Steel and Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “I have no need for your money, Dr. Stone. I have more than I could ever use.”

  “What, then?” Stone stopped, once again forcing calm into his voice. “What can I offer you? If it’s in my power to do it, consider it done.” He paused, as a terrifying thought struck him. “You…can teach me, can’t you? Is there something required that I don’t have? Is there a reason my magic doesn’t function here?”

  Harrison considered. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I know of no reason why you could not learn, under the right conditions.”

  Stone took a long drink from his glass, not even pausing to appreciate the fine scotch as it went down. “Look,” he said. “Let me just put it all out on the table: I will do whatever you ask of me, if you can teach me how to use your magic without the burnout. But if you can’t—or won’t—do that, then I ask that you send me home. I’ll learn to cope with my issues somehow. But I’ve had just about enough of being a mundane in this gods-forsaken world of yours.”

  He wheeled around, stalking back and forth to bleed off some excess energy in lieu of shouting at Harrison. “How did you even find this place, anyway? Are you some kind of interdimensional adventurer or something?”

  Harrison continued to stand almost preternaturally still, following Stone’s manic progress only with his gaze. “You are making an erroneous assumption, Dr. Stone.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That I ‘found’ this place at all.”

  “What the hell does that mean? I don’t—” He stopped. “Bloody hell. You’re not from Earth at all, are you?”

  Once again, the brief flash of approval, almost too fast to spot, appeared. “The answer to that is…complex. But no, I am not entirely of Earth.”

  “Not ‘entirely’?”

  Harrison turned back to the window again. “You didn’t come here to discuss me, Dr. Stone.”

  “No. I suppose I didn’t.” Stone drained the rest of his drink. “I still have so many questions, but—well, I suppose I don’t really need to know the answers to them right now. If you agree to teach me, then I can find out whatever you’re willing to tell me, over time. And if you don’t—can you send me home?”

  “Of course.”

  A sudden, profound sense of relief settled over Stone at his words. “And…you’d be willing to do that, at least?”

  “Sending you home would not be an issue. I can do it tonight, if you wish.”

  Stone thought about it. It was certainly tempting. You can go home. You can get your magic back, take power from Jason, be as strong as you ever were. You lose nothing.

  Except, pointed out his other little voice, that you’ll have wasted all this time—gone through all this hell and misery—for nothing. Go on, if you want to—take the coward’s way out. Be a mouse.

  Wait, he told it. I thought you wanted me to give up this mad plan.

  The little voice had no reply to that.

  He studied Harrison’s tall, straight form. The man was an enigma—and a damned annoying one. He wondered if the two of them could even manage to tolerate each other long enough to get anything done, or if they’d end up locking horns like a pair of stubborn bulls. In his experience, egos the size of his and Harrison’s didn’t play well together for long.

  Still…

  “I don’t wish,” he said firmly. “Not until you’ve given me a definitive answer about whether you’ll teach me. I notice you haven’t done that yet. Does that mean you’re considering it? Because I suspect you don’t give a damn about sparing my feelings or letting me down easily.”

  “No,” Harrison said. “I do not.”

  “Then…what’s your answer?”

  Harrison finished his drink and floated the empty glass to a nearby table, then turned back to face Stone again. The silence stretched out for one minute, two, three as he studied him with a steady, unblinking gaze.

  Stone, for his part, remained still and silent. He wasn’t sure if Harrison was scanning his aura, reading his mind, checking out his arse, or ruminating about the local sports scores, but whatever he was doing, Stone was determined not to be the first one to flinch. He returned the scrutiny, taking the opportunity to get a good look at Harrison.

  If the man was using an illusion to maintain his current appearance, it was a damned good one. Seeing through illusions had a lot to do with magical ability, but not everything—it helped, certainly, but it was more about a combination of strength of mind and how strongly a person suspected that there was an illusion. If you had no reason to think something was an illusion, or if the illusion fit seamlessly enough with its current surroundings, you could have the strongest mind in the world, or be the most potent mage, and it wouldn’t matter.

  Stone did suspect an illusion—not many people looked like Harrison naturally—but even with his suspicions he couldn’t see past it.

  When Harrison spoke again, it was as if the long silence had not occurred. “I have reservations about working with you, Dr. Stone.”

  “Reservations?” Stone blinked. “Why?”

  He paced along the window, still gazing out at the stars. “You are essentially asking to enter into an apprenticeship with me—albeit one of a comparatively shorter duration.”

  Stone hadn’t considered it that way. “How long do you think it will take?”

  “I cannot answer that, Dr. Stone. Not yet. So you are asking me to enter into an agreement with you for an unspecified period.”

  “Yes…I suppose I am. Why do you have reservations about that? Is it because of the time?” He hadn’t thought about that, either. It was entirely reasonable that Harrison would refuse because he was a busy man, and couldn’t spare the time required for the task. Something sank inside him; if Harrison turned him down for that reason, what could he say? If someone showed up on his own doorstep and asked him for training, he’d have given the same answer without a second thought.

