Core of Stone

by King, R. L.

  Stone nodded. This guy was definitely emerging as the leader of the opposition, so he turned his focus on him. “I know what you saw,” he said. “I saw it too. But it’s not real. That thing is nothing but a powerful illusion. And do you know what’s behind it? A mage, that’s what.”

  The murmurs were getting louder. “How come we didn’t see no mage?” the man asked. “And even if you right, how you gonna stop a mage when you ain’t one no more?”

  A couple days ago, those words would have cut to Stone’s core. Now, he barely noticed them. “I don’t have magic powers anymore, true,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything I know about magic.” His words took on an edge of anger. “And believe me: I know more about magic than just about anyone around. Certainly more than this punk-kid embarrassment to the Art.”

  He paused a moment, sweeping his gaze around the group just like he did in his lecture hall when challenging his students to refute what he was saying. When nobody spoke above the general muttering, he continued: “This kid is an insult to the magical community. He needs to be dealt with. And regardless of whether you lot decide to tuck your tails between your legs and run from your home, I’m staying here. Verity is staying here. We’ll find this punk and we’ll take care of him. It would be a lot easier if we had your help, though.”

  “But can you do it?” another voice yelled. “How do you know you can do it?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Stone said. “I’ll tell you all. But first I need to know: are you staying, or are you running? Because if you’re running, I don’t have time to explain the whole thing to you, and you don’t have time to stay and listen.” He pitched his voice louder still. “So what’s it going to be, Forgotten? Will you defend your home, or not?”

  The muttering grew even louder. The crowd turned away from him and to each other, breaking their discussions into little groups. Stone couldn’t hear any intelligible words, but was surprised to discover he was a lot better at reading crowds without the ability to see auras than he thought he was. They were coming around. He could see it. They weren’t quite there yet, but anything could tip them over the edge.

  “Can you guarantee none of us’ll get killed?” a woman asked.

  “Of course not,” Stone said. “Nobody can guarantee that. You’d be fools to trust me if I did. I won’t lie: it’s possible that some of you will get hurt or killed. It’s possible I might. But I know what I’m doing. I have a plan. If you’ll join us and follow it, you won’t have to worry about the monster anymore.” He paused to let that sink in, then: “Are you in or out? Decision time, ladies and gentlemen.”

  “I’m in,” Malcolm said, and turned toward the crowd. “I’m your leader now Luke’s dead. I trust Doc Stone. I’d rather fight than run, even if I end up dead. You with us?”

  There was a long silence, when even the murmuring died down to a nearly inaudible level. Stone watched the man in the plaid jacket silently. There was nothing more he could say now: either they’d follow or they wouldn’t.

  Finally, the man sighed and shrugged. “Yeah, okay. I’m in. I just hope you really do know what you’re doin’.”

  His words broke the floodgate, and the others started yelling. It was hard to pick out individual words, but Stone didn’t need to. He’d been right about the man and his influence. One domino falls, and the rest follow. He just hoped he could suit actions to his confident words.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Let me explain my plan to you, and then I have some work to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When Verity came to check on him a couple hours later, Stone was lying on the floor in Luke’s room, his stocking-clad feet propped up on the bed and his hands clasped behind his head. “Uh…” she said, setting down the paper bag she carried. “You okay?”

  He swung around and leaped to his feet, full of manic energy as he always was when he was working on a problem. “It’s going slower than I hoped,” he said. “But it’s going.” He gestured toward where he’d covered every flat surface in the room, including the bed, with a mishmash of twisted wires, assemblies of crystals, and other bizarre bits. The toolkit he’d bought during a stop at a mundane hardware store on the way back lay open on the table next to part of it, with pliers, screwdrivers, and coils of solder strewn haphazardly around.

  She frowned. “What is all that?” she asked. “I know we never really studied this stuff, but I don’t see how this is going to catch a mage.”

