BACK   

= FAR WARS =

a novel in the Empire of Time series

by John Argo

4.

It is a planet named for pioneering signal wires, in an ancient Earth language known as Haegean—nobody remembers for sure, and the ancient syllables are garbled, but the emotional story is crystal clear as if told today. The story is also known as the Wisdom of Birds (kushlar). There is a story, sung by griots along far Temporale rail lines and on nexus starways, about a naïve young country lad who left his home village and went to a big city. It is a song of Old Earth, full of sadness, loss, and freedom. The young man had foolishly lost his heart to a beautiful young courtesan, or hypnodoule, in Old Galata, where money and sex flowed like honey, and a fool from the farm could get cleaned out in a few days. Having lost at love and life, the young man walks away from the city (legendary Stamboule) with a heavy heart, but his steps grow lighter with every mile he puts between himself and desires lost. He vows never to return, not to take a vapuret ferry across the Dolemoon river (the ancient words are garbled in folk memory). It is a story universal to humankind; our people, who have suffered much since our fall from arrogance, understand it instantly across eons and starways. As he walks on a road to freedom from smothering city to that fresh country air he can breathe more easily, the young man sees how life and time roll on. There is always healing from even the worst suffering. He envies the birds who sit on ancient copper telgrafin wires (tellerine) above his head, free from gravity and cares. The birds (kushlar) twitter endlessly in a language without words, but full of feelings. We don't need to know who the boy was, or what the birds twittered among each other, or what exactly happened in the city among the doules; we can rather imagine that they continued plying their music and their wiles with painted eyes and rouged lips. The ancient song does not tell us in words, nor does it need to. Rather, it sings to us across whispering light years and oceans of stardust, of people like us long ago who lived and died, but they lived lives just as we do, and we remember them through their songs. Our heartbeats and feelings flow together millennia later. Eons from now, when we are dust and forgotten, others of our kind will remember these songs as if they happened only yesterday. That is our humansh strength, which the Kaarrk never could understand in their hate and destructiveness.

Those of us today standing on the high honor-ramps lived during the surprise ambush that started a massive war spanning stars and seas of stars. Where once Kaarrk Swarm buzzers and cutters streaked through the atmosphere, sowing thunder and flames, death and horror, today only colored bubbles and balloons rise playfully on a peaceful summer night's breeze. Solemn music rises, along with the fragrance of smoldering incense in crystal lanterns.

TOP

Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.