Steel and Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  Nothing.

  So he couldn’t do Harrison’s magic, he couldn’t do white magic (no surprise there), and he couldn’t do black magic. But magic clearly existed on this dimension—in fact, it seemed to be much stronger than it was back on Earth—and just as clearly Harrison must be able to do it if he could get back and forth between here and Earth. So what was the difference?

  He’d have to continue that line of thought later. He was approaching the dock area now, and once again the buildings grew more shabby and blasted-looking with each block he covered. An odd odor—almost but not quite the same as it smelled near the sea back on Earth—gradually began to permeate the air, and a light mist covered the cracked streets. Remaining watchful but keeping his posture and stride confident and purposeful, he continued on as if he knew exactly where he was going.

  He didn’t pass many people on his way. Once, a group of three men on a street corner looked him over as he went by; a block down, a wheezing vehicle that looked like it had been cobbled together from scrap iron and spare parts slowed as it crawled past him, but then resumed its normal speed and turned left at the next corner. Other than that, the street remained deserted.

  Another block and a right turn toward the water revealed a glow through the fog. As Stone approached it, it resolved into a low, squat building. Though it had no windows, the series of flickering, multicolored lights shining along its roofline and the large sign in the window featuring two words in blood-red paint with a twisting fish between them—surprisingly artistically rendered, compared to some of the other signs Stone had seen—suggested he’d found his destination.

  As soon as he pushed open the door and entered, he could tell this wasn’t the same kind of place as even the sketchy Bella’s Tavern. While Bella’s featured loud, jangly music, games, and working-class camaraderie, the Fisherman’s Rest had a darker ambiance. Even with his current inability to see auras, Stone could almost read this place’s anyway: Purpose. Desperation. A place for people with nothing to lose.

  A few customers shot him narrow-eyed, suspicious glances as he entered, but then quickly returned to their business. He couldn’t get a good look at any of them even if he wanted to, since except for a few signs behind the bar and weak little lights on the tables, the place was so dark he couldn’t even see his feet clearly as they crunched over something on the floor.

  He went to the bar and waited for a break in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd pressed against it. Both men and women, he noticed, the women every bit as hard-eyed and purposeful as the men. No giggling good-time girls here. Watching for a few moments revealed that the only way to get a drink was to shove in. Stone didn’t like it, but the last thing he wanted to do was stand out, so he picked a spot between two smaller men and pushed his way through. They moved aside as little as possible, but they let him in.

  He’d learned a few beer brands during his time at Bella’s, so he got a pint of the spicy ale he’d picked up a taste for and stepped back, looking for a table. It took him several minutes of scanning the room, but eventually he found one near a wall and settled down to watch, trying to determine his next step. Without his magic, without the ability to read auras, he felt like he was missing one of his primary senses. Did he dare start making discreet inquiries? He glanced at two large, rough-looking men hunched over a nearby table, but looked away when one of them turned his way.

  “I seen you before. At Bella’s.”

  Stone started, twisting back around.

  A man had dropped into the chair across from him and set a pint glass of something almost black on the table. Small, wiry, and unshaven, he wore an oversized dark coat and a cap pulled low over his eyes. Stone thought he might recognize him from the tavern, but couldn’t be certain.

  “Er—I’ve been there, yes,” he said.

  “What’re you doin’ here, then?”

  Stone shrugged. “Looking for a change of scenery.”

  “Nobody comes to the Rest for a change o’ scenery,” the main said with a derisive snort. “Not unless ye like the stink o’ fish and dopeweed. So what’re ye really here for?”

  Stone studied the man, wishing once again for the ability to size up his aura. His eyes, small and glittering under his cap, settled steadily on Stone, and his expression was somewhere between suspicion and anticipation. “I’m—looking for a friend. Someone told me he might come here.”

  “That right?”

  “That’s right.”

  The man pulled a small knife from his pocket and began picking his fingernails with studious care. He finished three of them before flicking his gaze back up. “So who’s this friend?” His tone was deceptively casual.

  Stone tensed. Something about the man’s body language seemed subtly off to him, though he couldn’t identify why. “Nobody important,” he said, shaking his head. “I think he’s moved on, actually.”

  “Tell me,” the man insisted. “I’m a social guy. I know everybody ’round here. If he’s been here, I’ll know it—or know somebody who does.”

  As he struggled with how to answer without increasing the little man’s suspicions, Stone noticed two other men disappearing down a hallway at the back of the bar. He realized he’d seen several similar instances—sometimes singles, sometimes groups of two or three—going down the same hallway. He’d thought they were heading to the bathrooms, but none of them ever came back out. “What’s over there?” he asked, cocking his head toward the hall.

  “Over where?”

  “I keep seeing people going down that hallway, but nobody comes back out. Where are they going?”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice growing cold. He leaned in a little closer. “Just so ya know, I got three guys watchin’ ya, where you’ll never see ’em until they’re on ya. I been watchin’ ya since ya turned up here. Unless you give me the answers I want, you ain’t gettin’ outta here. We don’t like strangers—especially not ones askin’ too many questions. Okay?”

