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k_a_webb‘The fae, I don’t think, ever really expected the Web to actually work. Accepting that it was their only option was so different to actually seeing it all come together, because Emrys and Riordan were the sort of people who could make things happen when their put their mind to it. Every time a new world was placed onto the Web, or a new race was given a home, the more uncomfortable the fae became, and then unexpected things started happening. Once they started losing people because the worlds closed themselves off they decided that they couldn’t be a part of the Web. Maybe they never could admit it to themselves, but they were scared. They came to the realisation that the magic they were allowing the use of had been banned for a reason and it was probably a good one.’ Quiar sighed. ‘Unfortunately what they still don’t seem to understand in that magic like that is meant to be used. Not in the way they ended up using it, but banning magic, out of fear, is never a good thing. If the fae had let themselves get used to having two families who could make races and worlds then they wouldn’t be hiding in warded settlements now, hating each other, the races that were created, and themselves.’
‘Considering what the Dragons were like I’m not surprised they were scared, but I think if the families had been given a chance to use their magic then they wouldn’t have made such huge mistakes when they were finally permitted to experiment. The Dragons should have showed them all that it was the most important thing for them to learn to understand the magic rather than pretending it didn’t exist. In the end they had no choice but to live together and now the Dragons are lost somewhere.’
‘No, Lucy, they never got lost. Willow and the Dragon Prince Draven made the decision together that they shouldn’t travel to Earth. It was something Draven felt strongly about, because he knew what his race were like and he’d been in love with Willow for years, even though she was only the youngest daughter of a fae king, so he wanted to give her a chance to make a life for her people without the Dragons being there to ruin everything. They ended up on another world with some of the predator shifters, mostly the big cats and the wolves, where they could begin pretty much from scratch, although Willow did make a minor mistake because the world was inhabited. Not by a race like the humans of Earth, but by a number of small tribes much like the fae were when they were a much younger race.’
‘You know so much more than I thought was you possibly could know.’
‘Magical worlds talk to each other. We didn’t before the fae started travelling, but once they managed to destroy their second world we started thinking ahead, because we knew we needed to protect ourselves. That was how Kalinia knew her best option was to gather some of her magic into a hidden place, so she could begin again once they’d moved on. Earth is different, as it’s an evolved world, although things have changed a lot with the arrival of the fae, but she can still talk to us, thanks to the people who believe in Gaia. Before the fae arrived things were different, but their magic has made Gaia real in a way she couldn’t have been without them, as well as making other things, things that should never have existed, real. That is an unfortunate byproduct of magic sometimes.’
‘Quiar, I want to be able to see these places. Can you take me there?’
Quiar laughed. ‘Of course I can and I will. Athare asked me to talk to you about all this, the same way other worlds are talking to their Moonjumpers, because it’s not unusual for some of you to end up on those worlds, thanks to the doors the fae created. Everything they’ve ever made is connected. It’s the way their magic works. What we need is more people to know about these things, so you can teach others, as one of the things we always wanted you to be was teachers, travelling the worlds to help the races know everything that they needed to. Unfortunately the first rule put an end to that plan as soon as they found out about Tegan.’
‘Did you mean for the fae to know about the Moonjumpers?’
‘We knew it had to happen and we planned for it to be Riordan who found out, because we knew how he’d react, but we were hoping that the fae would back off instead of feel the need to try to take control. There was one Web where the fae decided, instead of creating the settlements, to leave entirely. Unfortunately that actually caused more problems than it solved, so we’re glad it didn’t happen again. Instead we just had to work around them and their first rule, which wasn’t as difficult as it can be now, even though there are lots of worlds where the natural Moonjumpers, the demons as the fae decided to call them, are protected.’
‘Fear is what stops our job from being easy. We never know where we’re safe, who might be listening in on our conversation, and the Council have that truth serum…’ Lucille shuddered, remembering what it was like to see someone spill all their secrets while under the influence of it. ‘Even if you’re right about us being close to a time when the fae will have less control it’s going to take a long time for things to change. The fear won’t fade away overnight, no matter how much I wish it would, and it’s going to take time to bring everyone together in a way that works. I have a feeling that the Council Moonjumpers, those who are true to the Council they think exists, are going to be a major problem, one that’s going to be very hard to deal with.’
