Out there, in open water, Aden appeared amid his signature dark lightning and accompanying unnatural storm. He flew down to hover above the Dolphin, and greeted Daelen with his customary, bright and cheerful, “Hello, you!”
“Hello, you,” Daelen returned, darkly.
“What’s this, brother?” Aden wondered. “You have two pets now? Hey, is this how they reproduce? Just split apart, and suddenly there’s two of them? It would explain why there’s so many of them infesting this world. You know, I tried to get a pet of my own, but she bit me. Ungrateful witch.”
“What do you want, ‘brother’?” Daelen asked in a wearied tone. “Actually, forget that question, here’s a better one: what happened to you?”
From his energy reading, his dark clone was as critically drained as he’d ever seen him.
“Send your pets away, Daelen,” Aden ordered him. “I want things back how they used to be – just you and me, as it should be.”
“Alright,” Daelen agreed and told his friends, “I’m going to send you on ahead while I deal with him safely.”
“But we can help!” Mandalee insisted. “Right, Cat?”
To her astonishment, Cat just shrugged. “I’m sure Daelen knows what he’s doing.”
As Daelen’s power teleported them away to StormClaw, Mandalee just stared at her, in utter disbelief.
*****
“Look,” Aden sighed, “I don’t have the energy to argue, and for once, I’m not here to fight. Just to talk. I want to…what’s that term these mortals use…parley?”
Daelen was suspicious. “We’ve been fighting for centuries, and suddenly you want to parley? You’ve never been interested in that before.”
“I’ve never had my aura kicked by a mortal before, either,” Aden pointed out. “If it makes you feel better, we can fly away from your ship, and talk out in the middle of the ocean, well away from your precious little mortal crew.”
Still wary, but intrigued, Daelen was torn for a moment. Ultimately curiosity won out.
“Very well,” Daelen acknowledged, “I accept your terms of parley. Let’s go.”
With that, the two shadow warriors flew away from the Dolphin, away from Esca, and closer to StormClaw. As soon as they were clear of the main shipping routes, they initiated their signature storm powers to deter any vessels from straying too close. Only when he was sure they were alone out there, with just the seagulls for company, was Daelen prepared to parley.
For the first time ever, thanks to Daelen’s new mortal friends, and Aden’s mistake of taking on Dreya the Dark, Daelen had a clear advantage. He could afford to be patient for once and listen to what his dark clone had to say.
It would turn out to be a momentous occasion. One might even say a meeting of minds.
*****
Meanwhile, in Daelen’s base on StormClaw, Catriona pulled a book out of her pocket dimension and sat down.
She looked up at an annoyed Mandalee and, with a sigh, asked, “What’s up now?”
“I used to think I understood you,” Mandalee replied, shaking her head in disbelief, “despite your ridiculous radical ideas, but this is unbelievable. After everything you’ve gone through to protect Daelen, even talking me into saving his life, you’re just going to leave him to fight Aden alone?”
The druidess gazed out of a window that looked out to sea in the direction of Esca. There was a storm on the horizon. A tempest of incredible power and magnitude. A storm that was utterly impossible without some kind of build-up.
“Yup,” she answered simply.
“Look at that storm, Cat! They must be going all out over there. Daelen could be hurt, badly, and you’re just sitting there like you don’t care, which I know for a fact isn’t true.”
Catriona’s feelings were bleeding out through their sympathic connection. She was only winding her friend up about them because she knew there was a truth to them.
“Yes, of course I’m worried about him,” Catriona replied, “and OK, I will admit I’ve felt a certain…attraction, but don’t you dare tell him I said that.”
“Ha!” Mandalee cried. “I knew it! I knew I was right about you two!”
“There is no ‘us two’!” Cat snapped. “Just because I love him, that doesn’t mean I want to do anything about it.”
She winced. She hadn’t intended for the L-word to slip out.
“Why wouldn’t you want to?”
Catriona thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Let’s just call it personal honour and leave it at that.”
