The World Walkers: Athare: Eithne: Creating the First Weaver

[k_a_webb]

The first Weaver had failed. It wasn’t unexpected, even though Eithne had hoped for a better result, because they’d been forced to leave behind all the records. No one in living memory had created anything more than an animal and to get from there to a sentient humanoid was a step they didn’t know how to take. She didn’t know if the records would have helped as the majority of the experiments had been failures. At the very least she would know what not to replicate. Four experiments had been successful, although the results hadn’t been what was expected, which was the way magic often worked.

Sighing, Eithne looked at where the Weaver’s body had been. There were four more souls sitting in crystal jars on the shelf and she knew it was possible that all of them would be destroyed in her attempts to meld the two together. Guilt welled up inside her with that thought, because she didn’t know if they felt anything. Creating a soul was strangely easy, compared to the amount of effort that needed to be used to create a body, so she knew she could make as many as she needed and yet… She looked around the room, wondering if the soul could have survived the destruction of the body. If it had, if she’d been a soul in that situation, she’d have fled.

When she didn’t see it anywhere Eithne picked up her pen to record her results. Every failure would be shared with her fellow creators, in an attempt to find a method that would lead to success. Of course none of them knew if that would ever happen, but they knew they had to try, because the very existence of the thirteen families rested on the shoulders of the creators. As one group tried to work out how to make a world the other attempted to make people. Neither was easy, safe, or certain.

Every step Eithne had taken was written down in her records, from how she had created the soul to how she had created the body and the next thing she had to record was how she had tried to get the body to accept the soul. There was none of her uncertainty in the words she’d put on paper. It was simple to hide all her worries when she was documenting things, the same way it was easy for her fellow creators to do the same thing, but the tension that filled the meeting room gave it away. As she placed her pen on the paper, attempting to work out how she was going to describe what she’d done, she felt as though someone was staring at her, followed by the sensation of there being someone else in her head.

At first the only thing Eithne felt was pure terror. There might have been a soul floating around looking for a body and if it decided it wanted her body she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. One of the record books had had pages torn out of it, which combined with rumours that once a soul had taken over one of the fae who was attempting to place it into a body had been part of the reason they’d been banned from creating anything more than animals.

‘Don’t be scared,’ a voice said in Eithne’s head. It almost felt like telepathy, but the voice echoed in a way that made her certain it was literally in her head. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

“Who are you?” Eithne asked, her voice sounding loud in the empty room.

‘I’m a Weaver.’ The voice sounded amused. ‘At least that was what you designated me. In this state I can be anything you want me to be.’

“Okay…” Breathing deeply, in an attempt to calm herself down, Eithne looked over at the jars where the other souls were. “Why are you in my head?”

‘I was wondering why you were doing this. I’ve been watching you since I was born and I don’t understand what expectations you have.’

Eithne bit her lip as she attempted to find the words to explain what they were doing. “We need to keep Athare alive,” she explained. “My race destroyed one world, because we wanted more than it could give, and now we’re attempting to stop the from happening here.”

‘By making people?’

“And worlds.”

‘How do you think it’s going to help?’

“Our hope is that other races with different magics may be able to return magic to the world in a way that we can’t.” Eithne shrugged, before wondering if the soul could feel her movement. “There’s no way for us to know how much magic Athare has in it, so we had to do something quickly, and it really seemed like we only had once choice.”

‘That’s interesting.’ All Eithne could do was wait when the voice went silent, doing her best not to think of anything at all because she didn’t know how much it could pick up. ‘What was your aim when you created the Weavers?’

“I…” She didn’t have an answer to the question, but that wasn’t something she really wanted to admit. “When I was asked to create a race for Athare, to be one of the first to start creating a race of beings that had never existed before, I had so many ideas. There were so many things I wanted to experiment with. It wasn’t until I started creating the first soul, you, that I really started to think about what I was doing and all of those ideas faded away. Now my only aim is to do what needs to be done.”

‘You are… uncomfortable…with the choices your people have made.’

“I really am. It was so easy to make you and it was for a selfish reason. The fae are nothing more than parasites.” Eithne shook her head. “We’re making people because we need you in order to survive when I’m not even certain we should.”

‘Do you think the other fae feel the same way?’

“I don’t know. We don’t really talk about what we’re doing, unless it about whether our experiments are working or not, and I’ve been the odd one out. My plan was to create a number of souls first before moving onto the bodies. The other two creators I’m working closely with have gone with creating one soul at a time.”

