That Inscrutable Thing

Spartacus by Howard Fast

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:19:00 +0000

And Spartacus taught me that all the bad things men do, they do because they are afraid.

This line comes very near the end of Howard Fast’s novel, but I think it sums up a lot of the reasons he wrote the book. Better, perhaps than the dedication he includes at the very beginning:

This book is for my daughter, Rachel, and for my son, Jonathan. It is a story of brave men and women who lived long ago, and whose names have never been forgotten. The heroes of this story cherished freedom and human dignity, and lived nobly and well. I wrote it so that those who read it, my children and others, may take strength for our own troubled future and that they may struggle against oppression and wrong—so that the dream of Spartacus may come to be in our own time.

Fast wrote that dedication in 1951, and I learned from Wikipedia that the “troubled future” he was referring to arose partly out of the communism scare of the 1950s. Fast was one of the oppressed in that struggle, actually imprisoned at one point due to his involvement in the Communist Party USA.

In some ways, therefore, I think it makes sense for Fast to see a direct parallel between the oppressions of ancient Rome and the oppressions of 1950s America.

Without knowing that backdrop ahead of time, however, there were two things that really surprised me about the novel. The first was how little Spartacus actually appears in it. The only thing I knew about Spartacus before picking up the book was what I had learned from watching Kubrick’s film, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that he was kind of a minor player in the book on which that film was based. The story is really told from the perspective of several Roman citizens, only one of whom actually knew Spartacus, and their perceptions of him are clouded by the very corruption and opulence that Spartacus was rebelling against. In retrospect, given Fast’s motivation for writing the book, I think it is an effective technique. Our narrators are corrupted by the injustices of their society—injustices that they sit atop and that give them their power. As one of them self-referentially observes during a conversation about the use of slaves:

There was a disease in them, but the disease did not appear to weaken them. Here they sat, having eaten their fine food, sipping their mellow wine, and those who contested their power were crucified for miles and miles along the Appian Way. Spartacus was meat; simply meat; like the meat on the cutting table at the butcher shop; not even enough of him to crucify. But no one would ever crucify Antonius Caius, sitting so calmly and surely at the head of the table, speaking of horses, making the extremely logical point that it was better to harness to slaves to a plow than one horse, since there never was a horse which could stand the half-human treatment of slaves.

And the second thing that surprised me was how many parallels I saw between the injustices of Fast’s portrait of ancient Rome and those of America in the 2010s. I’m not looking to put a ton of stock in the comparison, nor do I wish to place any kind of political or value judgment on it, but time and again I found myself stumbling across a sentence, or a paragraph, or a section talking about the levers which turn Roman society and realizing, with only the change of one or two words, they could equally describe the drivers of our current environment.

Here, for example, is a description of the men paid to oversee the slaves at the gold mines of Nubia, and in it I see some parallels with the millions of middle management, ladder-climbing drones in our modern, corporate world.

They are men of Alexandria, bitter, hard men, and they are here because the pay is high, and because they get a percentage of all the gold the mines produce. They are here with their own dreams of wealth and leisure, and with the promise of Roman citizenship when they have served five years in the interest of the corporation. They live for the future, when they will rent an apartment in one of the tenements in Rome, when they will each of them buy three or four or five slave girls to sleep with and to serve them, and when they will spend each day at the games or at the baths, and when they will be drunk each night. They believe that in coming to this hell, they heighten their future earthly heaven; but the truth of the matter is that they, like all prison guards, require the petty lordship of the damned more than perfume and wine and women.

And for those who continue to climb that ladder of opulence and comfort? They see what Batiatus, the man who trained Spartacus to be a gladiator, saw:

Whenever he encountered a millionaire—not merely a man who had millions but one who could spend millions—he was overwhelmed by his own sense of being so small a frog in so small a puddle. When he was a gang leader of the streets of the urbs, his own dream was to accumulate the 400,000 sesterces which would entitle him to admittance into the order of knighthood. When he became a knight, however, he first began to realize what wealth meant, and for all he had climbed—by his own shrewdness too—there was an endless vista of ladder ahead of him.

This is a society in which the ultra-wealthy hold the reins of power. Some of the most compelling comparisons to our world come near the end of the book, when the philosopher Cicero argues the politics of slavery and Roman culture with a senator named Gracchus. Their conversation really pierces through the façade of their own society and, in doing so, I believe Fast is attempting to help the reader pierce beneath the façade of our own. At one point in that lengthy dialogue, Cicero accuses Gracchus of being too frank about his function as a politician. Gracchus responds that frankness is…

“My one virtue, and an extremely valuable one. In a politician, people confuse it with honesty. You see, we live in a republic. That means that there are a great many people who have nothing and a handful who have a great deal. And those who have a great deal must be defended and protected by those who have nothing. Not only that, but those who have a great deal must guard their property, and therefore those who have nothing must be willing to die for the property of people like you and me and our good host Antonius. Also, people like ourselves have many slaves. These slaves do not like us. We should not fall for the illusion that slaves like their masters. They don’t, and therefore the slaves will not protect us against the slaves. So the many, many people who have no slaves at all must be willing to die in order for us to have our slaves. Rome keeps a quarter of a million men under arms. These soldiers must be willing to go to foreign lands, to march their feet off, to live in filth and squalor, to wallow in blood—so that we may be safe and live in comfort and increase our personal fortunes. When these troops went to fight Spartacus, they had less to defend than the slaves. Yet they died by the thousands fighting the slaves. One could go further. The peasants who died fighting the slaves were in the army in the first place because they have been driven off their land by the latifundia. The slave plantation turns them into landless paupers; and then they die to keep the plantation intact. Whereupon one is tempted to say reductio ad absurdum. For consider, my dear Cicero, what does the brave Roman soldier stand to lose if the slaves conquer? Indeed, they would need him desperately, for there are not enough slaves to till the land properly. There would be land enough for all, and our legionary would have what he dreams of most, his plot of land and his little house. Yet he marches off to destroy his own dreams, that sixteen slaves may carry a fat old hog like me in a padded litter. Do you deny the truth of what I say?”

It’s a cynic’s view, perhaps, but I’ve heard these same sentiments expressed in our modern times relative to America’s foreign wars. The people doing the fighting have almost nothing at stake in the outcome, but those with political and financial power have a great deal to lose and to protect, and so the cycle of war and destruction must continue.

Cicero, I think, has a telling response for Gracchus:

“I think that if what you said were to be said by an ordinary man aloud in the Forum, we would crucify him.”

In other words, it is the truth and, more importantly, a truth that must not be spoken. But Cicero does disagree with Gracchus in one important particular—his underlying premise.

“As you state it. You simply omit the key question—is one man like another or unlike another? There is the fallacy in your little speech. You take it for granted that men are as alike as peas in a pod. I don’t. There is an elite—a group of superior men. Whether the gods made them that way or circumstances made them that way is not something to argue. But they are men fit to rule, and because they are fit to rule, they do rule. And because the rest are like cattle, they behave like cattle. You see, you present a thesis; the difficulty is to explain it. You present a picture of society, but if the truth were as illogical as your picture, the whole structure would collapse in a day. All you fail to do is to explain what holds this illogical puzzle together.”

But Gracchus doesn’t shrink from this challenge. Quite the reverse. He embraces it and, in doing so, he paints an equally cynical but strangely compelling picture of modern democratic politics.

“I do,” Gracchus nodded. “I hold it together.”

“You? Just by yourself?”

“Cicero, do you really think I’m an idiot? I’ve lived a long and dangerous life, and I’m still on top. You asked me before what a politician is? The politician is the cement in this crazy house. The patrician can’t do it himself. In the first place, he thinks the way you do, and Roman citizens don’t like to be told that they are cattle. They aren’t—which you will learn some day. In the second place, he knows nothing about the citizen. If it were left to him, the structure would collapse in a day. So he comes to people like myself. He couldn’t live without us. We rationalize the irrational. We convince the people that the greatest fulfillment in life is to die for the rich. We convince the rich that they just part with some of their riches to keep the rest. We are magicians. We cast an illusion, and the illusion is foolproof. We say to the people—you are the power. Your vote is the source of Rome’s strength and glory. You are the only free people in the world. There is nothing more precious than your freedom, nothing more admirable than your civilization. And you control it; you are the power. And then they vote for our candidates. They weep at our defeats. They laugh with joy at our victories. And they feel proud and superior because they are not slaves. No matter how low they sink, if they sleep in the gutter, if they sit in the public seats at the races and the arena all day, if they strangle their infants at birth, if they live on the public dole and never lift a hand to do a day’s work from birth to death, nevertheless they are not slaves. They are dirt, but every time they see a slave, their ego rises and they feel full of pride and power. Then they know that they are Roman citizens and all the world envies them. And this is my peculiar art, Cicero. Never belittle politics.”

Never belittle politics, indeed. Few of us, then or now, really understand it or can wield it with any expertise. Also like today, most people are inured to the role it plays in their lives and the decisions they make. It’s a thick coat of propaganda that is focused less on distracting them from some horrible truth and focused more on defining the framework by which truth is understood.

Most of the Roman citizens in Fast’s work live wholly within this framework. As an example, near the end of the novel, Crassus, the general most responsible for defeating the slave uprising, has purchased Spartacus’ wife, Varinia, and is determined to get her to see the futility of Spartacus’ rebellion.

Crassus said, more gently, “You have been living in Rome now, Varinia. I have taken you through the city in my litter. You have seen the power of Rome, the endless, limitless power of Rome. The Roman roads stretch across the whole world. The Roman legions stands on the edge of civilization and hold back the forces of darkness. Nations tremble at the sight of the legate’s wand, and wherever there is water, the Roman navy rules the seas. You saw the slaves smash some of our legions, but here in the city there is not even a ripple for that. In all reason, is it conceivable to you that a few rebellious slaves could have overthrown the mightiest power the world ever knew—a power which all the empires of antiquity could not match? Don’t you understand? Rome is eternal. The Roman way is the best way mankind ever devised, and it will endure forever. This is what I want you to understand. Don’t weep for Spartacus. History dealt with Spartacus. You have you own life to live.”

Rome itself, of course, is gone. But many of the ideas that created it are not. As Crassus says, that Rome is eternal.

+ + +

Finally, here are some additional sound bites from that long dialogue between Cicero and Gracchus that just seemed too good to let go unrecorded.

Long ago, Cicero had discovered the profound difference between justice and morality. Justice was the tool of the strong, to be used as the strong desired; morality, like the gods, was the illusion of the weak. Slavery was just; only fools—according to Cicero—argued that it was moral.

+ + +

Politics, as he occasionally said, required three unchanging talents and no virtues. More politicians, he claimed, had been destroyed by virtue than by any other cause; and the talents he enumerated in this fashion. The first talent was the ability to choose the winning side. Failing that, the second talent was the ability to extricate oneself from the losing side. And the third talent was never to make an enemy.

+ + +

Gracchus laughed. “Who knows! Julia, politics is a lie. History is the recording of a lie. If you go down to the road tomorrow and look at the crosses, you will see the only truth about Spartacus. Death. Nothing else. Everything else is sheer fabrication. I know.”

+ + +

Only one or two of the chairs were empty. Gracchus, remembering that session, decided that at such moments—moments of crisis and bitter knowledge—the Senate was at its best. The eyes of the old men, who sat so silent in their togas, were full of consequence and without troubled fear, and the faces of the younger men were hard and angry. But all of them were acutely conscious of the dignity of the Roman Senate, and within that context Gracchus could relinquish his cynicism. He knew these men; he knew by what cheap and perverted means they purchased their seats and what a dirty game of politics they played. He knew each and every particular well of filth each and every one of these men kept in his own backyard; and still he felt the thrill and pride of a place among their ranks.

Journeys

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:01:00 +0000

“No, the highway was much better; he’d just set off and go along without thinking about anything for as long as he could. The highway—very, very long, with no end in sight—just like human life, human dreams.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Devils

Chapter Twenty-Two

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:28:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On the night King Gregorovich Farchrist II died, Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II, stricken with grief, fled from the castle, into the city below, and into the waiting arms of his only love, Amanda. She took him inside her humble home and in the back bedroom, apart from her mother, she did the best she could to console the man she loved. Brisbane felt his world coming to an end, as the sorrow he felt for the passing of his King was only compounded by the sorrow he felt for the separation from Amanda his position demanded. In a fit of anger at the world, of misery for himself, and of passion for his beloved, he took Amanda as a man takes a woman, and Amanda gave herself to him. His climax thundered through his body and into his mind and, in that moment, he knew the end he was rushing towards. When he left Amanda that night with a sweet kiss on her lips, she was already pregnant with his child.

+ + +

They decided to use the staircase on the side of the chapel they had entered on, the same side of the river they had been on since the beginning of the adventure. The pack mules, who had followed them readily enough through the secret passage and into the temple, refused to go down the stairs. Shortwhiskers had expected that, and he said they would have to leave them there. They leashed the animals to spikes they drove into the stone floor and the dwarf felt they would be safe enough that way until they could come back to pick them up. Dantrius, however, seemed more concerned about the gold the mules carried than the mules themselves.

They weren’t sure if the two stairways went to the same places, but it was doubtful, as after going down a flight, they turned in opposite directions away from the river. If the two staircases did not meet, they planned on exploring the first one as far as they could before going back to the second one.

They gathered again in a small group, like the pips on the five of a die. The staircase was wide enough to permit this and they slowly descended, Roystnof and Shortwhiskers up front, Stargazer in the middle, and Brisbane and Dantrius bringing up the rear. Brisbane’s thoughts were on the demon they had encountered when they went downstairs at the shrine down the river. He did not want to meet such a beast again, but as he padded down the stairs, Angelika coolly reassured him that no evil could stand against them.

They reached a small landing at the bottom of the first flight and a second one continued on after a turn to the left. They continued down these stairs and then entered into a large underground chamber. The room was a fifty foot square with a ten foot ceiling, and all surfaces seemed to have been carved smooth out of the solid rock of the mountain. The corners weren’t sharp but were rounded slightly and gave the chamber an odd look to it. Every ten feet, all along the walls, a small archway was spaced, each barely large enough for a man to pass through.

Stargazer stepped out in front of everyone else and stood by herself with a look of partial amazement on her face.

A strange and unpleasant feeling sunk deep into Brisbane’s stomach. The chamber made him very uncomfortable and he was not sure why. For the second time that day, he had an unfamiliar pang of claustrophobia. He tried to push it aside, but it continued to nag him at the back of his mind.

“Allie?” he asked. “What is it?”

Stargazer waved her arm at a wall of archways. “They’re the meditation chambers,” she said. “Where the priests would come to meditate and to pray. In the ancient times, it was said Grecolus sometimes visited the most faithful priests in their meditation chambers.”

Stargazer ran to one of the archways and the rest of the party came out to the center of the room. She looked into one of them and then turned around to look at her companions.

“Come and see,” she said.

There were five chambers against one wall and each person went to a separate arch, with Stargazer at the middle one. Brisbane looked into his and saw that after going in for a few feet, it ended and a very narrow shaft went down into the floor. Carved into the face of one of the walls of the dark shaft were the footholds of a ladder.

“They go down to a small chamber,” Stargazer said. “The priests would go down there to meditate. Sometimes for days.”

Brisbane marveled at the size of the shaft. Even Shortwhiskers would have a hard time squeezing down there. As he was leaning over, looking down into that dark hole, his head suddenly started to spin and he had to hold onto the stone walls to avoid falling in. He backed away from the hole and his head started to clear.

“How big are the chambers down there?” Brisbane asked.

“Very small,” Stargazer said matter-of-factly. “They are really just large enough for one person.”

She suddenly went into her archway. Brisbane ran to her. He saw her poised on the first step of the stone ladder.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Stargazer looked at him oddly. “I’m going down. I want to see what it’s like.”

Brisbane looked to his sides. Roystnof and Shortwhiskers had joined him.

“We should probably search them all,” Roystnof said. “We don’t want to miss anything.”

Stargazer started down the ladder.

“Wait!” Brisbane said.

Stargazer stopped. “Gil, what’s the matter with you?”

Brisbane felt sweat bead up on the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure why he was so jumpy, but he felt very uneasy about him or anyone else going down into the meditation chambers. Especially him. He just could not imagine anyone willingly going down into those chambers and sealing themselves away into the earth. He didn’t see how anyone could be relaxed enough to meditate under such circumstances.

“Nothing,” Brisbane said eventually to Stargazer. “Just be careful.”

Stargazer smiled and then disappeared into the shaft. Brisbane turned his back on the arch. Roystnof and Shortwhiskers were standing right there and Dantrius was off in another corner of the chamber.

“She’ll be fine,” Shortwhiskers said. “We’ll probably have to drag her out of there. I think this is one of the reasons why she wanted to come along.”

Brisbane nodded his head weakly. His throat was dry.

Roystnof unshouldered his pack again. As he rummaged through it he spoke aloud, loud enough for Dantrius to hear him if the mage cared to. “We will each go down into one of Miss Stargazer’s meditation chambers, and each of us will need his own light source.”

He brought out of his pack a handful of unlit torches. He handed one to Shortwhiskers and one to Brisbane. Surprisingly, Dantrius came over and took one as well. They all stood for a moment in a small circle, each with a short, fat stick in his hand.

Roystnof turned to Brisbane. “Do you still remember your fire cantrip, Gil?”

Brisbane said nothing. He met Roystnof’s eyes and then looked around the circle. He placed his hand around the end of his torch, closed his eyes, and said the magic word Roystnof had taught him. It had been years since he had done it, but Brisbane remembered and pronounced all the inflections perfectly. He pulled his hand away and the end of the torch began to burn with a bright flame.

Roystnof smiled as he put his torch into Brisbane’s fire and fed off the flame. Shortwhiskers and Dantrius did the same. When they all had lit torches in hand, Roystnof called for them to move out and reminded them to check all the chambers. They set off in different directions and, as Brisbane stood there, he saw each of them choose and arch and disappear down a shaft.

Brisbane tried to swallow and coughed because his throat was so rough. He went over to the arch next to the one Stargazer had gone down. He held the torch out and peered down the shaft. The firelight flickered down and he saw the floor of the meditation chamber perhaps twenty feet down. He looked back into the large chamber, saw it empty, and turned back to the stone ladder.

Brisbane tried to build his confidence. It wasn’t working.

Go, Brisbane, Angelika whispered in his mind. Yours is an honor all would desire. Go down and face your fear.

Brisbane stepped onto the first rung of the ladder. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

I am with you, Brisbane. You need not go alone.

Brisbane started down. The walls of the shaft seemed to swallow him immediately. He had to hold the torch almost straight up above his head to keep from burning himself in the enclosed space. The end of Angelika’s scabbard scraped against one of the walls as he went down, making a shrieking noise and running chills up and down his spine. Each step became more and more difficult and Brisbane became sure the walls were closing in on him. He shut his eyes tightly and let Angelika weave her spell of confidence around him. Her seductive voice did not slow his beating heart, but it kept the organ in his chest.

Brisbane touched the bottom. He stepped off the ladder and slowly opened his eyes. He found himself staring at the footholds of the ladder. He spun around in place—there was no room to make a turn—and met another wall with his gaze.

Down, Brisbane. Farther down.

Brisbane brought the torch down next to his head and looked down. The bottom three feet of the wall was an open space.

Through there, Brisbane. The meditation chamber.

Brisbane felt beside himself. Without Angelika, he did not think he could have made it this far. He had never known he was this claustrophobic, but the truth was now being drilled into him. He began to bend down to peer into the open space, but the angle of Angelika’s scabbard at his belt prevented it. It caught against the walls of the shaft and would not let him crouch. He tried time and time again, but it just wouldn’t work.

You’ll have to take me off, Brisbane.

No! Brisbane’s mind screamed. I couldn’t move without you here.

Young Brisbane. Angelika’s voice was sweetness in his head. I will still be able to speak with you. Just set me here against the ladder.

Brisbane found himself doing so before he realized it. He undid the buckle that secured the scabbard to his waist and gently set Angelika, point down, against the wall in which the ladder was carved. He was now able to bend down and peer into the meditation chamber. What he saw when he did so frightened him more than anything he had seen so far. Carved into the rock, dropped slightly below the floor of the shaft, was a space of about three or four feet on a side, a tiny little chamber of air buried thousands of feet under the mountain. There was nothing in it.

Go on in, Brisbane. Go on in and commune like the priests who lived here centuries ago. They saw their god. What will you see?

It’s empty, Brisbane thought. There’s no need to go in. There’s nothing in there. I should go up and check another one.

Grecolus, young Brisbane. The priests found Grecolus in there. What will you find?

Brisbane began to crawl into the chamber. He put the burning torch down on the floor of the shaft and scraped his chainmail poncho against the stone on the way in. He positioned himself in the chamber, his head touching the ceiling and his knees brought up with his toes bent against the wall. His right hand still dangled out into the air of the shaft and now he drew even that into the chamber.

There. Now. Close your eyes and let yourself go.

Brisbane closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He tried to imagine himself as one of the ancient priests, coming down here to meditate. These chambers must have been the most important part of the temple when it was alive with people. In these tiny cells buried in the earth, men who had devoted their entire lives to the worship and study of Grecolus came to meditate on what they had learned and what they believed. Some of them reached such a state of tranquility that they evidently saw and conversed with this god. Brisbane knew plenty of places in the realm that were considered holy. The Peoples Temple in Raveltown. The Pool of Cleansing in the land across the Sea of Darkmarine. But he now realized he was in, perhaps, the most holy place of all.

And so he tried to tune in on the spiritual channel that was reported to exist here, to feel the power of revelation that others had felt here. From the beginning of his attempt, however, there was something in the way. At first, he couldn’t tell what that something was, but as he sat there, and the something grew in his mind, he began to realize it was his own intense and ever-present feeling of claustrophobia that was getting in his way.

The rock, the rock, the rock pushing in on him from all sides, pushing, pushing, pressing in on him from all sides but mostly from above. The ceiling bending under the impossible weight on top of it, threatening to cave in and crush his fragile body flat. His breathing grew very quick and then stopped altogether. He opened his eyes in shock and saw in the dim torchlight the impossible space he had wedged himself into. He could feel the stone surface against the top of his head, against the back of his neck, against the crook of his back, against the tips of his toes, against the heels of his feet. The tears began to stream down his face as he sat in absolute terror, trying to draw life-giving breath.

He was going to die, Brisbane was sure of it. He was going to die down there in that tiny chamber and the only mystery left was whether he would run out of air first or his heart would burst. But what was worse than the fact that he was going to die was the fact that he was going to die alone and before he really learned anything about what life was really all about. Even Angelika had left him. Brisbane had forgotten about her in his fright and her voice could not reach him. He tried to call out for help, but his jaws were frozen and he still could not breathe. Brisbane’s vision began to pop and fade in the corners.

“Gil?”

The voice was distant and far away.

“Gil? Are you down there?”

It was Roystnof. Brisbane could hear Roystnof. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Roystnof was right there and Brisbane was going to die anyway.

“Gil, I can see your sword. Are you down there?”

My sword!

Answer him, Brisbane

“I’m here, Roy,” Brisbane was suddenly able to say, his voice echoing strangely in the small space. He was also able to breathe and move. He quickly crawled out of the meditation chamber. He picked up the torch and looked up at Roystnof’s face.

“Gil,” Roystnof said. “Miss Stargazer won’t come out of her chamber. She wants to talk to you.”

Brisbane restrapped Angelika to his side and began to climb the ladder. Stargazer wouldn’t come out of her chamber? She wanted to talk to him? The terrors of his experience were gone and his only concern was for Stargazer. In an instant, he was back in the main chamber and looking down the shaft Stargazer had descended. She had not taken a light source with her and only darkness stared back at him.

Roystnof, Shortwhiskers, and Dantrius stood behind him.

“We’ve searched them all,” Roystnof said to Brisbane. “We found nothing except for Nog, who found a passageway at the bottom of one. We want to go on but she says she won’t come out until she talks to you.”

“Forget her,” Dantrius mumbled in the back. “Let’s go.”

Brisbane ignored the mage. He leaned over the open shaft again.

“Allie?”

