by R. L. King
Thx,
gina
The attachment was a screen shot of Devin Lund’s address, phone number, and other details, probably obtained from one of the sites the agency subscribed to so they could track people who didn’t want to be tracked.
Heart beating fast, Stone lay back against the pillows and tapped in the number. Could it be this easy? If fortune favored him, he could have his answers any minute. He could put this whole thing behind him so he could get back to Jason’s problem and his portal construction.
It rang once, and then picked up.
“We’re sorry,” said a mechanical voice. “The number you’ve reached has been disconnected and is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again.”
“Damn…” Stone muttered. Then he remembered what the article had said: the authorities had taken the campers’ phones. That was still odd, though: he’d recently lost his own phone, but had no trouble replacing it with the same number. Surely in this day and age with everyone tethered to their phones, Lund wouldn’t have waited long to get a new one.
Unless he was forced to change the number, the voice of paranoia suggested.
It made sense, especially if the authorities not only wanted to eliminate any possibility of the photos getting out, but also wanted to make it difficult for anyone to reach the people involved to ask further questions.
And if all that was true, it meant there had to be more to this than a mere student prank or hoax.
Whatever those campers had found might not have been a Traveler, but it was beginning to look like it was definitely something.
He switched back to the email Gina had sent him. It included not only Lund’s disconnected phone number, but also his physical address. Unfortunately, it didn’t include his email address.
Raider broke into his thoughts with an insistent meow. The human was awake, which meant it was time to feed the cat. Priorities must be observed.
“Yes, yes, all right.” He swung out of bed and followed Raider downstairs, moving on autopilot.
This situation was looking stranger—but that didn’t mean he needed to do anything about it. He had plenty of things to occupy his time. He’d promised Jason he’d look into figuring out what was up with his aura change, he had his paper and class preparations to finish before the new quarter started, and he needed to start taking a more proactive approach to locating the vanazarite he needed so he could put the final touches on his portal. He didn’t have time for another puzzle.
But what if it was a stricken Traveler those campers had found out in the boondocks?
What if she’d somehow figured out how to cross over from Calanar to Earth? Or worse, what if she hadn’t done it voluntarily? Stone shuddered as he remembered the vicious, unpredictable magical storms that raged across the small dimension’s unstable central Wastes. The nomadic Travelers lived in the Wastes and had adapted to their lethal environment, but they weren’t immune to all its effects. What if she’d been caught out alone during one of the storms, and it had shifted her from her own dimension to this one?
If that happened, it could explain her distress. When Stone had made his desperate attempt to travel from Earth to Calanar, he’d lost his ability to do magic until he’d properly acclimated to the other dimension. If something similar had occurred with the Traveler, she could be in worse trouble than he’d been. Travelers were innately magical creatures, tightly connected to the higher concentration of arcane energy on Calanar. What would happen to one who arrived on comparatively magic-poor Earth—especially without any preparation?
“Stop it,” he muttered. This was sloppy thinking. He’d latched onto a wild premise and then spun out several layers of increasingly shaky conclusions on top of it.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t his problem. Maybe if Gina came back with more information, it might be worth checking into. But until then, he had enough on his plate.
He left Raider happily attacking his breakfast and headed back upstairs to take a shower. He’d do what he’d already planned: pop over to England to collect the reference material he needed, check in with Eddie and Ward to see if they had any insights, then return home to meet with Jason tonight. Whatever was going on with his friend’s aura—especially since it was quite possibly connected with his own blood—was more important than some crackpot story on an obscure website.
Even if that story had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Still, he couldn’t get the blurry image of the woman’s face out of his mind as he stood in the shower and let the hot water roll down his body. Either it was a prank, or it wasn’t. Either it was a Traveler, or it wasn’t. But if it was a Traveler who’d somehow managed to cross dimensions, then how had she done it? Was there something about that particular location, in the wilds of Colorado, that—
Bloody. Hell.
Was it possible?
He nearly slipped on the tile floor as he wrenched off the water and stumbled out of the shower.
If the woman was a Traveler, what if whatever had caused her to cross from Calanar to Earth didn’t come from the Wastes?
What if it came from right here?
4
Stone did head home to England that day, but not—primarily at least—for the same reason he’d originally intended.
Instead of stopping at the Surrey house first, he took the portal at A Passage to India straight to London, stepping out in the basement of William Desmond’s former residence. He forced himself not to run upstairs, but suspected he still startled a housekeeper dusting the living room as he dashed in.
“Hello, sir,” she called. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
Stone thanked the gods that all of Desmond’s loyal staff, both here and up at Caventhorne, were mundanes from magical families. He couldn’t imagine how frustrating it would be, constantly having to come up with plausible explanations for why he showed up suddenly and without advance notice.
“I won’t get in your way. Just here for a few minutes. I’ll be in the sitting room, so you’ll want to avoid that.”
“Yes, sir.” She seemed unaffected by his odd behavior—probably because it wasn’t anything close to the oddest thing she’d ever seen around the house.
