Mythology 101

by Jody Lynn Nye

  The food was good, what there was of it. The servers, elves of both sexes, trundled over with big (to them) steaming crocks of stew, baskets of bread and bowls of vegetables, and then sat down to serve themselves and their families. Keith prayed his stomach wouldn’t grumble as he filled his doll’s-dish with stew from the crock and took a piece of bread. He promised it the pound cake he kept sealed in a tin under his dorm bed for emergency midnight snacks. He even promised it extra breakfast if it would keep quiet for now. In his excitement over the coming meeting of the study group that afternoon, he had forgotten to eat any lunch, and he was embarrassingly hungry now. He tried to eat slowly, but in a few small bites, the plate was empty.

  The crock thumped to a halt in front of him. “There’s plenty,” Laniora, his pretty brown-haired classmate coaxed him, from two seats down to Holl’s left. With a grateful smile, Keith dished himself another helping.

  The bread was something special. It was soft and fresh-baked, with a crisp, thin brown crust. The aroma made him sigh and lift his eyes heavenward, which drew laughter from his tablemates.

  “Dinna worship it,” snapped Keva. “Eat it!”

  Obediently, he ate it. It was delicious, and he said so. A moment later, an extra portion of bread plumped down next to his plate, and the sharp pain withdrew from his side. He had forgotten all about it until it disappeared. Holl grinned at him suddenly and Keith grinned back.

  At the meal’s end, Keva gave him a frosty little nod and smile, and then walked away. Keith rose and bowed to her, scratching his side. Then he bowed to the elders clustered at the end of the table. The old man at the end inclined his head and went back to his own conversation. Since Holl showed no inclination to hurry away, Keith sat down again.

  “You’ve flattered Keva,” Holl told him. “It was her bread. She’s the baker. It was her pin cushion in your ribs, too.”

  “Oh,” said Keith. “She your aunt?”

  “She’s my sister. I’m the middle one of three. Right now three, that is,” Holl said blithely. “That was my baby sister down there at the end of the table. Three is considered a big family with us. My folks are a progressive pair.”

  “Sister? Hmm, hah, uh, how old is she?” Keith asked, amazed. “Never mind that; how old are you?”

  “Old enough, my lad. In terms of this world, forty years have passed since my birth.”

  “Forty? Of course you look about twelve. I should have guessed. Wow, I would have thought you were more my age. I’m nineteen.”

  “Let’s shake,” Holl extended a hand. “I’m considered a young adult to my folk, too. We’ll call that common ground enough to build on.”

  Keith shook the hand, engulfing it in his own, and discovered they were nearly alone in the big room. “Where’d everyone go?”

  “To the living quarters. Some call it the village, but that’s a fanciful title. It’s a big place like this one, only divided up to the clans. Come and see.”

  O O O

  They walked through another low tunnel similar to the one that led from the schoolroom, though this one sloped down at a slight angle. The passage was dimly lit high along each side, though Keith couldn’t see the fixtures from which the flickering light issued. “You don’t get many … er, human … visitors down here, do you?”

  “No, indeed not,” said Holl. “You’re the first in a long, long time.”

  “Then why me?” Keith asked, walking stooped over with a hand running along the ceiling checking for rafters and bumps. “Ouch. I feel like Quasimodo.”

  “The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Because you asked, Keith Doyle, and I trusted you, so you were allowed to come. I’m taking a chance on you. It’s my nature to take chances. The others think I’m too progressive, but I call it a hereditary failing. My parents don’t mind.”

  “You read a lot of classics?” Keith inquired, ducking to avoid an electrical conduit.

  “What else is there to do in a library?”

  “I guess I never thought what it was like to live in one.” Keith had a sudden vision of the secret door in the wall opening, and thousands of elves pouring out into the library, pulling books out of the shelves, using the microfiche readers, calling up articles about leprechauns from PLATO, and stern little elf librarians hissing “Shhh!” He chuckled.

  “Come on, then,” the young elf called out, disappearing around a sharp bend in the hall. Keith hurried to catch up.

