by R. L. King
Oh, and of course there was the shimmering portal in the middle of the room. Mustn’t forget about that. Jason eyed it warily, not wanting to get too close for fear one of those things would reach a hand or a claw or a tentacle or whatever else it had through and yank him, screaming for dear life, back through to the other side. Yeah, it was irrational. He didn’t care. He thought he was entitled to a little irrationality right about now.
He squatted down next to Stone. “Doc? Wake up. I think we’re—wherever we were trying to get to.” His mouth tasted horrible, and he wished that guys still carried handkerchiefs—or better yet, that he could get his hands on a large quantity of water.
Stone put a hand to his head and winced. “You chucked me into a wall.”
“Yeah, well—sorry about that. I hit the same one myself. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time, y’know?”
“Yes—that didn’t go so well, did it?” He pushed himself up on an elbow and looked around at his surroundings. “At least we made it to the right place.” Wrinkling his nose, he added, “—and what’s that smell?”
“Don’t ask. Trust me.” Jason took hold of his arm and helped him to his feet. “So, what now? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that whatever book you came here to get, it’s not on that shelf over there.”
Stone glanced over. “What? Oh. No, of course it isn’t. Come on. We’ve got a bit of a hike up to the house. I don’t want to stay here long, but I could definitely use a drink and I think you could too.”
“Yeah, definitely. But first a nice bottle of mouthwash and a big glass of water.” He paused. “What the hell happened in there? You said it was safe if I kept it under control.”
Stone moved over and opened the heavy wooden door, waving Jason out. “You didn’t.”
“I did!” he protested. “I was fine until they started—talking to me.”
That stopped him. “Talking to you?” he asked, fixing that intense ‘I may or may not be reading your mind’ gaze on him. “What do you mean? They actually spoke to you? Intelligibly?”
Jason shook his head. “No. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, if that’s what you mean. There weren’t really words. But I could tell they—wanted me. Made me feel strange. It’s hard to explain. Like at one point—” he shuddered with the memory “—I was convinced that you weren’t really you. Like they’d taken your place, and were leading me off the path.”
“Fascinating,” Stone said, almost to himself. Then, louder: “I’ve never experienced anything like that before—but then again, I’ve never made the trip with a non-magical companion.”
“Might have told me that before we left, Doc,” Jason protested.
“Slipped my mind,” Stone said. “And would you mind terribly if I asked you to stop calling me ‘Doc’? Just Alastair is fine.”
“Sorry, man. Too many syllables. You know how lazy we Americans are. How about I just call you Al?”
Stone looked stricken. “No. Just—no.”
Jason grinned. “Al it is, then.”
Stone sighed loudly, but didn’t push it. He once again motioned Jason out, then closed the door behind them. Then he waved his hand at it and muttered something under his breath, and it became just another part of the solid stone wall.
There was a stairway outside the door, leading up. “Oh, look. More basements! I’m proving my theory, you know,” Jason said with a grin.
“I think not,” Stone said, heading up. “You’ll see.”
At the top of the stairway was a long, narrow trap door, about the size of a standard interior door, but set into the ceiling. It had a rope attached to one end. Stone pulled it and the door swung smoothly down to reveal a short stairway of its own, like the kind people sometimes used to get into their attics.
“Hold on,” he said. He went up first, and Jason heard him fumbling with something that sounded heavy. Then whatever it was slid aside, and a patch of dim light appeared above them.
“Where the hell are we?” he demanded.
“Come on up.” Stone was already scrambling higher, and seemed to be climbing over something. Jason followed him to the top of the dropped staircase, and discovered he was standing on a narrow ledge inside an enclosure around seven feet long and three feet wide. There was a stone cover that had been shoved aside—that must have been what Stone was fumbling with. The rest of the room was empty. The whole thing looked vaguely familiar to Jason—and then he realized what it was.
Leaping out quickly, he stared at Stone with wide eyes. “This is a crypt!”