The main sitting room still looked the same as it had during Stone’s apprentice days. When he’d inherited the place from Desmond, he’d seen no point in changing anything—especially since he spent so little time here. Aside from the small permanent staff who tended to the place, it remained essentially a monument to Stone’s old master, active only when Stone or his son Ian needed a place to stay in London. Stone liked it that way. Even though he’d thoroughly embraced the modern world and all its conveniences, he saw a place for old traditions, too. Best of both worlds.
He strode across the room and dropped to his knees in front of an old-fashioned globe suspended in a heavy, wheeled wooden stand on the floor. At nearly three feet in diameter, the thing was much larger than most of those made in modern times. It appeared to depict the world as it had been hundreds of years ago, with few city names or other more modern features, but the outlines of the continents were far more accurate than anything mundanes had produced during that period. The oceans were depicted in light tan, with the landmasses in various darker shades. An interconnected web of crisscrossing lines covered its entire surface: a three-dimensional depiction of the world’s ley lines.
The thing was beautiful in and of itself, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a fine museum or private library. But its true beauty and function didn’t come through unless one knew the proper way to look at it.
Stone shifted to magical sight. Instantly, the web of ley lines began to glow with faint light. He used magic to pull the room’s heavy drapes closed, leaning in closer and narrowing his eyes for a better look.
As he’d expected, small, glowing dots appeared at several places where the ley lines converged. He spun the globe until North America was centered, then moved in even closer, peerin
g at the upper section of the United States. Because the globe was so old, it included few geographic labels on this part of the country, but he knew what he was looking for.
Or at least he thought he did.
“Hello…” he murmured.
The previous year, before Stefan Kolinsky had explained the purpose of the odd magical rifts that had begun to appear around the world and why it was dangerous to close them, Stone had done just that. Responding to magical anomalies in the Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming areas, he’d traveled there and used his magic to seal the rifts before they caused any more trouble.
The globe in front of him was part of the reason why he’d known where to find them. Using magical sight, Stone had identified tiny, colored dots at a subset of the places where the ley lines converged. There hadn’t been any rhyme or reason to where they’d been, except that each one existed where at least two lines crossed. Many locations of great power, such as the ten-line convergence at the site of Burning Man, the five at Caventhorne, and the three at Stone’s Surrey house, had not included the dots—but several obscure spots in remote areas did. He’d identified around twenty such dots in North America, in clusters varying from yellow to orange.
Except the three he’d found before—the three he’d closed—were no longer depicted on the globe.
Stone’s heart beat faster. He ignored the pain in his knees as he gripped the wooden frame and tilted his head. The dots were faint and hard to see, even in the semi-darkness. He might have missed them.
But he hadn’t missed them, and he knew it.
They were gone.
“Well, this is interesting…” he whispered. Clearly, Desmond’s enchanted globe held even more secrets than he’d originally suspected.
Could it somehow know the status of the rift locations in real time, winking out any dots representing rifts that had either been artificially sealed, or had drifted out of phase? Kolinsky had explained that the rifts occurred when two dimensional spaces overlapped, a state that remained in effect for a relatively short time. Did that mean—
Stone looked more closely, and held his breath. He couldn’t be certain—he’d had more pressing things on his mind at the time and hadn’t taken careful notes—but it appeared several of the dots he remembered being in certain locations were no longer present.
Several more, however, had taken their places in new locations.
Could it be possible that—
He spun the globe again, focusing on the western half of the United States. With no state boundaries or labels, he couldn’t be certain he was correct. It might be wishful thinking. But damned if there didn’t seem to be a faint yellow dot somewhere close to where he thought Colorado might be.
He leaped to his feet, still ignoring his protesting knees, and strode to the bookshelf. The old, thick world atlas was still there, right where he’d left it, and next to it was the large, square magnifying glass with its dark-wood handle. He grabbed both and dropped onto the sofa near the globe. His fingers shook as he fumbled the atlas to the correct page.
The book was old, but not nearly as old as the globe. He found the pages for the United States, summoned the globe over, and spun it until it lined up. Then he raised the magnifying glass and, with magical sight still active, peered back and forth between the map and the globe.
Under the enchanted glass, the globe changed. Where before it had been flat, the space the glass showed took on a three-dimensional effect, like a topographical model. Stone moved the glass around, checking the globe’s newly revealed features against the map.
One of the tiny yellow dots appeared in the mountains northwest of Crested Butte.
Stone slumped back against the sofa, letting his breath out in a long sigh.
This changed everything.
“Sorry, Jason,” he murmured. “Your problem’s going to have to wait a bit longer.”
5
Jason was not pleased when Stone called him.
“What do you mean, you can’t meet with me tonight?” he demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Something…came up.” Stone was back in Encantada now. He had the phone on speaker as he moved around his bedroom, packing a few things for what he hoped would be a short trip. Just to be safe, he’d already arranged with one of his trusted grad students to come by to feed Raider.
