Circle of Stone

by R. L. King

  “There was somebody there,” T-boy said. “Somebody saw us.”

  “What are you talking about?” This was news to Ben. Ever since they’d arrived back here half an hour ago, he’d been trying so hard to cut through their freaked-out chatter that he couldn’t get anything definitive out of any of them. “Who saw you?”

  “Two chicks,” Daisy said, voice still shaking. “A skinny one and the one I—I—” she swiped her hand across her face and didn’t look at anyone. “They—they came in from both sides of the row, like they were tryin’ to box us in. She was gonna grab me. That’s why I—”

  Patch patted her shoulder again. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” she yelled, throwing herself free of her friend’s grip. “I freaked out! It was like I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just wanted to—wanted to—make her go away! I didn’t have to throw her—” Again, she dissolved into sobs.

  “That’s it,” Manuel said. At sixteen, he was the second-oldest of the crew. He met Ben’s gaze with a defiant one of his own, but his aura betrayed his agitation. “We’re out, man. We ain’t doin’ no more of this shit.”

  “Damn straight.” Calvin, thin and reedy at fifteen, stood. “We’re done. C’mon, you guys. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

  Ben’s rage rose, but he controlled it. They weren’t angry—he could see that by their auras. They were scared, and they had every right to be. After almost a dozen flawless jobs, they’d gotten greedy—he’d gotten greedy—tonight and taken on more than the crew could handle. That was on him, and if he didn’t do something right now, the kids would all bail on him and he’d probably never see them again.

  “Listen,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Please. Sit down. Don’t go yet.”

  “Fuck you, man,” Manuel said. “All you care about is your own ass.”

  “Is that what you think? After all I’ve done for you guys? After all I’ve taught you? Have I ever been anything but straight with you?” He fixed on T-boy. “T. C’mon. You really don’t wanna leave, do you? I thought you liked it here with us. Better than home, right? Are you gonna give all that up just because we had a fuckup?”

  T-boy’s aura flickered, and Ben knew he had him.

  “Yeah,” Ben pressed, sweeping his gaze around the rest of them. “It was a fuckup. And it was my fault. I’ll own that. That job was too big and too spread out. I figured if we could pull it off we could get a nice score for all of us, so we wouldn’t have to worry for a while. How was I supposed to know somebody would spot us?”

  Calvin paused halfway to the door and turned back. “How’d they see us anyway? I thought you said that ain’t possible.”

  “We were careful,” T-boy said. “Just like you taught us. Right, Daze?”

  Daisy rubbed her eyes again and nodded. “Yeah. Nobody seen us all night, not till then. How could that happen?”

  “I dunno.” Ben shook his head. He’d been mulling that over in his mind ever since he’d heard the news. How had someone spotted them? Were there other mages at the concert? Had Daisy and T-boy been spotted accidentally, or was somebody out there looking for them? That latter thought was frightening—it meant somebody might be on to their gig. “I need to try to figure that out. But c’mon, guys—I’m serious. I know tonight was awful. I know you didn’t mean to do it. I gotta take responsibility for what happened. But please don’t give up yet. I got a lot more to teach you, and I think we got a pretty good thing goin’ on here. Don’t you? T?”

  T-boy looked into his lap. “I don’t wanna hurt nobody,” he mumbled. “Maybe I just need a little time away, y’know?”

  Ben grabbed onto that as the best he was likely to get at the moment. “Yeah. That’s a good idea, man. What do the rest of you say? Maybe we take a few days off, let ourselves calm down a little, and then meet back up and talk some more?” When the rest of them still looked skeptical, he added, “Nobody’s gonna hurt anybody, okay? I promise. We’ll keep the jobs small, like before. That way nobody gets hurt.”

  “Somebody already got hurt,” Daisy said. “Prob’ly killed. And it’s my fault.”

  Ben was watching their auras, and once again they began to spiral up at her words. “Okay. Okay. Let’s find out, all right?” He was taking a chance, he knew—if the woman they’d tossed over the balcony was dead, he could lose them no matter what he did—but the truth was, he wanted to know too. He pulled out his cell phone. “They’d take her to Highland—that’s closest.”