“I told you it wasn’t a basement,” Stone reminded him with a quirked eyebrow and a grin, pulling a false bottom over the trap door and settling it into place. “Now budge over so I can put the cover back on.”
Jason helped him move the lid back onto the sarcophagus—it wasn’t nearly as heavy as it looked, he discovered—and then looked back at Stone. “Why do you have the entrance to your portal inside a crypt?”
Stone shrugged. “You have to admit, it’s not a place that your random passerby is likely to investigate.” He crossed to the exit and muttered something at the door, which made a small click and swung minimally open. “Come on.”
Outside, it was dark. Jason was confused until he remembered that if Stone was telling the truth, they were in England now. If they’d left at lunchtime then it was already evening here. As he expected, they were standing in the middle of a graveyard.
“What is this place?” he asked, looking around. It didn’t look large—perhaps a grand total of forty to fifty graves, with headstones scattered haphazardly around, along with the crypt that dominated the space. The whole area was surrounded by trees, making it intimate and more than a little creepy.
“It’s my family’s plot,” Stone told him, heading toward an opening in the trees.
“Your family has a private cemetery?” Jason hastened to keep up, beginning to wonder just how much more there was to his strange new friend. It was okay, though—getting the subject of conversation back to mundane things—even mundane creepy things—was helping him get his bearings again.
“Not exactly grand enough to call it a cemetery,” Stone said. “It’s been here for centuries. Nobody left but me now, so—” He didn’t finish that, but kept going. Jason saw he was heading up a small path through the trees.
After a hundred feet or so, the path broke free of the trees onto a large, empty field. Far off in the distance, the dark bulk of what looked like a massive house rose into view. It was toward this that Stone seemed to be headed.
“Is that your house?” Jason asked, hurrying to catch up again. “What—you live in a castle?”
“Yes, that is my house, and no, it’s not a castle. It’s a dump, mostly, to be honest. You’ll see. Come on—it’s cold out here, and I’d really like to get inside and have that drink.”
They’d made it about halfway across the field when Jason spotted a small light bobbing toward them. He stiffened. “What’s that?”
“Ah, good.” Stone didn’t seem the least bit disturbed—in fact, he sounded pleased. “It’s about bloody time.” Picking up his pace, he hurried off in the direction of the bobbing light. Again Jason had to speed up to catch him.
“Aubrey!” Stone called. “Where have you been?”
The light drew up to him, revealing itself to be a stocky old man in a flat cap, heavy coat, and plaid scarf, carrying an old-fashioned lantern. “I’m sorry, sir,” he puffed. “Unavoidably detained. Come on—let’s get you inside. I’ve laid the fire and I’ve got tea on.”
“Excellent.” Stone motioned behind him. “Aubrey, this is Jason Thayer. Jason, Aubrey Townes—he looks after the place when I’m not around, and generally looks after me when I am.”
The old man held up the lantern and squinted at Jason, looking him over. He had the severe, craggy face of a man who’d spent a lot of his life doing physical work out in the sun, but it lit up in a pleasant smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thaye
r.”
Jason and Stone followed Aubrey back toward the house. As they drew close, Jason could see that Stone was right—it was not a castle at all. Instead it was one of those huge, dark, gothic mansions that you saw on TV adaptations of novels about rich girls who died of consumption, or creepy old men who kept orphans prisoner in the basement. It had a central hall flanked by two smaller wings, and the whole place presided over a circular, graveled driveway like some sort of malevolent spirit. Jason half-expected to see gargoyles on the edges of the roof, but all he saw as they passed by were a couple of wayward crows and a whole lot of missing shingles.
“This place must be great at Halloween,” he muttered loud enough for Stone, but not Aubrey, to hear.
“It’s a little grim,” Stone agreed. “Needs far more work than I can afford—the trust fund barely covers basic maintenance and repairs and Aubrey’s salary, and even so, we have to close off one of the wings because we can’t afford to heat it. It does look a bit better in the daytime. You’ll have to take my word for that, though—we’ll be long gone by then.”
