A Wizard in Midgard

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 two,” 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 little, 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 surprise.

“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, you 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.

“Why, this is to say that what has been torn apart, will be stronger and more healthy when it has been knit back together!” Alea declared. “No wonder the Wizard wanted you to tell it to me!”

The giants looked at one another in wonder.

“The small one speaks truly,” Riara said. “The myth tells us that the nations of humanity may be rejoined into one, and will be stronger and better for having been sundered, then rejoined!”

“No wonder the tale isn’t told in Midgard,” Alea said bitterly.

“Perhaps there is another reason,” Gar said. “Where did your ancestors learn this myth?”

The giants exchanged glances. Riara said, “They found old books, and searched out the eddas and the sagas, as we have told you—but I think they may have made that tale themselves.”

“Or taken it from another book,” Gar said. “It sounds like one I’ve heard that comes from lands far south of the home of the Aesir—as do Dumi and Thummaz.”

They looked faintly surprised, but most of the giants nodded. “You come from far away indeed,” Riara said “and we have no reason to doubt you. Surely, though, the source of the myth matters not.”

“Indeed,” Gar replied, “and I will guess that you have tales of Frigga and Freya and Idun and the other goddesses, tales that have grown among you here, and were never heard in your ancestors’ home in the stars. This is your world, after all, and myths have grown here to fit it.”

“Do you say that stories take on lives of their own?” Korlan asked, frowning.

“They most definitely do,” Gar said, “and I’ve learned that no border and no army can keep out a myth.”

When the sun was well up and the giants had talked through the meaning of the Great Monad to the point where all could accept their dreams, Gar rose. “I must thank you all for your hospitality, but I must also be on the road again.”

Alea rose with him, saying, “I thank you, too.” Then to Riara and Isola, “I will never forget what you have taught me.” The giant woman looked down at her with blank stares, then smiled. “I’m glad of that,” said Isola, “but I didn’t know we had taught you anything.”

“You have taught me that women deserve respect,” Alea told them, “and that may change my life.”

The women stared in surprise, and Orla said, “Then I am glad indeed you stayed the night with us.” She held out a sack scarcely bigger than her hand, but Alea had to strain to hold it up when she took it. “There is cheese and bread there,” Orla told her, “and some smoked pork, as well as some slices from last night’s roast.”

“Ale,” Garlon said, handing a huge wineskin to Gar. “If you can’t trust the water, you can always trust this.”

“I shall drink all your healths with it,” Gar promised as he slung it over his shoulder and turned to Alea to ask “Will you join me in the toast?”

“Of course!” Alea exclaimed. Then, quickly, “Though I won’t drink as much as Orla would.”

The giants laughed at that, and Gar with them.

“The dwarves have far-talkers, too,” Korlan said. “Shall we call and tell them you are coming?”

“Thank you, but I’d rather you didn’t,” Gar said. “Midgarders might be listening, reason out what paths we take, and set an ambush for us.”

Alea’s blood ran cold at the thought.

“Our ancestors began to use the fartalker three hundred years ago,” Korlan said, frowning, “and never since the first days have we heard them talking on our kind of device. There is another sort that we use for listening to them, but we do not talk—we know they will not answer. It only works near the border, anyway.”

“Within line of sight.” Gar nodded. “I suspect they use FM, while you use AM—far better for long distances. Still, if you listen to their talk, they may be listening to yours. A giant army might take the chance, but two of us alone would not.”

“Even as you say.” Korlan didn’t seem surprised at the idea. “Still, at least take this.” He held out a rolled sheet of parchment half as long as Gar’s torso. “It is a letter to the dwarves, telling that you have been our guests, and good guests. It should bring you safely to Nibelheim without need for a fight.”

“At least with the dwarves,” Riara reminded them. “Midgarder hunters and bandits are another matter.”

“And I do not think the dog packs and pigs know how to read,” Garlon said, grinning. “Take care, my friends, and may your road be safe!”

“Thank you all, thank you deeply,” Gar said, looking around at them with glowing eyes. “I shall remember you all my life with happiness. I hope that we shall meet again some day.”

“Until then, fare well,” Korlan rumbled.

“Aye, fare you well,” Orla said, holding down a huge hand to Alea.

Somehow, though, the smaller woman found herself hugging the young giant around the waist, burying her cheek in the rough cloth of her tunic and fighting back tears. “Oh, fare you well!” she gasped.

