Chapter 18-Finding Faith
Irgen turned around to see the smiling face of Blackington. He grinned sheepishly back at having been caught red handed. Anxious to hide his embarrassment he asked “Who is she?”
“She,” He sighed, “is Helen Leshore. She was with Reggie Brown and Alex last night. They were assaulted unsuspectingly by Tenebri, and she received a large gash in her side before they could get her to safety. They had to travel cautiously back and that is why they took so long to return here. They arrived just in time to warn us of the Tenebri attacking the fortress.”
“Wait! I thought you said this fortress was impenetrable, nigh invincible, and at least invisible.”
“It is… impenetrable in a sense. You see, within the walls you cannot fight with magic. And it is nearly invisible only if the defenders inside are stronger than the attackers. You see a deep magic is woven around these fortresses. Magic that was decreed at a great council long ago. Magic that was meant to leave weaknesses in these safe havens. It was built to be, however ironically, friendly to war.
Let me explain-you two came here looking for asylum and protection, and anyone who came looking for You--could not find this fortress, because in their heart they were looking for you, and not for the fortress. But, if an army came looking for this fortress, they would find it because it wants to be found. The fortress is built for war, it wants to be used. It is trying to be found. But even with it wanting a battle near it, an attacking army cannot find it if the defenders are stronger, whether in numbers or in mastery of their art. We only had nine people here, so of course they found us without any real trouble.” He looked at him patiently, waiting for more questions.
“But once the fortress is found, it wouldn’t be difficult to find again, would it?”
“Yes, if it were any other fortress, but while some in the council wanted war, others wanted peace, and in the end a compromise was settled on. You see every time a fortress is found, it changes position. And however unfortunately, we are no longer in the Austrian Alps.”
“And I was just beginning to like them.” He added musingly.
Irgen blinked at the satisfactory answer. “Well then!” He turned back towards Helen. “If this deep magic is so geared towards war, then there must be a way to repair the damage done. I mean you are mages. Can’t you just snap your fingers and heal people.”
“Ha! Now there you have stumbled upon the deepest secret of our order. You see, to become a mage you need a staff, before you get a staff you are only a conjurer… You see a mage is kind of a conjurer and a wizard mixed together. Conjurers, like yourself, use the elements to produce magic, while wizards can use words to obtain the desired effect, but while conjuring is limited only by your own strength, imagination, and the element within you. Producing magic with words is limited by your knowledge of your own magic. He paused, yet again at a loss for words. “You see every mage and staff create their own magical combination. For example if you used my staff the same words would not produce the same affect. Do you follow me?” He shook his head and smiled at Irgen’s flabbergasted look.
“Let me explain. Every mage has their own different word to create different magic. Most are words that get mixed up into different languages. These days a lot of mages find their combinations to be in the Romantic Languages, but your combination could be from any language, and sometimes it is just a random conjunction of letters. For example, my word for fire is fuego which is Spanish. But yours could very well be Italian which would be fuoco. Of course, your element being fire kind of defeats the purpose of you learning that word.” He laughed heartily at his joke.
“Anyway” he continued, “healing has long been a word sought for among mages, but according to my knowledge no one...” He added extra emphasis “has ever discovered it. Mages have been searching fruitlessly for ages to find it. I myself have tried countless combinations to discover the word, but once again I have never succeeded. I think I can be sure; however, that the word for heal is the same for every mage. Otherwise someone would have found it by now. But as far as I can tell it isn’t the word heal.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“But if it’s so hard to find out what your magical word is, how can you do magic by words at all?” Irgen asked contemplatively.
“Hmmm. Now that’s just it isn’t it.” Responded Thomas as he now scratched his head. “You have heard part of the story of Alecto. What was it that led him along?”
“Well, I guess his instincts, right?”
“Yes. And that is all we really know. You see, it is as though something speaks to you and gives you these words. We call it our instincts, but after many years of study I am beginning to think better of that fact.” He put his hand back down to his side. “I am beginning to believe that there is something inside of you which is not you at all. It’s an interesting subject indeed…” His words carried off-“Maybe I’ll tell you about it some other time.” He looked back at Helen. “But as for her, I am afraid we must patiently wait, and hope for the best.” His fist clenched into a white ball as he said this.
“First her parents, and now her,” he said quietly to himself. “If-only we had the Adamic Language.”
“Wait… What language?” Interjected Irgen, becoming highly interested.
“Well, the Adamic… You know the one and only uncorrupted language we have ever had. The one language that Adam himself spoke.” He looked appalled at having had to explain himself.
“Of course, but you said Adam, and if you believe in Adam then you must believe ---”
“---In God… Yes, we do. Well at least some of us do. You didn’t really think we all worshipped pagan idols such as the Greek gods did you?” He cast a wary glance at Irgen.
