Mandalee explained that it had taken her a while to track down Catriona, using her network of animals. As soon as she realised her friend was heading for the port, she knew she had to act fast if she was going to catch up before Cat boarded a ship. Otherwise, she would have to rely on the intelligence of seagulls. Never a wise move. Unfortunately, there was no way to get a leopard to ride on the back of an albatross.
They both laughed at the idea and just for a moment, it felt as if the friends were slotting back into familiar patterns, but the awkward silence that followed belied that.
After a few minutes, Mandalee asked, “What can you tell me about Daelen?”
“Still want to kill him?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what I want. My assignment has become less and less clear. I don’t even know who my client is, yet I still have their voice in my head telling me I have to stop Daelen before he destroys the world. Shyleen reckons I need to pick up what I left behind when I walked away from you, you’ve teamed up with him, and it’s all so confusing! What I need…” She trailed off. A moment later, she started again, “What I need is some more pieces to the puzzle.”
Cat reached out to place her hands on Mandalee’s. “But that confusion is good,” she told her. “It means you’re thinking for yourself, not just accepting what your mysterious client tells you.” She sighed heavily. “Mandalee, maybe this time you’re not supposed to kill your mark. There are many ways to stop someone besides killing.”
“That thought has occurred to me,” Mandalee huffed sullenly, “but what else am I to do? Human relations aren’t exactly my area. I’m a bloody assassin for hell’s sake!”
Cat offered her a crooked smile, “Well Daelen’s not human, and no-one’s asking you to have relations with him – he’s mine, so hands off.”
“What?” Mandalee gasped.
Cat giggled. “No, not really.”
She assured her friend that it was just a cover. People knew her, now, so she was trying to generate a rumour that she was off on some wild, romantic quest together with a mysterious and powerful wizard lover. She also talked about Daelen’s perception filter, disguising who he really was. A combination of their sympathic link and the fact that she already knew Catriona was with Daelen, meant it didn’t work on Mandalee.
“Low profile. Got it.” Mandalee nodded. “Actually, I have heard rumours like that about you.”
“Excellent, it’s working already,” Catriona enthused before getting serious again. “An assassin is a hunter. A hunter doesn’t always hunt to kill. Sometimes, a hunter hunts for a person or animal that is lost, hurt or in danger, so she can help, not harm, and sometimes people join together to hunt a mark which neither could attempt alone.”
The assassin ordered another drink from a passing barmaid. She was going to need it.
“All of which brings me back to, ‘What can you tell me about Daelen’?”
*****
By the time Shyleen arrived, Catriona had managed to convince Mandalee to return to the docks with her, where Daelen and Pyrah were waiting in uneasy silence.
Cat asked her old friend to hang back for a moment, while she prepared the way with the shadow warrior, explaining that she hadn’t given details of the deeply personal things they had shared, but what she had told her had been enough to convince Mandalee that trying to kill him was not the answer. He was somewhat placated when she explained about the prophecy about him destroying the world.
“To be fair,” he accepted, “if my actions were going to destroy the world, I would want someone to stop me, by any means necessary. You don’t need to worry, though. Even I don’t have that kind of power. Perhaps if I were still whole, I might. Kullos might, too, if he has ‘outside help,’” he added, obliquely referring to the void-creature.
Cat introduced them properly, then, and while they were still tense and wary, at least their relationship stopped short of explosive.
They walked along the docks until they finally found Daelen’s ship, the StormChaser. She was a tall sailing ship with an ornately carved tiger figurehead, three-tone-stained oaken deck, and red and gold sails attached to the three masts. It was by far the most impressive ship in the harbour.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Daelen declared, beaming with pride.
Testing Daelen’s sympathic sensitivity, Cat projected the impression of boys and their toys. Then on sudden impulse, she added a rather rude comment, connecting a grown man’s need for oversized toys as compensation for a lack in other departments. She couldn’t be sure if he got the message since the link was one way, but she was almost certain she saw him blush slightly. She found that gave her a rather perverse sense of satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Mandalee’s lips twitched with suppressed laughter and tears formed in her eyes. “You can’t possibly be serious!” she blurted out.
Daelen looked hurt. “What’s the matter with you?”
