
his new "gun," to be used in desperation should a Malachite cruiser
catch them: a modification of DaVinci's steam driven cannon. What
John had designed was a light weight, copper tube mounted over the
boat's stern. For power, the back of the tube was "plugged" into a
device the ancient physicist, Archimedes, invented. Called an
"endless screw," the encased "drill bit" pulled up sea water, a
crude valve made to let a measured amount of water into the back of
the tube, the back half of the tube buried in hot fire stones. Open
the valve, turn the crank, and sea water was pushed into the back
of the "gun," a portion of the water converted instantly to steam,
the tube-cannon shooting a stream of scalding water from the tube's
mouth. "Boiled" down to the bare facts, if an enemy ship came up
behind them, John could shoot seething water at them, roasting
their sailors while providing John's putt-putt boat with a forward
boost -- like cutting in the after burners on a jet
fighter.

Messenger birds flying between Taruo,
King of Realgar, and Gagar had established that Pfnaravin was in
Realgar. And that a mysterious woman was with him, the sub-text of
these "bird-o-grams," that Pfnaravin was making a nuisance of
himself, the old Mage suspected of attempting to overthrow King
Tauro.

In short, Tauro was delighted to give
sanctuary to John and to John's party -- assuming John could make
it to the Claws -- the bird-talk also implying that Tauro hoped
John would "take out" Pfnaravin, the legend of John defeating the
evil Auro penetrating all bands.

All in readiness -- as nearly as
everything could be planned -- John's final decision was about what
personnel to take on the run from Xanthin island to the claws, the
claws the name for curving, waterways that cut deep into
Realgar.

What it came down to was, besides
Coluth, John was only able to take two, additional sailors, one to
see to the "needs" of the steam engine, the other to control the
tiller, Coluth choosing his old comrades, silent Philelph and
grizzled old Tangu.

Admiral Coluth was part of the team,
of course, John wanting Coluth's advice on all, sea related
matters. John also needed the Admiral's sense of direction.
Apparently -- John's compass question producing blank looks all
around -- navigational devices unknown here, an experienced seaman
developing a sixth sense about direction, it probably helping to be
able to see so far into the distance in this flat world; Bandworld
with no horizon line like on John's round one.

And that was it: four men only, Coluth
and John able to "spell" the sailors so the men could get some
sleep. The boat just wouldn't take any more weight and still have a
chance to outrun the Malachite cruisers, and in particular those
new biremes lurking outside the harbor.

A bonus of these many activities was
that John rarely thought about the Mage-Disk in his pocket; was
grateful that it no longer had the power to bother him.

* * * * *

Platinia had again managed to slip out
of the Palace, she being so small -- her fear, not that she would
be seen, but of what the Mage would do to her when he learned she
had disobeyed him. For he had told her to stay in the Palace; that
she could not go with him on his boat.

She had never been as glad that she
was a tiny person as when John-Lyon was making his great magic.
For, being small, also moving slowly, then staying still, she could
get close to John-Lyon and to those working for the Mage, doing
that without anyone noticing. Mostly, people saw things that moved.
(They did not see the mouse while it was quiet. But only when it
ran across the floor.) So, Platinia was the still, quiet mouse, in
this way learning of the Mage's plans.

Earlier, she heard him order the
harbor workers to build another magic boat, this one not rowed or
moved by wind-magic.

Platinia had gone with him on the last
boat, to Azare. Also Zwicia. Had stayed close to him, to strengthen
him against the bad Mage, Auro. At that time, she was so fearful of
John-Lyon, she had been trying to kill him. For she thought that
all men, like the priests of Fulgur, would torture her. As King
Yarro had done to make her use her Etherial power to strengthen his
pleasures. With food. With women. So she had feared John-Lyon until
she had been with the young Mage for a long, long time, finding, at
last, that he did not want to hurt her -- except for that one time,
and that was because of his Mage-Disk. After that, something new
had happened to her. It was what people called falling in love. The
trouble was that, while she could sometimes strengthen the Mage's
care for her into making him love her also, she had been unable to
make that feeling last in him.

It was because of the woman,
Ellen.