Her voice came back very softly. “Is that you, Gil?”

“Yes.”

“Come on down. I want to talk to you.”

Brisbane straightened up. He looked at Roystnof for a moment and then slowly started down the ladder, his torch held high above his head.

“Don’t bring the light,” Stargazer called out. “The light will spoil it. It really is quite wonderful.”

Brisbane froze on the ladder, halfway into the floor. Roystnof came over and crouched down in front of him and took Brisbane’s torch from him.

Roystnof nodded. “Go get her out of there,” he whispered.

Brisbane pursed his lips. “Just a minute,” he said and then began to unfasten Angelika from his waist. He handed the scabbarded weapon to Roystnof. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He swallowed a lump in his throat and started down the ladder again.

It was a little better in the dark. The walls didn’t seem to swallow him as much and his heart didn’t thump as loudly. But he still felt uncomfortable as he descended the ladder. He was again seized with a tremor of claustrophobia.

“Allie?” he said as the sweat began to bead on his forehead.

“I’m here, Gil,” Stargazer said, her voice closer. “Come on down.”

Brisbane steeled himself and eventually touched the bottom. He looked up at the little square of light so far above his head. He then crouched down, this time unhindered by his sword, and peered carefully into the meditation chamber. His eyes could not see Stargazer.

“Allie?”

“Gil.” Her voice was very close but he still could not see her. “Roystnof said you searched the other chambers. Did you go into one?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

“What do you mean?” Brisbane thought he could see her vague form in the darkness.

“Well, I mean the others can’t appreciate it. They don’t have the faith. But we do. Can’t you feel the holiness of this place?”

The terror wasn’t as strong with Stargazer down there with him. In his position just outside the meditation chamber, Brisbane could also always see the world of light above him.

“Yes,” Brisbane said. “I can.”

“I’ve never felt closer to Grecolus in my life. I feel completely at ease with myself and the world. It’s all so beautiful, don’t you think?”

Brisbane did not answer. He wished he could feel the things Stargazer felt. He wished he could feel the glory and grandeur of Grecolus. He wished he could see the pattern of the Grecolus-created universe and the possible endings that universe would lead to. He wished he could take joy in all these things. But he couldn’t. When he was down in the meditation chambers, he realized all he could feel was the smallness of his being and the helplessness of his situation.

“Gil?”

“Come on, Allie. We’ve got to go.” He could see her form now and he reached out and took her hand.

“Gil, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Allie,” Brisbane said, tugging gently on her arm. “Nog has found another passage. We have to move on.”

“Okay, Gil.” She shuffled around inside the chamber and stuck her head out in front of Brisbane’s. There were tears on her cheeks.

“What is it, Allie?”

Stargazer shook her head.

“What?”

“It’s just so…” Stargazer said, trailing off. “It just all seems so wonderful.”

Brisbane smiled. “I know it does. I know.”

He pulled her out of the chamber and they stood at the bottom of the ladder for a long time in a silent embrace.

“I love you, Gil,” Stargazer said into his chest.

“I love you, too, Allie.”

They kissed and then started back up the ladder, Brisbane first because he was closer to it. They were quickly back up in the main chamber with the others in the party.

“I hope everything is all right, Miss Stargazer,” Roystnof said to her after she emerged from the shaft. “You gave me quite a scare the way you refused to come up.”

Stargazer smiled oddly at the wizard. “Everything’s fine,” she said to him. “It was just something I wanted to share with Gil. I am fully prepared to continue on our exploration of the temple.”

Roystnof returned her smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“And Roystnof?”

“Yes, Miss Stargazer?”

Stargazer stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. “I don’t think anyone here will mind if you call me Allison.”

Roystnof’s eyebrows flew up. “Very well, Allison,” he said, trying out the name. “Our friend Nog has found a rough stone passage at the bottom of one of these meditation chambers. We have searched them all and Nog’s discovery is the only one worthy of mention. Shall we move on?”

“We shall,” Stargazer said. She took Brisbane’s hand and followed Roystnof over to the arch that Shortwhiskers stood beside. It looked like any one of the others.

They extinguished all the torches they had lit and relied only on Roystnof’s magic lantern before going deeper into the earth. Curious about it, Brisbane asked Roystnof how long his crystal ball would give off luminance for them, and Roystnof said it would shine until he dispelled the magic.

“Or until you die,” Dantrius added tonelessly.

“Well, yes,” Roystnof said. “The power comes from me, so that when I end, so will the light. But I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that any time soon.”

Brisbane gave Dantrius an angry stare and held back a desire to punch the mage in the nose.

“The passage is much larger than the shaft,” Shortwhiskers cut in. “And it looks like it goes on for quite a while. It appears to have been carved in a hurry but it seems secure enough.”

There wasn’t much more to say. Shortwhiskers went down the appropriate ladder first and the rest of the party went down one by one after him. Roystnof, Stargazer, Brisbane, and finally Dantrius. The bottom of the ladder did not give into a tiny meditation chamber, but instead into a corridor with a vaulted ceiling, fully ten feet off the floor and ten feet wide as well. The party gathered momentarily at the bottom of the ladder, arranged themselves into a marching order like the pips of a five on a six-sided die, and them started off down the corridor.

When This Cruel War Is Over by Thomas Fleming

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 01:40:00 +0000

This is a work of historical fiction that I think is trying to pass itself off as something more historical than fiction. The afterword makes mention of the novel’s characters as real people whose stories can only now be told because of the release of their personal papers, but I think that’s a con, because none of the people, texts, or foundations referenced stand up to Google scrutiny. But that’s okay. I can enjoy some misdirection with the best of them.

All in all, it’s an engaging story about people in Indiana and Kentucky near the end of the American Civil War who are conspiring to create a “Western Confederacy” to secede from the Union and the Confederacy and force an end to the war. Fleming is first a historian, so he does a good job grounding his characters and his story in the real issues of customs of the day. Unfortunately, he is second an author, and many of the online reviews I found of the book criticize him for being too heavy-handed with his prose. That’s okay, too. I can enjoy some heavy-handedness with the best of them. It wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the modern best-selling works I’ve read.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about (the historical context, not the heavy-handedness). Janet Todd is the female protagonist of the story, a white woman from Kentucky who was raised with a personal slave named Lucy. At one pivotal point in the story Janet discovers that Lucy has been spying on her, and revealing her role in the creation of the Western Confederacy to the local Union authorities.

For a moment Janet saw the life into which she had been born as an unjust sentence handed down by some malevolent invisible persecutor. She had never asked for this black presence in her life. Any more than her mother and father had asked for this plantation on which a hundred black women and children were eating them into debt while their able-bodied kin worked at half-speed because they knew they could join the Union Army any time they chose and there was nothing Colonel Todd could do to retrieve them. The Todds, Kentucky, the whole South were sinking into ruin because no one knew what to do with these people. To free them risked anarchy, to keep them in bondage produced betrayals like this one—and worse.

It’s a peek into a world in which slavery is a fact of life. It’s wrong, of course it is. I’m not trying to argue it isn’t. But in 1864 it was a fact of life, and a tremendous and life consuming war was being fought over it, and Janet’s frustration with not being able to live with or without it is both perfectly natural from a human perspective and perfectly foreign from a modern one.

Another great tidbit comes from the following:

Henry Gentry gulped his bourbon. He wished he could pray to someone for forgiveness. But he had no hope or faith in such a possibility. Since Harvard, he had never been a believer in much of anything beyond Ralph Waldo Emerson’s careless God, Brahma, the blind slayer of the evil and the good.

I haven’t read much Emerson, so I had to hunt this one down. It’s from one of his most famous poems, Brahma, which begins:

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Like a lot of poetry I had to read that a few times to get the gist of it, and the line from Fleming’s novel certainly helped. It is well known that leaders on both sides in the American Civil War thought that they were acting in accordance with God’s will—at least early on. More and more of them came to believe by the end that God, if he meddled at all in the affairs of men, had a different purpose in mind that neither side could claim but which both sides together were fulfilling. That purpose is usually seen as the noble one—the eradication of slavery and the long-delayed punishment for those who had perpetrated it. Fleming here raises the possibility that his purpose may not have been so noble. It may, in fact, have been inscrutable—a notion that certainly appeals to my sensibilities.

Female Desires by Rosalind Coward

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:33:00 +0000

I picked this one up on a whim at one of the library’s used book sales. The subtitle, “How They Are Sought, Bought and Packaged,” caught by eye, and I thought it was going to be an analysis of how the advertising industry seeks, buys and packages female desires in order to better sell its products. It’s not. It’s a series a sometimes unconnected essays on a variety of feminist topics by a British journalist, columnist and academic. It was also written in the 1980s, and some of the material seems a little dated.

It did help me get my brain around two big ideas, however.

1. Problems are defined by the powerful, and the powerful always offer solutions based on behavior changes to be made by the less powerful.

This one goes beyond feminism, I think. The case in point is the depression experienced by women who find it difficult to live up the expectations of men. The problem, defined by men, is the depression, and the solution, offered by men, is for women to cheer up and work harder. It’s just as valid to say that the problem is the unfair expectations of men and the solution is for men to change those expectations, but the problem is not defined that way and that solution is not proposed. The people in a position to do so are in the underclass, without the opportunity to suggest or effect that change.

The same dynamic can be seen in plenty of other circumstances outside the one cited in the book. Those with power are in a position to demand change in others, and that is always the first instinct when problems arise.

2. Women represent the gender on which society seeks to write its sexual and moral ideals.

I never thought of it in these terms before, but it seems true. Sexual morality in most human cultures is defined by the use of female sexuality—by men or by women—and not by the use of male sexuality. What an epiphany this must be for growing boys and growing girls when they come to understand this. For the boys, it must be liberating. For the girls, stifling.

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Tuchman won the Pulitzer Prize for this narrative of the first month of the First World War, and deservedly so. There were parts I had a difficult time getting into, primarily, I think, because of my unfamiliarity with the people and events that shaped that period of history. The details of troop movements and of military command structures can sometimes grow tedious, especially when you’re sometimes struggling to understand which are French, which are German, and which are Russian.

But there is also plenty of the kind of history I love—history that is less about marches and bullets and more about the people who forced and fired them. Indeed, the first several chapters are a kind of cultural history of the belligerents, and a handy guide to understanding their differing motivations and objectives.

And the two primary players, the French and the Germans, were very much planning for war. They had last tussled in the Franco-Prussian War, which had ended badly for the French in a place called Sedan in 1870. They lost a piece of their national character there, and the terms of surrender included the loss of the most treasured region of their homeland. At the time, Victor Hugo predicted:

“France will have but one thought: to reconstitute her forces, gather her energy, nourish her sacred anger, raise her young generation to form an army of the whole people, to work without cease, to study the methods and skills of our enemies, to become again a great France, the France of 1792, the France of an idea with a sword. Then one day she will be irresistible. Then she will take back Alsace-Lorraine.”

France built an offensive plan exactly for this circumstance. When war came again, they would concentrate their force and take back Alsace-Lorraine if they achieved nothing else. Their military, their government, their population were all organized in a way to facilitate the execution of this ultimate purpose. Through a long and connected line of military thinkers, they had come to embrace this “will to re-conquer,” and the dash and élan it gave their soldiers, as their fundamental strategic asset, almost to the extent of eschewing the more mundane realities of weapons and firepower. This spirit was clearly epitomized in the French Field Regulations of 1913, used as the fundamental document for the training and conduct of their army.

“The French Army, returning to its traditions, henceforth admits no law but the offensive.” Eight commandments followed, ringing with the clash of “decisive battle,” “offensive without hesitation,” “fierceness and tenacity,” “breaking the will of the adversary,” “ruthless and tireless pursuit.” With all the ardor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy, the Regulations stamped upon and discarded the defensive. “The offensive alone,” it proclaimed, “leads to positive results.” Its Seventh Commandment, italicized by the authors, stated: “Battles are beyond everything else struggles of morale. Defeat is inevitable as soon as the hope of conquering ceases to exist. Success comes not to him who has suffered the least but to him whose will is firmest and morale strongest.”

Heady stuff. And the Germans? Well, they had developed a plan of battle, too. Theirs was based on their belief in the ultimate superiority of the German character. Like the ancient Greeks, they believed that character was fate, and that their national character destined them for greatness. A greatness, for example, that easily superseded the petty sovereignty of any of their European neighbors. So rather than plan to attack France through the thick forests around Alsace-Lorraine, their intent was the rampage through neutral Belgium and swoop down on Paris from the north.

A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen’s, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the “All-Highest.” What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on “the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute.”

The Germans encountered much more resistance in Belgium than they expected. The Belgian people, surprisingly from the perspective of the overpowering German character, disapproved of the violation of their neutrality, and fought back. They ultimately couldn’t stop the Germans, but they did knock them off the schedule of their detailed battle plans.

Another glimpse into the German psyche is revealed in this passage about their reaction to the local guerilla fighters (the franc-tireur) they encountered upon finally invading French soil.

Fear and horror of the franc-tireur sprang from the German feeling that civil resistance was essentially disorderly. If there has to be a choice between injustice and disorder, said Goethe, the German prefers injustice. Schooled in a state in which the relation of the subject to the sovereign has no basis other than obedience, he is unable to understand a state organized upon any other foundation, and when he enters one is inspired by an intense uneasiness. Comfortable only in the presence of authority, he regards the civilian sniper as something particularly sinister. To the Western mind the franc-tireur is a hero; to the German he is a heretic who threatens the existence of the state. At Soissons there is a bronze and marble monument to three schoolteachers who raised a revolt of students and civilians against the Prussians in 1870. Gazing at it in amazement, a German officer said to an American reporter in 1914, “That’s the French for you—putting up a monument to glorify franc-tireurs. In Germany the people would not be allowed to do such a thing. Nor is it conceivable that they would want to.”

These, then, are the characteristics of the two primary belligerents that anxiously renewed their age-old aggressions against each other in what we now call the First World War. And it is the long history of their animosity that is one of the central messages that Tuchman’s book left me with. The First World War, contrary to what I may have previously thought, wasn’t just something that these two nations and their various allies fell into. I might once have believed that Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated and all the overlapping alliances of Europe forced a dozen nations to go to war with one another. In fact, Germany and France were itching to go to war with each other, planning and conditioning themselves for it since the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and the assassination was only the match that lit the fuse. The war was inevitable, and even those who tried to stop it when the day came, were trapped by the plans and military timetables that had already been laid a generation before.

War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use. Agents at frontiers were reporting every cavalry patrol as a deployment to beat the mobilization gun. General staffs, goaded by their relentless timetables, were pounding the table for the signal to move lest their opponents gain an hour’s head start. Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible for their country’s fate attempted to back away but the pull of military schedules dragged them forward.

And it is snippets like this…

In Belgium there are many towns whose cemeteries today have rows and rows of memorial stones inscribed with a name, the date 1914, and the legend, repeated over and over: “Fusille par les Allemands” (Shot by the Germans). In many are newer and longer rows with the same legend and the date 1944.

…that show World War I was not a unique circumstance in the history of these nations. The painful truth is that the belligerents in Europe had been enemies for centuries, and the battle plans they used in the 1940s, the 1910s, the 1870s, and probably previously, were based to a large extent on the dictates of their national characters and the vagaries of a landscape they had come to understand from generations of combat.

+ + + + +

One of the challenges the Allies had in the first month of World War I was the lack of a central command. The French, the Belgians, the English and the Russians were all on the continent, fighting on the same side against the Germans, and although the Russians were separated from the others, the French, the Belgians and the English found themselves struggling to coordinate their efforts so they could have the fullest effect. Here’s a typical passage describing just such an instance.

As Joffre saw it, the Belgian Army, ignoring purely Belgian interests for the sake of a common front, should act as a wing of the French Army in conformity with French strategy. As King Albert saw it, with his clearer sense of the danger of the German right wing, if he allowed the Belgian Army to make a stand at Namur it could be cut off from its base at Antwerp by the advancing Germans and pushed out of Belgium over the French border. More intent on holding the Belgian Army on Belgian soil than upon common strategy, King Albert was determined to keep open his line of retreat to Antwerp.

The English especially, it seemed, were intent on maintaining their own independence on the continent. Or, at least, that was the intention of their commander, Sir John French. He wanted either a decisive victory where the Brits delivered the fatal blow, or absolutely no casualties whatsoever, and he positioned his small force accordingly.

The four armies—British, French, Belgian, and German—tussled awkwardly and without much coordination with each other for nearly the entire month of August 1914. The French experienced a continuous series of setbacks and the Germans made tactical progress, albeit behind their scheduled timetable. Eventually, the Germans were poised to enter Paris itself. And here Tuchman offers some interesting perspective on that unbounded élan that drove the French army to take up their arms in the first place. She believes it had been an utter failure and was then all but gone. In the last desperate order issued by the French commanding general, she sees no trace of it. It was grim and direct.

“Now, as the battle is joined on which the safety of the country depends, everyone must be reminded that this is no longer the time for looking back. Every effort must be made to attack and throw back the enemy. A unit which finds it impossible to advance must, regardless of cost, hold its ground and be killed on the spot rather than fall back. In the present circumstances no failure will be tolerated.”

The battle that followed was the battle of the Marne, in which the French and their allies were able to stem the German advance and force them to entrench into the line that would define much of the Western Front for the rest of the war. And just like that, as demoralized and sullen as the French spirit had become, this victory resurrected it. Perhaps less so in the minds of the French soldiers, but infinitely more so in the minds of their enemies. Here’s what German general Alexander von Kluck said after the battle:

The basic reason for German failure at the Marne, “the reason that transcends all others…was the extraordinary and peculiar aptitude of the French solider to recover quickly. That men will let themselves be killed where they stand, that is a well-known thing and counted on in every plan of battle. But that men who have retreated for ten days, sleeping on the ground and half dead with fatigue, should be able to take up their rifles and attack when the bugle sounds, is a thing upon which we never counted. It was a possibility not studied in our war academy.”

Tuchman strongly disagrees with this assessment, citing a number of errors and other commitments the Germans had made as the primary reason for their loss on the Marne. But the takeaway for me is that war, rather than proving the moral superiority of one of two clashing ideologies, is more frequently a place where dangerous myths are given new life for future generations.

+ + + + +

Like so many wars before and after it, it is not in the national battle plans or in the memoirs of the generals that we find the painful truth of the First World War. It is rather in the diaries of the fighting men themselves that we find its most honest and vivid description.

“The guns recoil at each shot. Night is falling and they look like old men sticking out their tongues and spitting fire. Heaps of corpses, French and German, are lying every which way, rifles in hand. Rain is falling, shells are screaming and bursting—shells all the time. Artillery fire is the worst. I lay all night listening to the wounded groaning—some were German. The cannonading goes on. Whenever it stops we hear the wounded crying from all over the woods. Two or three men go mad every day.”

Chapter Twenty-One

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:12:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In Farchrist Year Eighty-Five, eighty-one years after his birth, King Gregorovich Farchrist II died. The whole of the valley felt and grieved the passing of such a great and most-loved ruler. Born four years after the start of the Farchrist Empire, he was the son of the people as much as he was the son of his father. He was the first sign that the Empire would continue, that it would not expire like so many other temporary monarchies. He founded the Order of the Farchrist Knights and later, as King, had conveyed that title upon countless deserving young men. He had orchestrated the attack against Dalanmire and lost his only son to the winged lizard. He had opened trade with the dwarven nation to the north and ruled his kingdom with a gentle and loving hand. But of all who loved and respected him, and were saddened at his passing, when the crown was passed on to Gregorovich Farchrist IV, no one grieved more than Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II.

+ + +

Brisbane drew the last watch that night. He would guard the camp in the final hours of the night and wake the rest of the party when the sun rose. When Shortwhiskers awoke him after the second watch, Brisbane did not even think about the lost temple and what mysteries it might hold. But when he found himself sitting awake outside, listening for noises in the night, he found it hard to think of anything else.

This was no little shrine. That thought occurred to him time and time again. This was not a tiny place where people passing through could stop and pay their small respects to their god. This was a temple, where a group of ancient people spent and lived out their lives in devotion to a mythology that pleased them so much, they accepted it as doctrine. Who knew what these people had left behind? Who knew what Brisbane and his friends would find inside? Brisbane was not so uneducated that he did not realize his journey and search for the lost temple of Grecolus was not also a journey and search for Grecolus himself. But he also knew this was not a search for the Grecolus of today, the one he had been taught to fear and love, the one who had been turned into the ultimate protective father by the leaders of his religion; but it was a search for the Grecolus of yesterday, the one who used magic to battle Damaleous, the one who gave Stargazer her healing powers, and the one who had angels on earth in the shape of unicorns. Whereas Brisbane was firmly convinced that the Grecolus of today was a sham and a device to instill moral behavior on the populace, he was still open to the possibility that the Grecolus of yesterday might still be alive, stranded out here in the wilderness and abandoned by his own worshippers.

It was one of the longest nights in Brisbane’s life, longer than the nights he had spent beside his mother’s death bed, and when the sun began to lighten the sky, he quickly went over and shook the rest of his companions awake. Only Dantrius seemed annoyed at the disruption of his slumber, and as Brisbane took a small delight in that, he supposed the rest were just as eager as he to begin exploring the temple they had finally found.

The business of breakfast and packing up camp was quickly attended to and it wasn’t long before the party was gathered before the entrance to the temple on their side of the river, ready and anxious to go in.

The portal was almost an exact replica of the one at the shrine down the river. It was ten feet high and five feet wide, placed in the middle of a wall thirty feet wide and twenty feet high. The doorway had the strange and ancient runes bordering it on three sides as well. What was different about this portal was that it did not open directly into the temple itself. Inside there was a small, narrow antechamber, and inside that, directly opposite the entry portal, was a massive stone door.

Stargazer, dressed in a blue tunic and tan trousers and holding her iron-tipped staff before her, stepped up to the portal and examined the runes that surrounded it.

“They’re nearly the same as the ones on the shrine,” she said. “These on the left proclaim this to be a temple devoted to Grecolus, and these on the right warn that entrance to this temple is possible only for the faithful.”

“Does that mean it’s trapped?” Roystnof asked, dressed in red and black, his own staff in hand.

“It doesn’t say so specifically,” Stargazer warned. “It just says only the faithful can enter.”

“The trap is implied,” Roystnof said.

“How can we be sure?” Brisbane asked. His chainmail poncho twinkled in the sunlight.

“We cannot,” Roystnof said. “The warning means one of three things. One, it means exactly what it says. The entrance is magically barred and only the truly faithful to Grecolus can pass through. Two, the entrance is trapped so that one who knows the trap can enter and those who do not cannot. And three, it means nothing. It is an empty threat. Since only the second meaning contains some sort of potential danger to us, it would be wise to operate under that stipulation until something compels us to change that viewpoint.”

“Sounds sensible to me,” Shortwhiskers said. He already had his sword out. “What sort of trap should we be looking for?”

No one seemed to know and they looked at each other helplessly. Finally Dantrius, his black hair falling in his hollow face, spoke.

“The deadly sort.”

“Well,” Shortwhiskers said. “I’ll go take a look at the way this thing’s constructed. Maybe I can find a secret way in by looking at the stonework.”

Roystnof said that was a good idea and Shortwhiskers went off to inspect the outside surface of the temple. He returned shortly and proclaimed the place seemed solidly constructed to him.

“On this side of the river, at least,” the dwarf said.

“The place has a certain symmetry to it,” Roystnof said. “I would assume what is present here will be present there.”

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, really. Unless we want to get wet.”

“We will just have to proceed carefully and hope for the best,” Roystnof said. “Nog, you have the best eye for stonework. Why don’t you lead us in?”

Shortwhiskers swallowed visibly. “All right. But don’t crowd me and don’t step anywhere I don’t step. Single file. Get it?”

Everyone agreed and they quickly decided on a marching order. Shortwhiskers would lead the way, followed by Roystnof, Stargazer, and Brisbane. Dantrius would bring up the rear. That wasn’t where anyone wanted to put Dantrius, but he put up his usual stink and this time, instead of arguing, they let him have his way. Brisbane would make it a point to watch his back as well as his front.

