Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series

by John Stockmyer

  Quiet had come to the dock by this time, as workers, sailors, and camp followers drifted off toward supper and sleep.

  "Now that you are here to lead us ...." Coluth didn't have to finish that thought. It was John Lyon, Mage of Stil-de-grain, whose magic must save them.

  John knew better, of course, but couldn't tell Coluth the truth: that John was afraid to don the genuine crystal.

  On the other hand, John had been able to work a kind of magic the last time he was Mage. The "magic" of John's world -- technology. It was John's idea, after all, to mount the rams that gave Stil-de-grain ships some "punch."

  It wasn't John's fault ... at least, not entirely his fault ... that the rams had been improperly used.

  Given time, it was conceivable that John could come up with other military gems to stave off a Stil-de-grain defeat.

  On that mental note, the ubiquitous evening fog thickening to haze out the harbor, down-light coming fast, the two men quit the mole, nothing else needing to be said.

  * * * * *

  The next day. The first council of war. The place: the inn.

  John, Coluth, Philelph (Coluth's Second) Gagar (master of messenger birds) and two officers John hadn't met -- the new Army Head flanked by his Second.

  Entering the pine tar smelling war room by ones and twos, they were seated around the splintered, food-stained, rectangular dining table appropriated from the common room below.

  John, dressed in the best white robe he could find on short notice, sat at table's end, in the place of honor. Platinia sat to John's right -- because he still felt uneasy without the girl beside him. These seven, plus old man Robin to John's immediate left, Mr. Robin practically begging to be included, the old guy pathetically eager to understand his situation in this confusing world, a desire with which John could sympathize.

  Coluth, underdressed in a frayed officer's tunic, was at the far end of the bare, rough-sawn, trestle table.

  The room itself (a cow shed by Xanthin standards) had been designed for post-hunt parties rather than for military planning sessions, mounted deer heads on the room's white plaster walls serving as decoration, the animal trophies adding the "perfume" of damp hair and hide to the room's pine-pitch smell.

  Everyone expectantly in place about the thickly planked table, Coluth stood to bring the meeting to order. "Now, there is hope," Coluth said, coming as close to an expression of optimism as he ever got. "I wish to introduce Army Head, Nator, and his Head Second, Forsk." Indicating each man as he spoke his name, Coluth bowed deeply in John's direction.

  The Army Head was the elder of the two. Middle-aged with steely eyes under a fringe of close cut, dappled gray hair, stocky body, strong-fingered hands, wide gold sash slanted from shoulder to waist of his military tunic. Nator had replaced Etexin -- recently deceased.

  Forsk, the Army Second, was taller. More slender. A junior officer with a heart-shaped face and pale blue eyes. Same uniform; narrower sash.

  "This is ..." Coluth's voice fell to a dramatic whisper as he indicated John at the table's other end, "John-Lyon-Pfnaravin, Mage of Stil-de-grain."

  John's return being noised about last night, Coluth's announcement could not be much of a surprise to the new men, the soldiers saluting smartly nonetheless. Curiously, this non-news enlisted a choking sound and strangled look from Robin. An odd response. Unless the old man was remembering how he'd been caged after being misidentified as Pfnaravin, that memory still haunting him.

  The introductions over, Coluth sat down; scraped his straight-backed chair forward so he could rest his forearms on the table.

  Now was the time for John to strut his stuff.

  Rising majestically, all eyes upon him, John pulled up the chain around his neck until the fake-crystal cleared his tunic top. Just a peek, then back under the robe the filter went.

  Seeing what they'd been conditioned to think was a Mage-crystal, the two army men saluted again, nothing like the display of power to impress the military. "As some of you know, even the magic of a Mage is limited," John said, resuming his seat, leaning back comfortably, everyone else at the table sitting at attention.

  On the grounds that nasty surprises should be aired as soon as possible, John continued. "I must disappoint you by saying that, for the time being, there is nothing I can contribute to the war effort. You must see to your own defense."

  Around the table, faces fell.

