Steel and Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  It was there, and he was going to claim it.

  Even if it killed him.

  Inside, the burning core grew until it threatened to burn him out. It stretched outward, filling his arms, his legs, tracing its way along his nerve pathways until he thought his limbs would fly off.

  He screamed again, but not in pain. The burning didn’t hurt, but rather seemed to swell with a pressure he could no longer contain.

  All at once, it was there.

  And it demanded release.

  Without even fully knowing what he was doing, he reached out, took hold of that surging core. He gathered it together, focused on the force holding him immobile.

  With an inarticulate yell that was more a roar of rage than a scream, he released the power.

  His world went white for a second, with no idea whether the loud whoom that sounded was real or just inside his head. When his vision cleared he was on his knees on the platform, panting as if he’d just run a four-minute mile.

  Harrison was gone.

  Stone quickly leaped to his feet, heedless of his limbs’ protests. Oh, bloody hell, what happened? Did I vaporize him? With frantic urgency he hurried to the platform’s edge and looked over.

  Harrison lay twenty or so feet away, splayed on his back against one of the smaller machines with tools and glittering pieces of the broken bottle and glass scattered around him. As Stone watched in horror, he sat up and slowly stood, gripping the edge of the machine.

  Relieve washed over Stone, along with two simultaneous thoughts: Now he’s going to kill me, and I don’t care—he deserved that. He watched Harrison warily, ready to duck back if it looked as if the man was preparing to retaliate.

  Harrison didn’t retaliate. He stood a moment, watching Stone. Aside from breathing a little harder than usual, he appeared none the worse for wear.

  “I—” Stone began, but stopped, when he got a good look at Harrison’s expression.

  Was that…approval?

  “Well done, Dr. Stone,” Harrison said.

  Stone gaped at him, confused. The surging energy had receded now, but he could still feel it inside him, quiet and patient. Waiting. “What the hell—?”

  “Well done,” Harrison repeated. “I was certain you could do it. You simply needed the proper…catalyst.” He lifted off the ground and touched down on the platform. “Now, we can get started.”

  29

  Stone wasn’t sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. “Get…started?”

  Harrison raised his hands, righting the fallen table and replacing the scattered tools on it. Then he gathered up the shards of the bottle and glass and dropped them into a nearby receptacle. “Yes. Now I can keep our agreement.”

  “You…couldn’t before? Sorry about the…er—” He gestured toward the receptacle. “But what the hell did I do?”

  “Magic.” Harrison spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Wait—you’re saying I—” Tentatively, hardly daring to hope, Stone held up his hand and attempted to shift to magical sight.

  His familiar, purple-and-gold aura shimmered around it, but faintly. It felt as if he were having trouble locking it in.

  But it worked. For the first time in weeks, his magic was working. He staggered back, catching himself against the side of the airship. “Bloody hell…” He looked at Harrison, who watched him silently. “But wait. Are you saying that all I needed to do was—what? Come to you? Lose my temper?”

  “No.” Harrison levitated the panel back into place and screwed it shut. “Although I had wondered how long you would endure my…unique training methods.”

  “So it was all some kind of game?” Stone’s anger reared its head again, but now that his magic seemed to be on the way back, it was harder to hold on to it. “Some kind of—what—practical joke, to see how much I’d put up with?”

  Harrison’s gaze chilled again. “Dr. Stone, I know we have spent little time together, but have I ever seemed the type to indulge in jokes, practical or otherwise?”

  A sudden, quick impression of the elegant mage planting a whoopee cushion or leaving a full bucket of water on the top of a half-open door flashed in Stone’s mind, and he almost grinned at the absurdity of it all. “Point taken. Well, what, then? Was there a point to all that workout rubbish?”

  “There was. Two, in fact. Excuse me a moment.” He glanced past Stone to Anzo, who still waited silently near the door. “Anzo. Bring a bottle of the Balvenie. And two glasses.”

  Anzo’s eyes flashed acknowledgment, and he rolled off.

  Harrison nodded toward the airship. “If you’ll forgive me, I do want to finish this tonight. Do you mind if we speak while I work?”

  “Er—no. Of course not.” Stone was still reeling from Harrison’s sudden change of demeanor, from coldly mocking to courteous and almost pleasant. “So—the points?”

  “Yes.” Harrison returned to the lower level and examined one end of the massive engine. “The workouts were not merely designed to occupy your time. In order for you to effectively manage potent and unfamiliar magical energy, especially at first, it is best if both your body and your will are in optimal condition.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Stone admitted. Even previously, when he’d tapped this dimension’s power without having any idea what he was doing, it always left him tired and spent—and that wasn’t even counting the magical burnouts. “But you could have told me about it.”

  “I could have,” Harrison agreed. “But I remind you: you came to me. You asked for my assistance. Begged, in fact. That did not place me under any obligation to explain my methods.”

  Stone didn’t like it, but once again he had to admit the man had a point. “What about the other thing? You said there were two.”

  “Yes.” Harrison summoned a large wrench from the table and snugged it around an inch-diameter bolthead. Once again, his muscles knotted as he put pressure on it until it broke loose.

