Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (3 page)

Paul grinned. "So -- the vampire walks by
day."

"Just wanted to report my community service
project."

"Make it easy on yourself with that. With
luck, it may blow over."

The formalities over, John sat again. As did
Paul. Still standing in the doorway, Jiles gained detail as a
round-faced, rosy-cheeked man in a black and white checked sports
jacket with black bow tie, the pockets of his jacket looking ...
greasy ... as if that's where Jiles kept his uneaten pieces of
Kentucky Fried Chicken. Under his arm was a brown paper sack. A bag
to hide his ripple?

"No, no," Jiles was saying eagerly, "I'm not
complaining. Have a look!" Taking the wrinkled sack from under his
arm, fumbling inside, Jiles extracted a handful of framed,
photographic blow ups.

Bending over Paul, Jiles lined up the
pictures on Paul's desk, leaning the top of each cardboard frame
against the length of books at the back.

Taking a look -- John saw a weather-faded
barn, a shot of the Eastern Kansas Flint Hills, and an elderly
tractor, a farm cat nursing kittens in the tractor's rusted
seat.

John liked the cat.

Half-turned to look at the photos, Paul
said,"Nice."

"And here's the little baby that did the
trick." With a crackle of paper bag and a rattle like broken glass,
Jiles pulled out what had to be a costly camera, putting it on
John's desk, also dragging out a telescopic lens, some metal-rimmed
disks inset with colored glass, and other expensive bric-a-brac
that would only make sense to a camera buff. "An SLR Minolta 3000i
with a Maxxum AF 35-105mm lens. That, and my good eye, plus the use
of the best photo lab in town is what makes my photography, art."
He pointed enthusiastically at his pictures. "Especially my input
to the lab boys."

Though John wasn't particularly interested in
photography, he found himself staring at the camera's machine
tooled gadgets. Felt himself unnaturally attracted to them. ...
Why? ... Because these gizmos were finely made? Because they were
expensive? ........... Though John couldn't explain the items'
fascination, he thought it might be some reference to his sojourn
to the other world, a place where circular countries were called
bands, gravitational forces shifted as you crossed from one band to
another. A disorienting world where time spent there, failed to
translate into time spent here. A fogbound world in which that
waif-of-a-girl, Platinia, had attached herself to him
............

John shook his head.

"Going to give a talk about photography at
the Elks Lodge next Tuesday night before class," Jiles, babbled.
"Maybe, sell a picture or two."

Ah. Back to the real world of the profit
motive.

* * * * *

At home that Monday afternoon, John made a
decision. The one he'd been putting off: to return the borrowed Van
de Graaff generator to the Physics Department Chairman, Jason
Fredericks. John had promised to bring back the sleek machine
within a week. A deadline he'd just missed.

True, John hadn't felt well on his return to
"this world," John suffering from what the other world called
"band-sickness": the feeling of heaviness caused by crossing from a
lighter gravity band (country) to a heavier gravity band.

Though feeling better, he still hadn't
returned the Van de Graaff.

Laziness? Or something ... else.

Upon his return, John had been so sure he'd
never go back that he'd nailed shut the wedge-shaped, storage
door.

Was he again considering ...? No.

Time -- past time -- to add a period to that
"other worldly" chapter in his life.

John put on his heavy coat, wrapped the short
power cord about the Van de Graaff's shiny metal "head," picked up
the machine, and thumped out the front door with it.

Outside, struggling the "droid-shaped" static
maker into the back "seat" of his battered Mazda, he got in and
revved up the sports car's rotary to roar off down his private
access road to 72nd.

Throttling back to 45 through the
30-mile-per-hour suburb where John lived, he opened the car up
again on Highway 1, braking to enter the circular drive that
surrounded Hill Top's bucolic campus.

Lugging the generator through the long, empty
halls of the Science and Tech. Building, having doubts about not
calling first, John was glad to see a light shining through the
door of the physics lab at the end of the corridor.

Doing an "about-face" so he could push his
way into the lab without banging the machine, John backed in.
Pivoted to face the front of the room.

"Hah," said the old physics prof from his
desk at the room's other end. Above them, parallel fixtures of
fluorescents shown down on empty rows of tablet arm chairs, the
light also reflecting from Fredericks' head.