  O O O

  “When this building was built, back along, they made this floor to be a maintenance way, to take care of the pipes and the foundation,” Holl said, stopping to point out the sheaves of conduit that ran along the ceiling here and there. “Only it was never used much. And the one below it was the foundation itself. You can see that no one your size could walk down here for long without giving himself a good backache. As long as nothing went wrong with the pipes, they had no reason to look for a way to get at them. And we make sure that nothing goes wrong with the pipes. They’ve forgotten about it, see, and the parts of the blueprints describing this level and this part of the steam tunnels were destroyed, all by accident. They kept them in this very same building,” Holl said innocently. “We had a friend who warned us to get rid of access ways and plans when we came here … but she’s no business of yours.” The elf’s tone was a definite warning.

  “A good friend,” Keith said, tactfully not pushing for details. By the direction they were walking, he guessed that the rounded passage must run directly below the Student Common. He felt satisfied with the number of questions Holl was answering, and was content to let him talk. “How did you get here, Holl? And where did you come from?”

  “Ireland, wasn’t it?” Holl shot him a sideways glance full of mischief. Keith’s theories were well known among his folk, and they considered them most entertaining.

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” Keith asked, not letting the jibe penetrate. “I heard your relatives talking up there. I’ve got cousins that really do look like you. Not the ears, but the rest of your features. The cast of them, as my grandmother would say.”

  The Maven shrugged. “Your legends may have some truth to them. I’m not saying how much. You don’t think we get pleasure out of saying we’re kin to the enemy, now do you? Simmer down, boy,” for Keith was getting red-faced and waving his arms preparatory to a verbal explosion. Holl poked him in the midsection with a forefinger. “You’re not an enemy yourself. At least I think not. But there’d be many more of us if there weren’t so many of you. What normally becomes of highly inter-bred racial mutations under your typical intensive, impersonal scientific scrutiny?”

  Keith’s color faded slowly as he thought about it, and then he spoke. “Extinction.”

  “Uh-huh. But fortunately among the characteristics we maintain are camouflage and silence. My kin have had much practice on their way across this continent. I can steal the eggs out of a duck’s nest if she’ll lean forward a mite.”

  “I can scare one silly and get the eggs that way,” Keith volunteered. “I failed woodcraft in Boy Scouts.”

  “And can’t I tell that? It’s part of the quality of being obvious that makes me want to trust you. You were making quite a racket in the stacks that day. Anyone of us could tell there was someone out there, though the rest of the Big Ones couldn’t.”

  Keith opened his mouth.

  Holl forestalled him. “And we heard you two days before that, when Bracey tossed you out. He’s one of us, too.”

  Keith shut it again.

  O O O

  “This is where we live,” Holl announced, stepping aside so Keith could stand up out of the low hallway. Rubbing his back tenderly, Keith squinted down the length of the room. “We lowered the dirt floor several feet. Used to be just a few feet high, but we like our head room. It makes for a far more congenial living space.”

  He certainly would never have suspected its existence. It covered an area the same size as the large library levels above but without partitions. The illusion of size was enhan
ced by the height of the ceiling, somewhat loftier than that of the dining hall one half-level up, and the size of the structures within, which were perfect small scale models of the ones he was used to.

  They were undeniably houses, though of a peasant-like cottage type that he associated with woodcutters and Little Red Riding Hood. The roofs, solid and slanted, were naturally not needed underground to keep off the weather, but they served to give the illusion that the village was in the upper air. Groups of cottages were scattered throughout the vast room. Neighborhoods, Keith realized with delight. They must be set up by clan. He could see his tablemates going about their business in the knot of houses nearest the passageway.

  The same flickering light that illuminated the passages lined the ceiling between bare rafters, though it was much brighter here, almost as bright as spring sunlight. It was as warm as springtime down here, too. The elves carried on life as usual with less noise than Keith would have thought possible for such a large number of human beings, but as Holl pointed out, he was probably mistaken about that, too.

