The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 72nd continuation)
Part 1
Part 9, 71st continuation
Landing Page
Raenarin nodded. “I was lucky, because Tabea had a son who could See. That made things both easier and harder. She knew what was coming, but I still couldn’t help as much as I would have liked to, so in the end her decision wasn’t the same as mine. Even though she knew more about the Web than anyone else on Raenarin she didn’t know enough to be certain that she’d be able to keep her whole family safe if she went with them.” She sighed. “When we talked, the last time we ever did, she told me that she was worried that she’d be followed by the covens if she left Raenarin and that was why she sent each of her children off separately before letting the assassins kill her. It was her way of keeping them safe, because I knew that telling her the covens wouldn’t be able to track her would change everything, and when I asked the other Raenarins, those who had already been through it, they told me that it was something that did have to happen, no matter how hard it was for me to cope with.”
“Having our future selves to talk to is both a blessing and a curse.” Quiar smiled. “When I first met one of my future selves I couldn’t quite believe it was possible, but, really, I should have know that it was going to happen. I didn’t have counterparts then, of course, as I’m the first Quiar, so I didn’t have anyone visiting me to tell me about the choices I should be making until my future self arrived to talk to me. Honestly it was one of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had, although I was really grateful that she’d taken the time to talk to me and tell me that the choice I was about to make was one that I shouldn’t.” She bit her lip. “At the time I didn’t know how many of my future selves there were, some of them I’ve never met because they didn’t have any need or want to talk to me, while the others have come to me at certain points to let me know what might be coming in the future, depending on the choices that my people make. This Lucille is the first to have been through the fight with the platypi, as far as I know, but I don’t think she’ll be the last. Four of my past selves have Lucille much the same as mine, so there’s every chance they’ll be making the same sort of choices, and, like I said before, there are probably more future selves that I don’t know than I do.”
“Sometimes I wish that we didn’t have counterparts and future selves to talk to. The choices I make now are often based on what I’ve been told by the other Raenarins, which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that I don’t get to try things out that they have, because they’ve already done it. At the same time I’m grateful that they take the time to talk with me, to let me know what their mistakes have been, so we can make the best decisions for my people - even though making the best decisions that I can doesn’t mean that I can change things for someone like Tabea.” Raenarin shrugged. “One of my counterparts told me that she’d told her Queen, who wasn’t my Queen due to somethings that happened to her that didn’t happen to me, that she would be safe if she left Raenarin and she still chose to stay, because it meant her children had time to get away. Like Tabea’s son she also had a Seer son, so she knew what was happening, although neither of them knew for certain when it would be. They just knew they had to have plans on place for saving their children, in the hope that one might, in the future, become the Witch Queen.”
Quiar studied the male platypus, who still seemed fine, and wished she knew which of the charms Lucille had used, because they’d created five different ones that all, understandably, would affect the person they were used on in different ways. “The Queen has returned to other Raenarins?”
“At least three times that I know of and on one there’s a King, which is interesting. I visit there occasionally to see what’s happening and he’s a good ruler, the right person to be on the throne.” Raenarin smiled. “I’ve taken to writing about each of the Raenarins I work with, both my counterparts and future selves, so I have some idea of what’s happening on each of them. The more I do the more fascinated I become, because they’re all so different. Each of them has seen different Queens; on two of them the Sorcerers chose to create their school millennia ago and that really did change things; on another the Sorcerers and Sorceresses worked together, even though the Witches still know nothing about the Sorcerers; and there’s one where the Queen worked with her children to fight off the assassins, instead of choosing to die, and that world has had a Queen ever since.”
“Lucille’s fascinated by the other Webs. She wants to learn as much about them as she can, in part, I think, because she knows it possible someone from our Web might find themselves in one of the others, and knowing something about them will be helpful. Would you be willing to help her?”
“We all would.” Raenarin sipped her hot chocolate and Quiar looked down at the one she was holding, unsure exactly when she’d taken it from Raenarin. “She’s right that people from this Web end up living within one of the others, even though some of them don’t even realise that it’s happened. On one of the Raenarins, that’s almost identical to mine, the only reason the Witch who stepped through the door knew that she was on another world because her coven mates were slightly different. They all had the sames names, they were all a part of the same families, but their personalities had changed due to the choices that Raenarin had made. Plus she’d never been there before, so she had to explain how she knew everyone, and that wasn’t the easiest job, because those Witches didn’t know that the other worlds existed.”
“How did that happen?”
“The Raenarin was almost identical, but the Athare wasn’t. There the fae had managed to exterminate the Moonjumpers, without planning to have a replacement because they were that scared of being out of control, and that changed the rest of the Web. On my world not a lot had changed, although, as I said, the Witches didn’t know anything about the other worlds. Beshaki was badly affected by the loss of the Moonjumpers, as was Kniroch, and a couple of the other worlds that I don’t know so well here nearly ended up being destroyed because of the decision the fae had made.”
“Sadly that doesn’t surprise me.” Quiar thought of how badly her counterpart had been affected by the war that had happened and that was one of the worst choices the fae had made, in her opinion, so she could easily imagine how the decision to exterminate the Moonjumpers had affected the other Web. “How do you think the wards coming down around the fae settlements is going to affect out Web?”
“I’m not as worried as I thought I would be. The fae are a very different race now, we all know that, and they may still make bad choices, but those bad choices aren’t going to have the same effect on us as they would have had if they’d chosen to never hide themselves within the settlements. Now they have so little magic, because they did make the choice to hide away, they’re much less of a race to fear. Now, if, for example, one of the races of Kankirin was to try to take over the rest of the Web I would be scared.”
Quiar sipped the hot chocolate, realising as she did so why Raenarin had chosen it, and it made her feel more capable of dealing with whatever may happen, even though she knew that was more the little dose of magic Raenarin had added during the process. “Do you think that’s likely?”
“Here, no, but it had happened in one of the other Webs, and I know how badly that affected the rest of the worlds. Kankirin felt so guilty, even though it wasn’t her fault and she had warned everyone that it was going to happen. You wouldn’t know about it because it was one of the earlier Webs, not one that we talk about very often, because ever since it happened they’ve been more focused on dealing with what happened, and as it’s something that’s very unlikely to happen here we don’t really need their help, so we only go to them to offer support when we have time, which, unfortunately, doesn’t happen as often as we’d like, with everything that’s happening here.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.