It all began on another world.
Daelen StormTiger woke, suddenly, coming face to face with an unexpected visitor.
Actually, gentle reader, though I say, ‘face to face,’ he couldn’t actually see her face. Overall, she seemed to defy analysis, protected from even his powers of detection, save for a vague impression of a female figure with a white aura. This was Aunt Mandalee in her role as White Guardian of Time and Magic, conducting a completely legal and necessary Time Intervention to correct an anomaly. In terms of her personal Timestream, this was several months before she made herself complicit in my illegal plan to bring Daelen to me here.
“Oh, you’re up, at last, I see,” his visitor observed, then when Daelen got out of bed, failing to catch the bedsheets in time, she quickly turned away with a small scream, adding, “And now I’ve seen far more of you than I ever wanted to. Put some clothes on, for pity’s sake!”
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my home?” Daelen demanded, though he did comply with her clothing request.
“Can’t tell you that, not the first part, anyway,” Mandalee answered, apologetically. “You haven’t even met me yet. It would probably blow a hole in the cosmos the size of the Black Tower, which might not seem that big in comparison to the size of the cosmos, but it would be big enough to let some pretty important stuff fall out. Well, the Black Tower, for a start, I suppose. That would cause all kinds of anomalies. Look, are you dressed yet?”
“Yes,” Daelen assured her.
She turned around, although Daelen wasn’t sure how he could tell that, given that she seemed to shimmer in much the same way, whichever direction she was facing.
“Thank gods for that. Sorry, rambling there, trying to distract myself from what I just saw. Of course, that means I’ve seen both of you naked now, so my brain’s going to be coming up with all kinds of weird stuff. Dear gods, I need a drink!” At last, she paused for breath.
“Finished?” Daelen asked.
“Haven’t even started yet,” the figure replied. Taking a deep breath, Mandalee began again. “You’ve overslept, Daelen.”
“And since when were you my Timekeeper?”
“I’m not, although you’re pretty close with the title. Anyway, it’s not your fault – someone’s been messing with your head and interfering with events that really ought not to be tampered with any more than they already have been. Which means now someone’s got to tamper some more to get things back on track.”
“Are you going to start making sense anytime soon?” Daelen asked.
“I ask myself that question all the time, so probably not, which means you’re just going to have to pay more attention. Listen, you need to get yourself over to Tempestria right now. Events are moving there, and you’re out of the loop.”
Daelen shook his head. “I get an alert whenever there’s higher planar activity, and right now everything’s quiet,” he disputed.
“That’s because this time the activity is quiet. At least for now. I can show you telepathically better than I can tell you, if you’ll let me,” the visitor offered.
Although Daelen could sense his visitor had powers perhaps to rival his own, he was convinced she was no threat, so he agreed to give her limited access to his mind.
“Very well, shroud your powers. Absolute minimum level and follow me. We’re going on a little astral trip.”
The shadow warrior’s consciousness left his body and followed his visitor where she led. They swept across the face of Tempestria so fast, even his senses couldn’t make out more than a blur. Eventually, the image slowed and zoomed in. It appeared to be one of Tempestria’s deserts, but things are not always as they seem. There was a wall of energy there that was a commonplace sight on the higher plane he once called home. It had no place here. The wall was curved, forming a vast dome. Slipping through the barrier, Mandalee showed him the interior. There, arrayed before him, concealed within the dome, was an army of demons from the planes of hell. Mortal wizards, warriors and clerics were there alongside them. More recruits arrived as he watched, but what really drew his attention was a fortress in the middle of the camp. It fairly resonated with power – a power with which he was all too familiar.
“We must go carefully now, Daelen,” the visitor warned him. “We don’t want to alert him to our presence. That would be very…awkward.”
Daelen didn’t need to ask, “him who?” for the answer was obvious. She was right to be cautious, because there was always a chance, albeit slim – that he could detect them even when they were only a projection and not really there. He was a dark, shadowy figure, sitting on a throne on a dais, in the centre of a chamber, in the heart of the fortress, in the middle of the camp, like an enormous spider in a city-sized web. He was Kullos.
“How is this possible?” Daelen whispered. “Kullos has never done anything like this, before. Why would he suddenly start building an army?”
“Because he thinks you are.”
“What?” the shadow warrior demanded. “Why would he think that?”
“Because someone’s been messing with his head, too,” she explained. “Be very still and watch.”
Daelen took her advice and remained absolutely still. The shadow warrior thought he could sense something. He wasn’t sure what, but he didn’t dare unshroud his power, so he simply waited. He didn’t have to wait long before a new figure materialised, standing beside Kullos. Daelen had seen this being only once before, and then only briefly. This was the being Michael had described as a ‘void-creature.’ All he knew about it was that it had nearly killed Michael permanently and devastated an entire Quarthonian Faery community before some other unknown beings chased it away. Daelen could feel its power and malevolence, and it scared him. He, a mighty shadow warrior, was afraid of what this unknown creature was and what it might be able to do.
“Seen enough?” Mandalee asked. She sensed him nod.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled them back outside the fortress. They passed through the dome shield and then accelerated until they were back in their bodies where they had been standing all along.
