Canto Fifty-Six – The Prison Pit Again
“Guard! Guard!” called out Starbright. “I am very ill and I think the other two prisoners have died. Please help me!”
“What?” the slow-witted lizard man awakened at the urgent call. “Don’t get sick, please. You will taint the meat!”
“Ooh! I feel like regurgitating everything I ever ate! Did you poison us? Or did the Senator do this to try to cut down on the number of mouths to feed?”
“Why would he do that? Spoiled meat isn’t good to eat.”
“Maybe he wanted you to eat us and die from the poison. How far do you really trust him?”
“Um, maybe you’re right. But what can I do?”
“You can get me away from the diseased bodies so I don’t get sick. Then you could safely eat me.”
“Yes. Eating you sounds good.”
The stupid lizard-man stupidly opened the stupid pit. He looked in, and immediately was seized by a lizard-man hand, a small one.
“Yaargh!” The guard fell with a thud to the floor of the pit. “You have tricked me!”
“Yesss, young lizard… you know who I am, and you know I can kill you now and escape.” Farbick wasn’t sure what Stabharh had in mind as he told the guard this. If he intended to kill the guard, why was he telling him anything?
“Yes, Stabharh… I… I know who you are. You were once the most feared general in all the corporate armies.”
“That’s right. And I should probably just kill you. But I wanted to offer you a chance at survival… not just saving you from me right now, but saving you when Senator Tedhkruhz wants to kill you later.”
“That is very generous of you.”
“Of course it is. This prisoner, Farbick, has taught me that warriors can help each other and do what is best for the group rather than the individual. Did you see me betray Bahbahr, my lord and master?”
“Yes. I thought surely the Senator would execute you for that.”
“He didn’t because he knows he has to be careful that his crew doesn’t realize that serving him is not in their own best interest. You know that he will kill and eat you when the time comes that he must do that to survive.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And it was exactly the same with me and Bahbahr. Your Senator must make me die a horrible death so none of you lot will think of betraying him as I betrayed Bahbahr, even though it might save your lives to do so.”
“So, let me understand this… you are not going to kill me and escape?”
“That’s right.”
“You are going to let me live so I can talk to the rest of the crew?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Help me out of the hole.”
Stabharh took hold of the guard’s foot and hoisted him out of the pit.
“Thank you,” said the guard. And then he slammed the pit door shut again with a resounding clang.
“Maybe…” said Farbick carefully, “just maybe… we should’ve climbed out of the hole before we tried to reason with him?”
“I have not yet quite mastered your tricky Telleron ways,” answered Stabharh.
“Yes,” said Starbright with a sigh in the pitch darkness. “You still have some lessons to learn.”
*****
This she did as a member of Brother Garrow’s Emerald Claw crew in the next adventure where the heroes had to track down a friendly agent of Breland who had been turned into a vampire. She was eighth level at that point, just like the adventurers themselves, and a much more dangerous adversary. She didn’t prevent the characters from capturing the rogue vampire, and she did some damage, but managed to slink off unharmed once again.
*****
Catch a Falling Star 
Evidence There is a Living God
A humorist does well to remember that you should not joke about religion. God does have a sense of humor. But it is a sense of humor backed by the ever-present threat of being struck by lightning. And among religious types, a sense of humor is about as common as a nudist wandering into the midst of a porcupine convention just as the thistle-pigs begin arguing about whether or not God is actually a porcupine.
On the question of God and whether we actually have one, or whether he’s alive or not, we often turn to philosophers for insight. Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher with a hard to spell name. People often turn to him for evidence of god and the accompanying God-thoughts.
But it is entirely possible that Nietzsche did not get the absolute last word on the matter.
Nietzsche was a bit of a poozer when it comes to questions about God. He said that God is dead because the big guy in the sky didn’t seem to be active in the world. At least, not since Bible times.
And if we are supposed to believe that God Jehovah is real because he’s written down in a magic book that so very many people believe in, then why isn’t god Thor to be believed in anymore? He’s written down in some very old books too. And isn’t the story about how Thor almost drank the ocean dry on a bet just as impressive as Jehovah parting the Red Sea for Moses?
But Nietzsche wasn’t a complete and total poozer. He did have some wonderful things to say along with the klunky and hard-to-understand God stuff he said.
It takes a big mind in a big head to think of making the stars dance just by generating chaos-waves in your big old head. That’s the kind of big idea that could become a religion of its own… if Nietzsche wasn’t already dead, of course.
But I tend to believe there really is a living God. My sister posted an old picture of some of the reasons why on Facebook today.
My thing one, thing two, and thing three (in the baby carrier with her feet up) are all the reason I need to believe in miracles. Thing one was recently promoted to Corporal in the Marines. Thing Two has applied for a job at Walmart, and thing three will be a sophomore in high school this fall. Grandma Aldrich is in the middle between thing one and my sister’s girl. The little blond one on the left is my sister’s kid too. All of them are miracles in human form. Grandma Aldrich is gone now. She died not long after this picture was taken. But her life resonates through mine, and through me to my children and nieces and nephews also. I would not be me if it wasn’t for her.
So there is proof of a living God. Everything that exists cannot be erased from existence, even when it disappears from memory. So we are all eternal. We all have touched the stars… at least, in a metaphorical sense. And our bodies, science has proved, are made of star stuff in a literal sense. So it is not too much of a stretch to believe we can make the stars dance.
And if my quasi-religious joking around has God thinking about how to apply a good thunderbolt, well, I was making fun of Nietzsche… wasn’t I?
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Tagged as autobiography, friedrich nietzsche, having faith, making fun of Nietzsche, religion