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Xena and Gabrielle After India: Whither Faith?
--A lecture at the Center for Xena Studies
--To Prof. Clotho's Mythology 101 class
--Thursday night session
--Delivered June 24, 1999
--by Dr. Mitchell Cary Drummond
I. Thursday evening, sometime shortly after the dinner hour, the corridors of Babbett Convocation Center
The Center was abuzz with it. Three different groups had three unique takes, three special reasons for buzzing, but they all buzzed nevertheless.
The student body in general, and Prof. Clotho's Mythology 101 students (Thursday Night Session) in particular buzzed because they were in the dark and they wondered what would be revealed at that week's special lecture, what was this great deep mystery?
For the entire semester that the strikingly beautiful woman had been teaching at the Center and coaching its equestrian team, she had had a habit of making momentous announcements in her Thursday Night lectures. They were always bad news for students who were trying to coast through what they hoped was a cake course, for Prof. Clotho was a tough teacher who expected her charges to actually learn something under her tutelage.
So she liked to drop bombs on Thursday nights, when the class was sated, dumb and happy after a good hot meal, and probably feeling a bit sleepy and prone to nod off. Major changes in direction of the course of study for the classes, three of which came together for the special sessions. Announcements of major assignments. The distribution of reading lists that would have daunted Evelyn Wood.
Reckoning by this habit, all of those in the course were blood certain that they would hear their doom that night, that word would come down on high that would forever alter their tenure as undergraduates at the Center for Xena Studies -- and surely not for the better.
The staff of the Center buzzed because they had some inkling of what was going to be dropped, like a neutron bomb, on the poor, unsuspecting Myth One students. They knew, for example, that the former Troll Action Team Commander, Mitchell Drummond, was going to speak, and that the subject was the nature of the gods. What most of them did not quite understand was how a jumped-up private policeman, (which was how most of the Center staff saw the TATs, not knowing any better), was qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject of Olympus. For the most part, the Center staff were secretly thrilled to be in on the knowledge that Drummond wasn't really the head janitor. That there might be further, unrevealed depths to him did not occur to them... at least not at first.
Then there were those that the natives of the Center thought of as The Strangers--though they certainly were not, and no one was un-PC enough to voice that thought aloud. These were individuals who had come to the Groveport, Ohio campus by invitation. Most of them were familiar singly to various and sundry cliques on campus, but all of them were known only to a handful of senior types in the Office of the Director.
There were many famous faces among The Strangers, from all walks of life, and they all knew one another, and greeted each other when they met while drifting about the campus during the day, as though they were all members of some secret club. They, of course, knew exactly the subject of the forthcoming lecture, for it concerned them intimately, and when they discussed the speaker among themselves, (and they spoke only among themselves and where they could not be overheard), they called him by a different epithet. They spoke of him as The Artificer, and their voices carried hushed tones of great respect and affection.
#
The lecture was customarily held in a small lecture theatre on the third floor of Babbett Convocation Center. But in anticipation of an overflow crowd, this night's session had been moved to a larger venue, the Liddel Theatre on the ground floor. The doors opened as soon as the Gatekeeper elves finished their evening meal and shortly thereafter, folks began to arrive.
A section in the middle of the orchestra had been cordoned off and split further into two parts. The fifteen rows closest to the stage were reserved for the students registered in the Myth One classes, with the ten rows immediately behind those roped off and guarded by the ubiquitous Trolls, dressed tonight in crisp black tuxedos, (men and women both), all of them with white plastic earpieces in place and dangling coiled wires under their collars. They weren't wearing sunglasses or anything, but you got the impression from their attitudes that that was only because they were indoors and it was night.
Smack dab in the middle of the roped-off section sat a man of a dark complexion. His hair was goat-black and cropped close about his head in tight curls. He had a beard of similar length and texture. He was wearing a white linen tropical suit and looked quite dapper in it, but one got the impression that he usually wore something else. His features were hard to discern, but they appeared to be those of a man of middling years and a generally noble mien.
Because he was seated, what was not immediately apparent was his painful hunchback.
Were someone to dwell on the fact that he was hard to look at, that person would suddenly find something more interesting to absorb his or her attention. The man in the white linen suit was greeted by others of The Strangers as they drifted in and took seats in the roped-off section. Everyone else in the auditorium pointedly did not stare at the occupants of the roped-off section
There was the usual quiet rustle and hum of conversation one hears in places of convocation before an event and the auditorium slowly filled, and the air grew thick and uncomfortably warm as the air-conditioning equipment under the hall labored to adjust to the presence of so many bodies in so close a space.