‘Have they mentioned anything about a soul talking to them?’

“No, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I’m certain that if it had happened neither of them would talk to me about it. Or each other for that matter.”

‘Maybe it’s because I’m older.’

“By days.”

‘A day is a long time for a soul.’ It sounded like it was smiling. ‘I could help you.’

“What with?” Eithne could hear the suspicion in her own voice so she was certain the soul could hear it.

‘Creating a body for my soul. Make it easy for you to teach the other creators to do what needs to be done.’

“How can you do that?”

‘I know what I need and I know what my siblings need. It’s hard to explain, but there are certain things a soul needs in order to merge with a body. The body you created before would have been perfect for the soul in the third jar. Unfortunately you chose me because you didn’t know.’

“Can you do that for all souls?”

‘It’s possible. I think it’s a part of the magic you gave me evolving to be something even more useful. I’m a Weaver and that means I Weave.’

Hearing the way the soul said Weave told Eithne that she’d done something right. “You’re on probation. I’ll use your guidance to create one body for one soul and if it doesn’t work then …” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’ll do, because I’m pretty certain there’s nothing I can do to get rid of you.”

‘If it doesn’t work I’ll leave you alone, but I know it will work.’

“So what do I need to do?”

‘The soul in the second jar needs a female body. All Weaver females will be between 4ft and 4ft 11”. She wants to be on the shorter side, around 4ft 3”. If she ends up being a little under or a little over it doesn’t matter that much. Skin tone needs to be more purple than silver. Silver eyes rimmed with short eyelashes; lavender hair about shoulder length; hand like yours only with the fingers being a little longer; delicate feet with four toes rather than five; and she should be small all over really.’

Eithne scribbled notes on a piece of paper she’d pulled out of her record book. “I didn’t go into that much detail when I created you.”

‘In general you don’t have to, although it makes it easier for the soul, because it is possible for us to transform a body into the one we need. The problem I had with the body you created me was that it was the wrong gender and that’s one of the hardest things to change. It’s possible that my attempts to make it a comfortable fit might have destroyed it.’

“How?”

‘Words can’t explain everything.’ The voice sounded like it… she was smiling again. ‘I wish I could help you to understand, it might give you an idea of what happened when the Dragons were created, but I just don’t know how to.’

A shiver of fear went down Eithne’s spine. “Can you read my mind?” she asked.

‘I’m in your head, so it’s impossible not to. What I have been doing is focusing on what you know about creating beings and keeping as far away from anything personal as I can.’

Nodding, Eithne took a deep breath and finished what she’d been writing. “The Dragons turned out to be a mistake.”

‘Maybe for you they were, but for the Dragons… The first Dragon had an option, the same way I did, and he chose to exist. For them it wasn’t a mistake.’ The soul sighed within Eithne’s head and the strange sensation of a whisper of wind travelled around her mind. ‘Souls are strange things and when you create one using magic you make them even stranger. Leaving me in a crystal jar gave me a chance to learn, so I could make an informed decision, which is something I must thank you for. The souls the other creators are making won’t have that, which is, I think, part of the reason nothing has worked so far.’

“We’re experimenting with a magic we really don’t understand, aren’t we?”

‘Yes, you are. There’s no way you can understand it now, because all of the gathered knowledge you did have was lost, and I doubt that even if you had that it would really help. Being given the ability to create anything is both a gift and a curse, but this… It’s more than anyone should have had, but magic evolves with time and this evolution can be dangerous.’

“I always knew that.”

‘Knowing something and truly understanding it are totally different things. The Dragons were one thing. Now you’re planning on making a number of different races to live on worlds that you have also created, and considering the options it does seem to be a logical choice, but it’s not an easy path to take.’

“Then why are you helping me?”

‘I want to live.’ Eithne could easily imagine the soul smiling at her. ‘It’s as simple as that.’

“You can’t know that the other souls in those jars feel the same way.”

‘If they didn’t want to live they wouldn’t have told me what they needed in order to take control of a body. The souls that the other creators made and will continue to make… I can’t know until I see them what they want, but I need you to promise me something.’

“What?”

‘No one can know where the information I give you comes from.’

It took Eithne a moment to work out why, even though it should have come to her immediately. “If the fae know what you can do then they’ll do everything they can to destroy you.”

‘The fae can’t control everything, even though that’s what you seem to want, because everything you create will evolve. Some things will happen quickly, some will happen slowly, but it will happen, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.’

