The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 62nd continuation)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

Part 9, 61st continuation

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“As Kalinia wasn’t sentient should it have been something that crossed your mind?” Lucille asked, trying to imagine what it must have been like for them to have stepped onto a new world, one they knew nothing about, with the knowledge that they had destroyed Kalinia with their need for magic. “I don’t know as much about magical worlds as you do, but I wouldn’t have thought that many of them are sentient – or at least not as sentient as Athare is.”

“That’s true. Even though we were young when we ended up here, young by fae standards, we had all travelled, visiting other worlds that were connected to Kalinia by the doors we had created. It wasn’t anything like the Web, unfortunately, otherwise Kalinia might have been able to save herself, and that it why we knew we had to do something more than simply connect the worlds using magical doors.” Meriwether sighed. “Travelling was something our parents had urged us to do – I think because they knew what was coming, even though it wasn’t something the elders accepted was going to happen, and they knew, if we were to find ourselves on another world, that we would need ideas. From the time I was young there were worries that something bad was coming, because the griffins had disappeared, and they were the most magical race on Kalinia. Their disappearance was the first sign, one that the mer kept telling us meant that we were destroying our home, but it was easier for the elders to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it wasn’t happening.

“If they pretended it wasn’t happening then they didn’t have to plan for the possibility that we might have to leave Kalinia behind, but that just meant it was harder for those who took their place to know where it was we should travel to. There was a chance we might have gone to another world entirely and that would have meant that all the hard work Emrys had done with Athare was for nothing.” Meriwether smiled. “Yes, there probably is another world that had to learn to deal with us, but it’s not one that Athare has any connection to, although I know she only got in contact with Earth because a group of the fae ended up there. Otherwise she would have had no reason to talk to that world at all. It might be something she’s done and I don’t know about it because I haven’t been fae for so long.

“Sometimes it’s strange to think how long it’s been, Lucy, and how many lives I’ve lived. I never thought I would, before it happened, but then we didn’t think much about life after death – it wasn’t something we could do anything about, really. We knew, in a general sense, about the afterlife, so we kind of hoped that it would connect to us as we didn’t know how to connect to it. Now that I think about it, about what we created, it’s probably better that we didn’t. Can you imagine what it would be like?” Meriwether shook his head. “The Witches of Raenarin would continue their battles against each other, as well as taking on the races of Beshaki, who would all gather together in order to fight the new threat. While fighting the Witches they’d also take on the bonded races, because something like that isn’t right, and the bonded races would look for allies from the races of the Gaeloms as well as Siaral, who would use their dragons to bring an end to it all, only that couldn’t work because they’d all be dead anyway.

“Due to our lack of knowledge some souls have the chance to travel to other worlds and find somewhere they feel more comfortable, while others can stay on the world they think of as home until they’re needed again. If I hadn’t been able to leave Athare behind when I dead I would never have realised that I was meant to be one of the races of Quiar and I wouldn’t have been in here at the same time as you – and I believe that we were meant to meet, at this time in this place, because of who we both are. A true Moonjumper and a reincarnated fae.” Meriwether reached out and squeezed Lucille’s hand. “I can teach you about the race who created the Web, the races I’ve had a chance to live among, and about the history of some of those worlds, while you can teach me about the sentient worlds, the Web as you know it, and what it’s like to be a Moonjumper right now.”

“Then we can work together on the books.” Lucille smiled. “I think it might be interesting to start with a history of the fae, as told by both you and Athare, if I can get in contact with someone who’s connected with her, as well as a beginner’s guide to the worlds of the Web. Everyone could use it to find out a little about each of the worlds and then we can work on a book for each world, to give the accidental traveller more information about where they’ve found themselves. Hopefully that will be something that can be kept in each of the settlements, but…”

“You worry about the fae finding them and trying to destroy them, the way they have with Leolin’s journals.” Meriwether nodded. “That is understandable, but if what Quiar said was right then we won’t have to worry about the fae at all in the future, so we write the books, we make as many of them as we can, and we pass them to the right people. Once that happens it’s out of our hands. Fortunately there are plenty of people who would copy them the same way Leolin’s journals have been copied, even though we are lucky enough to still have the originals being passed from person to person.”

“Reading them in his handwriting is different.” Lucille bit her lip, trying to work out how to explain it. “He was someone who travelled the worlds because he lost his sister and you can see by the way he’s writing when he’s thinking about her more than he normally would. Sometimes he was writing while he was sat at a desk, which made the way he wrote different to when he was working during his travels. How good his writing was depended on where he was and what he was doing. When someone copies his journals the likelihood is that they’re doing it sat a desk, with enough ink and enough paper, when there were times it appeared that Leolin ran out of both. He’d go back to pages he’d written on before to scribble down extra notes. The ink kept getting lighter and lighter as he watered it down to make sure that he had enough to keep writing.” She smiled. “They tell their own stories and it wasn’t until I read them in his own hand that I realised how important that was.”

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him. There’s never been a time when I lost someone close to the magic of the doors, although I did lose family members – I just didn’t know them very well, so it didn’t matter much to me that they were gone, but I did see how much it hurt those who were left behind. Sometimes we got messages, sent by dragon, to say that they were safe and well, even though they couldn’t get back. One time there was a message left in a book, because she’d gone back in time and thought that was the best way to get in contact with the people who cared about her. Unfortunately there were more times when there wasn’t any contact at all.”

Lucille shrugged. “I’ve never lost anyone either and I know that I’m lucky, because there are a lot of people who have, so they post up their images on one of the boards in the Council in the hope that us of us might come across their lost family member. Three people have had contact from whoever it was that stepped through the door, but the majority of them are still waiting and hoping that their loved one is safe.” She shook her head. “Once they have found themselves on another world it’s often impossible for them to return, as the door they stepped through only worked for them that one time, and earning enough to buy a temporary tattoo isn’t easy. The first debate I was a part of, when I finished my training, was about whether we should set up a fund for those who do find themselves lost with no way to get home, and in the end it was decided that if we had trouble earning enough to pay all the Council’s outgoings then we had very little chance of making enough for one tattoo, let alone the money we needed to be able to return everyone to where they were meant to be.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Comments

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> The ink kept getting lighter and lighter as he watered it down to make sure that he had enough to keep writing.” <<

That's a wonderful detail. There are old manuscripts with that feature. Me, if I'm writing with a nib, I write until the tip scrapes dry. Dark to light, over and over again within the same page.