#
Finally, after a wait that seemed far too long, the house lights dimmed and the rumble of conversation hushed to a soft susurration and then faded to random rustlings of clothing, snappings of purse clasps, and the creak and thump of the velvet-cushioned seats' being sat upon by late arrivals. A few last-minute latecomers slipped through the doors at the back of the hall and found their seats in the dark.
Last of all was a pair of women who were ushered to seats in the very back row that had been reserved for them with little white placards. One was tall and raven-haired with ice-blue eyes and was dressed in blue silk and jingling gold and brass earrings, chokers, and bracelets. The other was short and strawberry blonde with bright green eyes, dressed in green linen and more jangling metal. There was a bustle of comment as they were recognized.
Then attention was drawn to the front of the house as a spotlight hit the curtain, jinking around for a moment as though the operator were unsure of himself, then settling on the gap between the main drape and the stage left teaser, where Prof. Clotho stepped out and walked briskly to the lectern set up in the middle of the stage. The spot followed her like it was having trouble keeping up and bobbled around a bit when she stopped at the lectern before settling down to merely illuminate her presence.
"Good evening," she said simply, the PA carrying her quiet, authoritative voice to the back of the hall. "Those of you who are regular attendees to this session might have noticed that we have a few people auditing the class tonight."
This was greeted with a low rumble of general laughter, and the crowd relaxed a bit more into its seats and the ambient noise level dropped somewhat. Somewhere in the dark, there was a cough and somewhere else one unnamable piece of wood struck another with a sharp knock. Up in the balcony some wiseass said something loudly that nobody could make out and was quickly shushed by those around him.
"As has been rumored, and can be confirmed by the fact that we have had a slight change of venue ..." Prof. Clotho went on dryly, " ... tonight's session is a rather special one. However, I must remind everyone that this is a class in session and I request that those who are here auditing keep in mind that it is being presented for the benefit of those students who are registered members of the class. I have, accordingly, instructed the Trolls to eject anyone who disturbs the proceedings." She inspected the crowd in a gesture that was undoubtedly theatrical in purpose, since she could not possibly have seen beyond the glare of the spotlight in her eyes. "Are there any questions?" she asked in a tone that said there had better not be. "I think I'll dispense with taking attendance just this once." More polite laughter.
"This is Mythology 101. In broad strokes, this is the study of the basics of human religious lore. We study, in chronological order, those belief systems that precede our own, from the earliest of which we have written records, down to the classical polytheistic systems of the ancient historic world. Since we are in a Western society in a Judeo-Christian nation, the focus is, of necessity, on our own social antecedents. That is not the result of a qualitative judgment, but rather a recognition that, in an introductory survey course, we must begin on familiar ground before we can move farther afield.
"For all of this past term, these classes have studied the mythology of Western Civilization, beginning with the earliest civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. We have made some side trips into the lore of North American natives and those cultures that are foreign to our own, but for the most part, we have followed the developments of res religiosarum that have led to our current time, and ending with the founding of the modern Christian Church in the fading days of the Roman Empire.
"This is the final lecture in the course. The remaining week will be spent in preparation for exams and in the wrapping up of longer projects. So tonight, you will meet the culmination of your studies over the course of the year. I think I can safely say, without diminishing the impact of what you are about to see and hear, the next hour will rock your world. Prepare to have everything you thought you knew turned upside down."
The hall was completely silent.
"Without further persiflage, please allow me to present to you, The Artificer of Olympus, our own Associate Dean, Mitchell Drummond."
There was polite applause from everywhere in the audience but the section of students down front. There, there was a collection of stunned expressions. Most of the class had missed the epithet Prof. Cloth had used to name Drummond, and were disappointed to say the least.
The applause died quickly as the curtain opened on a bare stage furnished with primitive visual aids... a green chalkboard on a wheeled swivel mount, and a rear projection screen. An indistinct figure perched on a stool stage left of this arrangement and waited for the applause to die down.
As he stood, the stage lights came up and revealed Drummond, dressed in a blue denim work shirt, boots, and faded jeans, a red bandanna knotted around his neck. This attire established him as an aging Boomer, not generally a type associated with coolth.
Strike One.
"Good Evening," he said. "Thank you for coming. As many of you will no doubt be unaware of my credentials, let me begin by establishing my bona fides."
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