As they soared over fields and countless fields of scalding golden uniformity, Xantheaa took the advantage of the dead air to ask the question that had been burning into her mind from the first moment she saw Thrall wield the Lahat Chereb. "So... How, exactly, does one communicate with these 'true words,' as you call them? Do I just have to memorize their names, and say them like you do?"
Thrall was surprised at this conversation. He was so focused on the trail of burning footsteps left by his canine consort that he hadn't realized how utterly quiet he had been for the longest while.
"O-oh! Why, yes, of course..." he stumbled to say, but then said "Actually, no. It's not enough to just 'say' them."
"Right, right. You told me that you have to believe in the meaning of the words as well, right? I think I can manage that."
"No, it's a bit more than that. While knowing their names is good and all, the fact of the matter is that here—inside of the dream—you are already under the authority of one of The Words; and the reason I put so much stress on 'the' in this case is because there is a difference between true words and The Word."
"Huh?!" Xantheaa was utterly confused by this. How can there be a word with so much more power than the other words, and how can it be more than one word if it's "THE word?!" Doesn't that mean that it's one single word?! "You are speaking in riddles again, Thrall. Explain it to me, as if I understand nothing."
He raised his palms defensively and ushered a signal of surrender, nodding "Alright, alright. That's fair. You'll have to forgive me, as I've never had to explain this to someone else before. All angels are simply born with the knowledge, and all men are expressly forbidden to learn it for our own safety."
She sighed, "Okay... So, why don't we start with the difference between true words and normal words? Is The Word something different than either of those two?"
"Alright, so what I mean when I say something is a 'true word,' is that there is a tongue that only angels spoke, in the time before the tower of babel. Early men spoke it too, because they learned its language from communion directly with God. After the fall, God stopped speaking directly to man. Doubly so, after the flood happened."
"...and these words are more powerful somehow?"
"Not so much 'powerful,' as definite. If you say the word 'something,' then it's generally understood to be a much more vague term than 'building.' Concordantly, a proper noun is even more specific still! For example, somewhere like Olympus is a specific place that has to be capitalized for its cultural and cosmological perspective. There can only ever be one Olympus, so it's given greater respect.
"My God is one such proper noun, because this implies that there can only ever be one of Him. In fact, every time you refer to Him, you have to pay Him that respect, or else it can be argued that you are talking about a different entity altogether! It stops meaning Him, as soon as you no longer believe He is the only One."
She knitted her brow, while continuing to nod her head. "I still do not entirely get what this has to do with your magic words. How does a proper noun relate to a magic rune that floats in the air, and communicates in high-pitched ringing?"
"Aha, I was getting to that! So, you understand how Olympus is more specific than 'somewhere,' right?"
"Yes."
"Well, from my perspective, Olympus is still quite vague; as there are a billion different olympuses in various stories, legends, poems and lore—let alone the different imaginary ones that exist in every man's mind. No two retellings of the Grecian mythos are entirely the same. Now, imagine that there was a word for precisely the Olympus that exists inside YOUR imagination—one that no one else has ever seen before, or could even conceptualize without peering into your mind."
Xantheaa tried to imagine it, but she could not. How could you put a word to something that is completely original? For other people to understand it, they would have to know the word too! "I-"
"Hold that thought!" Thrall interjected. "I want you to focus on that confusion. That is the key nexus point of separation between you and the true tongue. In my tongue, there is no such possible confusion. It is an ideal method of communication. There is no alternate way of wording an idea, there are no two synonyms that share a concept. Each word is an idea unto itself. Every phrase is a universe with its own beliefs, philosophies, identity, nuance, and personality."
"Uh—W-wow...! So, you're saying I have to picture all of that before I even say ONE word?"
"Yes." He replied; so matter-of-factly that she nearly fell out of the sky. She was hoping he was hyperbolizing, at least a little bit. It sounded like it would take a whole entire year to completely master just a single word. "Now, The Word is a lot, Lot, LOT more complicated than that."
Excuse me?! The unmitigated gall of suggesting that it could even get more confusing than it already was seemed almost too much for her to fit inside her brain, right now. Unfortunately, she was the one who had begged him for this knowledge, so the harpy was honor-bound to shut her mouth and accept whatever wisdom he was about to share with her; hoping that it would somehow make some kind of sense at a later date...
