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

think I want to be making this choice?” Her voice cracked on the words. She wasn’t qualified to make this choice, she sure as hell wasn’t authorised, but the fact remained she was the one here making it. “If it were just a matter of our lives, I’d agree with you,” she told him. “I know if it were just me, I would give my life to protect that knowledge, to preserve it for future generations as our ancestors did a thousand years ago. I could make that choice and so could you, but what about everyone else? I can’t make that choice for them. I don’t have the right!”

She couldn’t know the future. All she could do was deal with the situation in front of her and do the right thing as best she could.

“I could stop you,” Jett told her in a quiet voice, filled with menace. A fireball flared and grew in his hand.

“Then do it now,” Cat replied, “because I’m out of time.”

Even in their weakened state, some of the undead in the lake were on the verge of breaking through her ice wall. It was time to pull the plug.

She worked her earthshaper magic, ripping the lakebed apart, delving deeper until she reached the roof of the tunnel. As she switched to stoneshaper, Jett’s expression darkened further. He drew his hand back, ready to unleash his magic at Catriona.

“Don’t make me do this!” he growled.

“Do as you will,” was Cat’s only reply.

She didn’t move. Didn’t try to stop him. She needed every bit of focus she could muster to execute her plan. If he chose to execute her in the process, well, maybe it was no more than she deserved.

At the crucial moment, however, Jett faltered and extinguished the flames.

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “As much as I hate you for this, Catriona, I can’t murder you and you’re right, I can’t let others die, either.”

The druidess broke through at last and the lake began to drain away. She widened the gap as much as she dared, and then switched her focus to her wall, replenishing it and contracting its dimensions to force the undead around the edge to plunge down the plughole, down into the depths.

Catriona was in tears as she worked, weeping for all that lost knowledge and the efforts of countless people, so long ago, who tried to preserve it. Effort that was now wasted, all because of the vindictive actions of one small-minded man that forced her, a simple half-Faery druid girl to do this to save lives.

*****

A while later, when it was safe once more, community leader Solana approached Catriona as she stood exhausted on the bank, panting and leaning heavily on her staff.

Actually, she considered, could it still be ‘the bank’ if there was no longer a lake?

“You saved our village!” Solana cried, gathering Catriona up in an embrace.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Jett grumbled.

“But what did you do to the lake?” she asked, stepping away.

“I drained it,” Cat answered, frowning in puzzlement at the question.

“Obviously,” Solana rolled her eyes, “but I mean, before that!”

“Oh, replicated Holy Water,” Cat replied.

Solana raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Neither did I until today,” Cat admitted. Then, catching Jett’s meaningful look, she excused herself, saying, “Look, we’d better go. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

She turned to leave, but Solana caught her arm to ask one last question. “What did you find down there?”

Cat opened her mouth, but Jett got in first, smoothly, to assure her, “Oh, just some ancient tunnels. Interesting, archaeologically speaking, but nothing worth facing Ulvarius’ legion of the undead for.”

Solana accepted that with a smile and a nod, and then shook both their hands before heading off to see what she could do to restore peace and order to her village.

When she was well out of earshot, Jett explained, “We can’t tell anyone what we really found. The temptation could be too great for some.”

Cat nodded. She understood that all too well. The lure of this place had been so strong for her. It was in her nature; she just had to know. She couldn’t help wondering how much trouble that attitude might get her into in the future. She didn’t dare tell him about the one thing that she had saved. The book of star charts that was now inside her pocket dimension.

“Much as I don’t like it,” Jett continued, “Solana’s right: you did save this village, perhaps the whole of Elvaria, and knowing you, you’ll probably go on to save the world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she insisted, blushing. “I’m just a simple half-Faery druid girl.” Frankly, she didn’t want that responsibility.

“If you say so,” Jett shrugged. She might not believe it, but he did.

Then, to Catriona’s surprise, the wizard briefly hugged her.

“I don’t hate you,” he assured her as he pulled away again. “At least, I won’t once the open wound has had time to scab over. But it would probably be best if we didn’t see each other again. Sorry, but your face would always remind me of what was lost today, reopen this wound and I don’t think I could bear that. Besides, otherwise, people might start to wonder if we really did find something here.”

“That’s OK,” Cat accepted. “You know what the rumours are like. You’ll just end up being the latest in a long line of wizard lovers I’ve apparently had and broken up with.”

Giving her a crooked smile that failed to reach his eyes, he suggested, “There is a way we could help those rumours along, if you’re willing.”

When he explained, Cat replied, “That’s almost as bad as one of my ridiculous radical ideas. Let’s do it, but just before that, if I’m not going to see you again, can I just say, thank you and, well, I suppose, have a good life.”

“You, too,” he replied. “No hard feelings. Ready?” he asked.

Cat nodded.

Jett kissed her, full and long, and then, when she was sure they