Under The Stairs by John G. Stockmyer

Author:John G. Stockmyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Magic, Kansas City, Science-Fiction
Publisher: John G. Stockmyer Books
Published: 2013-03-08T04:54:55+00:00

CHAPTER 13

* * *

After the usual, early morning fog, it was another bright, warm, windless day as they drifted out from under the golden band over Stil-de-grain toward the greenish sky of Malachite. The air was fresh as it always was after the night's gentle rain. V-shaped birds soared above, glinting white as they folded their wings to dive at the sea. Gulls?

Leaving the tie-up dock, John had seen, wading along the sandy shore, a number of pink and black, duck-sized birds with long necks and stick legs. Just inland, pelicans sought food at the mouths of runoff rills, the night's rain oozing rivulets from the forest's tangled trees.

Now late in the day on the open sea, John could make out a merchant ship in the distance, a ship similar to their own: a wide, round, deep-draft boat laden with boxes, barrels, packing crates, and bags. Probably angling for a tie-up dock as they would be doing soon. Yesterday, John had seen a squadron of naval vessels -- long, shallow-draft cutters -- the flotilla far away, thank whatever gods this other reality boasted.

It surely couldn't be too much longer until they said goodbye to Stil-de-grain.

"Are we almost there?" John asked as Coluth joined him at the rail.

"Just about." Captain of the Roamer, Coluth was a compact, raw-boned man of sea-worn skin and indeterminate age. Leaning on the rail by John, the Captain cast a "weather eye" at the sky, then shaded his eyes with both roughened hands to look at the forested shore a mile to larboard and at least that far ahead. "You see way up there?" He pointed with a thick-jointed forefinger. "There. Just to the side o' that big old tree?" John tried to follow Coluth's point, a sighting made more difficult by the continuous circling of the boat as it curved around one of the great, interlocking whirlpools that gently swirled on the sea's surface.

"The one with the dead limb?" As far as John could see, a whitened oak was the only tree that differed in any way from the tangled thicket of lush, live oaks, elms, hickories, chestnuts, pine, and birch of the old forest that stretched before them down the coast. "That's the one. Now you look to the right o' that big tree and you see those smaller trees?"

"I see them." Now that it had been pointed out to him, the forest's trees did seem to get abruptly shorter just beyond the oak, as if they'd been cropped with a giant scythe.

"That's the border o' Malachite." It was John's turn to gauge the sky for distance.

"Just about where the yellow sky band turns to green?"

"Just about."

"Would you say that the colors of the sky bands correspond to the country bands under them?"

"Why, sure. That's the difference, you see. That and band-sickness."

And there it was again! Ever since he'd been on board, John had been hearing snatches of sailor talk about "band-sickness," always accompanied by a little laugh or wink or poke to indicate just how ignorant the farmers (their word for landlubbers) were to be afraid of it.

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