The rain that had met the day in Compton was very much present in the outlying areas, too, which helped Cat in her reconnaissance of Renjaf’s tower. Muddy footprints leading away from the tower told her that the wizard had already left the building. That was good news in one way because she wanted the tower empty for what she was about to do – she had no wish to harm him. In another way, however, getting there late meant she did not have as much time to do what she was about to do, as she would have liked. Still, it was now or never.
This was a turning point in my mother’s history. You see, gentle reader, what Catriona had finally realised, was that when she had been trying to think of a way to affect entry, she had been thinking too much like a wizard. It was how she had been taught to think in college, but she now knew those lessons were valuable in only one respect: they were an excellent example of what not to do. She didn’t need to penetrate the shields and wards that were attached to the stonework of the building. That’s what a wizard would try to do. For all their fancy tricks, much of wizard magic came down to power and pure mathematics. To penetrate the shield, the power of the attack would have to be greater. Different types of magical attack might work better than others, as shields tended to be unequal in their resistances, but ultimately, it was all about the numbers.
Druid magic was different. It wasn’t about power. If Catriona could use her druid magic to reshape and repair his stone walls, then she could use that same magic to tear them down.
Catriona inhaled a few deep breaths and took a firm grip on her staff. She wasn’t going to pull power from it, but it did serve as an aid to concentration and focus. She sent forth her magic, not quickly and violently, but slowly and gently. In moments, the stonework began to reshape itself, growing softer and eroding away as if the building had not seen any maintenance for centuries. At last, with an almighty crash, the tower collapsed under its own weight.
‘What about the shields?’ you may ask, gentle reader.
Well, you see, the shields were attached to the surface of the building, but when the building was reduced to rubble, that surface area grew exponentially. Through it all, the magical shield tried its best, but ultimately, there simply wasn’t enough of it to go around, and so there were gaps. Catriona sent her locator spell through the remains of the building until it found Shifting Stars. It was buried beneath the rubble, but that was OK, she just asked the debris very nicely if it would mind moving a bit more in one place, allowing her to retrieve it. The rubble didn’t much care what shape it took, so it was a simple task to move it aside. When Cat finally got her hands on the book, she found it somewhat worse for wear, but again, that was no problem, she just used her magic again. It was all just shapeshifting when she got right down to it; she just needed the book to return to the shape and condition it was in a moment ago when it was sitting on a bookshelf, and soon enough it was. It was all a question of imagination and explaining to Blessed Alycia what it was she wished to do. The Mother of Nature freed up a tiny portion of the energy she was holding in, which was channelled through Catriona, used to accomplish what she needed and then recycled back into the cosmos.
It felt exhilarating – both the magical achievement itself and the fact that she finally had the book she had been seeking for so long – and her staff itself seemed to reward her with a rather pleasant jolt. It had done something similar when she had unlocked its first layer of security, she remembered. At the time Catriona wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it – now she was sure she hadn’t. The staff definitely seemed to be ‘rewarding’ her when she moved a step closer to understanding it.
She carefully slipped the book into her pocket dimension and took a moment to bask in her feelings. That was a mistake because before she knew what was happening, she was being thrown to the ground by wizard magic. Renjaf had returned.
In the split second that she was falling, she was able to persuade the vegetation to move and grow rapidly enough to cushion her fall. She couldn’t afford to surrender to unconsciousness. Still, she was held there, hands pinned beneath her, unable to move a muscle.
“What the hell have you done!” Renjaf demanded. “That was my home!”
Only a day ago, she would have talked to him, tried to reason with him, but things were different now – she was different now. She had woken something within herself. Call it stubbornness, call it confidence, call it arrogance, call it madness – she would be accused of all of these in the years that followed. But whatever name one might wish to give it, she was done playing nice with those who refused to co-operate.
Laying there, she focussed her mind and reached out to the grounds that surrounded her, because the tower might have been his home, but the grounds were hers. He had neglected them where Cat had tended them. Through his inaction, they had been choking. Through her actions, they were thriving. Now, when she needed their help, she scarcely needed to ask. Tree branches reached out to restrain him, and vines snaked through the grass to tie his hands, for wizard magic had a weakness: it relied on the user weaving intricate patterns in the air, writing in the language of magic. But what if he couldn’t move his hands? What if his hands were tied? Well then, his powers were severely diminished, if not entirely absent.