  He found the number and punched it in, heart thudding hard. When a voice answered, he said, “Uh…yeah…I wanted to find out…I got a friend who got hurt in that Arena thing tonight. The lady who fell over the balcony. You know who I mean? She there?”

  Daisy started to say something, but Ben held up a hand.

  “Yeah. No, I ain’t family. Like I said, she’s a friend. Can you tell me—look, can you just tell me if she’s still alive?” The shaky quiver in his voice wasn’t entirely an act. He listened a moment longer, then let his breath out. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks a lot.”

  They were all watching him now—five pairs of worried, scared, bloodshot eyes. “She’s still alive,” he told them.

  All five of them let their breath out in unison.

  “They wouldn’t tell me anything else about her condition except she’s critical, but—guys, she’s alive. You didn’t kill nobody, Daisy.”

  Patch put her arm around Daisy again, and this time the younger girl didn’t shrug away.

  “So…” Ben continued. “Are you all gonna stick with us? Take a little rest and then we’ll figure out what to do next, together?”

  None of them answered, but he could see from their auras that he had them.

  14

  Stone whirled again, and this time found himself facing the shadowy, broad-shouldered figure of a man—one he was certain hadn’t been there before. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “What have you done to the portal?”

  “Please lower your shield, Dr. Stone. As I said—I mean you no harm. To the contrary, in fact.” The stranger still didn’t step into the light, but something about his voice sounded familiar.

  “That’s not happening. Not until you tell me who you are, where we are, and how you managed to divert my portal.”

  The man chuckled. “I didn’t divert your portal—I merely recalibrated it. You should be more careful about checking such things prior to travel.”

  “Recalibrated it.” Stone’s heart pounded harder. “If that’s so, it means you were somewhere you had no right to be.”

  Again the man chuckled. His half-familiar voice was pleasant, with a slight, unidentifiable British accent. “Ah, but I had every right to be there.” He spread his hands. “But I can see I will get nowhere with you until I’ve satisfied some of your curiosity. So be it.” He stepped forward, and as he did the light in the room came up enough to reveal his features.

  Stone froze as recognition came. “You.”

  The last time he’d seen this man had been at the Caventhorne opening gala. He’d been dressed in formal evening clothes then instead of his current fine suit, but other than that he looked the same: tall, confident, with glittering eyes and medium-brown hair graying slightly at the temples. “Mr. Dunstan…or perhaps I should call you by your true name: Aldwyn Aristide Edmund Stone.”

  The man smiled, revealing even, perfect teeth. “Ah, so you’ve discovered the truth—and apparently accepted it. I am pleased. It will make many things much less difficult.” He gestured toward one of the room’s chairs. “Please. Sit down. I give you my word I mean you no harm. I merely want to speak with you.”

  Stone didn’t move, and he still didn’t lower his shield. The man’s words sent a chill creeping through his entire body. Yes, he’d discovered the truth—or at least a truth—when he and Aubrey had broken open his ancestor’s crypt in the family mausoleum and found it empty. But that discovery, as terrifying as it had been, had raised more questions than it
answered.

  He glanced behind him again, this time with magical sight. The portal was still gone. “Why did you bring me here? If you wanted to speak with me, there are much less…intrusive ways to do it. Even if you haven’t worked out how to use a telephone or e-mail yet, you could have used the post.” Before the other man could reply, he continued, “I don’t know what you want to talk to me about, but whatever it is, I’m not telling you a bloody thing until you’ve answered my questions. And until you return me to my portal. I won’t be held prisoner here.”

  One of Aldwyn Stone’s elegantly-clad shoulders rose in a faint shrug. “I cannot promise I can answer all of your questions, but I will make an attempt. And I assure you—you are not a prisoner. After we have completed our conversation, you may continue on your way with no interference from me. Would you care for a drink?” He raised his hand, directing a bottle and a pair of glasses to the small table in front of the two chairs.

