Chapter 19: Breath of the Escape to Death

What does this title mean? I could maybe understand it if the title was Escape from Death By a Breath. But BREATH OF THE ESCAPE TO DEATH? WTF? Don’t you usually escape *from* death, not *to* death? This title is a jumble of words. It makes no grammatical sense. It doesn’t mean anything? Help me!!

Barar starts panicking because he was on the council that tried to kill Wesley, and now he thinks he’s going to get in trouble, so he slips out of his bathrobe and just starts running (streaking? Is he naked? Doesn’t he keep piles of clothes around for situations like this?). Suddenly a group of kidnappers appear and grab him and drag him to a *jelly shop*. Yes, the big scary kidnapper hideout, where Barar is gagged and bound to a chair, is a jelly shop. Why the jelly makers kidnapped Barar, I don’t know. They don’t actually *do* anything to him. They tie him up and then spend over an hour discussing what to do with him, so clearly the kidnapers are as confused by all of this nonsense as I am. 

Also, I’m assuming the jelly shop makes jelly as in *jam*? But jelly also brings to mind jelly beans, jelly shoes, petroleum jelly, etc. 

Just as the kidnappers are about to do nothing to Barar (if he’s lucky maybe they’ll feed him some jelly?) the old prophet Sheshuo waltzes in casually eating a piece of *bread*. I am assuming this is Chekov’s Bread. Like it’s a big set up for Shenshuo to eat *bread* with *jelly* but… no.  I am shocked to report that even though he’s in a *jelly shop* and he’s eating *bread* Shenshuo doesn’t even bother putting any jelly on his bread. I assumed the reason he entered the jelly shop was to put some jelly on his bread but nope, as far as I can see he just eats the bread plain.

He slowly eats his plain bread and off handedly tells the kidnappers they have to let Barar go. “Yes Shenshuo” reply the jelly makers/kidnappers, and they send Barar on his way. 

Barar says, “Today has been a real dream.”

Shenshuo puts Barar on weapons fixing duty because today is the day Wesley and Co are taking down Salemear’s shield and taking the city back. Barar gets the pleasure of seeing tables covered in swords, spears, arrows, and best of all fye guns and lightsabers. Barar fixes a bunch of shit, puts on a cloak (so he’s finally wearing clothes again), and gets to hear Wesley give his Famous Battle Speech. Wesley’s William Wallace/Henry V/Gladiator moment includes great lines like “Do not be afraid, neither doubt, for the Lord our God will fight for us” and “Leave none alive, not a man.”

Barar fucks with the sheilds and brings them down, and Wesleys army crosses into the city, and then Barar brings the shields back up. Wesley’s famous, celebrated, super cool ship, the Survivor, lands in Salemear, and the Harmartians get their asses kicked. Doeron, Wesley’s android buddy from the Last Prophets Book even makes an appearance. Everything is going swimmingly, but for whatever reason, Barar is still SKEPTICal. “I thought that this would end poorly,” he says.

Wesley replies, “Greater are they that are with us, than they that are with them.”

And Barar, ever the relatable SKEPTIC, says what we’ve all be thinking “What does that even mean?”