“Well, not really, but I still didn’t know.” Irgen responded naively.
“No, as your mother told you, it is merely a legend. It is a very well kept one too, but only the real founders knew the true story. And out of them only one still lives.”
“One of the brothers is still alive.”
“No one can be completely sure. Some say one lived, found his way to immortality they say. But others are skeptical and doubt. I myself say he lives, but as to whom he is…” He cut his pause short as Irgen’s mouth began to open for another question. “We’ll save that for another day.”
Irgen closed his mouth and folded his arms looking like a cat that sneaks up on a bird, and at the very moment he is ready to pounce, hears his name called by an unwary human, and the cat watches in disbelief as his prey flies away to safety. “One more question, Thomas.”
“Shoot away.” He said slightly exasperated.
“Why is the Adamic language important?”
“It is important…” He said slowly “because there is a way to say everything in it. And you do not have to be magic to work what would be considered magic with it. The language is magic in itself. If I knew the words right now, I could say heal this woman’s flesh- or something to that affect, and she would be healed. And not healed from my power, but from the very power that is in the words themselves. Unfortunately for us though-” He sighed.
“-Many believe the language was lost by a wicked generation who tried to build a tower up to the very heavens. Which may seem absurd to us with our knowledge of the heavens, but the sheer audacity of the attempt upset God and brought his righteous vengeance on the people. If only our brothers of the past had been a little wiser. Then we wouldn’t need magic. And perhaps, we would still live in peace.” He looked at Irgen one last time before turning to go.
“Wait, Thomas!” He smiled ashamedly as Thomas flicked his head back and gave him a considering glance.
“I thought that was the last question.”
“Well it was, until,” he said hurriedly, “you spoke of the Tower of Babel. And since you spoke of that, does that make us Christians?”
“Us??? Oh no, there
is no us. We mages are as divided on the subject of religion as Spartans are.” He laughed with a hint of bitterness. “No we do not claim to have one, universal religion. Instead we each claim the right to worship how, where or what we will. It has caused a great number of problems with us in the past, but it is every man’s unalienable right.” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “As to your point of the fact that we must be Christians because we believe in Adam and a confounding of an unaltered language…Most religions do believe that the earth started with just two people. Those two had sons and daughters until the world became filled like it is today. And why would you need another language so long as you could understand what everyone else was saying with one?” He smiled, and he was back to his genial self.
Irgen peered at the ever-changing face of his new friend. Suddenly he had a recklessly brilliant idea. “Thomas, if that’s the case then do you believe in Christ?” Tom’s smile disappeared as he was taken aback by this sudden question. Finally he answered somberly,
“Yes… I do.”
“But what about other religions, do they believe in him?” Thomas burst into laughter.
“Do they believe in Christ?” He said in a heavily ironic voice. “There is a reason why Christians are separated from the rest of the world in religion, and it all comes down, fundamentally, to our belief in Christ.”
“But do they believe he existed, do they believe he held power and authority.” Thomas turned and looked deep into Irgen’s bright green eyes.
“Hmmmm. Now that’s an interesting question. The Jews believe a man by the name of Jesus of Nazareth existed. But they refused to believe he was the very Messiah of whom the Old Testament prophets prophesied would come to save them. So they crucified him, and to this day they are still waiting for that same Messiah. For thousands of years they have waited patiently for this Immanuel who will come to save them. So referring back to your question, they believe that he did exist, and secondly they cannot deny he had power and authority although they attributed it to the power of the devil.”
“Now on the other hand, Muslims do believe in Christ, although in a different sense than Christians. They accept him as a prophet who came to prepare the way for a greater man, their prophet Mohammed. Interestingly enough, they teach the same basic morally strong concepts of kindness as Christians, but because of divisions among them, some groups have misconstrued their religion, and now preach war instead of peace. This in turn has given them a bad name among Christian’s today, but once again coming back to your question. They do believe in Christ and they believe he had power and authority.
“And finally, Buddhists, and Hindus are willing to accept just about any great person as just another form of either Buddha, or Vishnu. So…I guess in your very general sense of do they believe in him, then I guess, yes, they do.” He stopped, although he still kept his unwavering eyes on Irgen.
“Well then in that case-couldn’t Christ be considered the great healer by all mages?” Tom’s eyes lit up excitedly as he said this.
“Yes, he could. Why didn’t I ever think of this? If whoever decided what the one, universal word for mages would be, could peer into future history before him. He would definitely pick a word that had to do with the greatest healer of them all.” He paused.
“But I’ve already tried healing in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, even Latin to no avail.”
“You said it yourself, Thomas, the word isn’t heal. The word just corresponds to what Christ used to heal--”
“Which was?”
