Chapter 27

It wasn’t until the third day of Mandalee’s journey into Southern Alloria that she realised she could have just portalled straight to her destination.

The connection of their shared soul meant Shyleen could sense Mandalee equally well, and as soon as Mandalee began moving towards her, she would have done the same. That had probably cut down the journey time by perhaps as much as half, but it still would have been quicker to portal. It was too late to try it now, though. Her portalling expertise wasn’t up to hitting a constantly moving target. So, she contented herself with portalling to one of the major towns down there and then continued travelling by horse.

There was a perfectly good road heading South, providing ease of movement for trade, but Mandalee shunned that in favour of adjacent green areas. Anything she might gain from the road she would lose from inevitable interactions with people. It was a long-established aspect of her personality – a defence mechanism, really. The less her contact with people, the fewer incidents she would suffer due to their reactions to her gender identity.

Thanks to Catriona, of course, that was a thing of the past. At last, her body matched the image in her head, although she still hadn’t got it working for her the way her old one had. That was simply a matter of time, patience and practice, she knew. Hopefully, with the Ulvarius Time Crisis done, once she was reunited with Shyleen, she would have the chance to do some proper training.

She also needed to work on her cleric magic.

While they were in the past, Cat had confided that one day, Mandalee would travel back in time to stop that horrible, evil man from slicing open her friend’s belly and killing her unborn child. The horror of the crime filled Mandalee not only with rage but also with terror because she had no idea how to do any of the things her future-self had done.

‘First things first,’ she told herself.

*****

The Cleric of Nature did not need to stop along the way for supplies, the way most travellers did. The wildlands away from the villages and towns grew food in abundance. There was plenty of game to provide her with meat, and the rivers and streams ran with crystal clear, life-giving water and a plentiful supply of fish. Wayward pines sheltered her when it rained at night, and her magic could at least dry and set wood alight when it grew cold. What more could she possibly want?

Today, however, about a week into her journey, Mandalee had been forced to ride through a town for the first time since portalling down here. Durmchapel sat at an important crossroads in these parts. According to the signpost, it gave a choice between heading right towards the coastal town of Oarsrest, left towards Yalferndel, or to climb up into the Eastcliff region and head for Imperial Kelna, about two or three days’ ride directly South. The road provided the only practical way of taking a horse up into those highlands, which was where she needed to go.

The trail spiralled upwards for several miles. The northern side was cut into the mountain itself so that travellers could make their way safely behind the gigantic raging Eastcliff Waterfall, the largest waterfall in the world, that thundered into the lake below before flowing out into the River Yalla, with whose water she had filled her flask only that morning. Having carefully guided her horse atop the cliffs, she could once again make progress towards the Southeast where she felt Shyleen growing ever closer.

There weren’t much in the way of roads up here. Just a few worn trails. From what little Mandalee knew about this part of the world, there were a number of large settlements in the far South, branching out from the Kelnan Empire, but they petered out as one headed into the north of the region. Eastcliff proved enough of an obstacle to the transfer of goods that these highlands were left almost totally wild, barring the occasional cottage retreat.

Straying too close to the cliff edge could be treacherous in high winds, but today, Mandalee thought the bracing rush of air was glorious. It blew away her anger and hurt from Dreya’s remarks, and her vantage point, seeing for leagues all around, gave her perspective. Her friend – and Dreya was her friend – hadn’t meant anything by what she’d said. She just hadn’t stopped to think. Sometimes, the sorceress wasn’t good with people and for Mandalee to criticise that would be, as Jessica would say, ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’

She rode for a good twelve hours through that beautiful green expanse without stopping, using her magic as a Cleric of Nature to keep her mount free from fatigue. Doing that long-term wasn’t good for an animal, she knew, but in a short time, now, her journey would be complete. Then her horse could rest, graze and drink as much as he wanted. He understood and was content to go along with it.

The White Guardian rode for hours without seeing another soul. Then, at last, she did, or more accurately, half of her own soul. A leopard with the finest markings ever ran into the clearing so fast, Mandalee had to work hard to reassure her horse, so he didn’t bolt. Persuading him to stop and let her dismount, she then let him run where he wished.

She bounded over to Shyleen, who playfully knocked her off her feet and began licking her all over.

‘Mandalee!’ cried Shyleen’s telepathic ‘voice’ in her head. ‘I am so happy to see you! I missed you so much!’

‘Oh, Shyleen, I’m so sorry!’ she sent in return, stroking and hugging her oldest friend. ‘We got a little lost, that’s all, but I’m here now.’

Shyleen was purring as loud as Mandalee had ever heard her.

‘I won’t be travelling in Time again, that’s for sure,’ she vowed, but then she remembered that she couldn’t promise that, for Catriona’s sake.

Extracting herself from their tangle of limbs, Mandalee explained what Cat had told her.

