by R. L. King
What the hell was going on?
Mages with tri-colored auras existed, though they were exceedingly rare. It almost always indicated someone with either significant power or who was unusual in some way. Stone had only ever met one in his life, back home in England many years ago. Two colors were rare, but not nearly as much so—even some strong-willed mundanes could have them. All of the most potent mages Stone knew had them: Madame Huan, Stefan Kolinsky, William Desmond, Harrison.
But what didn’t happen—what, as far as Stone knew, never happened—was for someone, mage or mundane, to change his or her aura. An aura was like a fingerprint: you were born with it, and it remained constant throughout your life. Skilled mages could conceal or disguise them, but to change one permanently? That was—
Stone let his breath out as a pair of disparate memories came back to him. The first was recent: the electric, silvery energy streaking the spike that had pierced his chest, arcing around it like otherworldly lightning, along with the profoundly disturbing feeling of some kind of current passing through his body. Had that somehow caused the change?
He wasn’t sure, though, because of the other memory. This one was older, and he’d almost forgotten it: a conversation between himself and Madame Huan, when he’d been terrified he’d lost his magic following a desperate use of Harrison’s technique to destroy the Evil’s gateway at Burning Man. She’d examined him for signs of magic, and though at the time she’d found none, he remembered what she’d told him with surprise:
“It’s as if there’s something…extra there. Your normal aura is that lovely shade of violet with bits of gold overlaying it. But now there’s a new color, right at the edge. A sort of…silver. It nearly blends with the gold, which is why it’s so hard to see.”
He hadn’t been able to see it himself—at the time, with his magic not functioning, he couldn’t see any of his aura, and when it came back, he’d tried but it had been too faint to spot. He’d written it off as some artifact of pushing himself too far—something that had faded as he returned to normal—and hadn’t thought about it since.
But now it was back, and there was no mistaking it. Was it the same thing? Was it connected somehow with using Harrison’s magic? Had the piercing spike done something to him? Were the two somehow related?
He had no idea. He didn’t even know how he could find out. Illona and Tanissa hadn’t said anything about it, and they certainly must have examined his aura while they healed him. He wished he could ask Jeritha about it—the Traveler’s apparent sensitivity to the astral world might provide a clue—but she was gone now, and he’d probably never see her again.
He bowed his head and rubbed his face with his hands. Whatever it was, he’d either deal with it or he wouldn’t—but regardless of which, he knew one thing with certainty.
It was time for him to go home.
53
Stone didn’t expect Anzo to take him directly to Harrison’s suite when he asked, but to his surprise the little construct didn’t offer any objections.
A few hours had passed since he’d awakened in the infirmary, and it still amazed him how quickly and thoroughly he’d recovered. New Argana’s healers were bloody good at their jobs, that was certain. Stone regretted he couldn’t arrange for Verity to spend some time with Illona and Tanissa—the three women might benefit from working together.
Anzo had turned up a while back, escorting him to his own suite so he could shower, shave, and change clothes. He felt a lot more at home now in black T-shirt and jeans than he had in the Talented’s high-collared long coat, even if the thing had adapted perfectly to his frame. He made a mental note to work on that spell when he got home—especially now that he’d filled out a bit through the chest and shoulders, he’d either need to learn it or spend some serious time with his tailor.
Home. It seemed so long ago now; in a strange sort of way, he’d begun to feel at home here on Calanar. Not so much that he’d want to stay, of course, but enough that he no longer felt completely out of place here. Especially in New Argana. It had crept up on him, this feeling, and he couldn’t put his finger on when exactly it had solidified.
Now he stood in front of the familiar wooden double doors, wondering how Harrison would respond to what he had to say. “I’ll take it from here, Anzo,” he said. “You can go.”
“Yes, sir.” The little wheeled robot rolled off, back toward the teleport pad. He would miss it, Stone decided. Having his own personal mechano-magical valet and tour guide had helped him acclimate to this place faster than he’d expected. Amused, he tried to anticipate Harrison’s response if he inquired about acquiring one to take back to Earth. Maybe he could teach it to do laundry and tidy up the sitting room. It would probably terrify Raider, though.
He chuckled at the thought, but quickly turned serious as he knocked. He didn’t think Harrison would appreciate his feline-related speculations.
The door swung silently open on the starkly elegant suite. It was already dark outside, the inky, star-studded sky dominating the view from this high in the tower.
Harrison stood near the window, drink in hand. He turned as Stone entered.
“Dr. Stone. I am pleased to see you looking so well.”
“Thank you. I could say the same for you.”
It was true—almost too true. Harrison showed literally no signs of his recent ordeal. No healing wounds or scars, no unhealthy pallor, no slump to his usual military-straight posture. Clad in razor-creased black trousers and a white shirt with the cuffs turned up, every hair in place and wearing an expression of focused calm, he looked as relaxed and elegant as he ever did.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “Forgive me for not visiting you in the infirmary, but several matters required my immediate attention.”
“About what happened in Temolan, I assume.”
“Yes. Your rescue mission has caused significant turmoil among the upper echelons of the Council—particularly following Chanandra’s and Vestereth’s deaths and numerous other injuries among high-level Temolan officials.”
