The World Walkers: Athare: Mairin: Talking to Bronwen

[k_a_webb]

Mairin didn’t need to answer the door to know who was out there. She’d been waiting for Bronwen since it was announced that the Queen had agreed to their plans to create more worlds. It was always going to take some time, as Bronwen would need to talk to Riordan, but they were all patient enough to be able to wait until she was ready for the conversation they were going to need to have. No one was entirely certain what was going to happen. Yet. When Bronwen stepped into the room Mairin knew that was going to change, because Bronwen had that look and Mairin wasn’t entirely certain she was ready for what she was going to learn. However it was also something she had been waiting for since they first stepped onto Athare, so knowing, finally, would be an immense relief, although it would place a huge weight on her shoulders as there was no doubt in her mind that she would be one of the chose race creators.

“What do you know?” Bronwen asked, without bothering with any social niceties.

“Not enough.”

Bronwen nodded. “I wanted to wait until I knew more to talk to you and I was just waylaid by Emrys, so I think that counts as knowing as much as I possibly can.” She shook her head. “We will be creating a number of worlds. Riordan had already decided it was going to be more than the elders thing we should, because otherwise it isn’t going to work the way they wanted to it, but the number Emrys gave me, and I think it is the one to trust, is that we will be creating at least thirty-seven worlds.”

“Thirty-seven?”

“I thought that as well, Mai, but I understand why. We’re going to be creating a web of worlds, so that they can all share strength, and in order for that to work the way we want it to we’ll need more worlds that I thought we would. He showed me a drawing of what he thought would work best, so I’m certain he’s right.”

“At least?”

“Emrys…” Bronwen licked her bottom lip. “He has some plans that I’m not entirely certain I agree with, but it’s not something I want to talk about without his permission, not when I know how worried he already is about the fae doing something to stop this all from happening. I trust you. I’m just not certain that he does, although he was certain that you would be one of the race creators. Apparently death is the only thing that would stop you.”

“He’s right.” Mairin smiled. “I would only be stopped by death and I already have some ideas for races that I’d like to find places for.” She nibbled the inside of her cheek. “How is it going to work? Are we going to create races that we need to find worlds for or are they going to as us to create certain races for their worlds?”

“It should be a mix of both. The likelihood is that it will mostly be the former, with a little of the latter, although I already know about a couple of worlds that will need specific races to inhabit them. One of them is Emrys’ first world. He…” Bronwen sighed, looking at a loss for words. “Mai, I’m not certain I should be telling you this, but Emrys knows so much more about what’s coming than we do.”

Mairin shrugged. “I’m not surprised. There was always something different about him and I had a feeling it had something to do with what was happening. I just wasn’t ready to ask the questions, because I wasn’t certain I wanted to know the answers.”

“Honestly I wasn’t, but it was time for me to know them. Emrys has been feeling off ever since he stepped onto Athare, even though the majority of us have been feeling better, and he thinks that it won’t be long before his body can’t cope with the massive influx of magic that hit it, so he told me what he thought I needed to know. Riordan has his journals and it won’t be long before we have to let other people in on the secret, because we will be starting the process relatively soon. The conversations Riordan and I have had, while being very circular a lot of the time as we have a lot of questions without answers, have made it obvious that certain things need to happen before we do start draining our new home of magic.

“We need to start by creating races for this world. Eithne, I know, will be one of the creators, and I’d like it if you and Aidan would also create a race each. They’re going to need to be as fae-looking as possible, even though I doubt we’re going to be able to convince the elders to let them live on this continent, so that we have the best chance of doing that we can, as without those races we will end up draining Athare of all her magic before we even make a start on the rest of the worlds.” Bronwen brushed a hand through her hair, looking unhappy. “One of the issues we are going to have to deal with is the fae, as it won’t be long before they start building a number of warded settlements, which will mean we’re going to need to be very careful with the amount of magic that we use to begin with – especially as Riordan need to experiment.

“Everyone thinks of us as the people who know what we’re doing, because of the city we created, but they don’t seem to understand that creating a world is very different to that. He has no idea where to start and the information Emrys has on the actual process isn’t enough to get us started. Unfortunately Athare didn’t know much about it either, and she can’t talk to anyone who might know more…”

“Athare is sentient?”

