Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series by John Stockmyer Page A

to blunder across the "trap." Object or animal
or man.
    Other times during the recent thunderstorms
of what was now early winter, he'd dreamed of Zwicia, the Weird.
And of her larger crystal, the Weird's foot-in-diameter disk
alleged to show the past and present -- even the future.
    Whatever the truth about the pictures the
crystal showed, John, himself, had nearly become "lost" in it. Or,
as people of the other world would say, he'd caught the
"crystal-sickness"; had been "out of it" while his military reforms
for the Stil-de-grain Army and Navy were being botched; the fleet
of Malachite boarding and capturing the incompetently led
Stil-de-grain Navy.
    Bits and pieces of the crystal-visions he'd
seen still haunted him. Had he glimpsed the other world under
construction, a hawk-like ship "parked" in orbit about a thin, flat
planet, space-suited aliens building a dome above the wheel-shaped
world?
    Interestingly, the natives of that backward
culture also described their world as round, but flat -- with a
sky-dome overhead that contained neither sun, moon, nor stars.
Nothing above you but clouds at night and rainbow bands of color
during the day, each color centered over its respective "band,"
each, concentric band-country with a different gravitational
pull.
    His mind flitting back to Platinia, was it
his imagination, or had the small girl enhanced his crystal's
power? Like she seemed to improve whatever he did when she was in
the room? Or was it a fantasy that he was more successful as a
leader when she was beside him? That his food tasted better when
she was near? That the day went better with Platinia by his
side?
    With some embarrassment, John realized his
mental ramblings about Platinia-power could be those of a man in
love, the merest contact between lovers seeming to perfume the
air!
    He had to admit to himself that, in her
doll-like way, Platinia had a kind of somber beauty. Like most
Malachites, she had dark hair and eyes -- Malachite, the band she'd
come from originally, before the priests of Stil-de-grain had
stolen her as a child. Kidnapped her to put her through a kind of
grizzly ritual because she was the princess of the night (or some
such foolishness.)
    Then, there was Golden. Another Malachite --
an entertainer whose real interest was in finding the lost crystal
of Malachite (the gem of Pfnaravin that the safely-dead King,
Yarro, was said to have stolen.) Golden's interest in the crystal
was (he'd once admitted in a rare moment of candor,) to use it to
lever himself onto the throne of Malachite.
    Golden, the acrobat. Golden, who could climb
dungeon walls like a hyperactive monkey. Golden (when liquored up)
a balladeer. Golden the sycophant. Golden the obsequious. Golden --
John's gopher.
    My God! John had never thought of it before,
but Golden was a character right out of Shakespeare, an
"otherworldly" Hamlet who, like the sullen Dane, considered himself
to have been aced off the throne by a wicked uncle.
    Now that John thought about it, there was a
remarkable similarity between Hamlet's behavior and Golden's. A
certain brilliance. A certain moodiness. A certain shiftiness.
    Golden-Hamlet.
    Both of them, men of many talents and the
poorly hidden aspiration to be king. Both, possibly, a little mad.
Both, dangerous enough to need ... watching.
     
    * * * * *
     
    John was awake again. Safe under the embrace
of blankets, John rolled on his side, half missing the iron chain
that supported his Mage-crystal.
    It was then that John remembered the
lightning rod he'd had installed in the hope that neutralizing a
storm's static would banish his frightening dreams.
    Creak!
    What was that!? A sound, certainly, the storm
not likely to have made it. In fact, the wind and rain outside had
just died down, the cloudburst no longer pounding on the roof. (The
proverbial lull before the real storm?)
    Something other than the noises he'd heard
that had first led him to discover that the storage space under the
stairs was the