  “Why do you do that?” Stone asked him.

  “Do what?”

  He nodded toward the engine. “With the wrench. You’ve easily got enough power to do all of that with magic, don’t you?”

  “I do. But I prefer physical effort when working on machines. It is a habit I acquired from my younger days, before I had access to magic.”

  “Before you had access to magic? You mean when you were a child, or a teenager?”

  “No.”

  Stone watched him work in silence for a while. “Does it work differently here? Do mages not begin their apprenticeships in their late teens?”

  Harrison continued with what he was doing. “Apprenticeships are not handled here as they are on Earth. But in any case, my training was…non-standard.”

  “Non-standard? How old were you when you found out you had magic?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  Stone stared at him. He didn’t even look that old now, and there was no way he could exhibit his level of power and control with only a few short years of training. “You’re having me on.”

  “No, Dr. Stone. It is true.”

  “Well—look, I don’t want to pry, but as long as you seem not to mind answering—how long ago was that? You don’t look old enough to even be thirty-seven yet, let alone have discovered your magic so late.”

  “I am older than I look.”

  Stone moved around on the platform so he could see Harrison from the side rather than the back. “So—that’s not really what you look like, then? Are you maintaining some kind of illusion?”

  “No.” Harrison stepped back, swiped his hand across his brow, then attacked another recalcitrant bolt with the wrench. “I use illusions when I go into the cities, but this is my true appearance.”

  Stone switched to magical sight again. To his delight, his aura appeared clearer, and stronger. Tentatively, he attempted to levitate one of the smaller screwdrivers on Harrison’s tool table.

  It rose a couple inches, but then the power slipped and he
lost control of it. It clattered back to the tray. Harrison glanced over briefly, but didn’t seem startled or alarmed.

  “Sorry,” Stone said, wincing. “Getting ahead of myself, I guess.”

  “That is understandable, after you have been without your magic for so long. But I suggest taking your progress slowly. As I mentioned before, it does not function as a switch. We will begin in earnest tomorrow.”

  “Right…” Stone paced back and forth, studying the engine. “I won’t ask you how old you are—I suppose it’s none of my business. So let’s go back to the second point.”

  “Yes. The second point is the more important of the two. Acclimation.”

  “Acclimation?” Stone blinked. “You mean—I needed to get used to the place before I could do magic here?”

  “Exactly. Magical energy is all around here, far more than it is on Earth. But in order for a practitioner who is not native to this dimension to properly wield its energies, he must be acclimated to them. This takes time, pure and simple. It is not possible to speed the process along.”

  “So you’re saying that if I stayed here long enough, my magic would have come back naturally? Even back in Drendell, or in the Temolan prison?”

  “Yes…and no.” Harrison removed another panel and reached inside a cavity, using a light spell to illuminate his work. When he pulled back, his hands were slicked with grease. “Given time, you would have regained the potential to use magic. But without training, you still wouldn’t have gained the ability to wield it effectively. If you had tried, likely the authorities in Temolan would have killed you before you could escape.”

  “I…see.” Stone nodded at the engine. “Anything I can do to help you with that? It feels wrong standing here watching you work.”

  “Thank you, no. I am almost finished.”

  “I have returned,” a familiar voice called. Stone glanced up to see Anzo standing balanced on his single wheel outside the opening in the hull, holding up a tray containing a bottle and two gleaming glasses.

  “I’ll get that,” Stone said, hurrying over to claim the tray. He carried it back, pushed a few tools aside, and set it on the corner of Harrison’s table.

  Harrison wiped his hands on a rag, used magic to open the bottle and pour two shots, and nodded toward one while levitating the other to him. When Stone had picked it up, he raised his own glass. “To the return of your magic.”

  Stone raised his. “A-bloody-men,” he said, and took a sip. The scotch was exquisite, even better than what he’d had before. “So—not to seem impatient, but now that my magic’s back, how long will it take me to learn to control it? It’s fine here, but I do have obligations back home. It will be fairly inconvenient if the world starts thinking I’m dead.”

  “It will not take long. A few days, perhaps.”

  “Well, that’s good to know, at least.” He looked around, taking in the airship, the other machines, and the hangar itself. “This is all—amazing. This is the first time I’ve traveled to another dimension, at least physically. I have so many questions about how you got here, but—” He sighed. “Probably best if I just do what I came here for and get back home.”

  “Probably true,” Harrison agreed. “Now, however, I do want to finish this tonight. Errin has an innovation she wants to test, but she can’t do it until I correct an issue with the magical-mechanical interface. If you’ll excuse me—come to my workroom tomorrow morning and we’ll begin. Anzo can escort you there.”

  “Absolutely. Good night, Mr. Harrison. Thank you—and…I apologize for losing my temper before.” He chuckled. “And flinging you across the room. I’m sorry for that, too.”

  “Understandable, given the circumstances. I will see you tomorrow.”

  Stone finished his scotch, set the glass down, and headed for the opening in the hull where the construct waited. Behind him, the Moonlight Sonata started up again.