  “I’ll pass, thanks. You’ll forgive me, but I don’t trust you nearly enough to accept anything from you yet.” Wondering if he was making the wrong decision, he dropped the shield, strode with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel to one of the chairs, and sat.

  “Fair enough. It is always wise to withhold trust until it has been earned. I hope you won’t mind if I partake, however.” Without waiting for an answer, he poured himself a drink and sipped it, taking the other chair. “Ask your questions, Dr. Stone. Or may I call you Alastair? We do have a…certain connection, after all.”

  “Call me whatever you like. I don’t care, and I’m not sure I believe you yet about any ‘connection.’ What I want to know is, what are you doing here? How are you here?”

  Aldwyn indicated the room. “Here as in this specific place?”

  “No. We’ll get to that.” Stone sharpened his glare. “How are you alive? I opened your crypt in my cemetery the night we met at Caventhorne. It was empty. As far as I can determine, no one ever occupied your casket. Normally I would say that it’s impossible—mages live longer than mundanes, but not that much longer. But…you were under my house, weren’t you? You broke out of that small room.”

  “I did.”

  Part of Stone wondered how he was even allowing himself to have this conversation. The whole thing was absurd. There was no way this man, who didn’t look a day older than a hale forty-five, could have been entombed in a sealed crypt under his house for hundreds of years. It simply didn’t work that way.

  But…what if it did? His mind flashed back to the discussion he’d had with Stefan Kolinsky after Aldwyn had left. Kolinsky hadn’t seemed surprised in the least at the man’s existence—and clearly the two of them both knew and loathed each other. What the hell had that been about? So many questions…

  Aldwyn was watching him with mild curiosity, almost as if he could see the wild thoughts darting around inside his head. Almost as if waiting patiently for him to sort through them.

  “Look,” Stone finally said, gripping the chair arms. “You’ve got to see this is all a bit—unexpected.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You’re trying to convince me that you’re my—what—great-great-great…I’m not even sure how many ‘great’s anymore—grandfather?”

  “I am not trying to convince you of anything. You must come to your own conclusions. But I will tell you this much: there are many things about magic you do not know. It is clear to me in even the short time I have been free of my confinement: this world is not the same one I remember. People have grown soft. Weak. The world’s magic has waned. Those who practice it have allowed the old knowledge and the old techniques to wither and die. It is a disappointment. I expected so much more.”

  “But—” Once again, Stone struggled with his careening thoughts. “How are you even here? What happened? Assuming you’re telling the truth about being imprisoned in the chamber beneath my house—how did it happen? Who did it?”

  “Ah, that is indeed the crux of the matter, isn’t it? But I suspect you already know the answer.”

  And of course Stone did. “Brathwaite. And another of my ancestors. Cyrus.”

  A fleeting frown darkened Aldwyn’s face, and for a moment his eyes glittered with unnatural light. “Yes. They betrayed me.”

  “But why? Cyrus was your son, wasn’t he?”

  “Why? Because they were fools. Cowards. They feared what they didn’t understand.”

  Stone didn’t miss the fact that Aldwyn hadn’t answered both of his questions. “Brathwaite called you ‘the fiend’ in his writings.”

  Aldwyn gave an elegant snort. “I believe the modern expression is, ‘it takes one to know one.’ Or were you not aware of James Brathwaite’s…proclivities?”

  Stone gripped the chair arms, remembering his desperate fight to drive the madman’s spirit from his body. “He was a necromancer.”

  “Yes, among other things. Cyrus was a fool to listen to his mad whisperings. I expected better of him.”

  “Cyrus wasn’t much better.” Stone couldn’t keep the contempt from his voice. “None of the lot of them were.”

  “That is a matter of interpretation.”

  “It bloody well isn’t. Killing mundanes to further one’s own power is fairly unambiguously horrific.”

  Aldwyn waved it off. “The point is, Cyrus and Brathwaite conspired against me. You asked what I was doing in that chamber. There is your answer. They did it because they feared my power—most likely because Brathwaite convinced Cyrus of it. Cyrus was a powerful mage, but he was also a fool driven by his passions.”

