Game of Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Then you should do it,” she said stubbornly.

  “I will. In my own time. Now—can we change the subject and get on with eating? I’ve got quite a full session planned for tonight, so I want to get to it.”

  “Fine.” She held his gaze for just long enough to let him know dropping it was her idea, and focused her attention on her meal.

  Stone watched her for several seconds, examining her aura before returning to his own plate. It wasn’t like her to give up that easily, and he was sure this wouldn’t be the last he heard from her on the topic.

  31

  He took the portal back to England that weekend, leaving on Friday afternoon after his classes were finished for the day. He’d avoided Verity for the rest of the week after their dinner conversation; he felt guilty about it, but it was easy to explain away by telling her he was busy at the University (which was true) and that he’d get back to her magic sessions when he returned on Monday.

  He still hadn’t contacted any of Kolinsky’s resources. Verity didn’t ask about it, but her desire to do so came through even over the phone. He quickly ended the call and got away before she could do it. His own thoughts about the situation were bothering him enough; he didn’t need her adding to it.

  Especially since he suspected she’d probably be able to talk him into doing it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted that.

  He’d called ahead to tell Aubrey he was coming and not to wait up for him, since it would be nearly midnight local time when he arrived. Still, he wasn’t at all surprised to find the lights on at the house and the old caretaker waiting for him with a cup of steaming hot coffee.

  “I found a few more boxes for you, sir,” he told Stone. “I’ve left them in your study.”

  “More from the attic?” Stone sipped the coffee, which was just what he needed. “Aubrey, I’ve told you not to go tramping around up there. It’s full of dust and spiders, and if something should happen with no one here—”

  “You needn’t worry, sir.” Aubrey’s tone held a combination of dignity and the acknowledgement that he knew he wasn’t getting any younger. “These weren’t in the attic. I found them in one of the unused rooms in the east wing, and used the cart to move them.”

  “All right, then…but next time, just leave them where they are. I’ll get them when I come back.”

  “Yes, sir. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I didn’t take a close look at them—only enough to see that they related to your family.”

  Stone retired to his study and spent the next several hours going through the boxes. By the time he finished, sitting on the floor with papers spread out in every direction around him, all he’d gotten was dusty. The files were interesting enough, in an abstract way: most of them covered events from his grandfather’s day, describing charity events he and Stone’s grandmother had attended, donations he’d made, formal parties and business dealings.

  Interesting, but not helpful. None of the stack of yellowed papers mentioned anything even obliquely related to magic, or indeed anything out of the ordinary. If a reader were to believe what was contained within them, Stone’s grandfather had been nothing more than a wealthy aristocrat who did the same things every wealthy aristocrat had done in those days: supported various charities and foundations, attended gala events, and, almost as an afterthought, made a lot of money through business pursuits he hardly seemed to care about.

  Stone sighed and ran a dusty hand through his hair. “This is pointless,” he muttered aloud. He glanced at the clock on the wall: it was nearly five a.m., he’d gotten essentially nowhere, and he wasn’t tired because his body was still telling him it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

  Maybe there wasn’t anything to find. Just because Aubrey had told him his grandfather hadn’t exactly been a candidate for Man of the Year didn’t mean the man was involved in anything nefarious—at least not anything more nefarious than any other man of his social position in those days. He gathered up the papers and tossed them back in the boxes, making little effort to put them in the same order he’d found them in, and made a mental note to cart them back off to the east wing before he left so Aubrey wouldn’t have to.

  He was on his way to his bedroom suite to take a shower and try to rest for a couple hours when his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. Startled, he pulled it out. Who could be calling him at such an hour? Even in America it was after nine. Had Blum found something? The wards around the figurines hadn’t alerted him, but—

  That was odd. The number that flashed on the screen wasn’t Blum, but Eddie Monkton. He quickly hit the button to answer. “Eddie?”

  “Evenin’,” came the familiar voice. “’Ope this wasn’t too late to call you—”

  Of course—Eddie still thought he was in California. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m actually at the Surrey place right now.”

  “Oh, then I woke you. Sorry about that.”

  “You didn’t. I’ve been going through some old papers and whatnot. What’s going on?”

  “Well…” Eddie’s voice sounded a little odd. “Remember I told you I’d check the library and look into your family ’istory?”

  Stone tensed. “Yes…”

  “Well, I’ve found some information you’ll want to see.”

  “You sound strange, Eddie. What’s going on?”

  “You’ll want to see this, Stone. I don’t want to give it to you second’and. Can you come up today? Bit early now, but say ten or so?”

  “Of course. But you’ve got to tell me something. Don’t leave me in suspense. Were they axe murderers or something?”

  “No. You’ll see. Just come to the library at ten. I’ll buy you lunch at the pub after. You might want to get good and drunk after you read some of this stuff. See you then.”

  Stone hung up and barely remembered sliding the phone back in his pocket. What the hell had Eddie found—and why hadn’t he found any evidence of it in his own house?

  He took the portal to the London house after showering, trying without success to rest for a couple of hours, and allowing Aubrey to fix him a light breakfast.

