k_a_webb | The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 94th continuation)

“Don’t do it for Peric,” Sini said, without looking, as though she knew exactly what was going through Bertram’s mind. “I know he’s your best friend and if I can see the pain in his eyes I don’t doubt you can as well, but he made his decision. He may feel guilty for it now, because he shattered her, but I… after what she did to you I can’t help thinking that it’s too good an end for her and I don’t think she deserves another chance. She chose to become an assassin. She chose to attack you. Her choices were what led to Peric believing his only real option, if he wanted to find anything out about this cell of the counterfeit ring, was to delve into her mind and learn what she knew. There was no chance of her ever asking for forgiveness, for feeling bad about what she’d done, and he hasn’t told us what it was that led to him making that choice, although I’m certain there was a breaking point.

“He wouldn’t have done it if he thought, even for a moment, that she might tell him what she knew willingly. He’s not the sort of person to hurt someone for no reason, no matter what they’d done. He wants to give her a chance because he truly believes that she’ll make better decisions next time and I don’t. Someone who chooses to become an assassin, for the money, will never change, not after everything they’ve done, but I love Peric for being who he is. If he wasn’t him I wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if he’s right, that she might, given a chance that she doesn’t deserve, become someone else, someone better, even though I never would have contemplated it if it wasn’t for him.”

“Neither would I,” Bertram admitted. “After what they did to us I would never have given her another chance and Peric has seen the other people she’s hurt, yet he still thinks she might have been a different person if she had other options. He might be right, which is what my problem is. If I don’t give her a chance and he was right then I’ll feel like I did her a disservice by not thinking the same way he does, but she was trying to kill us.” He looked at his wing, something he tried not to do, because he knew how he’d feel when he did. “They have changed my life for good, even though Lucille did her best to protect me, because I’ll never be able to us my wing again. The counterfeit ring has changed the lives of who knows how many people and I hate that they’re going to have to deal with the same sorts of issues because of some intensely selfish people.

“I don’t want to be one of them. I want her to hurt, Sini, because of what she did to me, but I realise that’s a selfish feeling. She may have made the wrong decisions in the past, she may make them in the future, and there is a chance I’ll end up regretting my choice, but right now, even feeling the way I do, I know that my decision is the right one, because I’m not letting myself be selfish. Al I can do is hope that she never will remember who she was before and chose to come back to get her revenge, the way I can’t help thinking she will, in the end, if she gets her memory back.”

“That is something I think is unlikely, although I can understand the fear, because Peric shattered her mind. No one will be able to put her back together, but they will be able to fix her enough that she can start a new life. She’ll probably have to learn how to do everything again, as she won’t remember any of it from when she was originally taught, and there is a chance she might be able to retrieve certain memories as they won’t be able to remove all the shards that have been left behind – I just can’t see it happening if that isn’t something she really wants to do and the only way it will be something she really want to do is if she believes those memories are real. It’s much more likely she think they’re made up.”

“Could someone create a memory of a life for her, so she thinks she had other parents, other siblings, a different job?”

“Some people can,” Meriwether said, as he sat in the seat next to Sini. “It just isn’t something I would suggest doing, because it makes things harder. Explaining to someone that they have amnesia, that they lost all of the memories of who they were before and there’s probably no way of getting them back, is much easier than having this whole new life being intersected by old returning memories, which is likely to happen if whoever it is isn’t skilled enough at creating the new life.” He rubbed his antler. “Luckily I’ve never ended up on Kankirin, but I’ve heard stories of what they do there and I don’t doubt there are people there who’ve been playing with memory magic in that way, to see what they can do.

“Unfortunately that is one of the problems that the fae who were trapped there caused. Their abilities were passed down from generation to generation and some people, with those sort of abilities, are dangerous. Aerith suffers from the same issues, but it is different there, because the magics were different.” He sighed. “Being a part of the Web doesn’t always make things better though.”

Bertram nodded. “Raenarin.”

“Exactly.” Meriwether shrugged. “The Witches of Raenarin might have been better people if there had been someone there to guide them from the very beginning, but I don’t know for certain. It could be that they’d still be in the same position, because power is addictive. Each of the High Priestesses wants more than they have and the only way they know to get it is to take it from another coven. Would they still be doing the same thing if they knew that their decisions might destroy the entire Web? Personally, as much as I hate to say this, I think they would, although there would be other covens doing their best to make certain that all of the covens were protected and that might be enough to combat the more dangerous High Priestesses.

“There are other worlds as well, although none in the same position right now. Beshaki, for a long time, seemed like it might be the first world to fail, but then someone went in and put an end to the war. Gaelom has seen several wars, between the different states, although they did eventually learn to compromise. Some of Gaelom’s other worlds have had their own issues, including war.” He shook his head. “Without the Moonjumpers there doing the job they were created for things have been difficult, although I don’t doubt things would have been difficult even if the Moonjumpers weren’t doing their best to work around the fae. Having the Moonjumpers doesn’t stop people being people, no matter what form they have, what abilities they have, what they are born with or without…”

“So, in their most basic form, the Moonjumpers would have policed the Web, working with the different legal systems on each of the worlds to keep control?” Sini looked at Meriwether. “There would be no first rule, because it would have been their job to get involved if they were needed.”

“Yes, they would, and I wish the fae had realised how they could have used the Moonjumpers to their advantage. Things would still be difficult, but not as difficult as they are now, because, really, the Moonjumpers don’t have a reason to exist. I know the fae have given them the job of collating the history of the Web, as best they can, but no one is comfortable enough with the majority of the Moonjumpers to be able to pass on their own histories. Everyone worries that the fae might chose to do something against one of the worlds if they find that something like this was happening.”

“If it hadn’t been for Lucille being Lucille Peric and I would never have let her be a part of this investigation, but the moment we were told that there had been a thief she wanted to know how Aulus was. She’d met the mouse once. She didn’t even really know him and that told me that she was different. She wasn’t just a Moonjumper, she was a person, which is something I had trouble believing actually existed.” Bertram smiled. “Now I could easily call her one of my closest friends and that isn’t just because she chose to stay with us when we came here. It’s because she wants to teach us about the Web, she wanted to give us the same chances she had, and I know if she was in control the Web would be a very different place.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 94th continuation)

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