by R. L. King
She shrugged. “Try me. I’ll ask questions if I have them.”
“Brilliant. Thank you, Verity. I appreciate it.” He leaned back, resisting the urge to get up and pace. “I already told you Harrison and I rescued the…er…‘space alien’…from the facility where she was being held.”
“Yeah.” Light dawned. “Ah, okay, I get it. You said—or heavily implied, at least—that the space alien came through the rift from wherever Harrison’s from.”
“Yes.”
“So…what do you want me to talk to him about? I assume it has something to do with the rift, or else you could do it yourself.”
“It does, yes.”
“Does he know about it? The rift, I mean?”
“No. But he suspects it. That was what he was calling about earlier today. He came here and asked me what I was hiding from him.”
“And you couldn’t tell him, because oath.”
“Exactly.”
She shifted position, causing Raider to give an irritated mrrow before settling back in her lap. “So…where did you leave it? I’m guessing he didn’t take no for an answer.”
“He…did not. I managed to stall him for a day, and went to Stefan’s shop to ask him if he might consider pausing the oath in this one case.”
“I’m also guessing he said no.”
“Right again. Which puts me in a bit of a dilemma.”
She was staring off into space now, obviously thinking over what he’d said. “Yeah, I get it. So Harrison comes back tomorrow and you can’t tell him anything, which is going to piss him off. Do you think he’ll try to get the information out of you somehow?”
“No. He’s relentless, but I’ve never seen him do anything even close to mental magic. I honestly don’t think he would even if he could—and in any case, the oath would probably prevent it. But you’re right—he won’t be pleased.”
“What do you think he’ll do, then?”
“Knowing Harrison, he’ll take matters into his own hands—either from here or from the other side. And he’s one of the few people I know who’s got a damned good chance of succeeding.”
“You mean he’ll find the rift?”
“Yes. My illusions are strong, but so is he. If he figures out where to look, I don’t give them much chance of holding him off.”
“So you think he’ll find it and close it, and for some reason you can’t tell me, that’s a bad thing to do.”
“Yes. That, and Kolinsky has implied there might be others watching, who might object more…violently…than I will.”
“Like the guy in Wyoming.”
“Yes.”
She looked down at her lap, stroking Raider’s head. “So what do you want me to do? I can’t tell him much, since you can’t tell me much.”
“I want you to tell him what you do know.”
“You mean, tell him about the rifts I’ve seen, and try to convince him it’s a bad idea to close them even though I don’t know why?”
Stone spread his hands. “It’s not much, I know. But it’s the best I’ve got. Harrison’s a rational man—he’s already proven he won’t take me on faith, but maybe if he has more information, he might at least decide to study things more before he takes action. That might be enough to render the whole thing moot.”
It was a possibility, of course—some of the dimensional intersection points only remained active for a short time. If he could hold Harrison off for even a few weeks, it might be long enough. He made a mental note to go back to London and check the globe again as soon as he could get away.
“Uh…sure, I’ll do it. I don’t know how much good it will do, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Thank you, Verity.”
“Hey, what are former apprentices for, except to get in the middle of big nasty situations they know next to nothing about and try their best not to make things worse?”
Stone chuckled. “Here’s hoping it won’t come to that. Knowing Harrison, he’ll turn up in exactly a day since we met, which means he should be here around one tomorrow. I’ll call you if that changes. Or, if it’s easier, you can stay here tonight.” He paused, only for a second. “The guest bedroom is tidied, and I’m sure Raider will enjoy having another cat bed to choose between.”
She met his gaze briefly, then looked away. “I think I should head home. I do have some stuff I need to do in the morning. Unless Harrison’s a lot more of a morning person than you are, I’m probably safe. I can always drop it if I’m wrong.”
“Fair enough. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
23
Harrison was a precise man, and Stone’s guess that he would allow the full twenty-four hours before showing up proved true.
The doorbell rang at exactly one o’clock. Stone exchanged glances with Verity, who was lounging on the couch pretending to watch a mindless TV show while Raider prowled back and forth across her. At the ring, the cat darted out of the room and disappeared.
“Showtime.” Stone took a couple of deep breaths, closed his eyes briefly, then strode to the door and opened it.
Today, Harrison wore a gray shirt with the sleeves turned up and razor-creased black trousers. Stone wondered if the man owned anything in a color, or maybe a pair of jeans. The black Porsche was parked in the same place as yesterday.
“Hello, Mr. Harrison. Right on time. Come on in.”
Harrison inclined his head. “Dr. Stone.”
Stone led him into the sitting room, where Verity had risen from her slouch.
Harrison raised an eyebrow when he spotted her.
“Mr. Harrison,” Stone said, “you remember my apprentice—well, former apprentice now—Verity Thayer, yes?”
“Of course. Good afternoon, Ms. Thayer.” If he was disturbed by the additional party guest, he made no indication of it.
“Hey, Mr. Harrison. Good to see you again. It’s been a while.”
“Please, sit down,” Stone said. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you.” Once again, he didn’t sit. “Please forgive me, Dr. Stone, but my time is limited. Do you have an answer to my request?”
