Catriona made it clear that even if Dreya had really betrayed them, it wouldn't have done her any good.
“You see, all along I've been wondering, if I can unlock the staff, why hasn't anyone done it before? As I've said, I'm not that conceited. Same goes for the Nameless Book. Well, it's all explained in this passage here.”
She produced the Chronicles and showed her friends the page that read:
CONDITIONS
: Only one who does not seek power may unlock it.
: It requires the willing, unselfish co-operation of three mortals bound together – one given to the light, one shrouded in darkness and one forever balanced between them.
: All flavours of magic must be represented in the Three: wizard, druid and cleric.
: If any of the Three seeks to gain this power over the others, or if any one of them desires its release less than the others, Time Magic shall not be released.
: In addition to the Three, there must be one long-lived being from the higher planes, one of both light and dark, and yet of neither, who would wish to stand against the one with the power to strike at the home of the Angels. One whose essence is bound to the staff bearer.
: Even if all these conditions are met, the release shall be impossible in the absence of the greatest magic that exists in the world.
“What does all that mean?” Daelen asked.
“It means us,” Mandalee stated.
“We fulfil the conditions,” Dreya agreed.
“I do not seek power,” Cat checked off the first condition. “The three of us represent Light, Dark and Balance, but we’re co-operating fully and freely.” Check two. “Dreya is a wizard, I am a druid and Mandalee is a cleric.” Check three. “Dreya betraying us to gain this power for herself was an act, so it doesn't count against us. None of us is seeking this power at the expense of the other two, and we all want it to be released.” Check four. “The being from the higher planes is you, Daelen. You were split when we first met – light and dark clones, but now you are one being of both, but you are a renegade, so you are recognised as neither. The ‘power to strike at the home of the Angels’ is a cryptic way of saying ‘Heaven's Surrender’, and you intend to use your ‘Wish’ barrier to protect our world against it.” Check five.
“One whose essence is bound to the staff bearer?” the shadow warrior wondered.
“Yeah, not sure about that bit,” Cat admitted, frowning in puzzlement. She’d taken some of his essence inside her body for a while, but she’d given it back, so it was hardly bound to her. She dismissed it with a shrug. “Anyway, the final condition refers to the final key needed to unlock the power – the greatest magic that allowed me to open the Chronicles: love. We are all bound by love of one form or another.” All conditions checked off. “The gods agreed to these conditions only because they believed them impossible to fulfil, but we have proved them wrong, and now we are ready to begin.”
She then directed her friends to another page in the Chronicles:
FULFILMENT
: This marks the beginning of a new age of magic.
: Upon the release of the Time magic within, the Three mortals shall become Guardians. One White, one Black, one Red, they shall protect the magical world, magical power and magical knowledge. The presence of the greatest magic that fulfils the final condition (see previous section subtitled ‘Conditions’) shall prevent them from ever turning against one another. Despite their differing views, they shall all share one sincere devotion to order and magic.
: Magic itself must survive and increase; that is imperative, for Time will bring challenges for which the world must be ready.
: Their other task, no less important, is to protect the integrity of Time. Laws of Time magic shall be created, and the Guardians shall be charged with enforcing them, as well as repairing any damage done by the renegade or the inexperienced. (For further details see section subtitled ‘Spacetime Manipulation: A Guide’.)
: While the Guardians will continue to be mortals, by their very nature, they shall possess innate Time Magic through which they exist outside the flow of Time. (Details of specific spells may be found in Appendix 1.)
: They may stay in their post as long as they choose (subject to agreed rules) but be warned: Timelessness is wearying. So, whenever they wish, they may pass on the mantle to another of their order, when they decide to complete their mortal lives in the world.
“That's pretty much all we need to know for now,” Cat opined. Turning to Dreya and Mandalee, she asked, formally, “Do you accept the positions of the Guardians of Time and Magic with all the attendant privileges and responsibilities?”
“Absolutely,” Dreya declared hungrily.
“Oh well, Shyleen,” Mandalee remarked, “Looks like I'm having a change of career for a while.” Shyleen just purred. “Yes,” she affirmed, “I accept. Sounds exciting.”
“OK, you've agreed, now what?” Daelen asked. “Sorry to rush you girls, but there is still the small matter of stopping Kullos.”
“This will only take a moment longer,” Cat assured him confidently. “Then, as soon as I see what that prisoner wants, I’ll go and do the scouting I promised.”
