Ellen Under The Stairs (12 page)

She remembered that, in Xanthin and
other places she had gone with the Mage, it took money to give for
the things you wanted. And she had money. Had watched John-Lyon in
his house. Had learned where the money was in that place. In a box.
In his bedroom. This money, she had taken just before she ran
away.

Money. Like in Stil-de-grain but
different. Round circles, some large, some small. Some silver.
Little coins she thought were gold, but were not gold in the
up-light of outdoors. She thought that metal was called copper.
Strange money in a strange place. Always with pictures cut into it
on its flat side. On both sides.

She had also heard the Mage say that
what looked like strange, green, tree leaves was also money. Paper
money. This kind of money with pictures painted on it.

Now, watching others, she had gone
into a food-building. Like the other people she had sat down at a
little table and explained to the woman who came that Platinia
wished food like these others ate.

The women brought a writing skin, but
saw that Platinia could not use it. The women asked if Platinia was
a foreigner, and Platinia, not knowing the word, nodded. After
that, the woman asked if Platinia wanted this food or that, finally
saying she would bring something Platinia would like to eat. And
the woman did that. Round, flat meat, a thin slice of red fruit,
and grass -- with bread on both sides. And something thin to drink,
with bubbles in it. A strange kind of milk.

After Platinia had eaten, she had
offered the women money, the woman taking some, bringing back
smaller coins.

That had gone well.

She was walking again, looking up at
the buildings and all around, when another man had begun walking
with her. A man with a big, wide hat. He had black eyes and very
friendly teeth. He asked her name. He asked if she was from another
place and she said yes. He asked if she had friends. She said no.
He asked if she wanted work, to make more money.

That was the beginning. He took her to
a room and explained that, like money to trade for food, men would
come and give her money. After that, they would ... the man had
said "make love" to her ... but Platinia knew what he meant. You
could not be a princess of the dark without knowing. He meant rape.
That was what he meant.

But ... this was different. Though it
took much time, she had made him understand. About the torture. She
had asked if she was to be tortured. He said no. That for even more
money, there were other things she might do .....

So Platinia had learned what to do.
Mostly what men told her to do. They gave her money, which she
shared with the friendly hat-man, the man getting her pretty
clothes to wear so she could make more money.

It was then that the tall man had come
and taken her back to John-Lyon's house.

* * * * *

Platinia had fallen asleep again, but
was once more awake. She had been having a bad dream that she was
back in the temple.

It was in Fulgur's temple that she had
learned to pick through the minds of the priests. To change their
plans to torture her as the sacrifice of Tenebrae, Goddess of the
night. She had found that she could make strong the thoughts of
priests. That she could make strong their emotions. That was her
only power in that place.

It was only later that she learned the
name for someone with strengthening power, a person like that
called an etherial, an etherial desired by men wishing her power
for the increasing of their pleasures. Eating. Sex.

The air in the bedroom was cold now.
Cold on Platinia's sweat-slick skin.

Long, Platinia lay there. Shaking.
Sweating. But made less fearful because she was an etherial. With
an etherial's powers.

She hated all men! The priests of
Fulgur! All men!

Except ... she had come to ... not
hate ... the young Mage, John-Lyon.

Now, they had come back to Platinia's
world. The young Mage. Platinia. And the woman who was called
Ellen.

Did Platinia love the Mage? Making a
greater importance, could she make him love her by strengthening
his mind's desire for her? And what of the woman, Ellen? Was not
the Mage in love with this woman? Could Platinia not see love in
the Mage's piercing green eyes?

Platinia must decide. Decide if she
loved the Mage. If so, she might have to kill this Ellen. How,
Platinia did not know. Only that she would find a way.

* * * * *

The trip to Xanthin island had been
more of a struggle than John had anticipated. First, came the
packing, female slaveys of the castle given that task, Ellen taking
a hand in the preparations -- women forever insisting on taking too
much of everything.

There was getting Zwicia to do the
most simple things to get ready for the move, John deciding to take
the Weird along. You could never command too much magic when trying
for respect in a Wizardly world.

Coluth and his band of
sailors did the heavy lifting, Coluth shadowed by his Second,
Philelph, the young man quiet as usual. John had know them both
from his "hiding out" days as a merchant seaman aboard the
Roamer.
Old Orig was
also with the captain, as was Osago -- fat as ever -- and Falkie.
There were other, more recent additions to Coluth's crew, all told,
a band of fifteen.

Coluth also commanded a squad of
Stil-de-grain soldiers; had thought to bring more, but had decided
not to, moving swiftly an impossibility with a large unit. The
Admiral had rescued John from Pfnaravin's cage by stealth, after
all.

Though Ellen said she felt better
day-by-day, her health continued to be a worry. Still with a fever
after down-light. Still coughing in the night.

Platinia begged to go with them, John
reluctant to take the fragile girl on what was certain to be a
punishing journey. In the end, decided that, since she'd made the
trip before, she'd be all right, Platinia apt to be safer in the
palace at Xanthin than at Hero Castle (John attempting to ignore
what he couldn't deny, that when Platinia looked at him in a
certain, pleading way, it was easy to give in to her desires, John
also hoping to make restitution to Platinia for that time he'd made
out-of-line love to the little girl.)

Ready at last, they set out just after
up-light, the sailors carrying most of the packaged items -- food,
clothing -- the group struggling through the morning fog down a
steep, loose-rock trail, hurrying, as best they could, to reach the
first valley before down-light.

Making it, but just barely (the women
foot-sore and exhausted), the group stayed that night in an inn
built to accommodate the occasional merchant or hunter -- the owner
and his wife strained to find food for them all, the soldiers and
sailors sleeping in an outbuilding.

