Steel and Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  It occurred to Stone, though he hadn’t actively noticed it until now, that none of the Talented he’d seen had been unattractive, overweight, or disfigured. “Do they look like that? Or do you just refuse to use an illusion to pretend?” He indicated the seat across from her with a questioning raised eyebrow.

  She waved him toward it. “It’s probably true. Very few people here use their real appearance, unless they’re making some kind of point with it. My mother used to drop not-so-subtle hints all the time that she wished I’d use some magic to make myself more attractive. I didn’t care, though—it doesn’t matter much to me.”

  “No shame in honesty. You look fine. A good sight less plastic than most of the people around here.”

  She popped another piece of the cake in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed while watching him with an odd, searching look. “You are an unusual man, Stone. I knew that when I met you, but now—you seem different than before.”

  “Different? How? I’m still me.”

  “You, but…more so. More confident. Like you’ve gotten closer to where you want to be.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m complaining about having my magic back. At least now I don’t have to put up with anything those elitist bastards care to throw at me.”

  She nodded and looked away. “You do seem more confident, though. I have magic, and look at me. Stuck somewhere I don’t want to be. I’d much rather be back in Drendell helping in the clinics, but that’s not what my betters think I’m suited for.” Her voice dripped with contempt, but then her expression changed. “This place—the one you mentioned, where you said I could go if I helped you. What’s it like?”

  “It’s…quite nice. Not large, but it’s growing, slowly.”

  “Your friend—she’s not a mage, is she?”

  “No.”

  “But you treat her with respect.”

  “Of course I do. She’s brilliant. And what difference does it make whether she’s a mage?”

  “It doesn’t. That’s what I mean. So that’s the way it is, wherever this is?”

  “Yes. They’ve got mages and people without a hint of magic, and no one cares. Everyone has their own talents.”

  She gave a wistful smile. “You aren’t lying to me, are you, Stone—or should I call you Alastair now? Because I don’t think I could handle letting myself believe there’s a place like that and finding out it’s all some kind of dream.”

  “It’s not a dream. It’s real—I told you, I’ve been there. They have their problems like anyone else, but respect for each other isn’t one of them. I think you’d like it there.” He almost told her about the mechano-magical healing technology, but stopped himself. Those weren’t his secrets to reveal.

  “It does sound like I would.” She finished her cake and pushed the plate aside. “But before we can go there, you need to find your other friend.”

  “Yes, and that won’t be easy, I won’t lie to you. He’s being held by some of the top people in Temolan, and I’m sure they’ll try hard to prevent us from getting him out of there.”

  “You could all die trying to do that,” she said, looking down again.

  “We could, yes.”

  “And then where would I be? Sitting here, or back at home, waiting for you, maybe never knowing what happened?” She swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t like that. I’m tired of waiting, and going along with what these people tell me I need to do. If you’re serious that there really is someplace where they don’t care if you’re a mage or not, I want to go there. So…” She took a deep breath, and seemed to be considering something deeply, but when she spoke again her tone was firm. “I want to help. I want to come along and help you rescue your friend.”

  That was not what Stone had expected. “Tanissa—”

  “Please. There’s nothing for me in Temolan—in this society. I can help. If they’ve hurt your friend, I can heal him. And you said you didn’t know how to get around. I can help with that too.”

  She reached across the table and gripped Stone’s arm. “Please. Don’t leave me here.”

  “I—” He hesitated, but she was right. It would be a lot easier if they had someone along who knew where she was going. “I’ll have to ask the others, but…yes. You’ve got my vote.” He stood and glanced out the window; it was already getting dark. “We’ll have to leave soon.”

  “Stone?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  He blinked. “For what? It’s you who are helping us.”

  “For remembering me. For giving me the chance to get away from this. For giving me hope that there’s something else out there.”

  He gave her a grim smile. “There is—but first we have to survive tonight.”

  44

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Stone asked Tanissa. “Last chance to back out.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I was more sure of anything,” she said softly in the darkness next to him.

  The location where the Talented had taken Harrison had surprised both Errin and Stone. Even Tanissa had been startled when they showed her the address.

  Stone had expected he’d be in some heavily fortified building in the middle of the most secure part of town, surrounded by people and nearly impossible to get near. Errin had been certain they were in one of the official buildings—perhaps somewhere in the underground prison where they’d held Stone. Privately, Stone wondered how the four of them would ever manage to breach that kind of security on their own. They couldn’t rescue Harrison if they couldn’t even get to him.

  But when they’d told Tanissa where he was, she’d frowned. “Are you sure you got that address right?”

  Errin consulted it again, then showed it to her. “Quite sure. Why?” She had been skeptical about allowing Tanissa to come along—she’d taken Stone aside and asked him pointed questions about how much he trusted her—but finally relented when she explained why she wanted to accompany them.

  Tanissa studied it. “This area is residential. It’s not anywhere near the official part of town.”

  “They’ve got him inside someone’s house?” Stone asked.

  “Or under it,” Errin said.