  “It’s not going to catch a mage,” he told her. “You missed the bit where I explained the plan. It will neutralize the illusion so the Forgotten can see the mage.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. He’d done that so often in the last couple hours that he felt like it might have finally achieved a permanent spiked state. “The whole thing’s still a bit of a dog’s breakfast, honestly. I won’t know for sure whether it works until you’ve put some power into it, but we can’t do that until I’ve hooked everything together.”

  “What’s with the cauldron out in the hall?” she asked. “It smells like burning ass. The fire’s just about gone out, by the way, if you care.”

  “I do,” he said. He tossed her a couple logs from a pile near the table. “Put those out there when you go, will you? I’ll be needing some more molten lead soon. Bloody hard to work without any electricity.” He dropped into the chair and shifted the lantern for a better look at one section of his contraption. “Everything all right out there? You get everyone healed up?”

  “Yeah.” She hurried out and returned a moment later with empty hands. “Couple of ’em were in pretty bad shape—knife slashes—but I fixed ’em.” She sighed. “It just bugs me so much that they’re stuck down here and can’t even go to the hospital because they’re afraid the Evil’ll get them.”

  Stone shrugged. “That we can’t do much about. We’ve done about all we can with the Evil. Taking on the infrastructure of an entire town isn’t something I’m keen to do, even if I did still have my magic.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She didn’t sound happy about it. “Anyway, I went out with a couple of the guys and did a food run at the McDonald’s down the street. It’s no twenty-seven-dollar Obsidian cheeseburger, but I figured you might be hungry.” She indicated the bag. “Might need to you reimburse me a little for stuff—between the plane ticket and buying McFood for fifty people, my credit card’s starting to whimper a little.”

  “No problem,” Stone said without looking up. Focused on his work again, he’d barely heard what she’d said. “Talk to me when we get home.”

  “Uh…sure, okay. Well, if you don’t need me anymore, I think I’ll go catch a catnap.”

  “Good idea,” he said, still without shifting focus. “Be reachable, though—I’ll want to give this thing a test run in an hour or two.”

  “How can you make sure it works?” she asked.

  “I can’t,” he said. “The test run’s to make sure it doesn’t blow up.”

  “Oh. Nice,” she said. “Can’t wait.”

  Stone lost track of time after she left. When he finally leaned back in his chair, stretching his cramped back and letting his eyes recover from focusing on tiny, badly-lit sections of his contraption, he had no idea if one hour had passed, or two, or a day. It must have been a while, though, because he’d devoured the contents of the bag Verity had brought him and he was hungry again.

  The peculiar, jury-rigged construct he’d been building was all on the table now, its serpentine sections twisted and coiled so it all fit. He wondered where Verity was; all that was left to do was hook up the last connections, and then have her feed small amounts of magic into it, just enough to confirm that he’d put everything together correctly. If it passed the test, the whole thing would work like an electrical circuit attached to a battery, humming with low-grade power. If it didn’t pass, the whole thing would blow up in his face. He’d been a bit f
acetious with Verity before: the thing wasn’t powerful enough to cause any damage. But the resulting flare-up would certainly destroy the fragile structure, requiring him to start over. Since he didn’t have enough materials to do that, and had no desire to go back and try his luck with Waldo again, he had to make sure he’d gotten everything right the first time.

  He flipped pages in his notebook for what had to be the tenth time, checking over the sections, verifying he’d used the proper crystal here, the proper connector there, until the whole thing started swimming in his vision. He sighed. If he were smart, he’d follow Verity’s lead and take a nap now. No time, though. He was sure it had to be getting dark by now, and they’d only have one shot at this.

  He’d stalled long enough. Either he’d done it right, or he hadn’t.

  He was about to get up and go in search of Verity so he could perform the test when it occurred to him that it had been many hours since he’d tried to see if there was any sign of his magic returning. In fact, he realized as he thought back over the previous couple days, his once-an-hour checks had gradually dwindled to once every couple hours, and then two or three times a day. Each time the answer came back negative, it drove another nail into his certainty that it wasn’t coming back, that he was a fool for continuing to try. Each attempt felt more and more like probing at an open wound that would never heal. He didn’t think it was possible, especially not this soon, but was he actually getting used to the idea of not having magic?