‘Then you must travel in Time again,’ the leopard insisted. ‘You must do all you can to protect her and her cub. Cat is our sister.’

Mandalee smiled. ‘That’s what she said. Trust you to see that before I did.’

‘This is why you need me,’ the big cat insisted. ‘I often see what you do not.’

‘I am lost without you,’ Mandalee agreed.

‘I think you proved that these past two years,’ Shyleen quipped.

Mandalee lay back in the grass and laughed, remembering times passed.

*****

Mandalee’s parents had always tried to support their son, who wanted to be their daughter. They didn’t really understand, but they did their best to accept it. They couldn’t stop the teasing, the taunting, the name-calling. They didn’t know what they could do to help, but they were always there for her when she cried. It affected them, too, but they insisted that wasn’t important and told Mandalee she must be herself, no matter what. They wished they could make it all alright for her, make it go away. They couldn’t, but they did everything in their power to make her feel loved, and Mandalee loved them dearly for that, in return.

She spent most of her childhood days hiding in the forest near her village. Away from people, out among nature. The animals didn’t care about her gender.

It was an ordinary rainy afternoon – she was barely a teenager – when a lone leopard wandered by where Mandalee was hiding. Crying. She knew she ought to be scared – big cats were dangerous – and she should remain still and hidden, but she didn’t. She crept forward instead, moving closer to the magnificent animal and she was astonished when the big cat looked at her and straight out wondered why she was upset.

The animal hadn’t spoken aloud, but in her mind, in a language the girl did not know and yet somehow understood perfectly. The leopard seemed equally astonished that the human girl had heard and understood her words.

Without even thinking about it, Mandalee was soon chatting away to the leopard, stroking her, pouring out all her troubles. Happier than she had ever been. She knew right then – this was where she belonged. In the wilds with nature, not in towns with people. People were mean. Not her parents, of course, but almost everyone else. She wished she could be out there all the time, talking to the animals, sleeping under the stars on her green bed made of grass.

She and the leopard met regularly for weeks after that, becoming the closest of friends, until one day, Elric, the young eccentric village cleric, found her and asked her who she was talking to.

“This leopard,” a puzzled Mandalee answered him. “Her name is Shyleen.”

The cleric told her that he couldn’t see any leopard.

Mandalee couldn’t understand why he would say something like that. Other than her parents, he was just about the only person in the village who she couldn’t remember ever being mean to her before. Truthfully, most people thought he was a little strange, himself, but he had magic, so people didn’t dare say anything in front of him.

He must have read the expression on Mandalee’s face because he sat down beside her, patted her on the head and assured her that he didn’t intend to be cruel.

In fact, Mandalee remembered, the exact phrase he used was, “I didn’t mean to be mean,” and chuckled at his play on words. He asked her to tell him everything about Shyleen. Mandalee wasn’t sure she should, but Shyleen assured her it was OK. ‘I like this one,’ she told her, ‘and I’m an excellent judge of character. You can trust him.’

Taking her at her word, Mandalee did as Elric asked. “But you really don’t see her?” she asked when she finished.

“No,” He shook his head. “I, it seems, am not so privileged.”

‘Privileged?’ Shyleen remarked in Mandalee’s mind, sounding inordinately pleased. ‘Oh, he can definitely stay if he’s going to say things like that.’

Mandalee giggled. She had learned that Shyleen was fond of having her ego stroked from time-to-time, as well as her fur.

“She likes it when you say things like that,” she told him.

Elric nodded, thoughtfully. “Yes, the gods do like to be praised.”

“The gods?” Mandalee frowned. “Shyleen’s not a god, silly!”

‘Actually,’ Shyleen began. For the first time since Mandalee had met her, she sounded a little embarrassed. If she were human, she was sure she’d be blushing. ‘There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

“I take it she just confirmed it?” the cleric surmised, reading her expression.

Mandalee nodded.

Elric went on to explain that he had an interest, some would say obsession, with the Pantheon – the realm of what people termed gods. Those who existed in the plane above the mortal world. He recognised the name Shyleen immediately as the one the ancient texts described as the leopard god. He also explained that there were stories of a time, long ago, before Year Zero, when the gods might choose to visit the world of mortals, appearing only to a few extraordinary individuals, sensitive souls. No-one else could see them.

“It seemed highly unlikely that you could have made it up,” he concluded.

‘You’re really a god, Shyleen?’ Mandalee breathed in wonder.

‘Yes, but I don’t like the term. It’s pretentious. I don’t want your worship, Mandalee; just your friendship.’

Mandalee hugged her tight. ‘You have it. Now and always.’

“Just one thing I don’t understand,” the cleric told Mandalee. “I thought all the gods were cut off a thousand years ago when Alycia’s Barrier went up.”

Shyleen confirmed that he was right, but she had been in this world at the time and had been trapped here ever since, mostly unnoticed, except for rare individuals like Mandalee. ‘But you are my first true friend.’