  “It’s similar to where the bakery is,” Tanissa said. “Businesses on the ground floors, and high-rise living space above it. It’s not even a particularly rich part of town. Just…normal everyday people.”

  They were looking at it now from a narrow alley across the street, concealed under twin disregarding spells from Stone and Jeritha. Tanissa had been correct: the picturesque street was lined with tall buildings. Unlike where they’d come from, though, the businesses on the ground floor weren’t brightly colored bars, shops, and restaurants, but what looked like office space. That part didn’t surprise Stone: a society like this had to run on a lot of bureaucracy. Even mages needed accountants and lawyers. The good part was that, this time of night, the streets were nearly deserted. It would have been quite a bit harder to remain hidden with throngs of people meandering up and down in search of a place to get drunk.

  Stone wished they could have gotten something from their dead contact. The man they’d met in the abandoned shop had assumed they’d be talking to him soon, so he’d given them only minimal information. He might not have even known anything else, in keeping with the cell-based nature of the resistance movement. Stone supposed that was even more important in the floating cities, where a misstep could mean disaster for a lot of people.

  “So, what do we do?” he whispered to Errin. “We can’t just go in guns blazing if we don’t know where he is. Why would they have him here?”

  “I have a speculation,” Tanissa said. “You said this isn’t something official, right? It doesn’t have the blessing of the Council as a whole?”

  “That’s our understanding,” Errin said.

  “Then they’ve got to do it somewhere they won’t risk getting caught by the wrong people. I’d be surprised if all the higher-ups—and especially t
he Council members—don’t all have secret locations the others don’t know about—and probably a few they all do know about, but won’t officially admit to.” She gave a bitter, rueful smile. “I don’t think you know how much you could be underestimating the level these people don’t trust each other. It’s part of why I hate it so much—all the intrigue and political backstabbing and dishonesty. But they thrive on it.”

  “We need to find out if they’re watching the area,” Errin said. “They’ve probably got people on guard. Is the building warded? Jeritha, can you see anything?”

  “I do see wards,” she said. “I don’t see anyone out here, though. I’ve been looking. But with so many buildings nearby, they could be watching from anywhere.”

  “Can you conceal us long enough for us to get inside? If they spot us and tip the people down there off, they could escape before we can get to them.”

  “I can do it, but getting through the wards won’t be easy. It will take time.”

  “I can handle the ward,” Errin said. She pulled a small device from one of her pockets.

  “The magic nullifier?” Stone asked. “That will work on wards?”

  “Yes, but like I said, it only functions for a few seconds, so we’ll need to be fast and careful. It will take a minute or two to recharge after.”

  “We’ll have to hurry after that, then. Once that ward goes down, they’ll know something’s up.”

  “Wait!” Jeritha hissed. “Someone’s coming!”

  The four of them moved farther back in the alley, Stone and Jeritha reinforcing the disregarding spell.

  A few seconds passed. A few more. A minute. Still no sign of anyone. “Are you—” Stone whispered.

  “Shh!”

  A pair of figures appeared, walking slowly past the alley. Stone recognized the blue uniform of the Guard and tensed. Had someone found out they were here? He took deep breaths to calm his aura and prepared a spell. If the two mages came after them, they’d have to take them down fast.

  But they didn’t. Stone sensed his companions’ tension as everyone focused their attention on the alley mouth, not even daring to breathe.

  The Guardsmen stopped at the end of the alley, peered down it for a moment, then continued on, resuming their conversation.

  Stone held his breath for several more seconds, then crept forward to the alley’s end. He watched as the Guards’ shadowy forms receded, then turned left down another street. “We need to go,” he whispered, returning to his friends. “If they’re patrolling, they’ll be back.”

  They darted across the street, hidden by Jeritha’s invisibility spell, and stopped in front of the door. “Cover me,” Errin ordered, and once again pulled out her little device. “And let’s hope the wards here aren’t tougher than the ones back home.”

  Apparently they weren’t. She pointed the device at the door and pressed a button. The little thing hummed for a moment, followed by a bzzt like a shorting electrical circuit. Stone, watching with magical sight, saw the shimmering ward fizzle and drop.

  “Go,” Errin urged. “Fast.”

  With the ward down, Stone had no trouble popping the lock, and less than thirty seconds later all three of them were through with the door shut behind them.

  They looked around, taking in their surroundings. As Tanissa had suspected, they stood in what looked like office space, with pale walls, more of the shifting artwork, and dim, floating lights hovering above. Along one wall, a large aquarium showcased a series of brightly colored, glowing fish.

  “Where are they?” Stone demanded. “Check the doors.” He cast his gaze around, looking with both magical and mundane sight, but saw only two other doors exiting the office, one opposite the aquarium and the other on the left side of the back wall. He expected them to open any second and more Guardsmen to pour through.

  Errin started to head toward one of them when Jeritha held up a hand. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  She pointed toward the rear wall, at the opposite end from the door Stone had spotted. “There.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Stone said. “Just that painting that looks like it was done by someone’s eight-year-old—”

  “It’s an illusion. Let me see if I can take it down. Watch the other doors.”