“I do. To some extent, anyway. I hope it will be enough to convince you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stone took a deep breath as Verity settled back onto the couch. He paced behind it, away from Harrison. “I spoke to my friend yesterday. The one I gave my word to.”
“What did he say?”
“Well…to be honest, he said no. I tried to explain the situation to him without revealing too much about who you are or where you’re from, but he claims his hands are tied. It’s not just him involved in this. There are others—I don’t know who they are—but the bottom line is, he won’t release me from the oath so I can’t reveal the information.”
Harrison’s gaze sharpened. “I see.”
“But,” Stone added quickly, before he could say anything else, “I think I’ve found a way around it. At least some of it. Hopefully enough for you to see things more clearly.”
Harrison shifted his attention to Verity. “I trust this is why you have asked Ms. Thayer to join us.”
“Yes.” Stone gripped the back of the sofa. “I warn you, this is likely to get complicated, because there are things Verity doesn’t know about you.” He shot a significant glance at Harrison, hoping it conveyed that he hadn’t revealed the existence of Calanar to her. “There are also things she doesn’t know about the situation we’re talking about. So if it seems I’m being a bit more vague than I usually prefer, that’s because I’m trying to keep everyone’s secrets safe.” He frowned, shaking his head. “And I don’t mind telling you both, it’s getting to be a bloody pain in the arse trying to keep track of who knows what. I’m going to need a scorecard if this keeps up.”
Harrison didn’t reply, but merely waited for him to continue.
Not going to make this easy at all, are you? “Right, then. Verity, you’ve got the floor.”
Verity sat up st
raighter. “Okay. So, Doc—Dr. Stone—told me you two went somewhere to rescue the space alien, or whatever it was, that he found in Colorado.”
Harrison’s gaze flicked to Stone. “Space alien?”
“Go with it. That’s not the important part. Go on, Verity.”
She looked at Stone, swallowed, and plunged in. “Okay. There are these rifts—some kind of openings between dimensions—that pop up sometimes. I don’t think we know anything about why they do it.”
Harrison raised an eyebrow. “Rifts.”
Stone gripped the sofa-back harder. He ached to add to the conversation, to explain, to clarify, but every time he tried it was as if there was a membrane between his brain and his mouth, and everything he tried to say got caught in it. Frustrated, he focused on watching Harrison’s reaction.
“Yeah. They’re sort of…rips in reality. They aren’t all the same, though. Some of them open up to other dimensions, some just work one way and sort of leak power into our world, and some give people weird powers or awaken magic in them. I honestly don’t know that much about them and how they work. I’ve only ever seen a couple of them, and heard about a couple others. Including one I interacted with.”
“Interacted?”
She looked at Stone again. “Yeah. I was investigating one of them for Dr. Stone, and it ended up it had sort of shifted a whole small town between here and whatever dimension it was connected with. He had to go through it and rescue me, and get the town shifted back over.”
This time, Harrison’s gaze was sharper when he looked at Stone. “Shifted.”
His voice was as even and unemotional as always, but Stone nonetheless didn’t miss the barely perceptible ‘why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ It was a fair question, given how he routinely shifted bits of the Obsidian between dimensions like it was no big deal. If the two were connected, of course he’d want to know about it.
Verity must have picked it up too, because she said, “Dr. Stone can’t talk about it. Like he said, he’s sworn a magical oath not to, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to make do with me and my incomplete knowledge of what’s going on.”
Harrison studied them both, then inclined his head. “What do you mean by ‘shifted’?”
“It was weird. This town was seriously tiny—it only had less than a hundred people, and it was in a pretty small area. The rift caused it to change dimensions. Only it didn’t change completely—it wasn’t like all the buildings and people and cows got sent over. It was more like it was…stuck between the two.” She looked at Stone, then sighed. “I know I’m not explaining it very well. Doc knows it better, but he can’t say anything.”
“I see.” Harrison leaned against the fireplace mantel and considered. “Does this rift still exist?”
“No. Doc closed it.”
“How?”
She spread her hands. “Damned if I know. I didn’t help that much.” She shot another glance at Stone, but didn’t say anything about the rest of what had happened. They’d already discussed what she should and shouldn’t reveal before Harrison arrived.
“You mentioned that you were familiar with others.”
“Well…one other.”
“And where is that?”
“Oakland. But it’s gone now too.”
Stone had risen early that morning and driven up there before Verity arrived. When he slipped past the illusions he’d put up to keep it hidden, he’d verified it was no longer there. That gave more credence to Kolinsky’s statement that, left alone, the rifts would drift out of phase and disappear on their own.
“Gone,” Harrison said. “Did Dr. Stone close that one as well?”
“No.”
“Did someone else?”
“I…don’t think so.”
She gave Stone a ‘help me!’ look, but he only shrugged. The part about the rifts moving out of phase was covered under his oath, so all he’d been able to tell her was that the rift was no longer present.
“How is it gone, then?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “See, this is where things get complicated. I know some of what’s going on. Doc knows more, but before he could tell me anything about it, he ended up having to swear this oath.”
“I see.” Harrison turned back to Stone. “To whom did you swear this oath?”