  Truth, yes. But told in a way that maintained morale. "Rather, I should say that we must look to our defense."

  Relief! The Mage was still with them!

  No doubt about it, John was, once again, the defacto leader of Stil-de-grain. As soon as possible, as befit his station, he must locate a pointed Wizard hat and several, gold-trimmed robes of Cinnabar silk ....

  John pulled himself up short.

  Was exercising power the reason he'd come back to this alternate "reality?" ........ Perhaps. ...... Even if it was, however, John as Mage could be nothing but beneficial to a defeated Stil-de-grain.

  Clearly, with a boy-king on a non-throne, what was needed was not only John's guidance, but also a little "old-fashioned," 20th Century know-how.

  But first things first.

  "The depth of water in the Claws. Is it the same as the approaches to Xanthin Island?" To John's knowledge, harbors and tie-up docks were the only places near land where the water was deep enough to float capital ships.

  "It is shallow except for the center of each claw." A fact John could rely on. Who would know better, after all, than Coluth? At the same time, it was too much to hope that claw-depth was a secret.

  "I suppose that fact is common knowledge among the traders of every band?" Coluth nodded. "Which means that the Malachite Navy is also familiar with navigation in the Claws." Another nod. "Then the situation calls for the laying of mines." What John had in mind was something less clumsy than the ships John had caused to be sunk in the mouth of Xanthin Harbor when he was here before.

  "Mines? What are mines?" Forgetting he was in the presence of his Mage, the new Army Head had dared to ask an unsolicited query. Remembering himself, ducked down in his chair, eyes averted.

  The man -- for all his impertinence -- had asked a sensible, if "sticky," question. How was John to explain mines in a world that knew nothing of explosives? For that matter, did John remember enough high school chemistry to make explosives -- to say nothing of manufacturing mines to lay in the Claws?

  No possibility of that. At least not the semi-buoyant mines that had first come to mind -- the terror of the North Sea in John's world. In a "wooden ship" world, however, a non-technical device could be just as effective.

  Submarine nets?

  John wasn't up to explaining submarines.

  "What I mean is, a method to damage attacking ships."

  John had a sudden vision of the coastal defenses of the German General Rommel, Rommel planting sharpened train rails under the water off Omaha Beach to impale D-Day landing ships. While John couldn't pull off that trick either, he felt certain some workable defensive strategy would come to him. "I have in mind underwater devices -- ways to close the inlets against Malachite vessels. And while we're at it, let's make these portable, shall we?"

  Yes! Though no one at the table -- including John -- had a clue about what John meant, every man was looking to him for national salvation.

  Excellent!

  Under John's leadership, the resurgence of Stil-de-grain -- if not at hand -- was now a possibility!

  -17-

  The return to power had its expected downside, of course. Once the news had spread that John was Pfnaravin, Mage of Stil-de-grain, people began lining up to beg for favors. Merchants came to demand armed escorts for their trading ventures; Realgar fisher-folk complained about the lack of wharf space with all the Stil-de-grain ships tied up in the Claws; and craftsmen requested raises over and above their already inflated war-wages. There were also the good-hearted annoyances: Herria, the inn's heroically proportioned cook, w
anting to try out her special recipes on the Mage; Isbelia, the chambermaid who, if allowed, would have spent her life fluffing the Mage's pillow; Graccia, the inn's soubrette, whose sole desire was to "fluff" the Mage.

  In addition, scullery maids and drudges lurked in second floor hallways to catch a glimpse of the mighty Pfnaravin.

  Then, there was John's relationship with the king. At least once a week, it was politic for John to go to the king's room on the third floor, the room where Coluth had put the king's sad, little, locally constructed throne. On those occasions -- Coluth proudly making sure that Yarro was dressed in his small, starched king suit -- John would have an "audience" with the child so that John could receive the king's "orders." Conversation with the little boy always went as follows:

  "How are you today, your majesty?"

  "Fine."

  "And how are your studies going?"

  "Fine."

  "Is there anything I can do for you?"