The White Assassin knew better than to push Cat into revealing more than she was willing to, so she returned to worrying about Daelen.
Catriona glanced out at the darkening sky with disapproval, before settling down and using her light from the staff’s blue crystal to illuminate her reading.
“I don’t know how you can be so calm about this,” Mandalee grumbled, pacing restlessly. “I can tell he’s alive out there, yet at the same time, he’s not.”
To her magical senses, it seemed like his power was both fading and growing. Waxing and waning at the same time. Shyleen was equally baffled. The disruption to nature was playing havoc with her nerves, and she knew Catriona must feel it, too, in addition to her emotions regarding Daelen himself. Yet the druidess continued to ignore it in favour of studying her books.
“You know more of Daelen’s past and power than I do. If you know what’s going on, tell me. Please!” she implored her. “Something major is going down out there, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“So don’t do anything about it,” Cat suggested. “Please, Mandalee,” she continued, exasperated. “I don’t mean to sound heartless, but I’ve got a lot of studying to do, and you’re being very distracting.”
“What? You can’t study at a time like this!”
“Why not?” Cat wondered, absently.
“Have you lost your mind? Daelen could be in all sorts of trouble, his power’s all over the place and the storm’s coming closer.
“Well, as to the first two,” Cat replied, turning a page in her book, “there’s very little I can do about them right now. Daelen teleported us here; if he needs our help, I’m sure he’s perfectly capable of teleporting us back again. As for the storm, it’s nothing I can’t keep under control. It may be magically generated, but what he continually fails to understand, just like wizards, is that no matter the cause, the effect is a simple storm. A thing of nature. Therefore, it makes sense to use druid magic – the power of nature – to control it. If Daelen ever comes down from his lofty, arrogant perch, he might actually realise that himself and quit wasting his own power on things that I can deal with in a much less draining way. Right now, it seems to me that I can either spend the waiting time fretting and worrying, or I can stay calm and study these priceless texts. Please, Mandalee,” she implored her, a wearied expression on her face, “do us both a favour and learn to relax.”
Mandalee directed the full force of her ire and frustration at her friend.
“Well, excuse me! You’re the one who dragged me into this, and I seem to remember you telling me that you were Daelen’s shadow, and you weren’t supposed to be separated!”
“Huh?” Cat wondered. “Oh that – that was before I got my note at Calin’s Tower. It’s not so important now. I have what I need. And I didn’t drag you anywhere, your client did. I just made you question the terms of your contract. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together. For now, sit down or go for a walk, but either way, please relax.”
Mandalee made a show of controlling herself, but she was still tightly wound.
Catriona smiled affectionately and shook her head in mild exasperation.
“First you tried to kill him, then you saved him, then you started to like him, and now you’re worried that the dark clone that has singularly failed to kill Daelen for a thousand years when he was at full strength, is suddenly going to find a way to do it in his weakened state. You think I don’t make sense? You’re not exactly a rock of consistency yourself.”
The White Assassin had to admit when she put it that way, she had a point. There was just too much going on that Mandalee didn’t understand, and she didn’t like it.
She decided a walk was the preferable option, Shyleen at her side, leaving Catriona to her book. A book on photography, of all things. Mandalee had no idea why Cat would want to study that at a time like this, but then she’d never understood half of what her friend was interested in.
*****
When at last Daelen returned, appearing high above StormClaw Island, his power level was far beyond anything his mortal companions had felt before.
“Catriona!” he boomed, “I want to begin your training right now. Come on, do you really think that you can ‘deal with me,’ or are you all talk? Just look at the powers you have – none rival mine, and nor do yours, Mandalee. You two think you can beat me? Then come on, get your butts up here. Now!”
The building shook as if Daelen’s voice was an enormous thunderclap. Powerful gusts of wind seemed to come from every movement of Daelen’s hands and feet.
“Come on! At least give me a taste of what little powers you have. I mean, you say that you can deal with me, so come on and try it!” Daelen boomed.