“I…can’t say.”
“Is that part of the terms of your oath?”
“That I can’t reveal who I swore it to? No.”
Harrison’s eyebrow rose. Seriously, he and Kolinsky could have eyebrow-raising contests if the two of them ever met. Too bad it would never happen if Stone got his way.
Stone shrugged. “Look, it’s like I told you—I’m navigating some pretty dangerous waters here. I feel like I’m caught between bloody Scylla and Charybdis, trying to keep my head straight about who knows what. I’m sorry, Mr. Harrison, but I can’t reveal that information—any more than I was willing to reveal anything about you to him. You’ll have to accept that. And in any case, it wouldn’t matter. I could take you to him and you could try to convince him to change his mind, but trust me—he won’t.”
Harrison held his gaze, unblinking, for an uncomfortable several seconds, then addressed Verity. “You are implying, of course, that the individual you call a ‘space alien’ came through one of these rifts.”
“Yeah.”
“In Colorado.”
“Yeah.”
“And Dr. Stone has closed this rift.”
“Er…no.”
“No.” Harrison turned back to Stone with a slight frown. “You have not closed it.”
Stone didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.
“Why not?”
“He can’t say,” Verity said. “That’s part of the oath too. That’s the main reason why he asked me to be part of this very weird conversation. He’s not supposed to close the rifts. He can’t tell me why, but he’s been really adamant about that.”
“Unexplained interdimensional rifts are appearing in unexpected locations, and someone wishes them to remain open?” Harrison’s voice still didn’t rise above its normal low tone, but his surprise was nonetheless evident.
“Yyyyeah.” Verity rubbed her chin. “It’s a stumper to me too, but Doc’s seriously convinced it’s true. There’s an important reason why it’s not a good idea to close them, but I don’t know what it is. That’s why he’s afraid you’re going to go off and close the one in Colorado.” She shifted her gaze between him and Stone. “I don’t know where you’re from, Mr. Harrison. Doc’s never told me the details. But I do know you spend a lot of time on another dimension, and I’m pretty sure this rift has opened up between that one and ours. It makes sense you’d want to close it. But—I know it’s hard for you to take people on faith—hell, it’s hard for me to take it on faith, especially after what happened to me—but he’s asking you to do that.”
“It’s true,” Stone said. “You respect my magical ability, right? You’ve said before that I’ve probably got more formal magical training than you do.”
“I do respect your ability,” Harrison said. “There was never any question of that.”
“Then I’m asking you—leave this alone. You already told me there’s no problem on your end—that it’s impossible for anyone there to get near it. I’ve taken steps to make it almost as difficult for anyone to blunder into anything they shouldn’t on this end. If we leave it alone, everything will sort itself out without our interference.”
“When?” Harrison’s gaze hardened. “How long?”
Stone struggled to find a way to answer without violating the oath. “It’s…variable,” he said at last. “Could be a few days—could be a few months. There’s no way to tell.”
Harrison pushed off the mantel. “I’m sorry, Dr. Stone, but that is unacceptable.” He glanced at Verity. “You are correct in your assumption, Ms. Thayer. I do spend a significant amount of time on a dimension other than Earth. I suspect both of you are also correct that thi
s…rift, as you call it, has created an opening between the two dimensions. I cannot allow that opening to remain in existence.” He looked at Stone. “As you are aware, Dr. Stone, there are…individuals who, if they were to discover the rift, could cause a great deal of trouble for both Earth and my dimension.”
Stone shuddered. He was right, of course: he wasn’t concerned about anyone from Earth popping through to Calanar, since they’d end up in the Wastes and probably be dead before they figured out they were in danger. But if any of the powerful and vengeful Talented managed to find their way to Earth…
“But how will they find it?” He resumed pacing, frustrated. If Harrison was going to reveal that much about Calanar to Verity, he didn’t feel as constrained about doing it himself. “You said it—there’s a bloody manastorm blocking it off, out in the middle of the great bugger-all! Do you honestly think any of those individuals has a chance in hell of finding it?”
“That is the problem,” Harrison said. “I checked with the Travelers when I returned home yesterday. The manastorm is moving.”
Damn. “How fast?”
“What’s a manastorm?” Verity asked, then waved it off. “No, never mind. I don’t need to know.”
“Not quickly,” Harrison said as if she hadn’t spoken. “But since there is no way to be certain where, precisely, within it this rift exists, it is possible it could be exposed soon.”
“Does that even matter, though?” Stone asked. “Even if it is exposed, nobody’s going out in the Wastes looking for it. They don’t know it’s there. Why would they?”
“It isn’t likely they will. But—” He glanced at Verity, then back at Stone. “As I mentioned yesterday, certain forces have become embroiled in more conflict than you remember.”
“What does that mean?”
“My operatives in the cities have informed me that some of them have made tentative efforts to penetrate the edges of the Wastes.”
Stone stared at him. “Seriously? Are they getting anywhere?”
“I sure wish I had a clue what you two were talking about,” Verity said dryly. “You done with me, Doc? I could take off, or go play checkers with Raider or something.”