Before proceeding, Shortwhiskers sheathed his sword and took Roystnof’s staff. The dwarf then approached the entrance and used the staff to poke the earthen floor inside the portal. He jabbed it sharply in several places and then quickly withdrew it before it could be damaged by whatever trap might have been sprung. Lastly, he set one end of the staff in the center of the antechamber and leaned on it heavily. Still, nothing happened.

Shortwhiskers gave Roystnof back his staff. “Light, please,” he said, and Roystnof waved his hand and filled the small antechamber with one of his light spells.

Brisbane held his breath as Shortwhiskers stepped into the antechamber. This was a nervous business and it was starting to get to Brisbane. He did not like the danger the unseen trap posed for him and his friends, but he knew one thing because of it. There had to be something pretty special inside the temple for the ancient worshippers to build a trap in order to guard it.

Shortwhiskers stood in the center of the antechamber, his hands on his hips and turning in a circle, examining everything he saw. He touched nothing. The antechamber itself seemed to be a perfect ten foot cube of empty space, with hard stone for its ceiling and walls. One wall was cut with the open portal and the one opposite that had the heavy stone door chiseled into it.

The party waited as Shortwhiskers went on with his examination. He looked at the door for a long time, studying the hinges and the small cracks between them. It looked unremarkable to Brisbane but Shortwhiskers seemed absorbed by it. When he was done, he examined the flanking walls, one at a time. With the second one, he got down on his knees before it and crouched way down to peer at the line where it met the earth floor. He still hadn’t touched anything.

He sat back and began running his fingers through his beard. The dwarf isolated one of his short whiskers between his thumb and forefinger and, with a quick jerk, pulled it out of his chin. Bending back over, he brought this hair next to the wall way down by the floor and held it steady.

Brisbane stood on his tiptoes to get a good look at what Shortwhiskers was doing. He could just see the hair in the dwarf’s fingers and he saw it wiggle around in a soft current of air.

Shortwhiskers stood up and craned his neck to look at the ceiling. He walked slowly about the antechamber, holding his head up the whole time. Just when Brisbane thought Shortwhiskers was going to get a neck cramp for the rest of his life, the dwarf stopped looking up and stepped back out of the antechamber.

“What’s the news?” Roystnof asked.

Shortwhiskers pondered to himself for a moment longer. “Near as I can figure, that ceiling block is rigged to collapse. I’m not sure what triggers it, but I would assume it has something to do with the door. I mean, the floor is obviously not the trigger. Also, there is a passage behind that one wall. There’s most likely a secret entrance there. That’s probably how they got in without crushing themselves.”

“Are you sure?” Roystnof asked.

“No,” Shortwhiskers said. “But I’d bet on it.”

“How do we get in?” Stargazer asked.

“Somebody has to figure out how to open the secret door into the hidden passage,” the dwarf said. “They’ll have to touch it to do that, and that might trip the stone block, too.”

Brisbane looked up at the ceiling of the antechamber. There was the tiniest of cracks running all around it, less than an inch from the tops of the walls. Without Roystnof’s light spell, he didn’t think anyone would have noticed it. The ceiling of the antechamber was ten feet high and the temple itself was twenty feet. That meant the block could be as much as a ten foot cube of stone. That had to weigh several tons and would surely kill whomever it smashed down upon.

“You’re the stone mason, dwarf,” Dantrius said from the back of the group. “Why don’t you do it?”

Shortwhiskers looked angrily at the mage and then dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

“You’ve taken enough risk, Nog,” Roystnof said. “One of us will search for the hidden entrance.”

“No, Roystnof,” Shortwhiskers said. “It’s my game. I set the odds and now I’ll roll the dice. Give me your staff.”

Roystnof gave the dwarf his staff. Shortwhiskers stood outside the antechamber and rapped the end of the staff against the side wall, much like he had done to the floor. When nothing resulted, he gave the staff back to Roystnof and stepped inside the small chamber. He began to run his hands over the surface of the stone, covering as much of the wall as he could reach. He started from the bottom and worked his way up, running both his hands over every inch of stone. When he got up to a spot about four feet off the floor, about even with his forehead, he stopped. He put his finger on the spot and then leaned away from the wall to get a different view of the stone. Lastly, he moved in close and, standing on his tiptoes, placed his nose against the spot and inhaled noisily, sniffing the stone like a bloodhound.

“Gil,” Shortwhiskers said. “Come here.”

Brisbane exchanged glances with the rest of the party. Roystnof’s and Stargazer’s eyes were saying be careful. Dantrius’ were saying so go already. He stepped into the antechamber and stood behind Shortwhiskers, trying not to think about the rock above his head.

Shortwhiskers still had his finger on the spot. “Put your finger here.”

Brisbane placed his index finger next to Shortwhiskers’ and when the dwarf pulled his away, Brisbane moved his over a little to cover the exact same spot. It looked like any other part of the wall to him.

“That’s the spot,” Shortwhiskers said. “It’s too high for me so you’ll have to do it. You have to push on that spot with a hard and constant force. Don’t push against it in jerks, it has to be slow and steady and even. Understand?”

“I think so,” Brisbane said.

“And push directly into the wall,” Shortwhiskers went on. “Don’t push into it on any angle, that’s why I can’t do it, it’s too high for me to push on it right. Slow, steady, and straight into the wall. Okay?”

Brisbane nodded. “Anything else?”

“Just one more thing,” Shortwhiskers said as he looked up at the ceiling and began backing out of the antechamber. “Good luck.”

Brisbane dryly thanked him and turned back to the spot he was saving on the stone wall. He certainly hoped this worked. He placed both hands against the spot, braced himself, and began to push, hard and steady. At first, nothing happened and Brisbane was just glad the stone block didn’t come crashing down on his head. But as he continued to apply pressure, the wall began to turn inward, revealing cracks that were invisible before as the whole slab of rock turned slowly on its center pivot support.

“Keep pushing,” Shortwhiskers reminded him and Brisbane kept pushing. Fairly soon, the wall had been turned ninety degrees and the hidden passageway was open for their travel.

“Well done, Gil,” Shortwhiskers said as he again took his position at the head of the line. “Was it heavy?”

“Not too bad,” Brisbane said as he took his own place in the line-up.

The passageway they had found was a narrow one, and even walking in single file, it was a tight squeeze. Brisbane’s broad shoulders brushed both sides of the corridor and his head nearly touched the ceiling. He suffered a momentary pang of claustrophobia but he put it aside when he realized the passageway must open up into a larger room eventually. The corridor went in a few feet, turn to the right, went on for a few more feet, and then did open up as Brisbane had hoped.

Shortwhiskers stepped out of the secret corridor and into a dark room. He stood in the way and let no one else in.

“There’s nothing warm in here,” he said after a while, his voice echoing strangely in the open space. “Light it up, Roystnof.”

The dwarf stepped aside and let Roystnof in. The wizard set his backpack down, rummaged through it, and pulled out a small crystal ball, about the size of a grapefruit. He also brought out a small sling made of gold chain with a specially-designed ring, meant to carry a small round object. He put the ball in the sling and held onto the end of the chain. The ball hung from the chain’s length a foot below his hand.

“What are you doing?” Stargazer asked him, slipping her way into the room.

“You’ll see,” he told her.

Roystnof cast his light spell, but this time, instead of casting it into the room, he cast it into the crystal ball. The ball flared with an inner light and began to illuminate their surroundings like the most powerful lantern.

Brisbane and Dantrius stumbled into the room as their heads looked around, with those of the others, at their newfound surroundings. The room was thirty feet square with a twenty foot ceiling. To their immediate right was the stone door Shortwhiskers had said was trapped, still shut, and thirty feet away, on the opposite wall of the room, was an archway leading into another chamber. Running down the other two walls, creating a sort of hall down the middle, were lined a great number of tall slender statues. They were all of men, they were all ten feet tall, and they were all squeezed next to each other like peas in a pod.

For a moment, the sight of the statues reminded Brisbane of the run-in they had with the basilisk and the sorry fate from which Roystnof had to save Roundtower. But almost immediately, Brisbane saw these could not possibly be the victims of such a creature. They were much too tall to have once been human. Their slender figures could not have existed in the flesh. Their arms ran down their sides and their vertical lines only enhanced their thin height. Most had long beards and all had their heads bowed as if to watch people walking through the room.

Stargazer stepped out to get a better look at them.

“What are they?” Brisbane asked.

“They’re the ancient prophets,” Stargazer said, counting them with her finger and mouthing their names with her lips. “All twelve of them.”

She spun around to look at the twelve against the other wall. They were the same but they were in the reverse order.

“The ancient prophets?” Roystnof asked.

Stargazer nodded. “The men who wrote the scriptures. Grecolus made his will known through them. They now all reside on the highest thrones in the heavens.”

Brisbane knew all this from his childhood teachings. He tried to remember all their names now, but could only come up with three or four. They were men who had devoted their whole lives to the worship of Grecolus and to the teachings of his religion. They were men whose lives were to be emulated by all devoted children of Grecolus. They were often called saints.

They also made Brisbane nervous. He thought of the centuries these statues had spent in the dark before they had come along with Roystnof’s magic lantern. He imagined the ancient priests of the temple looking up at their stone faces in awe and wonderment. To elevate men so far above their fellows felt somehow wrong to Brisbane. These prophets were just men, uneducated men largely, who, because of their ravings about Grecolus speaking to them, were now remembered as great men, more than men and less than gods. Brisbane wondered how a man who claimed Grecolus spoke to him today would be received. He would be called blasphemous or insane, and could be thrown into prison for either.

Shortwhiskers called for a search of the room and everyone began to investigate all the corners of the chamber. All kept a discrete distance from the stone door they had bypassed. After several minutes, it was obvious the room contained nothing but the statues.

They moved on, this time in a small group instead of single file, with Roystnof and his magic lantern near the front. They went through the archway in the far wall and entered into a large chamber that could only be the chapel room of the temple. It was much wider than it was long, the far wall being another thirty feet away, the left wall ten feet from the arch, and the right wall lost on the other side of the lantern’s range. There was a stairway leading down into the mountain in the visible corner.

The party walked out into the center of the room so that the lantern could illuminate all of it. They stood on the floor that was suspended over the Mystic River and saw that the hall was fully ninety feet wide. Two pillars supported the arched ceiling and between them were the chamber’s two main features. The first, hanging against the wall through which they had come, was a gigantic tapestry, depicting a scene much like the one back at the shrine, that of titanic, powerful hands parting a cloudbank against a blue sky. The second feature, sitting near the opposite wall, was a solid stone altar, five feet high and ten feet long, decorated with the strange runes seen around the entrance portal. There was a matching staircase and archway on the far side of the room.

No one said anything for many moments. There was a stale smell in the air and not a sound to be heard.

“I’ll go check the other arch,” Roystnof said and everyone looked at him as if he had shouted.

The wizard went over to the arch, held up his lantern and peered in. When he came back to the group he reported the room inside to be an exact duplicate of the one they had come through.

“Looks like you were right about the symmetry of this place,” Shortwhiskers told Roystnof. “I hope that keeps up. We’ll only have to search half of it.”

Roystnof laughed nervously and another silence fell over the group. Stargazer went over to examine the altar and Brisbane went with her. The others looked around the room aimlessly. A detailed search would not be necessary. It was obvious this place was as empty as the last chamber.

“So where is everything?” Dantrius asked the air. Brisbane was sure it was a question on everyone’s mind. “Where’s all the treasure and gold?” He turned to Shortwhiskers. “Wasn’t this place supposed to be full of treasure?”

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “Those were the rumors I heard. Rumors aren’t always true.”

“Well, what the hells kind of religion was this, anyway?” Dantrius said, his voice much too loud for such a long silent place. “Did they make everything out of stone? Don’t they have anything made out of gold? Sacramental candlesticks or bowls or something? Jewel-eyed idols or jewel-handled daggers or something? Anything? I mean, look at that altar. It could be a snack table.”

A very uneasy silence settled down among them after Dantrius’ outburst. Shortwhiskers broke it.

“This place has been deserted for quite some time. Who knows how many times it has been looted?”

Dantrius shook his head and moved away from the group.

Brisbane was still with Stargazer at the altar. She stepped closer to him.

“Grecolus does not require such baubles for his worship,” she whispered to him. “They serve no useful purpose. Flashy things only cause trouble and take minds off Grecolus and puts them on greed and sin.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Allie,” Brisbane said. “I didn’t say anything about it.”

Stargazer smiled at him. “I know, Gil. It’s just that Dantrius. He makes me so mad.”

“Well,” Brisbane said, “you won’t have to worry about him much longer. Once this adventure is over, Roy plans on giving him the boot.”

Stargazer shook her head. “He must be truly evil if he can’t even get one of his own kind to tolerate him.”

Brisbane stiffened.

“I’m sorry, Gil,” Stargazer said. “You know what I meant.”

Brisbane nodded. “I know,” he said, forgiving her. He thought again of what he was going to do when Roystnof really did give Dantrius the boot, and he expected Brisbane to officially continue his training as Roystnof’s apprentice. He didn’t know what he could do. He only knew that he couldn’t tell Roystnof no and he couldn’t say yes and continue to see Stargazer. It was not going to be an easy time for him.

“Come on, everybody,” Roystnof called out to the group. “Let’s go check out downstairs.”

It was the next logical step in their exploration of the temple, and if it hadn’t brought the time in which Brisbane would have to make his difficult decision another step closer, Brisbane might have welcomed it.

Journalists

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:43:00 +0000

“I always get my facts wrong. It is the mark of the journalist.”
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (Karkov)

Instinct

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:26:00 +0000

“I’ve studied and maybe learned how things are, but I’m not even close to why they are. And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws in a stream to fool dogs. A fox can’t say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again?”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden (Cyrus Trask)

Information

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 02:37:00 +0000

“There’s no such thing as useless information.”
David Eddings, The Seeress of Kell (Beldin)

Chapter Twenty

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 03:40:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the next couple of years Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II carried on a secret relationship with the young peasant woman named Amanda. He would continue on his missions of conquest away from Farchrist Castle, preparing himself for the day he hoped to face and defeat Dalanmire, but each time he left and each time he returned he would secretly go into the City Beneath the Castle to visit the girl with whom he was quickly falling in love. She became everything to him and the more they learned about each other, the more perfect their coupling seemed. She was beautiful, intelligent, loving, passionate, and had a great love for her creator throbbing in her heart. Indeed, the only problem they faced, the problem that forced them to carry their affair on in secret, was that she was a commoner, and a Knight was forbidden to socialize with one so far below his station. Time and time again, Brisbane said he would leave the knighthood for her, but Amanda would not hear of it. His knighthood was as important to her as it was to him.

+ + +

The fifth day out from Queensburg was an eventful one. Before the sun set on them, they had fought a massive battle, uncovered a great deal of treasure, and had found the temple for which they had been searching.

The day itself, however, started like any other. They arose at dawn, woken by Shortwhiskers, who had stood the final watch the night before, ate a quick breakfast, packed up their camp on the two mules, and continued their journey up the Mystic. The river was noticeably thinner now, really only a stream, and Roystnof predicted that at their present pace, they should reach the source of the Mystic within a day or so. The mountains around them were also growing taller, creating more and more shade and shortening the length of time they could walk in daylight.

They marched for most of the day in peace and it seemed that another day of quiet journey would come to a close when the small party stumbled across the cave.

It was in one of the mountains on the north side of the river, the side they were following to the source. It was a huge gaping maw in the rockface, shaded by the mountain it bore into so that near the entrance it was almost like night. When it was spotted, the party was called to a halt to talk about what should be done. A vote was called for and, surprisingly, everyone agreed that at least one of their number should take a peek inside.

The arguing came about when the decision was to be made of who should go in and, of course, the main instigator of the argument was Dantrius. Brisbane noticed how the mage was seemingly incapable of going along with any suggestion that was not his own. The obvious choice for the job was Shortwhiskers, who had spent a good deal of his life living in underground caverns and who had the corresponding racial attributes to aid him in the task of slipping in and out unseen by whatever might lair in the cave. But Dantrius said he did not trust the dwarf and he felt he should be the one who scouted out the cave.

But, as usual, a vote was taken and Dantrius was silenced by democracy in action. The party moved silently up to the cave and Shortwhiskers went in alone.

Brisbane peered into the blackness hopelessly. His eyes were too weak to penetrate the dark. Dwarves, on the whole, had much better night vision and were actually able to see the glow given off by warm objects or bodies. It was a trait developed over years of living in caverns more finely crafted than this one, or it was, as some people said, a gift given to them by Grecolus to aid them in their lives beneath the earth. Brisbane wondered what Shortwhiskers, who worshipped his supposedly pagan dwarven gods, thought of his special eyesight. But regardless of from where the talent had actually come, Shortwhiskers had it, and with it he was exploring a place in which Brisbane would get lost, two feet away from the door.

They waited. They waited for a long time until Brisbane began to get worried and wanted to know what was taking so long. If Roystnof hadn’t demanded total silence for the time Shortwhiskers was inside, he would have voiced his frustration. Brisbane could only look helplessly at Stargazer and she could only shrug her shoulders back.

Finally, Shortwhiskers emerged from the cave. He quietly put an index finger to his lips and crept slowly away from the cave. The party followed. When they were back down by the babbling of the river Mystic, the dwarf gathered everyone close and told them what he had seen.

“The cave,” Shortwhiskers said, “extends a far way back into the mountain before opening up into a large cavern. This cavern’s floor is cluttered with boulders and has a ceiling about thirty feet above it. Right now, sleeping among those boulders are three large humanoids.”

“How large?” Roystnof asked.

“Large,” Shortwhiskers said. “Standing, each one would easily be over ten feet tall. They’re dressed in rough animal hides and they look rather primitive.”

“Anything else unusual about them?” Roystnof asked.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Shortwhiskers said. “Each one has two heads. Both of them ugly.”

“Two-headed giants,“ Dantrius scoffed. “You must be kidding.”

“Go check it out for yourself, weasel,” Shortwhiskers said.

Dantrius scowled at the dwarf and then turned to Roystnof, begging with the look on his face for help with the peons that surrounded them.

“No,” Roystnof said. “I have heard of such creatures. They are called ettins. I’m not sure how, but they are supposed to be related to orks.”

“Well,” Dantrius said. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“There’s something else in there, too,” Shortwhiskers said, bringing a coin out from his pocket. “Gold.”

“I knew it!” Dantrius said, raising his voice. “How much did you steal for yourself?”

Shortwhiskers flipped him the coin and the mage bobbled it a few times before he caught it. “Just the one,” the dwarf said. “Why don’t you hold it for me?”

“How much gold is in there?” Brisbane asked.

The dwarf looked at him. “A lot. Some gems, too. They have it in their sacks, but one is torn and some of the gold has spilled out.”

“You’re sure they are all asleep?” Roystnof asked. “All six heads?”

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “None of them moved while I crept among them. There was a lot of snoring.”

“What are we going to do?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked at all of their faces. “We’re going to get that gold.” He turned to Shortwhiskers. “Nog, can you get their sacks without waking them up?”

Shortwhiskers looked uneasy.

“Ettins are nocturnal,” Roystnof said. “They’re probably sleeping deeply at this time of day.”

“I’ll give it a try,” Shortwhiskers said.

“Now wait just a minute…” Dantrius said.

Roystnof turned on the mage. “Shut up, Dantrius. Just shut up. I’m tired of your complaining at every move we try to make. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not winning any popularity contests around here. So if you can’t get with the program, why don’t you just leave us alone and go back down the river?”

Dantrius eyed Roystnof maliciously. “I was only going to suggest that someone go in with him,” he said smugly. “The less trips in and out the better.”

Roystnof did not apologize for his outburst. “Who else can see so well in the dark?”

“Allison can,” Shortwhiskers said.

All eyes turned to Stargazer.

“Her elven half,” Shortwhiskers explained. “Elves have even better eyesight than dwarves, so a half-elf should see at least as well as a dwarf.”

“Well, Miss Stargazer,” Roystnof said. “How about it?”

“What will we do with this gold?” Stargazer asked.

“Divide it up equally,” Roystnof answered. “You may do whatever you like with your share.”

Stargazer pondered. “You say these ettins are related to orks?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I will do it.”

The party, decided on a course of action, went quietly back to the cave mouth. On the way Brisbane moved closer to Roystnof and asked him if he thought what he had said to Dantrius was the wisest thing he could have done. Roystnof said he doubted it, but he couldn’t have held his anger at Dantrius back any longer.

Brisbane was not too happy about Stargazer going into the ettins’ lair, but there was very little he could do about it. He tried to reassure himself by remembering how well she had fought against the orks. In any case, Brisbane planned to stay ready at the cave mouth with Angelika in hand in case anything went wrong.

Shortwhiskers and Stargazer disappeared into the cave and left Brisbane and the two wizards standing outside, waiting again. Brisbane’s head was filled with images of Stargazer being trampled and torn apart by the two-headed giants and it took quite a bit of willpower to keep himself from rushing in to save her.

And so he waited, waited outside for either Shortwhiskers or Stargazer to come creeping back with the sacks of gold, or for the sounds of slaughter to come pouring out of the cave. Brisbane did not have to wait long.

Angelika spoke to him milliseconds before the noises started.

Help them, Brisbane. They need your help against the evil beasts.

Brisbane started in. He could no longer help himself. He ran blindly into the cave, racing down the dark tunnel to the chamber Shortwhiskers had said was there. The first sound to reach his ears was that of gold coins spilling all over a rock floor, the second was the roaring of the awakening ettins, and the third was a battle cry sounded out in Shortwhiskers’ strong voice.

Brisbane was still blind and he thought to slow down before he plowed into something or someone just as the cavern filled itself with a bright light that seemed to have no apparent source. It took him less than a moment to figure out Roystnof had cast a spell, but his thoughts were quickly focused on the scene he found before him.

Shortwhiskers stood over the struggling body of one ettin, chopping at it mercilessly with his sword, while Stargazer guarded his back, her staff braced against her thighs, as the other two ettins rose to their feet, picking up heavy wooden clubs, one in each of their hands.

The ettins were monsters indeed. They stood well over ten feet tall, their hardened bodies covered loosely in filthy animal skins, each of their heads an ugly rendition of a sickening mix of orkish and human. Low foreheads, pig noses, sharp tusks; if savagery had a pure form, these ettins had to come close to it.

Brisbane rushed into battle, hoping Roystnof was coming in soon behind him. He swung Angelika at one of the ettins closing on Stargazer and managed to draw it away from her. Up close and in combat, the ettin was much larger than Brisbane had first thought. The creature was larger than both the ogre and the demon he had fought before, and each of its two huge hands expertly wielded clubs that looked like they might once have been tree trunks. Each of its two heads had mouths slobbering with white foam and gnashing with sharp teeth.

Brisbane quickly realized he had his hands full and had no time to look around to see how his friends were doing. He knew he could help them best by killing this ettin as quickly as he possibly could.

I’ll help you, Brisbane. This evil giant cannot stand against us. He shall be vanquished.

Brisbane let Angelika weave her spell about him. It boosted his confidence and tuned everything else out of his universe. Suddenly, Brisbane found himself trapped in the battle with the ettin, and the only way out came with the death of his opponent. He had to kill the ettin, if he didn’t he would never escape from this prison.

Yes, young Brisbane, that’s the way. Throw yourself at him. Evil is your enemy and it must be destroyed.

Brisbane felt himself lose control of his body. His reflexes became quicker and his strikes became more deadly. He dodged away each time the ettin brought one or both of its heavy clubs down on his head. He was in a combat trance, his body working like a perfect machine apart from his mind. His consciousness sat up in its high tower and watched the action through his eyes as if it was watching a chess match.

Angelika guided him now, striking the ettin time and time again in the abdomen and upper legs until its blood poured out of it like a waterfall. Brisbane sliced Angelika though the ettin a final time and the monster collapsed to its death.

Brisbane was suddenly in control of himself again.

There are more to fight, Brisbane.

