"One band, though, stumbled across the remains of a cabin made of a shiny material the Ancestors used, a sort of way station for wanderers who might become lost in the wilderness. It had food and drink stored away, and fuel for heating-but most wonderfully of all, it had a radio. They were sick with loneliness, so they listened to the Midgarders talking to one another. They tried to talk, too, but once the Midgarders knew who they were, they refused to answer. The ancestors played pranks on them anyway, starting conversations, then revealing that they were giants-and learned how to use the device. Then, wonder of wonders, another band of giants answered! They found several radios they could carry with them, and by using those, they were able to find one another."
"So Jotunheim started because of radios?" Alea asked. "As a nation instead of dozens of small, scattered bands, yes. Once the first two bands had joined together, they were able to search for others. They set about studying the books in the way stations and learned how to make radios of their own. Then bands of explorers went out with transceivers. Some died, but they called back to tell what was happening to them every day, so the ones who followed them were able to avoid the dangers, or be ready to fight them off."
"Packs of wild beasts?" Alea asked.
"Some. There were whirlpools and quicksands, too, and mountain trails prone to rockslides. But most of the explorers found other bands of giants and gave them radios, then fell in love and brought home wives and husbands. With radios, they were able to set up periodic meetings, and the separate bands were able to join together to become a nation. They were also able to call up soldiers to fight when they saw a raiding party coming, and the radios helped them mightily in coordinating a battle-one reason why the giants have managed to survive when they're so badly outnumbered. Then they answered a call seeking someone to talk to, and found it was a dwarf. Now they trade their labor, building stone walls in return for dwarfmade radios. They can build their own, but they say the dwarves make better."
Such cooperation went against everything Alea had been taught about the other nations. In a desperate attempt to hold onto one of her childhood illusions, she demanded, "They trade, even though a few giants have always known how to make these radio things?"
"Everyone does!" Gar exulted. "They have schools, actual schools! "
Alea frowned. "What are schools?"
Gar sobered, staring at her. "Don't your peo- Don't the Midgarders have schools for at least some of their children?"
"If they did, would I ask what the word meant?" Alea asked impatiently.
"A school is a building where children, and sometimes adults, are taught how to read and write and ... oh, all sorts of things. How do your leaders learn?"
"The barons have scholars come to teach their sons," Alea told him, "and any boy who wants to be a priest goes to live in his village's temple. But buildings just for learning? What a waste!"
"Scarcely that," Gar said, "though I can see it's one of the ways your barons keep their power. The hatred they teach you is another-if they can keep you angry about dwarves and giants, no one will think to be angry at the barons."
"Angry at the barons?" Alea stared, scandalized. "But that would be wrong, that would be . . ." She ran out of words as she realized what he meant.
Gar read her eyes and nodded. "None of your people could even think of speaking against the barons, could they? That might make you weaker if you had to fight off a giants' raid. But the giants' government doesn't worry about holding onto its power-there aren't enough of them. They are the government, all of them, and they can't afford to waste a single person's talents. Their schools teach all the children, girls and boys, and new giants, outcasts from Midgard, at night. They learn how to read and write, how to use the numberlanguage called mathematics, and all sorts of other things about how to make and build, things I learned under the names of chemistry and physics. They learn literature and history, too-what they know of it."
"Well, everyone knows how to tell stories." Alea was clutching after familiar words.
"Yes, but I think the giants learn a number of stories Midgarders don't know," Gar told her. "The giants do know where the Midgarders found the names for the gods, though-the giants, and the dwarves."
"I could have told you that," Alea told him archly. "We all have to learn the Ring Cycle. In fact, we all grow up singing it, or at least the best of its songs."
"Wagner's Ring Cycle, yes," Gar said, "but the giants tracked those stories back to their source: the sagas, the Nibelungenlied. It makes a difference."
"What sort of difference?" Alea asked, but Orla came to hand them each a filled platter, and stayed to talk, so Alea didn't have her answer until after dinner, when the giants began to tell stories and sing songs. She heard the original versions of some of the tales of her childhood, and her eyes grew bigger and bigger as every difference sank home. By the time Orla found beds for them in a guest house, her brain was whirling so much she could barely remember to say, "Thank you."