  "No."

  So much for consulting the king. At least the child, under Coluth's tutelage, refrained from interfering with John's administration.

  In spite of these routine interruptions -- some of which John could avoid by closeting himself in the "war room" -- John was making grudging progress toward the defense of what was left of Stil-de-grain forces.

  At first, John's worry was that the Malachites would come before he could beef up the military situation, a fear that was rapidly diminishing.

  True, the Malachites could spoil John's plans by ferrying their army past the marsh to attack overland from the "east." It was just that John didn't think they would. Destroying the Stil-de-grain Army as an effective fighting force, the next, logical target would be the navy.

  Against the probability of a naval attack, John had taken two precautions. First, he'd ordered the Claws to be "mined." Not with explosives, but with fixed barricades designed to gut enemy ships. Modifying his "mine" idea to fit this world's medieval technology, John had his sailors drop boulders -- here and there -- in the center of the inlets, plugging the bays at selected spots. (It hadn't taken an explosion to send the Titanic to the bottom, after all.) Prior to placement, John had local craftsmen attach iron rings to the top of each boulder, making it possible for surface ships to hook onto the underwater barricades in order to drag them to a new location or to dredge them up entirely when Stil-de-grain shipping needed entrance or exit from the bays.

  Another naval weapon John was thinking about was Greek Fire, a chemical compound invented by the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantines shooting what, in effect, was flaming liquid on Moslem ships. Unfortunately, knowledge of how to produce this unquenchable fluid had been lost to time -- though it was a good bet that naphtha figured in the flaming mixture. Still, the principle of shooting fire at wood ships seemed like a good idea -- until John remembered this world didn't have the sort of fire that John's world did. Here, they used Wizardly fire -- wishing making flames spring up magically from fire rock. Cold fire. (For heat, all you had to do was think hot at a fire stone.)

  Perhaps heated fire rocks could be catapulted at enemy ships, some experimentation needed along that line.

  Remembering that he carried a cigarette lighter, John had set in motion a plan to make gunpowder, which, if he recalled his high school chemistry, was comprised of sulfur, potassium nitrate, and charcoal.

  Making charcoal would be the easy part. If fire stones could be heated to sufficient temperature to smelt this culture's iron, fire rocks could be used to "bake" the flammable gases out of wood -- charcoal the result.

  Golden had put John on the trail of an alchemist who was supposed to know about "exotic" chemicals like the kind John needed -- sulfur and potassium nitrate, John hoped. Unfortunately, the "chemist" was in Xanthin -- setting up a catch-22 situation. It would take something unexpected (like gunpowder) to recapture Xanthin, the chemicals for gunpowder in the very city they needed to take.

  Tonight's post-supper business concluded, John was walking down the narrow, second story hall toward his bedroom, two guards preceding and two trailing.

  Along the walls, the inn's staff had already lighted the hall torches, down-light soon to be upon them.

  John was thinking about the supper meeting he'd had with Coluth. It had gone well, John thought, Coluth reporting that four of the six claws were now closed to enemy shipping, boulders submerged at strategic places to rip out the hulls of unsuspecting ships.

  All things taken into account, the "mine" project had been a success, the soldiers billeted in the Claws lending a hand to quarry stone from a solid rock mountain less than half-a-day away, dragging the irregular blocks to the Claws on pony-sleds, local iron workers attaching hammered rings to the boulders. After that, sailors, using wharf cranes mounted on tugboats, loaded the ringed boulders, then swung them overboard at the appropriate place to plug the Claws against enemy shipping. By the end of tomorrow, Coluth had reported -- by the next day at the latest -- the remaining two claws would be "buttoned up" in the same manner.

  Except for this reality's superstition against night work -- everyone fearing to be outside at the mercy of the "terrors" of the dark -- all the bays would have been sealed by now. As compensation -- since the enemy felt the same night-fears -- no one had to worry about attacks after down-light.

