“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.