Brisbane spun around and saw the results of what had transpired while he killed the first ettin. The ettin Shortwhiskers had been hacking away on had managed to get to its feet and was trying to fend the dwarf off bare-handed. The ettin absolutely towered over the dwarf, but it was unarmed and Shortwhiskers was using his sword with the skill of a veteran warrior. The sides seemed evenly matched. As Brisbane watched, they traded blows, the ettin with its powerful fists and Shortwhiskers with his blade. The other ettin had its clubs and was using them in combat against Stargazer and Roystnof. The slow-moving giant was no match for Stargazer and her quick-moving staff. She would dodge away from the heavy clubs and quickly rap the ettin somewhere on its body with the iron hand of Grecolus that topped her staff. But these contacts were light and not troublesome to the ettin. If Roystnof had not been behind her, casting his offensive spells, Brisbane was sure Stargazer would have been crushed long ago. As Brisbane watched, another burst of red lightning flung out of Roystnof’s fingers and slammed into the ettin, driving the monster back a pace or two. Dantrius stood at the entrance of the cavern, a pair of daggers in his hands, but he was doing apparently nothing.

The ettin fighting Shortwhiskers was the one closest to him, so Brisbane charged into combat with that one. He slipped, easily this time, into the trance that Angelika provided, and he watched as the ettin grew weaker and weaker before his deadly blade. He attacked so aggressively that Shortwhiskers had to back off to give Brisbane room and to avoid the seemingly wild swings of his sword. But each swing, no matter how sweeping and wild it seemed, scored a dire wound on the body of the two-headed monster. Its four eyes were wide in amazement and fear at the ferocity of its small attacker and, before long, those four eyes bore only the glassy stare of death.

And as the second ettin fell under his blade, Brisbane, watching coolly from behind his own eyes, thought, for just a moment, that he might very well be invincible and that he could defeat anything.

The deed is done. Praise Grecolus for his wisdom and Brisbane for his courage.

Stargazer and Roystnof together had defeated the third ettin and the battle was over. Brisbane tore off a piece of the ettin’s clothing and began cleaning Angelika. He felt good, calm, and confident. Shortwhiskers thanked him for the help against the ettin and then asked Stargazer to come over and tend to his wounds. They were mostly bumps and bruises and Stargazer simply rubbed some of her ointment over them and covered them with strips of clean cloth. When this was done and all had caught their breath, they gathered about the pile of treasure they had won.

Brisbane eyed Dantrius smokily as he joined the circle, a little upset the mage had done nothing in the battle, but he decided to forget about it. The less Dantrius did for him, the happier he felt he would be.

Shortwhiskers dumped out all the sacks and, for a moment, no one said anything as they all stared at the glittering pile of gold and gems.

“Wow,” Brisbane said finally. “That’s a lot of gold.”

“Damn sack had a hole in it,” Shortwhiskers said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t even have had to work for it.”

Everyone laughed nervously at that. Brisbane decided it was too spooky in the cave, with the fresh dead surrounding their newfound hoard. He suggested they pack it up and get the hells out of there. There were no objections and that is what was done. They bagged it all up and Shortwhiskers tied it securely to their pack mules, this time, without any complaint from Dantrius. It seemed that the mage had decided not to be such a pest and that was fine with Brisbane.

Then, they were on their way again, following the thinning Mystic deeper and deeper into the mountains. The farther he got away from the incident, the less Brisbane could remember about the way Angelika had actually controlled him in the battle with the ettins. When he did think about it, he remembered himself playing a larger part in the proceedings and, personally, was shocked at the bravery and skill he had shown in defeating the monsters. If Roundtower had been there, perhaps he could have helped Brisbane sort through these unusual feelings, but probably not even he could have protected Brisbane from the danger of using Angelika in combat. She was one of the finest swords in the realm and, armed with her, anyone with the strength to lift her could defend himself against aggression. But Brisbane’s natural and learned talent of weaponry combined with Angelika’s magic in a special and potentially dangerous way. Armed with Angelika, Brisbane was not invincible, but it became increasingly likely that he would begin to think so.

The battle with the ettins took place late in the day and the party only had an hour or two to travel before they were forced to make another camp for another night. Nearly as soon as they had left the cave of the ettins over their backward horizon, they began to hear a noise that at first none of them could identify. It started low, but as they walked on, it grew louder and louder until it was positively roaring in their ears. No longer could there be any doubt as to what was making the noise. They rounded a curve around a jagged peak and saw the waterfall they had been hearing for miles.

The water fell from a cliff high above their heads, gathered into a small pool, and began to flow down the mountain slopes to the sea. Here was the source of the Mystic and sitting beneath and slightly ahead of the falling waters was a low stone building. It had two major wings, one on each side of the virgin river, and a wide section connecting them, spanning over the surface of the water. It faced them like a squared letter C, and at each of its ends was an opening like the one at the shrine so far down the river.

The members of the party exchanged triumphant glances and quickly went about striking a camp for the night. They had found the temple they had been searching for and tomorrow was going to be a very big day.

Individuality

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:12:00 +0000

“When the highest and strongest drives, breaking passionately out, carry the individual far above and beyond the average and lowlands of the herd conscience, the self-confidence of the community goes to pieces, its faith in itself, its spine as it were, is broken: consequently it is precisely these drives which are most branded and calumniated. Lofty spiritual independence, the will to stand alone, great intelligence even, are felt to be dangerous; everything that raises the individual above the herd and makes his neighbor quail is henceforth called evil; the fair, modest, obedient, self-effacing disposition, the mean and average in desires, acquires moral names and honours.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

On Writing by Stephen King

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:13:00 +0000

According to the advice given in this book, I should be a published and successful author if can only do two things:

1. Find an agent to represent me.

2. Remove most, but not all, of the adverbs from my writing.

Seriously. Let’s take them one at a time.

Finding an agent to represent me.

I’m glad King saves this advice for the very end of his treatise on what has made him a successful author. It’s the part of the process (necessary though it is) that frankly interests me the least. If he had led with this information, I may not have been able to make it through his admittedly brief work.

Don’t get me wrong. Selling your work is essential, but it really is the last step of the process—and very different than the steps that come before it. First you have to have something worth selling. First you have to master your craft, and consistently write things that are both of interest to readers and enjoyable to read.

And that’s where I have my battle. I do want to write things that are enjoyable to read (and think I’m getting better, but still have some work to do on that front), but mostly they are things that are of interest to me. That’s essentially my motivation for writing, what gets me to actually sit down and put words on the screen. I suppose I can view myself as a sample set of my potential audience, although something tells me that would be an extremely small audience to be targeting. So small that it’ll be difficult to find anyone to represent such work. Not enough money to be made in it. Not enough appeal to the masses of our paperback devouring pop culture.

But that’s okay with me. I’ve already dabbled in that direction and found no traction. But I’m neither bitter nor resentful. In many ways it was a productive experience. I think it taught me two important things:

1. My stuff isn’t ready for publication. Like I said, I’ve got more work to do on improving my craft. More on that below.

2. Focus first on building an audience. The agents and book deals will come later. Or maybe they won’t. But in today’s fragmented marketplace, they’re certainly not going to come unless you’ve already got an audience reading your stuff. That’s what blogs and self-published e-books are all about. Putting your work out there and seeing who (if anyone) is interested, and what feedback you can get from those readers to improve what you write and to extend your reach and appeal. Doing that the old-fashioned way, through query letters and self-addressed stamped envelopes, is a cumbersome and time-consuming process that takes you away from the writing that excites your passion. Doing it this new way makes it more a part of the writing experience, and something that doesn’t take you away from the things you’d rather be doing.

But enough of that. The business and the craft of writing are two very different subjects, and like I said, I’m much more interested in the latter than the former.

Removing most, but not all of the adverbs from my writing.

When it comes to improving your craft, King has other bits of advice, but most of them I feel like I’m already doing. But this adverb thing really hit home for me. Here’s what he’s talking about:

The other piece of advice I want to give you before moving on to the next level of the toolbox is this: The adverb is not your friend.

Adverbs, you will remember from your own version of Business English, are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They’re the ones that usually end in –ly. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. With the passive voice, the writer usually expresses fear of not being taken seriously; it is the voice of little boys wearing shoepolish mustaches and little girls clumping around in Mommy’s high heels. With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

Consider the sentence He closed the door firmly. It’s by no means a terrible sentence (at least it’s got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if firmly really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you’ll get no argument from me…but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn’t firmly an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?

Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day…fifty the day after that…and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.

I can be a good sport about adverbs, though. Yes I can. With one exception: dialogue attribution. I insist that you use the adverb in dialogue attribution only in the rarest and most special of occasions…and not even then, if you can avoid it. Just to make sure we all know what we’re talking about, examine these three sentences:

“Put it down!” she shouted.

“Give it back,” he pleaded, “it’s mine.”

“Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,” Utterson said.

In these sentences, shouted, pleaded, and said are verbs of dialogue attribution. Now look at these dubious revisions:

“Put it down!” she shouted menacingly.

“Give it back,” he pleaded abjectly, “it’s mine.”

“Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,” Utterson said contemptuously.

The three latter sentences are all weaker than the three former ones, and most readers will see why immediately. “Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,” Utterson said contemptuously is the best of the lot; it is only a cliché, while the other two are actively ludicrous. Such dialogue attributions are sometimes known as “Swifties,” after Tom Swift, the brave inventor-hero in a series of boys’ adventure novels written by Victor Appleton II. Appleton was fond of such sentences as “Do your worst!” Tom cried bravely and “My father helped with the equations,” Tom said modestly. When I was a teenager these was a party-game based on one’s ability to create witty (or half witty) Swifties. “You got a nice butt, lady,” he said cheekily is one I remember; another is “I’m the plumber,” he said with a flush. (In this case the modifier is an adverbial phrase.) When debating whether or not to make some pernicious dandelion of an adverb part of your dialogue attribution, I suggest you ask yourself if you really want to write the sort of prose that might wind up in a party-game.

Some writers try to evade the no-adverb rule by shooting the attribution full of steroids. The result is familiar to any reader of pulp fiction or paperback originals:

“Put down the gun, Utterson!” Jekyll grated.

“Never stop kissing me!” Shayna gasped.

“You damned tease!” Bill jerked out.

Don’t do these things. Please oh please.

The best form of dialogue attribution is said, as in he said, she said, Bill said, Monica said. If you want to see this out stringently into practice, I urge you to read or reread a novel by Larry McMurtry, the Shane of dialogue attribution. That looked damned snide on the page, but I’m speaking with complete sincerity. Mc Murtry has allowed few adverbial dandelions to grow on his lawn. He believes in he-said/she-said even in moments of emotional crisis (and in Larry McMurtry novels there are a lot of those). Go and do thou likewise.

I use adverbs all the time—especially when it comes to dialogue attribution. I use them as a kind of stage direction, adding in a little more detail, not just about what was said, but how the character said it. When I’m writing, I think this makes eminent sense. But when I go back and read my stuff—especially when I read it out loud, as I imagine a first-time reader would be hearing it in their heads—I usually discover that King is absolutely right about them. One or two is okay. But when your yard is covered with dandelions, no one wants to spend very much time there.

The best part of the book comes on page 155, when King is talking about how difficult—and “morally wonky”—it is to write anything other than what you yourself are interested in. The sentiment speaks to me, as you can well imagine, and King sums up his point with this little homily:

The job of fiction is to find the truth inside the story’s web of lies.

Precisely. That, more than anything else, is why I’m interested in writing fiction.

Rise of the American Nation by Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:35:00 +0000

Believe it or not, this is my high school American history textbook, which has been carted around in boxes or sitting on forgotten shelves since the mid-1980s. Whatever possessed me to read it now? Well, I was looking for a broad, succinct and authoritative history of the United States, and this more or less fit the bill.

And you know what? I really enjoyed reading it. I learned much more than I thought I would. Primarily, it seems, I learned how little I actually know about particular events and time periods in American history. What follows is a sampling of the things that seemed to leap off the page at me, demanding that I take notice of them and adjust my perception of the American nation appropriately. Maybe they are well known by everyone else and I was just sleeping in history class on the days they were taught. If so, I ask your forgiveness for my naiveté.

But before I start the list, let me make two general observations.

First, this experience has made clear to me how one’s view of history is tainted by their perceptions and political preferences of today. It’s a little like how the future is always imagined in the context of the present. Just as it is difficult to imagine a future fundamentally foreign from the world we live in, it’s hard to look at the past without filtering it through our modern sensibilities and political framework. And my sensibilities and political framework has changed quite a bit since I was in high school. If I had read this book this closely then, I’m sure an entirely different list of things would have jumped out at me. Reading this book has not only taught me a lot about American history, it has also helped me see how much I have changed in the last twenty-five years.

And second, I couldn’t help but notice how good the book was at sticking to an honest description of the facts, and keeping from its pages any sense of slanted political commentary. Today’s textbooks (which I clearly haven’t read) are derided by some as being full of political correctness and revisionist history, but if this book is any indication, I’d have to say those accusations are pretty overblown. The authors sometimes describe what motivated opposing political sides on particular issues, but only to help the student understand why certain actions were taken at certain times. I think they did an excellent job staying above the fray and describing history as accurately as it could be in such a format for such an audience.

Okay? Here goes.

1. European nations clearly thought the New World was theirs for the taking.

From the 1300s to the 1700s, the story of America has its beginnings in the European explorers who came looking for trade routes to the Far East and, after it was discovered that there were a couple of continents in the way, valuables and extensions of their colonial empires. The view among European nations that this “new world” was theirs for the taking is well demonstrated in this choice excerpt:

Spain and Portugal, both leaders in the new age of exploration and discovery, did not hesitate to claim all of the Americas. In 1494 they signed a treaty establishing a Line of Demarcation about 1,100 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. According to the treaty, all new lands explored west of this line were to belong to Spain. All new lands explored to the east were to belong to Portugal.

Looking at a map, it’s clear that Spain got the greater part of this bargain, but it amazes me to think that the rulers of Spain and Portugal thought they had the right to even enter into such an agreement. But they were no different than any of the other European powers at the time (and America of a few centuries later—see #9 below). King James I of England granted charters for people and companies to set up shop in the New World, supposedly under his protection and by his decree.

2. People fled to pre-colonial America to escape religious persecution in Europe.

During the 1500s and 1600s, Europe was torn by religious strife that broke out shortly after Columbus’s voyages. At that time nearly everyone in Western Europe belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The conflict began when some people began to question certain Church practices and beliefs. Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Switzerland were two such people.

These religious leaders and people who shared their feelings broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established Protestant, or “protesting,” religious organizations. Roman Catholics called this movement the Protestant Revolt. Protestants called the same movement the Reformation. By whatever name, this religious conflict was not just a battle of words and ideas. Armies marched, wars were fought, and thousands of people died in battle or were burned at the stake in the name of religion.

We all know this. It falls almost automatically of our tongue. But before reading this textbook, I never consciously connected the Protestant Reformation and the violence that erupted following it as an integral part of the exodus story from Europe to America.

3. Those seeking freedom to practice their religion curtailed that freedom for others when given the reins of power.

Plymouth was for Separatists. Massachusetts Bay Colony was for Puritans who had not at first completely rejected the Anglican Church. Colonists who refused to accept the official religious beliefs were often thrown in jail or driven from the colony. Once exiled, they might be put to death if they returned. Such was the fate of Mary Dyer, a Quaker, who was hanged in Boston in 1660 when she returned to protest the persecution of Quakers.

At first it was only Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams, that took a different path.

In Rhode Island there was no established church. Church and state—that is, the government—were separate.

No one could be taxed for the support of the church. No one could be forced to attend church. No one had to belong to a church in order to vote. People could worship as they pleased and speak their minds freely.

Maryland and Pennsylvania had similar practices, but both required a professed belief in “Jesus Christ,” in the case of Maryland, and in the “One Almighty God,” in Pennsylvania. Had it not been for the experiment in Rhode Island, one has to wonder if such a concept would have become part of the growing American tradition.

4. The first public schools in the English-speaking world were in Massachusetts.

They were started, evidently, to insure the ability among the populace to read the English Bible. The law, passed in 1647, mandated that every town with more than 50 households would hire a teacher of reading and writing with town funds, and those with 100 households or more had to provide an actual school to prepare young men for college. Everyone, rich and poor alike, were to benefit from these expenditures.

This law was the first of its kind in the English-speaking world. It was not popular everywhere in Massachusetts. Towns sometimes neglected to provide the education ordered by the law. Nevertheless, the law was a landmark in the history of education. It expressed a new and daring idea—that education of all the people was a public responsibility.

5. Even Thomas Jefferson acted unconstitutionally when he thought a higher purpose was being served.

The particular instance that brought this illumination was the Embargo Act of 1807. In it, in order to reduce the number of Americans being impressed on the high seas into the English Navy, President Jefferson urged for and Congress passed a law forbidding Americans from trading with any foreign nation. Not just England. Any foreign nation. It also forbade American vessels to leave for foreign ports. After twenty years of arguing against acts of previous administrations and Congresses on the grounds that they were unconstitutional, the Father of Liberty brings about the most oppressive attack on personal freedom since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It is episodes like this that lend credence to the view that American history is one long tale of ever-increasing encroachments on the personal liberty first guaranteed under the Constitution (see #6, below).

And please. I can’t help but ask. What is an “American vessel?” A ship owned by the United States? Or a ship owned by a citizen of the United States? Of course it is the latter, but the very phraseology, albeit a common convenience, lends itself directly towards the kinds of usurpations of liberty envisioned in the Embargo Act itself. Today, no one stands a chance of successfully arguing that the United States government doesn’t have the right to restrict the freedom of movement of its citizens, but back in the early days of the nation, before major precedents had been set, it may have been a worthwhile discussion to have. Is my car an “American car?” How about the computer I’m typing on. Is it an “American computer?” What rights should the government have over the possessions of its citizens?

6. It doesn’t matter which political party is in charge. The power of the Federal government always increases.

In 1816, even before President Monroe was elected for the first time, the Republicans took steps to strengthen the growing nation. In so doing, they increased the powers of the federal government at the expense of states’ rights. To justify their actions, they used a loose interpretation of the Constitution, like the one favored earlier by Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists. This was one reason that the Federalist Party disappeared. By 1816 the Republicans were doing many things the Federalists had favored doing for years.

This one was absolutely stunning to me. I know about Federalists like Alexander Hamilton, people who wanted a strong federal government and fought passionately for powers that were eventually NOT explicitly given to the federal government in the new Constitution. And I know about Republicans like Thomas Jefferson, people who would always see the United States as a plural noun, as a collection of free and independent states, and the Constitution as the document where those states explicitly gave only a limited number of enumerated powers to a federal government of their own creation. But I guess I never fully realized how little that dispute at the founding of our country actually mattered in the long run.

7. History has an almost creepy tendency to repeat itself.

Read this and tell me what period of history it is talking about.

By [year] all sections of the United States were enjoying prosperity. Conditions were so prosperous, in fact, that various groups had begun to indulge in overspecualtion. This was excessive, risky investment in land, stock, or commodities in the hope of making large profits. Southerners, tempted by rising prices for cotton, bought land at inflated prices. Western settlers, tempted by rising prices for grain and meat, also scrambled to buy land. Manufacturers in the Northeast, eager to take advantage of the general prosperity, bought land and built new mills and factories.

All these groups borrowed money to finance their enterprises. Many banks encouraged the frenzy of speculation by lending money too freely on the flimsiest security.

Then came the crash. Late in [year] the directors of the Bank of the United States ordered all their branch banks not to renew any personal mortgages. The directors also ordered the branch banks to present all state bank noted to the state banks for immediate payment in gold or silver or in national bank notes. State banks could not make their payments and closed their doors. Farmers and manufacturers could not renew their mortgages, and many lost their property.

By mid-[year], because of numerous foreclosures, the Bank of the United States had acquired huge areas of land in the South and Middle West and many businesses in the East. People ruined by foreclosures blamed the bank for their troubles and called it “the Monster.”

Astute students of history will pick up on the references to the Bank of the United States and realize that we’re talking about The Panic of 1819. But replace the “Bank of the United States” with the “Federal Reserve System” and investments in “land, stock, or commodities” with “mortgage-backed securities” and you have the story of the Great Recession of 2008. Spooky.

Wait. Here’s another.

The roots of the depression. The depression of [year] had its roots in events that occurred largely during [name]’s administration. After his election in [year], [name] had gradually withdrawn federal funds from the Bank of the United States. He then deposited this money in “pet banks,” many in western states. With the federal money as security, the “pet banks” printed large amounts of their own bank notes.

Many “pet banks” were also “wildcat banks,” which issued bank notes far in excess of the federal funds on deposit. Because they were so plentiful and had so little real value, these bank notes were easy to borrow. People borrowed this “easy money,” often with a minimum of security, to buy land and to invest in the nation’s growing transportation system. For a time it seemed as though almost everyone was speculating with borrowed money.

Land speculators were especially active. Between [year] and [year], yearly federal income from the sale of public land rose from about [amount] to about [amount twelve times as much]. Much of this money was in the form of “wildcat” bank notes. The United States Treasury was flooded with unsound currency.

In July [year] President [name] acted to check the wave of speculation sweeping across the country by issuing the Specie Circular. This Executive Order forbade the Treasury to accept as payment for public land anything except gold and silver, known as specie, or bank notes backed by specie.

The panic of [year]. Shortly after [name] issued his order, the trouble began. The sale of public land dropped off sharply because few people had gold or silver coins to pay for the land. Persons holding bank notes began to ask the banks to exchange the bank notes for the gold or silver itself. Many banks could not redeem their own bank notes. As a result, banks began to fail. By the end of May [year], soon after President [name] took office, every bank in the United States had suspended specie payment. Before the panic ended, hundreds of banks had done out of business.

As the banks failed and sound money disappeared from circulation, business suffered. Factories closed. Construction work ended on buildings and roads. Thousands of workers lost their jobs. Hungry people rioted in the streets of New York and Philadelphia.

President [name] and other leaders of the time did not think that the government could or should do anything to try and stop the depression. [Name] declared that “the less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for the general prosperity.” Thus he could only sit back and wait for the depression to run its course.

No, this isn’t 2008, either, although it could very well be with a swap of “fractional reserve banking” for “wildcat banks.” And it’s also not 1929, although it again could very well be with a swap of “Wall Street speculation” for “land speculation.” No, the fact that banks were issuing their own notes, backed or not by their own reserves, is the clue that this is 1837 and the two presidents are Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

8. The Mexican War was a war of aggression started by the United States.

They don’t teach this much in high school (at least not the high school I went to), but the evidence is right there in the textbook. There was a border dispute. Some people thought the Mexicans invaded the United States and attacked American soldiers. Others (and most historians today) thought Americans invaded Mexico and were attacked by Mexican soldiers. Either way, the Mexicans struck the first blow, and that’s probably why most people, if they know anything about it at all, think the Americans were fighting for some kind of noble cause. They weren’t. They were fighting to acquire territory that they thought they were entitled to, and which most international observers understood to be part of Mexico.

9. Americans clearly thought the world was theirs for the taking.

The phrase most often used is Manifest Destiny. Its spirit is no more brilliantly illustrated than by something called the Ostend Manifesto.

In 1848 President Polk had tried to buy Cuba for $100 million. Spain had refused to consider the offer, but some southerners continued to cast longing eyes at Cuba. Finally in 1854, the American ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain met is Ostend, Belgium. They issued a statement now know as the “Ostend Manifesto.”

The ministers declared that, if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States would have the right to seize it by force. President Pierce disavowed this statement, but northern abolitionists were furious. They pointed out that southerners were ready to plunge the nation into war in order to add slave territory to the Union.

Doesn’t that make sense? If you don’t sell me your iPad, I have the right to take it from you by force. After all, it has been ordained by God that I should possess all the iPads, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. How else can they be kept safe, and how else can I ensure that nobody is using them against me and my interests?

10. The raw politics of the day shaped every era of American history.

By raw politics I mean the political maneuvering that parties do to gain and keep control of the various branches of government. Every era has them, and to try and understand why things happened without understanding the political priorities and motivations of the major players is to never fully understand what happened and why. These two paragraphs refer to the North’s plans for reconstructing the South as the Civil War began to draw to a close.