She felt him try to attack her with powerful mental magic, but her link with Pyrah meant he was wasting his time. Time he didn’t have. Plants grew tall around him, pressing, squeezing, choking him even as Catriona was released. She stood and mentally thanked nature for her help, but enough was enough, so they loosened their grip.
Striding purposefully towards Renjaf’s feebly struggling, green-covered form, she said, “You brought this on yourself, old man. All I wanted was the book. That’s all. Just one book. I have no idea what happened to you that made you the way you are, and frankly, I don’t care anymore. You’ve pushed me too far, and this is the result. Stuck in the undergrowth like an oversized garden gnome and your tower in ruins at your feet. I’m not going to apologise for this, and I’m not going to ask for an apology from you because I know you won’t mean it. What I am going to do is what I came here to do in the first place, and as it stands, my work here is only half done.”
With that, she spun around, raised her staff, and channelled her magic once more, allowing Renjaf to watch wide-eyed as his tower gradually knitted itself back together, reverting to its former shape and dimensions until it was impossible to tell anything had ever happened to it in the first place. As if to mock the wizard’s abilities, even his shields were back in place. When he later probed them with his magic, they would assure him that they were never breached, which was technically accurate. It was hardly their fault that his tower had decided to change its shape.
With a glance from Catriona, the greenery retreated from the wizard, freeing him once more.
“How did you do that?” he breathed in awe.
“You can puzzle over that in your own time,” Cat replied. “My time is better spent elsewhere – I’ve wasted enough of it here already. I suggest you go inside; it’s quite safe. Everything should be as you left it…more or less.”
“I’ll get you for this!” he swore, glowering at her.
Cat snorted a laugh and shook her head in disbelief.
“You really want to threaten me now? I just beat you with both hands literally behind my back! As I say, I’ve wasted enough of my time here already, and I’ll waste no more. I will be leaving now; don’t even think about trying anything.”
With that, she strode down his path, all greenery parting before her. The gate opened as she approached and shut itself behind her. She wanted to shift into a red-banded falcon and return to Compton as quickly as possible, but she wouldn’t do that until she was definitely out of his sight. She had learned that lesson already today. As soon as she was positive that she was well hidden from Renjaf, she paused just for a moment and asked the wind to carry her voice to his ears.
“Almost forgot,” she said. “I suggest you get someone to tend your grounds every now and again. I won’t be coming back, and they might get a bit cranky if you neglect them again.”
She flew back without incident to Compton and the place where she’d left Jacob’s horse – literally, the last place her friend would look for her. It was one of several disused barns on the outskirts of Compton, dating back to when the town used to be farmland.
This time, she made absolutely sure there was no demon hunter around when she shapeshifted to her ‘delivery boy’ form so that she could pass as Jacob while she brought Bonnie outside where her friend could ‘find’ her.
It was imperative that any passers-by wouldn’t recognise Catriona. That could lead to awkward questions about what she was doing with Jacob’s horse when it had supposedly been stolen by the Trickster. Catriona tied Bonnie up safely outside, and then, moving away from the immediate area, chose another old barn as the place to discreetly change back. She smiled at the sight of the Trickster tracks she had left, earlier. Mandalee was right – she did have a strange sense of fun, sometimes.
Flushed with a newfound confidence, she visualised what she wanted to do next: Reach into her pocket dimension, throw in her boy clothes, shapeshift and immediately clothe herself in her customary red wizard’s robes, all in one fluid movement. As she initiated the process, however, a small spider brushed her left ear, causing her to reflexively jump forward while trying to brush it off. In doing so, she once again failed to watch where she was going and fell into a demon trap, mid-process.
That, gentle reader, left my mother still looking a lot like Jacob, completely naked except for a strategically placed wooden staff with a large blue crystal on top. And just as before, cut off from nature, her magic simply refused to work. She was stuck. Again.