OOM: Letting Urquhart go

[ostro_goth]

The day before yesterday, Teja had found Urquhart lying on his cot, wild masses of blond hair covering back and shoulder, breathing quietly, but not answering to anything Teja said. Teja had left the coffee and gone.

Yesterday, Teja had found Urquhart still lying on his cot, hiding in his hair, with the coffee sitting untouched just inside the barrier in the place where things could be passed through. Teja had exchanged the cold coffee for nice fresh hot coffee, and left.

Today, Teja finds Urquhart still on his cot, unmoving, yesterday's coffee again cold and untouched. He takes away the cold coffee, then opens the barrier and walks inside with the hot coffee in his hands. He puts it down among the mess of books, finds a place to sit beside the cot, pushes his fingers deep into the wild blond hair, shoving it out of the way and taking hold, ungently, to lift up the man's head and force him to turn and face him. "So you are, indeed, still alive," he says, disdainfully.

Comments

[scots_wolf]

"I was meant to kill the archbishop," Urquhart says. "But I was stopped by a red-headed thief and an old drunken cleric."

[ostro_goth]

"Pity," Teja says.

He hates clerics.

His hand is still in Urquhart's hair, and he not so much ruffles is as roughly shakes the man's head.

"We're not making you any saner here, are we?"

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart lets it happen and looks at Teja, calm like a big lazy dog that can't be bothered to bite.

"No you're not," he says. "Perhaps I can learn from Malcolm how to control myself better, but not in here. In here, I can really just wander places in my head."

[ostro_goth]

Teja lets go of Urquhart's hair, and hands him the cup.

"Drink your coffee."

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart sits, swinging long legs to the floor, and takes the cup.

He breathes in the coffee, and then drinks.

[ostro_goth]

"You know, Angus Urquhart of Monadhliath," Teja says, "back in Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, seven hundred years after my lifetime, you must have been one of a kind. A strange monster, a fantastic wolf-creature among a city of well-meaning sheeple. But here, you no longer are. Every single one in this place is as fierce and strange as you are."

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart smiles over her coffee. "You say 'sheeple', like Jordan does," he says. "But you can't possibly mean it. Have you looked at the people here lately? Some are so harmless it almost hurts to look at them. If anything could hurt me any more."

[ostro_goth]

"You're mistaken, and as long as you believe that, you'll end up in here again and again," Teja says. "Every single one that comes to this place is the main reason for his or her world. Every single one is as special as you are, as I am, as Yrael is, or as that red-headed woman of yours is."

[scots_wolf]

"Spare me the philosophy," Urquhart says. "Of course, everybody is the centre of his own world. But that doesn't mean he's a match for me."

[ostro_goth]

"It means exactly that," Teja says, standing to lean on the wall. "And you shall have Plato before we are through. You underestimate people, or the reasons for their different worlds. You concern yourself with" -- he picks up some books -- "underwater exploration. Space flight. The birds of New Zealand."

Pause.

"But that won't help you understand the reality of this place. Why there are different world, and some of them these are true, and in others, they're rubbish. You can't possibly hope you can see the whole truth?"

[scots_wolf]

"Is this going to be about the parable of the cave?" Urquhart says. "That can't possibly explain why everybody here is supposed to be a match for me."

[ostro_goth]

"It is somewhat more complex than that," Teja says. "Imagine not one light, but many; not one cave, but many. And one tree, in the middle. So each cave will see different shadows by a different light, but all of the same tree. That is how the many worlds work, and why they are so similar but not. I would guess you have met those that share the same face, or even different aspects of the same man or woman?"

[scots_wolf]

"That makes them all different, but not special," Urquhart points out.

[ostro_goth]

"But you might say that all the other worlds are considered unreal by the one world a man or woman is from," Teja says. "They are lies, superstition, stories. Magic exists in worlds unlike ours; gods do, dragons do, wolfmen and blood-drinkers do."

Long pause.

"And every single one that comes to this place plays an important part in one of those stories that are known throughout the universe, or at least in may worlds. Weyland the smith. Valkyries. Demeter, and the rest of the pantheon of the Romans and Greeks. Yrael, and the Abhorsens. Me. You. We are all the heroes and villains, the gods and monsters of tales. Every single one here is very special in his or her own world. Enough to tell tales of them in many others. Those are the people you are up against, not the good sheeple of Cologne. Do not underestimate any one!"

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart listens to this.

For once, he really listens, because Teja explains, instead of exhorting, most of the time.

"They fight crime," Urquhart says. "They work great amazing science. They travel between stars. They are heroic healers that fight for people's lives. That's the tales the future tells. Even wimpy little Guppy Sandhu is a hero of that sort."

[ostro_goth]

"Guppy is not wimpy," Teja says. "You only scared him out of his mind. I have seen him heal my beloved of a mortal wound, much like the one that I actually died of. Guppy is anything but wimpy."

Pause.

"But you understood the principle; any misstep shall forthwith be your own fault entirely. And Demeter shall turn you into a tree if you displease her. Tread more softly, big wolf!"

Another pause.

"Pick up your books."

[scots_wolf]

"Why?"

[ostro_goth]

"I am letting you go," Teja says. "As I said, you are not getting any saner here. And I would not have you here, like a great caged beast, tortured by the narrow walls, with no weather or seasons. Even my ruthlessness knows bounds. You know no pity: - but I do, and I must take pity upon you!"

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart starts gathering up his books.

[wheatencrown]

Demeter emerges from around the corner to take Teja's arm and watch Urquhart.

[ostro_goth]

"She encouraged me to let you go, saying I should not make myself cruel for your sake," Teja says. "So do not offend the goddess again."

[scots_wolf]

"The barrier was open all the time," Urquhart says, looking up at them both, arms full of books.

"You knew you would let me go. You knew that I would say what you wished, so you might do that."

Beat.

"I need a wheelbarrow for all these."

[wheatencrown]

Demeter sighs and pulls from her sleeves a sturdy canvas sack that still has soil clinging to it,

"Use that."

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart reaches out, nods, takes the sack and starts piling his books in there.

"If I annoy you," he says, "why did you tell the Goth to let me go?"

[ostro_goth]

"We have names," Teja says, "and you should begin using them."

Pause.

"Angus."