Logo The Diminishing Promise
by James Rogers

Taken from the Collected Stories.
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 The two men entered the pub. It was a Friday during Christmas and there was a good crowd in. Nevertheless, there were a few vacant seats by the fire and after getting a couple of pints at the bar, they gladly sat by the flames; they’d walked the half mile to town and were frozen.
                An old man sat the other side of the fire and he greeted the local. “Young Walsh, how are you?”
                “Not bad at all, Pat” Brian replied. “This is a friend of mine, Simon Williams.”
                Simon raised his pint to the old man who he noticed, despite the heat from the fire, kept his jacket on above jumper and shirt. “How ’you?” he said in a Dublin accent.
                “You’re down to sample the country life,” Pat replied as he raised his glass of whiskey in return.
                “That’s right. Get away from the tourists above in the city.”
                “What was the traffic like?”
                “Brutal around Dublin, as usual,” said Brian. “But once you get down this end of the country it’s fine.”
                “Your first time in Leitrim, Simon?”
                “Yeah. I haven’t seen much yet, but this is a fine cosy pub.”
                “Do you work in the college with Brian?”
                Simon was surprised by the question. The old fella looked like he was touching a hundred. His face was thin and gaunt and, like his hands, was covered in liver spots. Tufts of grey hair stuck out from around and from inside ears that, due to the shrunken face, looked huge. But the eyes were bright and Simon realised the mind was very much active. “I do, but not in the same department. I lecture in science.”
                “We both play soccer together on a Monday night,” Brian explained. “That’s how I got to know him. And I’ve been promising for years to show him the best county in Ireland.”
                The owner came by to throw a few more sods on the fire. “How’re you all? Are you ready for another, Pat? Don’t move, I’ll bring it down to you.”
                “It’s alright, Peter, I’ll get it,” Brian cut in as he got up and headed for the bar.
                “So you teach science,” Pat resumed with Simon.
                “That’s right.”
                “Chemistry and all that stuff.”
                “No. Physics is my area. Quantum mechanics, to be precise. It’s a very strange and complicated field.”
                “Indeed. I saw a program on the telly recently. Some brain-box from America talking about the whole world being made up of tiny strings. Imagine that. Tiny strings playing God’s music.”
                Simon smiled while inside he chided himself for patronising the old man. Treating him like some ignorant fool from the country when it was obvious he knew a lot about what was going on in the world. “You have it spot on. Superstring theory. It’s one of today’s leading theories.”
                “That’s what he called it, alright. But I’ll tell you something you don’t know. They wouldn’t have found these strings if it wasn’t for the faeries. Thanks, Brian,” Pat said as another whiskey was placed before him. “You’re back just in time as I have a story to tell you both, one that was told to me by my grandfather a long time ago. In fact, ’tis two stories, one inside the other.
                “You see, Einstein and all those other smart scientists – brilliant men no doubt – but they kept quiet about where they got the jump start. Many many years ago, even before the English set foot in Ireland, there was a young faery caught by a local chieftain. And before he could be let go, he had to fulfil a promise ...”
 