“I-I-I am afraid I don’t know.” Irgen said dejectedly.”
“Ahhhhh… Here we are, perhaps the closest any mage has ever been to finding out how to heal, and we are blocked, once again, by our lack of knowledge.” He turned on his heel, looking around in frustration and saw to his surprise Jennifer standing silently behind him with her arms crossed.
“You may not have the knowledge, but perhaps I can help.” Both sets of eyes flew to watch Jennifer. “It’s obvious isn’t it?” She said in her playful, casual way.
“Jennifer, I’m afraid not to us.” She smiled before saying.
“Christ used faith to heal, or at least those who were healed by his hand, were healed by their own faith.”
“Faith!!! That’s it. You’re a genius Jen. But is it faith in Greek, no it wouldn’t be, would it be Hebrew?”
“I thought the language the Jews spoke at the time of Christ’s coming was Aramaic.”
“Aramaic, right you are Irgen. Except that in itself presents a problem. I don’t know many Aramaic words, and faith isn’t one of them. Do either of you know it?” There was a pause, before Jennifer said:
“Doesn’t everyone?” Her maddeningly playful tone rang out again.
“What is it then?” Said Thomas as he crossed his arms to hide his frustration.
“Why it’s haimānuthā.”
“Haimānuthā eh…And you just happen to know that?” He asked doubtfully.
“Hmph, you forget that I wasn’t raised here, I am an Earthen mage, and as such I was taught different things. I ended up being taught Aramaic, because many earth mages found that to be their magical language.” Her playful tone was gone, and she sounded ready for a fight. Thomas put his hands down in a pushing down motion, and said:
“Alright-alright I believe you. Let’s try it shall we?” He held out his hand and his staff materialized in it. He walked to the side of Helen’s bed, kneeling down beside her, and he held his hand over the bandages and said “Haimānuthā.” Everyone was silent for a time, as they sat and watched expectantly for some miraculous change to occur, but nothing happened. Thomas sighed as he withdrew his hand and placed it on his hip.
“Once again-nothing,” he lay back sighing.
Jennifer wore a look of sadness now as she gazed at the pitiful face of Helen. “Perhaps, healing in magic does not exist, perhaps the founders wanted to leave fate to take its own course.” She too sighed.
“No! No-no-no-no!!! I’ve got it.” Irgen’s voice echoed through the room, taking the adults by surprise. “We have to show faith in order for it to work. Thomas, remove the bandages, and then do it.” Thomas gaped at Irgen.
“But if we remove the bandages, we’ll start the bleeding again, and this time we may not be able to stop it…”
“I know,” Irgen cut in, “it’s a matter of trusting in the word. You have to believe it is going to work for it to work. It sounds crazy, but what if?”
“You may just be right, Irgen. I have never heard of such a thing, but for something as dear as healing and using a word such as faith. It would explain why no one has ever discovered it before. After all, Aramaic wasn’t just discovered yesterday. Someone must have tried the word before to heal, but without having actual faith, without putting all their trust in this one great gamble…Maybe it wouldn’t work. After all the ancient deep magic is so difficult to control that maybe it is the only way. This daring plan may just work.” He turned to Jennifer, “Jennifer, quick, go and get the others so we can take care of the wounds if our plan doesn’t work.”
“No, Mom, stay here! Don’t you see? We need to do it now, while we’re not prepared. Only by showing true trust in the word will our faith be made manifest. It will take the combined faith of each of us, but something tells me that this is the right way. I feel that this is going to work.”
“Go on Thomas; put your trust in the word.” Thomas knelt there silently for a time, weighing the odds of their gamble. Finally he shrugged and said with a resigned grimacing face:
“Well, no gains without pains.” Suddenly he reached for the bandages and began to pull each layer off. After agonizing moments of silence, he reached the last layer. Cautiously he pealed it off to reveal an enormous gaping wound in her side. As he peeled it off, the dried dark blood came off leaving openings in the flesh, where blotches of new blood began to appear in little pools.
&nbs
p; “She’s bleeding again, quick Thomas.” Jennifer whispered in agony. Irgen watched as Thomas placed his hand over the wound.
The word haimānuthā once again left his lips, but this time something was different. There was a conviction behind his words. It was as though a plea was being offered to some unknown source.
As he spoke his hand began to glow blue. A blue haze formed between his hand and the wound. It descended until it fell on the wound, and as they watched in amazement the blue haze transformed into a tan color. It grew more and more solid, growing less and less transparent. Suddenly a light flashed from the outsides of the wound. Thomas withdrew his hand in amazement. In front of him, where the large wound had been, was a large patch of new skin, which was unintelligible from the skin around it. It appeared as though nothing had ever happened, and the beautiful woman before Irgen was only sleeping, soon to wake.