The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  Which, Lena realized, was a kind of paraphrase of the Order’s basic tenets.

  And then something sparked in her mind.

  This was what enlightenment must feel like, she thought. A moment like this when everything falls neatly into place in one’s mind and there’s nothing, not one little thing, that’s out of place or misunderstood.

  It wasn’t the Order’s teachings that were at fault. It was what one did with them.

  “Thank you, Jim,” she said.

  5.

  “John Madden is a very powerful man,” Goninan said.

  After they’d had their tea, he took Janey and Clare out into the fields overlooking the small cove below his property. They were far from the cottage and its outbuildings‌—far from any man-made object. Here the unruly vegetation had been given free rein and returned to its natural wild state. They all sat on stone outcrops, the rocks weathered smooth and grey like old bones.

  “His magical abilities aside, Madden has enormous business interests. His own fortune is vast enough to deny easy calculation. Other members of the Inner Circle of his Order are also in high positions of influence and power‌—together they have formed a global network that encompasses the entire sphere of international commerce and politics.”

  “Why is it,” Janey interrupted, “that the current villains in the world are always businessmen or politicians?”

  Goninan smiled. “That has never changed. What else can they do but acquire power? And power has always lain in the fields of politics and commerce.”

  “And religion,” Clare said.

  “And religion,” Goninan agreed. “Hence Madden’s Order of the Grey Dove.”

  “What do they worship?” Janey wanted to know. “This grey dove? Madden?”

  “Religion involves worship,” Goninan said, “but like anything concerned with spiritual matters, its strictures vary according to how its followers approach it. Some seek solace, others a promise of hope in the hereafter; some enter into it as a means to enlightenment, still others view it as a road to power. It need not necessarily involve worship. A better word for it, perhaps, would be Way. And the Ways of our world are as varied as the road taken by a Taoist, or that followed by a man such as, say, Aleister Crowley.”

  “Who’s he?” Janey asked.

  “A Cornishman, actually‌—originally from Plymouth‌—who is reviled or exalted, depending on the person who is discussing him.”

  “He was evil,” Clare said. “Anybody who’d follow his teachings would have to be as bad or worse.”

  Goninan shook his head. “That is like condemning all Christians for the Inquisition or the Crusades‌—or for present-day Fundamentalism. Crowley himself was certainly somewhat depraved, but as in all teachings, there are truths and insights in his work that are relevant to all people. L. Ron Hubbard is an excellent contemporary example.”

  “And who’s he?” Janey asked.

  “The founder of Scientology.”

  Janey had heard of Scientologists before. They’d often stopped her on the street in London, asking her if she wanted to take a personality test‌—whatever that meant.

  “I never heard of Hubbard being depraved,” Clare said.

  “I didn’t mean to imply that he was,” Goninan said. “I use his teachings as an example of how a body of work can be reviled‌—mostly by those who have no knowledge of its workings‌—and yet still carry elements of what can only be considered eternal truths. What Hubbard merely did was couch them in more contemporary terms‌—not a particularly innovative methodology, I might add. A part of every religion’s genesis is the modernizing of old truisms.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Janey said, “is that it’s not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that’s important, but what its followers do with what they learn?”

  “Exactly. Which brings us back to John Madden and his Order of the Grey Dove. The underlying tenets of the Order deal with many of the same universal truths as do other orders and religions, but it is the personality of its followers, particularly its founder, Madden in this case, that makes it an extremely dangerous sect.”

  “What makes these people go bad?” Janey asked. “Not just this Order, but all the people you were talking about.”

  “Human nature, I’m afraid. We seem cursed with the need to acquire control over each other and our environment. To rule. To change everything we can possibly meddle with.”

  “Yes,” Clare said, “but if we didn’t do that, we’d still be living in caves and chewing on bones.”

  Goninan laughed. “I’m no Luddite,” he said. “I agree with you completely. The advances we make in technology and the sciences are very important to our development as a race. But, like religion, science depends on what one brings to it. Were we only seeking cures for cancer and world hunger and the like, I would have no complaints. What I condemn is this narrow-minded quest for the most devastating weapon or the years of research that go into a better deodorant or shampoo. It’s madness. It has no heart‌—no care for the spirit, be it ours, or that of the earth itself. Thousands of acres of rain forests are destroyed every day‌—every single day‌—the ozone layer is being rapidly worn away, yet our world leaders are more content to argue about how many weapons they can stockpile.

  “They remind me of primary school bullies, vying for dominion of the school yard, while an entire world‌—a real world‌—lies just beyond its confines. A world of far more sacred importance that they cannot see for their blindness.”

  As he spoke, his face had reddened, his voice growing cross, eyes flashing. He paused suddenly and looked away, over across the bay, silently watching the dip and wheel of seabirds over the water until the timeless image had calmed him enough to continue.

