Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set: Alastair Stone Chronicles, Books 1 through 4

by R. L. King

  “Do you have a suggestion?” Stone asked. “We don’t want to inconvenience you, but—”

  Freedman considered. “Well...I guess I could just take you straight to Morgantown. Might ask you to chip in a little for gas, though.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing in town?” Jason asked. “Maybe we should check, just to make sure.”

  Freedman shrugged. “Sure, we can do that. But I’ll be real surprised if there is. We can stop and check if you want, or just head straight to Morgantown. Like I said, you can get yourself another rental car there in the morning.”

  Jason and Verity both looked at Stone, deferring to his decision. The mage thought about it for a moment, gave Freedman a long, appraising glance, and finally nodded. “Let’s just go straight to Morgantown, then. We’ll be happy to contribute toward gas.” Realizing that none of them had introduced themselves yet, he added, “I’m Alastair Stone, by the way. This is Jason Thayer, and his sister Verity.”

  “Pleasure to meet you. Now, you just settle in and warm up, and we’ll be there in a bit.”

  They did just that. Freedman had the truck’s heater cranked up to maximum, and by the time he hit his blinker and turned off the main highway onto a side road, his three passengers were beginning to feel like they were sitting in a sauna.

  The road wound around through the trees, making it difficult to see where they were going. It was about wide enough for a vehicle and a half; Jason spotted a few areas that appeared to have been cleared on either side, presumably for one car to pull off if two met in the middle.

  “This is a bit of a shortcut,” Freedman said. “It’s a smaller road, but it’ll take about ten minutes off the trip.”

  They bumped and bounced along the uneven road for about another half mile; Jason, Verity and Stone watched the trees and the occasional sign or billboard go by with varying levels of interest. They rounded a sharp turn.

  “We’ll be back on the main road in five minutes or so,” Freedman told them. Off in the distance they could now see a series of lights, still mostly hidden by the dense forest. Closer, a large sign rose into view on their right, but they couldn’t quite make out what it said yet.

  And then they were turning another corner and the truck’s headlights illuminated the sign. Stone and Jason both went rigid, and Verity gasped.

  The sign read:

  WELCOME TO

  HARMONY FARM

  FRIENDS * LOVE * LAUGHTER * MUSIC

  COME TO VISIT, COME TO STAY!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Something wrong?” Freedman inquired, glancing at his suddenly tense passengers.

  “Stop the truck,” Stone ordered in a strangled tone. He was already opening the door, even though the vehicle was still moving. “Stop!”

  Freedman obligingly stepped on the brake. “What’s the matter, Mr. Stone? Are you all right? Y’aren’t gettin’ carsick, are you?”

  Stone was already out, and Verity and Jason followed him as fast as they could extricate themselves from the cab. They all hurried back to the sign, which was once again barely visible in the moonlight.

  Freedman, clearly confused now, got out and followed them back. “Something wrong, folks?” he asked again. “You look like you’ve all just seen a ghost.”

  “This—sign—” Jason began.

  “What about it?”

  “What—what is that symbol?” Stone asked, pointing at the sign and keeping his tone deliberately even.

  Freedman shrugged. “Damned if I know. I think it’s just their logo or somethin’. This place is kind of a hippie commune. They have a whole complex up there—you know: grow their own crops, live off the land, that kind of thing. Nice folks, but a little strange. I’m pretty sure they’ve even got their own little pot farm up there.”

  Stone took a deep breath. “Mr. Freedman—is there any way we could talk to these people? It’s rather important.”

  Freedman looked at him like he’d suddenly sprouted wings. “Uh—what’s this about? We really need to be gettin’ goin’ if we’re gonna make it to Morgantown by—”

  “It’s very important,” Stone reiterated. “Do you know them?”

  “Well, sure. Some of ’em work down in Highland,” he said, uncertain. “I know Rainey Sykes, and—”

  “Please, Mr. Freedman. We can make this worth your while, I promise.” Stone pulled out his wallet, extracted a bill, and offered it to the man. “If you can introduce us, you might not need to take us to Morgantown after all. This should cover your trouble, yes?”

