Game of Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  After taking the portal back to Surrey, he paused as he climbed free of the sarcophagus inside the mausoleum. Instead of hurrying out as he always did, he paused to examine the crypts, using a light spell around his hand to inspect each individual carved plaque on the numerous niches.

  The names were familiar, of course—even more so now that he’d recently been studying the family-tree document Eddie had found. The same names—and only those names—appeared on the scarred old plaques in here. His father’s was the newest, even that one discolored with age despite the crypt’s protective walls. The other names—his grandfather, great-grandfather, and back to the first of the six-man unbroken line—were affixed to stacked vaults on opposite walls. Two of the crypts were empty, as yet unoccupied by their eventual residents.

  I’m one of those, Stone thought with a sudden uncomfortable chill. That’s where they’ll put me when I’m dead.

  And the other one—would that someday hold his own son? He wondered, idly, if he’d ever have a son, an heir. Given his inability to maintain a relationship, he suspected it would be a long time. But he’d have to do it eventually, he knew. He needed to produce another Stone to take over his legacy—not to mention his property—when he was gone. It could be a daughter too, of course, but he doubted it. Judging by his family history, most of the Stone men seemed destined to produce one child each—a son with strong magical powers. Unless the family tree was incomplete, none of them had had any other offspring except his own father, and that had involved special circumstances and a lot of magic.

  The thought of being a father filled Stone with dread. Hell, half the time he could barely manage his own affairs, let alone be responsible for a tiny life that was utterly dependent on him. Raider was about as much responsibility as he felt ready for.

  He closed the door to the mausoleum, still mulling the topic over as he headed through the cemetery on the way toward the house. He suspected he’d be rubbish as a father anyway—he’d probably end up like his own father, absent and emotionally distant, and it wasn’t fair to inflict that on a child.

  “Let’s focus on the past, shall we?” he muttered aloud as he approached the house. “The future will sort itself out on its own.”

  Even though Stone had told him not to, Aubrey had still spent some more time poking around in old boxes looking for information. However, he reluctantly informed Stone that he hadn’t found anything else of interest. “I’m sorry, sir. I checked the attic and some of the storage rooms, but if anything else exists, you were probably correct—it’s not somewhere I can find it.”

  Stone thanked him, donned some old clothes, and spent the rest of the day hunting through the warded parts of the house—the basement, his magical library, and the areas where he stored his collection of magical artifacts—trying to identify any hidden nooks or illusions. Even as he did it, though, he doubted he’d find anything. From the time he’d been a child home on school breaks, he’d spent many hours doing what he was doing now: searching the house for hidden treasures. He’d focused even more on it after his father died, poring through the study (his own study now), checking for secret passageways or doors. At the time, he hadn’t been looking for anything in particular, but had done it for no other reason than he liked puzzles and was convinced a house as large and old as this one must be hiding some secrets.

  He’d found a few—secret rooms, sliding panels in walls, and so forth—but nothing of any particular interest beyond their existence. Eventually, after he started University, began his teaching career, and moved to the United States, he gave it up due to lack of time.

  Now, though, he put renewed effort into it. Brimming with power he still didn’t feel guilty about taking, he used magic to effortlessly move boxes around in the attic, levitated around his library looking for likely titles, and searched through old furniture in the dusty basement rooms both inside and outside the wards.

  This took him several hours, and by the time he emerged from the basement, dusty and covered in cobwebs, it had grown dark.

  “Nothing, sir?” Aubrey asked. He stood in the kitchen doorway, through which the enticing aroma of something meaty and savory wafted.

  “Not a bloody thing.” Stone threw himself into a chair. “I’m beginning to think what I’m looking for doesn’t exist.”

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Aubrey spoke with care, turned away to attend to whatever sizzled in the heavy, cast-iron skillet on the stove. “You never said, specifically, except that you were hunting information about your family.” He faced Stone and frowned. “Are you still looking for proof of your ancestors’…misdeeds?”