That whirl in her head may have been the cause, or perhaps it was so much rich food after living on journey rations for two months. Perhaps it was both put together, and the harrowing experiences of her parents' death and her own enslavement-but whatever the cause, Alea dreamed that night, a dream such as she had never had before.
First there was darkness, as there always was behind her eyes at night, though Alea was never aware of it-she simply fell asleep, dreamed, then woke. This time, though, she did become aware of the warm, velvety blackness, and knew when it turned cool and smooth. Then she saw the white dot appear, a dot that expanded most amazingly until she realized that it was a face rushing toward her, a face with no body, turning and turning, its long white hair and beard floating around it. She began to feel fear when the face filled her vision; it reminded her of the baron's steward at her trial, and she was afraid she was looking at Odin himself, but she couldn't have been, because Odin only had one eye, and this old man had two,
"Don't be afraid," the face said. "I am the Wizard, and I have come to tell you about the Way."
11
Alea was a little reassured, but only a little, so she lashed out from simple fear. "How dare you come into my dream without my asking you!"
The face smiled, but said gravely, "Pardon the intrusion. If I did not think the Way would benefit you, I would not have come."
That helped a little. "The Way? What Way?"
"The Way of Virtue," the Wizard told her.
"I've heard talk enough about virtue," Alea said hotly, "and it was nothing but mealymouthed excuses for one person to give in to another. If you're going to tell me I must lose in order for someone else to win, you can swim back into your whirlpool right now!"
She waited, trembling, for the lightning bolt to strike, for the earth to open up and swallow her, but she was absolutely determined not to let this threatening old man see her fear.
Instead, he disappeared-but in his place was a glowing disk with a long S-curve down the middle. One tadpole- shaped half of it was red, with a small yellow circle in the middle of the fat end. The other half was a yellow tadpole, nested against the first, with a small red circle inside.
"This is the Great Monad," the Wizard's voice said, "the great whole. The yellow and red shapes stand for opposites."
"What opposites?" Alea demanded.
"Any opposites," the Wizard answered. "Male and female, darkness and light, day and night, hot and cold, order and chaos-or giant and dwarf."
Alea had a premonition that she wasn't going to like what she heard, but she felt she had to know. "Which color is which?"
"Let us say the red stands for the giants, and the yellow for the dwarves," the wizard's voice said. "Each has the seed of the other within it-the yellow circle in the red, the red circle in the yellow."
"Even as the giants give birth to dwarves," Alea said, "and dwarves give birth to giants." She felt a sudden chill. "But where are the Midgarders?"
"They are the line between the tw
o," the Wizard answered, "the hub out of which both grow, and which grows out of both."
"Even as the seeds of both giants and dwarves are within the Midgarders!" Alea felt a rush of relief, but dread followed it instantly. "You said all opposites. Which is good, and which evil?"
"Neither," the Wizard said firmly. "Evil comes when the two are out of balance." The disk began to rotate slowly. "As the wheel turns, the male principle grows greater, and the female smaller. When the midline is mostly male, there is too much order-in government, a wicked king, whom all must obey. No one can choose anything for himself or herself, and disobedience is punished by torture or death. This is evil." must the men for that! Alea thought.
But the disk continued to rotate, and the yellow shape took up less and less of the disk, the red more and more. "When the female principle grows greater and the male lesser, there is chaos. Everyone must forge weapons and build strong walls, for his neighbors may turn on him at any minute, to try to steal all his belongings, as well as his food, his wife, and his children. Bandits infest the countryside; the barons care nothing for their people; the kings are too weak to protect the peasants. This, too, is evil."
"Then good is a balance between the two?" Alea asked doubtfully.
The wheel steadied, male and female taking up equal amounts of its circle.
"Yes, balance is good," the Wizard replied. "In government, there is a monarch, or a council, or both; there is order, but every person is also guaranteed freedom to choose, even as the giants do-freedom to make most of their decisions for themselves."
"And men do not exploit women!"
"They do not, nor do women torment men. Neither seeks to rule the other; each finds his happiness in trying to bring the other joy."
"It sounds pretty," Alea said bitterly, "but how often does it happen? And how long can it last?"