  Freedman stared at cash, then shook his head. “No need for that, Mr. Stone. You want to meet Rainey, I’ll take you up there. It’s probably not late enough that they’re all in bed yet.” He still looked at the three of them with suspicion, but he jerked a thumb at the truck. “Hop back in, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  They did as requested. As the truck meandered its way up the narrow dirt track leading toward the lights, Jason glanced sideways at Stone. “You think these guys are—” he whispered.

  Stone shook his head as if to say not now. He wouldn’t say anything else until they rounded another bend and the forest on either side of the road opened out into a large, wooded clearing. Occasional electric lights dotted the area, illuminating a cluster of widely spaced wooden buildings surrounding a central courtyard area. Lights were on in some of the buildings.

  As Freedman pulled the truck to a stop, one of the buildings’ doors opened and a man emerged. In the overhead light they could see he looked like a fortyish hippie: medium-length brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses, blue chambray shirt, down jacket, faded jeans. He tilted his head. “Lester? That you?”

  Freedman emerged from the truck. “Yeah, Rainey. I picked up these folks on the road—their car had a little run-in with a deer down a couple miles. Was drivin’ ’em up to Morgantown so they could find a place to stay till they can get themselves a new rental car, but they kinda freaked out when they saw your sign. Insisted on comin’ up here to talk to you. I don’t know—”

  Stone stepped out. “If you’ll excuse us for just a moment, Mr. Freedman,” he said, moving toward Rainey Sykes. “Hello, Mr. Sykes. I’m Alastair Stone. My friends are Jason Thayer and his sister Verity Thayer. May we speak with you for a moment?”

  Sykes looked as confused as Freedman had. “Uh—sure. Of course.” He waved them forward. After a moment, Freedman sighed and got back in to wait. “What can I do for you folks?” Sykes asked.

  “Your sign,” Stone said, fixing his gaze on the other man. “What does the symbol mean?”

  Sykes hesitated. Clearly that wasn’t anywhere near what he’d been expecting to be asked. “It’s—just kind of our logo for the farm. One of our members came up with it awhile back. She was into ancient Egypt, that kind of stuff. The pyramid and the sun’s rays—”

  “How many of your members are Forgotten?” Stone cut him off.

  Now it was Sykes’s turn to go stiff. He stared at Stone with wide eyes. “Excuse me—?”

  “You heard me, Mr. Sykes. How many of you are Forgotten?”

  Instead of answering, Sykes paused for several seconds, then indicated the building behind him. “I think maybe you folks should come with me. I have the feeling we’re gonna need to talk, and this isn’t really the place to do it.” His cheery backwoods demeanor had vanished, but what replaced it was not suspicious or cold—he just seemed to be taking things a lot more seriously now.

  “What are we gonna do about a place to stay?” Jason muttered under his breath to Stone. “If we let Freedman go—”

  But Sykes had heard him. “We can put you up for the night, don’t you worry about that.” Moving over to the truck, he called to Freedman: “We’re gonna take these folks in for the night, Lester. We’ll make sure they get where they need to go tomorrow. Let’s just get their gear out of your truck and you can be on your way. Thanks for bringin’ ’em by.”

  Freedman, looking more perplexed than ever, but obviously pleased
about not having to drive to Morgantown and back this late, heaved himself out and began helping unload the luggage. “You sure this is okay?” he asked Stone. “I can still give you guys a ride—”

  “I think we’ll be fine, Mr. Freedman. Thank you so much for your help. We do appreciate it.”

  He didn’t say any more until after Freedman and his truck had driven back off down the lane. Then he turned back to the silent Sykes and asked softly, “You are, aren’t you?”

  Sykes nodded. “If I understand your meaning of the word, yes—though that’s not what we call ourselves here. How—how did you know? I didn’t think any outsiders had any idea—”

  “I think you’re right, Mr. Sykes. We do have a lot to talk about, then, from our side as well as yours.”

