Ellen Under The Stairs (28 page)

The Ellen woman disposed of, upon his
return to Realgar (that Band's orange light strong enough to
re-charge both Disks,) he would overwhelm Realgar's fat Mage,
taking from his dead body the orange Crystal.

As triple Crystal-Mage, Pfnaravin
would be invincible!

Careful to reserve as much force as
possible, but needing to keep track of John-Lyon, he rubbed the
Disk's green surface to send out a ward-tendril to his
enemy.

Yes. John-Lyon was near. And nearer
still. Traveling underground.

Pfnaravin was ready!

* * * * *

John and Platinia had been hurtling
after the tunnel-men, the trick to going fast, pushing forward to
half run, half float.

He'd noticed another thing. That the
tall, white men ahead stopped frequently to communicate up and down
the tunnels, doing this by twitching long, silk threads running the
length of the padded corridor, vibrations over the lines
communicating information as surely as electric pulses sent over
telegraph wires. There also seemed to be "thin spots" in the
tunnel's roof through which the under ground men could glimpse the
surface.

Though the talk of the tunnel men was
too fast for John to decode, Platinia seemed to know what they were
saying, Platinia assuring him the spider men were taking them
straight for Pfnaravin, Pfnaravin waiting just beyond the Cinnabar
border. Waiting in down-land, down-land the last stop before ...
nothing.

Running, gliding, they'd been
traveling longer than John could calculate.

Thinking back to up-light, he
remembered how strange it had seemed to be offered the same food
here you found in every band. Not that surprising since the produce
of other bands was traded for Cinnabar silk. Spider silk. No wonder
people who knew fashion -- people like Ellen -- were amazed by the
feel of this world's cloth.

Thoughts to distract him from the
coming war. For war it would be, if only between two
combatants.

There was increased chittering up
ahead, that high pitched twitter the language of the denizens of
this blighted band. Also the panicky running up the walls and
across the ceiling, John first seeing that upon his entrance to
this silk shrouded world. To be interpreted as fear.

"What's happening, Platinia?" They had
slowed, finally to stop, the others halted a ways ahead.

"They are at the end of the ...
tunnel."

"So, what happens next?"

"They ... do not know."

"What?!"

John saw one of the men turn back to
approach slowly.

"What's the trouble?" John asked, the
man stooping to be at the Mage's height.

"We at the end are."

"And what does that mean? The end of
where?"

"Above is down land." He pointed a
slender, elongated arm. First, down the corridor, then
up.

"Do you have a port here?"

The man turned to look at Platinia,
these tunnel peoples' eyes, like their bodies, a milky
white.

"A hole. To above." She
pointed.

The man -- all of the men resembling
the nearly transparent spiders John had seen in an "insect zoo" on
earth -- seemed confused.

"Yes or no?" John said impatiently.
Were there no Bands where people did the obvious without being
told?

"At a time. Long. One went ... to
surface. Come ... never back. Fell. Edge ... of world." There were
other words, said so fast John couldn't register them, the man
speaking in the rapid chirp of this band. Not that there was a need
to pick up every word, the man's meaning clear. One of their kind
had ventured to the surface and not come back, perhaps falling off
the edge of the world. Or so this man believed.

"Shut tight. Never again
go."

"But there has to be a way up, used by
the man who was lost," John said, trying reason as a way to make
sense of the situation.

The nod. What John had learned meant
yes.

"No need for any of you to go to the
surface. Just show me how to get out and I'm on my way."

"The ... Mage ... without."

"Pfnaravin is just
outside?"

"Talking thread say so."

That would be the spider strands used
for communication along the tunnels.

"You remember where the exit
is?"

Nod.

"Then take me to it."

Turning, the tall, thin man walked
slowly, John following, Platinia trailing, the man leading John
through the waiting man-spiders, the others cringing away as John
came through their cluster.

Stopped at the end of the silk-padded
corridor, the tunnel slanting up, the man pointed ahead, John
seeing nothing at first. Then, an outline behind the silk; a round
pattern in the earth. Clearly, one of the exit points.

Behind them, the thin men were racing
up the walls and over the ceiling to "spider" their way down the
opposite wall, going round and round in a dizzying array of
flailing limbs.

"Stop!" John commanded.

They stopped.

"You have done well," John said,
softening his voice. "There is no need for any of you to go
outside."

A chattering among them, John
beginning to tell when their fast-talk pattern sounded happy and
when it sounded sad, this time seeming as joyous as he'd heard
it.

"My advice is to draw back." A
suggestion that didn't seem to have translated. "Go back down the
tunnel so that nothing bad can happen to you."

That, they got, the men turning
quickly, running away, using the corridor floor, walls, and
ceiling. Chittering happily, their chirping noises disappearing to
... silence.

Time to try the port hole, the
corridor rising, the tunnel itself ending in a solid
wall.

With no man-spiders to get in the way,
John approached the portal, the spider webbing made to fit it.
Feeling around the edge, John tried opening the door from several
directions, finally locating a kind of hinge. Pushing the closure
opposite to the hinge, John felt the circle ... give. Shoving
harder, heard a groan -- indicating the hole cover's lack of use --
the trap door swinging up, the path to down-land open.

John turned to Platinia, the girl
sometimes seeming to be attached to him by an invisible cord. "If
our spider man friend is right, Pfnaravin is just outside. I've got
to put on the Crystal to have a chance against him." She nodded.
"Doing that sometimes makes me ... insane. Remember the time I hurt
you because I was wearing the Crystal?" Again, the nod. "Though you
never seem to do what I ask, this time, you've got to go back. If
something happens to me, I'm sure these underground men will see
that you return to Realgar. Once there, Coluth and Golden will take
you wherever you want to go." No nod. No expression on her little
girl's face. Platinia being Platinia.