Mandalee and Shyleen rushed to Catriona’s side. “What’s happened to him?” the assassin whispered.
Daelen heard her.
“Something amazing!” Daelen bellowed. “I’m more powerful than I have been for centuries, which means I don’t need my pets anymore.”
Calmly, without hurrying, sitting in a bubble of serenity, untroubled by Daelen’s storm, Cat put her book away in her pocket dimension.
Leaning on her staff to help her to her feet, she demanded, “What the hell is wrong with you, Daelen? This is not like you. Is your dark clone too powerful for you to keep in check, now that you’ve merged?”
“They’ve done what?” Mandalee gasped.
Cat did not reply.
“You look down on our powers, shadow warrior,” she continued, “but at least we can control ourselves. You can’t even do that. You’ve lost it Daelen; get a grip.”
“How do you know about our joining?” Daelen thundered.
“You just don’t learn, do you? Knowledge is my business. You think you can dismiss me with a wave of your hand, but you can’t. It’s time somebody taught you some respect for others. You come here, issue your orders and expect us to jump to comply. Well, forget it. I am on this mission for my own reasons, but now that I have the information from Calin’s Tower, maybe I don’t need you anymore. Now I know my destiny, I can choose to walk away. If you kill Kullos by yourself, that’s up to you, and if he kills you…well, right now, I’d say that’s no great loss.”
“Just as I thought – a weakling and a coward.”
“Oh no, it takes courage to choose not to fight and strength to walk away. It is cowardice for you to join with your dark clone just because you’re scared you won’t be able to defeat your enemy. It is weak to join with someone and allow them to dominate you. Ha! When I join sympathically with Pyrah, it’s on equal terms even though she’s powerful enough to kill a shadow warrior. I, a ‘mere mortal,’ have more willpower than you do. You’re pathetic.”
With that, Cat deliberately turned her back on Daelen and calmly walked away.
Livid, Daelen roared, “Don’t you dare turn your back on me!”
Cat just ignored him, and Daelen’s rage got the better of him. Without warning, he powered up his beam cannon and fired, killing Catriona on the spot.
“No!” Mandalee screamed, running to her friend’s side. “To think I was just beginning to like you!” she spat at Daelen, cradling Cat’s lifeless body in her arms. “You think you’re some kind of hero, but you’re just a filthy, stinking monster – I should have fulfilled my contract and killed you when I had the chance!”
Daelen didn’t respond; he was too stunned.
‘How could I do this to her?’ he wondered, floating down to the ground.
Had he spoken that aloud? He didn’t know; he didn’t care. In blackest despair, he did what few people had ever seen him do – he sat down and wept.
“She was so beautiful and smart and funny. She helped me at great risk to herself, and I killed her. She was right, I’m a weak coward, allowing my dark clone to achieve by joining what he couldn’t in combat. I let him dominate me and use me to destroy her.
“If you’re going to kill me, Mandalee, do it. I won’t try to stop you. But if you let me live, I swear I will keep my dark side under control long enough to kill Kullos. After that, I don’t care what happens to me. Either way, it’s your choice.”
Mandalee was torn as never before. She didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, she was saved from the choice when a wolf slunk out of the shadows. Both Daelen and Mandalee looked on in disbelief as it changed into Catriona Redfletching.
“So, does this mean we’ve got the real Daelen back, or what?” she asked, in the same tone she might use to ask the time of day.
“Cat!” both her friends exclaimed at once and wrapped her in a three-way hug.
“Be careful,” she laughed, “or you’ll kill me for real this time, by suffocation!”
“But how?” Daelen asked.
With a wave of her staff, the dead Catriona vanished.
“A simple Mirror Image spell,” she answered, as if that explained everything.
*****
My mother was three steps ahead, as usual, gentle reader. She had been working on the spell since she found out Daelen could copy himself. It seemed like a natural extension of her Nature’s Mirror. If she could reflect beams of light, then surely, she could reflect an image of herself in a similar way to taking a photograph. Couple that with her Windy Steps spell, making air solid enough to stand on, and she could make her copy seem solid and real, too. She already had experience of the workings of photography; she just needed a little more detail. A quick look at the book on the science of photography provided the final piece of the puzzle. When Mandalee had left the room, Cat had cast the spell, leaving her copy sitting right there while her real self took the form of a seagull and flew out to investigate what was going on with Daelen.
