by R. L. King
Dinner.
With the kids.
Stone’s eyes flew open in shock, and he struggled with renewed energy to crab-scrabble away from Cassius.
Kolinsky had said that—he’d thought it odd at the time. He didn’t think Kolinsky even knew about the last time he’d had dinner with Ian and Gabriel.
It had been the night Sharra died, the night the building had come down in New York City. They’d met in London, at a trendy, upscale Japanese restaurant Gabriel had recommended.
Except it hadn’t been a restaurant at all. The whole thing had been nothing but an elaborate illusion—nothing but Gabriel showing off, proving to Stone he had the magical chops to teach his son.
He glanced up. Cassius was still coming, moving slowly but steadily toward him. He didn’t look amused anymore. He looked dangerous. He still had one arm wrapped around his middle, but he’d produced yet another kitchen knife from somewhere, holding it in his other clenched fist.
Stone’s world was going gray. Sweat ran down his forehead. Blood spread on his shirt. His leg had gone numb.
It was all an illusion…
He grinned, sure he must make quite a sight with his bloodstained teeth and blazing eyes. “Last chance, Cassius…” he rasped. “Give this up and let’s call it a day.”
Cassius laughed. “That should be my line, scion. If you want to save your life, agree to give me the information I seek. I won’t make the offer again.”
He’d almost reached Stone. He stopped a few feet away, raising the knife, and waited.
With effort, Stone hitched himself up on his elbow, ignoring the pain as the blade in his chest shifted. He could barely breathe now, struggling not to cough.
“I don’t think so. I told you…that isn’t my information to give.”
Cassius shrugged. He was pale too, and not nearly as steady as he was trying to project. But he was upright, at least. “A pity. Then you’ll die here.”
Stone might have been wrong. He was betting a lot—possibly his life, definitely his continued freedom—that he was. His magic hadn’t worked before. It might not work now, even if he was right.
But illusions were insidious things, especially when you didn’t know they were there.
“Sorry, Cassius. Now you’re the one reading the wrong lines.”
He let himself fall onto his back, his chest erupting in pain again as the blade shifted, but he ignored it. He raised both hands, pointed them at Cassius, and hoped to the gods he hadn’t guessed wrong.
Then he opened the conduit.
His hands glowed like a pair of white-hot suns as the Calanarian energy answered his call. Twin shafts of silvery-gold light sprang from them, instantly bridging the distance between him and Cassius.
He screamed as the pain rose and kept rising, but his hands didn’t waver.
Cassius screamed too, his whole body lighting up as the blasts of pure magical force ripped into him. The impact blew him backward and sent him tumbling over and over until he finally slammed into a tree at the edge of the square.
The ground rumbled again, and another section of the world broke off. The square was the only thing left now. The tree that had stopped Cassius’s backward momentum hung suspended, half in the ground, half with its roots reaching out into the void.
Stone leaped to his feet. The pain was gone now. The knives in his chest and his leg faded away, along with the spreading blood on his clothes. He was still breathing hard, but now it wasn’t with exhaustion—it was with exhilaration.
Cassius was already trying to struggle up. He glared at Stone in half-rage, half-astonishment, his face ashen gray. “What—?” he rasped. “How did you—?”
“I’m full of surprises, aren’t I?” Stone hit him with another blast, less potent this time but fully strong enough to blow the dragon back down. More of the silver-gold energy danced around his hands. “Had enough?” His voice came out almost as raspy as Cassius’s. “Or shall I blow you off this rock and let you find out what’s out there?”
As if to punctuate his words, the tree teetered and toppled into the void.
Cassius glared at him, his eyes burning with rage. “You’ve won, scion,” he growled. “Finish it.”
Stone glared back. “I could. And you couldn’t do a bloody thing about it.” Now that he had his magic back, he switched to magical sight and pulled up a shield around himself. No taking cocky chances now. A cornered rat was dangerous—a cornered dragon certainly even more so.
“So do it, then!”
“Why?”
Cassius blinked. “What?”
“Why should I?”
“Those were the parameters of the challenge.” Cassius coughed, his eyes clamping shut. Blood bubbled from his lips. His arm tightened around his stomach, which was still bleeding.
“Your parameters. I wanted to go to concession. You’ve been quite an arse, but being an arse doesn’t deserve the death penalty.”
Cassius slumped back and didn’t answer. Stone could see his aura was fading. Would he die if left here?
“Come on,” he said. “You haven’t got much time. This whole place will be gone soon. Let’s end this. Give me your word you won’t bother me anymore, directly or indirectly, and let’s go home.”
He wasn’t sure Cassius would take the offer. Pride was a tricky thing; would a dragon, a lofty creature potentially thousands of years old, allow himself to concede to a mere mortal (at least as far as he knew) human? Or would he let himself die to save face?
“Make up your mind,” he said. He pulled the blue gem from his pocket and held it up. “I’m not waiting here all day.”
Cassius held his glare for several more seconds. Stone didn’t need aura reading to see the wheels in his head spinning, trying to find any way around this. The dragon’s breath came faster, and more sweat poured from his forehead, mingling with the blood on his shirt.