Catriona instructed her three companions to each place a hand on the staff that she held. Daelen was wary of this, after what happened last time, but Cat reminded him he was different then, plus with all four of them touching it, she believed there should be a balance and so the staff wouldn’t react badly.
“Don't worry, this won't be like unlocking the Chronicles,” she assured him. “I can put the key in the lock, but I need someone to, how did Jessica put it…blow the bloody doors off?”
“So, this will finally unlock the power of the staff?”
“No, Daelen, keep up!” she admonished him, rolling her eyes. “The staff serves as the final security key to access Time Magic within the Book, but it’s not its primary function. I still have no idea what the staff was originally designed to do. I assumed the book would tell me, but it seems an unrelated mystery. Let’s finish solving this mystery first, shall we?”
“What do I do?” he asked.
Cat encouraged him to imagine firing his beam cannon into the staff. Project the idea of it.
So, with four hands gripping the staff, he did just that. Cat sent the unlocking sequence into the device, sympathically, mentally surfing on the wave of Daelen's power.
It began like the last time the three would-be Guardians held the staff together. The pull was stronger, but the balance still felt off. Once again, light flared from the crystal, painting a pattern in the sky that seemed to be trying to match the void storms. Symbols appeared, brighter than before, but once again, they flickered and died before achieving full resolution…and with a resounding thud, Cat’s mind hit a wall, like a mental block. The final barrier had not opened.
“What happened?” chorused her friends.
Cat flicked frantically through the Chronicles. “I don't understand it! We've done everything right. Just like it says.” Her disappointment was so great, she collapsed in a heap on the ground.
“All my life I've been working for this moment. So many years of effort, studying, research, risking my soul by opening the Chronicles, and it doesn't even work!”
She was almost in tears at her failure. Her friends tried to comfort her, and Dreya read the Chronicles for herself, to see if she could find some flaw, but she agreed they had followed the instructions faultlessly.
*****
“I'm sorry, Cat,” Daelen murmured gently, after a while, “but we really can't wait any longer. We have to concentrate on our coming battle with Kullos and to do that we need you to scout the army. You’re the only one who can do it. We need you.”
Cat blinked back her tears, stood up, took a deep breath and agreed, “I'm with you. Forget the Book of Magias; I've still got a book of my own, and it's filled with tricks that are going to tie Kullos’ army in knots!”
The shadow warrior smiled and hugged her. “That's my girl.”
There being nothing left for him to do, he simply found a comfortable spot and sat down to drink in the atmosphere of the forest for a while.
Cat shared a hug with Mandalee, too, then a slightly longer one with Dreya.
Shyleen pawed her and asked in the language of leopards, ‘Do I not get a hug, too?’
The druidess laughed, ‘Of course! How could I leave out the leopard with the finest markings ever?’
As Catriona crouched down to stroke her, Shyleen asked, ‘You really think so? Well, you look very nice, too, whatever form you take, although I’m not keen on the wolf.’
“Alright,” Cat declared, standing once more, filled with a new grim determination. It was time to focus. “I suppose I’d better go and see our prisoner.”
She thought he might have information that would help her scouting mission, so it made sense to deal with this small matter first. The druidess found where the wizard was chained up and dismissed Dreya’s guards. He might open up a bit more if they were alone. Besides, what was one chained up wizard to a druid of Cat’s ability?
*****
As Dreya and Mandalee read the Chronicles together, Dreya quickly discovered she had underestimated the cleric’s ability to understand arcane matters. In her defence, however, that was mostly because Mandalee continued to underestimate herself.
“It’s a pity this failed to work,” Dreya told her at length. “I believe you would have blossomed in the role of White Guardian.”
Mandalee was surprised to receive such a warm compliment from the legendary Dreya the Dark. She had a reputation as a cool ice queen, but Mandalee could already see that reputation was a pale shadow of the Faery woman herself.
“Maybe there’s some way we can work together, anyway, the three of us, once this business with Kullos is over,” Mandalee suggested.
Dreya’s smile was one of relief. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that. This fight will keep Cat occupied for now, but, well, you knew her before I did. If her staff business is basically done and the Chronicles is a dead duck, can you imagine her without some kind of project to challenge her mind?”
Mandalee shook her head and agreed, “No, I can’t. You’re right. She’s going to need us to put our heads together and come up with something.”
“We will,” Dreya promised.
“Dreya,” Mandalee ventured, “I know I wasn’t keen on you when we first met, but I want you to know I’m happy she’s got you.”
“Well, she’s got you again, now, too, Mandalee, and I’m glad to see it. Just so you know, I’ve already given my guards new standing orders that you are welcome at my Black Tower any time. My door’s always open to my girlfriend’s best friend. In particular, I want to make sure you’re with us when I give her this.”
