The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 80th continuation)
Part 1
Part 9, 79th continuation
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“Even though things aren’t easy now I’m glad that I’m the leader of the Council today and not at the time when Riordan was. He must have been a very strong person to have been able to take on the fae as they were then.” Kester sighed. “Now, although I am still wary of them, they don’t seem to be the same as they were during his time, when they fought every single decision he made.”
Lucille nodded. “Instead they simply try to stop us from making the decisions in the first place, by switching one fae for another at every meeting, as they know that makes it hard for us to get anything done. We have to spend more time explaining to them what we’re doing, why we think our plan is the best option, and then they use up the last of the time by arguing with us, even though we were close to convincing the previous fae members that we were right.”
“That’s why we have meetings when the fae aren’t around - that way we can get things done, rather than simply spending the whole time arguing with people who don’t actually care about the Web. None of them have any idea of the problems we have solved without them, but it is something they will find out about when the wards fail, and I don’t know how they’re going to react.”
“Honestly, Kester, I don’t think we’re going to have to worry too much about that, because the fae are going to be focusing on how to recreate the wards. They don’t want to be a part of the Web, no matter how much they want to take control of it, and when those wards fail the only thing the majority of them are going to want to do is fix them, remake them, or find some way to make themselves another sanctuary.” Lucille shrugged. “It will be a time of celebration for the fae who know that being within those settlements means that they’re close to extinction once again, the way they were when they first arrived on Athare, but I don’t know if it’s possible for them to fix the problems that their ancestors caused by hiding from the rest of the Web.”
“You think that the wards failing won’t save the fae.”
“Not now. Maybe, if they’d failed a millennia ago, think would be different, and now I don’t think anything that they do will help. In another thousand years we will not have any pure blood fae in the Web, although I can’t help thinking that’s a good thing.”
“I’m not certain that pure blood fae actually exist.” Kester sounded thoughtful. “They travelled from one world to another, and then from that world to Kalinia, before finally finding themselves here. At one point, on that first world, there might have been pure blood fae, but since then they must have bred with members of other races in order to keep the race alive, otherwise I can’t help thinking they would be extinct by now. Or magicless at the very least.”
“Don’t tell them that.” Lucille smiled. “They aren’t going to be pleased if someone, who is fae blooded, points out to them that all their hard work to keep themselves pure has been for nothing.” She shook her head. “Really they should know that, but they like to fool themselves when it comes to things like that. Otherwise they’d know that they destroyed more than one world with their selfishness.”
“We know they were forced to leave a lot of their history behind when they left Kalinia, so it is something that might have happened when they travelled to Kalinia, but even Riordan had no idea that Kalinia wasn’t their home world until Emrys told them about the worlds they’d lived on before, which makes me think that the fae destroyed their own history, because they weren’t happy with the choices they’d made. To them it made more sense to pretend that nothing had happened.”
“Unfortunately we know for a fact that hiding the truth from their people led to the destruction of Kalinia.” Lucille bit her lip. “It also led to the creation of the Web, so there is a silver lining for us, but I can’t help feeling sorry for the races who must have lived on that world before the fae stepped on to it. They lost their home because of the selfishness of a race who should have known better and would have done if it wasn’t for their ancestors.”
“Riordan didn’t write anything about the other races of Kalinia, so I don’t know if he even knew about them. I don’t think it’s something that Emrys would have kept a secret from him, if he’d wanted to know, and I believe that Riordan chose not to ask the questions - because he knew he couldn’t do anything for those races. He needed to focus on the Web.”
“Maybe Riordan didn’t give all his journals to the Council. If Tegan had one that she kept purely for family Riordan might have done the same sort of thing. When I think of what I know about him it honestly wouldn’t surprise me and he’s the sort of person I imagine keeping them hidden until the time was right.”
“How would he know when the time was right?”
“Kester, he was friends with Emrys. Emrys, who was connected with Athare, who knows more about this Web, and all of the others, than anyone else. If Riordan wanted to hide some of his journals until the right time all he’d have to do was ask Emrys for the information that he needed.” Lucille laughed. “Or Tegan, because I think she might have been a true Walker.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s much more likely that a natural Walker, like Tegan, one of the first of the Web, someone who chose to work with the Council, would have been connected to at least one of the worlds. Probably not Athare, though, and I don’t think she was connected with Quiar. Quiar seems to think of herself as a hard world to connect with, so I have a feeling she hasn’t had many true Walkers, but I think that might be because very few people chose to visit here in the first place. No, if she was connected with any worlds I imagine that Siaral, Kniroch and Saethera are the most likely.”
“That would have been before Kniroch connected with any of his sibling worlds.” Kester sighed. “Well, at least I assume it was. Kniroch is one of those worlds I don’t know as much about as I would like, and I know that’s because he doesn’t trust the Council Walkers. I don’t blame him, but it would be nice if he remembered who the leader of the Council is related to.”
“Not all of you have been trustworthy.” Kniroch had told her stories, the same way all the worlds had, about time when the leader of the Council had been the wrong person. “You, I believe, are, but some of your predecessors weren’t. I want to say that all of Riordan’s descendants have been good people who were meant to be the leader of the Council, because of what he was like, and it’s not something that I ever wanted to have to be the one to tell you. Sadly there have been times when the worlds have trusted the leader of the Council and they’ve turned out to be working with the fae, for whatever reason, or they’ve made the decision that the Web would be better off without the Walkers.” Lucille shrugged. “Fortunately they’ve been moved on quite quickly, thanks to Athare, but that doesn’t mean that the worlds are going to automatically trust you, especially those whose true Walker has never met you.”
“Father always told me I didn’t know everything about the Council and I accepted that as the truth, because I didn’t have the time to learn about it the way my sister did. When he walked away I was thrown in at the deep end, literally, so I haven’t had as much time as I would like to have learnt about my predecessors or the history of the Council. My focus has been on the worlds, the Walkers, and making certain that I have enough connections to be able to deal with the time when the wards come down around the fae settlements.”
“You’ve know about it since the beginning of your time as leader.” Lucille didn’t need to ask, because she knew what Athare was like, and if she had put Kester in control of the Council there have been a reason for it. “Who told you?”
“My younger brother, who turned out to be a true Walker who was connected to Athare, and Athare told me that she needed me to know what was coming, because, as much as she liked my father, he shouldn’t have been leader of the Council either. I’ve never been certain why, as I thought he was a wonderful leader, but I’m sure that she has a reason for what she was saying.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.