A Wizard In Midgard

by Christopher Stasheff

"They're making computers," Bekko explained.

  Alea didn't understand, but she told herself she would remember this, and some day it would make sense.

  She found a few minutes to discuss it with Gar after they came out of the tunnels, and while they were sitting on the village common, waiting for the pigs to roast. The dwarves were gathering slowly, chatting with one another, obviously in a holiday mood. Retsa, Saret, and Bekko had left off being their hosts for a few minutes and were chatting with their neighbors, so Alea could marvel at the contrast between dwarf and giant without worrying about anyone overhearing by more than chance-at the contrast, and the resemblances, too.

  "They are both craftsmen," she told Gar, "but each on a scale that befits them. The giants craft walls and towers that are far bigger than themselves, while the dwarves craft things far smaller than themselves."

  "Doesn't that fit in with the stories you were told as a child?" Gar asked.

  "Why-yes, it does!" Alea said in surprise. "The dwarves were supposed to be wondersmiths, hammering out marvelous things in their caverns-and the giants built huge stone castles."

  "I'm sure the giant village we visited would look like a castle to people who never saw the inside," Gar said, "and the workshops we've just seen would certainly seem to be caverns, if you ignored the stonework and finishing that have made them pleasant places to work."

  "You don't think the first storytellers had actually been to Jotunheim and Nibelheim!"

  "No, I don't," Gar said. "In fact, I think those tales were being told before the first giants were born, and before the first dwarves escaped from slavery. But I suspect all of them heard those stories in their childhood, and remembered them so deeply they may not have thought of them until they'd been exiled. Then, though, the stories came to mind, and they thought that was how they were supposed to behave."

  "Could they really pattern their lives after stories?" Alea asked in wonder.

  "Haven't the Midgarders done just that?" Gar asked. "And the bandits are quickly making up stories to justify the way they live. Of course, it could be that the giants began building huge houses simply because of their size, and found the work very satisfying."

  "And the first dwarves burrowed for safety, accidentally dug up metal nuggets, and found they enjoyed making things of that metal?" Alea nodded slowly. "It could be. Will we ever know?"

  "Probably not," Gar said, "but after dinner, I'm going to ask Bekko to let me have some time with their village computer. After that, I'll see if I can use their radio to talk to our friend Garlon to tell him we've arrived safely-and what we've learned."

  "He probably knows it already," said Alea, "if the giants and dwarves talk to one another as much as they say." Then their hosts came back, and the banquet began. There was much talk and laughter, and as much ale as pork, or so it seemed. When they were done eating, the dwarves began to tell stories. Alea listened wide-eyed as Obon told the tragedy of the heroic dwarf Alberich, who agreed to guard the Rhinegold for the Lorelei, and took it down into the caverns of Nibelheim to hide it from the wicked gods of Asgard. But Wotan called on the sly god Loki, and the treacherous two sneaked into Nibelheim and stole the gold anyway. Alberich fought to defend it, and the gods slew him most ingloriously for his loyalty to the Lorelei, and his struggle to keep his promise.

  That, of course, was quite the opposite of the tale Alea had learned in her childhood, in which Alberich had been a twisted, power-hungry little villain who had stolen the Rhinegold and forged from it the Ring that had given him power over all other dwarves. Then Wotan and Loki had braved the dangers of Nibelheim, and the risk of a battle against thousands of dwarves, to rescue the Lorelei's treasure. Alberich had been justly punished for his greed and his crime.

  She was so unnerved that when Saret pressed her for a story, all she could say was, "I don't know any you haven't heard," which was true in its way, though the dwarves certainly would have found the Midgarder versions of the stories to be strange--and also insulting. "Ask Gar."

  "Yes, Gar!" Bekko turned to the big wanderer. "Tell us a new tale, as you told the giants!"

  "Well, there's no point in telling you one the giants have already broadcast to you."

  "Broadcast, like sowing seed?" Retsa grinned. "A good metaphor! But surely you know others."