  He didn’t tell the caretaker why he was going to London, except that he was visiting Eddie; Aubrey was familiar enough with his work up at Caventhorne that it was reasonable to suspect that was his destination.

  “Did you find anything in those boxes?” Aubrey asked as he gathered up the remains of breakfast.

  “Nothing useful, I’m afraid. I don’t think you need to look anymore. I suspect if there’s anything of interest to find, it’s probably in places you can’t reach. I’ll poke around when I’ve got the time.”

  Aubrey didn’t look happy about it, but he let it go.

  Eddie was waiting for him at the library when he arrived. He still wore an expression that hovered somewhere between interest and worry.

  “All right, out with it,” Stone said without greeting, sweeping past as Eddie stepped aside. “What have you found?”

  Eddie led him back to the same small, fussy sitting room where they’d met many times before. To the uninitiated, the place looked for all the world like the cramped, airless home of somebody’s maiden aunt from the middle of World War II. With its faded, floral wallpaper, antique furniture, general lack of light, and faint odor of the ghosts of meals past, it seemed more like some kind of historical time capsule than one of the most impressive magical reference libraries in Europe.

  Stone, in fact, had to take Eddie’s word for the fact that it was, given that he’d never actually seen the stacks. For all he knew, Eddie maintained a dimensional portal in the basement and the books were actually located elsewhere, since to access this particular library you had to do it the old-fashioned way: tell Eddie what kinds of information you were looking for and let him fetch it for you. The good news was, Eddie’s abilities in that regard were unmatched. As an overall mage, his talents were nothing spectacular—he was good, sure, but nowhere near top-tier—but Stone suspected he might possess either a particular
specialty in retaining information or else an eidetic memory, because once a reference came into his hands he never forgot either what sort of information it contained or where he’d stored it.

  Several books and folders were already spread on the table. “Took me a while to find this stuff,” Eddie said. “Been busy up at Caventhorne, and I ’aven’t ’ad much call for this kind of information lately.” He glanced at Stone. “’ow much do you know about your family tree?”

  Stone shrugged. “Not that much, really. It wasn’t one of those things that interested me enough to pursue it. Aside from that, I was in school most of the time when I was younger, so I didn’t get a lot of opportunity.”

  When Eddie seemed to be waiting for him to say more, he pondered. “Come to think about it, my father never talked much about it either.” Part of that made sense, at least as far as his recent history was concerned, considering what he’d found out earlier that year about his mother and the early days of his life.

  “That doesn’t surprise me too much,” Eddie said. He unrolled a large sheet of paper and offered it to Stone. “Let’s start ’ere, then, for the overview.”

  Mages had long ago perfected spells to preserve old books and papers, so even though the page appeared cracked and yellowed with age it wasn’t at all brittle. Stone unrolled it again and studied it.

  Clearly it represented a family history, hand-drawn and detailed. A familiar image appeared at the top: the Stone family crest, which Stone had seen in various places around his house since he’d been a small boy. Below it, lines connected a series of names and dates. Stone looked them over; it was obvious from the prominence of a subset of the names that they were the ones with the greatest importance.

  He recognized some of the names from his younger days, when he used to walk around the lonely graveyard on his property. It had been a good place to be alone with his thoughts, surrounded by the silent reminders of those who’d come before him. But he hadn’t done it more than a handful of times since he started University, and none at all since he’d move to the United States ten years ago. Whenever he came back to England now he always had a reason for the return, and no time for such wanderings.

  The prominently emphasized names were the ones he recognized most: every one of them had a corresponding plaque in the family crypt, the one his portal resided beneath. There were five of them in all, and the bottommost was his own father.

  He’d been told many times as he was growing up that he represented the sixth in an unbroken line of male mages, something almost unprecedented in magical society since magic often skipped one or even several generations before popping up again. They were all here on this page in stark black ink—all but him, of course. Judging by the apparent age of the document, it was probably created before he was born. In fact, when he looked at it more closely, it appeared his father’s name had been added later, in a slightly different ink.

  He looked up at Eddie. “All right,” he said. “This is my family tree. What of it?”

  “Like I said, just overview.” He took the page back, smoothed it out, and put it down on the table, holding the edges down with small weights. “I can let you look at the rest yourself, or I can give you the gist of it and you can investigate as little or as much as you want. Up to you.”

  Stone narrowed his eyes. This sounded more and more ominous with everything Eddie said. “Let’s start with the gist. What are you trying not to tell me, Eddie?”

  Eddie looked down at the family-tree document, sighed, then faced Stone again. “The gist, I’m afraid, is that your ancestors weren’t very nice people.”

  “’Not very nice’? What do you mean by that?”

  “Well…” He indicated the small stack of books and rolled papers. “There aren’t a lot of records—most of what I found was the usual sort of PR ’ogwash about ’ow much money they gave to charities and ’ow much they contributed to the church, that sort of thing. You find that in the ’istory of every prominent family.”