‘That is why we chose you as a Moonjumper for this time. We need people like you to see the problems before they happen and to help Kester deal with them. He’s going to be leader of the Council for at least another hundred years, because so far none of his children have shown any interest in taking on the position, but it will go to a descendant of Riordan. I know there are some who aren’t happy with that, but it’s the right way for things to happen.’
‘I remember reading that someone tried to assassinate the leader of the Council and his whole family, so they could get the person they wanted to take over. The teacher I had at the time sounded almost disappointed that they hadn’t managed to, but, after spending some time in the library, I found out that she was one of Kester’s cousins, and I couldn’t understand why she’d feel that way when she wouldn’t even be alive if it had worked.’
‘Being family doesn’t mean that she’s happy Kester is the leader of the Council. There was one time that a brother attempted to kill his sister, because he thought he’d be better than she could ever be. Fortunately he failed thanks to the well timed intervention of their other sister, who exiled her brother by forcing him through a door she knew would send him to Aerith, and then told her father what had happened. Her father was unsurprised to hear what had happened, even though he had no connection to any of the worlds, as he’d been worried about his son’s jealousy ever since he’d announced that the next leader of the Council would be his eldest daughter. For two generations it had been the second son, due to choices made by both the daughters, but it wasn’t something the son had cared about. He thought his father was going against a tradition that didn’t actually exist.’
‘Why didn’t I get taught about that?’
‘It happened on another Web, Lucy. One time he actually managed to kill his sister and usurp her position, but he actually turned out to be a better leader than she was, so in the end we decided it would be better to take her out of the equation, so their father had no choice and the right person became leader of the Council. Sometimes we don’t get it right, even though we should, and we never thought for a moment that she might not be the person who should do the job her father believed she would be so good at.’
‘That wasn’t Kester, was it?’
‘No, it was long before Kester, but we had to take his sister out of the equation too. She wasn’t the right person to become leader of the Council at this time, even though her father thought she was. Thankfully she’s happy where she is, because she never really wanted the position and only did all the work to please the parents who believed in her.’
‘You’ve told me before that you try not to get too involved with what happens on the worlds, so surely you should have left that to chance.’
‘At one point we did. Lucy, you have to remember that as well as there being other Webs there are also alternates of this one, so it’s possible for us to make certain changes with the knowledge that we are doing what is best for our Web. That might be hard for you to understand, because you, at the moment, can’t talk to the other Lucilles and get a better understanding of how a certain choice might affect your future, but that is what we can do. For us, though, it isn’t our choices – it’s the choices of others. We do always change things to make things better for the races of the worlds as well, rather than for our own pleasure, like the worlds who chose to control their Web does.’
‘So, basically, what you do is let things happen as they will to begin with, on the first Quiar, and then that Quiar tells the second Quiar how things went. That Quiar can then decided what she should do with that knowledge – so if things went badly she can change something, by guiding someone to the right place or asking a door to take them to another world, and if things went well she can leave things as they were – which then continues for every Quiar that comes out of that choice.’
‘Exactly. We never change something if we know that it is the best option, even if it doesn’t necessarily mean that good things come from it. Like I said before I could have rid this world of the counterfeiters before they started hurting my people, but they bring about a change within the rest of the Web, and that is what needs to happen. If it wasn’t something that needed to happen then I would have guided you more. As it is I need to keep my distance, even though I know that bad things might happen to you, and that is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.’
‘There are people who go through life never knowing what might happen. Maybe things would be easier for me if I did know what my future held, but I’d attempt to change it and from what you said this is something that should happen however it’s going to happen. I may not come out of it as I was when I started and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with if it happens. That’s all anyone else would have been able to do if they were in the same position as me and had no connection to Quiar.’ Lucille bit her lip. ‘Was there another Moonjumper on another Quiar who had no connection to you and yet chose to stay to solve the problem?’
