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k_a_webbSini looked at Lucille. “Athare had been asleep?”
Lucille nodded. “It happens with sentient worlds when they have no inhabitants, because there’s no reason for them to be awake. Normally they chose when they’ll wake and when their people will begin evolving, but Athare found herself with thousands of fae suddenly needing her to be their world, even though they had no idea that she was anything more than a lump of rock filled with the magic they needed to be able to survive.” Lucille sighed. “Kalinia wasn’t sentient in the same way and the fae obviously assumed that all magical worlds were the same. Athare chose not to inform them she wasn’t.”
“But everyone says that Emrys was in contact with Athare before he even arrived.”
“He was,” Meriwether said. “He just wasn’t in contact with the Athare he would find himself on, because she was still asleep. Instead he was in contact with one of the future Athares, one who knew that the Web was the only way for the fae to survive and chose to tell Emrys about it all, instead of keeping that knowledge to herself.” He shrugged. “There is one Athare I’ve heard of that has a Web, but it wasn’t created by a group of the fae – it was created by Emrys. He did all the work himself, because he knew it was the only way he could keep his race alive, and they voted against the creation of the Web as they didn’t know what he did.”
“What’s it like?” Sini asked.
“I don’t know, Sini. The only reason I’ve heard of it is because one of the travelling spirits I spoke to had talked with someone who been there.” Meriwether shook his head. “Over the years I’ve met spirits from at least ten different Webs, I’d guess at least a few of them had met spirits from other Webs and that puts the count up to maybe twenty, but I don’t doubt that there’s probably at least a hundred that have major differences to the Web we live in now. If you include the Webs that are different due to small decision changes there’s going to be an infinite amount.” He looked at Sini. “Take your life as an example. Your father choosing to raise you on Mothar would have changed the Web, although it would have been a tiny change if you compare that to the possibility of Eithne never creating the Weavers.”
“Is there a Web where that happened?” Lucille rested her head on her hand as she looked at Meriwether and Sini could tell from the look in her eye that the Moonjumper was just as fascinated by the way the conversation was going. “I’ve always thought that they were inevitable.”
“Eithne was lucky to survive the journey from Kalinia. She was ill for a long time when we first arrived on Athare and we all wondered if she’d be well enough to help us with the creation of the Web. On another world she might not have survived long enough to be brought to Athare, she might have died when we got her here, or she might have been ill for a much longer time. That doesn’t mean that someone else didn’t create the Weavers, because I’m pretty certain that must exist everywhere, but if it hadn’t been Eithne it would have changed things a lot.”
“Who might it have been?”
“Probably Bronwen.” Meriwether rubbed his antler. “Although there’s a chance it might have been Mairin.”
“Mairin only created on race.”
“She did here, because no one was happy to take on the race she wanted to create until she asked Piaras.”
“What race?” Bertram asked, looking between Meriwether and Lucille.
“I’m not sure they have a name,” Lucille replied, “but she took her inspiration from a series of books she found when she was on Earth. The books themselves have been destroyed now, because the fae weren’t happy when they found out that Mairin had managed to convince Piaras to give such a dangerous race a chance to live within the Web, and they didn’t want the same thing to happen again.”
“To be honest I’ve never quite understood their worries,” Meriwether continued. “The thing they picked up on was how the different castes worked together and one experienced something that the fae thought would be dangerous, but Mairin was taking her inspiration from the magical system rather than anything else. No one seemed to realise that.”
“The fae refused to create a door that would lead to the island they live on, due to that fear. Athare didn’t agree, so created a natural door from her to the island about a month after the world was placed, and natural Moonjumpers have been travelling there ever since.” Lucille smiled. “I love Athare for making that decision because the magic system is one I think would work on all the worlds.”
“When I first talked to Mairin about her plans I did suggest that.” Meriwether shrugged. “Unfortunately she’d already realised that the majority of the fae, even the creators, were against her race being given a home on any of the worlds, and they were all furious with Piaras. I didn’t feel the same way, because I understood that she was uncomfortable with the caste system too, although she liked the way it worked for the most part, so she’d already decided that if she did create a caste system it would work differently.”
“If I’d been Piaras I would have done the same thing. Using an already thought of race for inspiration makes sense, even if they are different from what I’d like them to be, because it’s just a starting point. None of the others had that sort of starting point when they created their races – they just had an idea of what they wanted them to be like and what magic they should have.” Lucille ran a hand through her hair. “The Weavers are the only reason most of the races actually worked, because they could see the souls the fae had created and knew what they wanted.”
“Was it like that for our races?” Bertram asked. “Are we only like this because this is what the original souls of Quiar wanted to look like?”
“Emrys had an idea of what he wanted the races of Quiar to be like, so he talked with the race creators to find someone who was comfortable with the idea of creating more animalistic races. By that point a lot of the other worlds have been inhabited by bipedal races, based on the form of the fae who had survived Kalinia.” Meriwether shook his head, his eyes full of sorrow. “Many of the more magical races, who had different forms to us, were the first to die as Kalinia faded, and I think we all hoped that maybe it was their fault, they were the ones causing the problems, so once they were gone the world would be find. We were wrong.” He rubbed his antler. “We all viewed them as lesser creatures really, even though they had more magic than us, because they were so different. The shapeshifters dealt with the same prejudice, as did the mer-people. I’m glad I’ve had a chance to learn the error of my beliefs by becoming what I would have one thought of as a lesser creature.”
“Maybe we should gather the souls of the fae within the settlements and bring them to Quiar, so they had no choice but to become the lesser creatures they’ve always looked down on,” Sini suggested, wondering if it was possible for the fae to change and grow when they’d spend so long clinging onto the past.
A long silence followed, before Meriwether said, “That’s a brilliant idea, but I don’t know how we’d make it happen.” He looked at Lucille. “Hopefully then we could bring an end to the fae as a race and make the Web a better place.”
“It wouldn’t be an easy process.” Lucille sighed. “First we’d have to come up with a way of trapping the souls and then we’d have to work out how to make them stay on Quiar rather than travel through one of the doors to the other worlds.”
“Surely Quiar could help with that. If you explained to her what the plan was and why we were trying to make it work she might help us by closing the doors off to the other worlds to any fae spirits.” Sini smiled. “At least for one life. Then, maybe, they could travel to the other worlds and become other races, so they could understand what they’d put us through.”
“I think it’s something we should at least try,” Bertram said, smiling back at Sini. “Even if we can’t find a way to make it work at least we’ll have done something to make the Web a better place, because I think we’re all agreed that the Web will be a much better place if the fae weren’t trying to control everything.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
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Date: 2013-08-20 12:21 am (UTC)That should say "one" above.