  “Yes, all right. But…”

  “But…” He picked up one of the books, bound in black leather, and opened it. “This was the one that was a bit ’arder to track down. There aren’t more than two or three copies left in existence—or at least if there are, the people who ’ave ’em aren’t admittin’ to it. And as you can see, some of the pages ’ave been ripped out.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a journal, written by a man named James Brathwaite.”

  Stone shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “’E lived back in the early eighteen-’undreds. You ’avent heard of ’im because there wasn’t anything special about ’im. He was a mage, and a contemporary of your great-great grandfather’s.”

  “All right…I still don’t see where this is going.”

  Eddie indicated the book. “You’ve got to understand, nothing’s spelled out. It’s not like there’s definitive evidence of anything, which you can take comfort from if you want to. Knowin’ you as I do, though, I’m guessin’ you won’t do that.” His expression sobered even more. “But it definitely appears that your family, at least from your great-great grandfather and a generation or two before that—and from the few bits and pieces I’ve put together, your grandfather, too—were some pretty ’ardcore black mages. And I’m not talkin’ the kind who drain a little power from people in crowds and such. I’m talkin’ the kind who did the really bad stuff.”

  Stone froze. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, but merely stared at Eddie in shock. It had been bad enough what he’d discovered about his mother’s side of the family—now this? “My father…”

  “I think your father was the one who broke the cycle. There’s more information to be ’ad from more modern times, and I didn’t find anything indicatin’ ’e even knew what was going on, let alone participated in it.” He shoved the book across the table toward Stone. “You can read it if you like. James Brathwaite had a falling-out with your great-great grandfather, and they parted ways. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances shortly after that, and the journal wasn’t discovered until years later. Even though copies were made, Brathwaite was discredited as a madman and none of the accusations were ever proven. Most of it was swept under the rug by the prominent aristocratic magical families. If it’s any consolation,” he added with a sympathetic glance, “I don’t think it was just your family by any means. Others were mentioned as well. Apparently quite a few of the prominent families were involved.”

  Stone sat staring at the book. “Surely someone knew about this,” he said in a dull tone.

  “Oh, no doubt they did. Truth is, I knew some of it, though I never connected it to anything to do with your family. It makes sense, though, when you think about it: mages back in those days weren’t be’olden to anyone. Sure, they ’ad to be secretive about it, but think about the sorts of things you could get up to if you didn’t think anybody could stop you, and you ’ad yourself convinced from the time you were born that magic made you part of some kind o’ chosen people with the God-given right to do whatever the ’ell you wanted.” He shook his head ruefully. “The aristocratic magical families were a nasty lot, all in all. It’s only in the last ’undred or so years that’s changed.” He paused. “You all right, Stone?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just—a bit of a shock, is all. As you said, I suppose it shouldn’t be. Power corrupts, right?” He was glad now that he hadn’t told Eddie or Ward that he’d recently become a black mage. Even though he doubted they’d hold it against him, prejudice among white mages for their darker counterparts still ran deep, despite the fact that the vast majority of black mages nowadays did nothing more than drain enough energy from voluntary or involuntary donors to keep their magic powered. Only a small subset partook in the darker rituals and practices, and it could be persuasively argued that their proclivities had nudged them into black magic, not the other way around.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  “Well, like I said, you’re welc
ome to take a look at the journal. It goes into some detail about some of what they got up to, but nothing specific enough to pin anything on any particular person or group.”

  “But my family’s name was mentioned specifically.”

  Eddie nodded. “Sorry, mate.”

  “Don’t be. I asked you to look into this for me—I knew there was always the chance you might find something like this.” Stone sat for a moment, his innate curiosity warring with his distaste for discovering exactly what sort of black magic practices his ancestors had been involved with. “I think I’ll leave the journal for now. I can always come back and look at it later, right?”

  “Of course. I’ll even make a copy for you if you want to peruse it at your leisure. Can’t let the actual book out of the library, unfortunately.”

  Stone stood, suddenly tired. He felt as if his legs weighed a ton. “Thanks, Eddie. I appreciate your help with this. I think I’m going to pass on lunch at the pub, if you don’t mind. Give Arthur and Kerrick my best, will you?”

  “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  Stone didn’t miss the odd, worried look his friend gave him as he headed out and left the library.

  Traffic was terrible on the way back to the London house. Stone sat in the back of the black cab, barely seeing any of the scenery crawling by.

  The information he’d gotten from Eddie today hadn’t come as a complete surprise; he wasn’t naïve, and he knew that many powerful mages, if they lived long enough, eventually slipped over to the black end of the spectrum. When you added social power to go with the magical power, it seemed almost inevitable that it would happen, especially back in the days when it would have been much harder to track or punish such behavior. But still, Eddie had made it sound like his family had been involved in activities considered horrible even by black-magic standards.

  He wondered if he should have succumbed to his curiosity and read the journal, but part of him simply didn’t want to know. He’d had enough kicks in the gut about his family’s proclivities over the past few months—he wasn’t sure he was ready for any others just yet. The information would be there, after all, if he wanted to pursue it at a later date. Right now, he should be getting back to California and sorting out this business with the figurines.