  Stone studied him more closely. Was it possible that what he’d taken for mere suspicion might be laced with a healthy dose of fear? In a society like this, where the people were in constant danger from a threat they couldn’t hope to counter, it made sense for strangers to be monitored. Still, it wouldn’t be wise to show fear of his own. “Why do you care?” he asked.

  “Like I said—we don’t like strangers. Strangers are trouble.”

  “So I’ll go, then.” Perhaps if he could get out of here, he could risk coming back some other night.

  The man shook his head. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not yet. Now, who’s this friend yer lookin’ for? And I’ll warn you—I’m real good at spottin’ lies, and you won’t like what happens if you lie to me.”

  Stone met his gaze and nearly jerked in surprise. The guy was watching him with the unmistakable fuzzed-out look of someone using magical sight. It was subtle, and he’d probably have missed it if he hadn’t been so close, but this near he had no doubt. “Good at spotting lies, are you?” he asked casually. “Tell me—do any of the rest of these people know?”

  “Know what?”

  Stone dropped his voice to a near-whisper and leaned forward. “That they’ve got a…what do they call it?...a ‘Zap’ in their midst?”

  The man’s reaction wasn’t obvious. He didn’t jerk in his seat, or glare, or splutter out a denial—but he didn’t have to. The subtle twitch of his jaw and sharpening of his gaze was enough.

  Stone allowed himself the tiniest of cold smiles. “It seems we all have secrets, don’t we?”

  The man relaxed again, and his own smile was wider and more confident. When he spoke again, he’d dropped most of the street-tough affectation. “Not sure how you figured it out, but if you think getting up and announcing it to the room will get you anywhere, go ahead and try it. I’ll wait.” He leaned back, picked up his pint, and took a long drink.

  Stone didn’t do that. He continued watching the man and said nothing.

 
“Good choice,” the man said, looking satisfied. Then his expression once again grew hard. “Now, what do you want?”

  “I told you, I’m looking for someone I know. I don’t see him here, though.” Stone knew he was repeating himself—he did it to give him time to consider the new information he’d just received. If it was true this man was Talented, what was he doing in the middle of a mundane dive bar? Spying? Perhaps his challenge for Stone to reveal him to the crowd had been a bluff, but he didn’t think so. And if it wasn’t, that meant the people here already knew he was a mage. Did that in turn mean he might be part of the underground movement Tanissa had mentioned? Was Stone right about the possibility that some of the mages were cooperating with the mundanes?

  That was a lot of unanswered questions, and dangerous ones to bring up with as little knowledge as he had.

  “And I asked you before—who is this friend? What makes you think he might be here at all?”

  Stone decided to take a small chance. “His name is Trevor. Tall, black hair, gray eyes, about my age. I heard he might know some people who frequent this place.” He met the man’s gaze as he spoke, hoping if the man could read auras, he might pick up that he meant more than he was saying.

  The man showed no recognition at the mention of the name, but he did tilt his head and regard Stone with curiosity at his last words. “Really? Interesting. That’s an odd name—like I said, I know most of the people who come here, and I’ve never heard that one. I think you might be making this story up to save your own neck.”

  Stone was trying to decide how to answer when a woman dressed in rough, baggy work clothes hurried up to the table. She leaned down and whispered something in the man’s ear, and he tensed.

  “Well,” he said. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, friend, even if it’s not mine. I have to go deal with some urgent business, so you’re off the hook. My advice is to get out of here and not come back. If I see you around here, our chat won’t be as pleasant. Got it?”

  Stone gritted his teeth. Damn not being able to use magic! How did mundanes ever get anything done? “Fine,” he said, glaring. “I’ll go. But I’m not going to stop looking for my friend.”

  “Do what you like. Just not here. Don’t try to follow me—my guys are still here, and if they see you do anything but finish your drink and walk out that door, it won’t go well for you.”

  The man got up and headed away after the woman. Stone watched them until they disappeared into the crowd—and realized that was exactly what they had done: disappeared. One moment they’d stepped behind a group of men, but after a second the men parted to reveal an empty space.

  Curiouser and curiouser, Stone thought as he too got up. But how the hell was he going to find out anything else if he couldn’t even come back here without risking another beating—or worse?

  He glanced around, looking for the “guys” the man had mentioned, but saw no sign of anyone watching him. Perhaps the man had been bluffing—or perhaps they were mages too, using some version of the disregarding spell he himself used frequently back on Earth. Clearly, if this place was indeed one of the meeting spots for an underground rebellion, they were highly suspicious of strangers. It certainly made sense given the stakes, but it meant any chance Stone had of connecting with them would require care and ingenuity.

  After a brief thought of trying to sneak away under cover of stopping by the bathroom and perhaps taking a peek at what was going on down that hallway, Stone instead made a show of leaving through the front door. Perhaps he’d try again in a few days, when they weren’t expecting him.

  For now, he couldn’t shake the crawling feeling on the back of his neck that warned him he was being watched.