  When he reached the opening, he stopped and turned back. Harrison had returned to his work on the platform, his back to Stone.

  Unable to resist, Stone shifted to magical sight again, this time looking not at his own aura, but at Harrison’s. Would the man be masking it?

  It appeared that he was not. He had one of the strangest auras Stone had ever seen—a shifting, potent combination of a deep black that somehow glowed, and the kind of intense purple you usually only saw in black lights. As Stone watched it, reveling in the simple pleasure of being able to do so again, he noticed to his surprise that it appeared uneasy—almost unsettled. He continued to study it, feeling like a voyeur but unable to tear his gaze from it nonetheless.

  There was no question about it—something was amiss with Harrison’s aura. Stone had seen similar behavior before in his own, usually when he was troubled about something. He wondered how much Harrison had had to drink before he arrived, then recalled the mental image of the broken shards on the floor. There had been almost no spilled liquid along with them, which meant the bottle had been nearly empty.

  To his horror, Harrison turned back around at that moment, as if he’d sensed Stone’s scrutiny. His gaze was chilly again, his expression back to its customary cold mask. “Is there something else you need, Dr. Stone?”

  “Er—no. I’m sorry. I was just leaving.”

  He started to turn away, then stopped again. “Mr. Harrison?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is everything all right?”

  Harrison didn’t answer.

  “I know it’s none of my business. But I couldn’t resist a look at your aura—just testing out the magic. And it looked a bit—well—off.”

  Stone was still watching his aura. It flared briefly, then settled back to its normal calm, unruffled state. He didn’t miss the way Harrison’s hand tightened around his wrench, though, nor the way his gaze shifted away for less than a second before returning to Stone.

  “Everything is fine, Dr. Stone,” he said in a firm tone.

  “Er—okay. All right. Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Stone held his gaze a moment longer, then stepped through the opening toward where Anzo waited.

  As he followed it back to the teleportation pad that would take him to his suite, he pondered Harrison’s odd behavior. Something had been wrong, he’d stake his magic on it. But did it have anything to do with him, or had he just caught the man during an introspective moment? He couldn’t say without knowing Harrison better, and he hardly seemed the type you could pop down to the pub with for a few pints. In fact, he seemed like the type who did most of his drinking alone—something Stone, unfortunately, was more familiar with than he wanted to admit.

  He picked up his pace to keep up with Anzo, trying to put the situation out of his mind. He wasn’t, nor did he have any desire to be, Harrison’s therapist. All he wanted was for the man to show him how to use this magical energy so he could get the hell out of this place and go home. He had enough of his own problems to be getting on with, without looking for more. As fascinating as this new world was—especially this part of it, where magic and technology worked together and nobody was trying to kill him—all he wanted was to get back home to something familiar: his job, his new house, Raider, Verity.

  Things were finally starting to happen. In only a few days he’d have his magic back and he could return home where the world made sense.

  He wondered if Harrison would show him how to travel back and forth between Earth and Calanar, as he himself did. Would that even be possible, and if so, would he even want to do it?

  First things first, he told himself.

  He had his magic back, and that was enough for tonight.

  30

  Stone couldn’t sleep.

  He made a good try at it for a couple hours, tossing and turning in the big, comfortable bed, trying to find a position he could settle into. Even as he did, though, he knew his insomnia had little to do with his physical comfort, and everything to do with the fact that his brain refused to shut off.

  He also
knew from past experience that he wasn’t going to get any sleep in this state, so he might as well give up trying. He slipped out of bed and stood for several moments looking out the window at the panoramic view stretched out before him. This time of night most of the lights in the town’s buildings were out, leaving only the twinkling glows of the stars. Pressing his palms against the cool glass, he took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm his racing thoughts.

  It didn’t help. All he could think of was that his magic was back—even better, Harrison’s magic was back. He hadn’t blown Harrison off that platform with black magic. That wasn’t possible: it had been weeks since he’d arrived on this dimension, and even when he’d attempted to draw power back in Drendell it hadn’t worked. He had taken the first steps toward what he’d set out to do when he’d come here: tapped the energy of this dimension to do magic, without burning himself out. He still only had the beginnings of it, but in a few short hours Harrison would show him more. “A few days,” he’d said. That was how long it would take before Stone could have his life back. After everything he’d been through, it hardly seemed possible.

  But now, he couldn’t sleep. Normally back on Earth when sleep eluded him, he’d go to his study and work on a spell or ritual design, grade papers, or read. Sometimes he’d go for a run to clear his head. He couldn’t do any of those things here, though—he hadn’t seen any sign of a library in the tower, and up until today Harrison’s associates had kept him so busy with his fitness and willpower exercises that he wouldn’t have had time to do it even if there had been. And as for running—he wasn’t sure he knew how to get out of the tower on his own this late—or that he could get back in if he did. Best not to risk it.

  Pacing the suite, he even wished it included a television set. He didn’t often watch TV, but right now a stiff drink and something mindless to lull him to sleep might be just what he needed.