Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan) Subject: [NTY] The Nativity Message-ID: <1993Aug18.061037.6450@midway.uchicago.edu> Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 06:10:37 GMT To Palandun's shock, Gunther turned to face him and grinned. "If this be slavery, make the most of it!" He tried to spit at the Bismanian, but missed. "So you've come chasing after me for months and hundreds of miles, only to catch up to me here? How delicious. I suppose the locals haven't told you that I'm some sort of god around here and that I'm not to be touched by your unclean hands. So be off with you, or I shall call my temple guards and have you sacrificed!" He giggled madly, rattling his chains. "Not exactly," Palandun retorted. "Your part in this dubious ceremony ends in about three days, after which it's off to the Generican jailhouse with you. And I have to add that it's not without a great degree of satisfaction that I..." Gunther interrupted him again with another fiendish chuckle. "We'll just see about that, we will, yes my friend we'll see..." *** Slavery indeed. I could growow to enjoy this. Three lae meals a day brought to me by beautiful servant girls. The finest clothing- rivalling even some of the eextravagant outfits I've seen at parties on Merchant's Hill. And the aura... there's just a certain regal- no, pious- way in which they've been treating me. Well, it just stands to reason, after a, tomorrow these people are crowning me their god. Or something. I have a feeling that the old woman is being a little vague about the details. *** Tomorrow at dawn is the `big day', as it were. After supper they gave me some kind of steaming hot draught which pumped energy back into my sleepy veins like a triple-strength Rameshander coffee. I even felt stronger. Just for fun I tried to lift the boulder which they had me chained to, and I found to my satisfaction that I could pick it up easily. Some kind of strength potion? Well, after I'd been named "God of All the Land" or whatever they'd want me to perform the usual heroic tasks, no doubt. I held the boulder over my head with one hand. Then in a burst of inspiration I tried to break the chain which bound me- no dice. Just as well. Can't have god pacing around and scaring the common people. *** Truly my power is beyond limits. I can lift boulders, tents, horses just by thinking about it. All of these people obey my every command. And that impudent Bismanian boy? Why, I'll make him burst into flames when I see him next. I can fly, I can travel through time, I can swallow the sun and hold the nine seas in my hand. *** The meek are gathered around as the two clerists lead me to the dais. I can see the Il-Shar, and that Bismanian, and a whole entourage of Rameshanders. No, I merely see a throng of undifferentiated human mass. King or slave, one man looks like another to I, god, just as one ant or beetle looks like another to a man. But Palandun, no, he would have me suffer. As recompense for his impudence, I change him into a rabbit. Then the clerists lead me to the podium. The old woman approaches me, andgins an interminable incantation in some dead language, shaking some old bones at me and the fossilized paw of a lion. At last I feel a strange tingling sensation in the bottom of my throat, which intensifies until it is a ferocious burning. I must be becoming one with the heavens. I am... ...oh, gods, what is happening to me? I feel like a... how can this be... ...asghrazbzuurdluu...adradradradrch'par...ch'par...ch'par...aaaooowww... ...where am I?....what am I doing here?... ...who am I?... *** [Notes taken by Abdul, barber to the Rameshander Envoy] The natives put on a bit of a show for us in the evening during the recess in negociations. It seems that the Parahanders, or the Shar as they appear to prefer to be called, schedule this re-enactment of this ancient religious ritual to coincide with diplomatic proceedings. We were all required to come to the Il-Shar's central meeting place, where a kind of makeshift platform had been erected for the occasion. Some of the Parahander warriors did an athletic but exceedingly dull dance in a ring around this platform for some time, beating their spears with flaps of leather and making dreadful hooting noises. Then two young (and rather lovely) maidens mounted the platform, followed by a priisoner in chains and a wizened woman. The prisoner was dressed in filthy clothing which a Rameshander would be ashamed to dress his slave in, and looked as if he had been fed on insect grubs and dirt for the last few days. He was wild-eyed and twitching as though he had been bitten by a mad dog. As the old woman commenced the ceremony proper, the prisoner did a curious thing. He outstretched one arm, pointed directly at the visiting Bismanian envoy, and screeched like a bird. He then howled and laughed insane. The ceremony proceeded without further incident until the old woman brought out what appeared to be a lion's paw on the end of a rod. She swiped across the prisoner's body with this, causing the prisoner to twitch even more wildly as though he had been struck by lightning. The two young women removeed his garment, which revealed a cross-lke pattern of scars on the prisoner's chest. To my amazement these scars seemed to glow, searing the prisoner's body and evidently causing him great pain. Smoke arose and the prisoner collapsed. The old woman screeched a final word and thrust the lion's paw into the air above the prisoner. With a brilliant flash of light a jet of flame erupted from the prisoner's body and shot skyward. I half fancied that in the flame I saw a strange female figure which metamorphosized into a lion before consuming itself and vanishing. In an instant the flame was gone and the scene darkened again. I was stunned for a moment. When I recollected my senses I saw that the prisoner had been helped back to his feet but had lost his previously mad countenance. He now merely stared blankly at the crowd assembled with an expression of total stupefication, as if he had just regained consciousness after a long coma. Still he looked around as if in completely unfamiliar surroundings as he was removed from the platform and brought to the feet of the Il-Shar, where he was chained and compeld to pererform acts of submission. -- Dennis Brennan djb6@midway.uchicago.edu