The Seventh Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “I don’t know.”

  “Suppose you tell me what she did tell you. I assume you asked about who your father was at some point, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. Of course I did.”

  “And—?”

  “Like I told you before, she wouldn’t say anything. She said it would be easier if I just accepted he was—you were—gone, and I wasn’t going to have any kind of relationship with you.”

  “But you’re telling the truth that she never said I deserted her, or mistreated her, or—”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s the truth. I—to be honest, I got the impression she missed you. Like she wished you were still together, but it wasn’t possible.”

  “She didn’t tell you I was dead?”

  “No. It might have been easier if she tried, but I don’t think I would have believed her.”

  “No? Why not?” Stone tried to remember if Jessamy had been a bad liar, but to his shame he realized there was a lot he didn’t remember about her. The relationship had seemed so intense at the time, it was hard to believe it had only lasted two months.

  Ian shrugged. “Just something I’ve always been good at—knowing when people are lying to me. I just get this feeling, you know?” He gave an arch smile. “Maybe I’m psychic or something.”

  “Perhaps you are.”

  The smile widened. “Oh, right—I guess I shouldn’t say things like that around you. I forgot you teach about the occult. You don’t believe that stuff, do you? Ghosts and witches and vampires?”

  Stone almost gave his stock answer: no, of course I don’t. I teach it, not practice it. It almost rolled out of him as it always did when someone asked him a similar question. But this wasn’t just ‘someone.’ This was his son, a young man who probably had as much magical potential as he did—or perhaps even more, if the bloodlines ran true to form. He’d have to bring up the elephant in the room at some point, and this seemed as good a time as any to do it. “Do you believe in that sort of thing, Ian?”

  “What, that people can be psychic? I don’t know. I don’t believe in ghosts and demons and stuff like that, but even the police use psychics sometimes, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose they do.”

  Ian sipped his wine. “Do I believe I’m psychic? No. It’s not like I see things that happened, or have precognitive dreams or anything. I’m just good at reading people. It probably comes from having to read Bobby’s moods so I could stay away from him when he was pissed about something.”

  Stone remained silent, watching him. Magical sight revealed no change in his aura; either he was telling the truth or he was a very good liar. “Ian…” he said at last, “remember I told you I wanted to talk to you about some things that might influence your decisions about the future, and that I didn’t want to do it in public?”

  “Yeah, of course. You’ve got me curious, I have to admit. Are you going to reveal some deep, dark family secret? Seems a little early for that, doesn’t it? We barely know each other.”

  “It does,” he agreed. “But this isn’t the normal sort of family secret. I’m quite certain you’re my son now—there’s no doubt about it in my mind. So that means it’s something you need to know as soon as possible.”

  Ian leaned forward in anticipation. “Now you’ve really got me curious.”

  “Do you mind if I do something that’s going to seem quite odd to you? I promise, I have a very good reason for it.”

  “What is it?” His eyes narrowed.

  “I need to check something, and in order to do it, I need to touch you.”

  “Touch me?” Now there was no mistaking the suspicion in his tone.

  “Just your forehead, and only briefly. Thirty seconds, at maximum.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you—but I need to do it first. Please, Ian—I know you don’t have much cause to trust me, but I ask that you do in this one instance.”

  Ian was looking at Stone as if he’d gone suddenly insane. “Uh…okay, I guess so.”

  Stone got up and stood in front of the seated boy. He couldn’t mistake the I’m humoring the crazy guy edge to Ian’s tone, and it didn’t surprise him. It wasn’t every day your newfound, long-lost father asked you to let him touch your forehead. “Creepy” didn’t begin to cover it. But it had to be done.

  “All right,” he murmured. “Just hold still. This won’t take long.”

  Ian leaned back in his chair, continuing to radiate suspicion, but he neither flinched back nor said anything when Stone extended his hand and gently pressed three fingers to the middle of his forehead.

