The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 8, 19th continuation)

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Part 1

Part 8, eighteenth continuation

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Lucille shook her head, trying to work out how to get her feelings into words, because it was hard to explain to the three Quiarans what her expectations had been when she first completed her studies. She had nothing to compare it to and she knew that there had never, in the entire history of the Council, been a Walker from one of the original Quiaran races. The Council would never have accepted one of the ‘animals’ in to training, as far as she knew none of them had ever applied for a position, but from what she’d heard there had been several natural Walkers born on Quiar. According to Leolin being able to travel the worlds changed people, which was why the natural Walkers were viewed as too dangerous to be permitted to travel the worlds any longer.

Thankfully the decisions, in the end, were made by the worlds. Unlike the fae the worlds didn’t want to be in control of everything, because they were terrified of not being in control. No matter what they knew that in the end it was their choice to allow the races the fae had created to live on them, knowing that most of the races had no real choice either, and they did their best to keep an eye on things, helping the true Walkers as much as they could. At least that was what Lucille had heard from Carver, who’d connected with more of the true Walkers than she had. Sometimes she couldn’t help thinking that it might be better for her to leave the Council behind, she’d have more freedom, but she wanted to try convincing the Council that they needed to rethink the rules they’d given the Walkers and that they needed to change the way the Walkers were trained.

“I don’t feel special,” Lucille said, finally. “I feel lucky. Even though I know it took hard work to pass the exams the worlds didn’t chose me because I knew more about them than anyone else did. They chose me because they thought I was the right person to work with the Council on their behalf, although the Council don’t know that’s what I’m doing. All the Council think I’m doing is following the rules they gave me and I’m guessing that’s only partly due to me.”

“I don’t doubt that the races of Kniroch and Beshaki are looking out for you in the same way that we will,” Peric said, smiling at Lucille. “I understand why you feel lucky, because in your position I think I’d feel the same way. Being chosen by a world is something I can’t imagine, but at the same time it makes me wish I’d made the choice to become a Council Moonjumper when I was young and had a chance to do what you’re doing now.”

“You may be a natural.” There was no family trees for Quiar on the walls of any of the libraries, but Lucille knew there would be one somewhere. “Anyone could be a natural, but if they haven’t tried stepping through one of the doors they can’t know, and most people don’t know where the doors are. On Athare I have a map of all the known doors, copied from one of Leolin’s journals, that I try to keep up to date. You never know when that sort of thing might come in handy.”

“Have you ever needed to use one of the doors in an emergency?”

“No, but I have used them to travel to worlds I wasn’t supposed to be on.” Lucille smiled. “The Council have gargoyles who watch over the created doors, so if I travelled to a world without their permission they’d know about it, but the natural doors make things a lot easier.”

“Gargoyles?” Sini asked and Lucille could tell from the look on the chimera’s face that she was trying to work out if she’d ever seen one of the gargoyles before.

“I’d call them another race, but the fae don’t. When the doors were created they were given frames, partly to make it easy to find them because in some lights they can appear to be invisible and partly so they had some way of keeping control over them. Their control took the form of stone creatures on each door that can turn into a bipedal being when someone travels through the door.”

“They were created after Tegan was found, weren’t they?” Bertram said.

“Until then they didn’t know that anyone else could use the doors, because they hadn’t planned for the magic they’d given their races to evolve so quickly. Once they found out they did what they could to make it harder for the natural Moonjumpers to avoid the rules the fae gave them, but they first didn’t know about the natural doors and when they did they couldn’t find them.” Lucille tried not to let the glee she felt show, but it was hard. “The doors hid from them. A couple were found, mostly by accident, and closed. Most of the races saw it as the worlds making themselves known, but the fae… well, it possible some of them saw it the same way, but most of them thought it was a failing of the Council.”

“I think I remember hearing about that,” Sini said, surprising Lucille. “Someone on my father’s side was a natural, although she never joined the Council, and she was, apparently, on Athare at the time. I know the entire Council was removed, but he never told me exactly what happened.”

“Removed in a nice way of saying that there were all killed. The fae sent in an assassin, who even managed to kill the leader of the time, who was one of Riordan’s descendants. She was quickly replaced by her younger brother and he made certain that it could never happen again, and I think that was when relations between the leader and the fae were at their most difficult. It’s not exactly a surprise.”

 ***

Peric had felt Lucille’s surprise and it was mirrored by his own. He’d never heard of the destruction of the Council before and it was one of those things he had questions about, but he knew that Bertram and Lucille needed to leave soon. After glancing at Sini, who just nodded as though she knew exactly what he was thinking, he decided he was allowed one more question before he shooed them all out. He had work to do too, even though it wasn’t something he was going to mention to Lucille. Studying her crystal to see how it worked was something she probably wouldn’t think was a good idea.

