When Idols Die and Other Stories

FOUR STORIES: "When Idols Die" -- Hawaii, 1820. Kamehameha the Great died a year ago & his heir, Liholiho, abolished the taboos & overturned the Gods, and then the new God came with the white man. Not everyone in Hawaii liked that. Melani didn't. She was trying to learn how to live in this new world. "Beggar's Luck." Jazimeer was a lame homeless beggar in a mythical land who does whatever he must to life. One day he finds a corpse and robs it, but this corpse was an imperial courier making a secret delivery to a magician. The magician wants what Jazimeer took & will stop at nothing to get it. How does the beggar deal with this? "Fairy Treasure" --Ulla is a poor old widow with little future, but one day she catches a fairy, something she's been trying to do since she was a little girl, and demands this fairy lead her to a hidden treasure, which everyone knows fairies can do. But Panella (the fairy) has no intension of doing that. Whose will is stronger? "Sarge" -- a middle-aged man arrives at the hospital minutes after his father dies. His father was a career soldier and he was a Viet Nam War protester who went to Canada when he was called up for the draft. The son reflects on his youth and his father and how it turned out, and in the end does what he feels he must do.