*****
“So, the Catriona I killed was just an illusion!” Daelen gasped, much relieved.
“That’s right, and now that I’ve successfully used such a simple trick against you, maybe it’s time you swallowed your ego a bit.”
Mandalee demanded some solo attention then, hugging her friend tight, saying, “I’m so happy you’re alright.” Then she stepped back and slapped Cat across the cheek. “And that’s for letting me think you were dead.”
To Daelen, she warned, “You have some serious making up to do before I will ever trust you again.”
“I swear nothing like that will ever happen again,” Daelen vowed.
Cat inclined her head in acknowledgement. “So, what exactly happened to you out there? I didn’t get much from my spying.”
Daelen promised to explain all about Aden’s request to parley, but he wanted to take them somewhere first. They followed him to his portal room, where he ushered them through the one he had told them led to Earth. There to retreat, recover and train. Also, to buy time, almost literally.
He reasoned that no matter what powers of detection Kullos might have, he surely couldn’t spy on them on another world.
“What about Shyleen?” Mandalee asked.
“Up to her,” Daelen replied, simply. “If she comes, she’ll have to stay in my grounds – can’t have a leopard running around in the city. Otherwise, she can stay here on StormClaw. There’s plenty of wild prey out there so she won’t starve. Remember, it’ll only be a few days for her.”
Shyleen chose to stay on StormClaw, and just admonished Mandalee to be mindful and take special care of her half-Faery friend during her ‘difficult time.’ The White Assassin tried to press her on what she meant by that, but the leopard kept her own counsel and would say no more.
*****
The portal room on the other side was inside a facility that was virtually identical to his base on StormClaw. As they stepped out into the corridor, Cat pointed out the photographs that were mounted all along one wall. Head and shoulder shots, each with a name underneath. A few appeared human, while others were species that she couldn’t identify. They were all from different worlds, Daelen explained. None from Tempestria. His bases didn’t run themselves, clean themselves, maintain themselves, stock themselves with food and supplies. So, he usually kept two or three people on as his personal staff. Presently, he had two young women in his employ: Sara and Jessica.
“They’re out at the moment,” he informed them. “I haven’t had chance to forewarn them like I normally do. I’ll text them – send them a message – and ask them to come in to help out with a few things tomorrow.”
“And they’re from one of those other worlds?” Mandalee wondered.
Daelen confirmed it. “Their stories are not mine to tell. Suffice to say they’re refugees of sorts. They’re happy to take care of my base here and elsewhere, in exchange for the chance to escape and see other worlds.”
Cat nodded; she could see how that would be appealing.
“Can they pass for human?” Mandalee wondered.
“Hardly!” Daelen laughed.
“Not that I’m worried about how they might look,” Mandalee assured him, quickly, lest there be any misunderstanding. “I’m just wondering how they fit in out there.”
“Or are the people of Earth used to seeing aliens?” Cat suggested.
Daelen smiled as if at a joke he knew his companions wouldn’t get. “Not normally, no,” he replied. He told them that, as a rule, whenever they went out into the wider world, Sara and Jessica wore a device called a perception filter. “But if I’m right about where they’ve gone today…” he opened a door into a bedroom and peered around the door for a moment. “Yep, I’m right. They’ve left them behind. Today, they don’t need to worry about it.”
“Why not?” Cat asked, unable to work it out.
“For the same reason you don’t need to worry about your clothes or your markings looking too conspicuous when we go out.”
His explanation did little to answer Cat and Mandalee’s confusion. All he would say was that they would see what he meant when they went out to a place he called a ‘shopping mall.’
“Sara and Jessica are at an event in an adjoining building:
“A sci-fi convention.”