Read Online Dead & Godless by Donald J. Amodeo - Free Book Online

carved cloud, steaming and golden-crusted.
There are gemfruits, but unlike any I’ve ever seen, for these are round and
soft, ripe as the sun. Ruby nectars glisten like great dew drops in the shardleaves.
And as I gaze upon these things, a hollowness groans within me, gnawing at my
insides.”
    Ransom
tilted his head. “What a curious affliction.”
    “He’s
hungry!” Corwin declared.
    “Ah,
but why should he be? He is a star child, and like the stars themselves, his
kind needs no sustenance. No living thing in this universe does, you see. They live
until the fires within them grow cold, never knowing food or drink.”
    Corwin
balked at the notion. If the organisms of this plane had no biological use for
food, then they would never have evolved a hunger for it. That there lived one among
them who did was absurd.
    “Then
one who dreams such dreams should not exist,” he stated flatly.
    “Then
man should not exist!” Ransom shot back, “If there is no true meaning behind
your lives, then you are no different from this haunted star child. The longing
for a higher purpose is deeply rooted. To not seek it is the most unnatural
thing in the world. If it is an illusion, a fabrication, then your existence is
absurd, just as a hungry man is absurd in a reality without food.”
    He
turned again to the accused.
    “Have
you never seen these things before, never heard or felt them?”
    “Not
in all my life,” responded the man. “They are but visions, a cruel curse of the
fog. Surely, such things cannot be.”
    “They
are more than visions,” Ransom proclaimed. “What neither you nor my client has
bothered to consider is this: that an innate desire evidences the object of
that desire.”
    It
was a principle that Corwin was familiar with, one that had confounded several
of the most famous atheist thinkers, leading men such as Sartre and Camus to
declare that life was ultimately absurd. In the angel’s worldview, man’s desires
corresponded to reality, but Corwin’s man was a creature conflicted, his spirit
forever at odds with the cold, hard facts of the world.
    Ransom
laid a hand on the troubled star child. He faced the Council and his steely
eyes flared brighter than the sun.
    “This
one need not die! Exile him to the forest. I will take care of the rest.”
    At
the sight of the angel’s blazing eyes, the Speaker nearly tumbled from his perch.
His sworn duty was to safeguard his people, but how could he distrust such a
pure and powerful light?
    “And
the fog will not spread?” he asked.
    “It
will not,” promised Ransom. “I give you my word.”
    “Go
then, and may your light guide you until the New Sun dawns.”
    “Until
the New Sun dawns!” echoed the Council.
    Much
to Corwin’s relief, they departed without returning down the treacherous cliff side.
The slope of the land descended to where a vast, verdant forest sprawled across
the interior of the island, an ocean of amber shardleaves that swayed and
glittered as they caught the sun.
    “Is
there truly a way to banish the fog?” the star child inquired.
    “Oh,
there’s a way,” said Ransom, “though it may return from time to time.”
    Corwin
was mulling over his attorney’s points as they passed through the tree line.
    “According
to your reasoning, just as hunger evidences the existence of food, man’s desire
for a higher purpose evidences the existence of god?”
    “Correct.
And note that I say ‘evidences,’ not ‘proves.’ It is not my purpose here to
prove the Father’s existence, only to prove that belief in him is rational.”
    “You
assume that a higher purpose must have its root in the divine. Why should it? I
don’t need some religion to tell me why my life has meaning. It was man who
created god. If we long for a purpose to make sense of this life, we can create
that as well.”
    “Can
you?”
    All
around them, the crystal forest bent the sun’s rays into a mesmerizing prism of
light, rife with soft patches of gold and lilac