  Sykes turned back toward the building behind him, pushing the door open. “My place,” he said. “Let’s go on in, and then I’ll have to leave you for a few minutes. I want to bring in a couple of the other folks who live here.”

  Sykes’ house was small inside—a living room took up the majority of the space, with a kitchenette at one end and a fireplace at the other, and an open door led to a tiny bedroom and bath. The furniture was best described as “eclectic thrift store”: comfortable, serviceable, mismatched, and shabby.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Sykes told them, crouching down to light a cheery blaze in the fireplace. “Let me get this going, and then I’ll get you some refreshments.”

  Once the fire was burning and he’d gone, the three left in the room stared at each other. “Forgotten—here?” Jason asked, confused. “But he doesn’t seem—”

  “Crazy?” Verity finished. “No, not really. But maybe they’re not all crazy. Maybe there are different types. I think we should listen to what they have to say.”

  “By all means,” Stone agreed. He had gotten up from his chair and gone to the window, looking out into the night. “This whole business is getting stranger by the hour.”

  “Let’s just be careful,” Jason said. “I know we’ve never seen it before, but I wouldn’t put it past the Evil to put up a sign like that just to lure people in.”

  Sykes returned in about ten minutes, two other figures following him inside. One was a plump, middle-aged woman with long hair and a flowing, paisley-print dress under a bright red wool coat. The other man was probably in his sixties, and looked like the textbook definition of an aging hippie: flowing gray hair held back with a leather headband, flannel-lined denim jacket, jeans, round glasses, fringed moccasin boots, and an expression of somewhat medicated calm. All three of them wore serious expressions.

  “Sorry about the wait, folks,” Sykes said, motioning the newcomers to seats and then going to the kitchenette to gather some drinks. “Most people here are getting ready for bed, but I thought this was important enough to keep them up awhile rather than wait until morning.”

  Stone nodded. “Are you all Forgotten?” he asked without preamble as soon as the two new visitors were seated.

  It was the old hippie who spoke. “That isn’t how we refer to ourselves, but I think the meaning is the same. How do you know about us, Mr.—”

  “Alastair Stone.” He introduced Jason and Verity, then went right back to it, leaning forward in his chair and focusing his probing gaze on the man who’d spoken. “Are you, then?”

  “My name is Joshua,” the old man said serenely, unruffled by Stone’s laser-like scrutiny. He indicated the woman. “This is Prudence. And you’ve already met Rainey, of course.”

  Sykes came back over bearing a tray full of mismatched mugs of what looked like hot chocolate. He handed them around, and then sat on the edge of the same couch Prudence was on.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Stone said, trying not to sound impatient. “But—”

  “Please, please,” Joshua said, holding his hands up. Bracelets made of leather and braided colored fibers bedecked his wrists. “How do you know about what you call the Forgotten, Mr. Stone?”

  “It’s a long story. We’re from California, where we’ve some friends in the Bay Area who are Forgotten.”

  “That’s how you knew about our symbol?” Prudence asked. “You’re one of the few who’s ever asked about it, and the only one who didn’t accept our usual explanation. Usually only others of our kind passing through recognize it for what it is.”

  “We know about the Forgotten code,” Jason said. “We only know a few of the actual symbols, like yours—good place—and the one that means ‘bad place.’”

  “That’s the one we’re mostly interested in,” Verity added.

  “And why is that?” Joshua asked, his shaggy gray eyebrows crawling up toward his headband.

  “That’s part of the long story,” Stone said. He paused, considering his next words. “Are you familiar with the Evil, then?”

  A near-simultaneous shudder ran through all three of the Harmony residents, and suddenly Stone was pinned under three gazes every bit as intense as his own had been.

  “How do you know about the Evil?” Prudence asked in an even, carefully measured tone.

  “We know quite a lot about the Evil,” Stone said. “As I said, we have some Forgotten friends back home in California, and they’ve explained it to us initially. We’ve—sort of taken it from there.”

  “Taken what from there?” Sykes asked. His eyes narrowed. “You aren’t like us.”

  “I am,” Verity spoke up.

