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kawebbwritingThere was nothing. Moving was… I didn’t dare do anything more than breathe. I had my feet on the very edge of… something I wanted to call land, but couldn’t be certain was land, because I was mostly lost in the nothing below me. Doing anything wrong would lead to me falling into it, and that really wasn’t something I wanted to happen. At the same time I didn’t know how I was going to be able to stop it. Fear was definitely getting the better of me, and I never thought that would ever happen. Not after everything I’d already been through. Finding out how wrong I was about that wasn’t the nicest of things to happen.
Something wrapped around me. Before I could say anything it was slowly drawing me backwards, away from the void I hadn’t been able to get away from myself, so I simply let it happen. That was the easiest thing to do. I wanted to be safe more than anything. “You doing okay?”
“I guess.” My voice was shaking, the same way I was. “Where am I?”
“Edge.”
Doing my best not to say anything I turned to look at who’d rescued me. Finding myself staring at a fox with wings wasn’t what I was expecting, but then I knew very little about Edge. Most of us knew very little about Edge. Only the Knirochians could get there with any degree of reliability, and they weren’t saying anything to anyone, which was something I was beginning to understand. The fae were very wary of animal races. The fae were even more wary of animal races they had no control over. The races of Edge would definitely be in danger if the fae knew too much about them, so it was probably best for them that the Knirochians had kept their mouths shut, the same way any Walker must have done. I didn’t know anyone who’d found themselves on Edge, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.
“Right.” Working out what to say wasn’t easy. “There’s no way back, is there?”
“Not for you.” The fox studied me. “Where are you from?”
“Siaral, originally, but I live on Athare now.” Showing it my tattoos would probably end up being a mistake, but I was sure they had to know that not all of us were the same. “I joined the Walkers, because I wanted to travel, only things are never quite what they seem to be.”
Nodding, it seemed to smile. “You aren’t wrong about that. I’m Arthur.”
“Pleasure. I’m Will.”
“Well, Will, until you find a way to get yourself home you’re going to have to find yourself a place here.”
“Yeah, I am.” That definitely hadn’t been the plan, but after you’d been travelling the worlds for a little while you often found things didn’t quite go the way you planned. They went the way the worlds planned. All I could do was accept what had happened. “Do you have cities here?”
Laughing, Arthur nodded. “We like safety as much as you do. We’re not going to spend all our time flying, because it does take a lot of effort, and we have a number of local cities you can choose from. There are different ways to get to them.” He shrugged, which was something I’d never seen a fox do before. “There are others like you here too. Most of them find it much harder to accept what’s happened to them, because they know they don’t have a way back, while you… well, you have a better chance.”
“A better chance doesn’t mean anything. We both know that.” I wasn’t going to let that get to me. I couldn’t. Not if I was going to live my life. Having regrets about what had happened wasn’t going to change where I was. I was on Edge. It was an opportunity to learn, and I was a Walker. I had to make the most of it, even if I never did get back home. “How many Walkers have come to Edge?”
“I couldn’t tell you an exact number, but there have been a few of you.”
“How many of them have got back to where they came from?”
“Far less.” Arthur nodded. “I know it’s not going to be easy. You are going to be here for a reason. The worlds don’t do things like this for nothing, especially when it comes to worlds like this one.”
“Change is coming.” Those words had been in the wind for a while. I didn’t know for certain what it meant, but I couldn’t help thinking it had something to do with why I was on Edge. “Apparently.”
“The fact you can hear that means something, Will. Not everyone can. Not everyone knows.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes, I do, but then I’ve had dealings with other people who have said the same thing.” He gestured, with his tail, for me to follow him. “Word has come from Oracle, and as that’s the case I’m going to listen.”
“Oracle is special?”
“Everywhere is special, but Oracle is home to people who know more than we do. The sand cats have been passing the message on to anyone they come across. When the sand cats are doing something like that…” Arthur glanced back at me. “You know nothing about the sibling worlds, do you?”
I shook my head. “As the Council knows nothing they couldn’t pass any information on to us. I’ve heard things, but those things… I don’t know whether to believe them or not, to be honest. You never know if what you hear is true.”