"It happens rarely," the Wizard answered, "though it can be achieved by constant trying. For the Wheel wants to turn, you see; holding it in balance takes effort, constant effort. Harmony is an accomplishment, not something that happens by chance."
Alea thought of Gar, but her thoughts slid away from him. "Are you saying that the Midgarders could make peace if they wanted to?"
"They could," the Wizard answered, "but the giants and dwarves also could bring that peace to them. Each is necessary to the happiness of the others, you see, because they are all parts of one great whole."
"You cannot mean the only way to be happy is for all three to make peace! The giants and dwarves will, I'm sure-but the Midgarders feed on their own hatred! They would die rather than give up their wars!"
"You must find a way," the Wizard said. "You must all find a way, for the happiness of the giants depends on the Midgarders, and their happiness depends on the dwarves. Each one's happiness depends on the other's. To be happy yourself, you must make the others who depend on you happy, too."
"The Midgarders will never believe it!"
"They must learn to, or drown in their own hatred," the Wizard said inexorably. "You must all co-exist in harmony, or you will tear your world apart, tear one another apart, and all end in misery."
Alea shuddered with the chill his words brought.
The disk began to revolve again. "The Wheel turns," the Wizard said. "If you risk your happiness on gaining power, you will be doomed to sorrow, for dominance is constantly changing."
"But the ones who have power make everyone else miserable! The only way to be happy is to have that power!"
"If you have it, you will someday lose it," the unseen Wizard insisted. "The only way to be sure you will be safe is to embrace the whole, male and female together, giant, dwarf, and Midgarder in harmony."
"But how can we ever convince the Midgarders of this?". Alea cried in anguish.
"Tell them the tale of Thummaz," the Wizard answered. "See that it spreads throughout Midgard."
Alea frowned. "Thummaz? Who is Thummaz?"
"A god of whom your ancestors did not tell you," the Wizard said. "The giants know it, though."
Alea stared, outraged at the thought that her ancestors might deliberately have withheld the key to happiness. "Did they know of this Monad, our ancestors?"
"It was not their way of thinking," the Wizard said. Then his tone became stern. "But never forget that is all it is-a way of thinking. This mandala is a guide to clear thought, a device to help you think-it is not truth in itself. Assign the colors as you will, but never forget it is you who assign them, that the Wheel is a thing drawn by people, and that there is a great deal of life that cannot be explained within it."
"It explains enough," Alea said, trembling. "How shall I learn the tale of Thummaz?"
"Ask the giants." The mandala turned back into the face of the Wizard, hair and beard swirling about him as he turned away, receding, growing smaller as the darkness spread inward again.
"Tell me yourself!" Alea demanded in anger.
"It is theirs to tell." The Wizard's voice had become smaller, more distant; he was only a small white circle in a field of blackness turning velvety again, only a white dot, then the darkness swallowed him up, turned warm and embraced Alea, comforting her, drawing all the anxiety out of her, relaxing her, lulling her to sleep again.
The sun rose in a clear sky, but the mist rising from the village green made the giants' houses seem indistinct, unreal.
Nonetheless, giants came forth, their steps slow, speaking lit - de, avoiding one another's eyes, but drawn to the firepit like moths to a flame. Isola knelt there, feeding the flames, building a fire that heated a cauldron into which she crumbled herbs. The giants sat about the fire, hands held out to the warmth, some shivering in spite of it, all looking somber, waiting, waiting for the water to boil....
Waiting for someone else to start speaking.
"Your village makes a man feel very safe," Gar told them all. "I dreamed such dreams as I never have."
Everyone looked up at the word "dreams," but only Gorlan said, "Did you, stranger! And what did you dream of?"
"Of an old man-at least, of his head and face," Gar said. "He called himself the Wizard of the Way, and told me about a thing called the Great Monad."
"Why, I had such a dream!" Skorag said in almost desperate hopefulness.
"I, too," Orla said, meeting his gaze. "He told how men and women are both parts of one whole."
"And giants and dwarves!" exclaimed Korlan. "It was a circle, like this! " He took a stick from the woodpile and scratched the mandala in the bare ground by the firepit.
