Game of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Damn.” She took a sip of wine. “And…you never figured out that weird thing he said to me when I saw him, right?”

  In truth, Stone had almost forgotten about that. He recalled Harrison’s words clearly now, as Verity had relayed them to him: If the time ever comes when he truly needs to find me, he already possesses the means to do it. But he’d spent several weeks after she’d given him the message going through the notebook Harrison had sent him, looking for hidden writings, symbols or formulae he’d missed, or anything to give him a fresh idea. He’d found nothing. Finally, frustrated at his inability to decipher what Harrison had clearly thought to be an obvious clue, he’d given it up. He barely knew the man, after all—it might just have been an offhand comment, something that sounded profound to get Verity out of his face long enough for him to vanish again.

  “No,” he said. “No bloody idea.” He finished the last of his wine and slapped the glass down. “Anyway,” he added briskly, “enough of this. As I said, I didn’t ask you over here tonight to talk about my problems.”

  She accepted the change of subject with grace. “Okay, why did you ask me? Other than to get another home-cooked meal? And,” she added with a hopeful gleam in her eyes, “maybe something else later?”

  “That last part is up to you,” he said, chuckling. “But not just yet. I want you to know how proud I am of what you did the other night. You kept your head in the middle of a very dangerous situation, and you applied your magic creatively and effectively. You saved several lives that night. I couldn’t be more pleased with the way you responded when you didn’t have a net under you.”

  She smiled and looked away, but her pride at his words was obvious. “Thanks. I just did what you taught me.”

  “You did—but you also did more than I taught you. And that’s the key. Verity—I won’t say there isn’t more I can teach you, because there is. I can teach you a lot more, if you still want to learn.”

  “I do. Absolutely.” She leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table.

  “I’m glad to hear that, because teaching you is one of the biggest joys in my life. But you’ve proven to me that you’ve moved beyond the status of ‘student’ now. There’s more you can learn—but there’s always more to learn, for all of us. I’ve always believed if you stop learning, you start dying. The only difference now is that you’ll be doing that learning as a colleague, not an apprentice. And who knows? Perhaps I can learn a few things from you as well.”

  She stared at him, eyes wide and mouth open. “Are you saying…that’s the end of my apprenticeship?”

  “It is. With full marks and flying colors. You’ve become an extraordinary young mage, Verity, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with on your own.”

  She swallowed, as if hardly daring to believe it. “No…final exam? No project?”

  “I’d say the Beau Monde was a pretty good final project. And I know you hate tests.” He smiled. “Listen—when I first started training you, I planned to be a lot more like Desmond: classical, focused, draconian, and devoted to the curriculum I set up. But you’ve taught me a valuable lesson of my own.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That there are a lot of approaches to magic, especially in these modern times, and perhaps just because mine works best for me doesn’t mean it will work best for everyone. So maybe I didn’t succeed in making you the best mage I could in my own image, but I think Edna would have called that idea fairly arrogant in any case, don’t you?”

  “I’m sure she would,” she agreed.

  “Instead, I’m quite confident I’ve helped guide you to become the best mage you could be in your own image. You’ve developed your talents and pursued the areas of magic you’re passionate about. In the end, that’s all I can ever ask. Keeping you as a student any longer would be disrespectful to your abilities.”

  She got up then, coming around the table to pull him into a hug, snuggling her head into his shoulder. “It’s been a great trip,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And…I’m looking forward to working alongside you. But…”

  “But…?” He pulled back, shooting her a questioning look.

  “Well…” Her eyes sparkled, and when he looked at her aura, he couldn’t miss the familiar red flashes. “Maybe I could, you know, still work under you some of the time? Like…now? You do owe me a graduation ceremony, after all…”

  He let her pull him up, and for the moment all the lingering thoughts disturbing his mind fell away. “I think I do know a way we can celebrate…” he murmured. “And tomorrow, we’ll talk about the way forward.”

  57

  Stone lay in bed, staring up at the shadowy ceiling above him.

  Verity lay next to him, fast asleep, her arm draped over his chest, her breathing smooth and regular. On his other side, Raider curled against his arm, purring.

  Mostly, he felt content for the first time in a long while. The game pieces had been dealt with. No one had died—at least after the first couple of pieces—largely because of his efforts. He hadn’t been lying to Verity earlier: he did feel good about that. Perhaps what he’d done over the past few weeks might serve as an offering toward squaring up his family’s karmic balance sheets. A small offering, to be sure—a mere drop in a sizeable bucket—but it was a start, at least.

  He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, even that slight movement disturbing Raider’s light slumber. Two forty-five. Why was he awake at two forty-five in the morning? After the excellent meal, two glasses of wine, and his evening with Verity, he should be fast asleep. Next to the clock the little figure of the winged serpent, inert now and barely visible in the dim moonlight, fixed him with its dead, jewel-eyed gaze.