Turning to the open passage again,
John fumbled in the deep pocket of his robe; found the Crystal on
its chain. Taking out the Gem, he looped the Disk's chain around
his neck ......

So far, so good. No surge of the
God-like feeling he sometimes got. Of course, when he rubbed the
disk's surface to build a static electric charge sufficient to
unleash the Crystal's force ....

No need to do that until the final
confrontation with the Malachite Mage.

As ready as he was going to get, not
needing to bend over as the tall men did, John emerged through the
hole, John in down-land, down-land because this place tilted "down"
toward oblivion.

Looking up, it seemed to him the
sky-ceiling was no more than fifty feet over head, the reflected
light a dull, red-brown. Hardly enough illumination to see the
ground beneath his feet.

Ground?

Stone -- no dirt. No
vegetation.

Fortunately, the spider webbing under
his shoes stuck to stone as well as to the silk corridors under
ground. Doubly fortunate because there was so little gravity. (He
reminded himself to be careful to have one foot stuck to the stony
ground before lifting the other foot. Jump ... and there was little
to pull him back to earth, John to float helplessly ... for who
knew how long.

The air ... had no smell. Was so dry
he could feel it sucking water from his skin. Dry and cold, only
the tension of the moment keeping him warm.

Squinting in the faded light, did he
see something ahead? A tall column of stone?

No way to tell from this
distance.

Time to go.

Setting out slowly, grateful the stony
ground produced no dust to cloud his vision, his immediate concern
was to keep one foot in full contact with the rock surface, a
walking pace his best chance of doing that.

On and on, looking at his feet to be
sure they stuck to the rocks.

Reddish brown light. Step after
hypnotic step. Until ....

A cruel laugh stopped him
cold.

Head up, looking not that far away,
John saw two figures, one as tall as the men underground. Had the
spider men come to help him after all?

No. The extra tall person was ...
Pfnaravin.

But ...?

Then, John knew. Pfnaravin was
standing on the corners of the trading floor that he'd broken off
to give himself extra weight in these outer bands.

Frantically, John rubbed the Crystal
to build its deadly power. If he could direct electric fire at
Pfnaravin before the old Mage could do the same to him, he might
yet win the battle!

Though feeling no static charge build
up on his body, John could wait no longer. Raising his hands,
pointing his fingers at Pfnaravin, hoping not to hit Ellen (who was
the smaller person beside the Mage,) John willed the fire to leap
from his fingertips ....

Nothing.

Except for another evil
laugh.

"It is as I thought," Pfnaravin
barked. "There is no force in your Crystal. And too little light
here to renew it. You are helpless, as I planned."

And John's last hope ... collapsed.
For himself, at least.

"I'm the one you want," John said,
trying to keep his voice firm.

"Because, pretend Mage though you are,
you possess the golden Disk. At your death, the first to pick up
the Crystal of Stil-de-grain becomes the Crystal's master. As you,
yourself, became lord of the yellow Disk upon the death of the Mage
Melcor."

"Since I'm who you want, I'll give
myself over to you if you let the woman go."

Another laugh. "And what is it you
have to bargain with, pretend Mage?"

A question with no answer, John's mind
frantically searching for some leverage over Pfnaravin. Any
leverage.

John heard the sound of a dislodged
stone. Turned to see Platinia, the girl disobeying his orders for
the final time.

Clinging to any hope, could he dodge
the deadly electric bolt Pfnaravin would release at him,
Pfnaravin's strike to come as soon as the devil-Mage finished
playing with him, Pfnaravin the cat, John the helpless
mouse?

Though still up-light, perhaps it was
dark enough for Pfnaravin to miss. If John turned to run, dodging
this way and that, he might still escape!

Except he couldn't even take the
coward's way out. Not without leaving Ellen in Pfnaravin's power.
Not without abandoning little Platinia.

Pfnaravin. So confident. So ...
tall.

Tall, because he was standing on the
stones Pfnaravin had blasted off the corners of the trading station
just within Cinnabar, the stones to add weight in low gravity
bands.

John's mind shying from the reality of
imminent death, he wondered how Pfnaravin kept the stones attached
to the bottom of his boots. Not with the help of the man-spiders,
the tunnel-men commanding their spider helpers to weave sticky webs
around John's and Platinia's shoes.

Mage Magic. That was how Pfnaravin
held the stones to his boots. He was using a form of Mage
restraint; like the force ensnaring Ellen.

Fire stones, Coluth had thought, the
rock trading floor was made of fire stone.

Fire stones .....

John had an idea, a desperate idea
better than none. Something to try that didn't take Crystal
power.

What he'd remembered was that anyone
-- including him -- could heat up fire stones in this place of
magic. Not to the point of boiling water, but ....

Concentrating on the fire stones
beneath Pfnaravin's boots, John began to think them ... hot, as he
did that, felt another magic force at work. Platinia, still back of
him, was adding her thoughts to his.

Meanwhile, tired of playing cat and
mouse, Pfnaravin had started to rub his Crystal to build sufficient
force to kill both John and Platinia.

Hotter.

Hotter.

With a yell, Pfnaravin released the
fire stones, the old Mage jumping up, the fire stones glowing with
a dull heat, the Malachite Mage continuing to drift skyward,
Pfnaravin yelling, twisting his body in an attempt to regain
control.