‘And you’re mine,’ Mandalee told her, ‘and I don’t want to lose you, but is there no way to get you home?’

‘This is my home,’ Shyleen insisted. ‘The reason I was here all those years ago was that I ran away from the Pantheon, or more accurately, the other so-called gods.’

She had similar troubles to Mandalee. Not over gender identity, but the fact that she spoke out against their views about ‘inferior mortals’. One day, the lioness god, Pryshia – something of a ringleader among Shyleen’s bullies, and self-styled Queen of the gods, attacked her with terrible, painful magic. Shyleen used her own magic to sever her connection to the higher planes, sending her tumbling down to Tempestria, running away from her tormentors. She could hear Pryshia laughing, even here. Vowing never to let her return, she thought she’d condemned her to a long, lonely life, essentially as a ghost.

‘But she unwittingly did me a favour,’ she told Mandalee. ‘I was already a lonely ghost in the Pantheon. At least here none of them could hurt me, especially when Blessed Alycia raised her Barrier, cutting off the mortal plane from those above. I am safe here, for not even the shadow warriors are powerful enough to break through, let alone mere gods. And now I have made a friend.’

‘But you’re still a ghost,’ Mandalee objected. ‘You can’t interact with the world at all, can you?’

Shyleen admitted that was true. ‘I am only partially manifest in this plane.’ Then seeing Mandalee’s blank look, she rephrased it as, ‘I’m only half here.’

‘There has to be a way to help you, bring you all the way here.’

‘It has been done before, but the price is too high, I could never ask it of anyone.’

Mandalee turned to the cleric, who had been patient throughout their silent conversation, and summarised, “Shyleen says there’s a way to help her, but she won’t tell me what it is. Do you know?”

Elric nodded. “Mortals have been known to sell their souls to gods. The god becomes fully manifest and the mortal gains power in return.”

He explained that his low-level cleric magic was in exchange for his worship of the gods. More devout clerics could gain more power, but that paled in comparison to what one could gain from the sacrifice of one’s soul to one particular god, binding oneself to them.

“But there is a price, as Shyleen says,” he went on, “and bless her for refusing to even consider it,” he added. “The mortal in question loses their ability to feel, to love, to care. They are left with jealousy, envy, hatred, leading to a terrible obsession.

“I don’t mean like my slight obsession with researching obscure books about the gods,” he chuckled. “I mean the kind of obsession that leads to death, destruction. The kind that can start a war.”

‘That is why I would never allow it,’ Shyleen vowed. ‘I have you as a friend now. I am quite content with that.’

“I take it Shyleen still refuses to allow it,” the cleric surmised. Mandalee nodded, hanging her head. Of course, she didn’t want to end up like that. She didn’t want to hurt innocent people, but she still wished there were something she could do for Shyleen.

“I’m happy to hear it, because there may be another way,” Elric told her.

The light of hope grew in Mandalee’s eyes as her head whirled around so fast, she almost gave herself whiplash.

Shyleen’s ears pricked up. Even she had no idea what this ‘other way’ could be.

Elric recalled reading one story that spoke of something called a ‘Cleric of Nature’ who, rather than selling his soul, shared it with an animal god. He gained access to clerical powers – though not as much as one who sold their soul – and complete knowledge of all wild things. In return, the god was able to fully manifest in this world for as long as the mortal still lived and consented. Consent which was entirely his to revoke at any time.

“If you were such a Cleric of Nature, you would still have access to the full range of human emotions, although you would tend to shun towns and the company of people, favouring the wilds.”

“But I do that already,” Mandalee gasped, “because other people shunned me first! How do I do it? How do I share my soul?”

“Well, I can’t be sure it will work at all. As I said, it’s just an old legend.”

“It’s true!” Mandalee asserted. “It has to be!”

Shyleen was more cautious. ‘As wonderful as this sounds, I will agree only if I am sure there is no risk to you.’

The cleric was convinced that the only risk was that it really was just a story, in which case nothing would happen, and he would look rather foolish.

“But most people in this place think I’m crazy anyway, so what’s the difference?” Mandalee was going to protest, but he waved it aside. “No need to spare my feelings. I know what people say about Elric the Cleric. But not you, Mandalee. Never you. For your kindness, I will help you if I can.”

Mandalee didn’t believe simply ‘not being mean’ to someone should be considered a particular kindness. Surely that ought to be a basic expectation. Still, she was grateful for his help.

However, Eric did insist on talking to Mandalee’s parents before attempting anything.

For their part, they had never had a problem with their child preferring nature to people. They were rangers by trade, with a strong interest in the study of nature. Her father had even dabbled with a touch of druid magic. They both knew Mandalee was unhappy and were willing to try just about anything to change that, no matter how ‘out there’ it might seem.

They talked about it long into the night, slept on it, but by the morning they had decided. If there was a chance this could help their only child, then they had to agree.