“I don’t think I’d want to, now I know how interesting those evolutions can be.” Eithne wished she had a person in front of her she could smile at. “I will keep your ability a secret, but it does make things a little more difficult, because I’m going to need to work out how I can pass on the information that you give me.”

‘That’s something we can work out later, after you test me.’

Pushing everything else to the back of her mind Eithne focused on gathering the energy she needed to create the Weaver’s body. To begin with it didn’t look anything like it needed to, because creating a body with magic was akin to sculpting. Once a block of energy lay on the metal bed in front of her she got to work with her hands, using them to make the shape of the body first, before going onto the details. As she did so the soul gave her little nudges so the body was exactly right for the soul she was making it for. It was strange having someone there to help her, especially a soul that had taken over her head, but at the same time she enjoyed every moment. Having someone there who actually knew what they were doing when it came to creating the body took a weight off her shoulders.

“Are we ready?” Eithne said, once the final detailing was done on the Weaver’s ear.

‘Yes, we are.’

Breathing deeply she picked up the second crystal jar. Until Eithne tried to get the soul to merge with the body she wouldn’t know if the soul had been telling her the truth or not, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to put it to the test. Seeing the first body disintegrate in front of her had been heart wrenching and to see it happen again would be worse. Then she reminded herself that this was her job, she was doing her part to save her race, so she had to open the jar. Finally, with a hand that didn’t seem to want to work, she took the cork out of the jar, gently shook the soul free, and waited.

The soul shone the same purple as the body as it floated from head to feet and back again. Eithne bit her lip as she watched, breathing a sigh of relief when the soul chose the ear as her entry point. It didn’t mean the soul would merge with the body, but it was a step in the right direction, and from what Eithne could remember from the records it would take a couple of hours for anything to happen. Although, if she remembered correctly, the first Dragon had taken minutes to wake.

‘The Dragons were given a lot of magic,’ the soul said, making Eithne jump, ‘before being left on a shelf for ten days.’

“I don’t remember that.”

‘You read the book nearly thirty years ago and although your memory hold everything you need it’s really hard to recall something from that long ago. The reason I can read it is because I haven’t taken this body as my own so I have a bit more freedom when it comes to finding information I need.’

“Will you still know the same things when you’re in your own body?”

‘I should do. Weavers are different to the fae, we need to know things that may not seem important to you, so we can Weave.’

“Did I make the right choice?”

‘Possibly, but Weaving could be just as dangerous as the power you have to create things like me.’ Amusement filled the soul’s voice again. ‘Then again I don’t think any magic is necessarily safe. In the hands of the wrong person almost all magic can be dangerous.’

Nodding, Eithne turned her attention to the Weaver. “How long will she take to wake?”

‘She’s almost there. It’s going to be getting used to having a body that will take the time.’

“What do you do when you get in there?”

‘It’s hard to explain. A created soul is very different to a born soul, because we, normally, need adult bodies because of that. I guess the best way to explain it is using your terminology: we wake up the body. When it’s newly created it’s inert, basically, and in order to us to use it we have to change that, which can be much harder when it’s not the body we want.’

“Is any of what you told me in the record books I read?”

‘No, but you could have learnt a lot if you’d actually spoken to the races you created. Instead you got scared because things didn’t go the way you wanted them to, which is hardly a surprise considering the fact you don’t understand the magic you’re using, and ran in the opposite direction.’

“I need to write down everything you’ve told me about souls to give to the other creators.”

‘Give it to Bronwen.’

Pushing away the surprise she felt, because the fae girl wasn’t a friend even though they were family, Eithne asked, “Why Bronwen?”

“She’ll make the best use of it… and…”

“It would be safe to tell her about us,” a voice said from the table, as the Weaver slowly pushed herself up. “Bronwen is going to need to know things that the rest of the fae don’t.”

“Are you okay?” Eithne asked, hurrying over to help the Weaver.

“I’m fine.” The Weaver smiled at her. “I’m Amarantha. It’s nice to meet you, Eithne.”

“How did you know what…”

‘My name’s Halcyon.’

“…Halcyon was saying?”

“You mentioned Bronwen. I didn’t know exactly what Halcyon would have already said, but I could guess.”

“And you’re both sure that Bronwen is the one to talk to?”

“Yes.”

‘Absolutely.’

“That’s what I’ll do then.” Eithne smiled. “After I’ve created Halcyon a body.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Comments

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating, and very apt regarding the match of souls to bodies.

No typos found.