The Haun’hai system of the Galatian empire contains some of the most fascinating ruins of that sector, especially those structures which have been built since the system’s mysterious transformation years ago near two key locations – Crashton and Lake Pajon’Gai. The hamlet, known as Aerishael, along the northern shores of Pajon’Gai has been miraculously preserved, though its site registers as over 18,000 years old. It’s newest structure built in honor of its most famous citizen, Owiene Carr, finished construction only a few years ago and sits on the island of that lake that was the starting point of an epic adventure that made Haun’hai a major tourist destination.
The Pajon Palace was built by the surviving crew of the SS Storge and is today the home of Ms. Carr who is the proprietor of a once ignominious tavern that served as both watering hole and sometime inn for sky traders, pirates and locals of Haun’hai. Owien’s industrious nature and now renown ale, deserts and pies made from the cinnamon sweet Percillion fruits imported by the Galatians left her little time for other details. It was for this reason when she was too busy to name the place that locals of Aerishael simply dubbed it – “Owiene’s Place” – and that name stuck. So, it has been and to this today. Though much larger now than its origins the tavern has become a major tourist attraction due to the epic tale of love, loss and salvation that it survives to tell in pictures, artifacts and people who haunt it.
Author’s Note: This dedication is for my dear soulmate. Though I have many friends who have been instrumental in encouraging me to put down into writing the stories in my heart, it all began with one person who believed in me when such things were far from my thoughts. Though the novel, “Seven Words” is altogether its own world and its story is not allegorical to real persons or places, it should come as no surprise that some small part of those who inspire me most in life might find their way into it.
In an archeological dig on Babil, of the star system Sigma 95, a children’s story was found among the remains of an ancient civilization, long since lost in the Fell Wars. The planet, devoid of any life, is a testament to the pride and arrogance of one of the many races to have participated in these rebellions. Preserved on a plaque in the Museum of the home world of Galatia, this story is rendered in runic writings.
There once was an evil man who upon realizing his mortality had a choice of what to do on his final day. Death was upon him and his end was not only unavoidable but he longed for it because evil had filled his life with pain, anger, malice and darkness. Upon closing his eyes for the last time he was greeted by someone he did not expect – a man who carried not a sword but a pen and had no shield but a book.
Upon seeing the Author the evil man asked, “So, figment of my dying mind, why do you visit me now?”
The Author replied, “I have always been beside you, but now while your book is being finished I am allowing its main character to ask of me anything.”
The evil man thought aloud, “I’m tired. Life is unbearable and unfair. Everyone is ugly, mean, hateful, and no matter how hard I try, it’s never enough. Why?”
The Author paused and looked up, “You blame me for all the words in this book? The truth is that all I did was write the scenes before giving you the choices in them. There are but two words left for your story. Once again I will give you the pen as I have always done, but the power in it is mine.”
“What are the words?” Asked the evil man.
“For a lifetime I asked you to ask me for my words and now, at the end, do you finally turn to me?” The Author replied.
“Yes. What could possibly go wrong now that I’m dead?” Retorted the evil man.
The Author sighed, “You could say ‘The End’ and accept that what’s done is done and through my power you will put them down and you will be no more.”
The evil man was tired but he was also afraid so he asked, “Is there anything else that could be said and I live better than this mess?”
The Author smiled, “Yes, but since you are just a character and I’m the only one who is real here the only thing you could do to save your life requires me to do it for you. You have a been a proud and selfish man all your life, turning to me will make you small.”
As the lights faded and the darkness of death crept in so that nothing was left but the two of them, the evil man shuddered in fear for the first time. Everything he was, all that he’d done would just vanish and in the end it was all pointless. Nevertheless his fear overwhelmed the evil man, coldness and tingling touched every part of him and yawning ahead was a void whose darkness was so complete, so powerful and so hopeless that he began weeping before he managed to ask, “What words could finish this story such that there is any hope for me?”
The Author looked upon this wretched man, his eyes filled with love, “There once was a man who was evil and he hung upon a cross next to me. He knew that he was a monster, but that I had done nothing to deserve being there. That man used those words and to this day he lives with me in paradise.”
The darkness was everywhere at once. The evil man choked on his final breath, tears streaming from eyes down his cheeks and death stiffened his muscles, chilled his bones and nothing mattered. He felt no touch of the harlots he’d been with, no taste of the food he’d stolen not even the scent of the flowers next to his sick bed remained. He could not count one penny that he’d taken nor recall a single memory of the friends or enemies that he’d made. Then it struck him with terrifying certainty, death was so complete that he couldn’t even remember his own name. His book was finished and there were just the two words left. So, as the last air left his lungs, the evil man took the pen from the Author and pleaded one last question, ”What did he say?”
“Remember me. He knew just as you do now that only I am eternal. Only I am real. Only I matter and that the only hope is that the only chance of salvation lies in what I remember.”
As the evil man’s lights went dark, and the pen scrawled the last stroke of the last letter of the last words on the last page the evil man’s answer was made permanent by the power in that pen. Then the Author knelt over the book for the man’s body was no more, everything had returned to the void. All that the evil man had done was gone, his kingdoms, his riches, his very name were fated to the memory of those the last two words – a choice remembered only by The Author.
“Have you always had that necklace, papa?” the boy cast his line next to Averil.