‘Yes, but she wasn’t you. She was a wonderful Moonjumper, not a true but a Council Moonjumper who realised that the rules the fae had given them were written purely so the fae could be in control. If there’s someone I would love you to meet in the future it’s her, but you’d have to go to that Quiar, because she isn’t the same person here – the choices she made in the past have created a very different person to who she is there and it’s sad to see.’
‘Okay, by making the choice that I did, by coming out today and spending the majority of my time talking to the voice in my head, did I make one alternate Quiar or did I make more?’
‘Every choice makes one alternate world, but it’s not just your choices that create other worlds. Bertram made a choice, which created one world; Peric made a choice, which created another world; Merry made a choice, which created a third world; and Sini made a choice, which created a fourth world. Then you have to take into consideration the choices of the people who aren’t close to you, who want to rid the world of you, and those who want to help you that you may not have met you yet.’
‘With every day that passes there must be thousands of Quiars created. Are you seriously in contact with all of them?’
‘No, I’m not, because there would be too much input then, but I am in touch with the most important ones – three pasts, where you’re at different stages of your journey, and two futures, where you’re slightly further ahead than you are now. I also occasionally talk to the Quiars where you’ve made decisions that are nothing like the ones I expected you to make, to get a better understanding of those Quiars.’
‘Do any of them ever fade away?’
‘We haven’t known one to, but that doesn’t mean they don’t.’ Quair sighed. ‘That does mean that there are thousands of Webs, but the ones created by decisions are like mirror images of us. It’s almost as though they don’t really exist and I’m the only one that does. From what they said it feels exactly the same to them. I don’t know if that means that in the end there will only be one of us or if we’ll all exist forever. It’s not something any worlds know much about, even though it’s the same for all of them, because they have no connection to their parallels. We’re unusual in that.’ She laughed. ‘Everything about us is unusual, even compared to the other worlds that the fae created. It’s just that the other worlds that we know think that’s the most unusual thing about us, whether they were also created by the fae or if they evolved. When we were talking to Earth last she told us that she honestly doesn’t think that being created by magic is all that strange, not now that she’s been inhabited by the fae, because she’s been going through a lot of changes since they arrived and they’ve really been affecting her in ways that she wasn’t expecting. Even her core is changing and the volcanoes that once erupted with lava are beginning to erupt a mix of that and magic.’
‘Lava?’
‘Part of the core of the Earth is made up of magma, which is molten rock.’ Lucille couldn’t help thinking the Quiar was slightly dumbing down the explanation for her and she couldn’t help being grateful for that. It was hard enough to get an image of this molten rock in her head without it being any more complicated. ‘This molten rock sometimes erupts out of cracks in the crust of the Earth, much like the magic making up the core of the Web worlds does, but it’s much more messy and often causes deaths, because it’s not always something that can be predicted. One that Earth told me about was the eruption of Vesuvius, which entirely buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and they weren’t found until nearly two millennia later.’
‘I’m glad I don’t live on Earth. That sounds utterly terrifying – at least the eruption of magic are unlikely to kill anyone, even though I did read about a couple that had been in unexpected places that caused some real problems.’ Lucille thought for a moment of all the eruptions she’d heard of, from her teachers, the studies she had done outside of class, and the worlds she was connected to. ‘I think, if I’m remembering correctly, there have been about five deaths and at least three thousand known eruptions.’
‘You are remembering correctly, although the eruptions that you would know more about are those documented by the Council. Not all of them are and there are three worlds that are entirely disconnected from the rest. Aerith has dealt with thousands of eruptions that have been documented by the Council they have there, who, I must admit, are not people I would have on my world. She has much more patience than I do with them, especially as they like to go back and change things that they didn’t want to happen, no matter how many times she tried to put a stop to it all. Unfortunately she’s never been lucky enough to connect with anyone who lives on her and we are talking about sending a Moonjumper there to help her, even though she’s a little worried about having someone she doesn’t know there. Hopefully she’ll agree to it, because, I think, if she does, and the fae are gone, she might want to rejoin the Web, and she is such a beautiful world. You’d love it there.’
‘The world of Winter?’ Lucille shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine wanting to go there more than once, to be honest, but if you think I’d like it then I’ll go at least once.’
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
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Date: 2013-12-10 05:07 am (UTC)