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

gateway to another world, the sometime-sounds of
chanting -- that John found later were the magical mumblings of the
Mage, Melcor, as Melcor worked to bring the lost Wizard, Pfnaravin,
back through the static-operated passageway that just happened to
be under John's stairs!
    There had been a glitch in Melcor's plans,
though. Somehow, the Sorcerer's magic had backfired, first, to send
Melcor's "slavey," Platinia, to John's world, then to bring down
the tower room's ceiling blocks on the hapless Mage. (Though people
in the other reality seemed to think that Wizards were
indestructible, having your chest crushed by roofing stones made
even Mages mortal!)
    Poor, dearly departed Melcor had blundered in
another way, too. Known to be seeking Pfnaravin in the "other
world," John's appearance had the band-folks convinced that John
was the newly returned Malachite Mage.
    Of course, when the Bandworld's "medieval
oriented" people found out John didn't want to be called Pfnaravin,
they did what they were told -- mumbled John Lyon -- the locals so
terrified of Mages they would call John anything his heart
desired.
    Later, King Yarro's mysterious death had made
possible John's promotion to Mage of Stil-de-grain, the "great"
Mage expected to run Stil-de-grain with a hapless child-king on the
throne and a foreign war brewing .......
    Creak! Bang!
    John was out from under the covers and on his
feet in an instant. No dreaming that noise!
    Though John couldn't imagine what it might
be, the sound had been real, a noise that originated below him on
the first floor.
    A possible robber in the house, the "manly"
thing was to go downstairs and get himself killed, John helped by
being able to sneak downstairs with thunder as his "cover."
    His bare feet receiving their marching
orders, John grabbed his robe from the chair back beside the head
of his bed and put it on hurriedly.
    Sneaking into the hall, John was grateful to
have his way illuminated by pulsing thunderbolts, the staccato
rippling of the storm's electric ganglia penetrating the house's
dirty windows.
    At hall's end, John started down the stairs,
his bare toes feeling for the steps, stair-noise lost in drumrolls
from the sky.
    One ... cautious ... step ... at ... a ...
time.
    Another step, static building on his body
now, and John squatted down to look out where the stairs "broke
free" of the walls, to see a head emerge from under the stairs!
Like Platinia had come out when Melcor, the Wizard, had blundered
......!
    No!
    What John was seeing was the back of a head
disappearing into that opening, the head lifting to show a man's
face, his gray hair teased up by the same static John was feeling
on his own body.
    Later, all that John could remember was a
blinding flash! A deafening roar! And ... falling .....
     
     
-7-
     
    After Golden had been sent limping off
through the fog to quiet the ponies in the inn's bramble enclosed
corral, the rest of the "irregulars" had fallen upon the tiny, one
floor building, Malachite soldiers inside, Hooc said.
    "Irregulars"? Bandits, was Golden's name for
them, even though Golden was grateful they took him in. No man
alone -- to say nothing of a wounded man -- could live long in that
swamp.
    It had been weeks since the Stil-de-grain
Army's disastrous rout through the Great Realgar Marsh, the marsh a
nightmare of thorn-thickets, scrub, and sucking soil, a canopy of
broad leafed, mere-trees darkening the bog's quavering ground.
Swamp creatures slithered through knurled tree roots in the wet
below. Stinging insects clogged the heavy, putrid air.
    Bad though things were, Golden wondered how
many soldiers of Stil-de-grain had been as fortunate as he.
    "Tighten up," Hooc hissed, turning from his
position in the front, Golden falling behind so that those ahead
had faded into darkish lumps in the odorous mist. Limping faster,
Golden dragged on the tether, a rope trailing from the lead pony's
halter to each of the other ponies in turn.
    Behind Hooc was Sassu, a