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The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 25th continuation)
(I’m thinking of changing the posting schedule – there will still be two definite postings, but I might do them on the Monday and Friday, with the Wednesday update happening if there’s enough in the story bank. Opinions?)
“That doesn’t entirely surprise me,” Meriwether said. “Within the Gold family, and the few families they chose to share their blood with, there were always seers. Someone gaining the ability to see the other Webs makes sense, although if there is someone like that it does make me wonder why the fae have made the choices they have in the last few years.”
“Maybe they can only see certain Webs,” Sini suggested. “Once the fae have made a certain choice it opens up a new Web to one of the seers, but they can’t always convince the fae to change their minds.”
Lucille nodded. “Magic does often seem to work like that, although I would have thought the big decisions, like the destruction of the natural Moonjumpers, would open more than one Web.” She bit her lip. “There must have been other Webs where different things happened after the fae made that choice, especially if something unexpected happened to Emrys.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an Athare that was very disappointed when Emrys didn’t walk through the door.” Meriwether shook his head. “For a while the healers weren’t sure he was going to make it, because he’d been badly affected by the loss of Kalinia’s magic, but he did eventually pull through. That was after we’d all decided that creating the worlds was the only real option we had if we wanted to survive.”
“When we talk about this I can’t help wondering if there’s another Web somewhere where we’re all talking about the same thing, but there’s a difference.” Bertram smiled. “In one Web it isn’t Lucille who’s helping us; on another it isn’t Sini who’s guiding us; on a third there is no Meriwether; and on another Peric isn’t a mouse, but a tiger who chose to shapeshift in order to help us with the case.”
“Then, on another Quiar, there’s no one sitting here, because the Web Wars brought an end to our world.” Meriwether sounded morose. “I love contemplating what it might be like in the other Webs, but, sometimes, I think I know too much.” He rubbed his antler. “Meeting people from other Webs, listening to their stories, makes it all much more real, and knowing for certain that they’ve been through such horrible things makes me feel guilty for imagining other Webs where their lives might have been so much easier.”
“Have you ever had the choice to travel to one of the other Webs?” Sini asked, wanting to change the subject because she hated to hear Meriwether sounding so sad.
“Not as such. The doors work differently for the spirit races and the dead, but it’s not something that’s ever been explored. Leolin spent decades travelling from world to world, learning what each of the doors did, because it was information that the entire Web needed. For the spirit races it’s nowhere near as important. They don’t travel anywhere near as much and I’ve never known a spirit to accidentally find themselves on another world.” Meriwether shrugged. “It’s really hard to explain. I have no idea why the doors don’t work the same way for the spirits of the Web as they do for the people of the Web, but they don’t.”
“Magic is unpredictable, Merry. We both have experience with how unpredictable it can be and nothing should surprise us, really, but I know there are times when I’m still surprised by how strangely it works.” Lucille smiled, reaching out to squeeze Meriwether’s hand with hers, and Sini was grateful that someone was there to show him the support he seemed to really need. “Even though Leolin spent all that time learning what the doors did there are still things we don’t know. Last month I found a new door on Athare, but I didn’t have a chance to work out where it led because I was meant to be somewhere, so I passed the information on to the other true Walkers I know. We work as hard as we can to make sure we know where all the natural doors lead and yet it never seems to be enough.”
“How often do new doors appear?” Bertram asked.
“About once a week.” Lucille sighed. “That’s an Atharian week, which is slightly shorter than your moonweek.”
“Calendars,” Meriwether said. “A calendar comparison would be really useful. Maybe that should be where you start, Lucille, because that would be something that would help both the willing and unwilling travellers, and is something I can’t imagine the fae being angry about.”
“You have some wonderful ideas, Merry.” Lucille nodded. “In one of the Council libraries there’s a huge chart that we all use to work out when we’ll come out on whichever world we’re travelling to, but, for some reason, there’s nothing smaller than that.”
“I think there was one, once.” Meriwether stared into the distance, looking as though he was seeing another world at another time. “If I remember correctly it got destroyed when the fae decided that travelling to the other worlds was too dangerous and we never got round to making another one. There was always too much to do and too little time to do it in, so we focused on things we really needed to do.” He shrugged. “It’s always been like that within the Council and I doubt it’s changed much.”
“It hasn’t.” Lucille shook her head. “Even though there are thousands of Moonjumpers there never seems to be enough to do all the jobs that need doing. I’ve never worked out why, really, because there should be more than enough, no matter how many are out travelling the Web.”
“Administration is one of the jobs that always seems to need more people than there are,” Peric said, surprising Sini with his sudden appearance. “I don’t know why, but I think it’s mostly due to the boredom factor. Filing, checking reports, and making sure everything is done right is something most people don’t find interesting.” He shrugged. “Personally I love filing. I find it therapeutic.”
“Writing reports is something I do a lot of,” Lucille replied, “because of all the travelling I do. It’s not the most interesting part of the job, but it is necessary. The Council needs to know if something has happened to one of the doors or one of the worlds during the time we’re there.” She smiled. “Recently there have been a lot of door failures.”
“The magic was never meant to last this long. When we first created the doors we weren’t expecting the evolution of the Moonjumpers, so we imagined that we could let them fade away, but that became impossible after Riordan’s meeting with Tegan.” Meriwether sighed. “I hate to think that our plan was to simply abandon the races we created.”
“Do you think there’s a world where the Moonjumpers never evolved?” Peric asked, slipping into the free seat next to Bertram.
“Anything is possible, Peric, but the Moonjumpers, if we stopped to think about what we were doing, were inevitable.” Meriwether shrugged. “We just didn’t stop to think too much. It was easier to keep working, keep doing what needed to be done, and not let ourselves think about the races we were placing on the worlds we’d created. I think we always knew that the fae weren’t going to keep being positive about the choice they’d made during a time of intense stress, when the only thing we wanted to do was survive, so we didn’t want to let ourselves get too connected with anything.”
“Life would be really weird in a Web with no Moonjumpers.” Lucille shivered. “We’re the glue that keeps the worlds together. Without us… I dread to think what the races of the worlds might have done, because they wouldn’t have known about the other worlds, or the doors, or the Web.”
“Another Web War, caused when the race of one world realised there was a world they could get to by stepping through a magical door.” Meriwether stared thoughtfully out of the window and Sini knew he was imagining the Web. “Which race would be curious enough?”
“There are several possibilities: one of the races of Beshaki, the Witches of Raenarin, the Knirochians…” Lucille shrugged. “The list is unending, Merry, because a lot of the races would have the urge to explore if they found another world. I think the question should be who would be the most likely to find the door.”
“Either the tigers of Quiar or the Knirochians.” Meriwether smiled. “I’d put money on the Knirochians, considering what they found in this Web.”
“It’s unlikely they would have caused a war, considering how they reacted when they found the sibling worlds, and I can’t imagine the tigers causing one either.”
“What about the Weavers?” Sini asked. “Surely they’d be doing something to keep the Web together, because they know about the other worlds.”
Lucille looked at Sini, smiling. “That’s a very good question and one I’m not sure I know the answer to. I think they would be doing something, but it would be what they thought was right, and the Weavers… I have a feeling if they had a choice they’d destroy the fae created doors.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Ooo...
I would love to see a glimpse of that AU!
No typos found.