The Old Story part 7(a)

The Magician by chance encountered Ly in the wood between Rayman’s house and the village.  He fell in beside her and they continued to walk through the trees.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” 

“Rayman wanted to be alone for a while.”

“He’s not well?”

“No.  He’s not well.”  They scuffle through the fallen leaves.  She says, “What are you doing out here alone?”

“Oh... Out communing with nature, working on the illusion of wisdom.  Propping up my reputation.”

“You know, Ly, I’m the only real fraud in this village?  My magic isn’t good for much.  The only thing I’m any use for is telling stories.”

“Don’t ever underestimate the power of telling stories.”

“That was your idea?”

“Yeah, sort of...  I knew he would hate it.  He did.  I really only said it as a kind of joke, a prank.  But everyone in the village took fire with it, and then it had to be done.”  He sighs.  “It really is the home of the gods – but I honestly don’t think they would mind it being named for him.”

Ly says:

“The first time I saw him... I saw the look in his eyes when he saw the look in mine.  Then I knew – and something in me said, ‘No.  You can’t laugh at this one.’

“So I laughed harder...”

She peers somewhat resentfully at the Magician sitting on a rock beside her, as she lifts her face from her hands.  “Why is it that I always cry when I’m around you?  I don’t cry usually.”

He is gazing at her, his two hands resting on the knob of his wand, which he has been using as a walking stick.  He has a slight, noncommittal smile.

“My other talent is that people tell me their stories.”

***

[The scenes with the Magician are all kind of fragmentary – I kept getting exhausted or interrupted or something while writing them.]

– Rayman talks to the Magician first, quite angrily at moments, then exhausts his anger but is still disturbed, earnest about changing the mountain back to its real name.

“You don’t believe that the gods are punishing you, do you, Rayman?” the Magician gasps.

Rayman is twisting in agony.  “I don’t know.  Who knows.  I only know that I am not a god and the mountain shouldn’t be named for me.”

“I’ve been on that mountain.  They are up there.  I’ve seen them and talked to them.”  (He says later.)

“I didn’t know you were religious,” Ly says.

Rayman is puzzled.  “Religious?  This has nothing to do with religion.  It’s just that the gods live there.”

She says, “Do you think they would talk to me?”

“I don’t know, Ly.  I have no idea what they would do.  None at all.  I don’t know why they talked to me.”

Then later he talks to the Magician about disposing of his property, and other concerns for after his death – now he is more affectionate, now that the Magician has contritely promised to remedy the name of the mountain.  He is also in less distress now, less pain.

(Also:  “You love her.”  Rayman sees it plainly, that the Magician is a bit in love with Ly; he’s amused by that.  I don’t think Ly is conscious of this at all.)

****

She stayed with him for a long time while he gasped and writhed.  He didn’t want to be moved to the tub.  He didn’t want anything.  He only held her hand, or sometimes turned away from her with a sob and lay pressed to the bed, eyes tremulously shut, his body quivering.  She didn’t dare touch him.

But finally he looked up at her, motioned her closer.  He had trouble at first trying to speak, choked and coughed, could not get out a sound.  At last he whispered, “Ly.”  Stopped and panted, then went on.  “Ly.  Please – go get – the Magician.” 

She was taken aback.  “You – you want me to go get him?”

He swallowed, gripped her hand.  “Please.”  His body was shaking harder and harder, his eyes were clamped shut and streaming with tears, he was breathing with great effort.

She put down his hand gently.  He tried to look up at her, with what seemed to be a touch of apology.  She touched his face very lightly – he winced, closing his eyes again.  Then, with one of the little guys to show her the way, she left.

As she and the little guy walked into the forest, she froze – at the sound of a hoarse cry coming from the house.  She halted, half ready to run back.  The little guy, slightly ahead of her, paused and turned to look back, meeting her eyes with a calm, serious, slightly expectant expression.

She hated the way they could rebuke her without the least sign of anger or even suggesting an opinion.  She turned towards the forest again, following the little guy onto a path. 

As she headed into the forest, she heard the cry again, faintly.  She speeded up, moving ahead of the little guy, hurrying down the path in the dim evening light; wanting to get out of earshot of that house.

She knocked at the Magician’s door.  Opening it, he looked startled to see her – or perhaps it was her dishevelled and downcast appearance, quite unlike her usual self-possession.

“Come in, Ly,”  he said.  He looked at the little guy, but it was already hurrying back down the path to Rayman’s house, and only paused fractionally to wave goodbye.

