Chapter 22

“Two years?” Dreya echoed. “How is that possible?”

“You obviously got your Temporal co-ordinates wrong,” Mandalee jibed. “And you say I can’t steer my portals straight!”

“I didn’t use any Temporal co-ordinates,” the sorceress insisted, shaking her head, trying to make sense of it. “We went via Catriona’s Meadow. We were Timeless. We should have defaulted to our natural Time, so I just used spatial co-ordinates.”

“Personally, I think I would have used them anyway, but you’re right, it shouldn’t have been necessary,” Cat hedged, diplomatically.

Taking in the scene before her, with Sara’s broken technology, Jessica’s out of control druid magic, and trying not to laugh at Michael’s predicament, soaked to the skin with bits of greenery clinging here and there, her mind tried to piece it together.

Before it could get started, however, Jessica chirped up, “Hey loves, it might not have been very long for you, but we’ve been going through hell here, so maybe we could do hugs first, then figure out how the cosmos works later, eh?”

Cat smiled and held Jessica tight. “Of course, I’m so sorry for…whatever we put you through.”

After hugs were sufficiently exchanged, Michael asked Cat if she’d mind drying him off.

“I’d ask Jessica, but I’m afraid she might set me on fire…again.”

“Hey!” she protested, with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation. “I’ve apologised for that. Profusely. I just don’t understand why my magic’s so out of control. It worked fine on Lavos.”

“Come here.” Cat held out a hand, which Jessica took. “Now, you are going to evaporate the water from Michael’s clothes and body.”

Michael frowned. “Are you sure about this?”

The flash in Catriona’s eyes told him it was time to shut up.

“Yes, I am,” she insisted, firmly. “I am perfectly confident that Jessica can do whatever she sets her mind to.”

“I wish I were,” her Chetsuan friend remarked sullenly.

“OK, Jessica, let’s lose that attitude,” she admonished her.

“Sorry, but I even went to Calin’s Tower to check out your book on druid magic – the books you borrowed are overdue, by the way—”

“So they are,” Cat realised. She’d borrowed them on her way to fight Kullos. If they weren’t overdue before they got lost in Time, they certainly were by now. “Oops. Anyway, let me guess, my book didn’t help you?” Her friend shook her head. “That’s because it’s a technical manual. Your problems aren’t technical, they’re emotional.”

“Emotional?”

“Look, you’ve done this before, yes? On Lavos?”

Jessica nodded.

“This is no different, technically. You can do this. Nature will listen to you, but you have to be clear. Now, take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes if it helps.”

She did so. Then, with a look of intense concentration, she tried to evaporate the water, but even without opening her eyes, she could tell nothing was happening.

Out of the blue, Cat asked, “Jess, you’re happy to see us again, aren’t you?”

Jessica opened her eyes and frowned. “Of course I am.”

“Then what’s with this?” Cat gently poked and prodded Jessica’s frown lines with a finger. “What’s Miss Frowny Face all about?”

She smiled, and the tension left her face and body.

“Sorry, love. Still having a bit of a hard time believing it, I guess.”

“Well, believe it,” Cat encouraged her. She held up the hand that was holding Jessica’s. “This is real. You feel it, don’t you? I mean, we’re friends, right? You’d tell me if I were a ghost, wouldn’t you?”

Jessica laughed and nodded. “Yeah, but we’d still be mates even if you were.”

“Good,” Cat acknowledged with a smile. She called over to her sister. “Hey, Sara, what do you think? Can she do this?”

“Of course she can!” she affirmed.

“Well, don’t tell me, tell your sister!”

“You can do this, Jess!” Sara insisted. “You’ve got this!”

Turning back to Jessica, Cat continued, “There, your sister believes in you. We all believe in you. Channel those feelings. Channel what you were feeling when your magic was working for you and what you’re feeling here and now, but at the same time, don’t let those feelings sweep you away. You’re the boss. You’re in control. You’re confident. Your magic will work. Expect it to work. Know that it will work. Now, in your mind and in your heart, tell nature what you want to happen.”