  13

  Stone returned to his routine for the next two days, focusing on making his deliveries and cleaning up the shop. He did go out in the evenings, but only back to Bella’s and only for a couple of hours. He tried to tell himself it was because he was giving the situation at the Fisherman’s Rest time to settle back down, but that wasn’t all of it.

  In truth, his frustration had grown to the point where it was affecting his confidence in his next course of action. Stop it, he told himself angrily one late afternoon, as he pedaled back toward the shop after his last delivery. He’d decided once again to avoid the dockside bar that night. You’re acting like one of them.

  You are one of them, his traitorous little voice pointed out. Those mages can kill you as easily as they can the rest of the mundanes, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop it.

  That was true enough—but they weren’t lurking around every corner, especially not in Drendell. Aside from Tanissa, the pair at the eatery, and the man at the Fisherman’s Rest (assuming Stone’s assessment of him had been correct), he hadn’t seen any other Talented in town. So far, the two who’d seemed friendly toward the mundanes had dressed like them, and the dangerous ones were easy to notice in their spotless peacock finery. “Subtle” didn’t seem like a quality the Temolan Talented valued highly.

  Damn it, he was tired of being a mouse. If something was going to happen, he’d have to make it happen—otherwise, it would be all too easy to get complacent, to put off action until settling in and making a home on this world seemed a viable option.

  That was not a viable option.

  Barely conscious of what he was doing, he pedaled faster as his anger grew; the empty trailer bounced and rattled behind him. He knew what he was going to do now: take the bike to the shop, finish cleaning up, and then head back over to the Fisherman’s Rest. If the man was there, he’d take him aside and tell him exactly who he was looking for. If it got him killed, so be it—but if the man was part of the underground rebellion and Harrison was connected with it as well, it might finally get him some answers.

  He spotted the glow up ahead when he turned the corner onto the shop’s block. He slowed the bike, noticing that none of the people he usually saw moving up and down the busy street were around. In fact, the whole street seemed strangely deserted.

  Suddenly conscious that he was very much alone out here, he pulled the bike into a nearby alley and left it there. It would be safe enough for a few minutes, but riding down the middle of the road with the clattering bike-and-trailer rig would make him too conspicuous. Buttoning his dark coat, he slipped back out onto the street and moved toward the glow, keeping to the shadows.

  As he drew closer, he spotted a plume of smoke against the night sky, and the unmistakable acrid odor of burning wood filled the air. Something’s on fire. Odd that he heard no sirens. Was it possible no one had reported it? It looked fairly close to Faran’s shop—surely the law-abiding butcher would have—

  Stone’s heartbeat increased as a bright lance of terror pierced him. No—it can’t be—

  Still remaining close against the buildings and hidden in shadow, he rushed toward the fire.

  In another half-block, his fears were confirmed.

  Faran’s formerly neat little butcher shop stood at the center of a conflagration, the bright orange flames licking upward nearly twice the height of the two-story building and the billowing smoke rising even higher. The space where the front display window had been yawned like an open, jagged-toothed mouth; more flames reached outward toward a sidewalk littered with glittering shards of broken glass.

  A pair of fire trucks, painted dull white and in only marginally better condition than Faran’s old pickup, were parked askew across the street in front of the shop, blocking traffic as several firemen tried to stanch the blaze with two hoses. Even from where Stone stood, he could see it was futile: the flames were too bright, too intense to be dissuaded by the firefighters’ ineffectual efforts.

  What could burn like that? The shop itself, like most of the other buildings in Drendell, was made of brick, and as far as Stone knew, Faran wasn’t storing natural gas or piles of kindling or anything else highly combustible inside the shop.

  Heart still pounding, he crept further forward when he spotted
three people standing in a darkened shop across the street, huddled together and observing the firefighters’ struggle through the window. Could they be Faran and his wife, watching their livelihood burn to the ground while consoled by one of their merchant neighbors?

  But no, as he drew closer, the silhouettes resolved themselves into a taller, thinner man and two women, neither of whom had Runa’s short, stout shape. He recognized the shop as a bakery, and the man as its proprietor. He hurried down the street and ducked into the shop. “What’s happened?”

  The three jumped, startled, so focused on the fire that they hadn’t heard him come in. “It’s terrible,” one of the women said. She ran a shaking hand across her blotchy, tearstained face and braced herself against the window with her other hand. “So horrible…”

  “What happened?” Stone asked again. “Was there some kind of accident, or—”

  For the first time, the man seemed to recognize him. “You’re Faran’s deliveryman, aren’t you?” He glanced toward the fire and then back at Stone, the fear on his face evident.

  “Yes. I was just returning from my rounds. Are Faran and Runa all right? Did they get out?”

  The younger woman burst into renewed tears, and her older female companion joined her. “Oh, dear gods, it was terrible,” the older woman said. She had strong, plain features, and didn’t look like the type who wept often. “I saw them leaving—”

  “You saw who leaving?” Stone demanded. “Faran and Runa? They got out?”

  “No, no…” She dissolved into sobs again.

  A hand touched Stone’s arm. When he glanced up, the male baker pointed silently at something in the street, just beyond the fire trucks.