“What about Olystriar? Did he manage to fool them so they don’t suspect him?”
“Yes. Olystriar is highly intelligent, and has decades of experience dealing with untrustworthy people. As far as the rest of the Council is aware, he is secluded in his private residence, recuperating from his unfortunate injuries.”
“What about the others—the people from the other cities?”
“As you might expect, information has leaked regarding the events at the Underground and at Millia and Vestereth’s demonstration. Millia is nowhere to be found—some suspect she may have defected to Sholandre following Vestereth’s death and the failure to recapture me. Part of what required my attention was to speak with some of our agents in both cities, directing them to begin spreading misinformation. Kira has taken over that task. With her greater experience in the culture, she is more adept at it than I.” He nodded toward the bar. “Would you care for something to drink?”
“Thank you, that would be brilliant.” Stone waited while Harrison used magic to pour him a shot and levitate it to him, then approached the window. “What about the war magic? Is anyone in trouble for that?”
“Regrettably, no. Everyone involved is dead now, and the manastorm—which passed considerably closer to Drendell than any in recent memory—obliterated any evidence, even if anyone cared to venture out to investigate.”
“That’s too bad. I’d imagine that would stir up quite the hornets’ nest if it had come to light.”
“Indeed. But not necessarily to anyone’s advantage.”
“How so?”
Harrison sipped his drink and turned back to the window. “As distasteful as I find the cities, each of them serves as a check on the others, precisely because none, on its own, dares to risk using war magic. If anyone found out one of them did…”
“…it could start the war all over again.” Stone nodded soberly. “I see where you’re going.” He paced ag
ain, taking in the view. Off in the far distance, he thought he could see a faint hint of the colorful aurora patterns from the Wastes. “Did you ever figure out what that agent of yours was up to? What was his name—Galen, right?”
“Galen has been dealt with.” Harrison’s chilly, unemotional tone sent a shiver up Stone’s back. Definitely not a man he wanted to ever get on the wrong side of.
When he didn’t reply to that, Harrison said, “Is there something I can do for you? Surely you didn’t come here to discuss the Calanarian political situation.”
Stone thought such a discussion might prove interesting—but not now. “Yes. I came to see you because…I’m ready to go home. I’ve got what I need to use magic back on Earth, right? There’s nothing else I need to learn?”
“No. You have everything you need at this point—including quite a trial by fire to ensure you can function effectively under significant pressure. All that remains is practice.”
“So—you’ll send me home, then?”
“Whenever you wish, Dr. Stone. I can do it now if you like.”
Stone returned his attention to the view and didn’t answer.
“Is there something else?”
“Well…yes. I’m ready to go. I want to get back to my life. I’ve already been gone for over two months, and it’s going to take some fast talking to explain where I’ve been all this time. But—” He hesitated, and wondered why. He didn’t think what he had to say next would come as any surprise to the unusually perceptive Harrison. “Well, I’m not certain I want to stay away.”
Harrison’s eyebrow rose. “You wish to return?”
“I don’t know. I might. I’d like to learn more about this world—about how magic works here, about the Travelers, and the cities…It’s fascinating. I teach Occult Studies back home, but part of my early research was in cultural anthropology. To have an entirely new society to study…it’s…” He shrugged. “Intriguing. And,” he added quickly, “there’s also the matter of all this ‘mechano-magical’ stuff you lot are working on. I’ve never seen anything like that back on Earth. I want to learn how it works. Even learn to build it myself, someday.”
“A substantial portion of it wouldn’t function properly on Earth. The ambient magic is not strong enough in most areas to support it. Perhaps it might be possible somewhere with a significant confluence of ley lines…”
Stone thought about Caventhorne, at the intersection of five of them, and already his mind was working. “Maybe,” he said, cutting off the thought. There’d be time for that later. “So—could I come back sometime? Would I be welcome?”
“You are always welcome, Dr. Stone. But there are factors you must consider.”
“What factors?”
“The passage of time, most importantly.”
“What do you mean?” Stone set his glass down and perched on the end of the black leather sofa facing the window.
Now it was Harrison’s turn to pace. “It is a common issue when dealing with interdimensional travel. Time runs differently here than it does on Earth. Considerably faster, as it happens.”
“Faster?” Stone blinked. “You’re saying time passes faster here than it does there? So even though I’ve been away for more than two months by Calanar’s standards, it’s—”
“Only a day or two by Earth’s. Yes.”
Stone stared at him. “Wait a moment. I’m sorry—having a bit of trouble getting my mind around this. You travel back and forth between these two dimensions…and I’m guessing others too, right?”
Harrison inclined his head.
“How do you manage the timelines? Do you go to Earth for a week and come back to find that six months or a year has passed here?”
“No.”
“No? But then, how—”
Harrison appeared to consider something. Silence hung in the air for several seconds, and then he reached a decision. “Come with me, Dr. Stone. I want to show you something.”
Intrigued, Stone followed him as he strode toward the back of the suite. He ascended a short, three-step rise and continued down a hallway lined with several closed doors. As he approached the rearmost of these, it swung open on a small, featureless room with another teleport pad in its center.