“When exactly did that happen?” Peric asked, hoping that he wouldn’t end up with more questions he’d want to ask.

“It was about three hundred years after Riordan met Tegan the first time.” Lucille tapped her fingers on the table. “I don’t know why it took them so long to work out what was happening, unless it was simply because they didn’t care all that much about what the Moonjumpers were doing until they realised that their rules were being broken. Even then the fae weren’t happy with the idea of the Moonjumpers getting too involved, but they hadn’t banned it entirely, although they did ban affecting the history of the world in any way.” She bit her lip, looking thoughtful. “I think it was both affecting the past and the present, but the Council’s records are a little confused on exactly what the Moonjumpers weren’t permitted to do. It was when a war was averted on a world where none of the Moonjumpers were supposed to be that the fae realised something untoward was going on and they talked to the Council about their worries. The Council said they’d do their best to work out what had happened and that’s when they realised the natural doors existed.”

“We’re going to need more than one book,” Bertram said, shaking his head. “A history of the Council and the Moonjumpers; a basic history of each of the worlds of the Web; a history of the Web itself; and I don’t doubt that we’ll all think of more.”

Nodding, Peric’s eyes met Lucille’s, who looked less uncomfortable with the idea then he’d expected her to. “That’s why the Council make us study so much. With all the worlds, the Council, the Web, and everything else there’s reams of information we need to know. I’m pretty certain that’s why the majority of the Moonjumpers pick up to about four worlds to study, then they pick two of those worlds, at most, to be their worlds, and it does make it easier to journey from world to world.”

Another question. Why was it easier to journey from world to world? Peric told himself to remember it for when they got together for dinner and said, “Breakfast and questions with Lucille is now over.” He smiled. “If we’re going to catch the counterfeiters we need to get to work.”

The disappointment Peric could feel was quickly replaced with determination. “Normally, in my position as a tour guide, I’d follow up the trip to the market with an exploration of the North Quarter, showing off the best of the architecture. A lot of people come to Seahorse Port to look at the architecture because it’s one of the cities that is easy to travel around for all of the races, even those that fly and glide.”

“I do like that about Seahorse,” Bertram said, as the three of them stood. “Being able to glide so well here is wonderful and if it wasn’t for Peric I would think about moving here.”

As Peric opened the folder Durai had left, that Meriwether had put with the plate of pastries, he heard Lucille say, “The two of you are like the sea and seaweed. You can’t have one without the other and I don’t think Peric likes it here very much.”

“Peric is most comfortable with what he knows. We both know Sheepshank, because we were both born there, and sometimes I do get a little bored. There’s nothing new, nowhere to explore, I know everyone, so coming here, where I know nothing… it’s quite possible the best thing that’s happened in a long time.”

“I’d love to travel to Sheepshank,” Sini replied.

With that the three of them got too far away for Peric to hear their conversation, so he turned his attention to the folder in front of him, even though he wanted to take Lucille’s crystal out of his pocket. He knew he needed to work before he did anything fun, but he was soon distracted by Meriwether wandering over to gather up the leftovers.

“Did you enjoy breakfast?” the deer asked.

“I did. The nuts are wonderful.”

“Having a good selection of anything anyone might want is something I aim for. I was just a little worried about Lucille, because I’m not sure how used to Quiaran food she is.”

“She’s spent enough time here to know that we don’t eat much meat.”

“I’m glad.” When Peric looked up at Meriwether he could see that the deer had a question but wasn’t sure how to ask it. “Will you be staying here from now on?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Good. I had a chat with Hereward yesterday, after he finished his shift, and due to the job you’re doing for him he’d like to pay for half of your stay.”

Peric looked at Meriwether. “Why would he do that?”

“Hereward feels responsible for the problem you had yesterday with your empathy overwhelming you, is very thankful that you are helping him with an investigation that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and you brought the Moonjumper here.”

“Lucille brought herself.”

“Either way, Peric, it’s the first time we’ve had a Moonjumper here who actually talks to us as though we’re people. The last one…” Meriwether made a face. “He wasn’t someone I would ever have welcomed back into my bed and breakfast.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

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[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> the worlds didn’t chose me <<

That should say "choose" above.

>> There was no family trees for Quiar <<

That should say "tree" above.

>> it’s quite possible the best thing <<

That should say "possibly" above.

This was an interesting discussion about the different kinds of information they want to gather.