18: Conversation with a Loremaster

Alex watched the people sitting around the fire pit enjoying the evening. Even in mid-September the sun was still in the sky though it was now nearing nine o’clock. He and Ambrose (as he continued to think of him) had spent the time while the others of the household came and went in reminiscing about people they knew and what Alex had been up to over the last fifteen years. Everyone else ignored them until Loren came out with the salmon and asked them to look after the fish while he tended to the salad.

Then Misty came out carrying another bowl of steaming water from which rose the scent of mingled herbs which Alex could put no name to except that breathing the scented air seemed to lift his spirits. He watched her pacing the perimeter of the open area around the fire pit and he thought she was chanting something though he did not recognize the words. He gave Ambrose a quizzical look.

"She’s warding the place," Amroth answered simply.

"Dan said something about warding me," Alex replied, looking troubled, "but I’m not sure what that means."

Amroth nodded. "He and Roy will set up a protective spell around you to guard you from whatever lurks beneath the waters from invading your dreams. You shouldn’t have any more nightmares, at least for now."

"How can they do that?" He felt a thrill of alarm at the mention of ‘spells’ and had a sudden vision of the twins in dark robes placing him inside a pentagram and chanting, the way they did in those movies with witches and demons and all.

Amroth smiled as if he could tell what Alex was thinking. "I promise it doesn’t hurt and you won’t feel a thing. They will most likely put the wards around the house itself rather than around you. Misty is doing something similar but on a lower scale, cleansing the gardens of any negative vibes, as they say these days. Now I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Check the fish, will you? I think they’re ready to be turned over."

And as Alex complied to the command Amroth steered the conversation to other topics, quizzing him on his knowledge of Sindarin, saying that most conversations within the household were in that language but everyone would speak English if he had trouble understanding. "Though you know that immersion is the best way to learn." So as people began showing up and joining them in the garden Sindarin became the language of the hour. Alex had accumulated enough vocabulary over the last month to follow along though he probably only truly understood one word in five and the mutations still threw him. Still, he was able to extrapolate from that what was being said in general, utilizing his linguistics background to fill in the gaps. He was encouraged to respond in the same language, spending much of the time groping for words and code switching out of necessity. No one laughed or became upset. The person with whom he happened to be speaking would simply supply the necessary word or gently correct his grammar. After about an hour Alex started to relax and actually enjoy himself. He’d always loved languages and he was finding Sindarin to be a challenge and he thrived on challenges.

In this way he got to meet the rest of the household and put names to faces as they all gathered around the fire pit to enjoy Loren’s grilled salmon. He could not help but notice the ethereal beauty of all of them, even the men, a beauty that had only been hinted at in the photos. There was something that was almost alien about them now that he saw them all together, interacting with one another — the fluidity of their motions, the way their eyes seemed to glow with more than just the firelight, the musical sound of their voices with their lilting cadence as they spoke Sindarin.

And all of them spoke it with such ease that Alex was now convinced that the language was somehow real and not invented. He stole a glance at Ambrose quietly speaking with Della whom he now knew to be his wife. Their Sindarin was rapid and fluid and Alex couldn’t help wondering if this was a language they had spoken all their lives. Yet, why hadn’t he heard of it and to what people did it belong? And how had any of these people learned it and from whom?

He glanced across the fire pit to where Loren sat with the Twins on either side of him, the three of them holding a deep discussion, or so Alex assumed from the sober expressions on their faces. Every once in a while he noticed one or the other of them briefly looking his way before turning their attention back to the other two and Alex had the uncomfortable feeling that they were discussing him. Perhaps something to do with the wards that they’d mentioned earlier.

And that was another thing. These people all spoke of warding against evil influences as if they actually believed in such things. It all sounded so hocus-pocus to him; he couldn’t believe someone like Ambrose actually accepting it as real, and yet he had sat there calmly explaining about warding in a matter-of-fact way, as if it was just a part of his everyday experience.