  “No. The time has nothing to do with it.”

  “What, then?”

  Harrison returned to his chair and sat, leaning back but never taking his eyes off Stone. “You are a successful man in every respect. You are one of the most powerful mages on Earth. You are at the top of your mundane career, you’ve successfully taken an apprentice to the completion of her training, and you possess considerable resources, both economic and social.”

  Stone frowned. “So do you. What’s that got to do with—”

  “Tell me this, Dr. Stone,” Harrison said, his eerie gaze sharpening to laserlike intensity as he leaned forward. “If I were to agree to teach you, on the condition that you truly apprentice yourself to me, what would your answer be?”

  “Truly apprentice myself?”

  “In every respect. Could you, in honesty, agree to follow my every rule, do every exercise I order you to do, all without question or protest?”

  Stone almost answered instantly, almost said, “Of course I could!” But then he paused. Could he? He’d never been in denial about his ego, his issues with authority, his constant need to question, to test boundaries, to rebel against irrationality. He’d managed to do it with William Desmond—barely—but he’d only been fifteen years old then, dazzled by the idea of learning to do magic. And even then, he’d almost blown his apprenticeship by disobeying Desmond’s rules. Could he do it now, with over twenty more years’ experience under his belt?

  “Let’s be clear, Mr. Harrison,” he said evenly. “Is that an offer? I don’t fancy giving an answer to a question like that if it’s merely a hypothetical. Can you teach me to control this energy?”

  Harrison’s gaze didn’t waver. “All right, then, Dr. Stone—yes. It is an offer. I can teach you. But that is my condition. You must agree to follow my direction without question, for the duration of our training, regardless of whether you see the point of it. If you fail to do that, then I will send you home. Do you accept my terms? If you like, you can consider my offer tonight and give me your answer in the morning.”

  Stone cast a
sharp glance at him. He realized once again that he barely knew this man, and remembered his speculations about whether Harrison was any different from the other cruel, arrogant Talented in this world. If he agreed to the terms, what was he getting himself into? What did Harrison mean by “regardless of whether you see the point of it”?

  “All right, Mr. Harrison,” he said briskly, almost before he realized he was speaking. “I accept your terms. When can we start?”

  Harrison’s expression didn’t change—the man had the best poker face Stone had ever encountered—but Stone nonetheless got a brief impression of surprise. He nodded once and stood. “Tomorrow, then. We will begin in the morning, and you can move into the tower after your first training session. I’ll ask Errin to have your things sent over.”

  “I haven’t any ‘things,’” Stone said with a snort. “Travel light, I do—I suppose it makes sense, since I’m supposed to be dead.” He wondered if he’d called Harrison’s bluff.

  “We will see to that. Tomorrow morning. Until then, Dr. Stone.”

  He was being dismissed, just like that. Annoyance rose, but he quickly squelched it. He suspected he was going to have to do a lot of that in the coming days. He hoped it didn’t take too long for Harrison to teach him to access the magic, or likely both of them would end up regretting their agreement.

  26

  When Harrison’s driver arrived at dawn in the sleek, black car, Stone was waiting for him.

  He carried nothing with him—when he’d arrived back at Errin’s house the previous night and told her he’d be moving to the tower the next day, she hadn’t asked questions about why. She had, however, told him she’d have Vynna get his clothes ready to send over.

  “No, they’re all yours,” she said when he protested. “Can’t very well have you running around in your old prison uniform, after all.” She grinned. “I don’t know what you two are up to, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “If we don’t kill each other first,” Stone muttered. He hadn’t slept much the previous night, his mind refusing to stop going over disturbing implications of his agreement with Harrison. Why had he made that kind of open-ended promise? What would Harrison order him to do, dangling the promise of magic over his head in exchange for—what? Would he ask him to kill anyone? Did he have something planned against the Talented? Would he be conscripted into some kind of rebel army going against the mage houses?

  He knew there was no point dwelling on it, but that didn’t mean he could stop. Remember, he told himself more than once, if it gets too bad you can always just tell him to get stuffed and have him send you home. You won’t be any worse off than before.

  But he wasn’t going to do that, for no other reason than sheer stubbornness. After everything he’d gone through to get here, he could take anything Trevor Harrison threw at him.

  When he arrived at the tower, the driver didn’t pull the car through the illusionary wall. Instead, he drove around to the other side. Stone was surprised to see that the land stretched out as far as he could see here; he’d thought the tower perched atop the mountain with no surrounding acreage. As they drew closer, he spotted two slim figures standing atop a large rock, looking out into the hazy morning. One was Harrison; the other he didn’t recognize. A hundred yards or so to their right stood a small building.

  Harrison turned as Stone got out and the car drove silently off. “Good morning, Dr. Stone.”

  “I suppose it is. Bit early, but I’m getting used to that.”

  “You have not reconsidered your agreement to my terms?” He leaped from the rock and landed gracefully next to it. The other figure remained in place, facing away from them.

  “No. Did you expect me to?”