  Gar did. He made them laugh with the tale of Chang-tzu's dream that he was a butterfly, and how he wondered ever after if he was really a butterfly who was now dreaming that he was Chang-tzu. Then he held them spellbound with the story of the magical King of the Monkeys, sworn to protect a monk on pilgrimage to the holy land of India, and how he fought three other monsters, brought them to repentance, and made them the monk's servants.

  Alea listened as spellbound as the rest, and wondered if ' she should have him tell her a new story every night.

  But Retsa saw through his ruse, and leaned forward, smiling. "So no matter how foreign or threatening a person may seem, he can repent his evil ways and become a friend?"

  Gar gained a faraway look, gazing off over their heads, and nodded. "You could interpret the story that way, yes." Alea was suddenly completely sure he had meant them to interpret it just that way.

  So was Retsa. "Even if that person is a Midgarder or a bandit?"

  "It's possible," Gar agreed. "In fact, if a robber band's women and children came to ask you for protection from their men, I'd say it would show that they were on their way toward learning to respect dwarves and giants, and that their children would grow up thinking you should all be friends."

  Retsa laughed, and all the dwarves joined her. "Well, we won't give up on them, friend Gar," she said, "but for now, we should dance."

  Dance they did-it seemed they had only been telling stories to let their dinner settle. Some of the taller men pressed Alea to dance, and Saret taught her the steps. She gave frequent glances to make sure she was never out of Retsa's sight, but with the assurance of the presence of the older dwarf woman, she was actually able to relax a bit and let herself enjoy the dance. She enjoyed it all the more because it had been so many years since a man had been willing to dance with her.

  In fact, she was enjoying herself so much that she almost missed seeing Gar go off into the underground chambers with Bekko. She made a mental note to ask him in the morning, and felt sure he would tell her everything he learned from this computer, whatever it was.

  Then she put it out of her mind, and enjoyed the dance.

  Gar was already awake and sitting by the door, watching the sunrise, when she staggered out to join him, a mug of hot drink in her hand-Retsa had assured her that it would make her head feel better. She sat down beside Gar, took a slurping sip, then glanced up at him, and saw by the glow in his face that his night's adventure had been as rewarding, in its way, as her own. She tried to summon interest and asked, "What did you learn?"

  "The history of your world," Gar told her. "It's pretty much as I guessed, only worse."

  That brought Alea awake. "Worse? How? Our ancestors came from the stars and started to build a city, but everything fell apart. The people gathered into villages and managed to scratch out a living farming. Then the giants and dwarves started being born."

  "That happens when there aren't enough people," Gar told her, "so that, after two or three generations, no matter whom you marry, he's a first cousin one way or another."

  Alea stared, appalled. "That happened here?"

  "It did," Gar confirmed. "Your ancestors left Old Earth with half a million people-but it would have taken far too big a ship to carry food and drink for so many, so all but the ship's crew traveled asleep, frozen stiff."

  "Frozen?" Alea stared, shocked.

  "Yes, but it was perfectly safe-they knew how to freeze people and thaw them out safely. There were always a few who died, but only a few, and everyone understood they chance they were taking."

  "The Frost Giants," Alea whispered.

  Gar nodded. "Perhaps that's where the story started, though these people we
re all the size of ordinary Midgarders. Apparently one of the crew loved the story of the Ring of the Niebelungs and played it whenever the rest of the crew would let him. Perhaps the sound filtered through the walls to the sleeping people and filled their dreams-who knows?"

  "That's not enough to make things fall apart," Alea told him.

  "No, it wasn't. But as they neared this planet, a small rock, no bigger than your fist, struck the ship and punched a hole clear through it. The crew patched the hole quickly enough, and didn't think anything more about it-until they started to thaw out the passengers. Then they found out, too late, that the stone had damaged the defrosting computer-the machine that controlled the thawing. They didn't have any choice, they had to go ahead and try to thaw everybody out anyway, but a hundred thousand people died without waking."

  Alea gasped. "How horrible!"

  "Yes, it was," Gar said somberly, "but the stone had done even more damage than that. It had broken a corner of the ship's furnace, not the part that made it go but the one that made heat and light for the crew, and no one had noticed. The furnace spilled an invisible poison into the stocks of unborn cattle and and pigs and sheep-ova and sperm banks, they were called."