  “Yes.” Stone stared at his hands. “I know you don’t think it’s a good idea…and you’re probably right. But that doesn’t matter. I need to know. I’ve got to know what they got up to—how bad it was. Whether we’re talking about a bad temper and a bit of emotional abuse—which is horrible enough, but somewhat understandable given the time period—or something worse.”

  “And what will you do with that knowledge if you find it, sir?” Aubrey turned the flame down on the skillet and approached Stone, stopping a few feet away to regard him with fatherly concern. “What good will it do you, except to make you feel guilty about things you had no control over?”

  Stone snapped his gaze up, suddenly suspicious. “Do you know something you’re not telling me, Aubrey?”

  “No sir. I promise you, I don’t know anything but what I’ve already told you. I’m just—concerned about how you might react if you find something that disturbs you. I know you’re curious, but…don’t you think it might be best if you allowed that sort of information—if it exists at all—to remain properly buried where it belongs?”

  Stone sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “But you’re not going to stop searching, are you?”

  “No. Not until I’m convinced it’s not here. I suppose it’s possible they destroyed it.”

  “Or that it doesn’t exist at all, sir,” Aubrey pointed out. He returned to the stove, transferred the dish—Toad in the Hole, it turned out—to a serving dish, and brought it to the table along with a bowl of mashed potatoes. “It’s entirely possible that just because your grandfather wasn’t a pleasant person, it doesn’t mean your other ancestors weren’t either.” He indicated the dishes. “Please, at least have something to eat before you go back to it. You’ve been down in that dusty basement all day.”

  “I will if you sit down with me.” Stone nodded toward the seat across from him and took a long sip from his pint glass. “I’m not too enchanted with my own company at present.”

  “Of course, sir. Thank you.” The caretaker put down plates, silver, and another glass, then lowered himself into the chair. “I hope you understand—I only want to help you. If this is what you truly want, I’ll do what I can to assist. But…if I might speak out of place—?”

  Stone chuckled, mirthless but fond. “When did you ever not?”

  “Well…given your tendency to slip into…dark periods…”

  “Just say it, Aubrey—I’m a moody bastard.”

  “Dark periods,” Aubrey repeated firmly, watching Stone with worried resolve, “I’m simply not convinced that digging for other reasons to push yourself in that direction is…well, your wisest course of action. Especially with what happened recently.”

  Stone wondered what the caretaker would say if he knew even a fraction of what had really happened recently. What would Aubrey’s opinion of his coping skills be if he knew about Acantha and Nessa Lennox, his change in magical status, and what had truly happened all those years ago in the days following his birth?

  Maybe Aubrey was right—at least partly. He knew himself well enough that he wouldn’t delude himself: if the information existed, he’d have to find it. Eventually. But things were finally starting to settle down again in his life. He had the house to tinker with, Verity’s lessons to finish up, a summer with a light course load—he didn’t have to deal with this
now if he didn’t want to. If it was here, it had been here a long time. It could wait a few weeks or months longer.

  He let out a loud sigh and took a long drink. “I’ll consider it, Aubrey. I’m not going to give up, though. If it’s here, I want to find it, whatever it is. But perhaps you’re right, for now at least. Maybe I should just let it stay buried. I can…”

  He stopped, his hand tightening on his glass.

  “Sir—?” Aubrey leaned forward, the worry in his gaze increasing.

  I should just let it stay buried…

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  Stone snapped his gaze up, still clutching the glass with shaking fingers. “Let it stay buried…” he whispered.

  “Sir? What are you—?”

  Of course. “That’s got to be it!” He leaped from his chair, shoving it backward and paying no heed when it teetered. He knew he must look crazed, wild-eyed and shaking, but he didn’t care.

  “Got to be what, sir?”

  “I’ll be back, Aubrey! Sorry, I’ll have to eat later!” Without giving the caretaker a chance to reply, he dashed out of the room.