Coming into this artificial brightness from
the dimly lighted hallway called up a stray fact: that you needed a
filter to shoot pictures in fluorescent light. Otherwise, the
colors would come out wrong. Accounting for one of Jiles'
filters.

"So," Fredericks called, interrupting John's
thoughts, "you brought it back on time ... almost."

With all the "deliberate speed" the Supreme
Court musters when rendering decisions in favor of the poor,
Fredericks began to sort papers, no doubt making John pay for being
late by extending the time John had to hold the heavy
generator.

"Get your Franklin experiment done, did
you?"

"Actually, I got busy and didn't get around
to it. Maybe, some other time ...."

Finished with his "paper punishment,"
Fredericks stood to saunter back to take the machine, hoisting the
generator to its place in a line of scientific equipment on a high
shelf.

"Funny thing about you being here last week,"
Fredericks said, shutting the storage cabinet door, locking it,
jingling his keys into his pocket.

He turned to face John now, getting
comfortable by bracing his elbows on the high counter. "Got me to
thinking about ol' Ben Franklin. So much so, that I gave a little
talk about him. Community project, don't you know." John nodded.
"Went to an old folks home. Wheelchairs and all. Some interesting
old codgers there. A couple of oldsters poking each other like
teenagers in love." Fredericks hesitated. "Not too long before I'll
be there myself."

Fredericks paused, his steel-blue eyes
staring calmly into an unpleasant future.

"Wanted to look the place over, so I signed
on for that talk.

"And a couple of folks really seemed
interested. Glad to have anything to think about that'd keep 'em
awake, I suppose. Asked a lot of questions about lightning rods."
Fredericks smiled. Coldly. "Imagine. Still afraid of lightning, at
their age. One old fellow in particular.

"Now me," Fredericks continued, speaking to
John again, "I wouldn't have a rod on my house."

"No?"

"Ok, if it's installed right. If not, it does
more harm than good. 'Draws down the lightning,' as they used to
put it in the olden days."

"Is it true that Franklin tried to roast a
turkey by harnessing lightning?"

"Seems to be. The damned fool could have
gotten himself killed, messing around that way with that kind'a
power. A'course, he never did that kite and key trick."

"No?" Though John made no pretense of being
an American historian, he'd always believed in the genuineness of
that experiment.

"No siree. Old Ben described how to 'draw
down' lightning that way. In a letter. No evidence he ever tried it
himself. Some damned Russian did, though. Got roasted for his
trouble."

One more bit of conversation as a polite
"payoff" for borrowing the Van de Graaff and John could leave. One
more remembered piece of trivia ....

"Tell me, is it true that a car wards off
lightning?"

"Not precisely. Not precisely. What's true is
that no one inside a car is ever struck by lightning, don't you
know. A car of ferrous metal acts like a Faraday Cage." The old man
cocked his "egghead" to the side. Fixed John with lance-like eyes.
"Heard of Faraday?" John nodded. The name sounded familiar. Barely.
"Now that's my idea of a lightning rod. Sittin' in a car during a
thunderstorm. Safe as a bug in a rug!"

And that was that.

With the tardy return of the Van de Graaff,
John had snapped the final link to the dangerous, other world!

Platinia had been in the room with all the
pretty birds when the strange soldier with the green uniform came
to take her away. Even though the birds had a strong smell, she
liked to watch them. Birds were so interesting. Sometimes, they sat
on perches. Sometimes, they fluttered all about the large cage.
They were called messenger birds. They had long, curving beaks. But
they did not bite. She also liked to be in the kitchen under the
castle. There, she could always find a cat to pet. Cats did not
smell bad at all.

It had been a long time since any man had
hurt her. A very long time since the priests of the god Fulgur,
Lord of Light, had tortured her. Tortured her because she was the
Princess of Tenebrae, goddess of the night. Later, soldiers in
yellow uniforms had come to Fulgur's temple and killed the priests.
After that, she had been taken to be the slavey of Yarro, King of
Stil-de-grain. Somehow, the king had known she was more than
Tenebrae's Princess. That she was also an Etherial. Knowing this,
the king had made her use her strengthening power for his pleasure.
When eating. When with women. He had also hurt her. But less than
the priests had hurt her.

