“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 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.”