The Magician pulled Ly inside.  He sat her in a chair in his kitchen.  She pressed her hands together, looked at the floor.

“What’s going on?” he asked her.

She did not want to look at him.  “Rayman sent me to get you,” she said in a low voice.  Then, rather than have him ask, she added, “He’s in terrible pain.  I think he wanted to get me out of the house.  So I wouldn’t see it.”  She put her hands over her face.  “Why does he do this to me?”

The Magician sat near her in another chair.  “What do you think, Ly?  Should we hurry back or give him some time?”

Ly nervously clasped her hands between her knees.  “I don’t want to be away from him for long.  And he asked for you, perhaps you can help him.  But I really believe he was mostly trying to get rid of me... So we should wait a little while.  A little while.”  She squeezed her hands together, her eyes shut, her head bowed forward.

The Magician touched her lightly on one hand.  “Have something to drink.  Are you hungry?”

She gave him a slight smile, out of the saddest, most weary eyes he had seen in some time.  “I would like something to drink, thank you.”

For a little while, half an hour, they sat over a pot of tea.  The Magician attempted to make conversation now and again, but it was obvious that Ly’s attention was elsewhere.  She kept looking at the wall, in the direction of Rayman’s house.  Her hand kept rubbing the teacup, from which she took only a few sips.

“All right,” he sighed at last.  “We better go.”

Ly jumped up, barely restrained herself while the Magician deliberated over a choice of wands and selected just the right cape for the cool night.  Then she skittered ahead of him, forced herself to stop and wait, over and over, all through the twenty-minute walk back to Rayman’s house.

When they arrived, Ly raced to the door – then halted.  She stood in front of it like a waif who has been kicked one too many times after begging for one too many handouts.  She looked back at the Magician as he strolled briskly up.

When she spoke her voice was tight, low, half-choked.

“It’s – awfully quiet in there... oh, god.”  She reached for the door as if to knock; then instead opened it herself.

The two of them entered.  There were a few little guys scurrying about the main room, to and from the kitchen.  They glanced at Ly and the Magician, acknowledging their presence, but didn’t deflect in the slightest from what they were doing.

Ly walked over to Rayman’s room.  She stood in the doorway, her hand resting against the frame; a lithe figure, exuding quiet power; and yet with that slightest despairing arch in the line of her body, that Rayman might have tried and tried to capture, with one free stroke, on canvas or paper.

The Magician came up behind her.  “How is he?” he said softly. 

The little guys had gotten Rayman into his tub.  From where Ly and the Magician stood, only the top of his head was visible, his closed eyes.  His head moved slightly with his breathing.  Otherwise, he was inert.  He looked unconscious.

Ly and the Magician approached slowly.  The little guys motioned to them for quiet.  Ly walked to Rayman’s left, stood over him, then silently pulled up a chair and sat down.  She bent forward, pressed her forehead against the thick lip of the heavy ceramic tub and held still.

The Magician stood looking at her for a moment.  He walked to the other side of the tub and stood there.  Rayman’s body was concealed by a blanket spread across the tub; he was supported in the water by rolls of towels under his body.  He was breathing in slow, harsh gasps.

One of the little guys ran along the side of the tub near to the Magician. 

“He was asking for you,” he whispered.  “We told him we would wake him when you got here.”

The Magician looked down at Rayman’s thin, wasted face.  “Can’t you let him sleep a little?”

The little guy thought for an instant.  “Yes.  As long as you don’t mind waiting.”

The Magician also drew up a chair.  “I don’t mind.”  He sat down and looked over at Ly.  Her long arm was resting along the rim of the tub, her head on her arm, the ends of her long hair falling into the water.  She was asleep.

The Magician said, “I don’t mind.”

About an hour later, Rayman began to stir.  He took a convulsive breath, then his body stiffened.  He gasped.

Ly was awake instantly, reaching to touch his face with one finger.  His eyes opened stickily, he blinked up at her.  He was already trembling with pain.

“Ly,” he whispered hoarsely.

“He’s here, Rayman, I brought him,” she said.  She gestured at the Magician.

Rayman turned his head – so slowly – to gaze over in the other direction.  He looked angry, bewildered.

“I asked them to let you sleep,” said the Magician.  “I asked them not to wake you.  I haven’t been waiting very long, Rayman.” 

Rayman nodded.  Then he began to cough.  Ly inhaled sharply, took hold of his head.  He coughed for a long time, in fits; as the coughing went on, his breath came in gasps and then sobs, he tried to grasp Ly’s arm with one hand, he moaned.  His eyes were shut, he made sudden jerks of pain and frustration.

