Gathering Storm (The Salvation of Tempestria Book 2) by Gary Stringer (howl and other poems .txt) 📕

believed otherwise. That was why he had proposed the merging, thinking the Wish barrier would protect him. It wouldn’t. Daelen was convinced of that.

That was OK. Daelen’s one regret was that he had no idea what had happened to his home plane of reality since he’d been cut off. Had the enemy continued her attacks? Had his people discovered a way to stop her? Or had she finally won and destroyed them all? He supposed he would never know.

There in the library, Daelen unlocked a small, wooden box and surreptitiously hid a letter inside, before locking it again. The lock was on a timer, set to open on the day equivalent to when he was due to rendezvous with Michael and his team at that ancient temple in Northern Alloria. On that day, Sara and Jessica would receive an urgent message, telling them to come to the library immediately, open the box and read the letter. The letter that would change their lives. The letter that would give them three days, Earth time – less than one day on Tempestria – to choose a world and leave this house forever before it could be destroyed.

According to the schedule, in terms of Tempestrian time, that would be the night before they launched their attack on Kullos and his forces. The beginning of the end. He had planned it that way so he would be able to take a few hours, just before the dawn, to take a walk by himself while the others were sleeping. To think, to wonder about the Chetsuans’ choice, and just to enjoy the simple pleasure of one last walk in the woods on Tempestria in this facsimile of a human body.

No battles. No fighting. No interruptions.

*****

If you are thinking back to the beginning of my writing, gentle reader, knowing about my Illegal Time Intervention, sending Aunt Mandalee to interrupt his walk and bring him to our time to help us fight our battles, you will appreciate the irony.

*****

“Ah, there you are,” Catriona remarked as if she had been waiting for hours. “Please take a seat, and I’ll try to explain some things.”

“Is this to do with your staff?” Mandalee guessed as she and Daelen sat down. Seeing Daelen’s ‘how did you know that’ expression, she told him, “She gets a certain look in her eyes when it’s to do with her staff.”

“Yes, well, that look is part of what I want to explain,” Cat replied, with a slightly embarrassed expression. “The straight answer to your question, Mandalee, is ‘Yes and No.’”

“That’s a straight answer?” Sara piped up.

“It is for her,” Mandalee confirmed.

“Must have a different definition on your world, I guess,” Jessica shrugged.

“If you’ll be quiet for a moment,” the druidess huffed with mock irritation, “I was about to explain.”

“Well, pardon me for breathing, I’m sure,” Sara remarked indignantly.

“Bit touchy about this staff of hers, isn’t she?” Jessica offered.

“Ooh!” Mandalee cried, “I’ve just thought: have I told you guys about the day I met our Cat, stuck in my demon trap, and naked with nothing but a strategically placed staff?”

“No, and now you have to tell us,” Sara insisted.

Jessica nodded enthusiastically. “Leaving out no detail, no matter how small.”

“Well, it was pretty cold that day, so there was one detail that was quite small, wasn’t there, Cat?”

Cat flushed a bit more and agreed, “Just as well – made it easier to cover with my staff.”

The others were not following this at all; Mandalee promised to explain later.

In the meantime, Catriona continued with what she wanted to say.

“You’ve probably gathered that I’m linked with my staff, right?” Her friends nodded. “Well, more correctly, I am linked to the power within the staff. An important distinction because I’m beginning to understand that the staff itself is really quite irrelevant. It’s a tool, a vessel, nothing more. Anyway, whenever I learn something significant, something that brings me a step closer to understanding this power, I get a sympathic jolt. It’s, erm—” She tried to find a way to describe it other than the one she had in mind, but couldn’t, so blushing deeply, she confessed, “It’s, well, it’s kind of like sex, as a matter of fact.”

“They have devices like that in this world,” Jessica quipped. “I could get you one if you’d like.”

“Jessica!” Sara exclaimed, genuinely shocked.

“What?” her sister retorted, unperturbed. “It’s alright for you, sis; we don’t all have elf boys we can snog. Some of us have to make do.”

Seeing that Catriona wasn’t offended by her sister’s remarks, the slightly more reticent Sara was emboldened enough to join in. “Yeah, but you know what Catriona’s like. Think about it: synthetic materials you-know-where.” She winced. “Could be nasty.”

“Blimey, you’re right,” Jessica’s eyes widened. “Never thought of that. Sorry, Cat. Better stick with your staff.”

“Anyway, moving on from that,” a bright red Daelen encouraged an only slightly less flushed Catriona.

“Yes, well, this -er- stimulus, is important because most of what I learn is buried deep within magical texts. Most, but not all. Sometimes I find solutions in non-magic-related books.”

“Like you figured out your Mirror Image spell from reading about photography,” Mandalee offered by way of example.

“Exactly,” Cat agreed. “Also, remember this power has something to do with Time. Not the Time travel you know, Daelen, but something new…and yet at the same time, far older. Perhaps as old as the world – my world. Perhaps even older, I don’t know yet. So, sometimes it uses events it must know will happen. Maybe it even shapes those events, but whatever the details, it stimulates me in this way to bring about its, erm…” she hesitated before saying the next word, guessing Jessica and Sara’s reactions. “…release,” she finished.

The two Chetsuans screamed with laughter.

“I can’t—” Sara gasped, “—I can’t breathe!”

“Didn’t seem to need to come up for air when you were snogging that elf boy for hours,” Jessica quipped.

Mandalee, knowing her friend was trying to make a serious point, was making a supreme effort to control herself, but Cat