  Stone reached out with his magical senses, augmented now by the Calanarian energy he accessed. He thought he might be able to do this without touching now—he hadn’t tried since he’d gotten back—but in this case the examination was too important to risk an incorrect reading. He needed to find out not only whether Ian had magical potential, but how much he had. The answers to these two questions would determine a number of decisions going forward.

  As soon as he made contact, he knew he’d found something—and something big. Not every mage could do this examination; it required a light touch, a fair bit of power, and significant training. When Stone had taught Verity how to do it, he’d likened it to reading an X-ray: most mages, with training, could see something if they examined another person closely. They could tell whether that person was a mundane or had magical potential, for example. But to see the nuances, to discern the amount of potential, required specialized instruction in what to look for. William Desmond had been a master at it, and he’d passed the skill along to Stone during his apprenticeship. Now, with the extra power and sensitivity from his connection to Calanar, he had no trouble getting what he wanted.

  The answer didn’t surprise him, not really. Given his family’s history, he’d expected Ian to possess significant magical talent. He would have been surprised to see otherwise. What did surprise him, however, was the level of that talent.

  Stone knew he himself was a bit of an anomaly, even given his status as the sixth in his family’s unbroken line of strong mages. Not only did the Calanarian energy significantly boost his magical power—he was now likely one of the most potent mages around, if he cared to flex his arcane muscles—but the circumstances of his birth had increased his initial potential even past where it should have been. He supposed that was one thing he should be grateful to his pestilent old crone of a grandmother, Nessa Lennox, about. Sure, she’d planned to sacrifice him as a baby to some extradimensional old god in exchange for knowledge and power, but to prepare for that she and her cabal of insane druids had infused him while he was still in the womb with additional concoctions, techniques, and preparations designed to increase his potential well past where it should have been. He had no idea if that would pass on to his descendants as the basic talents would, but as he examined the roiling, sparking energy in Ian’s brain, he suspected it might.

  His breath caught a little as he continued to observe. This boy had so much. Yes, he was a little old to start an apprenticeship, but nineteen wasn’t by any means out of the range of normal. Besides, if he took to the training with skill matching his potential, he could easily complete the process in three years, as Stone himself had.

  “Hey,” Ian protested, pushing away and breaking the contact. “I thought you said thirty seconds. What are you doing?”

  Stone took a step back, realizing he’d gotten lost in the energy and taken longer than he’d planned. “Sorry, sorry.” He moved back around and resumed his seat at the table across from his son.

  “So…what was the point of all that?” Ian rubbed his forehead. “I guess you didn’t suck my soul out or anything.” His words were light now, but they still held a question.

  Stone took a deep breath. The last time he’d identified magical potential in someone who had no idea they had it, it had been Verity. She, at least, had some familiarity with magic before he dropped the bomb on her, though, so it wasn’t a complete s
urprise. Ian had grown up for nineteen years with no idea of what he could become, mostly in situations where magic was dismissed at best and reviled at worst. How would he react to finding out what he could become? “Ian…”

  Ian’s expression darkened. “Dr. Stone—Dad—whatever this is, you’re starting to piss me off with all the secrecy. Just tell me what’s going on. I can see by your face that you found something. What is it?”

  Still Stone paused, weighing his words with care. Unable to remain seated, he got up and began to pace. “My family—your family—is very old. I’ve got records that go back at least six generations, and there are probably more out there somewhere going back even further. And in each generation, the main family line progresses through a single male heir.”

  “Wait…” Ian’s eyes narrowed again. “You’re not telling me we’re royalty or something, are you? I’m not in line for the throne, am I?”

  Stone chuckled as some of his tension broke. “Oh, gods, no. I’m sure there are a few titles in the family if you go back far enough, but nothing like that. No—what I’m telling you is that there’s a reason why you’re so good at knowing whether people are lying to you.”