  He knew where the information he sought was hidden now.

  It was, he realized, the only logical place for it to be.

  40

  A light, chilly rain fell as Stone exited the house and ran toward the cemetery.

  Why hadn’t he thought of this a long time ago? Hiding the information anywhere under magical protection—wards or magical traps—would conceal it effectively from mundane eyes, but how many mundanes would be poking around the estate of a family of powerful mages?

  But if mages had hidden the information and intended for it to remain hidden from future mages, putting it behind a ward would be a dead giveaway that something was there to find. Also, small and specific wards were harder to maintain in perpetuity—even on land intersected by three ley lines—than larger and more generalized ones.

  Stone reached the cemetery and plunged through, heading for the mausoleum looming in the center. He’d been inside it hundreds of times to use the portal beneath, but he’d never stopped to take a close look at the residents interred within it. What better place to hide information you didn’t want found than to put it in one of the vaults along with the casket?

  He cast a glance backward to see if Aubrey had attempted to follow him, then hurried inside and shut the door, summoning a light spell around his hand as pitch-darkness settled around him.

  The structure included six crypts, stacked three high on each of the side walls, and another at the back, as well as the false one in the center that concealed the entrance to the portal. The rear one and the topmost on the right side were empty, and Stone ignored them. If whoever hid the information didn’t want it found, they wouldn’t put it in a crypt that would need to be opened at some future date. But that still left five more.

  If he could help it, he didn’t want to open all five. Leaning back against the fake sarcophagus, he held his hand up and flashed the light around, thinking. Which one could it be?

  Obviously it wasn’t his father’s. Putting it there would have meant someone contemporary with him would have to have done it, and he was sure they hadn’t. He’d attended his father’s internment here when he was nineteen, and watched as the crypt was closed and sealed. Aside from himself, Aubrey, and the funeral-home people, nobody had touched it.

  He crouched and examined the oldest two, at the bottom level on each side. Aldwyn Aristide Edmund Stone, 1762-1851 was his great-great-great grandfather, and Cyrus Oswyn Bartholomew Stone, 1816-1902 his great-great grandfather. Neither showed any signs of tampering—the seals on both, though cracked with age, appeared intact and not reinforced in any way. The same was true of his great-grandfather, who’d died in 1943 at almost a hundred years old.

  He moved in closer to his grandfather’s crypt, second from the bottom on the right side, and peered more closely at it. Gerard Eldric Perseus Stone, 1874-1958, the plaque read.

  If Aubrey was right, and Stone’s own father hadn’t been involved in whatever his earlier ancestors had been up to, then it made sense that it was during his grandfather’s time that they’d decided it was best that the evidence of their activities not be found. Sure, they could have just destroyed it—but Stone doubted it. Mages, by and large, had a pathological dislike of destroying any kind of record or written document, even if such documents might implicate them in acts they’d rather not acknowledge. Better just to hide them where the uninitiated wouldn’t find them.

  He held his glowing hand next to the seam sealing his grandfather’s crypt, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The seal looked solid, tight, and unbroken.

  That meant he was going to have to do something he didn’t want to do—something that made him hope even more that his hunch was correct. If he opened this tomb and found nothing inside but his grandfather’s body, it could prove inconvenient and embarrassing.

  He was contemplating whether he wanted to do it when a knock sounded on the door.

  “Sir?” came a faint voice through the thick wood. “Are you in there?”

  He sighed and opened the door to reveal Aubrey, just as he’d expected. The caretaker wore a heavy coat, scarf, and flat cap, and carried a lantern. “What is it, Aubrey?”

  “I thought I might find you here, sir.” He looked past Stone at the crypts. “Are you thinking the information you’re looking for is in here?”

  “In my grandfather’s crypt, yes. But it’s sealed, and I don’t know how to open it without the risk of damaging it.”

