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k_a_webbQuiar looked at Raenarin, wondering if that was what Athare had done, because it was an explanation that made a lot of sense. Even Aerith, Kankirin, and Taithmarin had siblings that they were close to, who were there for them when things went wrong, which had happened on all of the worlds. None of them had been free from issues, even working with their counterparts and future selves. Mistakes, no matter how hard they tried to avoid them, were something they all made, and it didn’t help that each of the races had free will. If they decided they were going to do something stupid, like the covens of Raenarin had, all the worlds could do was hope they could get the right people in the right place to be able to stop them.
Occasionally that wasn’t even possible, normally if there was some unusual form of magic involved. Wish magic was one of the worst for changing things that shouldn’t be changed, even though there were rules in place to make sure that things like that didn’t happen, because someone who had just come into their abilities had a habit of granting wishes that shouldn’t be granted. It was an issue that they wanted to fix, but as they’d chosen to be watchers rather than doers they simply had to deal with it. No matter how bad things got. Like the time that someone on Janoch wished they were free of their bond mate and it led to the destruction of half a town.
“It does seem logical,” Gaelom said, stealing Quiar’s hot chocolate. “We don’t know why Athare made the choices that she did, but we know there was a reason for them. Some of the Webs before must have failed because of the wrong world being chosen and I remember her talking about an Athare that was drained of magic by the fae as they chose not to make the Web.” He sipped the hot chocolate before passing it back. “This Web seems stable enough, even though we have to deal with the Witches of Raenarin…
“Do you think this Web would be a better place if I hadn’t been chosen?”
“No, I don’t. It would have been a better place if you weren’t the home of a race of selfish women who only care about themselves.” Gaelom squeezed Raenarin’s shoulder. “You had no choice in who you were inhabited by. That was down to the fae and they chose to put the Witches and Sorceresses on you, for whatever reason, and we would have had the same issues even if they were on another world. From what I can tell it doesn’t matter which worlds are placed, but which races, because this Web would be a much better place if the Witches didn’t exist.”
“Athare’s focusing on the wrong thing?” Quiar looked back down at the platypi, sighing. “You think she should focus on the races instead of the worlds?”
“To me it appears to be the better choice, but I haven’t been working on the Web for the last six million years.” He smiled. “I could be wrong. All I know is that it seems to me that we have problems with the races rather than with the worlds, mostly, and as far as I can tell changing the races would have the greatest effect.”
“We tried that.” Athare stepped into view and all Quiar could do was blink at her. “Then we tried changing the worlds and then it was a case of changing the worlds and the races.” She smiled. “Creating the perfect Web isn’t an easy job. It may not actually exist, but that isn’t going to stop us from trying, because one day it might happen. The worlds will be right, the races will be right, and we won’t have all these problems to deal with.”
Quiar surprised herself by shaking her head. “I don’t think, even if you did make the perfect Web, that there wouldn’t be any problems to deal with, Mother. For a start you’d always have the fae and they would always be an issue, because without the arrival of the fae there wouldn’t be a Web.” She bit her lip. “No matter what you do the races that you place on the worlds will have free will, unless the worlds make the decision to take control, and that will always mean that something will go wrong, no matter what you do to try to stop that from happening.”
“Even if the worlds took control something would go wrong.” Athare laughed. “We’re not fooling ourselves, Quiar. It may seem like that from the outside, that we have this belief we can create a Web where everything works, but really it’s just that it’s our only real option. There are always going to be alternate Athares, that’s going to keep happening for the rest of time, and by being involved in that we can see how different things work, how different races affect the worlds, and it’s fascinating. Millennia ago, when the fae first stepped onto my world, I knew what was coming. My future self had woken me to let me know.
“For a long time I thought I was alone. I didn’t meet my counterparts until after my first contact with Emrys, I think because they wanted to see what I was going to do before they came to me, and then I realised that I was a part of something huge. Even then there were hundreds of us, although I only worked with four. That made the most sense, because if I had tried to work with every Athare in existence…” She shook her head. “We wouldn’t have been able to find somewhere big enough for all of us. The four I worked with had each worked with another four and those four had worked with another four, so we had all the information we needed. One day you should come into my library on Athare if you are interested in how this Web was created and how that affected the creation of the Webs that followed.”
“I’d be interested.” Quiar glanced down once more as she spoke. “As this was my first incarnation I’d like to know why you decided to use me again.”
“That’s going to take a little while longer. I can see the tendrils of magic working their way up his legs now, very slowly, because it appears that the charm is being careful.”
“What?” Quiar stared at Athare. “The charm is being careful?”
Athare nodded. “You’re surprised? It was made by Kaito and Lucille. They’re both better with the magic of this world than they realise because they’ve both lived other lives here and it doesn’t matter if they don’t remember them. What matters is that their souls do, even though that knowledge is hidden from them at the moment. By making the choice to try in this lifetime they’ve done something that no one usually does if they don’t know about their past lives and that means they’re going to experiment more than they would if they knew what they should be capable of – which is what led to a charm that is wary of magic users in case they have the ability to counteract it.”
“Do they?”
“No, but the charm doesn’t know that. It knows if it is to do its job, the job it was created to do, it must be wary of whoever it is used against. Tell Lucille that it will be here when it’s used, ready for her to use again if she wishes to, and I know she didn’t plan on that happening, but, like I said, the choice she made to try the magic here means that she is going to be able to do things she wouldn’t have been able to do if she knew what she should be capable of. Kaito’s charms work the way they do because of who he is and who he was.”
“Is that something you can tell me?”
Their eyes met and before Athare had even answered Quiar could tell from her sadness that the answer was no. “If Lucille choses to find out about her past lives the first she’ll see is her Quiaran life, but if she doesn’t then neither of you will know in this lifetime who she was.” Athare bit her lip. “This Lucille seems like she will learn about her past lives if she had the chance to now. Whether she’ll still feel the same way after she solves the case of the Counterfeit Enchantments is something I don’t know. I wish I did, because I think it’s important for her to start remember her past lives as soon as she can, for the future.”
“Something’s coming that you can’t tell us about,” Gaelom said.
“Exactly.” Athare sighed. “When I can talk to you I will, but until then… well, you might be able to learn something from your future selves. A couple of them are about to go through it.”
“How far off is it?” Raenarin asked, and as she seemed to have a knack for asking questions that Athare could answer Quiar was even more glad that her sister was with her.
“Just over fifty years.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.