"Earth to Alex. Come in Alex."

Alex startled at the sound of English being spoken and blinked owlishly at Gil sitting next to him, his eyes bright with mirth.

"Sorry," he said, also in English.

"You were far away in your thoughts," Gil said. "Care to share them with me?"

Alex shrugged. "I was just thinking how everyone here seems so comfortable speaking a language that doesn’t exist, or at least, one I’d never heard of before. Yet, according to my intelligence, many of you had never met until about two years ago. So how is it that you all speak it as if you were born to it?"

Gil did not answer immediately. When he did, it was with a question of his own. "And what does your intelligence say about me?"

Alex gave Gil a searching look. He did not appear upset or frighten, merely curious. "Until you came here you were living in Tennessee working in the construction field building log houses."

"Not just building them, designing them as well," Gil said with a hint of pride. "We were an eco-friendly company, as they say these days, stressing energy-efficient architecture and utilizing only naturally renewable resources in our construction."

"Sounds as if you enjoyed your work."

"I derived a great deal of satisfaction from it, yes."

"So what induced you to leave all that behind to come here? It’s what I can’t figure out about most of you. Loren, Darren, Dan, Roy, Misty and Della all came here to become elf guides when they found themselves unemployed and simply stayed and apparently took over Elf Academy and somehow the college administration blithely let them. Whatever. But the rest of you... what was the motivation for dropping everything and coming here? How were you even recruited and why? As far as my sources can tell none of you knew of each other’s existence until two summers ago."

"That is true," Gil admitted, "but I’m afraid I’m not presently at liberty to answer your questions. Loren is the only one who can properly explain. I do promise you that you will get an explanation before the weekend is out. Just take it slow. We aren’t important at the moment, you are. We need to address what is happening to you and do what we can to protect you from that which sleeps in the tarn."

For some reason Alex found himself shaking and the sky seemed to darken almost immediately. He’d been able to put aside all thoughts of the tarn and his nightmares while enjoying the company of these people, but Gil mentioning it brought back the terror he’d felt earlier. He vaguely heard Gil swearing softly and then calling to Loren, but he was too caught up in the smothering feeling of the nightmare to pay much attention.

"Alex... Alex, can you hear me?"

Someone was calling him but the name didn’t sound right.

"Artemus."

He gasped and started blinking as if coming out of a dream, finding himself staring into Loren’s eyes, dark with concern.

"Interesting that he responded to Artemus and not to Alex," he heard Ron say.

"It is his real name after all," Ambrose replied drily.

"Yes, but remember who was the swimmer in his nightmare," Ron retorted.

"You believe that to be significant," Ambrose said.

"Well, Freud might have gone on about repression of underlying sexual feelings for his mother, but Jung would’ve been closer to the mark with his talk of archetypes and racial memories."

"Well, considering you studied under both I suppose you would know," Loren said with a faint smile. "I agree that his responding to Artemus rather than to Alex this time is important but just how important remains to be seen. In the meantime, why don’t we get you to bed." He turned to look at Alex with a smile.

"Oh, good. I thought I was invisible for a moment there with everyone talking about me instead of to me," Alex said in reply, his expression sardonic.

Loren had the grace to look apologetic while the others chuckled with quiet amusement. "Sorry about that, truly. We weren’t ignoring you. How are you feeling?"

"Tired," Alex said without thinking, and surprisingly, he did feel suddenly exhausted.

"Then bed is the best place for you."

"I’m not feeling sleepy, though, and I’m not sure I want to go to sleep."

"We’ll guard your dreams," Roy said, stepping forward. "One of us will be awake to keep your dreams safe."

"How?" Alex asked, looking skeptical.

"You let us worry about that," Loren said briskly. "Off you go. Roy, why don’t you go with him?"

Before Alex knew it, he and Roy were walking down the path to the house. "I hate all this fuss over a stupid dream."

"A dream the very thought of leaves you shaking like a leaf in a storm," Roy retorted.