Orla stood amazed a moment, then put one huge hand gently against Alea’s back. “We shall see one another again some day, little sister. May Dumi guard your journey.”

“May Frigga guard your staying!” Alea gasped, stepping back.

Then, finally, they were walking down the road out of the village, turning back now and again to wave to the giants, some atop the walls, some standing outside the gates, hands raised as though in blessing.

“I wish we could stay,” Alea said around the lump in her throat, “but I know we can’t.”

“No,” Gar agreed. “We aren’t really giants, after all.”

“Tell that to the Midgarders!” Alea said bitterly. She welcomed the return of her bitterness—it dried up her tears. “More to the point,” Gar said thoughtfully, “tell it to the Jotunheimers. Why were we welcome here, when the giants near the border didn’t even offer us a night’s lodging?”

It was a good question. Alea thought it over for a moment, then guessed, “Perhaps because it was near the border, and they couldn’t trust anyone who might have been a Midgarder?”

“A good reason,” Gar said, nodding. “It also might be that here in the North Country, where villages are few and far between, folk depend on one another and grow hungry for the sight of new faces.”

“Human life is cheap in Midgard,” Alea said, relishing her bitterness, “but it’s dear, here in the North. Is that what you mean?”

“Something like that, yes,” Gar agreed. “Now, if only their stories could make the Midgarders realize the value of human life, too…”

Alea interrupted, impatient with him. “You have an uncommon amount of faith in the power of stories!”

“I believe there is goodness inside most human beings, though in some, it is buried quite deeply,” Gar returned; “and a really good story can reach that goodness.”

“Most?” Alea caught the qualification and returned it. “Not all?”

“I have met a few people in whom I couldn’t find any trace of goodness,” Gar said. “I think something may have gone wrong inside them even before they were born—but whatever the reason, whatever was good or humane in them had been burned out.”

Alea shuddered, and hoped she never met such a person. Then it occurred to her that perhaps she already had.

They turned their steps eastward, across the top of Midgard toward Nibelheim. They began each day with combat practice, and Gar showed Alea how to deal with two antagonists attacking her at once. It was rather clumsy, since he had to jump about trying to take the places of both, but they practiced day after day until Alea could run the drill smoothly and without thinking. Then Gar showed her how to deal with three, then with four.

“What do I do once I have all four down?” she asked him. “Run as fast as you can,” Gar told her. “You can take them by surprise once, but a second time, they’ll be ready, cautious, and canny.”

Alea went cold inside at the thought. “All right, I’ll run. What do I do if they follow?”

“Hide if you can, fight if you can’t. Choose the best ground you can before you’re completely exhausted,” Gar told her, “ideally, a place so narrow they can only come at you one at a time. Then fight—but only if you have to. Remember, the woman is always at a disadvantage, so run if you can, and fight if you can’t.”

Alea decided she had also better pray to Dumi.

Gar had begun to teach her how to fight five when the bandits attacked.

They were walking through a birch forest. The trees were wide apart, with little or no growth between them, so they could see a fair way around themselves. The bandits took them completely by surprise, dropping from boughs and leaping out from behind the few thick trunks with bloodthirsty howls. “Back to back!” Gar snapped. “Run if you get the chance!”

“Run to where?” Alea cried. Then the bandits were on them.

She heard cracks and howls behind her, and grunts of pain from Gar, but she could scarcely pay attention because of the swinging quarterstaves with grinning, lascivious, unshaven faces behind them. A staff swung down at her from the left; she parried it with the tip of her own, but the impact nearly wrenched the stick from her hands and left them aching. She didn’t have time to worry about pain; she kicked the man in the knee as she fended off another strike from the right, then swung the end of her staff into the stomach of the man charging from the front. She reversed, spinning the top of her staff up to block his stroke, and a strike from the left sent pain through her head, making the world swim about her. She fell to her knees, heard shouts of triumph, and swung her staff up to the left, felt it jar against something that shouted in pain, then swung it above her head to the right. Another man grunted, and the world stopped swimming long enough for her to see three attackers writhing on the ground around her, but a fourth and fifth stepped over them. She struggled to her feet, holding her staff up to guard, still unsteady—and the bandit to her left swung like a windmill. The two staves met with a sound like a thundercrack, whipping Alea’s staff out of her hands to bounce away across the ground.

The bandit on the right shouted victory and stepped in, his staff swinging around at her belly.