Aubrey opened one of the heavy, double front doors and waved them inside. They walked through an entryway into a large, open greatroom with a soaring, shadowy ceiling and an enormous fireplace dominating the left wall. Arranged around it were some comfortable-looking old couches and chairs and a low table, and it was this area that Aubrey motioned them to head for. “Please,” he said, “Sit down. I’ll bring you refreshments. You both look tired.”
“What I really need,” Jason said, “is a bathroom.”
“And a stiff drink or two,” Stone added. He pointed off at a hallway leading from the other side of the room. “Loo’s over there, Jason. And Aubrey—don’t spare the alcohol.”
When Jason returned, feeling much more human after rinsing his mouth out several times and drinking a large quantity of water, Stone was seated on the couch in front of the fire. Aubrey must have returned, because on the table was a plate of small cakes, a teapot and cups, two glasses, and a large bottle of something amber and alcoholic. Jason threw himself down at the other end of the couch with a loud sigh.
“Feeling better?” Stone inquired.
“Yeah. As good as I can feel after having the crap scared out of me.”
“Good. Why don’t you sit here and have a drink—please don’t get yourself drunk, though. We’re heading back soon, and I think you see now what I meant.”
Jason froze. “Doc—Al—I can’t do that,” he said. “There’s no way you’re gonna get me through that thing again.”
Stone gave him a rueful smile. “Jason, I’m afraid there really isn’t any other option. If you want to help Verity, we need to get back home.”
“I’ll take a plane.” Jason leaned over and poured a healthy dose of liquor—he didn’t even care what kind it was—into his glass.
“That could take days—especially if we have to explain to the authorities how you got here in the first place without a passport. And I can’t get on with what I need to do without you.”
“You take the plane, too.” Jason was aware that he was being completely irrational, but he still felt like he’d earned the right after what he’d experienced.
“Jason, you know I can’t do that even if I wanted to. There’s no way I’m taking what I came here for on a commercial flight.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”
“You can, and you will. Verity’s depending on you. And besides, now that I know what happened to you, I can do something about it.”
Jason looked up, not daring to let any flicker of hope reach his face. “What do you mean? You’re just saying that to get me in there again.”
“No. Believe me, Jason, I’ve no more desire than you do to have a repeat performance of what happened today. That frightened me almost as much as it did you. We had a very narrow escape back there.”
“No shit?” He paused and took another drink. “So—assuming that you really can do something—what can you do?”
“I can put a block on your mind so they can’t reach it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s hard to explain—think of it as being a bit like hypnosis. I’d forgotten that most mages’ mental protections are more highly developed than the average person’s. You’re one of the most stubborn non-mages I’ve ever met, though, which will help. You’ve got the raw materials—I just need to tweak them a bit so those things won’t be able to get in.”
Jason thought about that. “What—will it feel like?”
Stone shrugged. “Nothing, really. You won’t even notice it.”
“Then how will I know you succeeded?”
“You’ll just have to trust me on that. And once we’ve successfully made the trip back, you’ll know for sure.”
Jason took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said at last. “For Verity, I’ll do it. But no more after this. You want me to do any more traveling, I’m taking a plane.”
“Fair enough,” Stone said, nodding. He got up. “All right, then. You sit here and enjoy your post-portal snack, and I’ll be off to retrieve what I came here for. We should be back on our way in less than half an hour.”
Stone returned about fifteen minutes later carrying a leather briefcase. Jason was still on the couch, staring moodily into the fire. He’d finished the whole plate of cakes and most of the tea, but hadn’t touched the rest of the liquor. He rolled his head over the back of the couch as he heard Stone approach. “Find what you were after?”
“I did.” The mage dropped down on the couch next to him and put the briefcase down between them.
“That’s it? Can I see it?”
Stone considered a moment, then opened the briefcase and pulled out a book. It was a little larger than a standard hardback, bound in cracked, dark brown leather with metal straps holding it together. In the center of the front cover was a dull red gem set into the leather. The book had no obvious title or any other markings. Even Jason, whose experience with books leaned more toward school textbooks and the occasional paperback bestseller, could tell it was quite old.