  A group of five or six children were playing tag around the corners of the small shelters, giggling as they managed to elude “it.” It was a nice, quiet little village scene, but one that reminded Keith more of a Bronze age enclosure than something that could exist in the twentieth century, especially within a hundred feet, albeit straight down, of a modern university.

  Before the cottage doors, here and there, a woman in a long skirt and blouse or the same straight legged pants the men wore, sewed, usually patching clothes, and humming to herself or chatting with a neighbor. The floor was packed earth, hoed up here and there to make way for tiny flower beds and herb gardens. Bunches of greenery hung in nearly every doorway, scenting the air and adding to the springtime atmosphere. You’d never know it was October—a cold October, too—upstairs. And everywhere was the same ornamental woodwork, the sort of fine carving that Keith watched the Maven do during class for the last couple of weeks.

  He fingered a small polished square panel set into the upper part of a wall, admiring the design of intertwining ivy leaves carved upon it. “Did you do this?” he asked.

  “No,” Holl smiled. “But you have a good eye for a pattern. My father’s work, that one is. That panel keeps the house together.”

  “Oh?”

  “Aye. Cohesiveness. Knits its bones. I learned my skill from him. Scrap wood’s one thing that’s available in plenty, so I never lack for practice pieces.”

  Keith leaned close to the wall, trying to see joins between the tightly fitted slabs of wood. No two pieces were exactly the same size, grain, shade, or quality. They looked as though they had been puzzle-cut together with a very sharp knife. Particle board clung to oak between bits of plywood, balsa, and pine. These elven builders could have given precision lessons to Pharaoh’s architects. “So what’s wrong with using nails?” Not that he could see any in the construction.

  “They rust. They bend. Also, we tend to be a wee bit sensitive to having too much metal around.”

  “I heard that cold iron dispels magic,” Keith said teasingly. “Maybe that’s why you don’t use it.”

  “And maybe the effect is more like heavy metal poisoning, Keith Doyle. Call it an allergy. Don’t look for foolish explanations unless no others suffice. There’s plenty of common sense to go around. Even you could find some.”

  “I believe in magic,” Keith said softly.

  “But do you know it when you see it?” Holl demanded.

  “Probably not,” Keith admitted cheerfully. A fragrance of spices and baking tickled his nose, and he changed the subject. “How do you do your cooking here? I never smell anything out of the ordinary in the building.”

  “Oh, the chimneys over the fires are all vented together to the outside, toward the Student Common. We tried electric stoves once, but the cooks protested one and all that they couldn’t control such an impersonal element, so that was the end of that experiment. They know where they are with wood-burning, and we left it at that. The steam tunnels run by here, and we make use of them. It’s also from them that we get our heat. If you ever smelled any of the good cooking upstairs, you probably thought it was coming from the Delicatessen in the Common.” Holl wrinkled his nose. “Or, if bad, from the Home Economics department. We don’t eat fancy, as you see, so it’s never anything unusual enough to bear investigation. Strong smells linger, so we’re careful never to eat fish unless it’s fresh, or any cooked cabbages at all.”

  Keith wandered between the shelters, nodding as nonchalantly as he could manage to any elf that met his eye, and most of them did, nodding back and smiling, trying to believe that he wasn’t doing something unique and extraordinary in just being near them. But they preserved the illusion for him, and he allowed himself to make a full tourist’s ramble of the big room.

  He watched a handful of elves, male and female, folding sheets from a big wicker basket and gossiping over their work. Young ones played a complicated pretending game with toys on the ground. Keith saw a jointed toy horse clopping across the floor with an elfin toddler in pursuit.

  “Electronic?” Keith asked Holl.

  “No, it’s all wood.”

  “Magic …” In delighted disbelief, he watched the horse look back over its shoulder and change direction just as the little one would have reached it. It was alive! The baby gave a crow of glee and turned to pursue his toy. Holl broke his reverie by tapping him on the shoulder.

  “There’s more,” he said, beckoning him along.

  “How’s that work?” Keith asked, pointing at the horse, wanting to go back and investigate.

