9 year old me, reading Forgotten Realms books; “God Elminster is so cool fuck damn he goes everywhere and has like a million names and is a BAMF wizard and a ton of enemies and can shapeshift and once turned himself into a woman and is a wily bastard and has a rad hat goddamn he’s my favorite.”
30 year old me, narrowing my eyes at Odin; “You…absolute MOTHERFUCKER.”
*Soft sound of divine snickering*
And somewhere in the 20th century in a pub in Oxford, a one eyed gent sees John enter and greet Clive and the rest of the Inklings.He’s been lurking just outside the college some days. Others, the shadow of a broad brimmed hat falls over a desk filled with Old English translations in a study filled with pipe smoke.
An old hand alters the slope of elf-speech, just so, and mirth is found when the girl named for the Roman goddess of the hunt is frustrated by her professor, all lost in his mythologies. Yet, she is inspired to spin tales of her own, tales of stubborn hot-tempered wizards with Moving Castles, parallel worlds, magical woodlands. She who was named for the huntress later becomes friends with the young man who gives Morpheus, Prince of Stories, Lord Shaper, his rebirth. Gives us Wednesday and Shadow and Mr. World and Low-key Liesmith. She befriends magicians, writes of them, though her old teacher frustrates her so.
Somewhere else that’s not the pub, across the sea, he asks a rhetorical question, knowing Gary will think on it and realise that things can be more than just words on a page, even as his friends blow on their dice, for luck. There, is after all, magic in the breath.
For now though, which is to say before, the gent sips his pint, watching the Inklings disappear into the snug. Many realms have been forgotten, but the trick with Memory is that it works in All Directions. It always comes back, despite the gent’s fears, new every time.
Eveything’s connected, after all.
“One more for the road, my dear?” he says, favouring the barmaid with a roguish grin. “And one for yourself, eh?”
He leans forward, giving her the full force of his charm. He has time, after all.
Like the goddess’ namesake’s young friend will later write:
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” Neil Gaiman, Dream Country (The Sandman, #3)
Ignore the wink the old gent sends in our direction across the years. That did not happen. He did not smile, and bend the weave of lives to his own ends, yours and mine and others. Did not give us the grin of an Old, Grey Wolf who is sly and wily and twice as slick.
To think otherwise would be, well…
Fantasy.