“So—are you going to tell me what it is now?”
“Not yet. Let’s get back to California. All I’ll say for now is that the reason I need it is because it contains the instructions for some techniques that might help us locate Verity.”
Jason looked a little surprised. “So we’re leaving already?”
“Don’t see why not. I’ve nothing more I need to do here. Do you?” He put the book back in the briefcase, snapped it shut, and stood. After a moment, Jason did too.
They said goodbye to Aubrey, who seemed disappointed to hear that Stone was leaving so soon, and trooped back out across the field toward the little graveyard. Far sooner than he wanted to be, Jason was face to face with that flickering portal again. “So…” he asked hesitantly, “you’re sure whatever this ‘block my mind’ thing is that you want to do will work? Because I’m not kidding—if what happened before happens again, you might as well just drop me off at the nuthouse.”
“Have a little faith,” Stone said. “Just sit down here in the chair and be quiet.”
Jason did as he was told. Stone took the other chair, pulling it around so the two of them were facing each other, knees only an inch or two apart. Leaning forward, Stone reached out and put three fingers on Jason’s forehead. “Watch my eyes,” he said in a low voice. “Just keep watching, and try to keep your mind as clear as possible.”
“You’re not gonna—you know—read my mind, are you?” Jason couldn’t help sounding a little alarmed—there were more than a few thoughts in there that he’d rather not have Stone—or anybody else, for that matter—mucking around in.
“I’ll give away one of my secrets, Jason,” Stone said, amused. “Mages can’t read minds. If anyone ever tells you we can, they’re lying.”
“You could be lying telling me you can’t,” Jason pointed out.
“Quite true,” Stone admitted. “N
ow be quiet and just watch my eyes so we can get on with this.”
Jason sighed. “Yes, master,” he said in his best Igor the Hunchback imitation. He leaned back and focused on Stone, humming over a mindless tune in his head to try to keep it clear. The mage’s eyes were bright blue and quite steady, focusing on Jason’s without a blink.
“That’s it…” he murmured. “Just keep doing whatever you’re doing…” His fingers moved a bit as if probing for a particular spot, then settled. A few seconds passed in silence, and then he pulled back. “There,” he said. “All done.”
“That’s it?” Jason reached up and touched his forehead. He didn’t feel the slightest bit different. There wasn’t even a tingle.
“I did say that you wouldn’t feel anything,” Stone reminded him. “Now come on.” He picked up the briefcase and motioned toward the portal. “No need to set it this time—it’s already good to go.”
It was the hardest thing Jason had ever done in his life to step into that portal again, but he knew if he didn’t do it, he’d never be able to look at himself in the mirror. They don’t let you have mirrors in the crazy house, he told himself, and stepped forward into the flickering light.
The trip back through was as uneventful as the previous trip had been horrific. The tunnel of fog was still there, as were the black flitting shapes and the occasional flash of black lightning. But the voices that had plagued Jason on the trip out were absent now. He walked briskly next to Stone, keeping a loose grip on the mage’s shoulder, and before he had time to be afraid they were stepping out into the storeroom of A Passage To India. He realized that he had been holding his breath almost the whole time, and let it out in a rush. “We made it.”
“See? I told you that you could trust me.” Stone gave him a wicked grin. “Come on. Unless you want something else to eat, I’d really like to get started on this as soon as possible. Let me just update the settings here so the next user doesn’t show up in my graveyard, and we’ll be off.”
Stone and Jason said goodbye to David and Marta, and soon they were heading north toward Palo Alto. For a long time they drove in silence, just watching the mid-afternoon traffic and almost subliminally keeping an eye out for DMW or other potential threats. Jason’s mind kept going over everything that had happened in the past couple of days; he was getting better at accepting weirdness, but it still all seemed like a dream. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he woke up in Ventura and realized that all of this had been a result of a bad batch of chili and too much beer. Would he regret it if it was? He wasn’t sure at this point, if he had to be honest with himself. “Hey, Al?” he asked suddenly.