  Just let it go, he thought. You don’t have time for this. You’ve got things to do.

  Still, it would only take a moment or two. Just another disappointing data point to add to his ever-growing list, and then he could go off and find Verity with a clear mind, albeit with a slightly heavier heart.

  He sat back down, propped his right elbow on the table, and held his hand up with the palm facing him. He closed his eyes, taking a few slow, deep breaths to center his mind and drive off outside influences—the smell of the place, the ache in his back from sitting too long, the far-off sound of dripping water.

  He stayed like that for over a minute, a part of him reluctant to open his eyes, to face the same mundane, colorless result he’d experienced in every other attempt. At some point, he’d just have to stop doing it.

  At some point. But not yet.

  He concentrated, as always, on shifting to magical sight, and then he opened his eyes.

  Most of the room looked as it had before: dim, grimy, the only splashes of color being a few small personal items of Luke’s spread around it: a T-shirt here, a beer can there.

  And then his gaze fell on his outstretched hand, and he nearly gasped. His hand began to shake, first mildly, and then enough that the entire table and the delicate construct upon it quivered.

  It was hard to see, which was why he hadn’t noticed it instantly. But when he looked directly at his hand, he could just make out the dimmest of nimbuses around it, barely brighter than the surrounding air. Closest in, touching his hand, the glow shone in faint violet, stretching out nearly a foot. At the edge of this was a second narrower stripe, this one a shining gold, and almost as dim as the violet. He could see no sign of the “extra” silver bit Madame Huan had told him about—if it was there at all, it was overshadowed by the gold, and too faint for him to see.

  But the violet and gold were there.

  And he was seeing them.

  He let his breath out, afraid to move his trembling hand, afraid to blink, afraid that any second now he would awaken slumped over the table and discover the whole thing had all been nothing but a cruel dream.

  But none of that happened. The faint glow continued shining, showing no sign of switching off, as long as he stared at it.

  It took him a long time to regain enough awareness to tell that tears were streaming down his face.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “All right,” Stone said, projecting once again to reach everyone in the crowd gathered around him in the main room. “That’s the plan, then. Does anyone have any questions? Last chance before showtime. If you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, say so now.”

  The crowd mumbled and murmured, but no questions arose. Stone wasn’t surprised: he’d made an extra effort to explain things in easy-to-digest chunks, reiterating it all again now, questioning each key person to make sure they knew their job. There weren’t that many he was depending on—mostly Malcolm, Zenna, and two others Malcolm had identified as the group’s best and steadiest shots. Each of the four of these Forgotten now held a new hunting rifle and carried a box of ammo, courtesy of another stop Stone and Verity had made on their way back from Waldo’s. Nevada, as it turned out, had no restriction on the purchase of firearms. This fact had surprised Stone, who’d gone from England to California and was used to restrictive gun laws, but he hadn’t been averse to taking advantage of it. He himself carried a brand new Smith and Wesson revolver in a holster, which he’d promised to Malcolm if they were successful, and which he hoped very much he wouldn’t have to use.

  Verity stood next to him. He’d found her an hour earlier and had her test his construct, which to his relief had not blown up and seemed to be performing as expected. That didn’t guarantee it would continue to do so when put under full load, but it was an encouraging sign. “Are you ready for this?” he asked her. “You’ll be doing a fair bit of the heavy lifting.”

  She nodded. He noticed that some of her cocky bravado had deserted her, but he knew her well enough after a year’s association to see that it wasn’t fear—not entirely, at least—that fueled her more somber demeanor, but simply that she knew she had an important responsibility and took it seriously. “I’m ready,” she said. “I don’t have the dangerous job, though. Are you ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll get,” he said.

