The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 116th continuation)
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Part 9, 115th continuation
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“Was that the right choice to make?” Lucille, even though she’d read about the hidden places, hadn’t been lucky enough to travel to one, probably because she was needed in other places. “When I read Mairin’s journal I got the idea of what she was trying to do, but she never mentioned much about the book she was basing them on.”
“That’s because it didn’t really matter. All she wanted was to take the very basics from it and thought the world creators were looking too closely at the characters in the book. I can understand why she thought that, when I saw what she did, while I worked with Piaras on that hidden place and Mairin when she was creating the race that she was putting there. Normally I wouldn’t have been permitted to do something like that, as I wasn’t a race creator, but Emrys thought it was important for Mairin to have a helper and there were fewer Yellows who had chosen to stay with us than there were Blues. She seemed grateful to have someone there, even though I couldn’t do much. Mostly I spent the time passing her jars and talking to her about what her plans were after we’d finished creating the Web.”
“Can you tell me more about them?”
Meriwether nodded. “We were working on different bodies for them, although they were technically one race, because that’s the sort of things we did, which meant creating more souls that average. It was Bronwen and Eithne that told the race creators a hundred souls was the optimum number for a body type, as they put it, so we needed five hundred for Mairin’s five different body types. The first was a bipedal body, with wings, but that was the only one she based on our race. All of the others were animal races, which are, for the fae at least, much harder to make, as we don’t have as good an understand of how a body like that should work. Fortunately the magic we use does account for those sort of errors.
“Each of the other four body types were based on creatures that Mairin had some experience with. She had, mostly, been making bipedal races, because of the worlds she worked on, so being able to experiment more was something she really appreciated. When it came to the hidden places all of the creators were much more willing to do something unusual, as the fae would never go there, unless it was by accident. On the worlds themselves they were more careful about what they did, unless, of course, it was Emrys, who really didn’t care what the fae thought. The rest of us were more wary, as we didn’t know how they were going to react to certain choices that we made and we didn’t want them to do something stupid. He said they wouldn’t, as they knew how much they needed the other worlds if they were going to survive, but we weren’t so certain.
“She made one dog-like body, one cat-like, one rabbit-like, and after that she couldn’t decide what she wanted to do, because there were a couple that she thought might work, but she didn’t want them to be a part of her race. That was when she went to talk to Emrys, who, at the time, was also talking to Bronwen, Aidan and Eithne about certain things they really didn’t want the fae to know about. If Mairin hadn’t been busy she would have automatically been a part of the conversation as Emrys trusted the three of them in a way he didn’t trust any of the other race creators. He wanted them to start working on more unusual races that they would put in out of the way places, hopefully where the fae wouldn’t come across them. When I asked him about it later he said they’d be needed in the future, but he wouldn’t say anything more than that. However that meant that Mairin found it much simpler to make her decision and went for a badger-like underground race, which meant there would be two underground and three overground.
“The continent they were given was more than large enough for them never to meet. I honestly don’t know much of what happened after we finished working on them, because then they were put into their hidden place and I’ve never managed to travel there, so there’s a chance they may well all have faded away into nothing and only the continent will be left there. We did make the hidden places hard to find on purpose, wanting to protect the races we put there as much as possible, so the fae wouldn’t be able to do anything to them. Maybe we were paranoid, especially considering what I know now about how the choices they’d made have affected them, but back then it made sense to be worried about how they might react to certain things, and after what they did to the natural Moonjumpers we might not have been entirely wrong. Unfortunately the fae were never consistent, so it was always possible that they’d be fine with one thing and attempt to destroy another, even though they were almost identical.
“We worried most about the animal races we created. The fae were never comfortable with the more unusual choices we made, and they would have hated Emrys’ worlds if they’d found out about them in advance, so we were always careful not to talk to the wrong people, just in case. Although we didn’t think that any of the creators would say the wrong thing we could never be certain, so being careful made more sense than talking about everything, especially when it came to certain decisions that we made. If you take Gaelom as an example the fae didn’t find out that there was more than one of them until eight years after Emrys left and even then it was only by accident. No one, not even Aubrie, told them that he’d made a world that held other worlds within it, because they would never have accepted it. By the time they did find out it was too late, fortunately, so there was nothing they could do.”
“How did they find out?”
“One of the fae happened to be a natural Moonjumper, accidentally found a door and ended up on Gaelom 7. They had no idea it might have been an alternative Gaelom, so they were looking for a city they knew of, but it wasn’t there. In the end it took her eight years, I think, to get back to Athare, and when she did she wanted to tell the fae of the wonderful things she’d seen, because she hoped it might get them to leave their settlements. Some did, but the rest…” Meriwether sighed. “Fae children who had been born in the settlements, like her, knew very little about the Web and the fae preferred it that way, so even the thought of exploring the Web terrified them. The majority believed they were better off in the settlements, because leaving them was something they couldn’t really imagine, and their parents had told them terrible stories about what the Web was like, even though they barely knew anything.
“Eventually, when she realised that the majority of the fae weren’t willing to listen, she left, the same way those who’d been fascinated by her stories did, and fortunately that was long before their magic started fading away, so it means that we do still have some of their magics still within the Web. If they hadn’t chosen to do that we would have lost the ability to create doors, because I know there are no fae born who can, and we would have lost time magic, as the Gold family have been really badly affected by what’s happened. The Golds, as far as I’m concerned, deserve what they got - I never got on with many of them, as they really believed they were better than the rest of the fae due to their abilities, and when they lost some of their number on Aerith the Gold elder tried to stop any of them from working with us. Fortunately those Golds who were willing to work with us didn’t listen to him, because they knew how important it was to finish the Web.”
“I’ve met the Gold family.” Lucille bit her lip as she thought of them. “They’re one of the fae families who have chosen to work with me and I do think they have changed a lot since the time that you knew them, because I’ve always got on with them, although that might be because the Golds who are willing to talk to me about their choices are the younger ones. Fortunately they’ve realised that the position they’re in is one they aren’t going to get out of without help, while the older fae seem more than willing to let themselves become extinct.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.