Mandalee’s laughter was like a dam bursting. She just couldn’t hold back the tide any longer.
“Loving the low profile!” she laughed. “You sail in that, nobody’s going to suspect a thing!”
Cat, making a supreme effort not to tease him any further, looked up at the shadow warrior who clearly still did not see the problem. She sighed and tried to be as diplomatic as possible.
“Oh, Daelen,” she sighed, “this is precisely what I’ve been trying to tell you. Your power leads you to make basic mistakes. Your problem is, you’re not used to thinking strategically. You’ve never needed to. You just go into a situation at full power and blast your enemy. Look, your ship is magnificent, and I would be proud to sail in her, but as Mandalee says, it’s not ‘low profile’ is it?”
“But StormChaser is the only ship that can get us to my secret island base, due to the perception filter.”
Cat shook her head. “Ah, you see, it’s not,” she disputed. “It’s the only crew that can get us to your secret island base.”
“Wait!” Mandalee exclaimed, turning to Daelen with a stunned expression. “You have a secret base on an island?”
“Nope,” he replied, with a grin. “I have a secret island with a base on it.”
The assassin rolled her eyes. “Figures.”
Ignoring the exchange, Cat fished out her notebook and pen, opened it to a blank page and with a look of concentration on her face, sketched a diagram, occasionally crossing out a line and drawing a new one.
At last, she declared, “It’s fine, it’s no problem. I can work with this, use it to our advantage. Here’s the plan.”
She walked them through her idea, using her diagram as an aid. When she finished, she asked, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s the least ridiculous radical plan I’ve ever heard from you,” Mandalee answered. “I’m disappointed.”
Cat raised an eyebrow. “Mandalee, I’m crossing the ocean to a continent I’ve never seen before and travelling to a desert I know nothing about, to go up against the most powerful and dangerous being in the world that I’ve no clue how to stop and his growing army that I have no way to fight.”
Mandalee considered that for a moment before replying, “Well, that’s a relief.”
Daelen was incredulous. “How is that a relief?”
“Her ridiculous radical plans have a way of always working out in the end,” she explained, “but if she starts trying to use serious ones, that’s when I worry.”
“I’m always serious about what I do,” Cat disputed. “Just not necessarily the way I do it.”
*****
My mother’s plan, gentle reader, went like this: Daelen had considerable resources to his name, with an entire ship and crew at his beck and call. He could easily afford to charter a second one. A small, nondescript one. One that wouldn’t be noticed. He gave Mandalee the money to do the transaction entirely in her name. That way there was nothing to connect it to him.
Meanwhile, Daelen and Cat found a dark, secluded alleyway in which to change. Daelen dropped his disguise and Cat became a rat. She’d never shapeshifted into something that small before, and it hurt like hell, but as ever, she did not let that stop her. As for Pyrah, she’d just have to put up with being in a pocket dimension for a short while. Daelen picked up the rat and put her safely in his pocket. Then he put on a show, appearing over the docks with his usual accompanying storm, making sure there were plenty of witnesses.
He flew down from the sky to land on the StormChaser, where he was greeted by the captain, whom he immediately ordered below decks for a private word. He retrieved the rat from his pocket, and she swiftly changed back to her natural form. If the captain was surprised, he didn’t show it. Daelen told him that Catriona’s presence must remain a secret and he needed to split his team, running StormChaser with a skeleton crew.
When Catriona quipped that she’d heard there was a ship out there, somewhere, run by a crew of actual skeletons, the captain simply agreed that he’d seen it. She was never sure whether he was joking or not.
The rest of his crew would handle the other vessel: the Dolphin. This part of the ocean was often home to a pod of the creatures. The assassin had chosen it both because it fitted the bill of having virtually no distinguishing features, and because it was a simple name to transmit sympathically.
The crew transferred in ones and twos, taking different routes, so as not to appear suspicious. Everything was designed to minimise any chance of a connection between the two ships. Once ready, the StormChaser set sail for Daelen’s secret island, which he called StormClaw. A few minutes later, after two or three other ships had departed, the Dolphin got underway on a very different heading, as if they were going to Esca, which they were…just not right away.
