Shifting Stars by Gary Stringer (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

All part of my ridiculous radical plan to get this.” She held up Shifting Stars.

Mandalee screamed with laughter. “You spent two days running around as a Trickster just to get your hands on a book?” She was incredulous.

“Oh, you have no idea what I’ve been through to get this,” Cat replied, ruefully.

Wiping tears from her eyes, the demon hunter stood up and held out a hand to her friend, “I think this story is going to need a drink.”

Cat took the hand and pulled herself up. “I thought you said you only drink when you’re on duty?”

“I am on duty,” she replied, linking arms with Cat and sending a telepathic invitation for Shyleen to join them. “I just caught the Trickster!”

The two friends laughed as they walked together, heading for the FaerWay Tavern.

Chapter 10

Serendipity. A beautiful word for a beautiful concept. Through this happy accident, gentle reader, a friendship was born: a friendship for the ages. From this moment, though the paths of their lives might send them apart, they would always find their way back to each other. Only one thing could part them forever, and I know Aunt Mandalee still misses my mother terribly. Having said that, my mother wasn’t entirely convinced their meeting was just an accident. She had the strangest feeling it was more than that.

“There is still one mystery,” Cat told her friend after she shared her story. They were enjoying a drink outside the FaerWay Tavern – for some reason, they didn't allow leopards inside. At least, she hoped it was Shyleen they were objecting to and no-one else.

“What's that?” Mandalee wondered.

“My staff.”

“Your staff?”

“Yes, I have no idea why it reacted the way it did when we touched it together before.”

“Has another cleric ever held it before?” Mandalee asked.

“Not while I’ve owned it, no, but it’s deeper than that. Mandalee, I don’t normally let anyone else touch it!” She trusted Jacob, but she’d never let him get his hands on it. “In fact, come to think of it,” she mused, “I’m not even sure why I let you. It just felt…right, somehow.”

“Are you saying we were destined to meet, or something?”

Cat shook her head, emphatically. “Not exactly. I’m not really one for destiny as such, but I do have the strangest feeling…”

“What kind of feeling?” Mandalee prompted.

Catriona took a few breaths to consider before responding, “Like somebody wanted us to meet. They didn’t make it happen – more like they encouraged it to happen. Like when you introduce two friends to each other, and you hope they’ll get along and you’re pleased when they do.”

“Well, you’re a druid, and I’m a Cleric of Nature, so maybe it was Blessed Alycia herself who encouraged it,” Mandalee suggested.

“Maybe,” Cat allowed. “Anyway,” she continued, dismissing it for the moment, “what would life be without a few mysteries?”

“Quiet?”

“You say ‘quiet,’ but all I hear is ‘dull,’” Cat replied, finishing her drink.

Mandalee smiled and downed the remains of hers.

“Why do I get the feeling my life is going to be neither of those things ever again now I’ve met you?”

Cat spread her hands. “I really can’t imagine!”

By this time, Catriona was getting slightly worried about Jacob. She would have expected him to have turned up by now. She sent out a sympathic message to him, conveying a sense of ‘searching’ and ‘concern.’

While she waited for a response, she explained to Mandalee that since Jacob had no magic, she had to initiate contact and it took mental effort to sustain it even for a short period. In theory, with another magic user, she believed she could set up a permanent, effortless, two-way sympathic link.

Jacob responded with the concept of ‘getting closer’ and ‘location query.’

“He’s on his way and wants to know exactly where I am,” she translated for Mandalee, then she sent a sympathic message, telling Jacob she was drinking at the rear of the tavern, rather than simply meeting outside as they had planned.

Jacob returned an image that conveyed suitable disgust at her projected image of the culturally offensive sign in front of her: a road or path over which hovered a nonsensical tiny ‘Faery,’ complete with wings.

Why was it so difficult for some humans to realise that Faery did not have wings; that was Piskeys, their smaller cousins. Except there weren’t any anymore.

*****

Long ago, gentle reader, Faery shared their forest homes with Piskeys. Then, gradually, infertility increased, and their numbers began to decline. Nobody knows why. By my mother’s time, the last of the winged Piskeys had died around eight hundred years ago, and the species became extinct.

But their legacy did not entirely disappear from Tempestria, because before their fertility problems began, interbreeding with Faery was common, and so modern Faery retained within their bodies, a small sliver of what the Piskeys once were. Their smaller, lighter builds were the primary example, but every now and then, a baby was born with tiny, vestigial wings on their back. The Piskey legacy was stronger in them, which also meant they could not have children.

Sadly, some humans were wilfully ignorant about other cultures, and depicting Faery like Piskeys with wings was an example of this. The way my mother saw it, it was not only insulting to the Faery, but also to the memory of the Piskeys who were no longer around to protest.

*****

Jacob’s response told Cat he had correctly deduced that, against her better judgement, she was an actual customer at the appallingly named FaerWay Tavern and told her he’d be there in five minutes.

After relaying that to Mandalee, she said, “I don’t want to be rude, but do you mind if we drop the conversation for a bit so I can read some of Shifting Stars? Having gone to so much trouble to get hold of this book, I’m itching to see if it was worth it.”

Mandalee said she didn’t mind at all and was curious herself. So, Cat opened the book that was apparently so ridiculed.

*****

The world is wrong, and the stars make no sense.