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

reached the next town, they would have no way of knowing who the escapees might have told, so they would slaughter the whole town, just in case, and use their innate magic to turn many of those people into True Undead, like them. Thus, their numbers would swell as they spread like a plague to overrun more and more settlements.

And Catriona knew all those deaths would be her fault because she woke them up. Jett may have opened the door, but he never would have been there if not for her. She couldn’t let this happen. She had to stop it here and now.

Staying in her falcon form, then, she caused the water around the edge of the lake to rise up into a cylinder of ice that would hopefully keep the village safe for a few moments, while she did what she had to do. Underground, the undead would try to escape the passage they were in, and no doubt, given time and their numbers, they would tunnel their way out. She wasn’t going to give them that time.

Coming to a halt, high above the Lake of Tears, she shifted back, standing on one of her Windy Steps. The undead were hacking at her ice wall and cracks were beginning to form. Given the size of the lake, there could be hundreds of undead down there, maybe thousands, and no wall of ice or even rock could stand against that for long, so she needed to hurry.

She focussed her magical senses on the vial of Holy Water in her hand, probing, analysing.

“Now, Blessed Alycia,” she said aloud, “I really need your help to save all these people. I need you to take my analysis of the water in this vial, and when I pour it into the lake down there, I need you to make all that water like this. This has to work. It will work.”

Taking a deep breath, she kissed the vial once more and then broke it, tipping out the contents. As the Holy Water fell like raindrops, Jett levitated over to join her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Watch,” she said, determined that her magic would function as she envisioned it.

There was nothing visible about the change to the water, but all of a sudden, the undead began writhing in silent agony as the replicated Holy Water seeped into their bones, attacking the magic that animated them. As long as they were immersed, they would be weakened, but if they should escape, it wouldn’t take them long to dry out. It was imperative they should be contained until the `Blessing` magic could overcome the animation spell. Unfortunately, there was no way of telling how long that would take. Many years. Decades. Maybe centuries.

“That’s all very well for that lot,” Jett conceded, “but what about the ones underground? They’re still strong enough to break out and when they do, even if these are still contained, they’ll shatter your ice walls, and all this will be for nothing.”

“I know. This is the part where you hate me.”

“Why? What are you going to do? I still don’t get it!”

“Jett,” she said, “I think you’re forgetting where we are. What’s below us?” she prompted.

“The Lake of Tears,” he answered.

“And what’s below that?” she asked. “What’s directly below that?”

At last, the wizard caught on. “No!” he gasped.

Cat nodded, sadly. “I told you, you’d hate me.”

“You can’t!”

“I have to.”

The lake was directly above the ancient repository, like an enormous bath full of Holy Water. All she needed to do was let the plug out. Put a big enough hole in the bottom and all the undead would be flushed down to join their fellows. The repository was easily big enough. The water would flood every chamber and the adjoining tunnels, drowning the undead. When the lake was no more, she could fill in the hole, reseal the tunnels and the undead would be trapped.

“But all that water…all those books! They’ll be destroyed. Ruined! All that knowledge, lost.”

“I know,” Cat nodded.

As she’d said, she hated herself for thinking it, but there was no other way. Even if some scraps miraculously survived, there was no way to be sure how long it would take for every last undead creature to become inert, permanently at rest. If somebody tried to open it up, believing it had been long enough, and they were wrong, they would be killed and the undead would escape their watery prison. No. The repository would have to remain sealed and flooded, effectively forever.

“This would always have happened,” Cat said. Was she trying to convince Jett or herself? “Sooner or later, somebody would have uncovered that repository and the undead would have risen to stop them. Ulvarius made sure of that. Three hundred years ago, a petty, jealous man learned of that place, full of ancient knowledge, and he decided that if he couldn’t have it, nobody could. Not ever.”

“But he doesn’t have to win!” Jett insisted. “We could let the undead out, put together an army, fight them out here. Then the repository would be safe.”

“At the cost of how many lives?” Cat challenged him.

“But you’re not with the Light!” Jett protested. “You’re not a hero. You’re a Red robe, like me. You’re supposed to value knowledge above all else.”

“I know,” Cat insisted, making it clear she wasn’t going to change her mind.

“Those books must have been buried for a reason,” Jett pointed out. “Those ancient people wouldn’t have gone to all that effort unless it was important. You saw the notes inside some of those books. They were trying to tell us something. For all we know, the knowledge they contain could be vital to the future, vital to the world!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Cat shot back, venomously. She’d replayed Jett’s argument in her head a dozen times before he spoke the words. It was a perfectly valid point. He could easily be right. By saving the present, she could be condemning the future. How could she know?

“You