  Harrison studied him in his unsettling I may or may not be reading your mind way. “I had thought it a possibility.”

  “No such luck, Mr. Harrison. If you can teach me to control this energy, you’ve got yourself an apprentice.”

  “As you wish.” Harrison inclined his head, then indicated the other figure. “This is Kira Talon. She will be assisting in your training.”

  Kira Talon jumped down and landed next to Harrison. She was several inches shorter than he was, with a wiry frame, short, choppy dark brown hair, and glittering green eyes. Everything about her was boyish, from her no-nonsense clothes to her briskly attractive, androgynous face. She looked Stone up and down. “Pleasure to meet you.” Her voice was like the rest of her: purposeful and direct.

  “Indeed,” Stone said. Kira Talon—her name marked her as a mundane. He wondered how a mundane was going to assist in teaching him magic, but didn’t ask.

  “I have been considering your course of training,” Harrison said. “The first step is to get you into proper physical condition.”

  Stone blinked. “Physical condition? What’s that got to do with magic?” True, he was hardly in his best shape right now following his recovery, his time on the streets of Drendell, and his stay in the Temolan prison, but he knew plenty of mages—good mages—back on Earth whose only form of exercise was walking to the refrigerator.

  Harrison didn’t respond, except to continue fixing him with his steady gaze.

  “Oh. Right,” Stone said, getting it. “Our agreement. So I’m not even allowed to ask about this?”

  “By the terms of our agreement, no. You are not. But in order to safely handle the energy you will be manipulating, your body must be in its best possible condition. A strong will is also important—I don’t think that will require significant additional attention, though it too will be required for you to get through this training. It won’t be easy, Dr. Stone. Not at all. If you expected me to impart some secret to you, to allow you to flip a switch and activate your magical abilities, then you will be disappointed.”

  That may have been the longest speech Harrison had ever made in Stone’s presence. And he had to admit—part of him had hoped it would be that simple, that Harrison would give him a brief demonstration to show him what he’d been doing wrong, correct a variable in his calculations, anything to get things on track again. But it couldn’t take long to get himself back into shape, right? Some good food to fill him out, a few runs around the area to get his endurance back, a little time in the gym—sure, it would take longer than he hoped, but it wouldn’t be difficult. The hardest part would be managing his impatience—but he supposed that was where the willpower came in.

  “All right, then,” he said. “It’s your show. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I have some things I must attend to today,” he said. “I will leave you in Kira’s capable hands. For purposes of our agreement, consider her direction as you do my own. She will report on your progress.”

  “Wait—you’re leaving?” Stone protested. “I thought you were going to—”

  There was that look again. The one that said, you agreed to this, and you’re already arguing about it?

  He sighed. “Fine. Fine. I trust we’ll talk later?”

  “Of course. Good day, Dr. Stone. Kira.” Without another word, Harrison strode off across the open field back toward the tower.

  At least he didn’t fly. Or teleport, Stone thought sourly. He turned back to Kira Talon. “So. Here we are.”

  “Here we are,” she agreed. She looked amused.

  “So—what are you, exactly? His personal trainer?”

  The amusement grew. “No. I’m his student. Or used to be. Now I’m more of his associate.”

  “Oh?” he looked her over, surprised. “I’d have thought you weren’t a mage, based on your name.”

  “You can’t always tell by names,” she said. “The mages get upset when the non-magical use their name styles, but if a mage uses a non-magical name, they don’t care. They can’t even comprehend why anyone would want to.” She appeared to be in her late twenties, definitely too old to be an apprentice. “Anyway, we should get started.” She nodded toward the small building. “Go get changed into something comfortable to work in,
then come back out here. Be sure to bring a pair of gloves.”

  “Changed? We’re starting now?”

  “Is there a better time? I thought you were in a hurry to get moving with your training.”

  “Right.” Wondering what “something comfortable to work in” meant, he headed off to the building. What would he need gloves for? Were they going to be boxing?

  It was a small cabin, more like an upscale utility shed or locker room than someplace anyone might live, though it did have a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchenette. Hanging neatly on a rack on the opposite side he found a small selection of T-shirts, work shirts, and loose-fitting trousers, all in his size. Beneath was a pair of work boots and some leather gloves. Definitely not boxing gloves, either. What the hell has he got me doing?

  The day was already looking to be warm, so he quickly swapped his fine outfit from Errin’s place for a T-shirt, work pants, and the boots, grabbed the gloves, and hurried back out to where Kira waited for him. “What are we doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” she said. “You’re going to build a wall.”

  He stared at her. “A what?” He must have misheard her. She couldn’t have said a wall.

  She pointed toward the other side of the small cabin, where a pile of rocks was neatly stacked. They varied in size, the largest about a foot in diameter. He hadn’t noticed before, but someone had already dug a shallow trench extending outward from the cabin, so the wall would stand next to it.

  Stone looked at the pile, then at Kira. “You’re having me on.”

  “Not at all. Just go to the pile, grab a rock, carry it over, and place it in the trench. We’ll focus on the base layer today.”