  “What? You’re not making sense. What’s that got to do with—”

  Stone went for it. “I know this is going to be difficult for you to get your mind around, but I can prove everything I’m going to tell you. I’m talking about magic, Ian.”

  “Magic?” Ian blinked. “What the hell—?”

  “It’s true. Our family is one of the most powerful magical lines left in the world.”

  “Wait…” Ian turned his chair to face Stone, and then his expression relaxed. “Oh, wait, I get it. You mean you’re like Harry Houdini, David Copperfield, that kind of thing? Passing secrets of magic tricks on from father to son?”

  “No,” Stone said softly. He raised his hand and levitated his wineglass, floating it across to him. “I mean real magic.” He was surprised to hear his voice tremble just a bit. He’d never thought much about having children—he knew it was something he’d have to do eventually, if for no other reason than to provide an heir to inherit his property when he died, but it had always been one of those things in the nebulous out there. The few thoughts he did have about the subject always assumed the child would know about his (or her, but almost certainly his) magical heritage from a young age, as he himself had. If someone had told him he’d have to reveal the existence of the magical world to an adult child who’d spent his entire life as a mundane, he’d have dismissed it as absurd. Somehow, he always assumed he’d just know if he had a child.

  Ian was staring at him, still as a statue. His wide-eyed gaze had followed the wineglass’s course until it settled into Stone’s hand, and then moved up to meet his father’s eyes. “What…did I just see?” he whispered. Next to him, Raider jumped on the table and began delicately picking at the remains of his Pad Thai. He didn’t even notice.

  “That’s the family secret, Ian.” Stone kept his voice soft and even. “What I was checking was to verify whether you’ve inherited the talent.”

  Ian looked as if he were trying to choose between several possible responses. He made a couple of false starts, and then finally settled on: “And…did I?”

  “Absolutely. You’ve got some fairly impressive potential. You could be a fine mage, if you applied yourself to it.”

  “Applied…myself?” Ian stared at him, then shoved his chair backward as he erupted out of it, startling Raider. “Come on, Dad—this is crazy. Insane. What kind of line of bullshit are you trying to feed me here? This is some kind of trick, right? You’ve got wires rigged up or something, to make it look like that glass was flying.”

  Stone ignored his tone. He was familiar with this sort of response: it was the last gasp of a mundane trying to hang onto some shreds of the normal world crumbling around his ears. Ian’s aura belied his words, though: in it, Stone saw not fear or anger, but hesitant fascination. He wanted to believe, but all his mundane senses protested against it.

  “No line,” he said. “No tricks. No wires. I told you, I can prove everything I’ll tell you. I’m sorry to drop this on you so abruptly, but there really isn’t an easy way to do it, is there? Nobody who hasn’t grown up with magic accepts it easily. I figured it was best to simply…toss you in the deep end of the pool and get it over with, so we can move forward.”

  Ian was still staring at him. “Move forward? What do you mean, move forward?”

  “Well, it will be up to you, of course. There’s no requirement that just because you have the potential to learn magic, you have to do anything about it. Most people do want to learn something about it when they find out, though.” To punctuate his words, he telekinetically gathered the plates and wineglasses, directed them in a graceful little dance, and sent them sailing across to the sideboard.

  “You aren’t making sense. Are you telling me I could learn to do…” He gestured at the sideboard. “That?”

  “That, and a lot more. You’re a little older than the standard apprentice, but that’s not an issue. You’ve got enough potential that you should have no trouble handling an accelerated course of study until you’ve got caught up with where you should be.”

  Ian held up his hands in a stop gesture. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is—” He shook his head. “This is—”

  “A lot to take in. I know. I apologize again.” Stone stroked Raider’s head as the cat padded across the table toward him. “I wish there was a simpler way to do it, but there never is. Believe me, though, it does get easier. Once you’ve got yourself across that first chasm—accepting that magic is real—the rest of it is much easier to cope with.” He paused, pondering. “Hmm…given your upbringing, I hadn’t thought about one potential problem. You don’t have any religious objections to magic, do you?”