Jessica poured all of her positive feelings into her magic and she could feel nature respond to her call. She was clear in what she wanted to accomplish, and nature was happy to do it. It was a simple thing: the evaporation of water. Happened all the time. Jessica wanted it to happen a bit quicker, that’s all.

In less than a minute, Michael found himself completely dry.

“You did it,” he remarked in surprise.

“I did it!” Jessica echoed, hugging Cat in delight.

Sara came over and took her sister from Catriona’s arms to sweep her up in an embrace of her own, smiling and laughing. “I’m so proud of you, Jess! I knew you’d get your magic back.” Stepping back, she cast a regretful eye over the broken device on the table. “Just a shame about my tech skills.”

“Well, there I can’t help you, I’m afraid,” Cat told her. “But the two things are linked.”

It had only taken her a moment to understand the problem. Druid magic was tied to a balance of emotion and control. Where Mandalee was all fiery passion, and Dreya was all cool control, Cat walked the tightrope in between. For Jessica, of course, her emotions were linked to Sara’s. Between her tech problems and potentially dead friends, Sara had lost faith in herself and her purpose in this world. Jessica was inevitably swept up in that and she, too, lost confidence. She either didn’t believe her magic would work, so it wouldn’t, or she would try to force it, so it would flare up out of control with unpredictable results.

“You always seem so confident and in control when you do it,” Jessica marvelled. “How do you maintain that? Don’t you ever have doubts?”

It was Mandalee who answered, “Of course she does. She just sees doubts as a challenge to do it anyway.”

Dreya spoke up to say, “I always say Cat has a flair for the dramatic, but that’s how her magic works.”

Cat nodded. “I may seem confident and in control on the surface, but I’m not always, deep down. No-one is. But if I act confident and in control, then maybe I’ll trick myself into being confident and in control. Doubts are challenges, and flair is my style. That’s how it works for me. You need to find what works for you, and by the looks of things, you’re doing that just fine. Clearly, what you need is for your sister to be happy, and I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone here.”

While they’d been talking, Dreya had wandered over the table upon which, amid the broken components of Sara’s device, lay the control device fragment. “What were you doing with this, Sara?” she asked, holding it up.

“Oh, it was just an idea,” she replied, blushing. She explained how on Lavos, she had successfully built a tracker to find the fragment. She’d had no such joy on Tempestria even though the device was the same. “This morning, I had a flash of inspiration…or possibly desperation,” she admitted.

She explained that Michael had long since stabilised the fragment, so it wouldn’t blow up in her face, as long as she didn’t try to pull power from it. Her device merely scanned that power, analysed it. “I thought maybe like might attract like,” she concluded.

“From what I know of shadow warrior technology,” Michael put in, “I thought it sounded like a reasonable hypothesis.”

“I think it was more than reasonable,” the sorceress attested. “Sara, I think it worked. Just not as you intended.”

“What do you mean?”

Dreya explained that travelling from Catriona’s Meadow with spatial co-ordinates alone should always naturally default to their present, but that the ‘present’ would have moved on a bit in the time they’d been away.

“The present, whenever that might be, is a very specific concept, which generates Temporal co-ordinates that serve as an anchor in Time.”

“Simply put,” Cat chimed in, “one hour in the past should bring us back an hour after we left.”

Of course, they could return the exact moment they left, she went on to say, but then that would technically be their past. Therefore, if they wanted to interact with the world, they would have to drop their Timeless state and age like everyone else. Thereby losing one of the key benefits of the Guardianship.

It was impossible to travel independently into their own future because it would necessarily involve imaginary co-ordinates. That was just asking to get lost in Time forever.

“However,” Dreya said, moving on with their explanation, “it is theoretically possible to pick up a future transmission, which in the absence of specific Temporal co-ordinates could act as a beacon in Time, pulling us towards it.”

While they were Timeless, such a beacon could only be from a possible future, but as soon as they stepped through their portal, that became their definitive Timeline.

“Cat’s right,” she admitted. “I should have used specific Temporal co-ordinates, just to be safe, but since I didn’t, I’m grateful you acted on your inspiration today, Sara. Otherwise, I could just as easily have picked up a beacon from two centuries in the future as two years.”

