Highland Shift (Highland Destiny: 1) (37 page)

Elena had researched the doctor using the Internet. There were a few references to someone with that same name over the past one hundred years. The sources and locations changed with each reference, and only one had a picture accompanying the article. It was grainy, and the subject was half-hidden behind a tree.

They’d spent a pleasant evening speculating whether MacLachlan might be someone like Faolan, Druid-born, cursed, and long-lived, or more like Elena, blissfully ignorant of powers lurking below the surface. It was up to Elena to try to figure out that conundrum and bring him to the fold, if she could.

Matt had been right, the trip to the mainland had taken just about a full day. After sleeping on the boat, they set off early the next morning in the
MacMartins’ old truck they kept near the marina. They made a quick stop to buy three large waterproof trunks for the books, then headed towards Inverness. With Matt’s willingness to defy the laws of physics as well as the laws of the land, they made it to the farm safely.

It was so nice to see Red and Lilly, and of course Shadow, who took his name so seriously he even needed to follow Elena into the bathroom. Lilly fussed over her and wanted to hear all about the island and everything they’d done since they’d been gone. Red had given Elena a gruff hug as soon as she emerged from the truck and then let Lilly talk herself out. When Lilly went to start the water for tea, Red took his chance and asked about the boat and finding the island. Elena felt as though she’d talked for hours by the time she’d answered all their questions.

Exhausted by all the travel over the last two days, Elena took her cat and went to bed. When the morning sunlight streamed in her bedroom window, she woke rested, feeling strong and anxious to get started. It was too early to call the doctor’s office for an appointment, so she went to the barn to start packing the books.

When they took a break for breakfast, it was time to call the doctor’s office. Elena was disappointed that she couldn’t be seen until the following week. That would leave a scant few days to get back to the island before Beltane. It couldn’t be helped; they needed the information, and she needed to see
this doctor.

The rest of the day was spent packing the books and selecting the next round to pick up after the first batch was transported. After dinner, Elena used all her skills of persuasion to convince Matt and Red to leave in the morning and take the trunks to the island.

The books were needed to prepare for Beltane, and she would not be arriving until the day before, if her schedule held true. There was plenty of time for them to make a round trip and return to reload more of the books when they came to get her.

Elena would spend the week taking care of a few errands, getting her shopping done, and continuin
g her research into the doctor.

****

All he ever felt anymore was darkness inside, and it had been that way for as long as he could remember. He’d always felt like an old soul. It was as though he’d climbed out of a peat bog, fully-grown, full of shadows. Christ, had he ever even laughed?

The man was relieved that he was about to get some answers. Now that he’d found his new acquaintances, it seemed there might be a reason behind all that darkness. According to them, he had a power the world needed.
A power that wasn’t being utilized.

That thought was almost enough to make him want to laugh. Save the world? Then, when he’d thought about it, wasn’t that the reason he’d gone into medicine in the first place? To ease
his own darkness by bringing new life into the world, to see how all people started, before the world had a chance to wear them down? He sighed and thought about what was coming.

This all
began because he’d changed his route between office and home, gone down a nearby street, and saw that restaurant, The Saucy Sorcerer. He’d made a last minute decision and went there for dinner instead. His new friends told him later that was how they’d found him. They told him of spells, wards, and compulsions. They spoke of destiny.

At first, he hadn’t wanted to believe them, but his nights had become filled with disturbing dreams, and the things they said resonated within him. He’d had a hard time shaking off their stories, and eventually he’d called them back, asking to learn more, fearing what he might learn. The truth was, he hadn’t learned much more after those first few meetings.

He wasn’t stupid; he knew they were withholding serious amounts of information until they were sure they could trust him. Just as he was holding back something from them. Something that might put his life in danger if they knew he had it. Trust went both ways, and until he knew for certain what they wanted and why, he would keep it close to his chest, no matter how much he hated it.

Faolan’s mind was quick and his power immense. There was only one spell he’d tried so far whose power had eluded him. He’d tried manipulating the weather at the island until the temperature dropped twenty degrees in one hour and Earnan had hastily reclaimed that duty. That one was going to take a little more practice.

He’d spent the day mastering scrying, a more difficult spell, used to communicate with others across a distance. The object was to use a reflective surface to “see” what was happening some distance from the spell caster. The “somewhere” could be another room, another part of the country, or even another time, depending on the power of the Druid.

Faolan used the mirror that had brought Elena and he together and ultimately led them to the island as his reflective surface. Although it was rather ornate for his preference, it had obviously been imbued with magickal properties hundreds of years ago, and was still capable of holding a spell. He and Brigid had started with small distances within the castle, continuing to increase the distance between them throughout the grounds. Late in the afternoon, she’d declared he’d mastered the skill, and would now need to practice over
even longer distances, to further improve.

Faolan had been released from lessons until the dinner hour. With some time on his hands, he thought he would try to encase a spell of his own into the mirror, and cast the
scrying spell, feeling the power transfer from his mind to the mirror. He placed the mirror on the mantle, not hidden but not obvious either, and left the drawing room. He knew Earnan and Brigid would meet there for drinks before dinner; he was expected to join them. He would join them, but not in a corporeal sense.

When they entered the drawing room, Faolan clearly heard Earnan and Brigid speaking of plans for dinner. He spoke to them after only a few minutes and made himself known, before he inadvertently invaded their privacy.