  By now, the ward Errin had disrupted was back up; they had no way to know if it was tuned to alert anyone to interference. Stone watched one door while Errin and Tanissa watched the other, all of them growing increasingly tense with each passing moment. Even if nobody came up here to confront them, they could even now be moving Harrison to another location if they—

  “Got it!” Jeritha announced, stepping back.

  Stone hurried toward her, immediately spotting the substantial new door that had replaced the horrible artwork previously covering the wall. “Good job,” he said, impressed. He’d never seen anyone take down a powerful illusion that fast before. “Not a lot of guards—not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign.”

  “They might be relying on the wards and the illusion,” Tanissa said. “It could make people suspicious to see too many strangers loitering around an area like this.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Stone said. “Let’s go before someone turns up or they do a runner with Harrison.”

  Once again, he used magic to pop the lock. “Let me go first,” he said. “I’ve got the strongest shield.” When nobody objected, he summoned it and shoved the door open, pressing through. The others hurried to follow.

  Beyond the door was a hallway with another door at the end. Two men—conspicuously not attired in the military blue uniforms of the city’s Guard—stood on either side of it, looking startled when it opened. They recovered quickly, though, each raising his hands and glaring at the newcomers.

  Jeritha pushed past Stone, fixing her gaze on the left-side guard. He struggled for a moment, then stared at his own hands in confusion as if he had no idea why he was here and what he’d planned to do with them.

  Stone slammed the other one into the wall with a concussion blast just as he loosed his own attack, a small, brightly-glowing fireball. It streaked down the hall, fizzling out when the man lost consciousness, its dying heat washing over Stone and the others.

  “Come on,” Errin urged, pushing forward. Stone hastened to follow, extending his shield over her as he took a magical grip on the new door to fling it open.

  They burst through, fanning out so they could all hurry through.

  Errin gasped.

  “Oh, bloody hell…” Stone whispered.

  45

  Stone took in the room with a fast sweep of his gaze. It stretched perhaps twenty feet side to side and twice that in front of them. They stood at the top of a tiered seating area divided into three levels with an aisle between them; each tier included wide padded benches. Several well-dressed, long-coated individuals, both men and women, occupied the benches, twisting around in shock as the door burst open. Two more guards stood at the bottom of the tiers, on either side.

  At the room’s front, the floating overhead lights revealed a glass wall, shimmering with magic, dividing the seating area from the open space beyond. Past that was what had evoked both Stone’s exclamation and Errin’s gasp.

  In the center of the open area stood a transparent cubicle perhaps eight feet square. Harrison hung in the cubicle, suspended by glowing manacles around his wrists and attached near the top of either side. Tubes ran from both his arms, snaking through ports in the sides to a pair of IV bottles suspended on either side of the cubicle. He was clad only in ragged pants and appeared to be unconscious; his body was slicked with blood from numerous cuts and gashes.

  The sight was so shocking that at first Stone almost didn’t notice the other occupants of the lab area: a tall, severe-looking woman with dark hair and a shorter blond man, both wearing what looked like blue lab coats in place of the normal Talented garb. The woman stood next to a bench covered with bottles and apparatus, and the man near the cubicle, holding a clipbo
ard.

  “Stop them, damn you!” the woman yelled.

  Errin was already moving. She’d stowed the anti-magic device in one of her pockets and had another one now. She snapped off a shot at one of the guards, who screamed and dropped without getting off a spell.

  The other guard, on the other side, yelled something and flung a fireball at her, but Jeritha already had a shield up. The flaming missile fizzled against it and died.

  Stone answered it with a roar, aiming a twin-beamed bolt of pure magical energy at the guard’s center mass. The man’s shield stopped some of it, but the rest got through, staggering him back against the wall.

  The people in the seats weren’t reacting nearly as quickly—they seemed to be in the grip of shock that anyone could manage to breach their secret sanctum. Stone swept his gaze over them, taking them in quickly: five in all, three women, two men. One of the men, white-blond and dark-skinned, he identified as Olystriar; one of the women was Chanandra, another of the Council members who’d been present at the Arena. He didn’t recognize the others.

  “We have to hurry,” he snapped. “I’m sure they’ll have more guards in here soon.” Without waiting for an answer, he pointed his hands at the glass wall and unleashed another blast of energy, expecting it to shatter.

  It didn’t shatter. The blast rattled it and it shimmered more brightly than before, but it held fast.

  “Go on!” Chanandra shouted triumphantly. “Waste your efforts. You’re fools for coming here!”

  Errin snapped off another round from her gun at the Councilwoman. It breached her shield, but her aim was off and it only tore a furrow along Chanadra’s arm.

  The woman backpedaled and ducked behind one of the benches, casting as she went. A whirling vortex of air settled around Errin—or tried to. Once again, Jeritha’s shield held it off, extending outward until the vortex dissipated.

  Stone wanted nothing more than to take down that barrier so they could get to Harrison, but they had to deal with the people on this side first. He had no idea how many of the dignitaries were skilled in combat, but their lofty positions certainly indicated extensive magical power. Best to assume they were dangerous.