Of Course! Since Golden and Platinia had not been recognized as the escaped prisoners, they'd been thrown in the pit like any common felon.
The only difference John could see from when he himself was incarcerated in this rank dungeon, was that there were more captives chained to the walls, rounded up as a result of war hysteria, John guessed.
Ignoring the other prisoners' pleadings to be freed, with the use of the chain breaker on the manacle cuffs (no percentage in pulling chains out of the wall when you didn't have to) all of them -- Golden helping with Platinia -- were up the rope and out the window in short order.
Nor did it take long to get down the outside of the castle wall and to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea.
It was when they were descending the escarpment on the way to the skiff that they ran into trouble! The two crewmen already down to get the boat in the water, Philelph positioning the oars in the wooden locks, Orig, two steps into the water to steady the boat, John, Platinia, and the captain still struggling over the rock pile at the bottom of the cliff -- they heard .....
Golden? Still on the bluff above?
After that, came a muffled shout. A soldier!? Another cry. Two soldiers?
"Get away!" That was Golden, leaning over the edge, waving his arms at them. "Don't wait. I can out run them! I'll meet you where you came from!" And Golden disappeared, followed by more shouts ... that faded .........
And "get away" they did, hoping the soldiers were so busy chasing Golden they wouldn't look over the cliff; or if they did see the small boat, wouldn't think to send messenger birds up the coast to have a cruiser in wait for them.
But ... nothing happened, the crew rowing the boat around the island without further incident.
Turning the craft over to the captain's fisherman friend who owned it, they were able to pick their way through the crowds to the harbor where they boarded the Roamer.
Followed by a worrisome week, John trying to occupy his mind by helping with ship's maintenance, a little caulking with what looked like tar, plus the replacement of waterlogged timber.
No Golden.
Figuring that Golden had gotten caught, John considered suggesting another rescue attempt -- but rejected it. Not, he was certain after some soul searching, because Golden was far from lovable. It was that the captain and his men had taken more than their share of risks. Anyway, there was no way to plan another escape, if for no other reason than that the prisoners they hadn't released when springing Platinia and Golden -- for revenge or to curry favor -- would have told their jailers how the escape had been affected. The window entrance to the dungeon would be sealed. Traps laid for them.
Golden was on his own.
The next extraordinary event came later in the week, starting with a frenzied increase in activity on the dock and on the streets up the harbor's hill, solders marching down the quay in force, the Roamer's crew at the pier-side rail.
After boarding ships up the line, the corps of soldiers got to the Roamer, tied as she was, near the end of the mole. Climbed the gangplank.
"You are the Captain?" the leather-tough leader of the detail asked Coluth, the ship's sailors backing their Captain as he faced the boarding party amid-ship.
"Yes, sir," said the Captain with a short, ungraceful bow. (Coluth wasn't used to bowing to anyone. For all the Captain's gentle ways, he was accustomed to being obeyed, not to obeying.) "What's the matter?"
"Line up your crew."
Behind the officer, his soldiers -- ten, twelve -- formed into a smart, tight rank.
In answer, Coluth waved his hand, his sailors, John included, doing their scraggly best to line up behind Coluth, the military man stocking to the end of the sailors before pacing back slowly, looking each seaman over carefully as he went by.
"This is all of them?"
Coluth nodded, as an afterthought, pointed to Platinia who was sitting with her back against a cask at the rear of the boat, the squad leader ignoring her.
"No Malachites here who are not sailors, if that's who you're lookin' for," said Coluth.
When the officer said nothing, Coluth asked again. "What's the trouble?"
"And this ship is your ship?"
"Yes, sir."
"Its name and origin?"
"It's the Roamer; built in this very harbor, she was."
"Yes, I saw the construction marks when I came on board," agreed the squad leader. "You can't be too careful in these times. The assassin could be anywhere."
"Assassin?" The Captain's eyebrows went up.
