The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 82nd continuation)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

Part 9, 81st continuation

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“The only thing I can suggest you do, Lucille, is talk to him. I don’t know how much good it will do, because I know what it’s like to be in that position. Of course he’s going to be angry with the people who hurt his friend, that’s understandable, as is his urge for revenge, but revenge in not always the best option.”

Lucille nodded. “I think being here for so long is getting to him, really. He didn’t want to stay in Seahorse Port in the first place and we’ve been here now for much longer than any of us expected, because the counterfeiters were obviously planning this, so now he has someone to be angry at for hurting Bertram and for being stuck in Seahorse as long as we have.” She sighed. “Right now I don’t think I’d be able to convince him not to go after the remaining platypus, especially as they’re going to be vulnerable right now, without their partner, and get this feeling Peric really wants to hurt someone the way Bertram’s been hurt.”

“If you’re that certain you won’t be able to then all you can really do is be there for him afterwards, because the anger he’s feeling right now is going to fade. He knows that. Unfortunately logic and emotion don’t always work well together, so he might well end up doing something because of the emotion that he does, as you said, regret. The realisation that he’s done something out of character for him will hurt.”

“You’ve been through something like this before.”

“More than once, sadly. I have had friends who have changed their entire lives by doing something stupid due to anger and there was nothing I could do to stop them, even though I really wanted to, which I did later find out were things that needed to happen. You have no idea how much I hate that – things happening to people that I care about, because they need to, because it’s an important part of the timeline… Being the leader of the Council actually seems to make it feel that much worse, as I was always desperate to change things, and yet those things I wanted to change were things that had to happen.”

“When I chose to learn about all the worlds it was, in part, because it would give me a position on the Council, so I could change things.” Lucille ran a hand through her hair. “It wasn’t until my first meeting with the fae that I realised exactly how difficult that was going to be. They’re adverse to any sort of changes and I hate that about them, but I can understand it at the same time, considering everything that they went through in the past. Learning about past lives from Meriwether has helped, actually. I get the feeling that the majority of the fae are, even if they don’t know them, haunted by the lives they led on Kalinia.” She bit her lip. “If we take, for example, one of the Black family. They would have been in the settlement since the wards first went up.

“They would have married during their first life, maybe on Kalinia or on Athare, depending on how old they were; they would have lost family and friends both before and after they arrived here; having children would have kept the family going, but it might not have been what they really wanted after everything that had happened; and in the end they died. For a while they might have spent time in the settlement in their spirit form, maybe conversing with others who had died around the same time. Eventually they would have chosen to live another life. Unless they moved to a different settlement when they married they would be born to the the Black family once more.

“Meriwether said he’s been able to remember all his past lives since the time he was born into his second body. Let’s say the fae in the settlements are the same. This child can remember exactly what it was like to live through the end of Kalinia. He’s clinging onto the past, onto the life he led there, because that is the only thing that makes sense to him. Only he doesn’t mention that he can remember who he was, until he realises that the others can as well, and they can remember the time they spent being dead. Maybe they even realise that they’re trapped within the wards for the rest of time, unless they chose to bring them down, and they don’t want to do that because that would mean having to live with the other races, the races they created, which is something they still aren’t comfortable with.

“So they do their best to make sure that nothing can change, even though it does. They were always uncomfortable with the Walkers, so when it comes to a time when they’re doing something the fae really don’t like, they force the Council to change their policy. I don’t know how they would have done that, but I have a feeling that the fae have this habit of making people on the outside believe they’re much more powerful that they actually are, and so they gave the Council an ultimatum – execute the natural Walkers or we’ll destroy the Web. Which, of course, no one wanted to happen, and, in the end, the Council’s only option was to give in.

“Of course there are some fae who realise that living the same lives over and over is depleting their magic. It’s as though their spirits, being trapped in the warded settlements as they are, are all running out of magic. So they make the choice to leave the settlements behind, to make a new life, to embrace being a part of the Web, partly out of selfishness, but also partly because they want to lead a more normal life. Not that life within the Web can ever be that normal, but it’s much more normal that being trapped within the warded settlements, doing the same thing life after life after life. I couldn’t do it.”

There was a long silence, one that actually worried Lucille, until Kester laughed. “I think you’ve got it. After all these years trying to work out the fae, why they make the decisions that they do, I’ve finally found someone who’s managed to put all the pieces together.” He sighed. “I’ve finally found someone who has all the pieces. I knew about the past lives, but I didn’t know that the fae remembered them.”

“Well, Meriwether things they do. Every fae he’s met out here has. That doesn’t mean they do in the settlements, but it seems the most likely explanation for the way they’ve acted. If they weren’t haunted by what happened we could have lived in a very different Web.”

“I wish someone had worked it out before.”

“Maybe we weren’t meant to, Kester, until now. The time is coming when the wards will fail, which I’m beginning to think is entirely down to Athare, so we need to be prepared for the fae, which means the pieces of the puzzle are coming together in order for us to understand the race we’re going to have to learn to work with.” Lucille shrugged. “Unless, of course, they decide they can’t possible live with the races they created and move on to another worlds, but I can’t see that happening. I don’t think they have the magic to be able to open the doors now.”

“All this time we’ve been working around the fae, as best we could, always wary that someone might See something they weren’t supposed to, and the likelihood is that they can’t See now at all. We would have all acted in a very different way if we had of known that, so I can understand why we didn’t have that piece of the puzzle, and I think, in some way, knowing that the fae were pretty much reliving the same life over and over would have changed the way we treated them. Instead of continuously trying to convince them that it was time for them to come out of the settlements and live with the races of the Web we would have stopped, knowing that we would never have been able to, which might have been a mistake. Without us spending that time trying to get them to leave some of those who chose to might never have walked away.”

Lucille nodded. “Everything happens for a reason.” She sighed. “I came here for more than one reason – I had to see Kai, I had to meet Merry, and I dread to think what others there might be, because I don’t think they’re going to be anywhere near as nice.”

“Do you want me to send someone else out there to work with you?”

“No. They’re likely to do more harm than good now, although…” Lucille bit her lip. “Send someone else to Quiar, not to help me, but to look. We need to know if there are other counterfeits in any of the other door towns. I have an idea of who it should be, although you aren’t going to like it.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Poor Peric, no wonder he's upset.

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