"And what’s all this business about Ron studying under Freud and Jung?" Alex demanded, deciding to change the subject. "He’d have to be a pretty old geezer by now if he’d known those two in life."

Roy chuckled. "Old geezer just about nails it. I wouldn’t worry about it. All Loren meant was that Ron is a student of human psychology. He had his own practice as a counselor, helping people solve their emotional problems, before coming here where he acts as a counselor for the students and helps teach self-defense."

"Being a college counselor has to be something of a step down on the social ladder from having one’s own counseling practice," Alex ventured.

Roy shrugged. "He says the hours are better. Now, enough with the questions, Mr. Bond. Go get yourself ready for bed and I’ll make some herbal tea that should help you sleep."

"You’re going to drug me?" Alex asked, lifting an eyebrow in such a way to let Roy know he was not being completely serious.

"Drug you? No, though the idea does have its merits. This is just an herbal concoction that Misty and Della put together that helps your body to relax naturally. They used to own their own herbal remedy store until some chain cashing in on the aromatherapy and herbal medicine trend drove them out of business by undercutting their prices."

Alex nodded, well aware of the ladies’ background, at least as far as it went, which wasn’t very far.

"So, off you go and I’ll be up in about fifteen minutes," Roy said as they entered the kitchen and Alex complied. He was just coming out of the bathroom when Roy showed up with the tea and he dutifully drank it down, though he was not a tea drinker. Still, he had to admit that it had a pleasant taste and aroma and said so.

"A combination of chamomile, valerian root, anise and several other herbs," Roy said. "You should sleep undisturbed through the night."

"And this ward thing you’re supposed to set up?" Alex asked, giving him a skeptical look.

"Already taken care of," Roy said with a smile. "So, if you’ve finished with that, I’ll bid you good-night."

Alex drained the rest of the mug and handed it to him with his thanks and Roy let himself out. Five minutes later, Alex was fast asleep, never hearing Roy re-enter the room some minutes later, settling himself in a chair to take the first watch.

****

During the night the weather turned and Alex woke to rain.

"I bet Derek and the others are wishing they didn’t have to go camping in this," Alex said to Ambrose whom he met in the kitchen after getting dressed.

"Don’t smirk, my boy," Ambrose retorted with a grin. "If everything had gone as planned, you’d be going with them."

"But at least I’ve had experience in camping out in inclement weather." He unconsciously rubbed his shoulder.

Ambrose gave him a shrewd look. "How did you get careless enough to get shot?"

"Who got shot?"

Alex turned to see Loren entering the kitchen and going to the refrigerator to pull out some juice.

"Alex," Ambrose answered. "I was just asking him how he managed to get so careless."

"I wasn’t careless," Alex protested. "Bastard was supposed to have been properly cuffed by one of the other agents. Somehow he managed to remove his bonds and grab a gun. If I hadn’t noticed the odd movement he made just before that, someone would’ve died. I managed to deflect his aim."

"Right into your shoulder," Ambrose said with a lift of an eyebrow.

"Hazards of the trade," Alex retorted with a grim smile. "The wound was non-life threatening and I was released from the hospital after a week. Earned two months vacation which was happily spent in the Bahamas." He paused. "Then I came here."

The look that was exchanged between Ambrose and Loren was unreadable to Alex. Then Loren turned to him. "Well, as interesting as it sounds, we’ll leave that discussion for another time. Alex, you’re free to wander through the house or the gardens or even to go into town or back to the college, though I think you should plan to spend the night here again. You can return to the Academy on Sunday just in time for Derek to tell you all about the wonderful camping trip you’re missing."

"And I will of course be a sympathetic listener," Alex said with a straight face.

The other two chuckled. "Well, some of us have classes to teach and the rest of us have our own work to do," Loren said to Alex. "I’m afraid you’ll be on your own for the morning, at least."