“So, it is your fault!” Mandalee growled. It had taken her a while to process the idea that two years had passed, but now that she had and she knew it was the result of a mistake, she was boiling with anger, building to fury and rage. “We missed two years, and you expect me to be grateful that it wasn’t two hundred?”

“Look, Mandalee, I am sorry, but think about it: we’re Timeless. Does a couple of years really matter that much?”

“Dreya!” Cat gasped. She knew why her best friend was so upset, and she couldn’t believe her fiancée didn’t see it, too.

“Does it really matter?” Mandalee exploded. She was a hairsbreadth from going for weapons. “Does it matter that I abandoned Shyleen for two years? Does it matter that I’ve been cut off from my oldest friend in the world who shares half my soul? Does it matter that she’s had no-one to talk to for two years? Does it matter that without Cat or me here, there isn’t a single person in the world that could understand her? Does it matter that anything could have happened to her in that time when I wasn’t here? Does it matter that she’s probably spent the last two years thinking I’m dead?”

Her voice cracked on that last word as her rage began to fight a war with her tears, while Dreya acted like her every line was a physical blow.

At the same time, the sorceress could sense Catriona’s disappointment coming at her in waves, which was even worse.

What had she been thinking, saying something so stupid? She could feel that presence in her mind again. The sliver that had escaped her control as she fought Ulvarius. She could feel the entity gloating, smugly, as it sat in a dark corner of her mind, just out of reach. But she couldn’t use that as an excuse, so she kept quiet.

Tentatively, Michael ventured, “If it helps, she’s with your friend, Windell. I can ask around. Someone’s bound to know where he is, and then you’ll find her. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“I know she’s fine, I can sense her, and I can find her myself!” she screamed. “That’s not the point! It’s—” she broke off, “—oh, why am I even wasting my time?” she spat.

Reaching out to the animals all around, she considered calling her giant albatross for a lift, but she was too far away, and Mandalee wasn’t willing to wait. She needed to be out of there before she said – or did – something she’d regret later. From the chatter of the animals, she knew where there were a couple of wild horses who could carry her where she needed to go, so without another word – even to Catriona – she sped off in that direction.

There was little point in anyone going after her. They could never be fast enough to catch her.

“I’m sorry,” Dreya offered, quietly, into the space her friend had vacated.

A million things flashed through Catriona’s mind to say in response, but she knew none of them would help, so she didn’t say any of them. Instead, she decided forgiveness, while not strictly hers to give, would be more beneficial than any harsh words. Dreya still wasn’t used to emotional considerations. She’d come a long way, but there was more to be done, and her fiancée knew that as well as she did. It wasn’t that Cat was trying to change Dreya – she’d never do that. She just wanted to bring out the person she knew was inside. The Dreya only she knew. She wanted to share that Dreya with the world…

…Well, she reconsidered, maybe there were a few parts she wanted to keep for herself, but everything else, she wanted to share.

Cat reached out to caress her arm. “I know you are, and I’m sure she’ll come back when she’s ready. Until then, I have an idea that might help all of us fit back into our lives here, together.”

“What’s that?” Dreya asked.

“Well, it seems to me that we’ve been engaged for over two years, now, in a way.”

“In a way, yes, I suppose we have,” Dreya agreed.

“In that case,” Cat continued, “I think it’s high time we started planning our wedding, don’t you?”

“What about the Council?” Dreya asked. “Shouldn’t we contact them?”

Cat made a dismissive noise. “They think we’ve been dead for over two years. I think they can wait a bit longer. Besides, they wouldn’t exist if not for us.”

Dreya smiled and conceded the point.

“Alright then, loves,” Jessica declared, “let’s start planning!”

*****

They spent the next few days together, making plans, swapping stories, eating, drinking and simply enjoying each other’s company.

A week later, Mandalee still hadn’t returned, and Cat was torn. She wanted to give her friend time but didn’t want it to be another two years. Personally, she didn’t think what Dreya had done was as bad as her own actions, or inactions, a few years ago, and from what Mandalee had said, Shyleen wasn’t actually hurt this time. On the other hand, though, Mandalee didn’t have the same bond of friendship with Dreya as with her.