  “Your pardon,” he said when he finally looked back at Janey and Clare. “I’ve lived through one World War only to watch the world grow worse instead of better when we finally put down that madman’s Reich.”

  He laid a hand on the stone beside him, stroking its smooth surface with his fingers.

  “I love this world,” he added. “That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn’t stop me from doing what I can, but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It’s like trying to stem a storm with one’s bare hands.”

  Janey felt a little embarrassed listening to him. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with what Goninan was saying; it was more because she did agree, only she never did anything about it except for the odd benefit gig.

  “My quarrel with Madden,” Goninan went on, “is that he has the opportunity to make a difference, yet he does nothing with it. His entire life is channeled towards self-gain.”

  “You seem to know as much as he does,” Janey said. “Why didn’t you start your own Order?”

  “I thought of that,” Goninan said. “When I was young. But to acquire the position of power that Madden presently holds, I would have to become as ruthless as he. And then I would be no better than he.”

  “But if you could make a difference . . . ?”

  Goninan shook his head. “I expect that once I reached such a position of influence, I’d no more care for the world than does Madden himself. It may sound trite, but using the weapons of the enemy, no matter how good one’s intentions, makes one the enemy.”

  He spoke then at length of Madden’s rise from obscurity and the forming of the Order, sketching in a fuller, if still incomplete, picture of the man.

  “So his magic,” Janey said. “It’s a sham? It’s just manipulating people and knowing when to make the best deal?”

  “No. The magic is real.”

  “But. . . ?”

  “Consider legend and myth,” Goninan said.

  “You mean how
they’re all based on some kernel of truth, no matter how obscure?” Clare asked.

  “In part. Legend and myth are what we use to describe what we don’t comprehend. They are our attempts to make the impossible, possible‌—at least insofar as our spirits interact with the spirit of the world, or if that’s too animistic for you, then let us use Jung’s terminology and call it our racial subconscious. No matter the semantics, they are of a kind and it is legend and myth that binds us all together.

  “Through them, through their retellings, and through those new versions that are called religion while they are current, we are taught Truth and we attempt to understand Mystery. How many brave or chivalrous deeds have come about through a young boy’s fascination with childhood stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table? Or how many injustices were attacked by those who learned of right and wrong from tales of Robin Hood?

  “Teaching a child the correct moral choices he or she should make is simple, but not always effective. The young rebel‌—not because they’re amoral, but because it is in their nature to do so. The words of an elder are always suspect‌—especially here in what is traditionally called Western society. It is through legend and myth, through the young spirit’s connection with the old spirit that lies at the heart of this matter, that the lessons are learned without being deliberately taught.

  “The lessons lie in the subtext of the stories, as it were.

  “Today, children are given toys to look up to as heroic figures. Rock performers and movie stars form their pantheon‌—an amoral pantheon where the performer who eloquently speaks out against drugs is arrested two weeks later for possession of heroin. Where the stalwart heroic figure from the silver screen is discovered to be a wife beater.

  “The subtext here is that one may do anything one wishes‌—one need only make certain not to get caught.”

  “And the magic?” Janey asked when Goninan fell silent.

  She’d been having trouble making the connection with what he was saying to what she had supposed they were talking about.

  “Is real,” he said. “It is your perception of it that makes it true‌—our recognition of the true shape or spirit of a thing. But like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused‌—hence all the old tales of elfin kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive.

  “That is a lie. All they require is our recognition.”

  “And the book?” Clare asked. “Where does it fit in?”

  “I spoke of totems before we had our tea‌—do you remember?”

  Janey and Clare both nodded.

  “Your birds,” Clare said.

  “Yes. They are a symbol‌—a talisman, if you like, but a personal one, which is what a totem is. A symbol that sets one in the proper frame of mind to work one’s magic. How such totems differ from Bill’s book is that they require sacrifice and much study for one to acquire one’s appropriate symbology.

  “Bill did that study, he made the sacrifices of time and ostracism that such work requires‌—hence the book’s magic worked for him. It was his totem. But, unknowingly, he also created a talisman when he crafted it‌—a universal symbol so that it is now a catalyst as well as the personal totem it was for him.

  “The artifact he created now has a twofold existence.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Janey said.

  “Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it,” Goninan explained. “How they perceive that book will depend on who they are. A good book reflects the reader, as much as it illuminates the author’s text.”

  Clare nodded in understanding.

  “Now,” Goninan said, “imagine a book that literally is different for each person who reads it.”

  Janey frowned. “Do you mean that the story I’m reading in The Little Country‌—I’m the only person who will read that particular story?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that’s not possible.”

  Goninan smiled. “No, of course it isn’t. It’s magic.”

  “But Gramps has read it and he never said . . .”

  Janey’s voice trailed off as she realized that she’d never actually talked to anyone about the story that was in the book‌—not her grandfather nor Felix‌—while Clare hadn’t read it yet.