  Raider snuggled back into him; he idly petted the cat’s head until he purred. Normally, when he awakened in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, he’d go to his study and read for a while. Now, though, he didn’t want to wake Verity. Her peaceful, untroubled breathing, the fact that she could feel so relaxed and unguarded around him, warmed him as little else these days could.

  Instead of getting up, then, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, dropping into a meditative state and allowing his mind the freedom to wander where it wanted to—something he didn’t often have the luxury of doing. As it flitted from thought to thought, he made no effort to stop it, or direct it. Images flashed across his mind’s eye: the Beau Monde, his lecture hall at Stanford, his home in Surrey, the game pieces, Verity, Jason, Raider, the new house. For a few moments it zipped off on a tangent as he considered the projects that still needed completion at the house before he could move in. He wondered when he would move in, and realized with surprise that while he wanted to, he would miss this place. He’d made a lot of good memories here. And, he thought in amusement, nobody had blown this one up, unlike his last one.

  His thoughts moved on. When he felt the welcome fog of impending sleep begin to settle over him he didn’t fight it, but instead continued letting himself drift. It felt good: he was warm but not too warm, he had a beautiful woman on one side of him and a furry, purring cat on the other.

  Life was good.

  His thoughts shifted again—this time settling on the dark-haired, imperious figure of Trevor Harrison, and the featureless black tower of the Obsidian in Las Vegas. For a man he’d known for only a few days and not seen for three years, Harrison had exerted a proportionately oversized influence over his life. He’d been struggling to get his mind around the man’s strange, powerful magical style for all of that time, but with only the information in the twenty-odd handwritten pages of notes Harrison had sent him, he feared he’d reached the limit of the progress he could make on his own.

  Harrison’s words, as relayed by Verity when she’d briefly spoken with him in Las Vegas a few months back, played across Stone’s mind’s eye:

  If the time ever comes when he truly needs to find me, he already possesses the means to do it.

 
As always, the words were maddening. What had he meant by that? Stone had gone over every page of the notebooks dozens of times, looking for hidden comments, coded bits, passages that could have more than one meaning. He’d examined it with magical sight. He’d spent a large percentage of his free time studying, working out formulae, conducting experiments. He’d even risked burning out his magic for a few hours several times, always haunted by the terrifying notion that the burnouts were additive, and at some point he would reach a threshold and the next time it wouldn’t come back.

  So far that hadn’t happened, but over the last year or so, discouraged and demoralized by his lack of progress, he’d relegated Harrison’s magic to “ace in the hole” status—something he could resort to when all his other options had been exhausted. It had saved his life more than once, but every time he employed it he felt like, in Edna Soren’s words, “a mouse riding an angry bull.” All he could do was hold on for the ride and hope he didn’t get trampled. That was no way to use magic.

  But the way he was using magic was no way to do it either, especially if he couldn’t get his cravings for the rush of taking power under control. Until he did that, he would be forced to get his power from Jason—something he didn’t like because being dependent on another person, even a trusted friend, for something as integral to his life went against everything he believed in.

  That and, much as he didn’t want to let himself admit it, he wanted that rush—at least the safe version of it he could get by obtaining his power from people like Phoebe.

  But if he was to do that, he’d have to be absolutely sure he could maintain his control. Otherwise, it would be too easy to kill someone. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow himself that temptation again. Jason was a viable alternative, if an undesirable one. Suck it up, he told himself bitterly. That’s what you get for not being able to control yourself.

  More deep breaths, until he calmed once again. He could have these arguments with himself some other time, but not now. Now, he wanted to get to sleep.

  Verity shifted next to him, drawing even closer, snuggling her head into the crook of his shoulder, tickling his jaw with her spiky hair. She was smiling. Stone smiled too, stroking her back.

  Before long his mind went to Harrison again, chewing over the man’s words like a dog that refused to let go of a bone.

  If the time ever comes when he truly needs to find me, he already possesses the means to do it.

  Of course he had the phone number for the Obsidian. He even had the private number for Nakamura, Harrison’s assistant and the only person in Las Vegas, as far as he knew, who was aware of Harrison’s magical status. But he couldn’t have meant those—they were far too easy, and in any case he’d tried them. Unless Nakamura was lying to him, Harrison spent very little time in Las Vegas, and even when he showed up he didn’t stay long. So trying to find him there, beyond going there in person and camping on his office doorstep until he turned up, wasn’t a viable option.