“Have you heard about is before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then my race is probably a place to start. We’re the Penna Vulpes, or Flying Foxes. I know it’s not the most interesting name of them all, but it serves a purpose, and all the races here have some way of being able to get from one place to the next without using the air ships.”
“You have air ships?”
“We do. In the end we realised we needed them. Only one of the races here is actually big enough to be able to fly someone your size from one place to the next, and they often choose not to. There are very few times when they will be open to helping anyone.” Arthur shook his head. “The rest of us worked together to make things the way they are now, because we have enough of you wingless people here to need them. A lot of the air ships are piloted by your kind. Learning to call this place home isn’t easy, but some people find it simpler than others, and when you get to the next generations it isn’t unusual for them to want to find their own place here. They don’t have memories of where they lived before getting in the way of who they are here. This is their home.”
“I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Like every world we’ve lost people too. They go out and they never come back. In some ways I think it’s easier for us, because we do see it as them going to where they should be, as that’s the way the Web is. That doesn’t mean we don’t grieve. We do. We cry for those who are lost to us, but, at the same time, we celebrate for them, knowing they will have found their true home… if they can accept it. We are taught to, but that doesn’t mean it is as easy as it should be.”
“Although I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time as a Walker I don’t believe I’ve ever come across one of you.” I smiled. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. So many secrets are kept from us, and I can understand that. We, to so many, work for the fae, not for the Council.”
“There isn’t a lot of difference.”
“Honestly, that depends on what you know about the Council. I don’t know a lot, but I do know enough, and there are plenty of Council members who don’t trust the fae any more than the other races do. Instead they do what needs to be done. They try to protect those who are most at risk, but if change is really coming maybe they won’t have to do that for much longer.”
“Maybe they won’t.” Arthur sounded amused. “You know more than I thought you would. Often that is the case, but we do have to be careful. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can be a mistake. You seem to be one we can trust, even if you were to end up back where you were before.”
“I’m not like them.” I thought about the people I’d left behind on Siaral. “How much do you know of the magic of Siaral?”
“Like everyone here I’ve learnt something about the magics you have there, because of the wish mages.”
Nodding, I smiled. “That does make things simpler. I have to be very careful too. Many people know nothing about the wish mages, and it’s safer for them, because the fae would be terrified if they knew one of the races of the Web had the ability to do something so incredibly dangerous.”
“True.” He glanced back at me again. “You know a wish mage?”
“My sister. She came into the power not long after her fourteenth birthday. It wasn’t easy for her, but she managed to come to terms with what it meant to have those powers, and she’s trusted. She’s good at what she does, so she’s gone up the ranks. More than once she’s stopped someone from granting the wrong wish. She’s actually the reason I became a Walker. I wanted to be certain the Council still knew nothing about the wish mages. I wanted to know she was safe.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, she is, but that doesn’t mean the Council don’t know. The Council, the true Council, know, and they do what they can to protect the wish mages from the fae, not that that fae would be able to do much any more. Hiding away in their warded settlements had an effect on them. They are almost powerless, but they still have control for one reason.”
“Those who do have power have a lot of it.”
“Exactly. We don’t know what choices they would make. There is a fear that those who do have the power would actually still be able to destroy the Web. It’s that fear that stops anyone from doing too much, but, in the end, I don’t think we’re going to have a choice.”
“You know what the change is?”
“I believe it has something to do with the fae, and their settlements.”
“You’re right about that, Will, but none of can be certain what will happen. Not even the sand cats.”
“Our conversation has taken a tangent. You were going to tell me more about the sibling worlds.”
“I was, wasn’t I? I’ll do you a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“You’re a Walker, so I know you’re interested in knowledge, but that’s not just a Walker thing. I’m interested in knowledge too. I’ll tell you what I know about the sibling worlds in return for you telling me about five of the Web worlds you know about. I’ve never been lucky enough to travel to any of them before, and you’re the first Walker I’ve been lucky enough to meet. If you’re anything like me you would have learnt about all the worlds you could, even if you weren’t planning on travelling to them.”