“Yes, Athare is. She knows what we’re doing, she agrees it’s the only option we have, and I’m still getting used to the idea.” She shrugged. “That is something that you need to keep to yourself, though. I only trust three of the people I will be working with from our family, and you know who they are, so we need to be careful around anyone else who might be involved, although the time might come when we can be more open. Really that depends on what happens in the future.”

“I understand.” Mairin took hold of Bronwen’s hand, studying her baby sister carefully. “How much have you slept recently, Bron?”

“Not enough, but I don’t think I’m going to be getting much sleep for a while, not with everything that I have on my mind. There’s the worlds, and Riordan, and now Emrys.” She shook her head. “Even though I’m grateful that Emrys did choose to talk to me I don’t know if I can cope with everything.”

“Okay, how about we have a cup of tea and you tell me everything that he told you? I know you’re worried that he won’t be happy with you telling me, but I think he knows that you’re going to tell someone and the likelihood is that it will be me, because everyone knows how close we are.”

Finally, after longer than Mairin expected, Bronwen nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.” She sighed. “I hate that it’s come to this, Mai, that we have to create other worlds and other races in order for our own to survive. None of them will understand how difficult our job is, so they’re going to push for us to do certain things, even though they think of Riordan and I as the ‘experts, because they won’t really want to listen. What they want is for us to follow their orders when they have no understanding of what it is they’re asking us to do.”

“No, they don’t.” Mairin walked into the kitchen area, wondering exactly how difficult it was all going to be, and hunted through her collection of teas for something that would hopefully calm Bronwen down a little. “They accept that we have no other option. If the fae are going to survive we need to do something different, something they never would have permitted before, and I do appreciate that it was Riordan’s older sister who came up with the idea in the first place, but we both know that she only pushed for this because of the experiment that he did. She would never have known it was possible if he didn’t put the idea to the elders in the first place.”

“The day he asked me to help him with that I thought that the loss of magic on Kalinia had made him mad. If it hadn’t been for the certainty in his eyes I would never have said yes, but he truly believed it was something we needed to do, and it’s thanks to him that I do know the basics of creating a race. What we’re doing now, though, isn’t basic. We will be creating worlds, with seasons, and time, and moons, and…” Bronwen sounded as though she was on the brink of a panic attack. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mai.”

Mairin put aside one mix that wasn’t going to be anywhere near strong enough to help Bronwen and picked out one that should be. She dumped three huge spoonfuls of it into the teapot before covering the herbs with hot water. Once that was done she turned back to Bronwen, who had tears trickling down her cheeks. “Sweetheart…” Mairin shook her head. “I wish I could do more to help.”

“Just knowing that I can talk to you helps.” Bronwen scrubbed the tears away, looking annoyed at herself, even though Mairin didn’t think she should be. “After everything we’ve been through I should be grateful that the decisions have been made and I know what’s happening, but the problem is we always realised that the elders weren’t going to understand why we’d made the choices we have. They’re not going to be happy that we’re planning on making so many worlds, they’re definitely not going to be happy that we want to place other races on their world, and it’s all going to involve lots of arguments that will never get us anywhere, because we’re not going to agree with each other. None of the elders will understand why we want to make so many worlds, as they aren’t going to listen to our explanations, when they’re so certain that all we need is five worlds to be able to keep Athare topped up with magic.”

“For a little while it would.” Mairin sighed. “In the long run, though, it wouldn’t do any good at all, because the other worlds would be drained of all magic and then the same thing would happen to Athare. They have no understanding at all of how this needs to work if they really believe that encircling Athare with five other worlds would actually help. All it would do is extend the time we had before we needed to find another world, which might mean we’d have enough time to be able to forget the mistakes we make on Kalinia.”
“Emrys said we, as a race, have already destroyed two worlds before travelling to Kalinia. He doesn’t want us to do the same thing to Athare, Athare doesn’t want us to do the same thing to Athare, so we need to work out how we’re going to convince the elders that the choices we’re making are the right ones without telling them that Emrys dreamt of Athare before we came here.” Bronwen shook her head. “They wouldn’t believe us anyway, because Emrys showed no sign of being able to see the future, so as far as they’ll be concerned it won’t be possible, even though it is if Athare really is sentient.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.