The Project Gutenberg EBook of The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser

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Title: The One and the Many

Author: Milton Lesser

Release Date: November 1, 2009 [EBook #30386]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Only One Question Is Eternal--
What Lies Beyond the Ultimate?_

THE ONE
_and_
THE MANY

By Milton Lesser

There are some who tell me it is a foolish war we fight. My brother told
me that, for one, back in the Sunset Country. But then, my brother is
lame and good for nothing but drawing pictures of the stars. He connects
them with lines, like a child's puzzle, and so makes star-pictures. He
has fish stars, archer stars, hunter stars. That, I would say, is what
is foolish.

Perhaps that is what started it all. I was looking at the stars, trying
to see the pictures, when I should have been minding my sentry post.
They took me like a baby, like a tot not yet given to the wearing of
clothing. The hand came out of the darkness and clamped over my mouth,
and I ceased my struggling when I felt a sharp blade pricking at the
small of my back.

At first I feared that they would slay the entire camp as it slept and I
cursed my brother for his star-pictures, cursed our leader who had sent
us here, twenty archers, against the Onist outpost on our country's
border. But the Onists had other ideas. They took me away. I had to
admire their vitality, because all night we ran through the silent
woodlands, and they seemed tireless. I could maintain their pace, of
course: but I'm a Pluralist.

I could see their village from a long way off, its night fires glowing
in the dark. It was only then that we slowed our pace. Soon we entered
the place, a roughly circular area within a stockade, and my captors
thrust me within a hut. I couldn't do much worrying about tomorrow, not
when I was so tired. I slept.

I dreamed a stupid dream about the Onist beliefs, the beliefs of an
unimaginative people who could picture one Maker and one Maker only.