“Where does this go?” Stone asked.
Harrison didn’t answer; instead, he mounted the pad and motioned for Stone to do likewise.
As always with the Nexus’s teleportation devices, Stone felt no jarring or buzzing sensation. He expected them to reappear in another hallway, but instead, they stood in a room he was sure he’d never seen before—not here or anywhere.
“Bloody hell…” he whispered, turning in place. “Where are we?”
“This is the topmost point of the Nexus tower,” Harrison said. His even, emotionless voice sounded odd in here, as if it were echoing from different parts of the room.
Stone had no trouble believing it. Every wall in the room was made of glass. There were eight sections, all angled inward and meeting to form a point at the top, perhaps twenty feet overhead. The spotless purity of the glass made it almost invisible, producing the disorienting sensation of standing on a small, unprotected platform at the top of a skyscraper.
Up this high, some of the Wastes’ dazzlingly beautiful, multicolored aurora effect danced among the stars, creating one of the most awe-inspiring and unsettling panoramic views Stone had ever seen. If he didn’t look down, he could easily believe they were floating in space.
He tore his gaze from the sight and did look down, seeing no sign of a teleport pad. Instead, glowing lines, circles, sigils, and even a few things that vaguely resembled the designs on a circuit board covered every inch of the shiny black floor. In every space on the floor except where Stone and Harrison stood, the designs pulsed with strong, clear white light. Stone tried to make sense of the designs, but found he could not. He’d never seen anything like them in all his studies.
“This is…extraordinary,” he said. “You say this is the top of the tower? But I thought your suite was at the top. The view here is—too different to be only a single floor up.”
Harrison offered an approving nod. “It would be difficult to explain this place, Dr. Stone. If we had significant time—several months, at minimum—I could probably do it. For now, suffice it to say that this is…the nexus of the Nexus. Even more than the tower itself, the concentrated magical energy here creates a place that exists outside the normal concepts of dimensional space and time.”
Stone gaped at him. He couldn’t help it. “Are you telling me what you’ve got here is time travel?”
“No. Not as you understand it. It isn’t possible to use it to visit the past or the future. I don’t know if magical study will ever manage that. But what it is possible to do, with the proper calculations, is to fix the moment of an entity’s arrivals and departures, and then recreate them at a later date.”
“I—don’t follow.” He felt as if he should, but the concept skirted the edges of his comprehension, skittering away when he tried to pin it down.
“Simply put, in this space one can travel between dimensions, returning to their point of departure—from either side—regardless of the time spent.”
“Wait a minute…” Stone’s brain threatened to seize as what Harrison was trying to explain fell into place. “Are you saying you can go somewhere else, and—return at the moment you left?”
“Yes.” Once again, Harrison nodded approval.
“So…” Stone continued, scanning the otherworldly beauty of the stars surrounding them, “…you could leave here, go to Earth and spend as long as you like, but months or years wouldn’t have passed you by here when you returned.”
“Yes.”
“I…” Stone shook his head, speechless at the implications. Another thought struck him. “But…you couldn’t do that for me, right? Because you—the Nexus—had no idea I was coming, so it doesn’t have a—what—chrono-dimensional matrix to work from?”
“Perhaps it wo
uld not require months after all,” Harrison said. “You appear to have an affinity for this sort of thing, Dr. Stone. I am impressed. But yes—you are exactly correct. It matters little since, as I said, only two or three days have passed for you on Earth. But if you should return by means of the Nexus…”
“Then everyone I’ve met here won’t be dead when I come back,” Stone finished. “Or,” he added, with a sharp look at Harrison, “almost everyone.”
Harrison didn’t answer, but he didn’t attempt to deny it, either.
“Can you show me how to do it? Is it something I could do on my own, or would I need your help to manage it?”
“I can show you, in a limited sense, but it will take time.” Harrison studied the view, then indicated the sigils and designs on the floor. “Manipulating the Nexus requires a greater degree of understanding than simply accessing this dimension’s energy.”
Stone didn’t answer right away. He wanted to. The temptation to say, “Let’s do it now—I’ll stay until I get it!” nearly overwhelmed him. To have access to that kind of knowledge—hell, it had the potential to open up not only this dimension, but others as well. If he had a place he could return to where whatever time he spent on his travels was meaningless, how much could he discover about the universe? The mere thought of it made him light-headed. Harrison had just opened the door to the kind of opportunities most mages worth the title would gnaw their own arms off for a chance to have even brief access to. Stefan Kolinsky, for example—Stone had no doubt his black mage associate would give up vast portions of his sizeable magical holdings for even a day’s shot at unlocking a fraction of these secrets.
How could he say anything but yes? Not just yes, but the kind of unqualified, unmitigated affirmative one should properly shout from the rooftops?
And yet—
“No,” he said, and while the single word was firm, it wasn’t without regret. “Not—not now, anyway. If the offer’s still open later on, I might take you up on it. But right now…” he shook his head with a sigh. “Now…it’s been a long couple of months, and I’ve got responsibilities back on Earth. People who are depending on me. I know it won’t matter if what you’re telling me is true, but it would matter to me.” He turned back to face Harrison. “Does that make sense to you?”