Some Republicans frankly admitted that their thinking about reconstruction was influenced by practical politics. They believed that, when the war ended, white southerners would reject the wartime Republican Party and flock to the Democratic Party. Southern Democrats returning to Congress would probably support northern Democrats, thus making the Republicans a minority party. Such a combination might endanger measures supported by many Republicans—a high tariff, national banks, free land, and federal aid to railroads.

The Republicans could keep the Democrats from gaining majority power in state as well as federal governments in two ways. First, they could give voting rights to the former slaves. These new voters would support the Republicans at the polls in gratitude for emancipation. Second, they could keep former Confederate leaders from voting or holding public office.

Political calculation—maintaining power in Congress—was a factor in reconstruction policy, just as it is a factor in every modern issue before today’s Congress. It’s easy to remember that about the present, but someone difficult to remember that about the past.

Want another example? How about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson who, whatever you think of his politics (if you even know who I’m talking about), was evidently not guilty of anything the Founders would’ve thought was an impeachable offense. But that didn’t stop his political opponents, the “Radical” Republicans who controlled Congress.

To find grounds for impeachment and to reduce the President’s power, Congress in 1867 adopted the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto. Under this law the President could not dismiss important civil officers without the Senate’s consent. Believing the law unconstitutional, Johnson decided to put it to a test. In February 1868 he demanded the resignation of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton has consistently cooperated with Johnson’s political enemies.

The House immediately adopted a resolution that “Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors in office.” The Radicals also charged that Johnson “did attempt to bring into disgrace, ridicule, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United States.” The Radicals cited occasions when the President publicly made “with a loud voice certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues” against Congress “and did therein utter loud threats and bitter menaces.”

Shocking, I know. Bitter menaces? How such a man ever got elected in the first place is a mystery.

Under the Constitution a President may be impeached on grounds of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Although the charges brought by the House against President Johnson were of doubtful legality, he was nevertheless impeached.

Johnson’s trial before the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, lasted about two months. After prolonged debate it became clear that Johnson was not guilty of any offense for which he could legally be removed from office. Nevertheless, when the Senate vote was counted, it stood 35 to 19 against Johnson, just one vote short of the necessary two-thirds majority required for removal from office. Johnson continued to serve as President for almost a year, until his term expired, but his influence was at an end.

It’s another episode from history eerily reminiscent of a more current controversy. Looking back a hundred a fifty years, it’s always so simple to see the political motivations for what they are. Why do we have such a hard time when the events happen today or in our recent past? Do we somehow think that the leaders of today are above such petty motivations? Is that what people thought in Johnson’s time?

11. Industrialization profoundly changed the character of the nation.

The mechanization of American life began in the early 1800s with inventions like water-powered mills, steam-powered machines and interchangeable parts, and industrialization began in the late 1800s with something they called the Industrial Revolution.

In years to come, the Industrial Revolution would help unite the American people. It would help solve problems of transportation by binding the nation together with a web of steel rails. It would provide Americans with unheard-of labor-saving devices. It would profoundly affect the roles and status of both women and men in American life. It would help Americans conquer the wilderness and make use of what were then considered the inexhaustible resources of forest and sea and soil. It would in time transform the United States into the wealthiest nation on earth.

Living now in the 21st century, it is difficult to understand how different life was before industrialization. I caught a glimpse of how surreal the new ways of life must have seemed to people used to the old from this paragraph about “company towns.”

Workers in so-called “company towns” faced the greatest disadvantages. There were mining districts in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and textile-mill regions in the South where companies owned entire towns—all the houses, stores, and other buildings. The companies employed the teachers and the doctors. The local magistrates and the police owed their jobs to the company. In these towns workers did not dare protest the rent they paid for their company-owned houses or the prices they paid in the company-owned store. Frequently, the workers received part of their wages not in cash but in credit at the company store.

I listened to a podcast recently that talked about how our modern educational system is also a product of the Industrial Revolution, where things like standardized testing and multiple-choice questions were invented specifically to have a better and more reliable way to train children and immigrants for the life of an industrialized worker. The podcast in question argued that it was time to start rethinking some of those educational institutions because the necessary workforce of today or tomorrow is so radically different from the one that built Henry Ford’s Model Ts, but that’s not to undermine the profound effects industrialization has had on our nation. In many ways, its legacy has not yet reached its climax.

12. Industrialization led in great measure to imperialism.

The textbook offers an interesting explanation for the age of imperialism that began near the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries:

The Industrial Revolution was largely responsible for the mounting interest in colonies. Factories needed raw materials in ever-growing quantities. Manufacturers, to keep their factories operating, had to find new markets for their finished products. Improvements in transportation, especially the steamship, enabled businesses to buy and sell in a truly worldwide market. As trade increased and profits accumulated, business executives and bankers looked overseas for opportunities to invest savings.

And it was really the Spanish American War that gave the United States is first taste of being a colonial power. As a result of winning that war, the Americans found themselves in possession of the Philippines, and facing a dilemma. Should they set the people of those islands free? Or force them to live under American rule. In 1898, then President McKinley made the decision for us. As he later explained…

…the United States could not return the Philippines to Spain, for “that would be cowardly and dishonorable.” It could not give them to France, Germany, or Great Britain, for “that would be bad business and discreditable.” It could not turn them over to the Filipinos, for they were “unfit for self-government.” McKinley concluded, “There is nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

Swell. Except the Filipinos did not want to be uplifted or civilized (many were, in fact, already Christians).

The conquest of the Philippines turned out to be more difficult that the defeat of Spain. The Filipinos, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, fought as fiercely against American rule as they had against Spanish rule. For three years 70,000 American troops fought in the islands at a cost of $175 million ($4.6 billion in 2011 dollars) and with a casualty list as high as that as the war with Spain.

And when the Americans finally won, they set up a government for the Philippines with an appointed governor, a small elected assembly, an appointed upper house, and the ability of the United States Congress to veto all legislation passed. I wonder if any of that would have sounded familiar to the guys who dumped British tea into Boston Harbor in 1773.

One of the things I found most surprising about this 25-year old textbook was the way it didn’t shy away from a treatment of imperialism at all. Chapter 29 is titled “American Expansion in the Caribbean; 1898-1914,” and one of its section headings is “Americans begin to build an empire in the Caribbean.” It seems true and appropriate to me, but it seems like most Americans are opposed to that kind of perspective on our history. To see it handled so matter-of-factly in print, especially in a textbook aimed at teenagers, underscored for me the explanatory power of such a reading.

A big part of this was evidently a corollary Teddy Roosevelt added to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that not only would the United States act aggressively against any nation seeking to set-up colonies in the New World, but that the United States would act as a kind of police officer in any disputes between outside nations on those in the Americas. The corollary led to lots of interventions—in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in Colombia, in Panama, in the Dominican Republic, in Haiti, in Costa Rica, in Guatemala, in the Virgin Islands, in Nicaragua—until Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover eventually tried to put an end to it during their administrations. FDR, too, sought a new footing with Latin America in his Good Neighbor Policy, which supposedly said that no state had the right o interfere in the internal or external affairs of another, and that the United States was now opposed to policies of armed intervention.

13. The federal government assumes radical powers in war time.

Imagine if this happened today.

The President was authorized to set prices on many commodities, including such essentials as food and fuels. He was also authorized to regulate, or even take possession of, factories, mines, meat-packing houses, food processing plants, and all transportation and communication facilities. The President exercised these vast powers through a number of wartime agencies, or boards.

The War Industries Board, established in [year], became the virtual dictator of manufacturing. It developed new industries needed in the war effort. It regulated business to eliminate waste and nonessential goods. Before the war’s end, the War Industries Board was engaged in regulating the production of some 30,000 commodities.

Other federal agencies also took an active part in planning the war program. The War Finance Corporation loaned public funds to businesses needing aid in manufacturing war materials. The Emergency Fleet Corporation built ships faster than [enemy] submarines could destroy them. The Railroad Administration took over the operation of the railroads, reorganized the lines, and controlled rates and wages. The Fuel Administration stimulated a larger output of coal and oil and encouraged economies in their use.

This wasn’t World War II. This was World War I. But it clearly presaged a lot of the government activity that took place during World War II to marshal industry for the war effort.

14. Some horrible things have more or less been erased from the public consciousness and, although true historical events, bear no real weight on the modern citizen’s understanding of his or her history.

The “Bonus Army,” 17,000 strong, arrived in Washington, D.C., in June 1932. They were veterans of World War I and they called themselves the “Bonus Expeditionary Force.” Many arrived with their families. They traveled in freight cars, trucks, and wagons and on foot. They were in Washington to plead for a war bonus owed them. The money was not due until 1945, but they wanted it in advance.

They were allowed to live in empty government buildings and to camp on a swampy area across the Potomac River. The army provided them with tents, cots, field kitchens, and food. When the Senate refused to grant to bones payment, most of them gave up a returned home with money provided by the government.

Some 2,000 of the veterans, many of whom had no place to go, decided to stay. They were ordered to leave. In a clash with the police, several veterans and police officers were killed. Army troops then moved in with machine guns, tanks, and tear gas. The troops drove the veterans from the buildings and broke up their encampment across the river, burning the shacks as they did so.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this one. I’d never heard of it before, and this is the sum total of the information presented about it in the textbook. Imagine if 17,000 Gulf War Veterans marched on Washington today, demanded payments they had been promised to help them during times of economic depression. Imagine next that, while these veterans were camped out on the Mall, Congress voted not to support them and they were sent away. Those that didn’t leave voluntarily, some 2,000 of them, were attacked by the units of the National Guard, pepper spray and assault rifles used as needed to clear people out, and flamethrowers used to destroy the detritus they left behind. Could such a thing happen today? I would’ve have thought no, but knowing that such a thing did happen in 1932 forces me to reassess my assumptions.

15. America’s entry into World War II didn’t end the depression. It deepened it.

I was especially sensitive to this one, because the idea that World War II, and the government spending that accompanied the war effort, ended the Great Depression is one of the most enduring historical misunderstandings of our time. I wanted to see how this high school textbook would handle it, so I was sure to underline passages like this:

Where did the money come from to finance the war? A little more than one third came from taxes, which were raised to the highest level in American history. The government borrowed the remainder, chiefly by selling huge issues of bonds. Because of this borrowing, the national debt shot upward from about $49 billion in 1941 to nearly $259 billion by the spring of 1945.

The dollar cost of the war was staggering. By 1945, military expenditures totaled $400 billion. This was twice the sum that the federal government had spent for all of its activities, including all wars, between 1789 and 1940!

And this:

Despite these [rationing] efforts, the process of consumer goods rose, especially food prices. By 1944 the cost of living had risen 30 percent above 1941 prewar levels.

And this:

In July 1942 the National War Labor Board (NWLB) tried to work out a compromise. It granted a 15-percent wage increase to meet the rises in living costs. Several months later Congress and President Roosevelt authorized the NWLB to freeze the wages and salaries of all workers at the newly established levels.

And this:

The most drastic means of controlling profits was the excess profits tax, levied in 1940. The tax obliged corporations to pay to the government as much as 90 percent of all excess profits.

The highest taxes in American history, including a 90 percent excess profit tax on businesses. A ballooning national debt. A 30-percent increase in the cost of living with frozen wages and salaries. Exactly how did all of this get America out of the Great Depression?

16. The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis were two separate incidents.

All you Boomers can start razzing me now, but somehow I managed to conflate the two episodes in my admittedly poor understanding of the Kennedy administration. It’s not such much that I consciously thought they were the same thing. I just didn’t really know what the Bay of Pigs was and I must’ve just pushed it together with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The textbook has set me straight, but here’s the funny thing. Knowing how that they are separate incidents—the Bay of Pigs refers to an April 1961 CIA invasion of Cuba that was an attempt to overthrow the Castro regime and the Cuban Missile Crisis is, of course, the standoff between the Americans and the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962—I’m left with the conclusion that the two events were, in fact, related.

Not that the textbook actually connected those dots for me. Regardless of what you think of Fidel Castro, do you suppose he was motivated to bring Soviet missiles and technology to his island nation because his giant American neighbor had tried to overthrow his government with a CIA-led invasion?

17. The Vietnam War was an unconstitutional mistake, based on a lie, that irrevocably blurred the line between right and wrong.

I don’t know how else to characterize it. Especially when you read about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

On August 4, 1964, President Johnson appeared on television with shocking news. He announced that two American destroyers had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The President stated that he had therefore ordered American planes to bomb North Vietnamese torpedo bases and oil refineries. He also asked Congress to grant him authority to take action against North Vietnam.

The President did not tell the nation that the American ships had been assisting South Vietnamese gunboats that were making raids on North Vietnam’s coast. He also did not inform the nation that there was some doubt whether there had been any attack on American ships at all.

Three days later Congress granted the President’s request. It adopted what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This gave the President power “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attach against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”

The House votes unanimously for the measure. The Senate passed it by a vote of 88 to 2. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who voted against it, warned that “we are in effect giving the President warmaking powers in the absence of a declaration of war. I believe that to be a historic mistake.

At a minimum, I believe Senator Morse was right. It was a historic mistake. One, unfortunately, that future Congresses would repeat in future situations. What I find most striking about this is that it is language from a high school history textbook, published a little more than 20 years after the fact. This isn’t some anti-war rag. This is mainstream history, boiled down to a few declarative sentences, and it all but says that the President lied and that the war was fought unconstitutionally.

And what a war.

The Air Force poured bombs, napalm, rockets, and machine-gun fire on Viet Cong villages, hideouts, and supply routed in South Vietnam. … With support from the air, South Vietnamese and American ground forces carried out “search-and-destroy” mission against the Viet Cong. In areas they could not hold or defend, they moved the people to refugee centers and burned the villages.

The Viet Cong, by the way, were not robots, but human beings, and their villages were populated by families. By the end of the war, at least 6 million people were refugees and 160,000 South Vietnamese and 922,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese people had been killed.

Yet the textbook only uses terms like “guerilla tactics” and “terrorism” to describe the actions of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. What was that I said about history repeating itself?

18. There were two energy crises in the 1970s.

The energy crisis of the late 1970s is a dim memory for me (I was born in 1968). I remember the lines of automobiles at the gas station, but what I don’t remember is the energy crisis of the early 1970s, the one President Nixon tried to deal with, in part by announcing a program to make the United States independent of all foreign countries for its energy requirements by the early 1980s. How’d that work out?

19. President Reagan had virtually nothing to do with the release of the American hostages in Iran.

This, too, exists as one of my earliest political memories. Somehow, I was left with the impression that after Carter’s failed negotiations and botched rescue attempt, President-elect Reagan secretly brokered a deal with the Iranians and saw the hostages released on the day he was inaugurated as President.

That’s evidently not what happened. Instead the Carter Administration continued to negotiate after the failed rescue attempt, and secured the release with the Algerian government acting as a neutral arbitrator and in exchange for a payment in gold tonnage and a promise never to interfere with Iran’s internal politics again (that last bit I actually picked up from Wikipedia, not my high school textbook).

Why did Iran want a promise that the U.S. would never interfere with them again? Because the reason the hostages were taken in the first place stemmed from the CIA-led overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian government and the installation of the Shah, a dictatorial ruler, in 1953. The Shah had eventually been deposed in 1979 by an internal revolution, and he had fled to the United States for protection. The hostage takers wanted the Shah returned to Iran so he could be executed for his crimes against the Iranian people, and they took the hostages when the U.S. refused to comply.

Chapter Nineteen

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:53:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE
FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II had been a Knight of Farchrist for three years, he was asked to speak to some of the boys at the King’s School, to show them an example of what their school could produce and to tell the boys the joys and privileges of the knighthood. Brisbane instantly accepted the invitation and the next day went down into Raveltown to carry out this most important mission. When his talk was finished and he had answered all the boys’ questions, he made his way through the streets of the city, back to the castle. But before he left Raveltown he saw a girl, a young peasant woman of such astounding beauty that he pretended to have lost his way just so he could ask her for directions. He introduced himself as Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II. She said her name was Amanda.

+ + +

On the fourth day it was obvious that they had left the Windcrest Hills behind them and were entering the southern arm of the Crimson Mountains. The land was getting much more rugged and, although the slope stayed fairly even and gradual along the bank of the Mystic, they soon found themselves surrounded by ever increasing hills with sharper and sharper peaks. They were truly mountains.

Brisbane was pleasantly surprised when he woke up to find Stargazer in his arms. He had not remembered her entrance in the middle of the night. His movements woke her up and she gently kissed him on the lips and mumbled a good morning in his ear. They were alone in the tent, the others distributed among the other tents and, for the moment, Brisbane forgot they were traveling with other people.

Stargazer stood up and stretched. She was wearing only a thin nightshirt and Brisbane lay still as he marveled at the shape of her body and the curves of her figure. There was a tightness in the crotch of his trousers he couldn’t pass off entirely on the need for morning urination. Stargazer was a gentle, beautiful woman who Brisbane loved and respected, but as he lay there watching her breasts rise and fall as she stretched, he realized part of him didn’t care about love or respect or compatibility. Part of him wanted her sexually, and that part wanted to act on those feelings now.

Stargazer saw him ogling her and she called a playful shame on him. Brisbane smiled but did not look away. Stargazer pulled on a pair of trousers before going out and, just for a split-second, when Stargazer pulled the pants up to her waist and the hem of her nightshirt danced up to her belly, Brisbane caught a glimpse of the curly patch of her pubic hair.

It’s honey-blonde, Brisbane thought, just like the hair on her head, it’s honey-blonde. Saner men have been driven mad by less than that. He lay for a long time alone in the tent, feeling his heart pound in his chest and watching images of himself and Stargazer, their bodies entwined in a sexual embrace, on the insides of his eyelids.

Brisbane thought about those moments now as the little group continued its weary march up the Mystic, and as he thought about it, he noticed he had two voices echoing in his head. One voice, the louder and more confident one, was telling him he had it made. It was only a matter of time. Stargazer loved him and if he was patient and careful, it wouldn’t be long before she told him so and not long after that before they had more personal reasons to be alone in a separate tent at night. This first voice was sure of it. But Brisbane could not deny the presence of a second voice, softer, yes, but somehow more insidious and swaying. This voice said Stargazer was teasing him, that she was too mature for an inexperienced boy like him and there was no way she could love him as a woman loved a man. Besides, the second voice said, even if she does consent to make love with you, what are you going to say when she takes off your shirt and she sees the five-pointed star you wear around your neck?

Suddenly Brisbane realized this was the crux of the whole problem, this was what he feared about him and Stargazer getting closer. How is Stargazer going to deal with his connection to magic? She said she would tolerate Roystnof because she knew Brisbane cared about him, and because there was no visible evidence he had corrupted Brisbane in any way. But there was evidence. Stargazer just hadn’t seen it. There was his silver medallion, yes, but more importantly there was shocking grasp and the few cantrips Roystnof had taught him.

Brisbane wondered how Stargazer would treat him if she knew he was able to do magic, because that was exactly what he was able to do. It had been nearly a year since he had cast shocking grasp onto that hotel chair, and even longer since he had done his last cantrip, but Brisbane knew he could, at any time, do one of them again as if there had never been a break in his training. The knowledge was burned into him and he was as sure of it as he was about his own name. If Stargazer ever found out about this ability, Brisbane could expect no better treatment from her than that she gave Dantrius. Worse, Brisbane realized, because she would not only hate him for his magic, but she would hate him because he had betrayed her trust.

All of these thoughts left Brisbane in a very poor mood and he spent most of the day’s march away from the others, walking through the smudgy remains of depression. Shortwhiskers and Stargazer had both come over to try and cheer him up, and although he was not rude about it, Brisbane made it clear he would rather be left alone for a while. He walked with his head down for the most part, not wanting to look up in case anyone was looking at him. Brisbane would have had trouble meeting even Dantrius’ eyes that day.

It was late in the afternoon and they were deep into the Crimson Mountains themselves when Brisbane, still looking down, caught out of the corner of his eye the sight of one of his companions coming over to him. He began to run potential excuses through his head, but when he saw the red and black garments of Roystnof approaching, he stopped such activity and looked up to meet him.

“Hello,” Roystnof said with hesitation in his voice.

“Hello,” Brisbane said warmly, hoping to put everything aside and talk to Roystnof like the old friends they were.

“I take it something’s troubling you,” Roystnof said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

With that simple statement, direct as it was, Brisbane saw in Roystnof the friend that had always been there. The friend who knew him better than anyone and around whom Brisbane could be completely himself. He knew, whether he talked about his problems or not, Roystnof would always be there when Brisbane needed him.

Brisbane quickly thought about his problems with Stargazer and realized he would need, even with Roystnof, some time to collect his thoughts and prepare what he was going to say. His was just too uncertain about the whole thing.

“It’s kind of involved,” Brisbane said. “I still need some time to think. Can we talk about it later?”

“Of course,” Roystnof said. “I understand.”

Something in the way Roystnof said that made Brisbane think his friend already had guessed most of what his problem was.

Roystnof did not walk away.

Brisbane acted on a hunch. “Did you want to talk about something, Roy?”

Roystnof looked as if he was surprised but then turned serious. “Actually, yes there is, Gil. I was hoping I could bend your ear.”

Brisbane smiled, more than happy to serve in this capacity. “I’ve got two. Go right ahead.”

Roystnof smiled back and the sight of it made Brisbane immensely pleased. “It’s Dantrius,” the wizard said. “Frankly, he’s beginning to scare me. I am beginning to see why you tried to warn me about him. I know I said I could handle him, but now…now I am no longer sure.”

“What happened?” Brisbane asked. He was surprised at Roystnof’s confession. In his eyes, the two wizards had been getting along as well as they ever had.

“This whole trip happened,” Roystnof said sardonically. “I’m sure you’ve noticed Dantrius hasn’t been the easiest person to get along with so far.”

“He’s a pest,” Brisbane said.

“Yes,” Roystnof said. “Yes, he is. But I don’t understand why he is. He wasn’t like this back in Queensburg when we were studying together. He wasn’t exactly a loving companion, but at least he was cooperative. Now, he acts like everyone is in his way.”

“Nobody wants him along, Roy. We all agreed because you wanted him.”

“I know, I know,” Roystnof said. “We wanted to try out what we had taught each other under real circumstances. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

“What exactly did you teach each other?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked around. Dantrius was well out of earshot. “This is what’s really bothering me,” Roystnof said. “In Queensburg, I thought we were exchanging knowledge equally. But now, I get the feeling Dantrius has been holding back on me.”

That was the third time Roystnof had called the mage Dantrius. Brisbane was glad he was no longer using Illzeezad. “How do you mean?” Brisbane asked.

“I mean,” Roystnof said, “I don’t think Dantrius has taught me all he knows about magic.”

“Have you?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked at the ground. “Foolishly, I think I have. Back in Queensburg he had free run of my red book and I answered any questions he had to the best of my ability. I felt obligated to do so, after all, I expected the same service in return.”

Roystnof looked back at Brisbane. “But Dantrius has no spell book. At first I found that a bit odd. Even you know the importance—” He cut himself off suddenly.

“Roy, what’s the matter?”

Roystnof answered slowly. “I’m sorry, Gil. I’m not taking your feelings into account. You’re the one who I should have let examine my book. I know things have seemed different lately, but I still consider you to be my apprentice.” His eyes suddenly went wide. “I can’t believe I’ve really neglected you for so long. I can’t imagine what you must have thought all winter long with me and Dantrius holed up in the cabin. I’m sorry, Gil, I’m…”

Roystnof trailed off and seemed to stare off into the space in front of him. Brisbane quickly checked to see that Stargazer hadn’t heard what he had said and then turned back to his friend.

“Roy,” Brisbane said. “Get a hold of yourself. I’m not mad at you. I’ve neglected my training as much, if not more, than you have. It’s no one’s fault, really. I just kind of fell away from it. First Angelika comes to me and then Ignatius leaves the group, it was better for the party that I put magic on hold for a while. It’s okay, really.”

Roystnof was still staring off into space. “Oh yes. Angelika.”

Brisbane clapped Roystnof on the back. “Who knows? When this trip is over, maybe I can take up my training again.”

Not if Allie has anything to do with it. You know that, Gil.