***
 
The elf cursed himself for a fool. Every time he did it – get drunk and fall asleep beneath the whitethorn bush to be gently woken by the early morning sun, that is – he promised himself it would be the last. It wasn’t safe to be out and about alone in the land of the ignorant mortal. But the quick jaunt through this realm from one portal to another would very much shorten the trip home and was therefore hard to resist, especially to a mind softened by whiskey. Sure it’s only twenty minutes to the portal under the hill, he’d convince himself. Yes, twenty minutes when you’re sober.
                This night was no different. As usual, he’d gotten halfway there when the familiar spot under the bush beckoned and he was unfit to refuse. No one ever comes by this way, he argued. But this night someone did. And to make matters worse, it turned out this someone was considered a very important someone amongst the mortals. He was a huge man – but then weren’t they all, compared to the little elf – a local chieftain with a great number of men at his disposal, some of whom were now standing about the bush. Like the elf, they had drink taken but were not drunk enough to outrun. The elf sighed. Chieftain or not, he’d want one thing, the same thing all men desired: gold. But contrary to these greedy creatures’ belief, he had no gold to grant.
                “You cannot leave until I grant you permission,” the chieftain intoned. “And to grant you permission I must have one wish. Those are the sacred rules to which all you little people must abide.”
                The elf sighed again. Where did they get these crazy notions? Much of it, he was sure, was down to the fact that elves keep their promises. And this being in such marked contrast to the mortals must therefore look to them like rules and regulations rather than simple good manners. And now here he was surrounded by these huge barbarians. There was no hope of escape, so he fuelled the myth. “Yes, I cannot leave until I grant you your wish. But if it’s gold you want you’ll have to take me to my stash.”
                The chieftain grinned, a few rotten teeth jutting from swollen gums. “I won’t be tricked that easy, little man. I don’t want your gold because I know I would never get it.”
                “You know I am bound to my promise.”
                “Oh yes. But you little fellas always find a way out. You always find some way of keeping your promise without actually handing over the gold. No, what I want is much more valuable. I want the secret to your magic.”
                The elf raised an eyebrow. This was a clever one. But it was a mistake nonetheless. “If that is your wish then it shall be granted.”
 
***
 
Simon returned from the bar with another round and Pat continued. “Now the only men at that time who could read and write were the monks, so the old chieftain had them take down every world the elf said. As you probably know well, the monks of Ireland set down an awful lot of stuff on paper, or the closest thing they had to paper. And down it went whether they agreed with it or not, but never before and never since did they write things they had no understanding of. There wasn’t a single part of the elf’s magic that made any sense to them. And if they couldn’t figure it out, there wasn’t much hope for the chieftain or his men.
                “So the elf fulfilled his promise without actually giving anything away, for a time at least.” Pat stopped for a sip from his glass. “You’re probably wondering what it was the monks wrote down. Well I’ll tell you. Wasn’t it none other than nature’s secrets. And the faeries knew it all long before Newton had the apple fall on his head.”
                Simon was no longer surprised at how well informed the old man was. “How did they come to know all this?” And as hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep the smirk from his face.
                “Oh, you think I’m making it all up, and I don’t blame you. Sure I didn’t believe it myself the first time I heard it.
                “Anyway, how the elves – or the faeries, or whatever you want to call them – how they came to have such a great understanding of the world and nature, well that’s the story within the story. And it all started when one young elf was caught courting the Faerie King’s daughter, and him without permission. Lugh was his name and he was found in the princess’s chambers after dark and the pair of them alone. Well the king was hopping mad and wanted to knock the young fella on the head, but his daughter pleaded with him and that’s how Lugh was saved from a beating. Although considering what happened afterwards, I’d say there were many times he wished she hadn’t intervened and he’d ended up with just one headache, over and done with.
                “You see, the next morning, with the king – King Nuada was his name – with him calmed down a bit, he summoned Lugh and made his demands. ‘Ten thousand gold coins by sunset and the same amount to be delivered every ten years ’til the end of time,’ he announced. These were the days, long ago in the past, before the faeries learned they had no need for gold. At that time, they valued it as much as men.
                “Anyway, Lugh complained. ‘I admit the crime,’ he said, knowing he had little choice, being caught the way he was. ‘But I doubt it severe enough to warrant an everlasting punishment.’ He was a brave young fella. So, after a bit of arguing to and fro, they both agreed on an initial payment of fifteen thousand coins, with payments to follow every ten years. But here’s the catch: each payment would be half the previous one. It was known as The Diminishing Promise.
                “As I said, all this happened an awful long time ago. It was before we – men, I mean – before we took control of Ireland. Prior to that, the faeries lived here the same as us, though they did their best to avoid us. But as our numbers grew, they were being pushed into smaller and smaller areas, and whenever they did come in contact with men, well they tended to come off second best. We weren’t very much willing to share and not much’s changed in that department.
                “Nevertheless, Nuada always looked forward to the day Lugh would arrive with the latest instalment. It got to the stage he needed a magnifying device, provided by Lugh himself, in order to see the tiny piece of gold. ‘The poor fella,’ he laughed ‘’twas a terrible trick to have played on him, but he always produces the goods and I love him for it. I wonder how much smaller he can go’
                “However, time passed and the faeries came under more and more pressure and Nuada didn’t find the Diminishing Promise so funny – or anything else, for that matter. Things were looking very bleak for the little people, but they managed to escape from us men just when it looked like it was too late.”
 