  He hadn’t told her, or any of the rest of the Forgotten, about the nascent return of his magic. He hadn’t, in fact, even tested it any further, beyond his small experiment in aura reading. Though he was confident his ability to partially perceive auras heralded the eventual return of his magic, he had no idea how long it would take before it was fully restored, or even if it would be fully restored. Terrified that any attempt to use it while it was still healing might irreparably damage its fragile spark, he planned to continue operating as a mundane until such time as he could once again see the incandescent glory of his aura in full flower. If that didn’t happen—well, some magic was better than no magic. But he needed to allow time for those questions to resolve themselves.

  Verity nodded. She didn’t speak for a moment, then pulled him into a hug. “You be careful.”

  “I will, don’t you worry. I have no desire to be eaten by an illusionary monster. Just be ready when I come running back. I’m counting on you, apprentice.”

  “Got it under control.” She pulled back. “I’d better go get into position.”

  As he watched her go, he was tempted to call up his power again and take a look at her aura, just to see if he could. But he didn’t.

  He refused to allow any of the Forgotten to go with him when he went in search of the punk mage and his manufactured monster. “I won’t get lost this time,” he said when Malcolm tried to protest. “I’ve been studying the map Zenna gave me, and I don’t plan to go out very far. But I won’t have any more deaths on my conscience. I can’t protect anyone else from the illusions. I proved that with Luke.”

  Malcolm hadn’t liked it, but he finally acquiesced. “If you don’t come back in a half-hour, though, I’m sendin’ out a group to look for you.”

  “If I don’t come back in a half-hour, something’s gone very wrong,” he said. He pocketed the extra battery for the lantern he carried, along with the map, and set off. He’d borrowed Verity’s watch because his was broken and he’d forgotten to replace it; he glanced at it now, buckled around the belt loop of his jeans. Nine twenty-five p.m.

&
nbsp; He stopped at the entrance to the main room to examine the construct he’d set up earlier. It didn’t look like much, but that was part of its design. The coiled wire looped over the curved tunnel entrance, held in place with duct tape he’d scrounged from one of the residents, and then disappeared behind a fortification disguised as a pile of trash. Verity gave him the thumbs-up from behind the pile as he walked by. Zenna and one of the other Forgotten crouched with their rifles behind a similar fortification on the other side.

  Attached to the wires at intervals were elaborate arrangements of crystals and small mirrors, carefully calibrated so the pointed ends of the crystals faced down toward the floor. The theory—and it was only a theory, because Stone had never built or even seen anything like this before—was that when the illusionary monster passed under the construct, the magic that Verity had fed into it would counteract the illusion, leaving the mage and whatever friends he’d brought with them exposed and unprotected. Stone doubted that the mage had much else in the way of protection, as all his experience with wild talents pointed to them being one-trick ponies. This mage might have a few other spells he could do, which still made him dangerous, but without his big gun, he’d be surprised and disoriented, and easier for the armed Forgotten to take down.

  He hoped.

  As he continued walking, keeping the lantern in front of him and trying not to think too hard about his ordeal when he’d been lost in the dark tunnels less than a day earlier, he wondered if he should be concerned about his cold-blooded pronouncement regarding the punk mage’s fate. The kid probably didn’t know any better. Likely he’d grown up on the street, discovered his magic in some traumatic way, and had either discovered his talents by trial and error or been trained by an unscrupulous master who probably used him to commit crimes.

  Mages who indiscriminately killed people for power were exceedingly rare, and generally came from one of two backgrounds: either spoiled wealth and privilege, which could lend itself to a certain callousness about the value of life, or deep poverty and deprivation, which often led to the disregard of rules in favor of immediate gratification. Most black mages were content to gain their power by taking it gradually from donors, willing or otherwise; most mundanes had no idea that the sudden sensations of tiredness many of them experienced often resulted from an involuntary energy donation to a black mage in a crowded place like a mall or nightclub.