"In a sense, the true words are nothing more than bricks that reality was pasted together out of. You ask for Light, and you get light. You ask for Wind, you get wind. Now, if you ask for Gravity? He doesn't answer. Some words are older than others, and much more stubborn. You have to bribe him out with something he wants.
"For most words, that's a party. Words like to hang out with like-minded individuals; same as any other creature. So, if I wanted to summon a black hole, you don't just jump straight to gravity. You have to ask for Pressure and Pull and Void to join him first. Then, you take the step into Force, and Gravity will happily leap into the fray.
"The Word, however, is an entirely different animal. This is the oldest thing in existence. Period. In the Beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God."
"Yes, that is another thing that I don't understand!" Xantheaa spoke up to Thrall's great consternation. She simply had to get something out in the midst of this swirling whirlpool of existentialist candor. "You keep talking about the 'word' being this great powerful thing, but if it existed before God, wouldn't that mean that your God was made from this 'word,' like Gaea was born from Khaos? How can there not be two gods in that case?! Doesn't that prove everything is wrong? Your entire faith falls apart if you have multiple gods, right?"
It may have seemed like she was being contrarian, or argumentative, but she genuinely struggled to comprehend the existence of a theology with only a single God that somehow had ordained over all of existence. It seemed like a criminal imbalance of power, to her. How could anyone protect themselves, if He ever made a mistake?! There was nowhere to hide, there was no domain too far, no barrier too strong, and no place too obscure for Him to not be there already.
"Remember, Xantheaa, That there was no such thing as 'before,' when it came to God. Time was not a concept that existed in Heaven. It is a consequence of the finite universe. The Word simply existed. The same way that Space always existed, or Darkness. God is just a universal constant. It's better if you don't think about that for now."
She hissed, clenching her eyebrows into a pained expression of resignation. "Hhhhhhhhhhh, I think you're right. This just doesn't seem to make any sense to me."
'Aswad just glared into the middle distance like he was being bludgeoned with many lodestones upon his noggin. He was right not to interrupt their conversation. These figures were talking about things called "universes," and "infinities;" which were words he didn't even have in his library. Do birds ever worry about the deepness of the black night sky?
The concepts they were casually throwing around were abstract enough to make even Thoth blush. These truly were Neter, no matter what Thrall insisted. He made a mental note to beg for his life again, once they arrived before the gates of Anansi's residence.
"The problem is that you are a finite being created in a finite world by men with a finite imagination. You cannot possibly hope to comprehend the infinite. I bore witness to it myself, and I sometimes struggle to digest the unconscionable magnitude of it. No, all you need to focus on is The Word. Okay?"
"Alright. All right. Okay, sure." She nodded, shaking the thoughts of hierarchies of power, and the cosmological scales from her mind; to be revisited at a later date when she already had magic words to play with. The fun things came first! "I am back. Right there, with you. Tell me about The Word—you have my full undivided attention."
"Good! Glad to hear it. It's good if you have questions, that tells me that you are paying attention. Just don't expect to solve calculus before learning algebra." He laughed—then when he saw the blank expression of complete and utter ignorance on her face, he shook his head, and blushed. "S-sorry. Never mind..."
"No, what is this, 'algea bra?' Do you eat it?"
"It was just a bad joke. From my time..... it's something that hasn't been invented yet. A new level of mathematics that your kind had little need for. It comes in quite handy for the machines of our age, though."
"A higher form of Arithmetics..." She mused. "You mean multiplication? The process of which to add many dozens of numbers together in an instant?"
'Aswad laughed. "You're kidding, right?" He was suddenly feeling a lot less inadequate. Egypt had invented algebra nothing less than 1,200 years ago. "Algebra is, to multiplication, like a temple is to a single brick. You cannot hope to compare the two. Even young consorts know of such things."
"Ah!" Thrall chuckled. "You're right! I had forgotten that it actually was invented during your time, Xantheaa! Your culture had just not been reached with that information by the time the Romans overthrew your designated empire. It was actually invented about 400 years before the fall of Greece. Isn't that incredible?!"
'Aswad crowed proudly, feeling very much invigorated by this sudden influx of attention, and praise. Maybe he wouldn't have to beg for his life, after all!