Smiling, I nodded. “You’d be right about that, Arthur, and I’d be happy to share my knowledge with you. I’ve always wanted a chance to teach someone before, but, because of how long I’ve been a Walker, I knew it wasn’t something I’d be able to do for a very long time. For the first time I feel like I might actually have been lucky to find myself here.”
Something wrapped around me. Before I could say anything it was slowly drawing me backwards, away from the void I hadn’t been able to get away from myself, so I simply let it happen. That was the easiest thing to do. I wanted to be safe more than anything. “You doing okay?”
“I guess.” My voice was shaking, the same way I was. “Where am I?”
“Edge.”
Doing my best not to say anything I turned to look at who’d rescued me. Finding myself staring at a fox with wings wasn’t what I was expecting, but then I knew very little about Edge. Most of us knew very little about Edge. Only the Knirochians could get there with any degree of reliability, and they weren’t saying anything to anyone, which was something I was beginning to understand. The fae were very wary of animal races. The fae were even more wary of animal races they had no control over. The races of Edge would definitely be in danger if the fae knew too much about them, so it was probably best for them that the Knirochians had kept their mouths shut, the same way any Walker must have done. I didn’t know anyone who’d found themselves on Edge, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.
“Right.” Working out what to say wasn’t easy. “There’s no way back, is there?”
“Not for you.” The fox studied me. “Where are you from?”
“Siaral, originally, but I live on Athare now.” Showing it my tattoos would probably end up being a mistake, but I was sure they had to know that not all of us were the same. “I joined the Walkers, because I wanted to travel, only things are never quite what they seem to be.”
Nodding, it seemed to smile. “You aren’t wrong about that. I’m Arthur.”
“Pleasure. I’m Will.”
“Well, Will, until you find a way to get yourself home you’re going to have to find yourself a place here.”
“Yeah, I am.” That definitely hadn’t been the plan, but after you’d been travelling the worlds for a little while you often found things didn’t quite go the way you planned. They went the way the worlds planned. All I could do was accept what had happened. “Do you have cities here?”
Laughing, Arthur nodded. “We like safety as much as you do. We’re not going to spend all our time flying, because it does take a lot of effort, and we have a number of local cities you can choose from. There are different ways to get to them.” He shrugged, which was something I’d never seen a fox do before. “There are others like you here too. Most of them find it much harder to accept what’s happened to them, because they know they don’t have a way back, while you… well, you have a better chance.”
“A better chance doesn’t mean anything. We both know that.” I wasn’t going to let that get to me. I couldn’t. Not if I was going to live my life. Having regrets about what had happened wasn’t going to change where I was. I was on Edge. It was an opportunity to learn, and I was a Walker. I had to make the most of it, even if I never did get back home. “How many Walkers have come to Edge?”
“I couldn’t tell you an exact number, but there have been a few of you.”
“How many of them have got back to where they came from?”
“Far less.” Arthur nodded. “I know it’s not going to be easy. You are going to be here for a reason. The worlds don’t do things like this for nothing, especially when it comes to worlds like this one.”
“Change is coming.” Those words had been in the wind for a while. I didn’t know for certain what it meant, but I couldn’t help thinking it had something to do with why I was on Edge. “Apparently.”
“The fact you can hear that means something, Will. Not everyone can. Not everyone knows.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes, I do, but then I’ve had dealings with other people who have said the same thing.” He gestured, with his tail, for me to follow him. “Word has come from Oracle, and as that’s the case I’m going to listen.”
“Oracle is special?”
“Everywhere is special, but Oracle is home to people who know more than we do. The sand cats have been passing the message on to anyone they come across. When the sand cats are doing something like that…” Arthur glanced back at me. “You know nothing about the sibling worlds, do you?”
I shook my head. “As the Council knows nothing they couldn’t pass any information on to us. I’ve heard things, but those things… I don’t know whether to believe them or not, to be honest. You never know if what you hear is true.”
“Have you heard about is before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then my race is probably a place to start. We’re the Penna Vulpes, or Flying Foxes. I know it’s not the most interesting name of them all, but it serves a purpose, and all the races here have some way of being able to get from one place to the next without using the air ships.”