Alex nodded. "I might just hang out here. As it is, Derek didn’t pack any of my rain gear so I don’t think I’ll be going out unless it stops."

"It should clear up around noon or so," Ambrose said, "which should make our campers happy, though I suspect it’ll rain on and off for most of the weekend."

"Well, you can borrow our rain gear if you want," Loren said. "You should find everything you need in the front closet. Just help yourself."

Alex thanked him and then he and Ambrose left. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do that day. He had a feeling that he was going to be rather bored and almost wished he’d been able to go on the camping trip in spite of the weather. Finishing his coffee and toast, he wandered back down the hall towards the front, thinking perhaps he would take advantage of Loren’s offer and grab some rain gear and head into town for a while but when he opened the front door to check on the weather he saw that, if anything, it was raining harder than before.

Deciding he didn’t really want to get that wet, he closed the door with a sigh, and aimlessly wandered through the house until he found his way to the library. Once there he decided to look for something interesting to read. He hadn’t really taken a good look at the room the day before and he was curious about it. When he stepped inside, he was pleasantly surprised to see that a fire was going in the grate, giving the room a warm, inviting look. He wandered about, idly looking at the books on the shelves. Some of them he saw weren’t even in English, but in other languages, a few of them in languages in which he was fluent. He pulled out one that was written in Italian. It was Dante’s Purgatorio from his Divine Comedy. He’d read the Inferno in college but never the other two books. Deciding it was as good a book as any, he settled himself in front of the fireplace and opened it to read:

"Per correr miglior arcque alza le vele, omai na navicella del mio ingegno, cha lascia dietro a sé mar si crudele; e canterò di quel secondo regno dove l’umano spirito si purga e di salire al ciel divento dengo...."

****

Some time later, he looked up from the book to see Darren entering the library. "Ah, there you are," the man said with a smile. "I see you found something to amuse you."

Alex lifted the book so Darren could see. "And in Italian, too. I’m impressed."

Alex shrugged. "Just one of the languages with which I’m fluent."

"Why the Purgatorio?" Darren asked as he knelt before the fire to add another log.

"I read the Inferno back in college as part of my medieval lit. class, but never got around to reading the other two books. I think I like this one better."

"Dante had quite an imagination," Darren said as he took a seat beside Alex. "But if nothing else, the Purgatorio proves that the people of his day were well aware that the world was round and not flat even if his geography is completely wrong."

Alex nodded. "It’s funny how we hang onto the myth that our ancestors were dumber than dirt about things. I guess it allows us to feel superior to them."

"A trait that has always been a part of the human condition, I’m afraid," Darren replied with a slight smile. "Each generation sneers at the ideas of the previous generations as naive or uncouth or just plain wrong, yet, often enough, they are confusing language with concept."

"I’m not sure I understand," Alex said. "Is not language an expression of concept?"

"Yes, and that’s where people confuse the two. ‘Concept’ is essentially a point of view. You have a concept of outer space as an empty void in which lie stars, planets and gases and such. When you speak of ‘outer space’ to someone today, you more or less share the same concept, but were you to go back to Dante’s time and spoke of ‘outer space’, while the words are the same, the concept behind the words would be different. You would be thinking of an endless void but Dante would be thinking of a multitude of spheres inhabited by Light and Love. To you, outer space is a cold, dead place. Nothing exists within it, only on the planets, such as ours, and you see such planets as islands in the sea of emptiness. But for Dante, that was not the case. He saw, not ‘outer space’, but ‘the Heavens’ and the Heavens are full of life. The Heavens are the realms of the angels and ultimately of God and there was a hierarchy of being from the lowest, where the Devil resided, to the highest, where God dwelt and it was no accident of geography that our world was often referred to as Middle-earth."

"But obviously, Dante was wrong," Alex protested.

"Was he?" Darren countered.

"Of course he was! One only has to look at the Hubble telescope photographs to know he was. What was it that Cosmonaut said about not seeing any angels when he was circling the earth?"