  Aubrey’s features twisted with reluctance, then settled on resolve. “I can help you, sir, if you’re determined to do this.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes, sir. I assisted the man from the mortuary when he sealed your father’s crypt. I can help you open this one, and set it right again when you’re finished.”

  Stone regarded him a moment, suddenly overcome. He forgot sometimes just how loyal Aubrey was. The man would walk through Hell for him, if he asked. “I’d…appreciate it.”

  “Of course. Let me fetch some tools.”

  Stone paced the small confines of the mausoleum as he waited, wondering once more if he was doing the right thing. Was this just another of his obsessions? Were these secrets, if they were here at all, better left unearthed? What would he gain from discovering terrible things about his ancestors?

  But what if they aren’t terrible? You’re making assumptions. That Brathwaite man who wrote that journal might have had ulterior motives. Perhaps he had an axe to grind with your family. There’s no proof what he wrote is true.

  Aubrey returned a few minutes later carrying a large metal toolbox in one hand and a crowbar in the other. He had his lantern handle draped over his left arm and a large canvas tarp over his right. “Here we are, sir. If you’ll give me a hand—”

  Stone quickly took the items and set them on the floor, then helped Aubrey spread the tarp out beneath the crypt. He put the lantern on top of the center sarcophagus where it would provide the best light.

  The caretaker opened the toolbox and removed two hammers and metal chisels. “What we’ll have to do,” he said, indicating the crypt, “is chip through the seal holding the marble cover in place. It won’t be a quick or easy job. I’ll have to go into town tomorrow to get something to re-seal it afterward.” He turned back to face Stone, and his eyes glittered in the lantern’s light. “Are you…quite sure you want to do this, sir?”

  Stone bowed his head. He hated putting Aubrey through this, but it had to be done. “I’m quite sure. But if you’ll show me what needs to be done, you needn’t—”

  “No, sir. It will go much more quickly with both of us working.” He offered Stone a hammer and chisel. “Once we’ve gotten a good portion of it done, we can use the crowbar to pry the rest loose. The seal isn’t meant to do more than deter potential grave robbers.”

  Like us, Stone thought.

  The two of them set abo
ut their work in silence, the only sound the rhythmic tink-tink of their hammers against the chisels. Despite the sleety cold outside it was hot work; after a few minutes Stone got up and pushed open the mausoleum’s door to let some air in. As he did, he glanced outside, half-expecting to see the police hurrying across the cemetery to stop the would-be grave defilers.

  It took nearly an hour, working with care, for them to chip away the seal around the right side of the marble cover, and halfway along the top and bottom. Finally Aubrey stood, wincing as his knees popped, rubbed his back, and picked up the crowbar.

  “All right—that should be enough, but we’ll have to be careful so we don’t break the marble. If you could hold it steady and make sure it doesn’t fall when it comes loose—” He gave Stone a rueful smile. “It’s likely to be quite heavy, so you might want to use your magic.”

  Stone chuckled despite the gravity of the situation. “Yes, yes, I know I could do with some time at the gym. Don’t worry, I won’t let it fall.”

  Aubrey inserted the crowbar’s end into the seam, seated it, and then gripped the other end and pressed it in toward the wall. After a few moments, the marble panel broke free, accompanied by a loud crack and a shower of dust.

  Stone was ready. He grabbed hold of the panel with magic, levitated it, and settled it with care onto the waiting tarp. Aubrey was right—it was heavy. It gave him no trouble using magic, but he doubted he’d have found it easy to lift otherwise. He let his breath out and peered into the open cavity.

  One thing worked in their favor, at least: unlike most more modern mausoleums, the crypts in this one were arranged horizontally along the walls. They could see the full length of the casket, once ornate polished wood but now covered in dust and grime.

  For a time, Stone could do nothing but stand staring at it. This was his grandfather—a man he’d never met, and about whom his father had told him only the most superficial of stories. He wondered what the man would think of his grandson if he could see him now, breaking into his crypt to hunt down terrible secrets that might be concealed here.