Finally, he let out a ragged breath. “So be it. I concede.”
“Good man. But that’s not enough. I want your word. You’ll leave me and my friends alone and mind your own business.”
“You have my word,” Cassius said through his teeth. His voice was fading.
“Brilliant.” Stone raised the gem, noting it was once again glowing with its former bright-blue nimbus. “I’m sure you can find your own way home. Stay out of trouble, Cassius. Cheers.”
He activated the gem, and the scene faded around him.
He reappeared in the stone room.
Kolinsky, Madame Huan, and Vic still sat at the table. They were all watching him. Kolinsky was expressionless. Madame Huan was smiling broadly. Vic merely looked amused, like a dad who was used to watching his son win Little League games.
“Well,” Stone said, tossing the gem back into its depression in the still-open box on the table. “That’s done. Nice little trick you played on us. Very impressive, and you had me fooled for a long time. Can’t say I blame myself too much, though. For all I knew, you lot could have access to pocket dimensions.”
“Who says we don’t?” Vic leaned back in his chair and shot Stone a challenging look.
“So,” he said, because he had no reasonable answer for that, “what’s happened to Cassius?”
“He has been returned to his home,” Kolinsky said.
“So you didn’t kill him?”
Madame Huan shook her head. “You were the victor. It was your decision. I am proud of you, Alastair. You didn’t have to show him mercy.”
“He would not have shown you mercy,” Kolinsky said.
Stone shrugged. “Maybe we humans have something over you dragons after all, then. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as he leaves me alone.” He narrowed his eyes. “He will do that, right?”
“He will,” Vic said.
“And none of this ‘I’ll see what I can get away with and let dragon justice sort it out in a few thousand years’ rubbish?”
“No. He knows better this time.”
Stone looked down at himself
. There was no sign of the knife wounds. Of course not—because they’d never been there in the first place. The human mind was an amazing thing, but sometimes it could cause big problems. Right now, all he felt was tired, but a good kind of tired.
An accomplished kind of tired.
“Well,” he said briskly, “if that’s it, then I’d like to go home. I could use a good long sleep, and I’ve got to feed my cat.”
“We’re done here,” Vic said. “It was a good contest. I approve.” He nodded to Stone, then to the others, and then disappeared.
“Well done,” Madame Huan agreed. Her eyes twinkled. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon, Alastair.”
And then she, too was gone, leaving Stone alone with Kolinsky.
They regarded each other in silence for a few seconds, and then Stone let a slow, roguish smile spread across his face. “You’re a sly dog, Stefan.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“No. Of course you don’t. But I do plan on honoring that invitation to dinner. I’ll even let you pick the restaurant. Should I add two more to the guest list?”
“I think not,” Kolinsky said mildly.
Stone chuckled. “Fair enough.” He paused. “But…thanks.”
“Once again,” Kolinsky said, “I have no idea what you mean. You should go. You are still new to our form of travel, so I will remain until you are safely away.”
Stone thought about saying something else, but settled for a shrug. “Send me your pick for a restaurant.” He smiled again. “Anywhere in the world. As long as it’s near a ley line.”
40
Trevor Harrison called Stone at the end of the week.
He had slept off the events of the last several days by then, though he’d barely begun to work through all the implications of how his life had changed. He’d have plenty of time for that, so he was in no hurry.
He’d just returned from another jaunt, this time to Tokyo, and was thinking about calling Jason and Verity to see if they and Amber wanted to get together for dinner. He’d already called Verity a few days ago to assure her he was alive, safe, and well, but hadn’t said much more than that. Jason and Amber had closed escrow on their house yesterday, which meant a celebration was in order, and he still owed them a dinner at the Brazilian barbecue. Fortunately they’d all been busy, so none of them had missed him over the last few days. That was going to be one of the downsides of his new travel method: since he couldn’t tell his friends about it, he’d need to be careful about using it when they were around.
He’d barely pulled out his phone to make the calls when it rang. The number showed as BLOCKED.
“Yes, hello?” he said impatiently, ready to shut down a telemarketer.
“Dr. Stone.”
Oh, bloody hell, now what?
“Hello, Mr. Harrison. How are you?”
“I wish to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”
Stone shook his head, amused. No I’m fine, things are good with Harrison. Just straight to business. “Well, I’m right here. Or I suppose you mean in person.”
“I do.”
Of course you do. “Is something wrong?”
“I can come to you if you prefer.”
Oookay… “You’re in Las Vegas, I take it?”
“I am.”
“I’ll come to you.” Stone couldn’t help smiling, even if Harrison did end up having some dire bit of information to drop on him. He suspected he was going to feel like a kid who’d just got his first driver’s license for the foreseeable future. Somewhere to go? I’ll drive!
“As you wish. Please contact Mr. Nakamura when you arrive. Good day.”
The call ended.
Stone waited two hours before leaving, but it was tempting not to. Harrison had plenty of secrets—he could bloody well wonder about one of Stone’s for a change.
