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

birds below him. The children blink out of existence, and the blast continues, uninterrupted. A long travel pod train gets caught in the blast, vanishing as the power strikes the ground, where it leaves a quarter-mile diameter crater. The concert is obliterated. Emergency services respond, but they, too, are caught in the attack. Mages and fighters of all descriptions try to stop the void-creature, but the cannon rips through shields and armour, like they’re not there. He must be stopped.

Mandalee and the other Guardians arrive, fighting with Temporal magic, using every bit of skill and power they possess, and at last, something slows the creature down, but even they can’t stop it. Temporal shields that could hold back an Angel, buckle under the assault.

Aunt Mandalee finally calls me in – she probably should have called earlier, but she feared for my safety. I can sense the Temporal component of his weapon and try to wrap him in a Time bubble. After experimenting with various harmonic variations, I manage to nullify the Temporal aspect of his blasts. They still cause mass destruction, but I’m hopeful that the Guardians can find ways to undo much of that through some clinical Time Interventions.

At last, the tide of battle turns, and the void-creature slips through a portal. The Guardians are exhausted, but I give chase. I can’t let him damage Time, but by that same token, I must be careful – pitched battles between us through Time would make the ancient feud of the shadow warriors look like playground fighting.

He eventually flees somewhere even I cannot go, which should be impossible, but I have come to realise that the rules don’t apply to him, because his power comes, in part, from outside the Great Cosmic Sandwich. Somehow, he is channelling the chaotic power of IT.

We’ve been waging a war for over a year since that first day, and we’re powerless to do anything more than slow the void-creature down.

If this Monster is not stopped, we’ll never need to worry about the void storms, and if he’s not stopped quickly, the void storms will make our war magnificently irrelevant.

But where did this Monster come from and where does my desperate and dangerous plan fit into this? Why have I sent Mandalee back in time to fetch my father from the past, and why from that particular moment? To give you those answers, I must continue to hold back Time and keep the Red and Black Guardians from interfering.

Speaking of which, they’re giving me some trouble at the moment, and I’m afraid they might just break free if I don’t do something to discourage them. So, if you’ll excuse me, gentle reader, I shall go and deal with them. Then on my return, I shall tell you the story of how Daelen StormTiger, my father, first met my mother, and everything was set in motion.

A sneak preview of the sequel to

Shifting Stars

Gathering

Storm

The Salvation of Tempestria

Book 2

Gary Stringer

Available Spring 2021

Chapter 1

The Council of Wizards was in crisis: wizards were going missing.

There was no obvious pattern relating to faction, power, ability or involvement in Council affairs, so there was no way of knowing who might be next.

Exactly when this started, gentle reader, it was difficult to say. Missing people were an unfortunate fact of life, in ways both ordinary and extraordinary, such as demon attack. These disappearances were different, however. It wasn’t always possible to determine precisely where they were when they disappeared, but where it was possible, investigations revealed an energy source of higher planar origins.

This was new: beings from the higher planes had never before shown any interest in taking mortals. They were often collateral damage, caught in the crossfire, but never deliberately attacked. If that had changed, and the shadow warriors were now kidnapping innocent Tempestrians for who-knew-what purposes, what could be done about it?

My mother, Catriona, already knew Aunt Dreya’s views on the matter. She had shared her intention to kill Daelen StormTiger not long after Cat had moved in, and current events, more than two years later, as the Tempestrian chronometer flies, compelled Catriona to share something that had been puzzling her about it.

“Why Daelen, specifically?” Catriona asked her. “Why not Kullos, or that other one…the dark clone. The one that looks a bit like Daelen but isn’t…has anybody heard that one’s name, by the way?”

“Not that I know of,” Dreya replied. “Anyway, what do you care which one I kill?”

“I don’t, especially,” Cat shrugged. “They’re all about as dangerous as each other, as far as I can tell. They’ve got no business fighting their war here, and I’d be quite happy to be rid of the lot of them. Which is precisely why I ask the question: Why Daelen, specifically? Why do you care which one you kill?”

Dreya frowned. She’d never really questioned it. Daelen was a self-proclaimed Protector and seen as a hero to many, trying to save them from Kullos, who was generally viewed as the villain. Recently, though, there had been growing, popular support for the reverse sentiment. Dreya the Dark agreed with Catriona that there was little basis for either view, but that only further highlighted her question. Surely it wasn’t a matter of killing Daelen because of his hero image or because he was famous. Those were not worthy motivations for Dreya the Dark. Yet, something was nagging in her brain, almost like a voice, her own voice, telling her he was the one she should go for. It was important.

‘Kill Daelen StormTiger,’ said the voice, ‘and take his power.’

The voice kept telling her to ignore the reasons why, but that wasn’t how Dreya operated. She didn’t do random violence. She didn’t attack without cause.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, finally, “and I don’t like that I don’t know. If I didn’t know better, I might suspect some kind of mental attack or a post-hypnotic suggestion, but my shields prevent any such thing.”

Her shields were intact. From the day Dreya claimed