  An idea John was planning to broach at the staff meeting tomorrow was shore battery defense. It was just a question of getting the military to locate catapults on the heights near the mouths of the respective claws. Like cannon-defense of harbors in the historic past of John's world, catapults could be prefired, the "gunners" taking note of the exact spot their stone "ammunition" landed. After that, all the catapult operator had to do was fire when an enemy ship had entered the danger zone, the stone "ammo" certain to hit its target.

  As for inn defense, a light guard -- at John's "unreasonable" insistence -- was kept on the inn's external doors after dark. No one, including the enemy, would venture out at night.

  Reaching John's bedroom, the leader of the guards opened the door, entering to make certain no one was hiding under the bed. Like the young woman, Graccia, John thought wryly. (John's concern on entering his room was to avoid looking at the spot behind the doorjamb where he'd hollowed out a hiding place for the real crystal.)

  Satisfied that the room was safe for the Mage to enter, the guard mounted his torch in a wall ring. Saluting John, the four soldiers formed up in the hall and marched off.

  Down-light coming fast -- the ending of the light preventing John from communicating with other people -- John shut the door.

  Alone, at last.

  On his last excursion to this world, mostly as a precaution against the "pull" of Zwicia's crystal, John had Platinia sleep in the same room with him.

  Now, largely cured of "crystal-sickness," having Platinia in the adjoining bedroom was enough to make him feel comfortable about being so near the Weird's gem.

  The girl leaving the war room before him, she would already be in her connecting room at hall end.

  While John's room was the best in the place, his bare-walled, white-plastered, small-windowed bedroom was crude compared to the lavish suite of rooms he'd occupied in Xanthin Palace, this room featured the bare minimum: bed, dresser, footlocker, and a straight chair.

  The maid setting out a change of clothing on top the crude dresser, John transferred everything he'd need for the new day to the pockets of the fresh tunic. (One of the first things he'd order once he'd gotten settled, was to have pockets sewn in all his tunics and robes.)

  Ready for a fast start come up-light, John undressed, putting his knife and belt on top his change of clothing on the dresser, the wide-bladed thieves-knife now in a handsome leather scabbard some adoring common person in the inn had made for him. (He'd taken to wearing the knife, more as a badge of authority than to use in a fight.)

  Slipping off his shoes, opening the door to transfer the torch to a wrought-iron wall holder just outside his door, he closed the door
again and crossed the three steps it took to slip into the straw mattress bed, John pulling up the light blanket (some kind of cover necessary in this colder band) and stretching out.

  Though tired, John's head continued to buzz with ideas.

  After long consideration, he'd had to give up his idea of fire ships -- fire ships a tactic that Sixteenth-Century Englishmen used against the Spanish Armada. In that conflict, the English had put barrels of gunpowder, pitch, tar, and other flammables on derelict ships, towed the wrecks up wind of the Spanish galleons, set the junker ships on fire, and let the wind blow the exploding hulks among the Spanish fleet.

  Except that there was no gunpowder in this backward place.

  Yet.

  Also, no wind.

  His mind slowing at last, it was sometime during his consideration of another, anti-ship weapon called "hot shot," that John fell asleep. Was in such a stupor he didn't awaken when the outer door to his chamber opened to admit a shadowy figure, a specter who hurriedly turned to close the door, after that gliding to the bed with infinite care. Someone who gently, slowly, slipped down John's blanket.

  Since John was sleeping on his back, it was easy for the interloper to lift the yellow crystal from John's chest.

  A soft creak toward the far end of the room caused the wraith to stiffen! .... No. ... No other sound. Except for the eternal noise of nighttime rain upon the roof.

  Satisfied, the shadow bent to John again.

  Making certain the crystal's trailing chain did not brush against John's face, the ghost-figure stretched the chain up and over John's head, setting the gem above John on the pillow.

  Then came the wait.

  A long wait.

  The phantom silent.

  Until John gave evidence of moving in his sleep.

  At that, bending over John again, picking up the crystal, the shadow waited until the split second John raised his head to roll over, the specter slipping the chain from beneath John's neck.