"Yes. Didn't you know? The King ... has been assassinated." The officer said it unemotionally. All military? Or could it be that the fellow had as little reason to love King Yarro as everyone else?
"Yarro?!" Coluth asked, incredulously.
"Yarro ... may he go to Fulgur. ... A hard man. ... Long may his son, King Yarro, reign!" The captain saluted, fist clinched, right forearm brought smartly to an elevated diagonal across his chest.
"If I have heard aright," Coluth said, hesitantly, "his son is but a ......" Coluth shrugged.
"Under age." The squad leader shook his close cropped head. "No Mage. No king. A coming war ...."
With that, fearful he'd said too much already, the leader brusquely ordered his search party off the boat, down the slip, and onto the next vessel.
Leaving the Roamer's crew buzzing with the news.
Yarro dead. While it was impossible for John to crank up any sympathy for a man who'd chained him to a wall, Yarro's death made a difference in all their lives. Like the troop leader seemed to think, Stil-de-grain could come apart before the war started. And to think that John had wanted to leave Malachite to keep from being caught there for the duration. How much worse could it be than to be trapped in a country slated for defeat!?
The compensating factor was that here, John was closer to Hero Castle -- provided he could find some way to provide the static he needed to take him home.
For that matter, since all ships were confined to the harbor during the emergency -- security bound to be even tighter with the King's assassination -- how was John to get back to the mainland? He could swim again. But how would he get Platinia across? (John couldn't leave the fragile girl at the mercy of a war.)
Nor could John presume on the Captain's friendship to ask for sailors to row them to the mainland, these good men already doing more than enough for John and for John's party. With Stil-de-grain in turmoil, anyone caught without an explanation for his activities risked execution.
The last in this peculiar chain of events occurred the following day, starting with a woman prancing down the dock, idle sailors and stevedores calling after her, offering their services in any capacity she might want to use them.
Next, to John's complete surprise, the woman paused at the Roamer gangplank, turned, and climbed it, stepping off nimbly on the deck, the ship's crew quickly surrounding her to the cat calls of jealous sailors on adjoining boats, macho remarks shouted back from the sailors of Coluth's boat.
Apparently satisfied that the ring of sailors was hiding her from the view of idlers on the dock and from the other crews, the woman suddenly took off ... her ... hair. And standing before them, in a colorful woman's tunic ...was ... Golden!
"How did you ....!" John started .....
"Shuuuu," Golden said, holding up his hand for quiet. Recognizing Golden immediately, the other sailors huddled even tighter to protect their young comrade from prying eyes.
"Mornin'," said Captain Coluth, who'd just come up, the seaman's colorless eyes speaking his relief.
"The same," said Golden in a more human tone than John had heard him use. To John, Golden seemed as shaken as when newly released from the Weird's trance. Was pale. Perspiring.
"How did you escape?" John asked, still stunned.
"I ........"
"May we talk in the hold?" John asked Coluth, getting the Captain's nod.
Meanwhile, Golden was removing his longer, woman's tunic, his sh
ort, man's tunic underneath.
The Captain's permission given, Golden climbed down the steep hold steps at the ship's center, John following, Golden thinking alight a torch set in the hull just above the bottom step. Except for evenly spaced squares of pig-iron ballast, the hold was empty, cavernous, and smelling like the inside of a hollow log. Musty. With a hint of wet decay.
With several empty half-casks lying about, John picked one up, upending it on the flat, ship hull, John sitting down on the cask's bottom, Golden doing the same with another barrel, sitting near John, facing him.
"First, I'm glad to see you," John said. And he was. He didn't care much for Golden, true. At the same time, John hated to think of Golden being Yarro's prisoner. "I didn't want to leave you back at the cliff."
"You had no choice. You had to go." Golden spoke in his usual melodious tones, but gently, the sound of both their voices echoing softly around the empty, hold.
"And we did. But no one wanted to. We just didn't see how we could have helped you. .... What happened to you?"
"I ... I ...." Golden looked down at the shadowed, pig iron blocks on the ship bottom. If he looked at anything.