  As for where else the man spent his time—Stone didn’t know that. He suspected Harrison had access to travel methods both more efficient and more versatile than the standard teleportation portals—possibly even a personal teleportation spell. Nakamura had commented that he wasn’t sure Harrison “was even on Earth,” and Harrison himself had certainly seemed comfortable with the idea of alternate dimensions. The fact that he’d somehow managed, when mortally wounded, to escape from the Evil’s home dimension had proven that.

  But how many dimensions was he familiar with? Did he hop around them with the same ease that Stone himself popped back and forth between California and England? Did he have permanent bases on one or more of them?

  That didn’t make sense, though. If Stone could believe the message Harrison had left him—if the man had been serious and not simply trying to get rid of Verity—then he could hardly expect Stone to know about or be able to locate whatever random dimensions he might have access to. There could be hundreds, thousands—hell, an infinite number—of other dimensions out there. It would take Stone a thousand lifetimes to find even a fraction of them.

  Stone shifted again, and this time Raider made an indignant mrrow and hopped down from the bed, stalking off to pursue his own errands.

  Okay, if he wants me to find him on another dimension, he’s got to assume I know about it.

  He knew about the Overworld, of course, but nothing he’d seen had ever led him to believe that the place was habitable by humans. All he’d ever encountered on his numerous trips back and forth between the portals was the strange, cloud-filled tunnels that led travelers unerringly to their destinations.

  Could there be more to the Overworld? It was a possibility, albeit an unlikely one. Stone made a mental note to do some investigation.

  He also knew about a few dimensions from which he’d summoned things: the “demon” creature he and Jason had called to help them find Verity many years ago. The traitorous spirit he’d summoned with Kolinsky. The demon Archie. He shuddered mentally at that last one: even if Harrison sent him a map and an engraved invitation to that place, he wasn’t sure he’d be brave enough to venture back.

  But Archie had been long after the last time he’d seen Harrison, and he hadn’t told the man about any of the others, not even in vague terms.

  And of course, there was the home plane of the Evil.

  Thinking about that made Stone shiver, and not mentally this time, either. Next to him, Verity murmured something and shifted position again, tightening her arm over his chest. He waited until she settled, and considered the thought.

  Was it possible that Harrison had been able to escape the Evil’s dimension so easily because he’d been there before?

  No. That’s absurd. He didn’t even know about the Evil until you told him. And you’ve been there yourself—there’s no way anyone could survive for more than a few minutes, even with Harrison’s power.

  Frustrated, Stone sighed. This was pointless. He had to be on the wrong track. The only other dimension he knew about—that Harrison knew he knew about—was the one where the power for his magic came from. But that place was full of wild, raging energy that could barely be contained.

  Or…was it?

  Stone’s eyes flew open. He stiffened, going suddenly still next to Verity.

  He’d once seen some comic strip, years ago—he couldn’t remember which one or any of the other details about it, but the one phrase that had stuck in his mind (mostly because he found it amusingly apropos in reference to some of his students) was “the sound of a paradigm shifting without a clutch.”

  He could almost smell the smoke as his brain shifted gears and the answer fell into place.

  What if the source of Harrison’s power—the source of power he himself had been tapping and trying without success to control—wasn’t a mere well of energy? What if the reason Harrison was so powerful, and wielded that power so effortlessly, was because he spent most of his time in the place where it originated?

  What if Harrison himself originated on that dimension?

  For a moment, Stone could only lie there in shock.

  It had to be the answer!

  “I already possess the means to do it…” he whispered aloud.

  And he did. It fit. That was what Harrison had given him in the notebook: in order to wield the power, even in the simplistic, beginner-level way he’d managed to far, he had to be able to access it.

  And if he could access it, he could trace it to its source.

  Suddenly, lying in bed any longer was impossible. His whole body thrummed with unspent energy, and he had to move, to think, to work this out. He sat up as carefully as he could so he didn’t disturb Verity, swung his legs around, and pulled on his jeans.

  “Mm…” Verity mumbled, still mostly asleep. She reached across the bed toward him. “What’s wrong…?”

  He patted her hand and pulled the covers back up over her. “Nothing’s wrong, love. Go back to sleep. I think everything might just be right.”
>
  Alastair Stone returns in

  Book 14 of the Alastair Stone Chronicles

  Look for it in Summer 2018!

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  Books by R. L. King

  ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES SERIES

  Stone and a Hard Place (Book 1)

  The Forgotten (Book 2)

  The Threshold (Book 3)

  The Source (Book 4)

  Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set (includes books 1-4)

  Core of Stone (Book 5)

  Blood and Stone (Book 6)

  Heart of Stone (Book 7)

  Flesh and Stone (Book 8)

  The Infernal Heart (Book 9)

  The Other Side (Book 10)

  Path of Stone (Book 11)

  Necessary Sacrifices (Book 12)