Novels / Portals Of Awen
Click play below (middle button) to listen to Portals of Awen.As Dell watched, a horde of glowing greenish-yellow worms separated themselves from the mass of insects scouring the walls and inched into the empty rectangle on the wall. They danced and moved in eerie unison. When they stopped, the tiny bodies began to glow brighter and brighter until they looked like finger sized neon lights illuminating two English words:
WELCOME DELL
Then, the worms moved again, and like letters of a word being unscrambled and reassembled, they spelled out:
IT IS I, AWEN
Then the worms rearranged themselves to spell: FORGIVE MY DAUGHTER. The worms wiggled around some more: SOME CHILDREN more scrambling: UNSTABLE WHEN USED more rearranging from the fervent little worms: HARD FOR THEIR SYSTEMS…THIS WAY BETTER...SLOWER, I KNOW...EASIER ON CHILDREN...LESS TAXING ON...ME.
Dell read the last bit and furrowed his brow. "Less taxing"? He asked out loud. Before he asked ‘for whom', the worms changed again:
YES. HARD CONTROL... FURRY ONE......EASY CONTROL...CHILDREN OF THE SOIL...
Expecting another animal attack like the squirrel, an exasperated Dell said, "Are you the one calling yourself Awen?"
YES
"Help me out here - you're ...what...a race called the Awen?"
NO
"Well, what are you, then?" Dell asked with disgust. For an answer, the stone beneath his feet trembled. But before Dell could respond, a crack emerged in the rock. As it grew, it formed a circle around him. As soon as the end met the beginning, the rock beneath him moved, separating from itself. Soon, Dell found himself standing on a small column of stone separated from the floor of the sphere by several inches. He peered down into the dark crevice that now surrounded him and saw only blackness.He heard a scratching noise coming towards him out of the dark. The noise grew louder and louder as if something enormous scrambled up the stone wall of the fissure below him. He had no place to run – if he were to step over the crack onto the floor of the sphere, what then? He was sealed inside this rock tomb. Even if he could escape, there was no time to run, because just then a thin finger wriggled its way out of the dark. As thick, brown tentacles inched towards his feet, it became more menacing - thicker and hairier. A tree root! Dell thought. Not a finger – a root. They wrapped themselves around his ankles. He felt them tighten their grip like a snake squeezing prey.
UNDERSTAND NOW?
Dell tried to calm his beating heart, "No! What are you?"
I AM...THAT I AM
The roots squeezed tighter on his ankles. "You mean...Awen controls the ...the...plants…"
YES
"...and the ...the rocks..."
YES
"You're inside the planet?" Dell asked.
I AM...AWEN
In a flash, Dell remembered the voice of the squirrel – I am Awen. "You're...the planet?" Instantly the roots disengaged themselves from his leg and snaked backward.
"You...I mean...this planet...it's some kind of sentient being?"
? ANY...OTHER KIND?
"You're alive?" The bottomless crack between his column of rock and the floor of the sphere slowly moved back together, fusing into a single piece beneath his feet once again.
I AM
Without question, Dell plopped himself down onto the hard rock. His head swam. Alive? He looked to the walls of the cave. The insects lay still within their rectangle of space as if frozen in time. The planet is alive. Okay, Dell, he thought, I have a chance to talk to a planet. Now what?