But good sense won out, so he waited. Kolinsky had explained he could combine magic with travel, which meant he could pop in under an invisibility or disregarding spell. That made going to cities a lot less fraught with the potential danger of somebody spotting him. He appeared behind Caesars Palace and took a cab to the Obsidian.
Nakamura was expecting him. “He’s in his suite upstairs,” he said when Stone called. “He asked me to send you up when you arrived. Use the same elevator you used to get to his office.”
The trip was even more stomach-wrenching when it involved going up forty-seven floors instead of down two or three, but Stone barely noticed. He strode out as soon as it opened and knocked on the double doors on the other side of the entry chamber.
They swung open, revealing Harrison’s familiar elegant suite.
It didn’t look much different than the one Stone remembered from Calanar: spacious, open, impersonal, sparsely decorated in expensive but minimalist furnishings and art objects. The biggest difference was the view: at midday, the floor-to-ceiling windows lining two of the main room’s walls displayed a panoramic vision of the Strip and the desert beyond, rather than the rolling green fields and stark, rocky hills of New Argana.
Harrison stood on the far side of the room, looking out the window. He turned as Stone entered. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Stone. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you. I could have come to you.”
Stone waved him off. “No, no, it’s fine. Not terribly busy today. What’s going on? Did you find whoever was responsible for the portal we closed?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“Some of them?” He frowned. “How many were involved?”
“Unknown at this point. Our agents in Sholandre and Temolan have not as yet been successful in discovering the extent of the involvement.”
“But you found some of them.”
“Yes, and they have been dealt with.” Harrison’s eyes were two hard, gray chips of ice.
Stone shivered. He didn’t want to know what he meant by “dealt with,” but was sure it wasn’t pleasant. “What about the others? Are you still looking for them? Are they still a threat?”
“Yes, and yes. That is why I am here.”
“What, you want me to help you find them?”
“No. This is not your concern. But until they are found and neutralized, they represent a danger, both to Calanar and to Earth. Because of this, I must enact temporary changes. I have come to make you an offer.”
“An…offer? What are you talking about?” Stone walked further into the room, but didn’t sit. Instead, he gazed out at the desert view. It was late afternoon, and the sun was beginning its long descent. He’d never liked the desert, preferring the greener landscapes prevalent in his home country, but he had to admit that from up here it had a certain austere beauty.
Harrison turned his back on the view. “As I have explained to you, the Nexus serves as an anchor point between Calanar and Earth. It is possible, but not currently implemented, that it can do the same for other dimensions.”
“I remember. Sort of an…extradimensional differential. That’s how you can shift bits of the Obsidian between here and Calanar, and travel back and forth without taking the time difference into account.”
Harrison inclined his head. “Yes. Unfortunately, it appears this anchor has resulted in some unexpected consequences.”
“Oh?” Stone moved closer, intrigued. “What sort of consequences?”
“I have long believed the mages in the cities to be powerful, but ultimately not a threat. That they lacked both the initiative and the intellect to do anything beyond maintaining their existing structures.”
“And…you don’t believe that anymore?”
“I do not—at least in the case of a certain subset of them. Apparently, they have discovered sufficient motivation to compel them to produce innovations of which I had not thought them capable.”
“Motivation?”
“Me, Dr. Stone. My activities, in addition to some information they have managed to obtain from prisoners, have led them to suspect not only our existenc
e, but some of our projects. Including travel to different dimensions.”
“Bloody hell…” Stone murmured. “So you’re saying that’s why they created that portal? They’re trying to come here?” Once again, he shuddered. He had no idea if the Talented mages would have the same problems on Earth that he’d initially had on Calanar, but if they managed to come here with anything close to their full powers intact, they could wreak a lot of havoc before the Earth mages could get their act together sufficiently to deal with them.
“That is my suspicion, yes. And I believe the Nexus has made it easier for them to make their attempts.”
“So…what does that mean? What’s this offer? What are you planning to do?”
Harrison’s expression was unreadable, but Stone nonetheless got the impression of stress. “I plan to take the Nexus offline, at least until we can root out the remains of those attempting to produce portals between our dimensions.”
“Take it offline?” Stone frowned. “What’s that mean, exactly?”
“In simplistic terms, it means I will disconnect the anchor that holds the two dimensions in synchronization with each other.”
“So…you’re saying it’s the anchor that’s making things easier for them? Because the dimensions don’t drift relative to each other?”
“Precisely. As long as fixed points remain between the two, their mages need not take those variables into account when designing their portals. The variables represent the most complex part of the equation. Without the constant of relative location, their efforts should be halted, or at least set back long enough for us to identify and deal with their leaders.”
Stone was having trouble getting his mind around the concept. This was next-level stuff, orders of magnitude more complex than constructing a simple Overworld portal. “Can you even do that?”
“I can. It is not a simple process, and not done lightly. But in this case, I believe it is necessary.”
Stone nodded slowly, then looked at him again. “Okay. I think I see where you’re going. In general terms, anyway. But why tell me? I’m pretty good with portals, but this is completely out of my league. You aren’t asking me to help you with it, are you?”