Two days later had them nearing the
foot of the Hero Mountains, John sending a soldier ahead to the
next inn, the man instructed to hire the best pony cart he could
find, the women to ride the rest of the way.

With six, snorting shelties pulling
the women's cart, John made better time, crossing the Tartrazine
river by cable boat to find the wider road on the other side
clogged with merchant traffic -- men with back packs, others
push-pulling three wheeled carts similar to wheelbarrows, wealthy
salesmen driving pony wagons piled high with merchandise: metal
from Malachite, fruit from Realgar, grain from Stil-de-grain. John
spotted a rich trader hiding in the center of the press, the man
cradling an extremely light package that had to be cloth from
Cinnabar. Silk merchants -- like diamond couriers in John's world
-- attempted to slip by unnoticed.

Following the plan, John's group
eventually arrived at Canaria harbor, its quays jutting into deep
water, merchant ships moored along the jetties, there to take on
cargo destined for many bands.

Plus a Stil-de-grain naval vessel --
Admiral Coluth's cutter waiting at the end of the mole, the ship
sweeping John's party around the swirling circles of the sea, to
enter Xanthin harbor. Their goal: Xanthin palace further
on.

News they were coming preceding them,
the populace had turned out to welcome the return of the Mage,
Xanthin's people in holiday finery, the men wearing colorful
jerkins and bright doublets above skin tight hose, short
waist-skirts flared to show well rounded buttocks and codpieces --
the women more conservatively dressed in long robes of assorted
colors, wimples covering head, neck, and chin. All cheering.
Waving. Promising eternal love and support. (John was careful to
remember that the same crowd had backed Pfnaravin, the old Mage's
soldiers waiting on the same wharf to arrest John for treason --
the driving political force here, as in too many places: support
the powerful, whoever they may be.)

The crowd of well-wishers hemming them
in, they had difficulty dodging the offal, excrement, and garbage
that littered the streets of Xanthin, noxious odors only one of
many inconveniences of a medieval society.

The squad of soldiers at last forming
a wedge to break trail, they'd made it through the people-packed
center of the city, booths to either side offering goods like
clothing, knives, iron ware, leather products, and silverware.
Further along, they passed the shops of furriers, tailors, spice
merchants, and butchers: meat cutters offering every kind of
delicacy from pickled sheep's heads to sugared
pig-tails.

Ale houses, of course,
predominated.

The crowd thinning at the far edge of
the city, they took the exclusive access road to the triple walled
palace, eventually arriving at what was more fort than royal
residence. Recognized immediately, gate guards ushered them inside
the surrounding walls, doing that with as much pomp as simple
uniforms, courtly bows, and snappy salutes allowed, John's people
as safe here from unseen enemies as they would be anywhere in this
"other world."

"Honor guarded" across the courtyard
and inside the palace proper, they were greeted by lines of
functionaries promising the fulfillment of their every wish, which,
at the moment, was to be bathed, fed, and put to bed, John praising
the loving attention of the Palace staff, the staff loving praise
by the Mage.

As for John's major concern, he was
glad that Ellen hadn't suffered a set-back through it all. Though
still coughing in the night, her robust look in the daytime backed
her assertion that she continued to improve. (John would wait until
she was asymptomatic throughout the night before he'd even consider
taking her ... home.)

With Pfnaravin still missing, John
uncertain of his own acceptance here, he'd decreed that four guards
accompany him wherever he went, their shields and bucklers
clanking, swords swinging at their sides, leather under-armor
squeaking in counter-point.

He ordered the same number of sentries
to be posted outside his bedroom at night. (Not that guards and
more guards assured your safety, John knowing that, in the late
Roman Empire, it was usually the Emperors' "protectors" who
assassinated them. Who guards the guards?, was a question as old as
time.)

Zwicia and Platinia were installed in
separate, but connecting quarters, John ordering soldiers for the
women's protection.

* * * * *

Donning his white silk Mage robe in
the early morning, armed men accompanying him, John breakfasted
alone in the stone banquet hall -- had broth, cooked meat, candied
eggs, and warm wine -- his guards then having to squeeze him
through passageways clotted with mop wielding cleaning women. Also
past minor officials: Aber, the prolocutor (whatever that was,)
Bachur, Plenipotentiary (whatever that was,) Qrig the barber, Heimg
the Vice Legate -- all eager to do him service.

Finally to reach his destination, the
"war room" on second, its rectangular table dominating the sizable
space, twenty, heavy chairs around it, the Mage-ordered map of
Bandworld on its stand at the back.

A flanking table was still laden with
charts -- showing sea currents, blowups of harbors and the like --
another, lower table, offering ink and vellum, everything just as
he'd left it. After John's victory over the evil Mage, the room had
apparently become a kind of shrine, the room's smell backing his
"shrine theory." Stale.

Closing the door, as yet undecided
about what problem to attack first, he approached the barely
translucent window overlooking the island's "Beakward" side.
Pulling open the casements, he leaned out to see, at extreme
angles, the corner turrets of the palace, Stil-de-grain flags
topping the turret spires, the banners limp in the early morning
damp, though soon to gleam in gold and silver under a gilded
sky.

At a distance, he could see a corner
of the cobble stone courtyard, the final wisps of every morning's
fog obscuring its gushing fountain, the mist now snaking away from
the light as serpents slide for cover at the sight of
man.

Farther down the rocky hill on which
the palace stood, he could make out the city; fabled Xanthin;
capital of Stil-de-grain; sparkling like a jewel in it's island
setting, the island out-riggered by the fleet of Stil-de-grain. (At
least the island used to have naval protection -- before outright
defiance of John's battle plans had lead to disaster.)