Far away from the harbour, the Dolphin slowly, gradually changed its heading. It wasn’t a direct course for StormClaw, but rather it looked like it was merely a pleasure cruise that happened to be going in that general direction. Happened all the time. In fact, Mandalee and the crew even waved to the people on another ship, passing the other way, on a genuine pleasure cruise. Still absolutely nothing to connect the Dolphin and StormChaser in any way.
If all went to plan, the StormChaser would make landfall at StormClaw, and pick up supplies, while Daelen used his self-copy ability to make it look like he was still aboard the ship. In reality, he would sneak ashore. Catriona wouldn’t be in his pocket when he did that – he wasn’t sure if it would be safe. It wasn’t a problem. Who would notice a single rat deserting a not-at-all-sinking ship? Maintaining his copy at extreme long range would be taxing, Daelen admitted. He could do it but, he warned, he might be a little distracted. He would maintain it until StormChaser reached the shore.
After a while, the ship would set sail once more, heading for Northern Alloria, apparently with Daelen still on board. Hopefully, any prying eyes would watch the StormChaser and pay no attention to the Dolphin as it casually, obliquely drifted close to StormClaw. Daelen was strong enough to swim to the Dolphin, while Cat would take the aerial route as a seagull – one of many such birds that would be flying around.
The Dolphin would quietly pick up its passengers – Catriona Redfletching and her ‘wizard lover’ – and set sail for Esca and Calin’s Tower. After their visit there, they would return to StormClaw: A bird in the air, a swimming ‘wizard’ and a Cleric of Nature hitching a ride with an actual dolphin.
They would stay there for a while, as Daelen planned, and then head on to their rendezvous across the ocean, slipping in quietly on a simple pleasure boat that nobody would even notice, let alone remember.
That was the plan.
Still, you know what they say about the plans of mice and men, don’t you, gentle reader? Technically, this was a plan of rat and woman, but the point still stands. What really happened was this…
*****
Cat couldn’t find her sea legs, but she didn’t have to worry about seasickness – her druid magic could suppress that without too much effort. That was fortunate because, in case of prying eyes, she and Pyrah would have to stay below decks for the duration of the voyage. Just over a week in one small cabin adjoining Daelen’s. Still, the ship and the waves seemed to be conspiring to send her hurtling into Daelen’s arms at embarrassingly regular intervals.
After the middle of the first day, she barely moved around at all unless she was practising her new leopard form. When she first did it, Daelen surprised her with a shape-changing ability of his own that she hadn’t known about. The only animal he could do was a tiger, which she supposed explained why he was called Daelen StormTiger. Truthfully, it wasn’t a particularly good tiger, but Cat saw no reason to risk hurting his feelings by saying so. Besides, her leopard form was hardly up to standard at the moment, and she wouldn’t dare use it in front of Shyleen for fear of offending her.
The rest of the time she spent studying. She still had reference books in her pocket dimension, but she confined the study of her staff to the theoretical. She didn’t want to risk Daelen getting his hands on it again.
Her upcoming visit to Calin’s Tower was on her mind, too. It was somewhere she’d wanted to go since she was very young, but she’d never had the resources to travel beyond the shores of the continent of Elvaria before. Now she had the chance, she knew she couldn’t stay long. To maximise this opportunity, Catriona wanted to make sure she was clear about what she was looking for, and what she was willing to give. Calin was Faery and offered knowledge according to the traditions of her people – something precious given freely. Cat didn’t often get the chance to interact with people from her father’s side of her nature. (Apart from the obvious, and she was hardly a traditional Faery.) She did value her Faery heritage, though, and was eager to show that when she met Calin. Therefore, she felt compelled to freely give knowledge that was precious to her.
Trouble was, there were so many things she could not share. Nothing she had learned about Daelen and nothing relating to her staff, that was for sure. The principles of her druid magic, however, she was more than happy to share, in the hope that other druids might come to push the boundaries of the art as she had. Then maybe they would start to gain more equal status with the Council. Eventually, perhaps there could be schools of druid magic, just as there were for wizards and clerics.