  "So their livestock was born dead?" Alea asked, wide-eyed. "No, but it might have been better if it had. The animals were born, all right, but something went wrong inside of a great number of them, and their meat gave the people who ate it a sickness that killed them in a few days. Half the colonists died before anyone found out why and killed all the infected livestock."

  "So there were only two hundred thousand of them left," Alea said, watching his face.

  Gar's mouth worked,, but his eyes were cold and grim. "Yes, but there weren't enough animals left to feed them all."

  "So they fought over the cattle," Alea whispered.

  Gar nodded. "When it was all over, only a hundred fifty thousand people still lived, and they all hated one another because of the fighting. They split into rival bands, and after fifty years or so, each of those bands thought if itself as a separate kingdom."

  "And they only married people within their own kingdom?" Alea asked.

  Gar turned to her in surprise. "You see the answers so quickly! Yes, you're right-it took a hundred years before they started marrying people from other kingdoms, and by that time, the giants and dwarves had begun to be born."

  "But why did the Midgarders think they were evil?" Alea pressed.

  "Mostly because of a man named Tick, who wanted to rule everybody," Gar told her. "He found the story of the Ring of the Niebelungs that the crew member had made sure everyone knew. He told that story from one end of the land to the other, haranguing the Midgarders and telling them that dwarves and giants were evil, and that they must cast diem out and band together, or the giants would pound them flat and the dwarves would undermine their towns. Besides, he pointed out that the giants would eat all the food, and that if the Midgarders exiled them and the dwarves, there would be that much more food for everyone else."

  "And they believed him?" Alea asked incredulously.

  Gar nodded, his face stone. "Hungry people will believe the most outrageous things, from a man who promises them food-and people who have been living in squalor and humiliation will be very quick to believe anyone who offers them pride and a better life."

  "So the Midgarders all banded together into one kingdom," Alea inferred.

  "Yes, but they didn't let Tick rule them outright," Gar said. "There was too much hatred between kingdoms for that. He did manage to get them to hold a gathering of barons called the Allthing once a year, though, to vote on the laws and judge disputes, so the kings became scarcely more powerful than any other lord. The Council of Kings sat all year around, you see, and they left their stewards to take care of their lands and people. Through them, Tick taught all the ordinary people to think of themselves as Midgarders, to revere normal size and looks, and to hate the other nations."

  "Did he teach them to hate women, too?" Alea asked, her voice hard.

  "Close. He taught them that they had to be very strong warriors in order to fight off the giants."

  "And men are stronger than women," Alea said bitterly, "so men had to be important, much more important."

  "And women were only there to take care of them and do all the drudgery, so the men could fight." Gar nodded. "From that, all the rest followed. It justified slavery-the women alone couldn't do all the hard work, after all-so anyone too tall or too short was enslaved. Anyone who grew to be a giant, though, was exiled, and so was anyone who was so short as to be clearly a dwarf. Many of them died, of course, but the ones who survived banded together and married."

  "So we have three separate nations today," Alea said, feeling numb.

  "Yes," Gar said. "But remember, only one nation was nurtured with hatred. The other two survived because they learned how to trust one another, and to deserve that trust."

  "What of this "radio' and these "computers' of yours?" Alea asked. "Did Midgard forget how to make them?"

  "Well, somebody there is using radio, at least," Gar told her. "My guess is that the Council of Kings and the barons have remembered how, so that they can direct battles and listen to the giants' and dwarves' plans. They make sure that no one else learns."

  "My poor people." Alea Blinked back tears. "So torn apart, so blind! Can they ever be healed?"

  "Oh, yes," Gar said softly. "It will take time, it will take a great deal of time-but what one story has torn apart, another can mend."

  "But there's nothing I can do about it!"

  "Of course there is." Gar smiled down at her, eyes glowing as though she were something precious.

  She felt her heart stop for a few seconds and wondered what he saw. "What can I do?" she whispered, then wondered which way she meant it.