  “So,” Goninan said, “the book’s first purpose is to reflect the reader’s spirit‌—somewhat along the lines of an oracle.”

  “Would it be the same every time I read it?” Janey asked.

  “I can’t say for certain. But it’s not likely. For see, as you change, so will the story that reflects your spirit change with you.”

  “But it’s following logically along at the moment,” Janey said. “The plot’s following a logical progression.”

  “For this story,” Goninan said.

  “Are they Dunthorn’s words that we’re reading?” Clare asked.

  “It’s not likely‌—although there will be a part of Bill in each story, because it was his creation.”

  Janey found this a bit much to swallow. But then, everything she was hearing today seemed farfetched. None of it could be possible.

  Of course it’s not, she could hear Goninan saying again. It’s magic.

  Magic.

  Legend and myth.

  Her heart wanted to believe. Her logic told her it was poppycock.

  The kinds of things that Goninan was talking about simply couldn’t fit into the real world‌—the world she knew. But at the same time, his words awoke resonances inside her that were naggingly familiar, as though when he spoke she was remembering, rather than hearing.

  “And the second purpose?” Clare asked.

  “Is as a talisman,” Goninan said. “An artifact. And I would warn you that to wield such an object, one must be very, very careful. It is a grave responsibility. Every time one uses it, the world changes. One can hide an artifact, but one can’t hide one’s responsibility to it. The only way that can be done is if the artifact is willingly passed on to another.”

  “The world . . . changes?” Janey said.

  “The more such a talisman is employed, the more pronounced its effects become. Eventually, if it is used long enough, it will remake the world.”

  “How?” Janey asked.

  “Into what?” Clare added.

  “Into whatever is possible.”

  Janey thought again of the little that her grandfather had told her of what had happened when he first got the book, before he hid it away‌—of the ghosts and odd sounds and how people changed. . . . She remembered her own dream last night. Of the music that came from the book. How it changed.

  She thought of that lost tune that she’d been trying to recover and realized she had only heard it when she had the book open, on her lap. . . .

  “Does it change forever?” Clare asked.

  “That depends on how long it is used. And by whom. Wielded by its proper guardian, it can only do good. Wielded for the sake of personal gain‌—as Madden plans‌—it could eventually destroy the world.”

  “How do we know who its proper guardian is?” Janey asked. “Is it my grandfather? Is it me?”

  “I don’t know,” Goninan said. “But it’s not likely. Neither of you follow a Way. You don’t have the background, nor the knowledge.”

  “But you do?” Janey said, suddenly suspicious again.

  Goninan only laughed. “I have both,” he agreed, “but it’s too late for me to take a new road. My birds have brought me as far as I can go and now I stand in a borderland‌—half in this world, half in the otherworld. Sooner, rather than later, I will be crossing over.”

  “What do you mean?” Clare asked.

  But Janey knew. In the same way that Goninan’s words seemed more memory than new.

  “You’re dying,” she said.

  Goninan nodded.

  “I’m sorry. I. . .” She didn’t know what to say.


  “Don’t be,” Goninan said. “I’ve had a long full life and I have seen where I am going next. My only regret is what I told you before‌—that I won’t be leaving the world a better place than it was when I entered it.”

  They were quiet for a time then, until Janey stirred. She took her gaze from the small stonechat that she’d been watching as it hopped from thorn branch to thorn branch in the field above them and turned to Goninan.

  “And Helen’s your . . . nurse?” she asked.

  “Great-niece. A kindred spirit. She has long had a similar bent of mind to mine, so I’ve been teaching her, while she takes care of me.”

  “And that’s why you can’t guard the book.”

  “Exactly.”

  Janey frowned, thinking.

  “What I don’t understand is . . . we haven’t done anything with the book. We haven’t”‌—she looked a little embarrassed‌—“you know, chanted above it or lit candles around it or anything. All we’ve done is read it.”

  “That’s all it requires to come awake‌—to be opened.”

  “Well, I’m going to hide it away,” Janey said. “Someplace far and safe where no one will ever find it.”

  “If you can find such a place.”

  “And I won’t read another word.”

  Goninan shook his head. “You must finish the story,” he said. “If you leave it incomplete, the book will remain open‌—not much, but enough so that someone like Madden will be able to track it down and find it.”

  “Why didn’t Billy warn Gramps?”

  “I don’t think he knew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him? You seem to know a lot more about it than you said you did back in the cottage.”

  “I’ve just been thinking about it these past few days,” Goninan said. “Since I first felt it wake. And I didn’t speak more of it then, because I was waiting to speak of it now.”

  “Oh.”

  Janey picked at a frayed bit of her jeans and sighed.

  “What can I do?” she asked finally.

  “Finish reading the book,” Goninan said. “Your subconscious already knows what you must do. Perhaps you’ll find that answer reflected in the book as you read on.”