  Ian gave him a look. “You mean did I pick up any of that from my mom and Bobby? Not a chance.” His face twisted in disgust. “Bobby wasn’t the normal, God-loves-you-and-go-to-church-every-Sunday kind of religious. He was a fanatic about it. Even if I’d been interested, he’d have driven me away from it fast.” He indicated the table. “Show me that again.”

  That was encouraging. He was interested, at least—willing to explore. “Let me show you some other things.” He vanished, levitated across the room, and reappeared behind Ian wreathed in an illusion making him look like a younger man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. “As I said, magic is quite versatile.”

  Ian whirled at the sound of his voice, nearly falling out of his chair. As Stone shifted back to his usual form, he said, “That’s…incredible. And you said this is hereditary? I have it because you have it?”

  “You have it because everybody in our family has it—at least the men, and at least back for six generations. Seven, now.”

  “What about women? Do they have it too?”

  “There are a number of powerful female mages in the world—my own former apprentice is one. She’s away right now, but I want you to meet her when she returns. But not…in our family.” He hesitated only a moment, picturing Nessa Lennox, and his own dead sister Acantha—but they were special cases and best left out of this discussion. “It’s passed along gender lines, and in our family it follows the male progression.”

  Ian sat back, taking it all in. He wore a slightly stunned expression, as if someone had just whacked him upside the head with something heavy. “I don’t believe it…” he said at last. “I came over here thinking we’d have dinner, talk a little, maybe you’d tell me something scandalous about you and my mom back in England…but…” He let his breath out in a whoosh. “Now you’re telling me magic’s real, I’ve got it, and everything I thought I knew about the world has just gone right the hell out the window.”

  Stone chuckled. “My students always did accuse me of being a bit of a showman.”

  “So…what happens now? What do I do with this information?”

  “As I said, it’s up to you, and yo
u don’t have to decide right away. I can answer any questions you might have, and you can think about it. Apprentices generally start at eighteen, so you probably don’t want to think too long if you want to get started, but I’ve heard of people starting well past that age and being successful. It’s not as if the potential will atrophy if you don’t use it.”

  Ian glanced at the bottle of wine, then at the glass Stone had levitated away. “But…if I did decide I wanted to do it—I can’t even believe I’m saying this—how would I do it? Would I learn it from you? Would you even want to teach me?”

  “Ian, it would be my honor to teach you. In the interests of full disclosure, though, it’s generally not done—parents serving as masters for their children, I mean.”

  “Masters?” Ian’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds a little…BDSM.”

  Stone chuckled. “Not that way. No whips and ball gags, I promise. Think of it more in the medieval sense: the master passes his or her knowledge and skill on to the next generation, to keep the art going.”

  “But parents don’t teach children?”

  “Not generally. Again, it’s similar to the medieval model: children are sent away from their families to study with someone else. For magic, it’s because of the reality of relationships: once a child is grown, they usually want to get away from their parents and find their own way, so the apprenticeship is easier with someone non-related.”

  “But not for you?”

  “Well…given that we’ve known each other for two days now, we’re essentially strangers. I neither have nor want any sort of parental authority over you, and you don’t have years of chafing under my unreasonable rules to cloud your ability to learn from me. So I think it might be possible, if you want to do it. If you want to learn but would rather study under a different master, I can arrange that too. But I have to be honest, because I promised I’d never lie to you: with your level of talent, it would be difficult to find another master who can stretch your abilities and help you achieve your full potential. They’re out there, of course, but most of them either already have an apprentice, aren’t interested in taking on another one, or are geographically a long way from here. And…” He spoke the next words before he filtered them, but realized they were true: “…now that you’ve come into my life, I must admit I don’t want to let you get away from me just yet. I want more time for us to get to know each other, to catch up for all those years of lost time.”