Roystnof seemed to come back to himself. “Yes, maybe you will. But Dantrius is our problem now. As I said, Dantrius has no spell book, it’s all up in his head, and I’m beginning to see that what’s up there could fill a dozen of my red books.”

“Then he did teach you some of his magic?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof nodded. “Or so it seemed. But now, I fear he has told me only the uppermost fringes of his knowledge. It is like an iceberg I have only seen the tip of. Like the spell he used yesterday, the one against the orks, where he duplicated himself.”

“I remember,” Brisbane said.

“Well, as I said, Dantrius’ magic seems to be based on illusion and creating duplicate images of oneself is basic stuff in his order of magic. With the little I have actually gotten out of him, I am sure I could do it myself. But my images would be just images, and I would still be real among them. An attack against me, even with my images still standing, would certainly kill me. What Dantrius did, mixing his life force among the images so he would always be retained in the last one, is leagues beyond anything he has taught me. It is illusion, yes, but it is illusion bordering on its own reality.”

“Maybe he lied,” Brisbane offered. “Maybe it was just chance that he was the last one standing.”

“Maybe it was,” Roystnof agreed. “But would you rely on a chance like that when your life was on the line? Remember how smug he was when you were chopping down his images? Would you be that confident on a one in three chance?”

Brisbane shook his head. No, he would not. Dantrius was either able to manipulate his life force as he had claimed, or he was the world’s ultimate gambling man.

Or, Brisbane thought, he was crazier than a shithouse rat.

“I wouldn’t either,” Roystnof said. “I believe he did just what he said he did, and I believe he has kept a large amount of knowledge from me.”

“Okay,” Brisbane said. “So he deceived you. What happens now?”

“I’m not sure,” Roystnof said. “But this is why I wanted to talk to you. Everything Dantrius has done so far is in the past, and there is nothing we can do about it. But what worries me is what he’s going to do in the future.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve seen how he’s been acting,” Roystnof said. “He’s been separating himself from the group. Not just from you and Nog and Miss Stargazer, he’s always been apart from you, but from me as well. Back in Queensburg, I was a sort of confidant for him, but now, it seems like he wants nothing to do with me.”

Brisbane did not like the sound of that. “Do you think he’s up to something?”

Roystnof became very serious. “I’ll tell you what I do think, Gil. I think Dantrius is done with me. I think he knows he’s gotten all he’s going to get out of me, and now that I’m no longer of any use to him, he’s tossed me aside and he’s just biding his time until he can leave us all completely.”

Brisbane considered it. It did make sense in the light of Dantrius’ current actions. Especially if what Roystnof said about his own estrangement from the mage was true. But Brisbane was not sure what the problem was. Dantrius had certainly used Roystnof, and Brisbane was angry about that, but as Roystnof had said, that was in the past. Presently, if Dantrius wanted to leave their party, Brisbane had no problem with that. Nobody wanted him here anyway, and as far as Brisbane was concerned, Dantrius could take his share of the ork gold and leave.

“So?” Brisbane said. “Let him go. What are you so worried about?”

“I’m worried about what he might try to do before he leaves,” Roystnof said. “You don’t know him like I do, Gil.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Roystnof looked around at the others again. Brisbane did not like to see him do that. It was as if he was some kind of insane paranoid.

“It means,” Roystnof said, “that you don’t know him like I do. He’s an evil man, Gil, he really is. He worships Damaleous.”

“What?” Brisbane was taken aback.

“It’s true,” Roystnof said. “He believes that’s where his power comes from. At first he assumed I worshipped the Evil One, too. I tried to tell him I get my power from within, and I tried to show him he could do the same, but he would have nothing to do with it. It quickly became a subject neither of us would discuss. I have my beliefs and he has his.”

“He actually worships Damaleous?” Brisbane asked. “How? What does he do?”

“He meditates a lot,” Roystnof said. “Sits in one spot and closes his eyes for long periods of time. I asked him what he was doing once and he said he was communing with his master.”

“His master? You mean Damaleous?”

“I would assume so,” Roystnof said. “He says he needs those little sessions to recharge his powers. His master evidently bestows his power on him during this meditation. Because of this, he doesn’t need a spell book. He says his master rewards him with greater and greater powers for the work he does here on earth.”

“That sounds like my stepfather,” Brisbane said. “I was taught that was how all wizards operated. Until I met you, that’s what I believed.”

“I know,” Roystnof said. “And that’s what troubles me. I have denied the existence of gods my entire life and worked my magic powers up through years of research, sweat, and dedication to my craft. All I have learned I set down in my red book because it is too much for one man to remember. I could still work magic without my book, but I would not be the wizard I am now.

“This is the nature of magic, this is how I have come to perceive magic to be. It comes with my personal experience with the magical force and I am positive this and this alone is the true representation of magic in our reality. But now along comes Illzeezad Dantrius, who breaks all the rules I thought magic adhered to. He has never studied it. He has never researched anything. To him, magic is a prize, a reward given by his god, Damaleous, for doing evil works upon the earth. And he is twice the wizard I will ever be. It is a situation I cannot logically accept.”

Brisbane was not sure what to say. “You don’t think Dantrius really gets his power from Damaleous, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Roystnof said. “At this point I am willing to say he might.”

“But it could be something else.”

“It could be many things,” Roystnof said. “The force of magic could just be stronger in him than it is in you or me. His magic is mostly illusionary, so it could operate under different restrictions. It could even be something he eats on a regular basis, but none of that really matters. What matters is that Dantrius believes his power comes from Damaleous and I have no proof to tell him otherwise.”

“And now you’re worried about what evil acts he might do to increase his power.”

“Yes,” Roystnof said. “There’s no telling what he may do. We’re going to have to watch him very closely. For all of our own good.”

Brisbane had already seen the need to watch Dantrius closely. Shortwhiskers had taught him that much. “Why don’t we just get rid of him? Force him out of the group?”

Roystnof shook his head. “Too dangerous. He’s a ticking bomb now. There’s no need to shorten the fuse. Besides, I very much doubt we could prevent him from following us short of killing him. And that would probably be much harder than we might think. No, I believe the only way to proceed is to keep him in a place where we can exert some control over him. Once this adventure is finished, and we are out of the wilds, there will be no more reason for his company among us and we can more easily turn him loose on the rest of the world.”

Brisbane wasn’t so sure about that logic, but he realistically did not see any other way to go about it. He was glad Roystnof had come to him with this dilemma, but he knew Dantrius wasn’t just his problem, he was everyone’s problem. He looked up ahead and saw the thin frame of the mage. Shortwhiskers and Stargazer were walking apart from him. Brisbane thought about everything Roystnof had told him about the mage, the way he had used Roystnof, the extent of his power, and the habits of his religious life, and Brisbane realized that none of it surprised him. He had known it all along, known it deep down in his heart. Illzeezad Dantrius was no good and he liked hurting people.

“Well,” Roystnof said, interrupting Brisbane’s thoughts. “I guess that’s all I have to say except that I’m sorry I’ve forgotten about you lately. I hope we can be close again.”

“Roy,” Brisbane said. “Cut it out. We’ll always be close. Don’t worry about me.”

Roystnof smiled. “Super. Now, are you sure you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

Brisbane thought about his problem with Stargazer. He still wasn’t sure how he could phrase it properly, but he had begun to have the sneaking suspicion that one day he was going to have to choose between love and magic. He did not yet fully realize that this choice would manifest itself as a choice between Stargazer and Roystnof.

“It’s Allison,” Brisbane said. “I don’t know. I’m just really confused about where we stand.”

Roystnof nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes,” he said. “That is a delicate situation.”

“What do you think I should do?” Brisbane asked.

“Well,” Roystnof said. “Do you know how you feel about her? Could you describe it to her in, say, three words?”

Brisbane wasn’t sure what Roystnof was talking about but then he caught the gleam in the wizard’s eye. “You think I should just tell her?”

Roystnof put a hand on Brisbane’s shoulder. “I think you should just tell her.”

“But…” Brisbane could say no more aloud. To himself, he said, but what am I going to do when she finds out what I’ve been hiding from her? How can I deal with the hate she will surely feel for me? How can I let myself be something for her I’m not?

“But what, Gil?”

Brisbane shook his head miserably. “Nothing. It just seems kind of sudden.”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Brisbane thought about it. Yes, it was the truth. He did love Stargazer and telling her that would not be a lie.

“I’ll do it,” Brisbane said.

“Grand,” Roystnof said. “Shall I go tell her you wish to speak with her?”

“No!” Brisbane shouted. “I mean, I’ll find my own time to tell her.”

Roystnof gave another of his knowing smiles. “Okay. Just be sure you do find the time.”

“Oh, I will.”

Brisbane meant it and, surprisingly enough, he thought the perfect time came at the end of that day, after the march, after the evening meal, and after the camp had been set up on the bank of the dwindling Mystic River among the growing Crimson Mountains. He thought the perfect time came when they settled down for a night’s rest, having both eluded watch duty and again sharing the same tent. The perfect time came and the perfect time went.

That night turned out to be a whole lot different than the one before it because instead of Stargazer joining him after he had already fallen asleep, they were both awake and had to fall asleep at the same time.

Stargazer quickly went about undressing and putting on her sleeping clothes and Brisbane dumbly followed in a slow mimicry of her actions. He would leave most of his clothes on, he decided, as he was too embarrassed to go much farther, removing only his armor and boots before slipping under the blankets. Stargazer, however, would sleep only in her long nightshirt, but she donned it in such a way that Brisbane saw little of her naked flesh.

“Allie?” he asked as she slipped under the covers beside him, still planning on telling her how he felt.

“Yes?” Stargazer murmured, cuddling close.

Brisbane did not know how to begin. “What’s happening here?” After he had said it, he decided that it was a bad way to start.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said. “Please don’t take offense, but why are you sleeping with me?”

Ouch, Brisbane thought. If I keep saying moronic things like that I’m never going to get through this.

Stargazer hugged him tighter. “Because there’s so much of you to keep me warm. And Nog snores.”

This was not going in the direction he wanted it to go. “No, seriously, Allie.” He took a deep breath. “What’s going on between us?”

Stargazer was silent.

“Allie?”

“Gil, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Oh, oh, Brisbane thought, here it comes.

“I like you a lot and I feel safe around you. I guess those are the two main reasons why I want to share a tent with you out here. But if you’re thinking about starting something physical between us, I’m not ready for it. I’m flattered and I’m not saying it will never happen, but I’m not ready for it. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can.”

Stargazer rested her head on his chest. “Do you remember the night we spent together in the Shadowhorn?”

“I do.”

“Did you feel something special happen that night?”

Brisbane had. He had never felt so comfortable in his life before that night. There was something different about the way he felt that night from any of the other nights he had spent with Stargazer since. In a moment he realized that it was because he neither wanted nor expected any sexual contact with her that night.

“I did.”

“So did I,” Stargazer said. “And I still feel it. I just want to savor it a little longer before we move onto something else. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now go to sleep,” she demanded.

They lay quietly together for some time.

“Allie?”

“Yes?”

“I like you a lot, too.”

It was all he was able to say that night, but in a way, he thought it was enough.

Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:35:00 +0000

“Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:27:00 +0000

“Let me add, however, that in every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone’s brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others, though you wrote volumes about it and spent thirty-five years explaining your idea; something will always be left that will obstinately refuse to emerge from your head and that will remain with you for ever; and you will die without having conveyed to anyone what is perhaps the most vital point of your idea.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot (Ippolit)

Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:10:00 +0000

“There are many ideas that have always been around and all of a sudden become new ideas.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Devils (Aleksei Nilych Kirillov)

Chapter Eighteen

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:31:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE
FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Gildegarde Brisbane II took to his Knighthood like a fish takes to water. In the first year of his service he spent more time in the field than he did at the Castle, scouring the land for monsters and enemies of the King. In a short time, his reputation grew to fantastic proportions and even those who thought he had lucked out in life due to his birthright began to find respect for him. Many wondered when his quest for victory would end and, as accomplishment piled on top of accomplishment, they began to think of him as invincible. But all this was not done without reason. Brisbane had a plan, and these adventures in the field were part of it. He was training himself in battle, not against men, but against monsters. For when he felt he had gained enough skill, he fully intended to ride to Dragon’s Peak and take on Dalanmire, the monster who had killed his father and raped his land.

+ + +

The journey continued south at dawn. As the third day wore on, the Crimson Mountains loomed closer and the party eventually left the Windcrest Hills and entered the beginning foothills of the mountain range.

Brisbane, more so than usual, avoided all contact with Dantrius, seriously worried about what the mage might do. Physically, he was no match for Brisbane and even a sneak attack from him would most likely fall in Brisbane’s favor. But it was Dantrius’ magic which Brisbane feared. Roystnof had said Dantrius was just as powerful a wizard, if not more, as he was, although Dantrius’ magic was of a different nature. Brisbane thought about the level of power Roystnof had at his command, the lightning bolts especially, and then shivered to imagine a power like that brought against him.

At one point during the third day of their journey, Brisbane told Shortwhiskers what had happened between him and Dantrius, interested in seeing what the dwarf’s reaction would be to Dantrius’ threat. Shortwhiskers laughed a great deal, obviously amused by what Brisbane had done with the burning log, but eventually he calmed down and was able to see the seriousness of the situation.

The threat did not sit well with Shortwhiskers, for he knew how devious Dantrius could be, but even so, he had trouble imagining this grudge being held for any great length of time. If someone had done that to him, Shortwhiskers said, he would probably be mad for a time, too, but eventually he would see the error of his ways and, after the pain had gone away, forgive the person. Of course, Shortwhiskers conjectured, if it had really been his turn to stand watch, he would have gotten up and done it in the first place. Shortwhiskers told Brisbane to try not to worry about it and together they would keep an eye on Dantrius.

Brisbane also told Stargazer about the situation and she seemed to agree for the most part with Shortwhiskers. It had perhaps been a foolish thing for Brisbane to do, she said, but she couldn’t imagine an ordinary person holding a serious grudge about it. But Stargazer also conceded that Dantrius was no ordinary person and, to him, revenge over things like this probably had a somewhat sweeter taste. She also advised Brisbane to sleep with one eye open.

Brisbane was walking off by himself considering what his friends had said when an unusual idea overcame him.

Angelika? he thought, reaching out to the consciousness living in his sword.

Yes, young Brisbane? came the immediate reply.

Brisbane was a bit surprised he had reached her. He had never initiated any contact with her before; she had always been the one to speak to him first. If he could reach her at any time and carry on conversations with her in his head, there was no telling what effect it would have on their already awkward relationship.

What do you think of all this? Brisbane thought.

Fear not, young Brisbane. He cannot harm you while I am at your side. My eyes are always open. I can warn you of any action he might take against you.

This did little to assuage Brisbane’s fears. Angelika, he thought, is Dantrius evil? The sword always seemed to know when evil was about.

It is hard to tell with humans, Angelika replied. They are not creatures of pure good or pure evil like others in the universe. Dantrius is capable of doing evil.

Angelika’s words bothered Brisbane and he began to feel ill as he always did when she spoke to him. There was something unnatural about the connection Brisbane didn’t like, something cold and alien.

Do you want to kill him? Brisbane thought.

Angelika’s reply was delayed. In due time.

Brisbane tried to break the connection, having some initial trouble coming away from her commanding presence, and had to concentrate much harder on coming back to himself. Eventually, he severed the link and Angelika fell from his mind. He immediately felt better, but he knew he would worry over what she had said for a long time to come.

But that was not the most disturbing thing that happened that day. As they followed the curves of the Mystic, they wove in and around a lot of hills, and the way ahead could often not be clearly seen. At regular intervals they sent someone up to the top of the closest hill to scout the area for possible unfriendlies. This quickly became a tiresome duty as no one spotted a potential threat to their safety since leaving Queensburg.

It was near the end of the day, and they were pushing ahead to cover some more distance before nightfall, when they rounded the contour of a hill and nearly stumbled into the midst of a large party of orks.

There was no hope to elude them; the orks spotted Brisbane and his friends immediately, and they all took up weapons and rushed at them. The orks were fearsome creatures, humanoid in appearance, the shortest being a full six feet, burly, and having ugly pig faces, complete with small tusks, atop their broad shoulders. Their skin color was a sickening brownish-green with their snouts and ears a tender shade of pink. They all wore sloppy suits of mismatched armor, were all armed with rusty swords, and each bore a round black shield with a single red eye painted upon it for decoration. There were eight of them in all.

Brisbane and his friends had no choice but to fight them. Shortwhiskers called out to Brisbane to follow him and he charged into battle, leaving the wizards and Stargazer behind. Brisbane unsheathed Angelika and joined the dwarf.

They crashed into combat with the two orks who led their own charge and were able to stop their forward progress. The other six, however, simply flowed around them and closed on the rest of the party. Brisbane was sure he couldn’t get them all, but Angelika encouraged him to concentrate on one at a time, and promised she would make sure each strike he made was a mortal one.

Brisbane thrust aside the attack of his opponent with his shield and thrust Angelika deep into the ork’s exposed abdomen. As he pulled his sword free and the ork collapsed to his knees. Brisbane swung Angelika again, for good measure, and nearly separated the ork’s head from his body. The ork fell over dead and Brisbane quickly turned back to the party.

What he saw amazed him. One ork already lay dead, his head charred and blackened as if it had been left in a fire. Two others were attacking Stargazer, but the woman was adequately fending them off with her long staff for the time being. The other three were standing in a moment of indecision as they faced what had amazed Brisbane more than anything else.

There was not one but five figures of Dantrius, five exact copies of Illzeezad Dantrius standing in a line, each with his fists on his hips and each laughing at the orks’ surprise. As the opponents stood there, Roystnof pointed his finger at one, sending a fiery missile out of his hand to crash into the head of the ork. The missile exploded and dropped him with nothing but a blackened stump above his neck.

Shortwhiskers finished off his ork and, with Brisbane, rushed back to the party to help. Stargazer cracked one of her combatants against the side of the head. The ork fell to the ground, dead or unconscious, and she slipped back into her defensive posture with the other ork. It was obvious to Brisbane she had used her staff in combat before. The metal hand that topped it made it a rather effective mace.

Each ork facing the five Dantriuses chose one and swung their rusty swords at the figures. The Dantriuses offered up no defense, still laughing with their fists planted on their hips. The ork blades passed effortlessly through the figures and they blinked out of existence. There now remained only three copies of Dantrius.

Brisbane and Shortwhiskers arrived and they cut down the two orks facing the Dantriuses. Roystnof turned and fired another of his magic missiles at the remaining ork on Stargazer. As with the others, the glowing arrow struck the unsuspecting ork and burst into a flash of fire, killing him instantly.

Brisbane could not believe it, but all eight orks lay dead at their feet and none of them had received so much as a scratch.

The deed is done, Angelika tolled in Brisbane’s head. Praise Grecolus for his wisdom and Brisbane for his courage.

The first thing Brisbane did after sheathing Angelika was to go over and see if Stargazer was all right. She assured Brisbane she was fine and Brisbane told her how surprised he was at the way she had used her staff.

“You’re not the only one who has gone off on adventures before,” she reminded him and gave him a hug.

Shortwhiskers came over to search the bodies of the orks. As he was checking the one Stargazer had smashed with her staff, he announced that he was not yet dead.

The rest of the party came over, Roystnof and the three copies of Dantrius, to decide what should be done. The ork was bleeding profusely from a nasty head wound, which was very messy and probably accompanied by a shattered skull.

“Put him out of his misery,” the three Dantriuses intoned as one, more disgust than compassion in their voices. “He’ll die soon anyway.”

Brisbane looked closely at the ork’s pig-like face and let his mind wander. This was the first time he had ever met any orks and he had said hello by killing them. This fact alone did not bother him so much. After all, it had been the orks who had initiated the aggression, but it left Brisbane a little upset at the way things worked in the world. All he knew about orks came from what he had heard people say about them, some of them reliable and some of them not. He had heard many conflicting stories about their nature, their origins, and their motivations. What it all boiled down to was that he knew almost nothing about orks, and what he did know was most likely hopelessly tainted by prejudice and unfounded opinion.

But now, here he was, participating in a vote to decide whether an ork should be killed or left to die what was probably many miles from home. The vote went around the circle, the dwarf making doubly sure Dantrius got only one vote for his three copies, and not one of them, not Shortwhiskers, not even Stargazer, suggested they try to help the wounded ork.

They all agreed to put the ork out of his misery and when the vote came to Brisbane, he only nodded his head and walked slowly away. They all moved on to explore the orkish campsite and left Shortwhiskers behind to finish the deed and to take any valuables the ork might have had.

“What’s the matter, Brisbane?” the three copies of Dantrius mocked. “Get squeamish at the sight of blood?”

Brisbane looked at the three men. “How long is that spell going to last, Dantrius? One of you is quite enough.”

“My magic powers can last forever,” they said with some pride. “This particular spell will last until someone strikes down my duplicates.”

Brisbane drew Angelika. “Do you mind if I have the honor?” he asked the Dantriuses. “I think I would derive some sort of symbolic pleasure from it.”

The three smirked. “I’m sure you would. Go right ahead.”

Brisbane swung Angelika in a great overhead arc and sliced her through one of the Dantriuses. The sword met no resistance and the figure vanished in the blink of an eye. Two Dantriuses remained.

“Very good,” the remaining two said. “You’re quite good at instilling fear in me.” Their tone was far from complimentary.

“One down,” Brisbane said as he stepped up to the next Dantrius.

The others in the party stood silently by as this little game went on. Brisbane thrust Angelika through the chest of one of the remaining figures, again meeting no resistance and dispelling the phantasm.

“Thank you very much,” Dantrius said. “You can put your sword away now.”

“Two down,” Brisbane chanted mechanically, ignoring Dantrius’ words. “And one to go.”

Brisbane brought Angelika up to strike the last Dantrius. Frightened, the mage let out a little squeal and skipped back a few paces. Brisbane, laughing at the joke he had played, brought his sword harmlessly down and sheathed her. Dantrius burned Brisbane with a look of utter hatred and was about to say something nasty when Roystnof stepped in.

“But how did you know he would save the real one for last?” he asked Dantrius. “What would have happened if Gil had struck the images in a different order?”

Dantrius turned away from Brisbane. For a moment he looked at Roystnof with a look of utter contempt on his face. If his glare could have spoken in that moment, Brisbane thought, it would have called Roystnof an ignorant fool and dismissed him like a backward child. But the look lasted for only a moment, and it was quickly replaced by a face exuding with friendship and equality.

“It’s worked into the spell,” Dantrius explained. “My life force is actually split between all the images. When one of the images is destroyed, my life force is redistributed amongst those remaining. When the second to last image is destroyed, my entire life force enters the final one. Simple.”

“Simple,” Roystnof repeated, obviously thinking the process was something more.

Dantrius began walking towards the ork campsite and Roystnof trotted after him. Brisbane looked around and saw Shortwhiskers watching the wizards leave.

“You know, Gil,” the dwarf said quietly. “I used to think Roystnof was about the smartest person on earth. But why he follows such a jackass around is beyond me. Doesn’t he see that Dantrius thinks he’s a fool?”

Brisbane shrugged. “I don’t know. Roy told me he knows what kind of snake Dantrius is, but they learn so much from each other that the relationship is worth it.”

Shortwhiskers spat. “If Roystnof still has things to learn, then we are all but school children.” He, too, then marched off in the direction of the ork campsite.

Stargazer came up to Brisbane and slipped her hand into his.

“I’m scared, Allie,” he said. “I really am. I’m afraid for our safety. That Dantrius is gray skies and some day he’s going to rain all over us.”

“He is an evil man, Gil,” she said, moving close to him. “Have you talked to Roystnof about him?”

“Yes,” Brisbane said. “He says he knows what he’s doing and that he can handle Dantrius.”

“I hope he’s right,” Stargazer said.

Brisbane looked down into Stargazer’s face. “Allie,” he said. “Have you changed your mind about Roy? I mean, about his magic?”