When she showed Mandalee what she had bought from Earth, the cleric threw her arms around the Faery woman, and any remaining trepidation drifted away on the breeze. If someone from the future had come to her just a few days ago and told her she was going to be friends with Dreya the Dark – real, proper, firm friends – she never would have believed it. Yet here she was.
“Just let me know when, Dreya,” she smiled. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world. Any world.”
Finally abandoning the Chronicles, the two young women, White cleric and Black sorceress, found themselves walking together, arm in arm, swapping stories about Cat. Mandalee sharing some of their early adventures, and Dreya telling her, in return, things she’d missed in the two years she’d been away.
*****
The mismatched friends’ conversations were interrupted by a scream coming from where the prisoner was being held.
“Cat!” they cried together, racing to the scene. Shyleen and Daelen sprang up, too, and ran with them.
First to arrive, Mandalee saw that the prisoner’s shackles were shattered and broken on the ground, looking for all the world like they’d somehow rusted away. With them lay the broken remains of a vicious-looking weapon. It was designed so that when the hand closed in a fist around the handle, what appeared to be four claw-like blades extended outwards from the knuckles.
Mandalee didn’t know how it could be so, but she quickly realised that ‘claw-like blades’ was describing it backwards: they were really blade-like claws – dragon claws.
To compensate for the loss of the shackles, Catriona was using her magic, asking the surrounding foliage to restrain him, but it was more than that. The vines seemed to be slowly pulling him apart and not content with that, Catriona was causing the air all around him to discharge electricity into his body. This was clearly the reason for the scream they had heard, as the prisoner’s body convulsed in agony.
Mandalee and Daelen were clearly shocked by Catriona’s actions, while Dreya’s reaction was more one of curiosity and interest.
“Cat?” Mandalee called out.
With barely a glance, Cat threw a bottle of water between them and used the spilt contents to create an ice barrier.
“Stay out of this,” she warned, “and don’t even think of flying over it!”
“What the hell are you doing?” Daelen demanded.
“I’m sure she has her reasons,” Dreya insisted.
“What reasons could possibly justify this?” Mandalee wondered.
If the prisoner somehow escaped and tried to hurt her friend, the assassin would have been the first to support Catriona’s right to kill to protect her life. But torture?
‘Have you noticed they are not alone?’ Shyleen asked her human friend.
She hadn’t, but now that she looked more closely, she realised the leopard was right: there was a figure standing with Cat and the prisoner. Just a white aura glowing softly. Insubstantial. Mandalee found it was stirring vague memories.
“That white figure,” she pointed out. “I’ve seen something like it before.” Why was she suddenly thinking about the day she received her contract to kill or otherwise ‘stop’ Daelen?
The shadow warrior agreed, “So have I.” He was sure she was the one who warned him about Kullos taking wizards away to fight this war. The aura wasn’t a perfect match, but it was close enough to convince him that they were the same being.
“I once saw something similar,” Dreya offered. It had appeared to her at her Black Tower just before Aden escaped.
“No, twice!” she corrected herself. The first time had been as a child living in Sylfrania. She hadn’t thought about that for years.
She remembered how the entity had scared away the bullies with their mere presence and told her that one day, if she worked hard in her magic, she would have the power to stand up to all the bullies and monsters in the world. “I’m sure she was the one who planted the idea to kill you, Daelen. She was different, though. She was shrouded in darkness. Almost like she was somehow made of shadow. Still, this brighter one reminds me of her, in a way.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Cat was yelling at the prisoner. “Why would you want to do something so sick?”
Her expression was a mixture of tears, rage and utter contempt.
“Because it’s an Abomination that needs to be destroyed!”
“You keep speaking with someone else’s voice. Are you being controlled? Is someone making you do this?”
The prisoner seemed to forget all about the pain and laughed.
“Oh no, darlin’!” sneered a different voice – one that seemed to better match him. “I assure you I’m quite willing. That’s why I was chosen – because I’d enjoy it!”
The original voice returned to say, “He has quite the hunger for killing innocents – you could say he’s made a career out of it – but this is a whole new level even for him. Given half a chance, once he’s through with you, I’m sure he’ll do it again, many times.”
“No, he won’t!” Cat growled. “I’m going to make sure he can’t!”
“Do what you want to this body,” the voice laughed. “It doesn’t matter. My plans are flexible. One way or another, history will change and the Abomination will never come to be.”