"Why, even so!" said Riara. "But in my dream, each half had a seed of the other in it."
"Yes, like this." Korlan drew in the small circles.
They compared notes, voices growing more and more excited as it became obvious they had all dreamed the same dream. Only Gar sat silently watching, but his eyes glowed.
"What magic is this?" Isola asked. "Never before have we all dreamed together!"
"It is good magic, whatever it is, if it shows a way to peace and harmony!" Riara said fervently. "Is there a family here that has not lost at least one son or daughter in war? If this dream can stop the Midgarder raids, I will bless it to the end of my days!"
"If we can send word of this among the Midgarders, it might," Gorlan said, frowning. He turned to Gar. "How can we do that?"
"Leave that to the Wizard of the Way," Gar said. Everyone gave him a sharp look, but his eyes told them that he wasn't joking.
"Surely the Wizard was only a dream," Skorag protested. "Was he?" Gar asked, then looked around the assemblage and raised his voice. "Did no one dream of anything else?" Silence answered him.
Alea plucked up her nerve and said, "The Wizard told me to ask the giants for the tale of Thummaz."
"You do not know it?" Riara asked in surprize.
"It's not one that's told in Midgard," Alea returned, "just as the story of your Dumi is not."
"Well, the two are joined," Isola said, frowning. She looked up at Orla's father. "Gorlan, y
ou brought your harp."
"I usually do, when the village eats together." Gorlan swung an instrument around from his back; it looked like a squared-off D with horizontal strings. He began to pluck chords from it.
"Korlan, you are the best singer of the men," Isola told her husband. "Sing with me."
Alternating lines, often in question and answer, they sang a story-of the handsome stranger-god Thummaz, who came across the mountain to the foot of Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, and crossed over it to Valhalla. He came before the gods, and they saw that he was more handsome than any but Baldur. The young women thronged to him, but jealousy sprang up among the men. Loki played on that jealousy and fanned it to white heat, then spread a rumor that Thummaz had spied upon Dumi while she was bathing.
Now, anyone should have known that was false, for Dumi was a huntress and very skilled with the bow; moreover, she guarded both her virginity and her reputation very shrewdly, and any man spying upon her would have been dead before he could tell of it. But the men kept their tales from the women's ears and went out to lay an ambush for Thummaz, even as Frey invited him to hunt.
Loki took the form of a deer and bounded away from them. Thummaz and Frey went chasing after, and Thummaz rode too fast, leaving Frey far behind-but the buck abruptly disappeared, and the gods fell upon Thummaz and struck him dead, then cut his body into six pieces and buried each in a separate part of the world.
When Thummaz failed to return, Frey rode back to bear the news, and the women turned upon the men in fury, accusing them of murder. Even Sigune turned upon her husband Loki, and under the lash of her tongue, he admitted his treachery, but excused it as jealousy over her. The women recognized some truth in this, so they sought no revenge on their husbands and suitors, but only turned away from them, sorrowing.
Dumi, however, felt the need to restore her honor, because the story Loki had made to arouse the gods' jealousy had been fashioned around her. Even though it was a lie, she set out with her hounds and her hawks to find the pieces of Thummaz's body. Long she searched, but the hawks flew about the earth and brought back word, and a year from the day of his death, she brought the pieces of his body back to the gods. None had decayed, of course, for this was the body of a god, not a mortal. Dumi laid the pieces out, joined together, before she summoned the women. They gazed upon Thummaz's beauty and wept-but Dumi appealed to Frigga, Odin's wife, and the two of them together persuaded the Norns to come see what they had done by cutting Thummaz's lifethread so short. They came but, being women, once they had seen, they too were struck by Thummaz's beauty, and wept. They gave the pieces of his life-thread to Frigga, and with it, she stitched his body back together. Then the Norns spun the life-thread for him anew, and the body glowed and rose. Thummaz came back to life, more beautiful than ever before, and set about contests with the other gods, in which he proved that he was stronger and quicker than before he was killed. He forgave them then, and begged Dumi to marry him, but she knew her weird and refused him. Sorrowing then, Thummaz left Valhalla, to wander the world in search of a woman he could love as much as he loved Dumi, but who would love him in return.
A Wizard In Midgard Page 14