Ellen Under The Stairs (23 page)

Again, why?

"There," said Golden. Turned to face
John, Golden was looking over John's shoulder.

Pivoting to the front, John saw what
had happened: six Realgar cruisers, coming out of the Claws, headed
straight for John's boat, the lone Malachite ship no match for odds
like that.

John looked up, then down, to see that
the sky above and ocean below had turned bright orange. They were
in Realgar waters.

They'd been saved, all
cheering!

All cheering, except for Platinia who
was ... crying.

"It's alright now, Platinia," John
said, going over to the little girl, Platinia turning away from
him, walking off to sit by herself in the ship's prow.

She'd had a scare. Best to leave her
alone to get over it.

* * * * *

Platinia had planned well. She had
thought and thought. Had decided that the thing to do was let the
Malachite ship catch them. Yes. That was the thing to do. She was a
Malachite herself -- at least she was born there. Golden was a
Malachite, though he had traveled to other Bands to entertain.
Golden even said he was king of Malachite.

If the Malachite ship caught up to
them, Platinia and Golden would speak to the captain of that ship.
They would say that John-Lyon and the sailors were good men, the
Malachite captain listening because Platinia and Golden were
Malachites. The Malachite captain would take them all on his big
boat, back to Platinia's home Band. There, Platinia and John-Lyon
would become lovers. Ellen would no longer make a difference. She
would not be there.

The only trouble was that John-Lyon's
little boat might outrun the Malachite ship, no one but Platinia
seeming to know how close they were to Realgar, to that place
called the Claws. Orange was in the sea. Orange was In the sky.
Everything orange. She felt ... strong, even though she was so
small. She also felt ... cooler. Because the Realgar Band was a
cooler Band.

The men were all looking at the ship
coming after them, not at how close they were to Realgar. So close
that Platinia feared they would reach the Claws.

But Platinia could do something about
that. On the trip, she had learned that it was the hot fire stones
that made the little boat go forward. Without fire stone heat, the
boat would ... stop.

So, little person that she was, she
had done her best to "think" the fire stones to go cold.

No one was watching the fire stones.
All the men were at the back of the boat looking out at the ship
coming up behind them.

Platinia looking at the men to make
sure they didn't see her do it, she thought and thought to make the
fire stones cold.

And it had worked. She could feel the
stones getting colder and colder, until they were no longer
hot.

What she had not understood was why
the ship had continued to putt-putt its way forward. Was that
because of the Mage's magic? Had she been wrong about the fire
stones? Was it Mage Magic alone that kept the ship
going?

Then, too late, she saw the mistake
she had made. Facing the men at the back of the boat, thinking
cold, cold, cold, she had stopped the heat of the wrong fire stone
pile. She had cooled the stones that were heating the back of what
the Mage called his "gun." If she had faced the other way, she
would have cooled the stones making the ship go. But she had made
that mistake, the little boat going and going until, seeing it
come, the Realgar ships had rowed out of that Claw to drive off the
Malachite ship.

Everyone else was happy. Golden was
happy. Admiral Coluth was happy. The sailors were happy. John-Lyon
was happy. Everyone was happy, except for little Platinia, who was
feeling sad.

"It's alright now, Platinia," the Mage
said, smiling very much.

Meaning that, for Platinia, what she
needed was a secret place to go.

Where she could cry.

* * * * *

Mage Castle.

At last.

After bathing with his sailors in the
hot water pool, Platinia doing the same in the woman's bath, John
felt as human as anyone could in the "light-pulling" Band of
Realgar. There was such a thing as being too strong, every step he
took threatening to bounce him into the air.

At least, toweling off, he was warm
again, Realgar a cooler Band that Stil-de-grain because the
daylight, shot skyward from the center of the world, lost its
strength when reflected from the outer edge of this iron-domed
land. Or so the locals believed.

If Realgar was cool, its waters were
cold, nothing like crashing the steam ship into a Realgar dock to
prove that point.

Had it been seven days since the boat
smashed into the mole, the little craft split in two, its engine
and gun sunk to the bottom of the bay? An accident that was partly
John's fault for paying so little attention to docking procedure,
the mishap also attributable to John's crew who, with oarsmen's
mentality, didn't think to wave the fire stones cold as they
approached the dock, the ship ramming the outer pier, the boat
sinking, John-and-crew thrown into the water. (Not a personal
disaster since each of them weighed so little that everyone popped
to the surface to float high on the water. Rather, John imagined,
like people bathing in the great Salt Lake at home or in the Dead
Sea beyond the Eastern Mediterranean, the high salt content of
those bodies of water making people "unsinkable.")

Realgar dock workers fishing them out,
John had apologized profusely for damaging the pier, John not as
concerned about the accident as he wished to seem. For win or lose
in his efforts to catch Pfnaravin, John no longer needed the boat.
Going further, one of the principals he thought was a good one --
derived from the original Star Trek series?? -- was not to pollute
this medieval world with the modern world's technology, steam
engines, no matter how primitive, a technical wonder here. (John
supposed his boat's fire stones -- scorching hot until thought cold
-- would continue to boil water where they'd sunk by the wharf.
Wondered what the locals would make out of that eternal "hot spot"
in Realgar's waters.)

A stevedore escorting them from the
central Claw where they'd crashed, they found lodging in an inn
servicing traders.

A late afternoon snack, and they'd
bedded down in clean, but crude rooms, all inns in all Bands
providing the same, basic services, John remembering to remove his
Mage disk and coins before surrendering his robe to be cleaned,
everyone's clothes washed and dried by the next
up-light.