“Come on, Al—you sound like a teenage guy blowing off a date. I thought we were gonna work on…you know.”
Stone guessed Jason was at the office, and didn’t want Gina to hear the details. “I promise, we will. But this just came up and it’s very important.”
“This is important. It’s driving me crazy, not knowing.”
“I know. I’m sorry. If there was another way around it, I’d let it go.”
“But you can’t tell me what it is.”
Stone considered. “It’s got something to do with that news article Gina showed us yesterday.”
There was a long pause. “The Bat Boy sighting? I thought you decided that was a hoax.”
“Yes, well, it’s looking like it might not be. Look—this shouldn’t take long. We can get back to your problem as soon as I return. It’s the best I can do, Jason. I genuinely apologize, but this might be a life-or-death situation.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” Jason still didn’t sound happy. “You need any help with it?”
Stone smiled. Good old loyal Jason—even when he was pissed about getting postponed, he was still right there willing to pitch in. “No, I think I’ve got this one on my own. Thanks, Jason. Could I speak to Gina for a moment before I go?”
“Why?”
“I need to ask her something.”
“Uh…yeah. Sure. I’ll transfer you.” Jason sounded confused now. “Take care of yourself, Al. No more disappearing like last time.”
“I’ll do my best.” He waited while the line was transferred. When Gina picked up, he said, “Good morning, fellow creature of the night.”
She laughed. “Yeah. I’m surprised you’re even awake. I’m surprised I’m even awake. Good thing I live pretty close to work, or I’d be a road menace. What’s up?”
“Wondering if you managed to discover anything else about our campers. Thank you for what you sent, by the way. It helped.”
“Oh, good. I hoped it would, but not much there. Sucks I couldn’t find an email address.” She paused, and Stone heard tapping keys. “Nothing else yet, except it looks like that Lund guy might be a student. Western Colorado University, in a town called Gunnison. Dunno if he’ll be there in the summer, but if you can find him, I bet you can find the others too. Any luck with the phone number?”
“Disconnected.”
“That’s weird. My info from this source is usually pretty up-to-date. Don’t tell the boss, but I used one of the databases we use for finding people.”
“Well, they did take his phone, so I suppose he hasn’t got a new one yet. If you find out anything else, please send me a text or an email.”
“Yeah, you got it.” She paused again. “You’re pretty excited about this. You don’t honestly think they found something weird out there, do you?”
“Not sure what I think yet. Cheers, Gina.” He hung up before she could ask any other questions.
“Right, then, Raider,” he said to the cat, who was trying to climb into his overnight bag. “You be good. Don’t cause any trouble, and stay away from my library. I haven’t got time to sort you out if you summon something nasty.”
It was a toss-up whether it would be faster to fly to Colorado or take the portal to New Mexico and drive. Stone decided on the latter because it was simpler: picking up a rental car in Santa Fe and driving to Gunnison would take less than five hours, while flying involved security lines, layovers, and changing planes. If he couldn’t find Devin Lund, the trip from Gunnison to Crested Butte would take less than an hour.
He wished there were more portals in the United States. Sure, being able to pop from the Bay Area to New York City or Chicago in
a handful of minutes was unquestionably convenient, but only if those or other cities with public portals were near where you wanted to go. He felt guilty sometimes when complaining about it, since mages still had it a lot better than mundanes, but he still occasionally fantasized about teleporting from place to place without the limitations of portals. That probably wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, though, if it were ever even possible at all. The way portal science was dying out these days, he doubted anyone would be left in a generation or two who could even take a crack at it.
He didn’t stop to chat with Marta on his way to the portal room at A Passage to India, since she was still dealing with the end of the lunch rush. He checked his phone one last time before he stepped through the portal, finding no updated messages from Gina. He also didn’t see any communication from Harrison, but that didn’t surprise him. In truth, he was glad the man hadn’t responded. Until he had more information, bringing Harrison in was probably not a good idea. Involving Trevor Harrison in a problem was the equivalent of aiming a tactical nuke at a gopher infestation: the problem would unquestionably be solved, but you might not like the fallout. Best to be certain first.
He’d already arranged a rental car in Santa Fe, so all he had to do was take a taxi from the twenty-four-hour convenience store where the portal was located to the rental agency. He was on the road in less than half an hour, and, with the aid of a disregarding spell and his usual lead-footed driving style, he reached Gunnison by early that evening.
It was a good thing he enjoyed driving. Despite his impatience to reach his destination, he managed to appreciate the beautiful scenery on the way, trusting the GPS to get him to his destination as he let his mind wander. Even after more than ten years in the country, he still marveled sometimes at how big the United States was, compared to England. Until he’d driven through vast swaths of wide-open land with barely a town in sight, he’d never truly internalized the old joke about how to tell the difference between an American and an Englishman (the American thinks a hundred years is a long time, and the Brit thinks a hundred miles is a long way). These days, he found it amusing when British colleagues—mundane ones, anyway—suggested popping in on him for a quick visit while on holiday on the other side of the country.