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

“Remind me never to doubt you again,” the White cleric replied.

“Oh, doubt me all you want,” her friend countered, “I do! I just see it as a challenge to do it anyway.”

“In that case,” Mandalee replied, “remind me to challenge you as often as possible because this is amazing! I… AM… FLYING! Woohoo!”

*****

Technically, gentle reader, Mandalee was not really flying. She was actually sitting on the back of a giant albatross, and it was flying, but that’s just semantics. As for my mother, ‘sitting on a cloud’ isn’t just a metaphor, though it would be an accurate one. She had been working on her druid magic and realised that if she could change the density enough, it would be possible to walk on air. (Again, not a metaphor.) Cat thought it was a better approach than trying to levitate. Floating around would be so undignified. Of course, she could just change into a red-banded falcon, or a tawny owl, which was another thing she’d recently added to her repertoire, but then she couldn’t talk. Sympathic communication had its limitations. The other advantage of being in midair in her natural half-Faery form was that she could bring Pyrah along, whenever she was visiting her half-Faery friend.

To say Pyrah ‘wasn’t keen’ on being stuck in a pocket dimension at Catriona’s slightest whim, would be a gross understatement. Not that she was that much happier being in midair. Honestly, Cat wouldn’t have believed it possible for anyone to complain so colourfully by sympathic means, but somehow Pyrah managed to get her point across…repeatedly.

My mother’s Conclave was a good eighteen months behind her now, and with no more college, after their success in tracking down the real Trickster in Compton, she had decided to join Mandalee full time, demon hunting. Jacob had been sad to see her go, but he had always known he could never tie her down. He wasn’t sure anybody ever would. (‘Tie her down’ is mostly a metaphor, although there had been a few occasions…)

*****

Demon hunting proved to be the perfect practical outlet for both young women to push the boundaries of their abilities, and sometimes my mother would come up with one of her ridiculous radical ideas. On this day, she reasoned that Mandalee’s special relationship with nature should surely extend beyond animals to birds. And if Mandalee could just befriend one that was large enough then, in effect, she would be able to fly.

Cat learned to adapt her access to her pocket dimension so that it would not be affected by Mandalee’s clerical magic, thereby avoiding any more clothing mishaps. She had also learned from her experience of being twice stuck in her friend’s traps, cut off from nature and therefore the source of her magic. She was determined never to let that happen again, especially when the solution was so simple: carry nature with her at all times. Since druid magic couldn’t create something directly from magic alone, she needed ingredients that she could manipulate. An extra bottle of water gave her access to any water or ice-based spells. A few herbs gave her control of plants, even when there were none around. She had also learned to carry a vial of sand from which to create what she called ‘Nature’s Mirror,’ for cosmetic purposes. To her, carrying a selection of small pebbles, weighing nothing at all, meant she had with her the potential for a boulder, a wall, an entire stone shelter, if necessary.

Perhaps the most important lesson she had learned was that, unlike wizard and clerical magic, for druids, size was unimportant for the most part. The scale of what she wanted to create made no difference. Just like in nature: the movement of a single pebble could start a landslide; a slight shift of snow could cause an avalanche; a single spark could lead to a forest fire.

An ice cube in her drink or a towering wall of ice; a potted plant or a towering tree – it was all the same to her. If Cat could provide the seeds, nature could deliver the garden. For the moment, she was wary of doing too much with fire-based spells, for fear of what she might unleash if her ambition outstripped her control. She also didn’t bother with any kind of animal control – that was more Mandalee’s field, although it wasn’t really control, but rather co-operation. Catriona’s interest in animals was mostly confined to shapeshifting into them. Wolf-form was her latest success, excellent for long-range land-based scouting and, if necessary, self-defence. She’d even dabbled with a mole form for burrowing underground. Mandalee couldn’t for the life of her imagine why her friend would want to do that.

In between demon hunts, the two young women pushed each other’s magical abilities. Mandalee would adapt her demon traps to try and counter Cat’s ability to escape, forcing Cat to think up a new way to get out. This helped the cleric adapt her magic again and that in turn, challenged Cat’s magical imagination once more. In addition to her magic, Cat pulled her archery skills out of mothballs. Mandalee was highly proficient both in hand-to-hand combat and with long-range weapons. In many ways, her fighting style reminded Cat of her mother, except that as much as her friend seemed to dance on the edge, she never crossed the line into a real battle frenzy. She always kept her head, even when she got very drunk. Long-range, it was a close call who was better, and as with their magic, the competition served to raise both their standards.

Council of Wizards rules allowed a mage to train with a single bladed weapon for defence purposes. Just in case they were ever in a situation where their magic wouldn’t work, such as in an anti-magic field. Cat had chosen the bow and arrow, which she still routinely carried in her pocket dimension.

Two things had started to bother my mother about the