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

that
remained was a child-king and some useless ships.
    Wanting to consider even ugly possibilities,
what if, dissatisfied with less than complete victory, the forces
of Malachite did came Claw-ward?
    Would Coluth have the courage to flee with
the child-king ... to Cinnabar?
    Coluth had been to Cinnabar but once. As a
young captain, bent on gaining a prize cargo.
    Preparing to travel cross band, he'd tied up,
perhaps in this very sea-claw at this very dock. He did not
remember. It was in a distant time.
    Disembarked, he and his men led packed rental
ponies to the Cinnabar border, the orange sky overhead shading
toward the red, becoming a mixed color, like any border sky.
    It was Coluth, by himself (for his crew,
though eager to gain the wealth of the Cinnabar, held back,) who
had stepped across the border onto the silk-stacked tiles of the
Cinnabar trading floor. Had immediately felt band-sickness like
he'd never known, becoming so light he feared he would float off
the ground, never to return to earth. Float and float into the sky.
Drift downland, to be lost forever beyond the world's rim!
    Steadying himself, signaling to his men
before he lost his courage, they had tossed the trade goods out to
him, the bulky bundles and boxes so light when passing into
Cinnabar that, though several men must lift them from the pony's
backs, Coluth could catch each pack one-handed.
    Exchanging the goods for the airy bales of
Cinnabar silk -- of little weight even when in heavier bands -- he
had tossed the tightly packed silk across the border to his
men.
    The swap completed, careful not to launch
himself above the ground, Coluth had edged back across the boarder
into the heaver band of Realgar.
    There, more solidly on the ground, safe at
last, sweating but buoyed by the awe and admiration of his men,
Coluth had ordered the bales of silk to be strapped on the
ponies.
    All secure at last, as quickly as if night
monsters were loosed upon them, Coluth had led his sailors back to
the claw that held their ship.
    Scary as it was, it had
been a highly profitable venture: that single journey to the
world's rim paying off the Roamer debt.
    At no time had any mariners seen the flyers
of the Cinnabar. But .... somewhere ... flying high above?? ...
they had been watching. For if anyone should cheat by leaving too
little trade goods -- Malachite iron and copper, Stil-de-grain
wheat -- there would be no bales of silk, no pepper or other spice,
on the stone floor when next that cheating trader came.
    How could the men of Cinnabar know which
merchant-trader had defrauded them if they were not watching?
    A profitable venture. One he could have
duplicated -- Coluth, an honest trader -- a journey some captains
made repeatedly (like some would command their men to run the
Leech!)
    A trek Coluth could never bring himself to
take again. Nor did a single member of his crew -- those who had
been with him on that terrifying day -- ask him to repeat the
journey!
    Coluth shuddered!
    Though there were different kinds of courage
-- the bravery of the sailor wrestling with the sea, the fighter's
daring -- none were so bold as those who ventured -- twice -- into
the Cinnabar!
     
     
-8-
     
    "I remember, once, when lightning hit my
daddy's barn," said Professor Gaber in his reedy voice. "That was
back in ... let me see ... back in 1910, it must have been." The
old man nodded to himself. "That was before rural electrification,
which came under Teddy Roosevelt. The Tennessee Valley Project, if
memory serves."
    Still wearing his baseball cap with the
ear-flaps down, Andres Gaber couldn't hold a thought (to say
nothing of a fact) for two seconds at a time.
    "Living out there ... in the woods, I would
think you would have had the foresight to install a lightning rod,"
put in Kitterman, the Social Science Department's self-proclaimed
intellectual. A whip-thin man in a three piece suit.
    Of the professors gathered in John's office
to hear the bad news, only Paul seemed at all