Ellen Under The Stairs Read Free Page B

thin lipped smile. Others were
afraid of her and of her Crystal -- as well they might be. Her
clever avoidance of Crystal-traps gave her a power, reserved to her
alone.
    She had a different strength than
Mages owned, her power coming from the knowledge that others needed
her while she did not need them.
    And yet that was untrue. While these
others could not take her Crystal from her -- would refuse even to
glance within the Disk's flickering depths for fear of endangering
themselves -- they could make her suffer.
    Zwicia's old body could still feel
pain.
    Though the flow of the Crystal
mesmerized her, Zwicia forced herself to be aware of her
surroundings.
    She was not in her little, castle
room, but in another cubical. A cramped chamber with an iron-bound,
oak door. A dark room. A damp room. A locked room.
    Her bed had been moved in. There was a
bowl of water and a floor-hole for her elimination. She had food,
though its taste was tainted.
    A single fire-torch provided the
room's faint light.
    The air smelled ... stale. Lifeless.
Because there was no window.
    Block walls of sweaty stone surrounded
her, so cold they sent chills through Zwicia's bones.
    Dragging a hand away from Crystal
stroking, she clutched her robe about her.
    Unlike John-Lyon, Pfnaravin, had put
Zwicia into this ... cage. ....
    Dungeon.
    That was the word for such a cellar
room. Dungeon.
    Why?
    Zwicia did not know. Or, if she did,
had forgotten. Though she denied it even to herself, her mind was
sometimes Crystal-struck: as dazzled as light on shattered
mirrors.
    Perhaps the Crystal would reveal the
answer.
    Her Crystal showing ... pictures of
the past. The present. The future.
    At her recollection that the
Weird-Disk could reveal the future, she felt a chill like the
passing of the shadow of a carrion bird circling high above. It was
a remembrance of something someone said to her. Something
important.
    In her confusion, Zwicia stopped
caressing the Weird-Disk, the glass darkening, the feel of
Crystal-power lessening.
    She shook her head in an attempt to
roll the loose marbles of her mind into the proper holes, her hair
flopping, the wattles on her neck jiggling. Thoughtlessly, she
picked at the purple fringe along the sleeve of her long
robe.
    For some time, she had served the
Mage, John-Lyon, few knowing, as her Crystal had revealed to her,
that the young Wizard was from another world. In the Crystal's
liquid mirror, she had seen him emerge in the tower room. The youth
with the strange green eyes.
    In the long ago -- which had been the
future, then.
    But he had gone back to that other
place.
    In John-Lyon's stead was another Mage,
Pfnaravin, also a man of power, an old man.
    John-Lyon once had the golden Crystal
of Stil-de-grain, which made him Mage. But he had the Crystal no
longer. Puzzled, Zwicia wondered how she knew that. .... She just
did.
    The Mage, Pfnaravin, had the green
Crystal of Malachite. It, too, had been lost: hidden in the palace
of King Yarro, in the king's capital of Xanthin. But Pfnaravin had
found his Mage-Gem, making him again a man of power!
    Zwicia did not know how she knew these
things. Perhaps, in the past, the Crystal had showed them to
her.
    But now, there was something she must
do. If she could only remember what it was.
    She was rocking now, rhythmically.
Swaying over her Crystal. Humming to it in her old cracked voice.
Crooning to her Weird-Gem.
    She had seen men come in the flyers.
Great birds settling near the world's rim. She had seen men in ...
heavy robes of magic. Seen them high above. Witnessed them build,
over the sky, a large, iron bowl.
    She had observed the men-in-robes in
the bowels of the earth, using machines to heat the innards of the
world even father down. Seen the men as they stood on ledges of
deep caves. Directing down the fire from their machines to heat the
center of the world.
    The Crystal had showed to her these
same men as they affixed a great Crystal in the top of a central,
hollow mountain.