*****
One morning, Cat woke with a start and sat up in bed, due to a sudden flurry of noise and activity in her room. That night was to be their last aboard ship and, since there was absolutely nothing to do, they ended up talking for hours about this and that into the small hours of the morning. At some point, she supposed she must have fallen asleep. From Pyrah, she learned that Daelen had put her into bed and pulled a cover over her. Then he sat down in a bedside chair, saying he’d go to his own cabin in a minute or two, except he’d fallen asleep in the chair.
That had been the situation until the captain came banging on the cabin door, saying he needed help, urgently.
Daelen had woken instantly and told the captain to come in.
“Yes, Captain, what is it?” he asked. Stretching as he got up from the chair, he spared a smile and a wink for his friend who was still trying to piece events together in her just-woken-up state of mind.
“Sir, it seems that we’ve sailed into a bad squall and there’s worse heading this way. We might need you to use your powers to control this one. Some of the crew are even worried that your dark clone might be behind it. Shortly before the clouds started to form out there, a dark streak flashed across the sky and…”
Before he could finish, Daelen was gone, leaving Cat alone with the captain, who was suddenly embarrassed at being in a lady’s bedchamber.
Catriona flashed the captain a sweet smile, to try and reassure him that she understood he never would have barged into her room like that, except in an emergency.
Attempting to lighten the mood, she wondered, “Do you suppose it’s a Law of Balance, that as one’s power increases, one’s good manners must decrease as a result? A simple ‘excuse me, Catriona’ – that’s not too much to ask, is it? Maybe even a ‘thank you, Captain.’ I mean, how long does that take?”
The captain returned the smile but chose not to comment.
Trying another tack, she commented, “Maybe one of these days, he might actually remember that he’s not the only one who can control the weather. My druid magic is less draining than what he does because it’s more subtle and uses nature rather than coming from within. If he’d just stopped to ask, I could have told him, ‘Don’t fret, Daelen. I can sense that the storm is perfectly natural. No need to panic, just leave it to me.’”
As she was speaking, the storm ended and Cat rolled her eyes.
“He didn’t need to put the storm out,” she sighed, shaking her head, “just move it. We could have caught the trailing winds in our sails and used the storm to our advantage. Tell me, is he always so impulsive? Is it always act first, think later with him?” Once again, the captain kept his own counsel.
Seeing she was going to get no conversation, Cat asked the captain to please excuse her, as she was going to take a shower. The captain bowed and immediately left her cabin.
Moments later Daelen landed on the deck of the ship breathing just a little harder than before, and even as she showered, Cat could sense that true to her prediction, Daelen had wasted a significant amount of power to stop the storm, unnecessarily.
“Oh well,” she muttered to herself as she enjoyed the feeling of the water on her body, “I suppose I’ve got a few weeks to try and train the shadow warrior to pay attention to me and think before he acts.”
She heard Daelen say, “Well, Captain, you should have smooth sailing from here on out, but if not, you’ll have to handle it yourselves. I need to gather my strength for what is to come. Once I’ve checked on Catriona, I intend to go back to sleep to try and recharge as much as possible. Do not wake me except in an absolute emergency.”
“As you say, sir,” the captain acknowledged.
Daelen walked into Catriona’s cabin just as she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Seeing her standing there, naked, dripping with water, he seemed to freeze, staring right at her.
“Ahem!” Cat coughed. “In case you’re unfamiliar with our mortal customs, this is the part where you turn around, apologise for accidentally walking in on me like this and immediately go back to your own cabin.”
He did not move.
“OK, let me put it more simply: Get out!” she demanded.
Still, he did not move.
Her anger rising, she yelled, “Daelen, if you don’t get out right now, I’ll…”
She trailed off as she received something from Pyrah via her sympathic sense: ‘Pain’ and ‘Apologies.’ Then, just as she was trying to piece things together, Daelen began to keel over, and Cat had to rush to catch him before he hit the deck.
A pair of puncture marks on his left leg caught her eye and all at once, Cat realised what had happened.
When she got up, she had simply thrown the bedsheets on the floor, not realising Pyrah was entangled inside. Daelen, still not fully recovered from the incident with her staff and drained from stopping the storm, had entered her cabin just to check on her, not realising she’d got up. He had stepped on what he thought was just a pile of bedsheets and accidentally trodden on Pyrah, who simply lashed out on reflex.
If Catriona didn’t act fast, Daelen StormTiger was going to die.