"And so, you look at Dante and laugh at his quaint ideas that the universe is full of life whether we can actually see it with our own eyes or not and consider yourself superior to him because of it."

Alex frowned, feeling uncomfortable. "So you’re saying Dante was right?"

"No, I’m saying that Dante’s concept of outer space was different from what it means today, but that doesn’t mean that it was necessarily wrong. It only means that Dante and his contemporaries saw a more humane universe because they believed in the existence of God and believed in His benevolence and His Love." He stood and went to the bookshelf, removing a book and returning, giving it to Alex who saw it was the Paradiso. "Go to the last canto and read the final four lines."

Alex gave him a quizzical look but did as he was told, reading the lines aloud: "A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa; ma già volgeva il mio disio e ’l velle, sì come rota ch’igualmente è mossa, l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle."

"How would you translate line one-forty-two?" Darren asked.

"Hmm...’Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy...’"

"And how is fantasy translated? What is its meaning?"

"Well, it’s making up stuff, like fantasy novels, so Dante’s admitting he’s made it all up."

Darren scowled, and for some inexplicable reason, Alex felt as if he’d just failed an important test, only he didn’t know what it was about. "Dante was admitting to no such thing, child."

Alex felt his eyebrows leave his forehead at someone who looked no older than he was calling him ‘child’. Before he could comment on it though, Darren continued his lecture. "Today, we equate fantasy with ‘making up images out of our own imaginations’ but for Dante, it was just the opposite. For him, fantasy meant the power to receive images and those images originate from God. In short, Dante is admitting only to the fact that he has reached the end of his capacity to receive the vision he’s been granted, for vision is a function of the intellect and not the soul. But beyond that, what does the last line say?"

Alex glanced at the page again. "‘The Love which moves the sun and other stars.’"

Darren nodded. "And there you have it. For Dante, outer space was not an endless empty void that is, for all we know, eternally expanding. For him, outer space was the realm of Love, a Love that permeates everything so that there was nothing outside of it. The very fabric of the universe was created in Love. So, who’s concept of the universe is the more accurate, his or yours?"

"In that so-called history of the elves that we’re studying, it says the elves believed that the universe was created from music," Alex said, not quite ready to answer Darren’s question.

"A lovely concept, don’t you think, and quite an ancient one that you moderns have forgotten. The idea of the ‘Music of the Spheres’ is a dim echo of it."

"You speak as if you believe that’s how it happened."

"And is that wrong?" Darren countered. "Is your concept of a Big Bang really that more accurate? What excites your imagination more, Alex? The fact that the universe was created from a seemingly random explosion of immense power, or the fact that it was created from an explosion of intense Love, a Love that manifested itself aurally as music, which is really mathematics in its purist form? Do you prefer a dead universe or a live one? Do you prefer a universe that has no room for wonder, no room for Elves, for instance, or one that does, whether they truly existed or not?"

And not waiting to hear Alex’s answer, if, indeed, he could have actually given one, Darren stood and said, "Holly made some chicken noodle soup. Feel free to have some for lunch." Then he walked to the door and opened it, stopping at the threshold to look back at Alex. "I think old Will said it best: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’."

With that, Darren left, closing the door behind him, leaving Alex to ponder many things.

****

Notes:

1. The quotes from Dante’s Divine Comedy:

The opening lines of the Purgatorio are translated as:

‘To course across more kindly waters now my talent’s little vessel lifts her sails, leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; and what I sing will be that second kingdom, in which the human soul is cleansed of sin, becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.’ [Purgatorio, Canto I:1-6]

The final lines of the Paradiso are translated as:

‘Here force failed my high fantasy; but my desire and will were moved already — like a wheel revolving uniformly — by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.’ [Paradiso, Canto XXXIII: 142-45]

Both are taken from the Allen Mandelbaum translation. Alex’s translations are derived from the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation.

2. Daeron’s quoting William Shakespeare is taken from Hamlet, Act I, scene 5.