It was time -- past time -- to get some answers from this secretive young man.
"You've got to be completely honest with me, Golden. There's about to be a war. Everyone's got to know where everyone stands. It may be a matter of life and death. The Captain and his men could be thrown into the king's dungeon, mutilated, murdered -- for what they've done for us already."
"I ... know."
"There's a lot about you I don't understand. For instance, you call yourself Golden. But that's your 'stage' name, isn't it? Not your real name?" John was guessing, but a good guess, he thought.
"Yes."
"And your name is ...?" John could see Golden take a deep breath.
"I am Cleadon, son of Cleadon." Golden squared his shoulders; sat a little taller, Golden thinking the name ought to mean something to John. "You will remember my father."
"Ah .... no."
"But you are Pfnaravin." Golden was pleading with John, now. "Not I alone, but you also, must reveal yourself at such a time." He rushed on. "You are the only one who can stop the war!"
Golden looked away, shook his head as if trying to clear it. "I thought I could stop it, but I have failed." Then, more haltingly, "The usurper, Lithoid, the brother of my father -- is allied with the dark Mage. As he was before. He had my father killed before the Mage war, and seized the throne." Golden looked up at John intently. "You must help me regain my rightful place as King of Malachite so that I can stop this war!"
"I do remember your saying that you're from Malachite, originally," John said, stalling while trying to digest this machine gun burst of "facts."
"I know that many men claim to be the heir of King Cleadon." Golden continued, both hands waving away these "other's" claims. "It was the loyal courtiers of my father who rescued me from Bice, when I was to be killed. They were the ones who led me across the land of the giants. They were all killed but the one who got me through. Though you might not remember me as a child, you, more than anyone, have seen the proof of this!" Another piece clicked into place -- Golden escaping from Malachite through the land of "invisible giants," the dangers of which, John now had reason to believe, were concentrated spots of heavy gravity.
John decided to reverse the "polarity" of the conversation. "And where have you been all this time?"
"In the Palace."
"Yarro's Palace!?"
"There are places to hide there. Before, while waiting to entertain, I learned of such places." Good. John felt he was getting the truth from Golden at last, Golden's "hiding places" squaring nicely with the ease with which Golden had been able to conceal John and Platinia as the three of them were making their first escape from Yarro's dungeon.
"And what were you doing there? Did it take you all this time to make your way out of the Palace?" After the second escape from the dungeon, security would have been tightened.
"No. I was ... trying to prevent the conflict between my suffering people and those of Stil-de-grain. Only the two kings and the evil one want such a war."
"And how were you going to do that?"
"You do not know," Golden said softly, bowing his head as if John were about to punish him. "I should have told you, but ... I thought you knew." He looked up at John again, his eyes pleading in the dim flicker of the ship-hold torch. "After you left this world for the next, your Crystal, which you left behind, was stolen by King Yarro. I was ... trying to get it back for you." Golden said the last sentence in a rush: as a child tells only part of the facts. Perhaps Golden wished the Crystal for himself?
Feeling he was getting at least most of the truth from Golden at last, John decided to let it pass.
"The treasure room was heavily guarded," Golden continued, seeming to see it all again in his mind's eye. "And your Crystal may not have been in the treasure room. Yarro could have many hiding places in the palace for a thing of incomparable value. He could have had it about his neck. But ... he did not. I had no time to search further. I was almost ... caught."
As Golden rattled on, John began to consider something else. If Golden had stayed behind, as he said, to "stop the war," then he had done so deliberately, meaning that Golden himself had made those sounds of soldiers on the cliff.
"So what is it you would have me do?"
"If I had gotten your Crystal, you could have left this place, taken ship to Malachite. Then," Golden continued hopefully, "presented yourself to the usurper; demand that he recognize you as the Mage. Pfnaravin, Crystal Mage of Malachite!" Golden's dark eyes shone as if with an inner vision. "And you could have made me king! As king, I would have stopped this war."