  “Cyrus killed Brathwaite. Did you know that?”

  Aldwyn’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed?”

  Ah, so there were things he didn’t know. Stone found that mildly comforting. “Yes. We found his body, interred inside a ritual altar, along with some of his writings. We’re not certain of what happened, but it appeared that Brathwaite tried to convince Cyrus to use necromancy—to raise an army of magic-resistant undead against you. But apparently even Cyrus had his limits. He betrayed Brathwaite during the ritual and killed him.”

  “And how do you know this? You seem quite sure of yourself, but yet I see no way you could be.”

  Stone saw no harm in revealing the truth now, since Brathwaite’s spirit had been dealt with. “I spoke with Brathwaite’s echo.”

  “Echo?”

  “Ghost. Spirit. Whatever the hell you called them in your time. My house had been taken over by the echoes of all the people who’d been—” He stopped. “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  Stone turned, his body growing cold. “I still don’t know if you’re telling the truth—but if you are, bloody hell, was it you?”

  “Was what me?” Aldwyn tilted his head.

  He flung himself from the chair and began pacing. The enormity of what he’d realized weighed heavy on him, disrupting his thoughts. Whether or not this man actually was his ancestor, alive and well at least two hundred years past when he should be dead, he was obviously a powerful mage, and Stone currently had no way to leave this small, unknown room. Best not to accuse the man of committing forty-one murders until after he’d gained more of an advantage. “Never mind,” he said. “What do you want? Why did you bring me here?”

  Aldwyn didn’t seem to mind the abrupt change in topic. “The answer to that question is a simple one: I merely wanted to speak with you. To become acquainted with you. Does that surprise you? You are my direct descendent, the product of an unbroken line.”

  “There are easier ways to do that, you know. I think you want more.” Stone still hadn’t resumed his seat. He paced the room, focusing his magical sight, trying to spot anything he’d missed before.

  “I can help you, Alastair.”

  “Help me?” He spun back around. “Help me how?”

  Aldwyn settled back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I have access to vast stores of knowledge—old knowledge—that has long been lost in this world. Practices and techniques that have not
seen the light of day since before most of the nations of this world existed. I can share them with you. I can teach you things that no other human on this earth even knows.”

  “And why would you do that?” A part of Stone—a tiny part, far in the back of his mind—stood up and took notice, like a dog sniffing distant prey. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit the temptation existed. It always existed in cases like this.

  But then he remembered the manacles. The tiny alcoves. The screams. His own screams, when the echoes had given him a personal taste of what they’d endured.

  “Why? Because you are my blood, boy. You have great power—I can sense it. My power runs in your veins, barely diluted by the years. If I could teach you what I know, consider what we could achieve together.”

  Stone snorted. “Seriously? You’re giving me the ‘join me and we’ll rule the galaxy together’ line?”

  Again, a faint light flashed in Aldwyn’s eyes. “Do not be as much of a fool as Cyrus was, boy. You speak strangely, but I sense the meaning behind your words. I do not seek to ‘rule’ anything. I have no interest in the—what did you call them? Mundanes? They are inconsequential to me, as they should be to you. Your destiny lies on a higher plane.”

  “I think you’ll find things are a bit different nowadays.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The mundanes. They’re not ‘inconsequential’ anymore. There aren’t many mages left. Most mundanes don’t know about us, but they’re hardly content to sit around and put up with whatever we dish out. There are quite a lot of them, and they’ve got weapons, knowledge, and technology that can sometimes rival magic on their own.”

  Aldwyn’s smooth face showed contempt. “None of that matters. Whatever weapons they might possess, they are no match for properly wielded magic.”

  Stone glared. “What is it with you and Stefan, anyway?”

  “Stefan?”

  “Yes. Maybe you know him by a different name, but it’s obvious you know each other. You were like a couple of bloody spitting cats at Caventhorne. So how do you know each other, and why are you enemies?”