Breakfasted on fried eggs and boiled
meat -- deer, squirrel?? -- they'd hired a leather clothed hunter
to escorted them over trails leading through overgrown vegetation
-- bushes, trees -- this Band's plants growing larger than normal
because of weak gravity.

Five more days and as many inns took
them to a stone pile complete with drawbridge, the hunter telling
them this was Mage Castle.

Saying goodbye to their guide, they
crossed the overbridge, a fat, shades-of-green-dressed courtier
(who seemed to know who they were), taking them inside to whisk
them down window lighted passageways to what seemed to be a meeting
room, the table-with-chairs chamber dressed up with marble, walnut,
and gold leaf trim.

down-light coming soon, tunic clad
slaveys brought fruit, sliced meat, and glasses of honey flavored
wine.

Finished eating, a ribbon bedecked
dignitary took them to a dormitory room down the hall, the palace
functionary assuring them the governing authority would see them
after up-light.

Exhausted, more from uncertainty about
their fate than from the six day hike they'd undertaken, they
choose beds along parallel walls, collapsing on what, in John's
world, would have been called King sized mattresses.

John thought about asking the sailors
to set up a watch schedule, but decided that if Tauro meant to
murder them, there was nothing John's few men could do about it.
(John did manage to hide his money and disk behind a loose dado
board.)

Slaveys awakening them after up-light,
the parties' clothing again clean and folded for them, they were
served a breakfast of boiled eggs, mixed fruit, and a hot drink
that would never replace either tea or coffee.

Breakfast concluded, two armed
soldiers conducted them, first to "wash up rooms" down the hall,
then through corridors and more corridors, the attendants breaking
trail through a highly curious crowd of castle personnel, John and
his party presumably on the way to meet this Band's
king.

As John had noticed -- even at the
seediest of inns along the way -- everything in Realgar was built
on heroic proportions, the ceilings higher than anywhere he'd been
in Bandworld, the halls wider, done to accommodate the considerably
taller people of Realgar, was his guess. Taller, also fatter,
though he didn't see how obesity could be blamed on low gravity. It
was lack of gravity, not slimness of body, that had John's party
bouncing along like balloons half filled with helium, John first
noticing this "light" feeling on the trip from his world to
Stil-de-grain. He hadn't felt this buoyant though ... since the
last time he'd been in The Claws, John with so many worries at that
time he'd been able to ignore this "floaty" feeling. Get used to
feeling airy of course, and it would be a "drag" when returning to
Stil-de-grain. To say nothing of how weighted down he'd be after
making the "jump" to his own, heaver gravity planet.

Coming to the end of an even wider
corridor, their chaperons pulled open the end wall's twelve foot
doors, John and company bowed into what had to be the King's main
room -- the chamber adorned with marble columns, walnut paneling,
and alabaster sculpture.

Sagged into an elevated seat at room
end was another of this band's big men, his body bulging through a
tent-like robe, tangerine light streaming from high windows
illuminating the room.

The military men flanking them, they
were marched toward the fat man, to be halted at the foot of the
dias on which he sat.

He looked ... feverish.

No ... John realizing they all had an
apricot cast to their skin.

Realgar. The orange Band; it's burnt
ocher "sun" light coloring everything below.

What did you do when brought within
the presence of Realgar's King? Take a step forward and bow, John
guessed, though kowtowing to authority went down hard for
Americans.

"Welcome," said the fat man in a voice
too small for his flabby body, the man of considerable age, though
no wrinkles lined his baby-fat face.

"Thank you for your hospitality, King
Tauro" John responded, straightening.

"You are mistaken to address me, thus.
King Taruo is in his capital."

"Excuse me, sir," John apologize.
"Apparently, there has been some mistake." John turned to Golden,
the rest of John's little band a step further to the rear, John
gesturing for an explanation.

"The capital is Orpiment, sir," Golden
whispered. "I assumed you knew ...."

"And where is that?" John cut in,
feeling the need to at least look in control in this foreign
place.

"Half way around the band, near Beak
Island."

"I thought when we left Xanthin harbor
we were headed for the capital."

"I did not realize that, sir. At any
rate it would have been impossible since it would mean going toward
Malachite, instead of away."

Just the kind of mistake John was apt
to make in this confusing place where countries formed complete
circles.

Turning again to the dignitary, John
explained. "Forgive me. I fear that, in the boating accident I may
have had a concussion ...."

"You wished to have an audience with
King Tauro?" The fat man could also interrupt to show
authority.

"So I thought."

"Here at The Claws, I speak for the
king. For I am Helianthin, Mage of Realgar."

"I see." John didn't see.

"And who, might you be?"

He didn't know? What kind of game was
being played here? One where the power at the moment was clearly on
the other side, John's job to discover the rules and learn how to
win by them. "I am the Mage of Stil-de-grain, John
Lyon."

Helianthin leaned forward, his
elaborately carved chair squeaking angrily. "Are you,
so?"

"Show and tell" time. Reaching into
his pocket, careful to avoid touching the Crystal, John dragged out
the Disk-on-chain. Held it high, the fiery window-light sparkling
the gold gem.

"You do not wear the
Crystal?"

"No."

"Nor do I wear mine -- until the
appropriate time."

Was that a threat? Not up on the
customs here, John was unable to read the Realgar Mage's "thoughts"
by tone of voice.

"Very wise, Sir," John said, striving
for tact. Where this conversation was going was anyone's
guess.