***

The courtroom was packed to the rafters and everyone was speaking at once. Finally the king’s chief aide managed to restore order and Nuada rose from his throne to speak. “I realise you are all frightened and worried. The mortals, their numbers have grown and they want this island for themselves, so we must be ready to fight.”
                “With what?” one of the chieftains shouted. “They are giants. They have weapons and are fearless and barbaric. We don’t stand a chance.” Once more the room was in turmoil as everyone attempted to be heard. The king’s head dropped. They had managed to survive by steering clear of the mortals, but that was no longer possible. The enemy had spread throughout the land and there was nowhere left to hide.
                Just then the main doors opened and a group of elves managed to squeeze into the room. The king sighed and slumped into his throne as he saw Lugh and his entourage making their way to the front. Nuada had completely forgotten about the Promise. Like everything else these days, it no longer amused him. A hush descended upon the crowd as the newcomers pushed forward to stand before their king. Everyone had heard the rumours of the strange and wonderful magic performed by the handsome elf and his team.
                “I present to you my latest payment, Your Majesty,” Lugh intoned and bowed before the throne.
                “I’m not interested, Lugh,” the king lazily waved him away. “The payment has been reduced to nothing. And half of nothing is nothing, so why bother?”
                “With respect, Your Majesty, it is not nothing. In fact, my people and I, by honouring an agreement you tricked me into, have over the years gained insight and knowledge that may never have been acquired otherwise. All the wonders and beauty of the universe have been revealed to us.”
                “Lugh,” the king shouted, “we do not have time for this.”
                “Ah, but I think we do.” And he turned to face his audience. “Because our work has unexpectedly presented us with a solution to our present predicament. We can all escape the mortals and not a single hand need be raised in anger.” As he began to explain the newfound science, many thought him mad, mad as a mortal. Before long, their opinions were dramatically altered.
 
***
 
“So by honouring the Promise,” Simon summed up, “they split the atom.”
                “And went much further,” Pat continued. “They found the extra dimensions and escaped into them.”
                “But what’s this all got to do with Einstein?” asked Brian.
                “Because the wee faerie who fell asleep under the whitethorn bush, well he did his best to retrieve the manuscript the monks had written. He got most of it, but some pages escaped. Those same pages were found years later by the Brits and they made their way to the Yanks and then Einstein and the rest of the scientists got hold of them and the rest is, as they say, history.”
                “All because of too much whiskey.”
                “Exactly. And he hasn’t yet learned his lesson. You know the wee lane in by my way, Brian? You know it can get flooded if there’s heavy rain. Well when I was a lot younger I used to cross the fields to come into town for a drink. I’d have the shoes tucked under my arm and I’d change out of the wellies when I made it to the road, and leave the wellies in the ditch for when I was coming back. One time I dropped one of the shoes halfway across the field and didn’t notice ’til I was out on the road. I had to head on into the pub with the wellies on, but that’s another story.
                “Anyway, going home one such night, with the sky clear and the full moon leaving it as easy to see as if ’twas the middle of the day, didn’t I spot this little fella lying under a bush. I thought it was a child at first, him being so small, but when I woke him I saw ’twas a faerie. When I got chatting to him didn’t I discover it was the very same fella from the story told to me by my grandfather all those years ago.”
                “Taxi’s here for you, Pat,” shouted Peter from the bar.
                “That’s good, Peter. I’m ready for off.” He finished the drop of whiskey in the bottom of the glass and stiffly rose to leave. “Enjoy the rest of the night, lads. By the way, Simon, the last time I saw that faerie, he told me the Promise is no more. Lugh finally got as far as a particle that can’t be split. He said it’s a string.”
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Copyright © 2005-2007 by James Rogers