“You have air ships?”
“We do. In the end we realised we needed them. Only one of the races here is actually big enough to be able to fly someone your size from one place to the next, and they often choose not to. There are very few times when they will be open to helping anyone.” Arthur shook his head. “The rest of us worked together to make things the way they are now, because we have enough of you wingless people here to need them. A lot of the air ships are piloted by your kind. Learning to call this place home isn’t easy, but some people find it simpler than others, and when you get to the next generations it isn’t unusual for them to want to find their own place here. They don’t have memories of where they lived before getting in the way of who they are here. This is their home.”
“I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Like every world we’ve lost people too. They go out and they never come back. In some ways I think it’s easier for us, because we do see it as them going to where they should be, as that’s the way the Web is. That doesn’t mean we don’t grieve. We do. We cry for those who are lost to us, but, at the same time, we celebrate for them, knowing they will have found their true home… if they can accept it. We are taught to, but that doesn’t mean it is as easy as it should be.”
“Although I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time as a Walker I don’t believe I’ve ever come across one of you.” I smiled. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. So many secrets are kept from us, and I can understand that. We, to so many, work for the fae, not for the Council.”
“There isn’t a lot of difference.”
“Honestly, that depends on what you know about the Council. I don’t know a lot, but I do know enough, and there are plenty of Council members who don’t trust the fae any more than the other races do. Instead they do what needs to be done. They try to protect those who are most at risk, but if change is really coming maybe they won’t have to do that for much longer.”
“Maybe they won’t.” Arthur sounded amused. “You know more than I thought you would. Often that is the case, but we do have to be careful. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can be a mistake. You seem to be one we can trust, even if you were to end up back where you were before.”
“I’m not like them.” I thought about the people I’d left behind on Siaral. “How much do you know of the magic of Siaral?”
“Like everyone here I’ve learnt something about the magics you have there, because of the wish mages.”
Nodding, I smiled. “That does make things simpler. I have to be very careful too. Many people know nothing about the wish mages, and it’s safer for them, because the fae would be terrified if they knew one of the races of the Web had the ability to do something so incredibly dangerous.”
“True.” He glanced back at me again. “You know a wish mage?”
“My sister. She came into the power not long after her fourteenth birthday. It wasn’t easy for her, but she managed to come to terms with what it meant to have those powers, and she’s trusted. She’s good at what she does, so she’s gone up the ranks. More than once she’s stopped someone from granting the wrong wish. She’s actually the reason I became a Walker. I wanted to be certain the Council still knew nothing about the wish mages. I wanted to know she was safe.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, she is, but that doesn’t mean the Council don’t know. The Council, the true Council, know, and they do what they can to protect the wish mages from the fae, not that that fae would be able to do much any more. Hiding away in their warded settlements had an effect on them. They are almost powerless, but they still have control for one reason.”
“Those who do have power have a lot of it.”
“Exactly. We don’t know what choices they would make. There is a fear that those who do have the power would actually still be able to destroy the Web. It’s that fear that stops anyone from doing too much, but, in the end, I don’t think we’re going to have a choice.”
“You know what the change is?”
“I believe it has something to do with the fae, and their settlements.”
“You’re right about that, Will, but none of can be certain what will happen. Not even the sand cats.”
“Our conversation has taken a tangent. You were going to tell me more about the sibling worlds.”
“I was, wasn’t I? I’ll do you a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“You’re a Walker, so I know you’re interested in knowledge, but that’s not just a Walker thing. I’m interested in knowledge too. I’ll tell you what I know about the sibling worlds in return for you telling me about five of the Web worlds you know about. I’ve never been lucky enough to travel to any of them before, and you’re the first Walker I’ve been lucky enough to meet. If you’re anything like me you would have learnt about all the worlds you could, even if you weren’t planning on travelling to them.”
Smiling, I nodded. “You’d be right about that, Arthur, and I’d be happy to share my knowledge with you. I’ve always wanted a chance to teach someone before, but, because of how long I’ve been a Walker, I knew it wasn’t something I’d be able to do for a very long time. For the first time I feel like I might actually have been lucky to find myself here.”