"Without 'my' Crystal, what can I do?" John had decided to play along.
"You have the yellow Crystal of Melcor." So, Golden knew about that, too. And John had been so careful to hide that little bauble ... from everyone. Had Platinia told Golden about the Crystal? "Yarro is dead. Present yourself as the Mage of Stil-de-grain to the young king. Show him the Crystal. He must make you his Mage. Then find a way to stop this war!"
John Lyon, Crystal Mage of Stil-de-grain!
If the prospect wasn't so frightening, the title had a nice ring to it. But could John pass himself off as the Mage of Stil-de-grain?
"Why not?" said his "little devil" self. Though taking every opportunity to deny it, he was still being taken for Pfnaravin, lost Mage of Malachite.
At first not inclined to "play" what had to be a dangerous game, John now must consider where his duty lay. He'd been to Malachite; he'd seen the naval build-up here. The hysteria.
And John would like to stop the war. As an historian, John knew that anyone who could preserve the peace -- should.
"And you think I could do it, assume the role of Mage of Stil-de-grain?"
"Without question, great Mage."
"I would need the proper clothing."
"I could have that for you in a day, John-Lyon."
A bluff was what they were talking about. On the other hand, John had already run a number of deceptions in this world. All of them successful.
Then, too, though there was still much he didn't know about this place, he had the knowledge of a superior civilization to aid him.
As a hedge against disaster, becoming Stil-de-grain's Mage might give him the power to do static electricity experimentation. Assuming his research went well, he was close enough to Hero Castle to escape to his own world at the first sign this "Wizard business" was falling apart. Looked at from that direction, pretending to be Stil-de-grain's Mage might be the safest of all options available to him.
John stood suddenly, motioning for Golden to stand as well. "Do you know what the Mage of Stil-de-grain is expected to do?"
"Who knows about Mages, John-Lyon."
"Like the 500 pound gorilla, anything he likes?"
"Pardon me, but ...."
"Never mind.
I suppose that the Mage has enough influence to do what he pleases."
"That is certainly so, sir."
"Then I might as well be the Wizard of this band as the next."
John had a cautious thought. "You want me to stop the war, then make you King of Malachite?" Golden bowed deeply, reverentially. "What if I can't do that? Suppose war momentum is too great, even for me to stop?
"I know that might happen, sir. That there is a greater force ... some would call it the power of the gods, or fate ...." Golden stopped, at a loss to explain the unexplainable, Golden, to his credit, displaying more modesty in the face of imponderables than your average preacher in John's world.
"What I wanted to ask is this. Should war come in spite of all I can do to prevent it, what will you, as a man of Malachite, do?"
"Sir?"
"If the Malachite navy comes, where will you stand?"
"Why ... with you, great Mage."
"No matter what? No matter if it means fighting your own countrymen?"
"I would not be fighting them, sir. I would be fighting against the usurper, Lithoid."
"I see. That relieves my mind, Golden. I need people around me who I can trust."
"You can trust me, great Mage. Always."
Yes. Except that in both love and war, "always" did not necessarily mean "forever." In a political context, in fact, "always" meant as long as you, yourself, were benefited, in this situation, "always" meaning as long as Golden had a chance to regain Golden's "rightful" throne.
For the moment, though, John was pleased with Golden's new found candor. So much so, that John had refrained from asking what could very well be an embarrassing question. How it was that Golden knew the green Crystal of Pfnaravin -- was not about King Yarro's neck!
* * * * *
Chapter 18
"And the latest intelligence?" John had to ask for the most elementary information. It was maddening. A combination of too much respect and too little competence might yet be the death of Stil-de-grain.
Across the polished walnut table in the marble columned, third floor chamber that John had dubbed the "war room," army Head, Etexin and his younger Head Second, Flebb, smiled and nodded. Tell the Mage of Stil-de-grain what he wanted to hear, was their passionate desire. Anything but the "ugly" truth.
Under The Stairs Page 24