At last the Magician reached in to touch Rayman’s head too.  He held his head firmly, and then touched his wand to Rayman’s chest right through the blanket and the water.  Rayman coughed a little more, then subsided, gasping heavily, groaning.  Then he looked tiredly up at the Magician; still holding onto Ly’s arm.

“Thank you,” he croaked.  He tried again.  “Thank you.”

Ly was staring at the Magician.  “So you’re not a fake!” she said, almost accusingly.

Rayman, below and between them, gave a sudden chuckle, then laughed out loud.  Ly gaped at him.  He gave her arm a little squeeze and relapsed back into fatigue.

“Well,” said the Magician matter-of-factly, “You wanted to see me?”

Ly saw Rayman suddenly go tense.

“Yes,” he gasped.  “Yes.  I have a – few things – to say to you.”  He glanced up at Ly, as though considering asking her to leave, but did not let go of her arm.  He took a deep, shaky breath.

***
[More notes from this scene... not in correct time order.]

Rayman was propped up in his chair, and he and the Magician were left alone together.

They had a couple of good laughs about something – I forget what now.  Rayman was in a detached, slightly ironic state of mind.  He spoke to the Magician as to an equal, a colleague.  The Magician called him “my boy,” as though he were a child.  But he had called him that since he was a child.  “You were a lot older then,” said Rayman.

“Well, that was my last body,” said the Magician.  “And where are you planning to go next?”

Rayman – a little reluctant to admit it – wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

[One idea I always had but never got around to writing directly into the story was that Rayman – and the Magician, also, possibly along with some others of their people – lived multiple lives, coming back, after dying, in a new body, but still preserving the memories of their past lives.  And they also recognize each other, even in new bodies.  These were abilities the most powerful beings of that species had.]

Rayman grins at him, through the pain.  “Hey – dad – I’m older than you now.  I’ve got seniority.”  Pointing at him with a big finger, playfully.  “You picked a pretty good body this time... great hair.  Yeah, you look halfway respectable.  Getting better at deceiving people, eh?”

***

He is gasping with pain, he presses back against the chair, turns his head away as best he can until it’s over.  The Magician comes closer to him, anxiously.  Rayman moves a hand dismissively.  His voice is a hoarse, taut whisper.  “It’s okay... it’s okay... it’ll pass.”

***

About to leave, the Magician came back, impulsively hugged him.  Rayman pressed the Magician’s fine hand with his own much bigger one.  He croaked, “Ooh – not too hard – easy – easy.”  Tears of pain in his eyes, but he smiled.

***

He looked at him, a mixture of wry humour and bitter pain in his face.  He pointed rather angrily at him.  “You have to change it back.”

The Magician looked at the floor, uncomfortably.  “Rayman... it was just a joke, just a passing thought, you know?  I didn’t mean for them to take it seriously.  But they went mad with the idea.”

Rayman was leaning back in his reclined chair, propped up a little higher with pillows, his head resting on them as though too heavy to lift.  But his black eyes held hard onto the Magician.  “You did it.  You have to fix it.”  There was a silence.  He said, “It’s not right.  It’s not right.  Goddamn it, it’s not right.  It’s the Home of the Gods!  That’s what it is!  I’ve been up there!”  He stared at him, panting.  “If you had to name something after me, for god’s sake why didn’t you make it that little peak over towards the sea, the Mousehole or the Termite Mound or something?  But, my god, the home of the gods!  It’s not right.”  Painfully, with difficulty, he sat up, leaning forward, fixing the Magician with his fierce, agonized eyes.  Again he pointed at him, like a spear aimed at his heart.  “You tell me you’re going to fix it.  Tell me.  Tell me.”

The Magician sighed.  “I’ll do everything I can, Rayman.”

“Tell me you won’t rest until you fix it.”  His eyes bored through the air mercilessly.

“All right.  I won’t give up until it’s changed back.  Though I can’t promise how long that will be, Rayman.  They were very pleased about the whole idea.  ...But I’ll get it changed back.”

Rayman sank back again onto the pillows, closing his eyes.  His hand sank down too.  He took a long breath.  And seemed to deflate, all the fierce energy draining out of him in an instant.  When he spoke, his voice had drastically changed; it was weak, barely more than a whisper.  “If I’m still alive... let me know when it happens, okay? ... Though I likely won’t be.”

The Magician looked at him sombrely.  “Of course I’ll tell you, Rayman.  You’ll know.”

Eyes still closed, Rayman smiled.  “Yes.  I’ll know.”