After that, Melcor, Crystal-Mage of
Stil-de-grain, had stolen her from King Yarro. Melcor had taken her
to this place, Hero Castle. Melcor had hurt her, too. Like all men!
He had hurt her to make her use her power to help Melcor bring the
Mage of Malachite, Pfnaravin, from the other world. Melcor had
forced her to look into the other world, to see through Pfnaravin's
eyes. It was ... terrible! More than that, she could not
remember.

It had been when the Mage, Melcor, was using
his crystal-magic to bring Pfnaravin from the other world that she
had found a way to kill Melcor. After strengthening his power, she
had made it go up to the roof above his head.

The next thing she could remember, she was in
another place. Dying! It was the place of Pfnaravin in the other
world. Pfnaravin! A tall and deathly quiet Mage. Still young ...
through wizardry? With stabbing eyes of fearsome green!

Pfnaravin, calling himself John-Lyon, then
brought her back ... to here. Where they found the Mage, Melcor, on
the tower floor, dead. Fallen ceiling stones had crushed him.
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had then put on Melcor's crystal. Platinia was
Pfnaravin's slavey then.

Even with the magic crystal about his neck,
Pfnaravin said he did not want to be Pfnaravin! He said his name
was not Pfnaravin, but John-Lyon. Platinia (while she called him
what he wanted) was not fooled. She knew he was Pfnaravin!

After that, she had traveled much with
John-Lyon-Pfnarvin and with another man called Golden. She had been
chained up in a dungeon with them, but the Mage had used his
magic-strength to set her free. In a boat, the three of them had
gone to the band where she was born, to Malachite.

It was in Malachite that the Mage found
Zwicia. Because Zwicia was a Weird, she also had a crystal. A
larger one than the yellow one John-Lyon-Pfnaravin got from Melcor.
Zwicia's crystal also had power. It would show pictures.

Platinia liked Zwicia because she was not a
man; though Zwicia was always very strange. Too much looking in
Zwicia's crystal made you strange.

There had been a war. John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had
won.

It was after that, back at Hero Castle, that
the Mage, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin, had hurt her. While not hurting her
very much, the danger was that he had made her tell him she was an
Etherial! So this Mage must also die.

To get him dead before he returned to the
other world, Platinia had planned to use the power he would build
to shake down more ceiling stones. Like she had done to Melcor.

But she could not do that because
John-Lyon-Pfnaravin held his large, white cat. Making the stones
fall would have hurt the cat. She could never hurt a cat.

Before he left, John-Lyon-Pfnaravin had told
her to take Melcor's (now John-Lyon-Pfnaravin's) crystal to the man
called Coluth. But she had not done that. She had been afraid that
if the seaman, Coluth, had the crystal, he would hurt her. Instead,
she had hidden the crystal -- being careful -- so very careful --
to touch only the chain that held the stone. She had hidden the
yellow crystal in the secret place that Melcor used to hide his
book. (Though spellbound by Melcor, she had seen him open that rock
place in the wall, Melcor not knowing she saw because she wished
him not to know.) Though she could not control a man of power, she
could change his mind in certain ways -- a little.

This afternoon, she had been watching the
pretty birds. More than three were gold. More than three were
green. More than three were orange. Only one was red. They were
making whistling sounds. When they were trained, they could say a
message. Taken someplace else, they would fly back and say the
message they had been taught. That was why they were called
messenger birds.

After the soldier had come for her, he had
taken her to the main room of the castle. (It was always too cold
for her in there with all that stone.) Soldiers were bringing in
the castle slaveys. Zwicia was there, standing at the end of the
slavey line. Some of the women slaveys were crying because the men
had hurt them.

Since she did not know why the soldiers had
brought her there, Platinia was afraid!

Platinia was often very much afraid. Many
times, because she understood so little. All her life, she had been
kept in Fulgur's temple. Mostly, in the dark. The world outside was
new to her. She did not know so many things. She did not know the
names for animals. She did not know why people did what they
sometimes did. She did not know the big words that other people
spoke. But she was learning. (The pretty birds were called
messenger birds. A boat was also called a ship.)