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

Destiny’ or ‘The Almighty Staff of the Gods.’ No. It was a simple wooden staff, something that mages liked to use to channel magic and it had a large blue crystal on the top. Hence ‘Crystal Mage Staff.’ Simple. Unassuming. Unpretentious. Although, it did radiate a kind of higher planar energy that Cat did not understand, buried beneath layers upon layers of security and protection.

Her Angel had warned her not to tamper with that energy, “Except,” they said, “in the event of some dire emergency of worldwide, cataclysmic proportions. And even then, think twice.”

Catriona kept that part to herself. No sense in drawing attention to it if it were that important. There were always those who were covetous of power and might seek to take the staff from her. She could never allow that. She herself was hardly likely to be involved in any ‘dire emergency of worldwide, cataclysmic proportions.’ Besides, she wasn’t interested in power as such. She was much more interested in acquiring knowledge. Specifically, knowledge relating to the Crystal Mage Staff, because that was her only link to her Angel.

On a more practical level, her Angel had inspired her to look at druid magic in a new way. Of the three principal flavours of magic, druid abilities were something of a poor cousin next to wizardry and clerical magic.

Not knowing how magic works on your world, gentle reader, or indeed whether any such equivalent exists where you are, I should break off for a moment to explain how it works on Tempestria. To put that in its proper context, however, I first need to discuss dimensional cosmology.

*****

Although I’ve been alive for a thousand years or so, I look like a human girl of about twenty, and perhaps it’s vain of me, but I like to try and stay in touch with people who really are that young. One of the best ways to do that, I have found, is to go back to college and be a student again for a while. After all, a lot has changed in the last millennium, so there’s always more to learn.

So, to help me explain things to you now, I’m going to borrow from one of my many college dissertations:

THE GREAT COSMIC SANDWICH

Barring some grand, cosmic catastrophe, all mortal worlds exist in the middle of The Great Cosmic Sandwich.

The layer above is the cheese, aka the realm of the gods. There are a wide variety of gods to choose from, different gods suit different people according to their tastes, and quite frankly, some of them stink. The layer immediately below is the first of the demonic planes – I like to think of them as the tomato layer with all that red simulating blood. No-one knows precisely how many layers there are below that, although I’m convinced one of them must be pickles. Apologies to anyone who likes them – it’s all a matter of taste of course, but to me, they are vile and disgusting things and surely sent from hell itself. Besides, some people like to ‘pickle’ specimens in jars for all manner of strange experiments. This fits symbolically with what those Greater Demons tend to do with the unfortunate mortals they snatch when they make their way up through the planes of reality to the mortal realm.

Above the gods, there are other creatures, mostly beyond mortal comprehension. To me, these are the sauces: adding to the overall flavour of the cosmos without contributing anything of nutritional value and – if your sandwich shops are anything like ours, gentle reader – not always what you expected to get when you ordered. Similarly, with rare exceptions, these higher planar beings contribute little of substance to the cosmos, from a mortal’s point of view, but neither do they do any harm. Then you have the shadow realm where my father and his people come from – more on them later. For now, suffice to say they are the lettuce in the sandwich. They’re good for us, and they know it. In fact, they’re so good for us, they’re going to help us whether we like it or not. The trouble is, since they are so good for us, they’re convinced they’re better than mortals. Frankly, I’m rather more interested in the meaty bit in the middle – that’s mortals along with the Guardians and, if I may be so bold, myself – although if I’m honest, a good, well-balanced sandwich is probably best for all of us.

Of course, all the fillings of the Great Cosmic Sandwich need something to contain them. At the bottom, the deepest part of the demonic planes is home to the Keeper of the Underworld, often seen as some kind of Source of Evil, topped by a spread of fallen Angels. But I can’t help thinking that I, too, would probably be a bit grumpy, if I were always being squished by the weight of the universe pressing down on me like I was a flattened slice of bread. At the other end, at the pinnacle of the sandwich, the crowning glory, as it were, the Creator stands on the shoulders of their own spread of Angels, who think they’re the best thing next to sliced bread. As for the Creator themselves, I see them as a large bun: risen too high, over-inflated with their own self-importance and probably slightly burnt on top.

I should probably point out, gentle reader, that my college dissertation was, in point of fact, marked down for my ‘flippant treatment of the subject matter.’ But this is my story, my world that’s in danger and as my mother’s Angel put it, this is indeed a ‘dire emergency of worldwide cataclysmic proportions,’ so I’ll be as flippant as I like.

Oh, and in case you think my mother’s staff is somehow the key to my saving the world, gentle reader, you’re absolutely right. It doesn’t have any power anymore, the last of it faded centuries ago, but it is the perfect device for