Stargazer looked down at the ground. “I’m not sure, Gil. Since I’ve met you I’ve re-examined a lot of things I used to take for granted. I believe this is a healthy thing for me to do and, in most cases, it has only reinforced my faith in Grecolus. Your friend Roystnof, however, is still something that puzzles me. You say he does not worship Damaleous and, objectively, his use of magic is the only proof I’ve seen that he does. I suppose, I’ve come to question the validity of that proof. I am not decided. But even if Roystnof is a servant of evil, I sincerely hope no harm comes to him because I know you love him.”

Brisbane looked off in the distance at Roystnof. “I do love him,” he said, the words coming out of him with little control. “With the exception of Dantrius, I think I love everyone here.”

Stargazer eyed him sheepishly for a moment and then smiled wide. “Come on,” she said, starting to pull him along. “Let’s go catch up with the others.”

Looking back on it, Brisbane was pleased with Stargazer’s reaction to his roundabout admission of his love for her. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he was not unhappy he had. Although she hadn’t come right out and say she loved him, too, the indications were positive. She could have done any number of things to dispel from his mind any delusion he might have had about her loving him, but she hadn’t done any of them. Brisbane thought that was a good sign.

The search of the ork campsite was quickly conducted and it profited little of any worth. Shortwhiskers had turned up a few gold pieces on the bodies of the orks, and the campsite yielded a few more to his trained eyes, but nothing of any shocking value. But even this small amount of treasure was enough to set off an argument from Dantrius, who thought all gain should be divided among the party members immediately. Shortwhiskers, who was so used to packing what was found on the mules to be split up at a more convenient time, was actually accused of thievery by the quick-tempered mage. A long tirade between the two followed, comprised mostly of name-calling, and lasted until Roystnof put his foot down and demanded that the two pipe down before they brought the whole of the ork nation down upon them. Roystnof quickly called for a vote on the matter and all but Dantrius agreed to let Shortwhiskers collect the coins to be divided up later. Again, Dantrius was forced to drop his argument.

Also found in the ork camp was a small keg of ale which Shortwhiskers tasted and declared unfit for consumption, even by sewer rats. Brisbane noticed the dwarf lashed it to one of the mules anyway.

Brisbane asked Shortwhiskers what he thought orks were doing so close to the Mystic and the dwarf postulated that perhaps they were some sort of scouting party.

“Scouting for what?” Brisbane asked.

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “Slaves, maybe.”

“Slaves?”

Shortwhiskers nodded. “Oh yes. Orks are real big on slaves. They use them for all kinds of things. One of their favorite things to do with captured slaves is to torture them to death and then eat them.”

Brisbane’s stomach lurched. “They eat people?”

Shortwhiskers looked up at Brisbane. “Well, what did you think they did with the people they captured? And why do you think they keep capturing new ones? Orks have big appetites. I hear they like elf meat the best but it’s too hard to find.”

A strange mix of images flared up in Brisbane’s mind, all leaning on a cannibalistic theme. He thanked Shortwhiskers for the information and quickly walked away from the dwarf with one hand on his stomach.

Sunset was upon them but no one wanted to bed down in the same place the orks had been, especially with their dead bodies nearby, so they pushed on for an extra mile or two before setting up camp for the night. Brisbane drew no watch that night so he went to bed right after the evening meal and a cup of the ale declared unfit for rodents.

He was tired and fell asleep almost immediately, but before he did he spent some time in a half-awake half-asleep state where dreams are most disguised as reality. He thought about orks while in this state, their large humanoid bodies and their pig faces crowded around him in numbers unheard of. They eat human flesh, Shortwhiskers had said and Brisbane saw hundreds of them swarm out of the hills to descend upon Queensburg and drag screaming victims off to their skewer knives and fire pits. He saw the eight they had killed rise up and scream out at the injustice of their deaths, scrambling around frantically, begging for another chance to redeem themselves.

And lastly, before he fell completely asleep, Brisbane saw a single huge ork come walking over the hills, his head in the clouds and one great eye burning like a red beacon in the center of his brow, and crush each of the reborn orks beneath his massive feet.

Brisbane awoke briefly in the middle of the night, when Stargazer crawled into the tent after her watch, but he had already forgotten these images. Stargazer snuggled close to Brisbane, resting her head on his chest and draping a slender arm over his body.

Ideals

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:46:00 +0000

“He who attains his ideal by that very fact transcends it.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:20:00 +0000

I’m pretty sure I picked this one up at one the library’s semi-annual book sale. That means I paid only 50 cents for it or it was in a box of books that cost me only a dollar total. Here’s the opening paragraph:

There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. He is proud that he has the biggest brain of all the primates, but attempts to conceal the fact that he also has the biggest penis, preferring to accord this honour falsely to the mighty gorilla. He is an intensely vocal, acutely exploratory, over-crowded ape, and it is high time we examined his basic behavior.

And I think, cool, we’re off to a good start. Morris is going to write from the perspective of a zoologist, studying an unusual species with the clinical detachment he would bring to any other species, primate or otherwise. But that quickly fades. In the next few paragraphs he introduces himself as a fellow human, as a member of this strange and unique species he’s going to critically examine. And when the “it” becomes a “we”, Morris fails in doing the revolutionary thing he sets out to do.

Otherwise the book is a mixed bag. Some things seem like deep and previously-unrecognized revelations—the 40+ years since his publication in these cases helping to prove Morris had flashes of extraordinary insight.

His analysis of the human evolutionary story as the primate turned predator has tremendous explanatory power—and indeed, Morris attributes a lot to it. At a minimum, it helps to explain why human society is so different from chimpanzee society and gorilla society, and why humans seem to struggle so much with the societal pressures that are placed upon them.

If we accept the history of our evolution as it has been outlined here, then one fact stands out clearly: namely, that we have arisen essentially as primate predators. Amongst existing monkeys and apes, this makes us unique … The point is that a major switch of this sort produces an animal with a split personality. Once over the threshold, it plunges into its new role with great evolutionary energy—so much so that it carries with it many of its old traits. Insufficient time has passed for it to throw off all its old characteristics while it is hurriedly donning the new ones. When the ancient fishes first conquered dry land, their new terrestrial qualities raced ahead while they continued to drag their old watery ones with them. It takes millions of years to perfect a dramatically new animal model, and the pioneer forms are usually very odd mixtures indeed. The naked ape is such a mixture. His whole body, his way of life, was geared to a forest existence, and then suddenly (suddenly in evolutionary terms) he was jettisoned into a world where he could survive only if he began to live like a brainy, weapon-toting wolf. We must examine now exactly how this affected not only his body, but especially his behavior, and in what form we experience the influence of this legacy at the present day.

Other things seem laughably wrong and contrived. Allow me to paraphrase a few prime examples (and no, I am not making these up):

• The female orgasm developed, in part, because of the female’s need to stay horizontal after the sexual act. If she were to get up and walk away, like other apes do, the seminal fluid would leak out of her vertically aligned vaginal passage and she would never conceive. The violent response of the female orgasm, leaving her sexually satiated and exhausted, has the effect of keeping her horizontal for the appropriate amount of time for insemination to occur.

• Weak and effeminate fathers raise lesbian daughters and strong and masculine mothers raise gay sons. Children or either gender, exposed to a behaviorally “inappropriate” parent, will seek those behaviors in a mate when they come of age, and may only find them in people of their same gender.

• Humans intentionally imbue commercial products and brands with a resemblance to our “threat-faces.” Car designers arrange headlights, metal grilles, and hoods so that they take on the appearance of an aggressive human face because roads have become increasingly crowded and driving has become an increasingly belligerent activity.

• The corporal punishment used in some schools, especially the spanking and paddling, are a cultural holdover from our evolutionary predisposition for male sexual dominance over females. The schoolboy assumes a classic submissive feminine posture of rump-presentation, and the teacher has replaced the repetitive pelvic thrusts of the dominant male with the rhythmic whipping of the switch.

• Girls think spiders are icky because their long legs remind them of the hair that sprouts on their bodies during puberty, and body hair is essentially a male characteristic, and therefore grotesque from a young girl’s point of view.

But the clincher for me was the following. It’s not so much wrong anachronistically but morally. It is a book that goes out of its way to treat and describe human beings as another species of primate, different in type but not in kind from gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees; and in doing so, often compares and contrasts behaviors of the different species. Here, Morris is talking about juvenile isolation and its effect on development and socialization.

Experiments with monkeys have revealed that not only does isolation in infancy produce a socially withdrawn adult, but it also creates an anti-sexual and anti-parental individual. Monkeys that were reared in isolation from other youngsters failed to participate in play-group activities when exposed to them later, as older juveniles. Although the isolates were physically healthy and had grown well in their solitary states, they were quite incapable of joining in the general rough and tumble. Instead they crouched, immobile, in the corner of the playroom, usually clasping their bodies tightly with their arms, or covering their eyes. When they matured, again as physically healthy specimens, they showed no interest in sexual partners. If forcibly mated, female isolates produced offspring in the normal way, but they proceeded to treat them as though they were huge parasites crawling on their bodies. They attacked them, drove them away, and either killed them or ignored them.

Something about that paragraph unsettled my stomach, and when I read the next sentence I knew what it was.

Similar experiments with young chimpanzees showed that, in this species, with prolonged rehabilitation and special care it was possible to undo, to some extent, this behavioral damage, but, even so, its dangers cannot be over-estimated.

Similar experiments? You mean experiments, like the ones described being performed on monkeys, where infants were taken away from their mothers, raised in complete isolation, and then forcibly mated, only to have the researchers watch with clinical fascination the way they attacked the parasitical infants that eventually came out of their wombs? That was done to chimpanzees? Who? Who did that? Aren’t chimpanzees sentient? Wouldn’t such actions be utterly immoral?

Sadly, none of these questions are ever answered in Morris’ text. I had to go to Google for that. See Project R&R. Morris just goes on with his critical analysis of the naked ape, speculating on how these experimental results are probably transferrable to that species as well.

Maybe asking for a completely detached treatment of the human species isn’t such a good idea after all.

Race for Relevance by Harrison Coerver and Mary Byers

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:07:00 +0000

I posted an opinion piece about this book one of my other blogs, which focuses, among other things, on issues related to association leadership. In the post, I make the case that the book’s five supposedly radical ideas for remaking associations aren’t radical at all—or shouldn’t be in the 21st century. But the actions the book suggests association leaders take based on those ideas are radical, in the extreme, especially to organizations still saddled with 50-person boards of directors and 100+ committees. To the staff leaders of those organizations, for whom the suggested actions seem impossible, my suggestion was to use Race for Relevance as a negotiating position with their boards. Go here to read that post in full.

There are a few other points from the book that didn’t make it into that post. They are things I think are very well stated and have helped me frame issues I sometimes find myself struggling to wrap my arms around. Things like, believe it or not, generational change in association membership.

The generational issue is causing a sea change in join rates, volunteer engagement, and the value associations place on programs and services. Vince Sandusky, chief executive officer of the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), summarizes the situation well: “SMACNA is a strong association, but the next generation of contractors has different definitions of value, different ways of accessing information, different learning processes, and different ways of socializing. SMACNA’s traditional structure and processes are not aligned with changing contractor preferences, and the rate of change is accelerating.”

I should send Vince a note of thanks. That one sentence helps me justify (at least to myself) the continued exploration I’m doing with social media for my association—even though there are very few current members who play in those spaces.

Another area in which this book has helped me gain clarity is the use and value of committees, but probably not in the way the authors intended. Here’s, in part, what they say about this staple of association organization and function:

The system is almost always considered to be the source of future board members and officers. It is the farm team, the talent bank, the opportunity for members to demonstrate their abilities and for the association to monitor their performance. We have to ask: How can the traditional committee structure and dysfunction possibly produce the next generation of competent leaders? We believe that the majority of committees do not produce, do not capitalize on the volunteer resource at their disposal, do not result in a positive experience for the member, and in fact, drive off more members than they cultivate. And in many instances, the volunteers who survive are not always the best and the brightest. Though not always, they sometimes are groupies and wannabes who like the travel, hang with the big dogs, hobnob with peers, and feed their egos.

I can’t argue with any of this. The brightest future leaders won’t develop from dysfunctional committee structures like the ones the authors describe. And one of their remedies for the situation—to allow all committees and task forces to be chaired by association staff professionals—has a certain trailblazing appeal to it. After all, who better to keep a committee procedurally on track and provide more space for association members to stay focused on the volunteer contribution of their industry knowledge and wisdom than a competent staff person? But then I read this justification for putting staff members in charge:

Managing volunteer committees or task forces takes skills that not everyone possesses. You must understand how to manage a project. You must understand how to communicate, build consensus, and deal with conflict. You have to know how to schedule and manage meetings. You must know how to make a recommendation and write a report and how to navigate the association’s bureaucracy and work within its policies.

And I think they’re right. These are not skills that everyone possesses. Communication, building consensus, dealing with conflict, managing meetings, navigating bureaucracy, working within policies—these are all leadership skills, and not everyone is a leader.

But isn’t the opportunity to develop these skills leading an association committee part of the value proposition an association can offer its members? Committees can serve many purposes within an association, and if one of those purposes is to be leadership development, then let’s position committee service as more than just a rite of passage. In addition to doing productive work on behalf of the association’s mission, it’s an opportunity to hone your communication skills, to practice building consensus and dealing with conflict—all in an environment that contains some professional risk, but not nearly as much as practicing those skills on a project critical to your employer’s success.

Committees that produce valuable benefits for an association’s members while developing the leadership capacity of the association and the industry it represents are an essential facet of a successful association’s value proposition and, importantly, the traditional association business model. For all the dysfunction that surrounds many associations’ use of committees and task forces, they can still represent a unique benefit for professional development and industry advancement.

Chapter Seventeen

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:49:00 +0000

from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE
FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO

Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Squire must serve at least three years under a Knight before he can be considered for the knighthood himself. However, a man must also be twenty-one to become a Knight. These laws were set down at the beginning of the Order and are unbreachable. As a result of this, Gildegarde Brisbane II was forced to serve five years as the Squire of Sir Reginald Ironshield. As soon as he became eligible, Ironshield stood before the old King and announced that through faithful and exemplary service to him, Gildegarde Brisbane II had earned the right to become a Knight of Farchrist. The ceremony was held in the King’s own chambers. It was an exclusive affair with only the King, Ironshield, Brisbane, his mother Madeline, and dwarf named Nog Shortwhiskers in attendance. When King Gregorovich Farchrist II brought his father’s sword, the sword of the Peasant King, down on the shoulders of my father and proclaimed him a Knight, the only sound in the chamber had been that of Madeline’s quiet tears.

+ + +

As it turned out, things were much better in the morning. Brisbane awoke feeling somewhat refreshed and, when he emerged from the tent, the first thing he saw was Stargazer sitting on the ground with her legs crossed, her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap.

Brisbane quietly went down to the river to relieve himself and, when he returned, Stargazer was standing there waiting for him. There seemed to be no one else around.

“Gil,” she said. “I would like to speak with you.”

“I’m sorry, Allie,” Brisbane blurted out. “Please, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Stargazer smiled. As soon as Brisbane saw that he knew everything was going to be all right.

“I know you are,” Stargazer said. “But it is I who should be apologetic. I have thought a lot about what you said and, although your words did hurt me, I realize there was no real malice in them. You are, of course, right in the matter of Roundtower and your sword, Angelika. He could no more become a Knight with it than Roystnof could with his spells.”

Brisbane did not like the nature of her analogy, but he accepted it and kept his mouth shut. Stargazer was doing her best to deal with the situation.

“I have perhaps lived apart from the world for too long,” Stargazer went on. “Many things have passed me by. The humans have made many advances in the administration of their religion. I am perhaps a fossil in their midst.”

Brisbane also did not like to hear Stargazer speaking so, no matter how true he thought the statements to be. “Allie, please. You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“No, Gil,” she said. “As you are so fond of doing, I am just saying how things are. But, don’t you see, all of this only further resolves me to stay apart from the organized religion I deserted years ago. They, the priests and patriarchs of Grecolus, they have in effect banished him from the earth. They control his worshippers and they have denied his works. They claim all magic is the tool of Damaleous, but they don’t know that Grecolus has a magic of his own. How could he perform creation without it?”

The logic made sense to Brisbane. “But how is one to tell the difference?”

Stargazer smiled. “That is the problem the priests had. For them, it got to the point where magic was so intricate that they threw the whole lot away and tagged it as evil. But there still is a difference.” She put her hand over her heart. “The difference is here.”

“I don’t understand,” Brisbane said, but he thought maybe he did.

Stargazer’s took Brisbane’s hand and placed it against her chest. Brisbane tried to pull away when he felt her heart thump but Stargazer held him firmly.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “People have such a hard time distinguishing good magic from evil magic because only the person who uses the magic really knows which her body is being used for. I know in my heart I am serving Grecolus and so my healing power is good magic. You know you are serving Grecolus, so Angelika is good magic, too.”

She was beginning to go beyond Brisbane’s understanding of things. “But what about Roystnof?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“He is serving neither Grecolus nor Damaleous,” Brisbane said. “Where does his magic fall?”

Stargazer paused. “Now, Gil,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings either, but I am going to tell you how things are.”

“Go ahead,” Brisbane said, mentally cringing at what she might say.

“If Roystnof is not serving Grecolus, whether or not he actively worships Damaleous, his magic is evil and he is being used by the Evil One. Magic power comes from one or the other. It does not come from man.”

Brisbane wanted to explode but he refused to react as Stargazer had the day before. He was going to see this through calmly, rationally.

“So you’re saying Roy could be misguided, but you couldn’t be. Is that it?”

“What do you mean?” Stargazer said, dropping his hand from her chest.

“If Roy is serving Damaleous without realizing it, then how do you know you’re not serving him, too?”

“Gil, I serve Grecolus. My powers are his.”

“That’s what you believe,” Brisbane said, his voice rising. “But what if the priests are right? What if all magic, even yours, is the tool of Damaleous? What if he has only duped you into thinking your magic is good? He is supposed to be the Father of Lies, you know.”

Stargazer shook her head. “No. This cannot be.”

“But how can you know?” Brisbane asked. “How can anyone know?”

“I have faith,” Stargazer said. “Don’t you?”

A flap on one of the tents was suddenly pulled back and Roystnof stepped out into the campsite. He greeted both Brisbane and Stargazer with a cheerful good morning and then made his way down to the river. Brisbane’s eyes followed his friend.

“Well,” Stargazer said guardedly, drawing Brisbane’s attention back to her. “They’ll all be up soon. I just wanted you to know I forgive you for your callousness and that I’m not mad at you.”

Brisbane heard Shortwhiskers cough from inside one of the tents. “Yes,” he said, trying to forget all the questions and ideas their little talk had brought to his mind. “Well, I’m glad for that. I never meant to offend you, Allie. It’s just that life is confusing, more so when you try to make sense out of it.”

Stargazer kissed him on the cheek. It was a part of their relationship he was really beginning to enjoy. “You’re young, yet,” she said. “Wait. It gets worse.”

He tried to grab her for that but she playfully drew away and he soon found himself chasing her around the campsite as if they were two schoolchildren.

Roystnof returned and soon the whole camp was up and about, fixing breakfast and discussing plans for the day. In actuality, Stargazer was the only one who truly wanted to go into the garden and explore the shrine, but whereas Roystnof, Shortwhiskers, and Brisbane didn’t mind the delay on their journey up the river, Dantrius showed he was dead set against the foray. He argued there was nothing to see there anyway, four of them had already been there and had seen nothing but rock—after the death of the demon, of course—and he didn’t see why they should waste their time on the whims of only one of their number. But his complaining was largely ignored as the others saw it as no bother and they knew Dantrius was not about to journey on alone.

A surprising amount of time, however, went into deciding just who would go into the garden. Roystnof suggested they all go to preserve party unity, but again Dantrius dissented. He declared he would not again set foot in such a place and said anyone who would was nuts. There could, after all, be any number of basilisks still wandering around in there and he wasn’t going to take that risk for no good reason.

Brisbane could see some sense in Dantrius’ argument, especially after what the mage had been through with the basilisk he had met those many years—and Brisbane still didn’t know just how many years—ago. But as Shortwhiskers had felt when he witnessed Dantrius arguing against sending the expedition to Dragon’s Peak, Brisbane now sensed Dantrius was arguing for all the wrong reasons. He was hiding something, and Brisbane suspected it had something to do with the demon they had destroyed.

Shortwhiskers finally said, fine, let Dantrius sit outside by himself, but Roystnof refused to let that be the end of it. He said no one should be left alone out here in the hills, and at least one of them should stay with Dantrius. As there were no volunteers, and as it had been Roystnof’s idea, he agreed to stay with Dantrius while Shortwhiskers and Brisbane went with Stargazer into the garden.

Brisbane did not like the idea of going in without the magical protection of one of the wizards, but there seemed to be no other way around it. Roystnof assured Brisbane basilisks were extremely rare creatures and that he very much doubted there would be any more waiting for them.

So Brisbane reluctantly entered the garden from the southern side with Stargazer and Shortwhiskers. It occurred to Brisbane that because of the placement of their camp, they would have to walk through unfamiliar territory in order to get to the shrine at the center of the garden. He mentioned this to Shortwhiskers but the dwarf did not seem worried about it. Brisbane tried to put it out of his mind.

This part of the oasis looked about the same as the part they had already seen and, as he walked, Brisbane began to experience the same worries about a basilisk surprising them as he had the last time. He was at the back of the line with Stargazer between him and Shortwhiskers, but this position did nothing to allay his fears. As he remembered, the basilisk they had encountered before had crept up on them from behind.

The trees and the underbrush thickened as they continued on until it seemed they were walking through a small forest. The whole garden seemed to be set up like that, with the clearing where the shrine stood in the very center, surrounded by a forest of trees that thinned as they radiated outward.

Brisbane walked with Angelika drawn in his right hand and his undecorated shield in his left. It seemed like hours, but the sun had barely moved when the trio found the clearing and cautiously stepped into it.

It was almost unnaturally quiet. There seemed to be no life anywhere around them. The circle of trees defined the limits if their vision and in its very center stood the cube of stone Stargazer had come to see.

“That’s it?” Stargazer asked Shortwhiskers.

The dwarf silently nodded his head.

She began to walk towards the structure, Brisbane and Shortwhiskers following closely behind her. They approached the back of the shrine without incident and began to circle around to the front. When they got there, they found the portal, and Stargazer began examining the strange writings that outlined it.

“Roundtower was right,” she said aloud. “These are ancient runes used in the worship of Grecolus. Here is the one meaning peace and safe passage.” She pointed to the glyph directly over the portal.

“Can you read the rest of them?” Brisbane asked. “Ignatius couldn’t.”

“Oh yes,” Stargazer said. “And it is a good thing I can.”

Shortwhiskers came forward. “Why is that?”

Stargazer indicated the two columns of markings, one on each side of the doorway. “Well, first of all, this line verifies the temple at the source of the Mystic, the one we seek, does indeed exist and that it is devoted to the ancient worship of Grecolus.”

Shortwhiskers’ ears seemed to perk up. “Does it say anything about how much treasure there is?”

Stargazer laughed. “No, Nog. But this second line tells me something much more important.”

“What’s that?” Brisbane asked.

“It says the entrance to the temple is trapped. Only the faithful can enter.”

Shortwhiskers wrinkled his nose. “Trapped? Does it say how the entrance is trapped?”

Stargazer checked again. “No.”

“Well, what good is that?!” Shortwhiskers said. “Only the faithful can enter? Is that supposed to be a clue or something?”

Brisbane thought about it. It made no practical sense to him.

“It probably means,” Stargazer said, “the ancient worshippers knew a secret way in to avoid the trap. A secret that has probably been forgotten long before even you were born, Nog.”

“Swell,” Shortwhiskers said.

Brisbane examined the markings around the portal with renewed interest. “Allie,” he asked. “Do they say anything else?”

Stargazer shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing special. Those two lines on the sides are really the only two that say anything definitive. The rest just convey ideas like the marking representing safe passage. The one next to it is the symbol for hope. That kind of thing.”