She wondered if this was how it would always be. Would one of them always do something to drive Mandalee away? If so, would she always find her way back, or would she quit as White Guardian? One of the main reasons she’d agreed in the first place was the prospect of more time with Shyleen. Yet, as a result of their very first mission, she had actually lost time.

She supposed this was one of those occasions when she needed to come up with one of her ridiculous radical plans. They had seen the effects of bringing non-Guardians to her Timeless Meadow, but Shyleen was a god and technically part Guardian. Maybe she’d be OK, but Cat would never risk Shyleen’s life on a maybe, any more than Mandalee would. She needed to be sure.

In the end, Catriona decided to give her friend a little more time while she pursued another idea. Jessica had given her the spark of inspiration for this one. Dreya had identified a problem with their Time Interventions: how could they tell if history was off track and furthermore, how could they be sure if their Intervention was getting things back on track or further ‘off the rails’ as Jessica would say?

In the case of Ulvarius, the change had been unmistakable, and they’d done their best to fix it, but she knew for a fact things weren’t back exactly as they had been. Cat still hadn’t told Dreya about her mistake that led to Dagamir’s survival. She stood by that decision now more than ever. Her fiancée had enough to deal with, with one mistake. There was no need to make her deal with two. Not unless there were some dire repercussions, which, from what their friends had told them, there didn’t appear to be.

Still, it did highlight the problem, and while she didn’t have the details of the solution worked out yet, it seemed obvious that it must involve creating a Timeless repository of information. It made sense, then, to begin with the foremost store of free information in the world: Calin’s Tower. That library was already protected by universal agreement, and many important works were protected by preservation magic. Why not go a stage further and protect its entire contents from Time shifts? But there would have to be some means of incorporating positive Time shifts. After all, if they hadn’t used Temporal magic in the battle against Kullos, the world would not exist.

Those were the kind of rules and regulations that would have to be ratified by the Council. The Guardians couldn’t be allowed to simply do as they pleased with Time, but by the same token, the Council couldn’t be allowed to dictate rules over magic that was outside their experience. As ever, there would have to be a balance.

Returning her thoughts to the present, Catriona didn’t want to approach the Council of Mages until the Three Guardians could present a united front, and that brought her back to Mandalee.

“So, Dreya,” Cat concluded, “I suggest that I go and return my library books. While I’m there, it would be rude not to stop and discuss things with Calin when my plans obviously involve her. After that, I’ll go and find Mandalee. While I’m doing that,” she continued, “perhaps you should make yourself scarce for a while.”

Dreya pulled a face, not keen on the idea. She wanted to re-establish her foothold with the Council. Who knew what Laethyn might have got up to while the puppet master was away? After two years, she felt it was time to pull on those strings, remind him who was really in charge.

“Plus, I really want to check on my Tower, make sure everything’s in order.” Specifically, she wanted to verify that her control over her elite guards hadn’t wavered in her absence. From what the Chetsuans had shared, it didn’t seem so, but she liked to form her own judgements about these things.

“OK, compromise,” Cat proposed. “You can stop off at home on your way.”

“On my way where?”

In response, Cat took her notebook out of her pocket dimension and flicked through the pages to Dreya’s notes on Kullos’ portals. Her best attempt at determining where and when the fragments had gone. She pointed out one set of co-ordinates.

“Of course,” Dreya nodded, understanding. It was off-world, so didn’t involve Temporal magic, but unlike Lavos, they could hardly send their Chetsuan friends. “Phitonia.”

Cat nodded. “You talk about wanting to re-establish your control with the Council after two years and four months, but—”

“—But it’s been almost a decade on Phitonia,” Dreya finished.

“Ten years with a fragment knocking around somewhere,” Cat pointed out. “What if a dragon got hold of it? You could have the dragon equivalent of Ulvarius out there.”

“Or a Chetsuan out for vengeance,” Dreya suggested.

“Not that I’d blame them, but we have to get that fragment back, nonetheless.”

“Sounds like they might need someone to save the world,” Dreya considered.

“Or conquer it,” Cat suggested.

Dreya smiled. “You know me too well.”

Cat kissed her full on the lips, then stepped back and repeated what she’d said the last time.

“Good hunting!”