Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series Read Free

rubbed into the eyes! A most salutary effect on stubborn
tongues, I can assure you from experience." The prickless castrate,
eyes closed in anticipation, was stroking his own body with soft
fingers: sensuously. "If slow results are feasible, a soaked band
of ox hide, bound about the head. Slowly to shrink, until the eyes
bulge from their sockets."
    A cleansing thought blazed through Leet's
mind! A quick thrust of Leet's sword -- even if hefted by a one
hand cripple -- would have a "salutary effect" on the life of this
loathsome "it!"
    Calming himself, the Army Head sighed.
Crossed his chest with his live, left arm to finger the scar down
his right cheek.
    The ugly truth was that this odious
emasculate could well be right. People lied. Even simple slaveys
such as these. Misplaced loyalty. Fear. Promise of payment for
dissembling. Though it was not the business of a soldier, other
means were sometimes needed to secure the truth.
    Torture.
    Perhaps a minimal amount to blunt a charge of
negligence. A modicum of suffering to prevent a greater
tragedy.
    But who to choose as victim/sacrifice for all
the rest? If possible, a dull-wit who would suffer little pain.
    Looking down the line, Leet saw the perfect
choice; strode to line's end to stand before a withered hag dressed
all in lavender. "What is your name?"
    "Nam?"
    "Name."
    "It Zwicia." The old woman's withered,
bird-claw hands were waving as if beyond control.
    "I will ask you only once," Leet said, his
voice as deadly as a dagger drawn. "A hideous fate awaits you if I
even think you lie. ... Where is the Mage, Pfnaravin?"
    "Mag'?" After that single word, the crone
began to mutter to herself.
    "Tell me where he is or pay the price!"
    "Don' kno'. He go. But he com' bak'."
    "When is he coming back?"
    A pause. More hand waving by the hag.
Mumbling.
    Insane.
    The perfect selection. Her mind already gone,
she would die quickly. Painlessly.
    Thinking these thoughts, Leet resolved he
would be the one to hold the woman for the priest. Attempt to snap
the harridan's wrinkled neck ....
    Leet felt shame redden his dark face.
Formerly the proud Head of cohorts, he had been overjoyed to be
summoned from obscurity; had been gratified even to receive this
doomed command. Now, he knew himself for what he was. The
executioner of crones.
    Stripped to the savage truth, there were no
other tasks a crippled soldier could perform.
     
     
-2-
     
    "And how's the Mage of Stil-de-grain today?"
growled Paul Hamilton, papa bear to a small department of
historians at Kansas City's Hill Top College. Paul could play fast
and loose with what they both knew must remain a secret because
only the two of them arrived that early in the morning. John Lyon
-- Crystal-Mage of Stil-de-grain. A far cry from John Lyon, junior
member of the "Hills" history department.
    Paul hung up his overcoat on the door hook,
then turned to thump down heavily in his creaking swivel chair. For
all his bluster, the big man had the killer instinct of Gentle Ben.
"Still having trouble sleeping?" Quick, topic changes was Paul's
specialty.
    Not sleeping.
    Insomnia was the way this improbable
adventure had begun.
    The first hint of the bizarre had come early
in the semester, right after John found he'd been conned into
buying a haunted house, not haunted by ectoplasmic apparitions, but
by noises emanating from a triangular-shaped storage space beneath
the front hall stairs. Rain sounds came from there and a faint,
ululating atonality that John recognized as chanting. The noises,
plus the sudden feeling that a "presence" was shadowing him, had
John questioning his sanity -- not a prescription for a sound
night's sleep. (Supporting a "mental difficulties" explanation of
John's noises, was the trauma John was suffering from his parent's
recent death.) What was certainly the case was that he "heard"
those strange noises -- sometimes by day, sometimes by night.
    Adding to John's discomfort was the parched
atmosphere in the long abandoned house;