With nothing else to see on the outside of the shrine, the trio entered the structure. It was just as Brisbane had remembered it. The staircase, the kneeling benches, the cobwebs, and the mural. He and Shortwhiskers stood off to one side as Stargazer went about, taking great interest in everything she saw. Brisbane was amazed to see that the place still glowed with the light spell Roystnof had cast months ago. Stargazer didn’t notice or just didn’t comment on the unusual light source.

As Stargazer went about the room, examining every little detail, Brisbane tried to take the faded, rotted place and, in his mind, restore it to what must have been its original splendor. He pictured the kneeling benches freshly carved and varnished and the mural of the parting hands still wet with the paint that defined it. He saw small groups of simply-dressed people shuffle into the shrine, take their places on the benches, and offer their silent prayers up to their deity. With this image fresh in his mind, it saddened him to see the place in such ill repair. Who knew how many other places like this were scattered across the land, forgotten by the people who now longer needed them? It started him thinking about history, about the scores of people who had lived before him and of whom he would never know anything. For how many years had there been people on earth? Brisbane didn’t know. The scriptures said Grecolus had created everything “in the beginning,” but they didn’t say when that beginning was. And if the ways of religion could change so drastically in the few centuries since this shrine was a living part of society, how much could things change over the course of human history? How many gods had lived and died before Grecolus came into being?

Stargazer said she was done looking things over and was ready to proceed downstairs. Shortwhiskers took the lead and they went down the stairs in the same order they had walked through the garden. Brisbane tightened his grip on Angelika as the place he had battled the demon came into his view.

The place was as barren as it had been before, an empty twenty square feet of stone still lighted by Roystnof’s magic. The far wall had a large, smeary red stain upon it an innocent-looking pile of ashes lay in the center of the floor.

“So this is where it happened,” Stargazer said quietly as she went up and poked the end of her staff through the ashes.

“This is where it happened,” Shortwhiskers confirmed as he came up to look at the black remains.

Brisbane stayed at the foot of the stairs.

“It must have been huge,” Stargazer said. “There are a lot of ashes here.”

“It was at least nine feet tall,” Shortwhiskers said. “Its muscles made Gil’s look like empty flour sacks.”

Stargazer turned to Brisbane. “And with Angelika you were able to defeat such a monster?”

Brisbane looked at his sword. “Without Roy’s slow spell,” he said purposefully, “even Angelika would not have been enough to defeat it.” He met Stargazer’s eyes and she did not seem pleased with his statement.

No, Angelika said to him. It was you and me. Together there is no evil we cannot defeat.

Stargazer went over to the stain on the far wall and ran her hand down the crusty remains of blood that had once formed the magical pentagram.

“Who could have done this?” she said, more to herself than to her companions. “Who could have done such an evil thing in such a reverent place? It is the highest sacrilege.”

“Ignatius felt the same way,” Shortwhiskers said.

Stargazer seemed to whirl on the dwarf. “Was it Dantrius, Nog? Did he do this?”

“He says no,” Shortwhiskers said. “We have no proof against him. We found him as a stone statue outside the shrine. He could have been coming or going.”

“Which way was he facing?” Stargazer asked.

“As if he was arriving,” Shortwhiskers said. “But a basilisk had turned him to stone. He could have turned any which way in the melee.”

Stargazer looked at the remains on the wall and then back to the ashes on the floor. “Why did you let Roystnof restore that man to…” she said, trailing off and searching for the right words. “…to his fleshy form,” she said eventually with some distaste.

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “I did not recognize him. We took a party vote. They thought they would be helping an unfortunate victim.”

Stargazer shook her head. “They were wrong.”

“We all are, at times.”

Stargazer looked upon the dwarf with caring eyes. She placed a soft hand on his shoulder. Shortwhiskers patted it with his own and they passed a moment in silent communication.

“I am ready,” Stargazer said. “Let us leave this place.”

Shortwhiskers and Stargazer rejoined Brisbane at the foot of the stairs, widely skirting the ashes of the fallen demon, and together they left the shrine. They quickly and quietly made their way out of the clearing and back into the trees. Apprehension tried to overcome Brisbane as they walked through the garden for the last time, but he was able to hold it in check. Soon they were back at the low stone wall and soon after that they were in the campsite.

Roystnof and Dantrius were sitting outside waiting for their return and they all immediately found themselves in a discussion about what the three of them had seen on their little trip. Stargazer told the two wizards what the ancient runes on the shrine had told her about the temple they were seeking and Roystnof, intrigued by the information, began drilling her on all she could remember. Roystnof, however, could make no more use out of it than Shortwhiskers had. Still, there was a moment in the discussion where Shortwhiskers made it clear to Dantrius the delay of their intended journey had been more than justified by the knowledge they had received.

The decision then had to be made about what to do with Stargazer. She had originally intended just to see the shrine and then turn back for Queensburg, but now that she knew the nature of the temple at the source of the Mystic, she wanted to tag along the rest of the way. Again, this probably would not have been a problem if it had not been for Dantrius, who was dead set against the idea. Everyone else felt Stargazer’s presence could only be an asset to their expedition, but Dantrius was defiant. The argument went on for some time but eventually Roystnof stepped in and said unless Dantrius could come up with a valid reason why Stargazer could not accompany them, she would be allowed to continue with them. Dantrius was unable to come up with a proper restriction and the matter was finally settled.

Little of the day had been used up with these proceedings and all decided to use the rest of the day to make more progress up the river. They packed up the camp onto the mules and were off before noon. They stayed as close to the river as they could to avoid the orks which Roystnof and Shortwhiskers said lived in the hills to the east. The farther south they went, they warned, the more hostile the area was likely to become. As they neared the Crimson Mountains, they would have to be prepared for sudden attacks, not just from orks, but from other creatures that made the area their home.

But the rest of their second day from Queensburg passed uneventfully. The day seemed to go quickly for Brisbane, who spent most of his time chatting with Stargazer and Shortwhiskers. Their main topic of discussion seemed to be Illzeezad Dantrius and how much of a pain he had been on the journey so far.

They camped at sunset and this time Brisbane drew the first watch. After the evening meal had been devoured, everyone went quietly to bed as Brisbane sat outside, keeping the fire low and his ears open.

It was a terrifying night for him, and although their camp was unmolested in the three hours he had to sit up, he was all too glad to wake Dantrius and tell him it was time to relieve him. It was dark out, darker than Brisbane thought it could get. Grecolum was up, but it was waning and the red moon, Damaleum, was growing conversely larger every night. Brisbane remembered the Festival of Whiteshine, when Grecolum had been full and Damaleum new, and he had seen Stargazer for the first time. It was a happy memory for him but it did little to calm his nerves that night. He couldn’t keep his mind off the waxing Damaleum, and every little sound he heard in the night he knew was surely an approaching evil creature, ready to celebrate the festival of its moon a little early with the spilling of Brisbane’s blood.

Finally, Brisbane’s shift was over and he went over to Dantrius’ sleeping form and shook him awake.

“What?” Dantrius mumbled, his voice groggy and his eyes shut.

“It’s your turn to stand watch,” Brisbane said. “Get up.”

Dantrius turned and looked at Brisbane. “Go watch yourself,” He said and snuggled back down into his sleeping bag.

Brisbane looked at Dantrius’ shadowy form in the dim firelight. He considered yelling at Dantrius but decided arguing with the mage usually did little good. He reached over and carefully withdrew a burning log from the campfire. He held the lit end, slowly smoking and glowing orange, up to his face and smiled. He deliberately pressed the hot end of the log against Dantrius’ sleeping bag, approximately where he judged the mage’s hind end to be. Brisbane held it there for perhaps two seconds.

Dantrius leapt clear of his sleeping bag with a yelp of pain. He stood on the bare ground, rubbing his backside and giving Brisbane a venomous look.

“Now that you’re up,” Brisbane said calmly, “you can stand your watch.” He handed Dantrius an hourglass. “In three hours, you can wake Roystnof to relieve you. Good night.”

Brisbane abruptly turned away from Dantrius and crawled into one of the tents. When he was inside, he heard Dantrius’ voice through the tent fabric.

“This is not over, Brisbane,” the mage said. “Laugh all you want now, but there will come a day when you will regret what you just did to me. There will come a day.”

Brisbane looked over at Shortwhiskers who was still sleeping in the tent. His snores were soft and consistent. It was quite a while before he fell asleep himself.

A Tragic Legacy by Glenn Greenwald

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:08:00 +0000

The subtitle here is “How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency,” and it’s an apt framework for analyzing how America’s 43rd president went from one of the most popular (in late 2001) to one of the least popular (by late 2006).

It’s a downfall that’s quite remarkable in the annals of American history. To illustrate the point, Greenwald begins his first chapter with a series of numbers (86, 66, 59, 48, 39, 32), which represent the percentage of Americans who approved of Bush’s performance in late 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. I have my own political opinions, and I probably won’t be able to keep them from peeking through in this post, but by any measurement, that is a record that demonstrates how much of the American public turned against Bush and the policies he supported. Greenwald’s book was published in 2007, so he couldn’t add the 25% Bush’s approval rating sank to in 2008, but we can, and in doing so we can marvel at how far he fell.

Does anyone remember the George W. Bush of late 2001? The president who, after 9/11 and its sad but not unexpected backlash against American Muslims, said things like:

I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.

This was a man we were proud to call our president. But now, after so many betrayals of the principles he spoke so highly of, one has to wonder whether he changed, or if he never really understood what those principles were and why they were worth fighting for.

There are still factions in our society who want to perpetuate the myth that he was one of our most popular presidents, and that the American public was behind him and his policies from start to finish. But he wasn’t and they weren’t. In one telling example, Greenwald’s assessment of the 2004 presidential election shows just how unpopular Bush had become even by then.

Incumbent American presidents rarely lose under any circumstances. But Americans have never voted a president out of office during wartime, having comfortably re-elected all four previous wartime presidents who ran again (Madison, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Nixon).

Beyond those towering inherent advantages, Bush barely squeaked by despite running against John Kerry, one of the most politically ungifted major party nominees in several decades; despite Kerry’s running an inept and passive presidential campaign, leading former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe to call the campaign’s failure to attack Bush’s record “one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics”; and despite a significant financial advantage. Even with all of those formidable advantages, facing a weak opponent and an unskillful campaign, the War President, after four years of governing, won only two states in 2004 that he did not take in 2000 (Iowa and New Mexico) and even lost New Hampshire for a net gain of only one state.

This fascinates me. Ask a Bush devotee, and you’ll hear how much the country was behind Bush. The facts are he squeaked into office in 2004—just as he had in 2000.

One of the things that fascinates me most about Bush’s presidency is my own belief that, despite all his own rhetoric and that of his political supporters, Bush was not a conservative—at least not in the sense that I understand that term. Here’s how Greenwald defines it. Conservatism is…

… defined by a belief in (a) restrained federal government power, (b) minimal federal taxes and responsible and limited spending, (c) a generalized distrust of the federal government and its attempts to intervene into the private lives of citizens, (d) reliance on the private sector rather than the federal government to achieve “Good” ends, (e) a preference for state and local autonomy over federalized and centralized control, (f) trusting in individuals rather than government officials to make decisions, and (g) an overarching belief in the supremacy of the rule of law.

That sounds like something Barry Goldwater would’ve written. Indeed, Greenwald makes several comparisons between that former senator from Arizona and President Bush.

Despite the continuous and enthusiastic embrace of Bush by the vast bulk of political conservatives, it has long been vividly clear that the president (just as was true for Ronald Reagan) simply does not govern in accordance with the claimed principles of political conservatism as the exist in their “pure,” abstract form. George Bush has presided over massive increases in domestic spending, the conversion of a multibillion dollar surplus into an even larger deficit, the creation of vast new bureaucratic fiefdoms, an unprecedented expansion of the power of the federal government, governmental intrusions into multiple areas previously preserved for the states or off-limits altogether, and a wanton disregard for the rule of law. Whatever political philosophy has propelled George Bush’s governance, it is not the abstract tenets of Goldwater /small-government conservatism.

Greenwald’s book reminded me that there was an interesting time during Bush’s second term when, in fact, his own conservative base seemed to turn against him. They were for a time seemingly bent on dismantling all he was trying to put into place.

The president’s campaign to overhaul Social Security—his flamboyantly touted second-term “legacy” program—flopped from the start, his proposals pushed away even by his own party…

The failed Supreme Court nomination of his loyal aide Harriet Miers was fueled almost entirely by his own supporters…

The fiasco over his attempt to turn over America’s port operations to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates even raised questions about whether he was sufficiently committed to protecting the country against the threat of Islamic terrorism…

I remember the conservative pundits going apoplectic at the time for each of these items. I specifically remember the triumph they proclaimed when they were able to get Bush to withdraw Miers’ name from consideration. I think it was then that the true conservatives—the Goldwater libertarian wing of the party—began to realize that Bush, despite his constant use of the word conservative and their unfailing support of him for the previous four years, was not, in fact a conservative. Not a Goldwater conservative, at least.

But by that time the term “conservative” had been hijacked so much that those who honored the tradition that invented it were seen as the lunatic fringe by the powerful establishment who had redefined it to allow them to publicly act in opposition to every one of its original principles.

Greenwald is writing in 2006 or 2007, before the rise of the Tea Party. He is very critical of the neo-conservatives, whom he lambasts for praising, supporting and re-electing Bush in 2001-04 as a conservative hero, and then throwing him under the bus in 2005-06 as an arch anti-conservative. He writes as if these neo-cons are the conservative base of the Republican Party, but of course they are not. Bush and his neo-con supporters are cut from the same cloth. Election cycle after election cycle since Goldwater’s defeat, they have been changing the definition of conservatism from small government libertarianism to big government empire building.

That is because “conservatism”—while definable on a theoretical plane—has come to have no practical meaning in this country other than a quest for ever-expanding government power for its own sake. When George Bush enabled those ends, he was the Great Conservative. Now that he impedes them due to his unprecedented unpopularity, he is the Judas of the conservative movement.

The truth is that the “conservative movement” that Bush and now Obama leads is not rooted in the Republican Party, the way Goldwater conservatism was. It’s a new kind of conservatism—and it’s not compassionate as Bush tried to brand it. It transcends political party. Under this new “conservative” banner we see Republicans acting as bigger spenders than historical Democrats and Democrats acting as bigger warmongers than historical Republicans. They can each get away with their non-traditional excesses because neither one truly has the opposition they once had from the other party to hold them in check.

The political doctrine that drives this “neo-conservatism” is not conservative. Greenwald claims it is evangelical. That is, it is committed to the use of government power as a force to promote a particular conception of God’s will. And there is very little that is more anti-Goldwater conservatism than evangelicalism. As the Senator himself said:

Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them…

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly.

Which is as good as any segue back to Greenwald’s subtitle: “How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency.”

…what lies at the heart of the Bush presidency is an absolutist worldview capable of understanding all issues and challenges only in the moralistic, overly simplistic, and often inapplicable terms of “Good vs. Evil.” The president is driven by his core conviction that he had found the Good, that he is a crusader for it, that anything is justified in pursuit of it, and that anything which impedes his decision-making is, by definition, a deliberate or unwitting ally of Evil. This mentality has single-handedly prevented him from governing, changing course, and even engaging realities that deviate from those convictions. The president’s description of himself as “the Decider” is accurate. His mind-set had dominated the American political landscape throughout his presidency, and virtually all significant events of the Bush Era are a by-product of his core Manichean mentality.

Manichean is a reference to a religion founded in the third century by the Persian prophet Manes, in which the world was cleanly divided into two opposing spheres—Good and Evil; God and theDevil—and in which they fought a dualistic battle both in heaven and on Earth. It was a new word for me. One I was glad to learn. And it was Bush’s Manichean morality, Greenwald argues, that rendered inevitable…

…some of the most amoral and ethically monstrous policies, justified as necessary as a means to achieve a morally imperative end. The Bush presidency, awash in moralistic rhetoric, has ushered in some of the most extremist, previously unthinkable and profoundly un-American practices—from indefinite, lawless detentions, to the use of torture, to bloody preventive wars of choice, to the abduction of innocent people literally off the street or from their homes, to radical new theories designed to vest in the president the power to break the law.

These measures were pursued not despite the moralistic roots of the president’s agenda, but because of them. Those who believe that they are on the path of righteousness, who are crusaders for the objective Good, will frequently become convinced that there can be no limitations on the weapons used to achieve their ends. The moral imperative of their agenda justifies—even requires—all steps undertaken to fulfill it. As the president ceaselessly proclaimed the Goodness at the heart of America’s destiny and its role in the world, his actions have resulted in an almost full-scale destruction of America’s moral credibility in almost every country and on every continent. The same president who has insisted that core moralism drive him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.

A lot of this, a lot of the embrace of Evil in order to do Good, is given room to flourish because of the neo-conservative theory that there are different truths for different kinds of people. As Greenwald quotes the neo-conservative spokesperson, Bill Kristol:

There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.

Of course, the self-designated “highly educated adults” take responsibility for hiding their truths from the ignorant masses, worried that too much of their truth in the wrong hands will lead to political unrest. Here, Bill’s father, Irving Kristol, lauds the perspective of political philosopher Leo Strauss:

What made [Strauss] so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that “the truth will make men free.” … Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that “the truth could make some minds free,” but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.

Let me take a quick aside here. I know that whole books have been written about these ideas, and I don’t have the scholarship to speak to it authoritatively, but still…how do people delude themselves into thinking these things could possibly be true? Obscuring “truth” from the masses may help you achieve certain objectives—but human happiness isn’t one of them.

But my point in going down this particular neo-conservative rabbit hole is to say, whatever your political or philosophical position may be, it’s much easier to claim your wholesome ends justify your nefarious means if you also subscribe to the idea that there are certain bits of knowledge that your political underclass needn’t worry themselves about. Knowledge, say, of your nefarious means. It’s much harder to justify Evil, in other words, if you don’t get to perpetrate it under the cover of night.

This all would be one thing if we could ascribe this political philosophy to one man—to President Bush, who’s now gone and no longer able to affect United States policy. But that, sadly, is not the case. Greenwald’s criticism of Bush and his view are less about Bush as an individual and more about the political movement that embraced him.

George W. Bush is a single individual, who will permanently leave the American political stage on January 20, 2009. But the political movement that transformed Bush into an icon—and which loyally supported, glorified, and sustained him—is not going anywhere. Bush is but a by-product and a perfect reflection of that movement, one which has been weakened and diminished by Bush’s staggering unpopularity but is far from dead. It intends to rejuvenate itself by finding a new leader, one who appears cosmetically different from the deeply unpopular Bush, but who, in reality, shares Bush’s fundamental beliefs about the world (which are the core beliefs of that movement) and who intends to follow the same disastrous course Bush has chosen for this country.

To understand Bush and his presidency, then, is not merely a matter of historical interest. Examining the dynamic driving his presidency is also vital for understanding the right-wing political movement that has dominated our political landscape since the mid-1990s—a movement that calls itself “conservative” but which, as many traditional conservatives have themselves complained, has no actual allegiance to the political principles for which conservatism claims to stand. That is the movement that George Bush has come to embody, and the attitude of the Bush presidency, the ones which have spawned such a tragic legacy for our country, are the same attributes driving the movement that created, supported, and sustained that presidency.

Greenwald calls this movement evangelical, and I think he means that in more of a political context than a religious one. But religious belief is a big part of what drives it. And those religious beliefs have what I think could be frightening consequences for our world.

That faction is driven by the general theological belief that God’s will is for Jews to occupy all of “Greater Israel,” which will occur only once the enemies of Israel are defeated. There is no question—because many of their key leaders have said so themselves—that evangelicals, who compose a substantial part of President Bush’s most loyal following, have become fanatically “pro-Israel” in their foreign policy views because they believe that strengthening Israel is a necessary prerequisite for Rapture to occur—for the world to be ruled by Christianity upon Jesus’ apocalyptic return to Earth—and they believe that can occur only once “Greater Israel” is unified under Jewish control.

I don’t wish to offend. But, when I read things like that—that there are people who with the earnestness that is necessary to drive a nation’s foreign policy believe that strengthening Israel is a prerequisite for Rapture to occur—I can’t help but wonder if they are grown-ups. Adults in the same sense that I understand that term. If they believe that, I wonder, what other myths from Sunday School do they still believe? Not unexpectedly, Greenwald provides a kind of answer on the very next page.

After President Bush’s 2000 election but before his 2004 re-election, General [William G.] Boykin [the Bush administration’s deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence] appeared in full military uniform before evangelical congregations and insisted that President Bush was installed in the White House by God:

“Ask yourself this: why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? … I tell you this morning he’s in the White House because God put him there for such a time as this. God put him there to lead not only this nation but to lead the world, in such a time as this.”

As [Gary] Wills reports [in a November 2006 New York Review of Books article], Boykin, in part of his stump speech in churches, would typically present a slide show with photographs of individuals such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and various Taliban leaders while asking if each was “the enemy.” He “gave a resounding no to each question,” and then explained:

“The battle this nation is in is a spiritual battle, it’s a battle for our soul. And the enemy is a guy called Satan. … Satan wants to destroy this nation. He wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.”

This is what frightens me about evangelicals in positions of political power. If they honestly believe this stuff, which I have to assume they do, then what kind of decisions would they be willing to make with regard to our nation’s foreign policy, armed forces, and nuclear arsenal? There’s likely to be no limit. I think that’s the key point that Greenwald wants to make with this book, and which he summarizes so well in his concluding paragraph.

The Manichean warrior recognizes no limits on the weapons he uses to annihilate the Evil enemies. Those who begin with the premise that they are intrinsically and by divine entitlement on the side of objectives Good view any weapons they use as, by definition, just and necessary. Thus, the president who vowed to the world that he would demonstrate the values that have made this country great, thereafter systematically violated those very values to the point where our country is no longer defined by them. The epic challenge in the aftermath of the Bush presidency is the restoration of those national values, a rehabilitation of our national character, so that American morality and credibility are, once again, more than empty slogans in presidential Manichean war speeches. This is the tragic legacy George W. Bush leaves behind for America.

Miscellaneous

Greenwald is a writer, like Huxley and Harris, that I could quote at tremendous length (as I have in this post) and be hard pressed to find anything of substance to add. One thing I really enjoy about him (and about Huxley and Harris) is the way he speaks very plainly in his writing, offering a clear perspective on what others obscure by design or by incompetence. Here are just a two examples that struck me:

Not only American political discourse but also American Culture generally are suffused with an endless parade of fear-inducing images, of constant warnings of latent dangers—the terrorist “sleeper cells” lurking in every community, the sex predators living covertly on one’s own street, drug gangs and violent criminals and online pedophiles, radical tyrants seeking nuclear weapons. Basic human nature dictates that a world that seems frightening and hopelessly complex always engenders a need for both protection and clarity.

Religion—a belief in an all-powerful, protective deity and a clear, absolute, and eternal moral code—powerfully satisfies those cravings. True faith in an all-powerful, benevolent God alleviates both fear and anxiety and produces an otherwise unattainable tranquility and feeling of safety. Identically, a political movement built on a strong, powerful, protective leader—one who claims that the world in morally unambiguous, who insists that it can be cleanly divided into Good and Evil, and who promises “protection” from the lurking dangers of Evil—fulfills the same needs. Those who lead the group—the Protectors—will inspire great personal loyalty, while those who oppose it will be viewed as mortal enemies.

+ + +

The Bush presidency has fundamentally transformed the way we speak about our country and its responsibilities, entitlements, and role in the world. In reviewing the pre-Iraq War “debate” this country had both on television and in print, one of the most striking aspects in retrospect is the casual and even breezy tone with which American collectively discusses and thinks about war as a foreign policy option, standing inconspicuously next to all of the other options. There is really no strong resistance to it, little anguish over it, no sense that it is a supremely horrible and tragic course to undertake—and particularly to start. Gone almost completely from our mainstream political discourse is horror over war. The most one hears is some cursory and transparently insincere—almost bored—lip service to its being a “last resort.”

Human Understanding

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Lanke) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:45:00 +0000

“When the natural weakness and imperfection of human understanding is considered, with the unavoidable influences of education, custom, books and company, upon our ways of thinking, I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds, are true, and all he rejects, are false.”
Benjamin Franklin