Averil propped his fishing pole against the wall of the makeshift storage shed behind the two of them and sighed, his smile dimming as he grasped the pocket sextant hanging from a bronze chain around his neck. His wistful eyes stared intently, unconscious of his momentary reverie while he took the necklace off to examine its warped an charred edges. His finger traced absently around the circumference of the engraved artifact until it reached one of the bent needles that at one time had pointed to alien numbers that he did not know how to read, “This ol’ thing? I’ve had this since before you were born. It found me and because it did, you were born.”
“What is it?”
“My old commander, your uncle, told me that it was an ancient sextant made by a race of beings far from here.”
“What’s a sec tant?”
Averil chuckled at the gaff, “It’s a tool made to measure the sky. Help’s someone like me or my old captain to find our way when there’s nothing but water and the stars to guide us.”
“So I was born because you found a way to measure the whole sky?!”
Averil laughed and rubbed the boys head, “Not quite, but when I found this little item it was next to a very special gemstone that could hold and heal a spirit that could live inside of it”
“Wow… I’ve never heard of a stone like that before.”
“Well, the stone belonged to someone who’d gotten very lost and the short version is that because I found this sextant, I was able to help my friends find that soul and bring peace to this whole lake.”
“You did that for all of Aerishael? Really papa?”
“I didn’t do it alone, of course, but that is a much longer story. Maybe next time Uncle Jorge comes round we can tell you all about it.” Averil’s smile broadened again as memories flooded back of a very different time. He looked up to the orange Jovian planet in the sky above them and a single tear formed in the corner of his eye as he reminisced. “Creator bless him.”
“Promise you’ll tell the whole story, papa?” the boy asked.
Averil looked at the boy, his eyes ever so faintly wet and he put the necklace over his son’s neck, “Promise.”
Averil smiled broadly, his old weather-worn face glowed with happiness from beneath his fisherman’s hat as he looked from his barrel seat in front of the day’s catch at a boy of about nine years. The boy was dressed in cut-off kaki shorts and dirty white shirt with its baggy sleaves rolled up tight. He was carrying a fishing pole far too tall for him just as though it was perfectly natural, “Dad, why do they call them the moaning reefs?”
The two sat at the end of a lake pier with two small crates filled with fish and some kind of tentacled squid catch as Averil shared his story, “That’s a scary story, son, about a great sea monster who turned out to be nothing of the sort.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was the second time in my life where I had an encounter with one the greatest creatures in all Huan’hai, called a Gonago’lai. I didn’t know at the time that she would turn out to be one of our greatest friends because both times that I ran into her I thought I’d never see land again.”
“Wow, dad. What happened?”
“Well, I was taking that very fishing boat around the reefs when all of the sudden beneath the waves I saw this pattern that looks like that cobblestone road over there only blue and deep underwater- and it was moving. That’s when I heard it. The long, low sounds of the whole bay moaning – everywhere at once! The boat started to toss and water parted in every direction as the bottom rose up to the surface until something hit the bottom of my boat hard.”
“What next? Did it eat you?”
Averil laughed, “I certainly hope not or you would’ve never been born!”
“Oh, yeah. Right!” The little boy laughed sheepishly.
“Well, what did happen next was the strangest thing ever at sea. Without warning fog rose up and swirled around me and I felt something in my head vibrating loud, like my own bones were shaking. Just then I saw in the mists the most beautiful maiden, second of course to your mommy, walking toward me. All around her there were images of people and places here, in sky, even deep below the sea appearing and vanishing all at once. Then. Nothing. All I remember was alien words, like a song, of that woman in my head before I passed out. Much later, I woke on the wet deck of my boat, sea-weed in my mouth.”
“Eww!”
“Well, I had run aground right at the delta of the river and found out later that it had been three days!”
“How did I get that ol’ girl?” A black bearded fisherman scratches his grizzled chin and looks up, trying to remember. One wrinkled eye winces and winks closed as he leans back against the pier post and crosses a leg before smiling as the memory comes to him.
“So long ago, I almost forgot. This relic behind me,” he points to a small fishing boat that slowly bobs and sways with the gentle ripples in of the lake Pajong Gai. “I had to ferry her down the river at the other end of the lake. Won her on a dare. The man who bet me had no idea that I’d already served in a merchant fleet off the coast of Crashton. Now there be waves and storms the likes of which this ol’ gal is glad to be rid of. Her previous owner, one Fezzle Drafton, dared me to take her out to the Moaning Reefs, out past the furthest edge of the trade routes that travelled all along the shores and even up the river to this lake. I guess the thing was, he was so annoyed with the way the engine sputtered and chugged the water that he was glad to be rid of her if only he could’ve found someone knew how take her out to sea and prove themselves worthy a captain. Of course, he half said it in jest on account of the fact he was covered head to toe in oil from his last miserable attempt to get the girl in working order. I had made some off hand remark about his land-lovin’ ways and that was that. He challenged me. I accepted. But the real tale is how I got all the way to the reefs edge and learned the reason it was called the Moaning Reefs.”
I’m announcing a new feature to The Potter’s Clay Life as a service for all visitors – Nano Streams. These tiny stories capture “a day in the life” of characters who live in the Seven Words world. Once or a twice a month a new post will appear exclusively here on the author’s home which is a tiny snippet into the life of various characters throughout Seven Words.
Each story will be accompanied by a single AI created image as an unofficial, complimentary sketch of the scene or snippet for entertainment purposes as fair use. This gives guests, fans and contributors glimpses into the upcoming novel as well as the larger series of books by Jasen Ward which all take place in this same world. The first of these, entitled “The Fisherman” will be released in July!
