Gathering Storm (The Salvation of Tempestria Book 2), Gary Stringer [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

people on another ship, passing the other way, on a genuine pleasure cruise. Still absolutely nothing to connect the Dolphin and StormChaser in any way.

If all went to plan, the StormChaser would make landfall at StormClaw, and pick up supplies, while Daelen used his self-copy ability to make it look like he was still aboard the ship. In reality, he would sneak ashore. Catriona wouldn’t be in his pocket when he did that – he wasn’t sure if it would be safe. It wasn’t a problem. Who would notice a single rat deserting a not-at-all-sinking ship? Maintaining his copy at extreme long range would be taxing, Daelen admitted. He could do it but, he warned, he might be a little distracted. He would maintain it until StormChaser reached the shore.

After a while, the ship would set sail once more, heading for Northern Alloria, apparently with Daelen still on board. Hopefully, any prying eyes would watch the StormChaser and pay no attention to the Dolphin as it casually, obliquely drifted close to StormClaw. Daelen was strong enough to swim to the Dolphin, while Cat would take the aerial route as a seagull – one of many such birds that would be flying around.

The Dolphin would quietly pick up its passengers – Catriona Redfletching and her ‘wizard lover’ – and set sail for Esca and Calin’s Tower. After their visit there, they would return to StormClaw: A bird in the air, a swimming ‘wizard’ and a Cleric of Nature hitching a ride with an actual dolphin.

They would stay there for a while, as Daelen planned, and then head on to their rendezvous across the ocean, slipping in quietly on a simple pleasure boat that nobody would even notice, let alone remember.

That was the plan.

Still, you know what they say about the plans of mice and men, don’t you, gentle reader? Technically, this was a plan of rat and woman, but the point still stands. What really happened was this…

*****

Cat couldn’t find her sea legs, but she didn’t have to worry about seasickness – her druid magic could suppress that without too much effort. That was fortunate because, in case of prying eyes, she and Pyrah would have to stay below decks for the duration of the voyage. Just over a week in one small cabin adjoining Daelen’s. Still, the ship and the waves seemed to be conspiring to send her hurtling into Daelen’s arms at embarrassingly regular intervals.

After the middle of the first day, she barely moved around at all unless she was practising her new leopard form. When she first did it, Daelen surprised her with a shape-changing ability of his own that she hadn’t known about. The only animal he could do was a tiger, which she supposed explained why he was called Daelen StormTiger. Truthfully, it wasn’t a particularly good tiger, but Cat saw no reason to risk hurting his feelings by saying so. Besides, her leopard form was hardly up to standard at the moment, and she wouldn’t dare use it in front of Shyleen for fear of offending her.

The rest of the time she spent studying. She still had reference books in her pocket dimension, but she confined the study of her staff to the theoretical. She didn’t want to risk Daelen getting his hands on it again.

Her upcoming visit to Calin’s Tower was on her mind, too. It was somewhere she’d wanted to go since she was very young, but she’d never had the resources to travel beyond the shores of the continent of Elvaria before. Now she had the chance, she knew she couldn’t stay long. To maximise this opportunity, Catriona wanted to make sure she was clear about what she was looking for, and what she was willing to give. Calin was Faery and offered knowledge according to the traditions of her people – something precious given freely. Cat didn’t often get the chance to interact with people from her father’s side of her nature. (Apart from the obvious, and she was hardly a traditional Faery.) She did value her Faery heritage, though, and was eager to show that when she met Calin. Therefore, she felt compelled to freely give knowledge that was precious to her.

Trouble was, there were so many things she could not share. Nothing she had learned about Daelen and nothing relating to her staff, that was for sure. The principles of her druid magic, however, she was more than happy to share, in the hope that other druids might come to push the boundaries of the art as she had. Then maybe they would start to gain more equal status with the Council. Eventually, perhaps there could be schools of druid magic, just as there were for wizards and clerics.

*****

One morning, Cat woke with a start and sat up in bed, due to a sudden flurry of noise and activity in her room. That night was to be their last aboard ship and, since there was absolutely nothing to do, they ended up talking for hours about this and that into the small hours of the morning. At some point, she supposed she must have fallen asleep. From Pyrah, she learned that Daelen had put her into bed and pulled a cover over her. Then he sat down in a bedside chair, saying he’d go to his own cabin in a minute or two, except he’d fallen asleep in the chair.

That had been the situation until the captain came banging on the cabin door, saying he needed help, urgently.

Daelen had woken instantly and told the captain to come in.

“Yes, Captain, what is it?” he asked. Stretching as he got up from the chair, he spared a smile and a wink for his friend who was still trying to piece events together in her just-woken-up state of mind.

“Sir, it seems that we’ve sailed into a bad squall and there’s worse heading this way. We might need you to use your powers to control this one. Some of the crew are