  “Indeed?” Joshua asked. He looked her up and down. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “You would have a couple of months ago,” she said. “I’ve—had some help keeping it under control.” She regarded him with curiosity. “If you don’t mind me asking: most of the Forgotten I know are great people, but they’re a little, um—no offense intended—not right in the head. You guys don’t seem that way.”

  Joshua smiled. “There are many ways for the Gifts to touch a person, my child.”

  “Huh?” Jason asked, leaning forward.

  Sykes chuckled. “We’ve seen some of the folks you talk about—the ones who are confused. Not many around here, but sometimes small groups of travelers come through on their way somewhere else. We put ’em up when we can, but they never stay. Us—” He shrugged. “Joshua here—I guess you could call him sort of spiritual leader of our little colony—he thinks that being in touch with spiritual things can bring one closer to the Gifts.”

  “That’s what you call it—the Gifts?” Stone asked. “So then—you’re saying you’re all in touch with spiritual things sufficiently for the Forgotten abilities to manifest in you?”

  Prudence smiled a little. “Many of us—have arrived at our level of spiritual enlightenment with the aid of guides, over the course of many years.”

  Jason and Verity looked confused, but Stone nodded slowly. “Guides of an—organic or chemical nature, I presume?”

  Sykes nodded. “Most of us here are—or were—voyagers on the path to enlightenment, and we experimented with all sorts of means of tryin’ to find it.” He shrugged. “We don’t understand it, why it happened. But it did, and now we’ve joined together to help each other.”

  “Everyone here is Forgotten?” Stone asked. “How many people live here with you?”

  Prudence thought about it a moment. “About...fifty or so, I guess. I haven’t counted them lately. We have all types, from older people down to young couples with children here. Not all of us have the Gifts, but we are all focused on the same goals.”

  “You do drugs around kids?” Jason asked, looking shocked.

  Sykes shook his head. “Of course not. We don’t let the kids look for that kind of enlightenment until they’re of age—at that point, they’re not ours to command anymore, and they can choose their own paths. And most of us these days, beyond a bit of cannabis here and there—which we grow on our own farms—don’t really partake that much. We consider the Gifts we’ve been given to be the enlightenment we were seeking. Today we focus on living in harmony with nature, taki
ng care of each other, and protecting ourselves against the Darkness.”

  “The Darkness?” Jason asked. He shifted around in his chair, trying to find a position that didn’t make his knee hurt worse. He was afraid it was beginning to swell.

  “What you call the Evil,” Joshua said. He raised his hands, indicating the space around them. “It is here. It is all around. It suffuses our world. I can feel it. But it does not touch us here.”

  Stone took a deep breath. “When you say it’s all around you—what do you mean by that?”

  “Can’t you feel it?” Joshua asked, turning to face him.

  “No.”

  Prudence shook her head. “Joshua is—extremely sensitive. We have others who can sense its presence, but in most cases it must be much closer. Joshua claims to feel it all around.”

  She, too, fixed her gaze back on Stone. “But we’ve told you quite a bit about ourselves, and you haven’t said much about your own reasons for being here. You know of the Forgotten, but were you seeking us? Or do you seek what you call the Evil?”

  Now she turned to Verity. “And you say you are Forgotten yourself, young one, though you don’t act like any of our kind I’ve ever seen.” Back to Stone: “What of you, and this other man? You aren’t Forgotten.”

  “No,” Stone said. “We’re not.” He paused for several seconds, then appeared to reach a decision. “Are you familiar with mages?”

  The three Harmony residents’ eyes widened. “Mages?” Prudence repeated. “We’ve—heard of them. But they’re—myths. Aren’t they?”

  Stone chuckled. “I’ve never been called a myth before. But no, I assure you, we’re quite real.”

  “You’re—?” Joshua stared at him in frank amazement. Then, to Jason: “You as well?”

  Jason shook his head. “Nope, not me. Sorry. I’m—the muscle of the outfit, I guess.” He had started to say something about his mana-battery ability, but caught the barest of head-shakes from Stone and stopped.

  “I am a mage,” Stone said, and nodded toward Verity. “Verity is my apprentice.”