  "Tell the story of Dumi wherever you go," Gar said. "Tell the tale of Thummaz. What one poet has torn, another can knit up."

  "How?" Alea cried, not understanding.

  "Because Tick may have taught the Midgarders to hate, but he forgot to teach them not to love," Gar told her, "and his hatred made it all the more important for the giants and dwarves to keep that knowledge of loving alive. If they can love their children who look like Midgarders, they can learn to love the real Midgarders, at least enough to forgive them."

  "Perhaps, if the Midgarders can stop hating them." Alea looked out over the village, at Midgard-sized fathers talking to dwarf sons, at dwarf mothers talking to Midgard-sized daughters. "They do care for their children mightily. To tell you the truth, I'm amazed to find that my parents weren't the only ones who cherished their offspring so deeply, even though they were too tall."

  "I don't think the dwarves really think of anyone as being `too tall,' " Gar said, "only as Midgarders, giants, or dwarves."

  "So they must learn to think only of people as people?" Alea gave him a skeptical glance. "Very good, if the Midgarders can learn it, too." She knew the giants could.

  "It's like Christianity," Gar sighed. "It would work so well, if only everyone would try it all at once. Since they won't, though, someone has to try it first."

  Alea turned to him, frowning. "I don't know this Christianity you speak of, but you make it sound as though the one who begins it would be likely to be hurt."

  "Not necessarily," Gar said, "but in some matters, such as not striking back unless your life is threatened, it puts you at a distinct disadvantage. It's like love-you have to take the risk of being hurt, if you wish to win the prize of joy."

  Alea glanced at him sharply, suddenly wary of what might be an overture, and told herself that the thudding of her heart was only fear-but Gar was gazing out at the dwarf village, calmly and thoughtfully. Piqued, she demanded, "So what risk could these dwarves take? You wouldn't have them march empty-handed into Midgard, would you?"

  Gar stated to answer, but Bekko came up to the guest house at that moment, rubbing his hand over his face, his gaze blurry. "Did you sleep well?" he asked p
olitely if indistinctly.

  "I did, yes, thank you," Gar said.

  "I too." Alea smiled. "And without dreams. Sometimes that's a blessing."

  "Yes ... I dreamed . . ." Bekko gazed out over the village. Other dwarves had begun to come out of their houses, looking equally hung-over. Bekko shook his head, then winced. "I shouldn't drink so much just before sleeping, I suppose."

  Alea had an uneasy premonition. "Of what did you dream?"

  Bekko only frowned, staring off into space. "Of a wizard?" Gar prodded.

  Bekko turned to stare at him. "You too, eh?"

  Gar nodded. "I think your neighbors have, too, from the look of them."

  "Did this wizard show you a Great Monad?" Alea asked. "Did he tell you that we could only become better if giants, dwarves, and Midgarders banded together?"

  "Something like that, yes." Bekko frowned at her, studying her face. "Has the whole village dreamed of this?"

  Alea started to say that she had dreamed of the Wizard weeks before, but Gar spoke first. "I think they have. Did this Wizard tell you that you should be ready to give shelter to Midgarder fugitives?"

  Alea turned to him in surprise.

  "He did, yes." Bekko nodded heavily. "He said that was all we could do to heal our people for the time being. He didn't say why the Midgarders should be fleeing."

  "They'll be Midgarders like us," Alea said flatly, "too big or too small. They'll have been thrown into slavery. If they flee to you, they'll have escaped-but there will be hunters hard on their trails."

  Bekko stared at her in surprise. "Is that your own tale?"

  "It is," Alea said, voice and face stony.

  Bekko seemed to read a lot from her very lack of expression. His voice was gentle. "Did you suffer greatly at their hands?"

  "Yes," Alea snapped.

  "Greatly enough to make you take the risk of punishment for those who escape," Bekko interpreted. He nodded. "Yes. I think we could give such people shelter. Not too many in any one village, of course. Perhaps we'll have to build them their own villages, and protect them with our armies." Then he shrugged, turning away. "Of course, I'm only one dwarf, and this is only one village-but I think anyone who dreamed of that wizard would agree with me."