“Pour my whisky, Earnan, for I will be there in a moment,” Faolan’s disembodied voice filled the room.

Brigid gasped loudly and looked around the room until she located the mirror.

Earnan said quietly, “Faolan, I think you better come down here.”

When Faolan entered the drawing room, he was grinning broadly, clearly pleased with himself. His grin faded when he saw
Earnan’s serious face. “Is something wrong, Earnan?”

“What gave you the idea to try distant
scrying, Faolan?”

“I doona’ know. It just seemed like a good idea. Since my mirror has held spells cast by others, I wanted to see if I could cast one into it myself.
T’was the first spell I thought of. Why? Is something wrong?” he asked again, feeling a little annoyed at the questioning.

“Faolan, when you want to talk to someone using the
scry spell, it is customary that both parties have a scrying surface, such as a mirror or a pool or water and the spell. Otherwise, if only one has the scrying surface and performs the spell, that person can watch unobserved, but the ones on the other end have no way of knowing they are being watched and the spell caster cannot hear or be heard,” Brigid explained.

Earnan, still speaking very quietly, asked, “
‘Tis not about manners, Faolan. We don’t mean to lecture. You have surprised us. What were you looking at, to be able to see and hear us if you left your mirror in here?”

Faolan grew very still. “I
wasna looking at anything. I saw it in my head. I saw you and heard you, as if I was standing right here in the room with you. It didna even occur to me that I would need another scrying surface. Is it the magick of this mirror?”

“I doona’ know, lad. End the
scry, and I will try the same thing with your mirror.”

For the next little while both Earnan and Brigid tried remote
scrying with the mirror without success. They could each cast the scry spell using the mirror, but only if they held it, and they could not see anything if they left it in the room, as Faolan had.

“I want to try one more thing, lad, and then I will tell you what I think. I want you to cast the spell as you did the first time, then leave the mirror here and go run the island. Shift to your wolf shape in several different
locations, try to get as far away from the castle as possible. Let us test the limits of this power. If you canna hear us, if you lose the scry, return. Otherwise, just speak to us whenever you take your human form.”

Faolan was gone nearly three hours and never once lost the thread of the conversation between Brigid and Earnan. He spoke to them from the opposite side of the island, as though he were in the room with them. Earnan tested him further, holding up notes for him to read, speaking with his back turned, and taking the mirror into other rooms with him.

Faolan grew more confident in his abilities with each of Earnan’s tests. Finally, he informed them he was returning to the castle, and to please have some food brought to the drawing room, or plan to meet in the dining hall.

As Faolan wolfed down his dinner, Earnan told him some Druid history. Earnan had only heard of two other Druids with the power of remote
scrying, the High Priest and Priestess of the ancient Druid Council. It was always assumed that the power came with the position, for each new Druid High Priest.

It was powerful magick because the person who could cast that spell could listen unobserved to any conversation, as long as he had placed a
scrying surface in the room ahead of time. Not only could he listen, he could speak, and needed no corresponding scrying surface because the spell caster could hear within his own mind. And if Faolan could hear the words of others across great distances even while he was in his wolf form, well it was an unprecedented amount of power.

Faolan grinned. “I sent you my last words, the ones when I told you I was hungry while I was still in my wolf form. I didna change back.”

Earnan just stared at him. “I have ne’er had a student with such magick, Faolan.

Magick was not his only strength; Brigid also sensed a strong power of healing. She had never told Faolan or Elena just how close to death Elena had been that day they found her. She would not have made it to the hospital in Inverness. Faolan had called upon his spirits and gave her the gift of his heartbeat. There was no doubt in
Brigid’s mind that Elena would have died had they been but a few minutes longer in finding her. Och, my son is powerful, she thought with pride.

****

As the time to prepare for the feast of Beltane grew nigh, Earnan wanted to introduce two other areas of magick. Although some sorcerers could master a spell that mimicked shape shifting, it was temporary, and the caster retained little power once he or she was wearing the spell. True shape shifters were born not made, and their power remained intact within their incarnation. The shape was passed from parent to child, along patriarchal lines, and most commonly involved wolves, cats, or birds. Very few Druids had ever possessed sufficient power to master shifting into multiple forms; that took a tremendous amount of concentration and power. Earnan suspected Faolan was well up to the task.

First, Faolan would use the mirror to hold the spell of the shape he wanted to become, and then through a form of
scrying, he would see the shape, and then become it. Since he had long ago mastered the art of returning to his real form from wolf, Earnan thought he would be able to use those same skills to return to his true form anytime. Once he mastered shifting to a different form using the mirror, he would learn to perform it without the mirror.

They started with a dog, a task so easy that Faolan hadn’t needed to use the mirror after his first attempt. Next, Faolan tried a cat, which was quite a bit trickier. He discovered that the mind of a cat was more complex than the mind of a dog, and that made a difference when shape shifting. Even with the added complexity, Faolan mastered that spell after just a few attempts, as well.

Earnan wanted him to try a winged animal, one of the most complex forms for a human to undertake. It was just not natural for man to be untethered from the Earth.

After some research, Faolan selected the Peregrine Falcon as his bird of choice. The bird could soar to incredible heights, reached speeds over 200 mph, and mated for life.
He liked the sound of that.

Shifting to a bird was an incredibly difficult bit of magick, and Faolan struggled with the complexity of the transformation. After several hours of practice,
he had finally mastered the task of shifting shape, but had been unable to fly. He would continue his practice on the morrow.