“I’ve seen that void-creature before!” Daelen breathed. “It—”
To his astonishment, his visitor seemed to put her fingers in her ears and sing, “La la la! Can’t hear you! Please stop talking!”
He complied, and Mandalee relaxed. “Whew!” she breathed. “That was nearly an even bigger hole in the cosmos. Daelen, there’s a lot of Time manipulation going around at the moment. Most of it has already been accounted for, but this is new. I don’t know anything about this void-creature, as you call it, and learning about it from you could create all kinds of trouble.”
*****
She was right, gentle reader. Gaining information from someone in the past in this way is hazardous.
Imagine Scenario 1: Nobody else in her time knew about the void-creature, either. That could indicate that Daelen never told anyone.
Scenario 2: Daelen did tell someone, that information was available in Mandalee’s time, and it was just that Mandalee herself didn’t know. In that case, Mandalee could simply tap into the years of research on the subject that was just sitting there waiting for her to find. But if Daelen told Mandalee directly at that moment, he might then decide he shouldn’t share it with anyone from his own time, in the interests of preserving the Timeline. All of a sudden, we’ve switched back to Scenario 1. Now, when Mandalee returned to her present, the research that would have been done in Scenario 2 never happened. Such are the hazards of Time Intervention.
This is another reason the other Guardians are against my actions, but to me, the key point is that we should have known about this void-creature the instant it appeared in our time. The fact that we didn’t is, in my opinion, reason enough to seek that information from the past.
*****
“Dealing with that creature will have to wait,” Mandalee insisted. “I’m just here to fix the Time damage. That creature is a future problem, and you need to focus on Kullos. It’s too soon for anyone to be messing around with you. Except me. I have to mess around with you but having too many people messing around with you at the same time is bad. Dear gods, now that I’ve seen you naked, I just want to go back up my own Timeline and rephrase all of that.”
“I see, so you’re some kind of Time fixer,” Daelen suggested.
“Oh yeah,” Mandalee agreed, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “that’s a great title. I’ll propose the change as soon as I get back.”
“Well, whatever you call yourself, you travel in Time. I recognise the signs; I’ve done it myself.”
“Don’t I know it!”
While Mandalee continued to grumble about the trouble he caused through blundering about in Time, the shadow warrior wasted not a moment, scribbling a quick note which he left by his bedside. He prepared to open a Prismatic Sphere portal to Tempestria, but his exasperated visitor yelled at him to stop.
“Daelen! Just wait a minute, will you? Dear gods. And they call me reckless. You’re rushing to face down an army, and you don’t even know where it is!”
Daelen shot her a confused look. “I assumed you’d tell me when we got to Tempestria.”
“So many problems with that. One, I’m not coming with you – as I say, you haven’t even met me yet. Two, I’m not just going to tell you everything, because it’s too soon for you to know – I’ve told you only as much as you would have figured out yourself by now if you hadn’t been tampered with. And I really need to find a better way of saying that. Three, you don’t even know if what I showed you was the truth. I might be an enemy lying to you.”
“I don’t think you’re an enemy. You have a very trustworthy aura.”
“That’s all part of my cunning plan to gain your trust and then betray you, or at least it could be. As it is, I’m not here to help you as such, just get your Timeline back on track. Fortunately, this Time meddler is obviously new at this because he’s left me with a straightforward Intervention.”
“Oh, so you’re not a Time fixer, you’re a Time intervener. Time interventionist?”
“Seriously, Daelen, one more crack like that and I’m going to come over there and knock you into the middle of next week and to hell with your Timeline! Look, this is what you need to know: wizards are going missing.”
“Why should I c—”
“—Care about that?” Mandalee finished for him. “Isn’t that a lovely sentiment from our so-called Protector? I’ve shown you why. Kullos is building an army.”
“What’s an army of mere mortals and demons to me?” Daelen asked, dismissively.
The arrogance of the shadow warrior was really challenging Mandalee’s self-control, now. Her fighter’s instinct was pushing her to show him what even one ‘mere mortal’ could do to him. But she maintained her composure, refusing to let him goad her into a mistake.
“If you want to find Kullos, you have to find his army,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “To find his army, you need to find out where the wizards are going. To learn the answer to that, there’s someone you need to meet. Now, I’m guessing you’re not up with current Wizards’ Council politics.”
“Hardly!” Daelen scoffed.
“Tell me you at least know where the Council building is.”
Daelen nodded, so Mandalee continued.
“Then go there, find a wizard – any wizard – and ask directions to the home of Justaria. Tell them you’re investigating her disappearance. You might want to assure them that you didn’t do it, while you’re there, but that’s up to you.”
“Wait, you want me to just roll up to a wizard who might think I’m there to kidnap him, and ask directions?” Daelen was incredulous.
“That’s right,” Mandalee replied, acidly. “Daelen StormTiger is going to have to have a difficult conversation with a mere mortal for the first time in centuries. How will you ever cope? Well, you’ll just have to. Find Justaria’s place, Daelen, and find it quickly. Your adventure starts there.”
Without another word, Daelen’s visitor vanished.
The shadow warrior could only wonder at who she could have been, as he quickly stepped through a portal and headed for the Council of Wizards in Walminster, Elvaria’s capital city and seat of power.
Once there, he managed to get directions, and now he was here, where some mortal girl seemed to be trying to wind him up.