  “Just a toy,” Holl shrugged off-handedly, pulling Keith along. Keith took a quick look back before following around a corner. The child’s mother had seized him up and was washing his face with a wet cloth. It was not a task the baby enjoyed, and he kicked and cried under her ministrations. She shot an apologetic look toward Keith, who smiled at her. The brown wooden horse stood at her feet and regarded its master with glassy-eyed sympathy.

  A thin pipe ran between the patterns of light on the ceiling, and divided into several smaller pipes, which descended along the wall and floor under the back of each house. Keith glanced over to Holl, eyebrows raised.

  “Water,” the elf explained. “We’ve run a tap pipe from the fire sprinklers. The pressure is kept constant, and again, no one notices.”

  “You think of everything.” Keith looked around admiringly. “I wouldn’t be able to work all this stuff out, even if my life depended on it. And yours do.”

  Holl looked pleased. “We’ve had time to work it all out. It wasn’t so comfortable at first. But there’s more. Did you know that there’s a small river running under this building?”

  “No,” said Keith, astonished. “I’ve never seen any sign of anything like that. The nearest river is way down the road.”

  “Well, you’re wrong; there is one. It’s the way towns were always built. Underground rivers make a natural disposal system. And we take water out of it upstream. Look here.” He led the young man to a broad patch of growing greenery. Tay, the blond-bearded fellow from the Master’s class, waved to them and went back to pulling up carrots and tossing them into a slatted bin. The bright orange vegetables were of unusually good size, and looked amazingly alive in the artificial sunshine. Holl appropriated two from under Tay’s slapping hand, broke the greens off into a pail, passed one to Keith, and snapped a crunchy bite out of his own. “Hydroponics,” he explained as he chewed. “These have their roots dangling in the river. It’s right under the concrete at this end of the building.”

  Keith brushed the water from the carrot, and took a bite. It was crisp, cold and sweet, and even tasted healthy. “Why would they have built right over water? That’s asking for trouble with the foundation.”

  “Well, it didn’t start out that way. The river has changed course over the years. One more thing the University doesn’t suspect is in its basements. And it makes a
perfectly viable hydroponic garden. The water’s always fresh. Waste goes in downstream.”

  “Wow.” Keith didn’t hide his interest. “How do you know so much about a river no one’s ever seen?”

  “Oh, well, one of our folk has an earth-wise way about her. She asked it, and she knows.”

  Keith nodded, trying to picture an elf-woman talking to a river. It sounded plausible as far as he could tell. Though there was a quiet buzz of conversation, and the occasional click-zizz! of a saw or tap-tap of a hammer, the loudest single noise in the place was the sound of his own shoes banging along on the concrete floor. Most of the elves’ footgear was a kind of soft-soled sock-shoe, sewn of suede or leather, and pulled on without lacings. The children generally wore a ribbon tied around each ankle to keep their shoes from falling off, but a slower form of locomotion than running wouldn’t dislodge them. Holl was watching him wisely, noting Keith’s study with silent approval.

  “It’s peaceful here,” Keith said at last.

  Holl smiled. “It is that.”

  O O O

  Nothing seemed ever to be wasted by the little people. Keith saw the same stiff flowered fabric used over and over again in different applications. Two little girls’ dresses, several window curtains, an old woman’s apron, and a gaudy young man’s shirt had obviously all come from the same bolt. “And bed coverlets, too,” Holl affirmed, after Keith mentioned it to him. “There are no looms in this place. That much wood we cannot spare, so textiles are some of the hardest things to come by. You’ll see the same scrap of cloth recycled a dozen times before it’s too badly worn to mend. It’s a sure sign that fabric’s on the way out when it becomes curtains. No wear to the body of the cloth, you see.”

  “Sure, I see,” said Keith, musing. Now that he was aware of it, he saw that most of the fabrics here were well cared for, but old and worn, including his friend’s clothes. Patches were skillfully blended on trouser-knees and jacket-elbows. Probably re-dyed for camouflage. “Textiles, huh?”