The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 88th continuation)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

Part 9, 87th continuation

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“What did you learn?” Lucille asked, studying Peric. If it wasn’t for the pain in his eyes he would have appeared totally normal, but she knew that what he’d done had affected him, the way they all said it would – even him. “Can we take it to Hereward?”

Peric looked into his tea for a long moment before lifting his gaze. “Some of it, yes, but the rest…” He shook his head. “Before I slipped into her mind she’d been drinking and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. If I’d have had another choice I wouldn’t have gone rummaging for the information that we needed, but her emotions were all over the place. Eventually her anger with you would have got the better of her, because she blames you for what happened.”

“It was partly my fault, Peric.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Meriwether slipped into the seat opposite her. “You did what you had to do to protect yourself and Bertram. She did what she did because it was her job and she chose it, no one else.”

“Becoming an assassin felt like her only choice.” Peric stared into space. “We aren’t perfect here, Lucy, and the platypi don’t really have a place in our society, so they often find themselves doing jobs that no one else wants to do. Some, the ones who find themselves a different niche, are like her, they do what they have to in order to survive, but in the end she revelled in the deaths that she and her brother caused. He was the younger of the two of them and the only other person she’d ever connected with.” He sighed. “Going through everything like that… part of it was fascination, I admit that. I wanted to know why she’d become an assassin. In general, though, I wanted to feel justified, and I do. Even though I damaged her it’s better than her living to hurt people the way she was.

“She killed so many people. At first it was difficult. I saw her after her first job and she was crying, because she couldn’t believe what she had done, but then she looked at the money it had earned her. That money would help her and her siblings to survive the next few months, and she already had another job. Running her hands over it she asked herself if it was worth it. Carefully she counted out her rent for the month, then the next month, then the month after that, and she still had enough for the food she would normally buy every month, so she counted that out for the next three months too. When she’d done that she found that there was still plenty left over.

“If I’d been in that position at her age I think I would have made the decision to keep working, the way she did even though she knew it was going to change her into someone else. All she was really thinking of, though, was the fact she would be able to look after her family without struggling for the first time. When her parents died she was the one who ended up having to look after the family they’d left behind, even though she wasn’t ready to have that weight on her shoulders, and suddenly it was all much simpler than it had been before, with that money in her hand, another job in the pipeline, and she let go of any guilt she was feeling.

“Eventually it got to the point where she wasn’t doing it for her family any more. She’d become that other person and she enjoyed the killing as much as she enjoyed the money. It didn’t matter to her who her targets were as long she she got paid. The first job she actually stopped to think about was this one, when she was hired to kill you and Bertram, because she knew how much good you’d done for Seahorse Port and she wasn’t comfortable with the counterfeits, but in the end it was the money she would get for the job that made the decision for her. What made her feel the most guilty was the fact she’d convinced her brother that it was the right thing to do and he got killed because of it.”

“They deserve the pain,” Bertram said, even though there was pity in his voice, and when Lucille looked over at him it was obvious that hearing Peric’s story had changed the way he thought of the assassins, at least a little.

“I agree.” Peric managed to smile at Bertram. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have done what I did, Bertram, but at the same time…” He shrugged. “Hurting someone isn’t something I like doing and if she could have another chance, to change who she is, I think she might have grabbed it with both hands if she felt she could before. Unfortunately all she was thinking about was her brother and the fact that they were going to kill her for failing.”

“What happens to her if they do manage to put her mind back together?” Bertram looked at Lucille. “Does she become the same person she is now or does it change her?”

“After having her mind torn apart like that there is no possible way she could ever be the same person she was before and we’re going to have to get Kaito to make her a charm that will change her appearance, because the person I know who might be able to fix her is on Kniroch.” Lucille ran her hand through her hair. “The magic that he’ll use will fix the damage as best it can, so she won’t be a vegetable any more, but she won’t remember anything that happened to her that day. It’s part of the reason I want to send her to him and she won’t remember her life on Quiar at all. Unless the charm comes off she won’t even know that she’s a platypus.”

“Should we give her that chance?” Sini asked. “She wanted to kill both of you.”

“It wasn’t a want.” Peric shook his head, looking as though he didn’t know how to explain things, but he was going to do his best. “Neither of them really wanted to kill Lucille and Bertram, but that didn’t stop them. The thing they’d both learnt how to do, in such a way that it wasn’t good for either of them, was compartmentalise their emotions, so they didn’t feel any guilt for the choices they made. It was the only way they could survive as assassins and they wanted the money.” He bit his lip. “One of the things they were doing with it was helping to create a school for platypus puggles, for give them a better chance for the future, so they didn’t end up in the same position, and now… well, that school might not happen, because of what I did to them.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Lucille had already been thinking about how to help those who had been left behind. It wasn’t their fault that their brother and sister had decided to become assassins, so she was going to do everything she could to make certain that they weren’t struggling, and that was why the first rule was in place. “I think the time has come for things to change here, the same way they have on every world, which is something we can help to do once we’ve rid Quiar of the counterfeiters. That has to be our focus right now.”

Meriwether smiled. “It has to be your focus, but I have other choices to make, Lucy, and I can help to set your mind at rest, Peric. Having lived so many lives I have some money set aside that I can use to help build that school, if you really think it would help, as well as give the siblings who have been left without their breadwinner a little income every month.”

Lucille looked at him, wishing she could ask how he’d managed that, but she stopped herself. That was how they ended up going off on tangents and spending hours talking, when she should be in bed or he should be doing something to help his other customers. From the way he smiled at her she knew he had some idea what she was thinking – maybe he’d visit her in the evening, the way he had done before, so they could talk then, because she knew so little about his past lives. In the time they’d had they’d talked a lot about what it was like to be one of the fae involved in the creation of the Web, what happened when he’d died, and why he’d decided to live a life on Quiar, but the rest of his lives were still a mystery.

“What did you learn about the counterfeiters?” she asked, knowing there was a reason he had put off telling them, and she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to know what it was.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Unless the charm comes off she won’t even know that she’s a platypus.” <<

Yeah, that sounds like "Raise him as a girl and he'll never know the difference." People might think it, but that doesn't make it true.

>> a school for platypus puggles, for give them a better chance <<

That should say "for giving" or "to give" above.